Login |  Register |  FAQ
   
Post new topic This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 106 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8  Next

Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings

 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:03 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241
Assuming you two are working off of the page 4 suggestion, ie...

+ + + page 4 suggestion + + +

Vespids Stingwings

1) ?CONTINGENT of 8 Units = ?200 points
2) ?FW & Crisis Cadres UPGRADE of 4 Units = ?+100 points

Type ? ? ? ? ? ? Infantry
Speed ? ? ? ? ? 35cm
Armour ? ? ? ? ?5+
Close Combat 6+
Firefight ? ? ? ?5+

Weapon ? ? ? ? ? ? Range ?Firepower ?Notes
Neutron Blasters ? ?15cm ? ? AP4+ ? ? ? ? ?--

Notes: Jump Packs


+ + + END Page 4 SUGGESTION + + +

Then I would say as an upgrade, they align with mech FW or crisis more than FW on foot due to their speed.

They are obviously extra bodies, but at 25 points a stand, they are the same cost as FW. The FW has more shots and can disrupt but requires a DF to get him there. So 'who' I would sacrifice as my 'perimeter meat shield' may be situational. More times than not, I think I'm going to sacrifice the vespids due to weapon range though. Now if I've lost some DF and the FW infantry are holding me up... again, very situational argument there. The 2 shots, disrupt potential at close range, and same point cost means I 'typically' will value the FW on paper more often.

As an upgrade for the crisis, the crisis don't have the DF dependancy, but the vespids move faster, so some of the vespid mobility is lost. The vespid ranges align with the crisis fusion guns, but the Vespids don't get the 'jump away' ability that the Tau jetpack does, so the vespids would probably become relegated to meat shield for the crisis more times than not in this mode.

The only opportunity I see for the Vespids to shine is as a stand alone formation - IF they can deliver something more than the other formations cannot - or if they can deliver it at a better price. They are cheap and fast moving but extremely short ranged AP fire. Definitely not an interdiction force, but as a reserve to existing battle line or gap filler where the one or two more shots are needed on the front line - perhaps their mobility can afford them some value there.

In summary, on paper I see VERY little value as an upgrade. Again, no playtesting to back any of these speculative claims up.





_________________
Rob


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:42 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:00 pm
Posts: 573
Location: Canada
Funnily enough, I was thinking of allowing only 2 stands as a formation upgrade, and 4 (+2 as an upgrade) stands in a separate formation.


And for the Strain Leader stand (or go one up and say Strain Director, or Strain Master):

Vespid Strain Master

Type             Infantry
Speed           35cm
Armour          5+
Close Combat 6+
Firefight        4+

Weapon             Range  Firepower  Notes
Neutron Blasters    15cm     AP4+          --

Notes: Jump Packs, Leader


Regarding the formation options:

1)  STRAIN of 1 Strain Master and 3 Stingwings =  125 points
2)  Strain, FW & Crisis Cadres UPGRADE of 2 Stingwings =  +75 points


One other question - what do you think of the idea of me making them a 0-1 formation and/or an upgrade for the Regimental HQ in my next Kleistian list? Does it seem reasonable to see them used in such a way, or would they be best left to the Fire caste?


Gary

_________________


Gue'senshi: The 1st Kleistian Grenadiers

v7.3 pdf

Human armed forces for the greater good.


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Wed Apr 12, 2006 10:42 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2005 4:45 pm
Posts: 8139
Location: London
No shield drones, no 5+ save (I thought marine tourghness and weak armour was 6+ in EA?).

Why not have these chaps as the ogryn equivalents in the list - ie I dump ogryns in formations in chimera for assualt help for my IG formations.

With a counter charge of 10cm they can do something similar. And what is wrong with auxillaries dying? :) A lower save incidentally means they don't get to go out in front.

_________________
If using E-Bay use this link to support Tac Com!
'Abolish red trousers?! Never! Red trousers are France!' – Eugene Etienne, War Minister, 1913
"Gentlemen, we may not make history tomorrow, but we shall certainly change the geography."
General Plumer, 191x


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 4:29 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:11 pm
Posts: 515
Quote (The_Real_Chris @ 12 April 2006 (22:42))
And what is wrong with auxillaries dying? :)

The Tau actually like these Auxilliaries?  :(8:


Given that they are a cheap addition of Ap4+ shots, they'd be quite useful in 'specialising' your crisis formations a bit more. That seems to be the primary use IMO: Supporting Crisis Suits.

With a couple of these on, they should perform very will 'in and near' enemy infantry.

That seems the ideal use anyway.

Xisor





_________________
"Number 6 calls to you
The Cylon Detector beckons
Your girlfriend is a toaster"


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 6:35 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241
Nerroth,

You bring up several points.

First, I proposed my recomendation above from the basis that I *assumed* we were not going to even consider the Strain Leader's influence even though he's part of every Vespid unit in 40K. Perhaps that was an erroneous assumption on my part.

You now suggest a Strain Leader recomendation. Your stand has 6+ armor, (lower than the base stand recomendation) and a FF4+ and regular shot that is 4+ on the Strain Leader's stand (which is an increase to his FF ability from the normal stand). You also recomend him to have Leader ability.

However, the introduction of a Strain Leader stand begs a new question to be asked. It sounds like we don't really have a direction on this Strain Leader point yet.

In 40K, there's 1 leader for the unit of 4-9 vespids. He bestows some additional abilities to the unit he's part of - namely, they get the multitude of benefits from marked targets to enhance their effectiveness as long as the "Strain Leader" is around. If he dies, they lose the ability to benefit from marked targets. Remember, markerlights work completely different in 40K than they do in E:A. Its not just a Guided Missile thing in 40K.

So, I ask you guys to consider it now -

Should each 40K unit's  "Strain Leader model" have an influence in E:A?

If you say yes to item 1),


A. Should we have a seperate unit type that defines the Strain Leader's abilities?

If you say yes to A.,

i.  How would this stand be different from the norm (does Nerroth's suggestion look right for this stand?)

ii.  How many should there be per formation (1 per 8 stands, 1 per 4 stands, 1 per 2 stands)?


B.  Or should the Strain Leader's impact simply be encorporated into each unit's stats of Vespids (current proposals do not account for his/her influence)?

If you say yes to B.,

i. what additions would you recommend beyond what was already proposed for a normal stand stats to account for the Strain Leader's impact to the units?

Final thought,

Gary - "Strain Master" sounds way too Slanneshi... heh, or perhaps Nurglich - for my tastes.  Its definitely not a "Gooderer" name... :p

_________________
Rob


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Thu Apr 13, 2006 7:48 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:00 pm
Posts: 573
Location: Canada
My stand is armour 5+, not 6+...


Now, I was thinking of:

*Incorporating the Strain Leader into the stands (you don't see Sargeants or Shas'ui at Epic scale) and doing what we did with the Gue'vesa - i.e. create a new rank of character suitable for leading a formation.

or:

**Assume the Strain Leader we see in 40k is capable of leading a larger formation in this scale.

Now, I don't believe that the 2nd option is a way to go, as Stingwings need the Strain Leaders to communicate with Tau Cadres in the first place, so the whole formation would be toast if you kll that stand - plus you would need to have a Strain Leader as part of the upgrade a well as the separate formation. Also, we could assume that when each stand is killed that it's as likely the Strain Leader per stand is dead and the other 4 Stingwings are, um, bugging out...

So, maybe we could go with Strain Director (a suitably Water Caste-y term for such units!) as head of the separate formation, and let it have Leader - or maybe Markerlights, to approximate the 40k-level effect.


Gary

_________________


Gue'senshi: The 1st Kleistian Grenadiers

v7.3 pdf

Human armed forces for the greater good.


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Sat Apr 15, 2006 7:19 am 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241
FYI - for anyone looking for reasons why the Vespids should absolutely NOT fill the cc role, see the new codex, page 10, Alien Empires heading.

Explains very clearly when and when Tau use aliens they find on a given planet and how / when they encorporate them into the directive of achieving a Greater Good.

I found it very on point with this discussion.

In summary - tau are pretty sure they have the best plan out there when it comes to combat. So they look for aliens that align well with their strategies and tactica.

It specifically sites the scouting nature of the Kroot to align well with pathfinders agenda and it futher states that the Vespids work well with the crisis suits mission.

Cheers,

_________________
Rob


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 4:45 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother
User avatar

Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 1:38 pm
Posts: 186
Good work guys, I quite like the suggested Vespid concept so far. But:
- I'm concerned by the resulting formation being too cheap and not correctly represented.
- At the same time I find the neutron blaster a bit bland.

=> Couldn't that thing cause disrupt to solve both issues. As you know, the higher the armor save, the more painful Disrupt is. A space marine will certainly retreat before frying in its power armor. And here you have your marine-killer vespids (or rather sweepers).

And I like Nerroth's suggestion to provide the strain leader with a markerlight. This would make the formation actually integrated in Tau warfare within epic rules, and make not loosing this guy important.






Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 7:34 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241
BaronP,

Well, I don't know if there's any kind of consensus on what to do here yet, at best - we have a culmination of ideas.

I don't think there's any direction on whether the Strain Leader will be his own stand - or if the strain leader will be part of every stand. There's an argument for either way. Instead of arguing this point - I say we do whatever looks to benefit the Vespid formation overall.

Regards to the Neutron blaster, I think it should work to align with how the formation is to be used in the end. Right now, I'm just not sure we even have a consensus opinon on what that is. Some seem to think the formation shoul still be a CC / FF unit - which appears to go directly against Tau background / E:A Tau design philosophy.

At this stage, we could really benefit from some guiding wisdom from CS here IMHO.

Cheers,

_________________
Rob


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 6:42 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:11 pm
Posts: 515
To restate,

Within the contexts of the current Tau Army, and looking to keep the 'feel' that the Vespids have alongside Tau *can* be translated safely to Epic. They don't need to work 'exactly' as they do in 40k, as it's clear very little of the Tau army does this.

From this, I find an AP4+ 15cm ranged attack perfectly acceptable.

With the Strain Leader, I'd prefer to have them 'in aside' the rest of the Vespids, not a seperate formation.

Xisor

_________________
"Number 6 calls to you
The Cylon Detector beckons
Your girlfriend is a toaster"


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 8:39 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother
User avatar

Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2005 12:00 pm
Posts: 573
Location: Canada
And to restate,

The Strain Director I suggested would be a step up the command chain from the Strain Leader, who would be on each stand anyway.

The same way we gave the command Gue'vesa stand a Gue'vesa'vre (Lieutenant) and say the Gue'vesa'ui (Sargeant) is further down the food chain!


So do you think the spearate Stingwing formation should be a 0-1 for the Gue'senshi, or should I just forget 'em?


Gary

_________________


Gue'senshi: The 1st Kleistian Grenadiers

v7.3 pdf

Human armed forces for the greater good.


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 9:21 pm 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother

Joined: Tue Oct 25, 2005 10:11 pm
Posts: 515
Quote (Nerroth @ 27 April 2006 (20:39))
The Strain Director I suggested would be a step up the command chain from the Strain Leader, who would be on each stand anyway.

So do you think the spearate Stingwing formation should be a 0-1 for the Gue'senshi, or should I just forget 'em?

Fair enough and yup!

I agree on the Strain Director [that'll teach me for forgetting!] premiss and proposal.

With the Gue'senshi: It depends on how you see them performing aside the army. Where do they fit in? I'd say they could be fit in with more than 0-1, but it's ultimately your list.

Xisor

_________________
"Number 6 calls to you
The Cylon Detector beckons
Your girlfriend is a toaster"


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:56 pm 
Swarm Tyrant
Swarm Tyrant
User avatar

Joined: Thu Jan 02, 2003 6:22 pm
Posts: 9349
Location: Singapore
This is a difficult issue. My opinions here so far are that the Strain leader should be a part of each stand - simply to make things easier and reduce complications and book-keeping - and that the Vespids should simply 'cancel' inherent flaws in the Tau. I dont want to see them become CC/FF units since I think that this will dilute the character of the army. They way that I see it is that their strength in 6mm will be their movement. However, they would need more than just this to make them different from Crisis suits.

I dont think that there are any clear ways forward on this, and so it may be a matter of trying a couple of suggestions to evaluate them.

_________________
https://www.cybershadow.ninja - A brief look into my twisted world, including wargames and beyond.
https://www.net-armageddon.org - The official NetEA (Epic Armageddon) site and resource.


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
 Post subject: Tau Empires - Vespid Stingwings
PostPosted: Fri Apr 28, 2006 4:49 am 
Brood Brother
Brood Brother
User avatar

Joined: Thu Feb 13, 2003 5:13 pm
Posts: 36989
Location: Ohio - USA
I Agree with C/S ... some playtesting may be in order. And no need to make things more complicated than need to be ... We'll probably never see them in Epic scale, but I'm sure some "proxies" could be found ... or made ...     :;):

_________________
Legion 4 "Cry Havoc, and let slip the Dogs of War !" ... "People sleep peaceably in their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf."


Top
 Profile Send private message  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic This topic is locked, you cannot edit posts or make further replies.  [ 106 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8  Next


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  


Powered by phpBB ® Forum Software © phpBB Group
CoDFaction Style by Daniel St. Jules of Gamexe.net