Semaj and I and a couple other guys played a 6K Titan/Knight battle (about 3500 titans, 2500 knights) against SMs w/ max 1/3 titans over the weekend.
The lists seemed to work pretty well, but in the end the activation count was the killer. The titan list was tooled up expecting closer to 4000 points of enemy titans. Once the Marines picked off a few activations, just laying blast markers on everything started causing problems, even with a Supreme Commander. Retain actions became dicey for the titans/knights even with rerolls available and not worth the risk without a reroll waiting. SMs won 3-1 (BTS, Blitz, T&H versus BTS). The mutual BTS was from a titan v titan suicide shootout, which was fun.
The Triple TLDs are wicked. +25 points (compared to the Double-barrel) is roughly +4% to cost on a Reaver and +3% to cost on a Warlord. It adds roughly +15% (+50% to 1/3 of the weapons is 1/6, rounded down) and +10% (+1/8, rounded down) to firepower, respectively. In the abstract, that's too cheap. In a lower-point game, there are other mitigating factors, primarily the fact that taking high-er point weapons will cause loss of activations. However, in a higher-point game with a list designed to make activation count less of a consideration they would be the obvious choice.
That's not to say I think they are broken or definitely need changed, just that it's something to keep an eye on.
The knights played very well. Those suckers are fast, tough, and there's no good way to assault them. They simply have to be shot to death. I have a feeling that they are extremely vulnerable to large barrages. 2-3 automatic BMs will break them in short order and once broken they crumble. They seem to be sort of all-or-nothing in that respect. If you have the tools to use against them (high volume AT or barrages), they die quick and fast. Outside of that, they can usually whip more than their points worth without any trouble.
That's also just an observation. I don't suggest it's a problem, just that it may make finding a balance quite tricky.
Knight Shield - I think the rule needs to be clarified a bit with respect to CC. It's easily possible to have a unit in base contact, where the shield does not work, hit with support FF, which it seems like it should work against. In the primary assault, it's clear that CC = no shield, and all the hits are just "hits" so anything allocated should bypass the shield. However, since support is a separate step, it's providing strictly FF hits. So, does the base contact/CC/no shield still work, or does it work because the support is all FF?
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On a side note, my 375 point Pred/Hunter formation gutted a 500 point knight formation using the same tactics I've always said worked - Advance at the end of the turn, Sustain Fire on the following turn. They died soon after, but they soaked up fire from 1300 points of formations before dying. Of course, that was all Pred Annihilators. I still don't see much use for the others.
_________________ Neal
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