Hello everyone,

since my two friends and I started playing Epic again a few months ago we have seen nine battles so far (Yes, we have been busy   ). While I play Space Marines, preferably Space Wolves, my friends command an Orc Horde (Currsed he is called on this forums)  and an Eldar Army.

First of all, all battles have been grand fun and I cannot stress often enough on how very much Netepic has made Epic a better game. It has become so much clearer, more blanced and reasonable than before (back in the days we used the SM2nd/TL Ruleset).

However, I made some observations I would be happy to get your views on, most of them concerning Marines. So this thread is asking for your expertise, Marine Commanders  

Activation System

In my opinion on of the biggest improvements over the old system. Makes the game tactically more challenging and, most important, more fun.
But we have encountered one problem, especially versus Eldar (and I presume this problem occurs against any Army with a lot of army cards):

While Orcs and Marines had around 20-24 detachments in 4k battle most of the time, the Eldar force had 30, resulting in a very unbalanced game. After having moved my 20 or so detachments, Pointy Hats moved their last 10 detachments. Even by using the otional rule that the side with the initiative may move the last detachment did not mount to much, there was simply no way to get a good position or win a CC, becaus the Eldar crucible forces always moved last. Surprisingly, I could not find anything on the forums on that.
My question is, how do you handle that? After the last battle we decided to play it the other way round. So in a battle 20 vs. 30 activations, player 2 would have to move 10 activations before we start to alternate. We keep this up through the whole game, destroying detachment should have an advantage, after all

Balance

Playing against Eldar with Marines is a nightmare to me. Ok, Eldar always were a tough opponent for Marines, but I do not seem to get it (so I blame it on the rules )
No, seriously. While Orcs are a tough opponent, it always worked out fine. We played 3 games and they seemed quite balanced, but versus Eldar it always was a slaughterfest. I have to admit, I made some serious mistakes, which were good teachers, and also the eldar player is the most able (and ruthless ) of our lot. But We got the impression the two good things Marines had are now too expensive or obsolete: Land Raiders and Thunderhawks.

Land Raiders are awesome, one of the best units in the game. But they seem to me simply too expensive. They are the only tanks Marines can choose as a company, but since they cost 750pts and are worth 8 VPs. Compare this to a Falcon Host, it is 300pts less! So how do you handle this, Marine players? Do you use them anyway, do you have a house rule (600pts), or do you ignore the company?

Thunderhawks: Great unit, the price augmentation was a good idea imho. I never liked  the 8 Thunderhawk approach...But since eldar also have a similar transport, they seem to have become useless against them. Pointy hat commanders can counter any close combat initiated with better troops (Harlekins, Striking Scorpions) using the same tactic). So, do you use them at all when fighting Eldar?


Well ,that's all for today, sorry for the long post  
I am looking forward to reading your suggestions!

cheers

sanjuro

Eldar aren't inherently cheap, so I don't exactly understand how your opponent manages to get so many more detachments.  However, I'd suggest that to do so he must buy a lot of small, easily broken detachments rather than a small number of companies.  I would think that would make him easier to defeat as you just shoot up one or two models from each of those brittle detachments and get lots of VPs.  That is the trade-off you make to get lots of activations.

The one option available to you is to buy more cheaper units too.  A scout or bike company and some robot detachments instead of the that second Great Company might be the go  

On balance issues, some armies are inherently stonger than others, and it is a bit of a rock/paper/scissors game too.  I would suggest that Eldar got quite heavily downgraded from SM2 to NE5, while Space Marines (in their vanilla form) stayed about the same.  I'd argue that most of the codex lists are weaker than the standard list, but a couple of them are pretty strong.  Space Wolves stayed the same...but I'm afraid in my humble opinion they always sucked...so the first thing I'd suggest is to switch to Dark Angels!     Land Raiders are great tanks and good value for the points, but against Eldar, they are a poor investment...buy a couple of extra Devastator detachments instead.

Thunderhawks are better than drop pods in many ways because they can come in any time (not in the compulsory movement phase) but you have to use them well.  If you drop them in amongst a bunch of CC troops that haven't moved yet you're in trouble.  I still think they are an awesome unit for the Marine player.  Dropping some Scouts on their Doomweavers and Falcons never gets old.

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

Greetings Sanjuro.
There's certainly life in classic Epic yet- NetEpic is just a natural progression, but no system os flawless.

On your first point, initiative, I can see the potential unfair advantage of alternate moves, favouring armies with lots of smaller units. A mate and myself even reverted to move all troops on one side, then the other- but this is worse and makes initiative way too decisive!
A better compromise I've tried is to establish first player, then the initiative winner decides to either move THREE units first or forces the opponent to move three, before responding. This was for a smallish game- you could up this to five, seven etc. Just an optional idea, but one I like so far.

As for troops and balance, I find that the thunderhawks a real pain! My opponent has used loads- and when used in conjunction with ultra cheap scout companies, he loses no transport vehicles in the process! EEEk!

To cut a long story short, i thinm there is a lot to be said for sensible discussion and compromise- it is about a good game at the end of the day, not just winning! Perhaps this is why I win less than my opponent though...

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Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.

Welcome to TacCom Sanjuro,

I've played Space Wolves against Eldar at least four times and have sadly never won. I've come to believe the Long Fangs don't have the range to counter fire Eldar pop-up attacks IMO. I believe that normal Devastators are more useful in this role. I've even tried charging in only to watch a Grey Hunter pack being ripped apart by an Avatar in two turns. I've found the Wolves are good against Chaos, Tyranids and Orks however and next to the Dark Angels are one of my favourite Marine Chapters.

I think as Zap said the Eldar your describing with 30 activations (in a 4K army) must be made up of some very cheap but fragile units. So there is a trade off there that you can try to exploit but remember you'll have to break a lot of cheap stuff to rack those points up.

You might want to try to concentrate what detachments you have in a given area and so deny the extra Eldar detachments by being out of range or LOS. That one however may take some working out and will also rely on what your opponent is doing.


As to the Vampire, maybe the new Hunter AA SAM launchers are good against them. If the Eldar player has settled into a pattern of "always taken" units then buy enough AA units to ensure you counter his predictable choice. At least it may force him to balk and stall his attack for a turn. Even with a named Chapter you can still take 25% allies from another list so you may be able to get AA cover from there. Just be careful your own choices don't become predictable too.

Anyway that's enough food for thought. Good luck and be sure to let us know how you get on. Of course if you feel inclined we're always happy to read any battle reports you may care to post.  

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

Yeah, battle report, battle report!  

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"We are the sword of fire with which the Traitors shall be cut down."

Morning everyone,

thanks a lot for all your comments and suggestions! Very much appreciated.
Alright, I was playing with the idea to make a battle report for the next game. It's on!  

@ Zap:

Funny, I used Dark Angels in my last battle versus Eldar. It worked out a little bit better than with Space Wolves. They are indeed the wrong chapter to fight with against eldar, but versus Orcs they are pretty good. Blood claws (fear) in Thunderhawks are great to make the Orc general sweat.
Robots, hmm. Never used them. For marines they cost 150 pts and have a break point of 2,
while IG pays only 100 and the enemy gains the 1 VP only when the det is wiped out. So I figured they are too expensive. Or is this an error in the marine army list?

I have never used Scouts before. I'll try that out.

@ Dominic:

That's exactly the system we used. The player with more activations has to move the difference (20 vs 30 = 10 dets; 21 vs 29 = 8 det. and so forth) first and all at once throughout the game, even when he looses some detachments it stays the same. We just feel it does not make any sense to have an advantage because the organization of the army is more divided; this logic would give a stubborn and slow army like IG an advantage over a highly mobile and versatile army like SM or eldar. just does not feel right imho. So far, it worked out quite well.

@ Warhead:

Thanks! That was one of my major mistakes while battling eldar: I did not take any AA, relying solely on my 4 dev. Dets on FF. big mistake, i forgot the -1 (-2 in effect with snap fire) for the evasive maneuvers.. Next time i'll definitively take some AA.

Thanks again! I'll keep you informed of my progres against the Eldar  

Glad/surprised to hear we were of help    and looking forward to the endless influx of battle reporting you are willing to do.  

Cheers, mate!  

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

...endless.influx...   now wait a minute..did I just say that?  

Hi there Sanjuro,

Wellcome back to the wonderful world of Epic! I really envy you guys who can play as much as 9 times in a couple of months. We´re limited to twice a year because of logistic reasons.

Regarding your observations we have had some of the same issues.

The alternating turn system is great, but as you say it disfavors some armies and as such unbalances the system a bit. I have the joy of playing orks most of the times and since they agregate in mobs they are almost allways outnumbred turn wise. I have found that this is quite disadvantageous as the big mobs are easily targeted by late shooting barrage (MRL shotgun mode anyone?) and bombing fliers. We have never tried the evening out model that Dominic proposed, but maybe we´ll try it next time.

Regarding the Marines vs Eldars issue I concur as well. We have found that the marines have a tendency to go belly up against both shooty and mobile armies. Actually my opponent has switched to fielding squats exclusively which has resulted in a couple of spectacular sucesses on his part. We have agreed that the land raider company is too expensive and have decided to lower the cost next time if he ever fields marines. Squats on the other hand pistol whips just about anyone if you play with armies above 6k. The amount of flak they can produce each turn is simply overwhelming and the last time we played my once proud Tau army was cut to shreds in one turn. I´ve mainly had problems with his overlord air ships that are basically unkillable flying battlestations.

Anyhow, one of our bi-anual meets is coming up this christmas and this time I will try to make a battle report sice we have planned something spectacular this time.

Cheers!

Thanks gaskran,

yes, we're lucky, I guess. We have managed to play every other weekend so far. Until now our female controlers haven't complained yet. But, well, we're not sure for how long we will be able to keep up with this frequency    

aah squats.. I remember them. I wish you all the best of luck! Looking forward to read your battle report.

cheers

sanjuro

As far as the Land Raider goes our group has made some changes. This will not be acceptable to some but we had been out of touch for a while and well you have to do something to sort problems out, right?

Land Raider: 250 per detachment, 700 per Company
Move: 20cm, Save: 2+ front/side, Caf: +3
Twin Lascannons 75cm    2    4+    -2
Heavy Bolter 50cm 2    5+    -1

Transport x2, PD1, Stubborn

All of our SM armour (All Rhino variants) have the same mod for side hits. All Twin Lascannons have an increased +1 to hit while the heavy bolter is what is on the model and we felt should be represented. PD is Point Defence and Stubborn is a throw over ability from our campaign games that allows all Marines (Chaos included) always to Rally automatically in the end phase. They still go on Fall Back orders but will always recover afterwards. We feel it fits with the background fluff for Marines and is a simple rule to remember with no dice rolling.

This has been used for the past three years with no problems so far but we haven't bothered trying to break it by buying lots of Companies so the most you normally see are one companies worth.

The rules clarifications on Netepic are excellent. However after playing v4 and later trying v5 we unfortunately didn't like the changes to the companies or points on some of the units on v5 so decided to make some of our own changes or use the old costs and companies.

I'm gonna' get shot for this aren't I...  

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My head is full of War...

[img]http://i278.photobucket.com/albums/kk120/Warhead40k/Tyranid%20Swarm/DSC02262.jpg[/img]

Well, I'm now into the double figures for NetEpic armies so my Marines hardly ever get dusted off.  Interestly though, the last time was when my opponent and I did a Sci-Fi recreation of the battle of Kursk using Marines vs Imp Guard.  I took all ground pounders including 2 Land Raider companies (no T-Hawks, no Drop Pods) and my opponent took lots of IG tank companies.  In that environment the Land Raiders were excellent.  They also do well against Orks and 'Nids in my experience.  They are a poor choice against Eldar and I would imagine Tau and Slann and I would always drop them in favour of Devs against that type of army.

I think the Robots get normalised across the lists in Gold.  In the interim, instead of Robots use detachments of Furibundus or Deredeo Dreads...they are better anyway  

Eldar are a bi-polar army...in the main they have great shooters that cant fight their way out of a wet paper bag, and awesome close combat specialists that can't shoot for nuts (and are generally in small detachments).  As a Marine player, your job is to use your versatility to its fullest.  You have to use your alrounders to grapple the shooters and shoot the grapplers.  T-Hawks + Scouts, Bikes or Assaults are great for the former, and Devastators are awesome for the later.  

On the activation system, this is fundamental to NetEpic and I think people need to "suck it up" (there's a better Australian saying but I can't type it here).  If you build an army with only companies or high cost titans/preatorians then it will be very hard for your opponent to break/kill things for VPs, but you pay for this in lack of activations.  The opposite is true if you go for heaps of small units.  If lack of activations is a concern then change your army build, don't change the rules!  Even Orks can get around this easily enough.....and in fact my local Orky opponent usually has a ton more activations than most of my armies.

Oh, if you want to pistol whip the Squats take a Tyranid army  

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

Zap, this would mean a marine player would have to bunker in until at least that many enemy detachments are annihilated that the enemy has more, wouldn't it? Otherwise you get plastered by the detachments moving after you. So no Devs or termies on advance or charge...
Do you play with the optional rule "Transports are separate detachments"?
Because I found it really hard to go for more activations than Eldar or IG with marines, the only not optional cheap company being scouts. ( I never understood why the bike company is optional, and btw, is the 2+ CAF for marine bikes a typo?)

Anyway, thanks for the advice. I will try this out and hopefully have time for a battle report  

In my group we basically allow all optional units, and allow no optional rules.  So, no we don't use "Transports are separate".  

For Marines boosting activations might be a bit harder than for other armies, but it is still possible. As an example, drop a Battle Company (4 activations for 850 points) and replace it with Scouts +  Apothacary + Rhinos + T-Hawk + 2 Furibundus Dred detachments.  This gives you 9 activations for the same price, and not a big loss of capability.  If you just want pure activations at the lowest cost Scouts + Rhinos x3 + Apoth + Rapier x2....10 activations for 800 points and still quite useful stuff.  

In any case, I don't necessarily think it is all that scary if your opponent has more activations anyway.  The only real issue for me has been around Flyers (because they are unpinnable) and seeing if you can successfully engage the opponent flyer in CC....if my opponent goes last I can never engage with my T-Bolts.  So, I have learned that if I'm taking a low activation army I just take Flak instead   . If you were charging with your Termies, what difference does it make if he has more activations....just dont charge skimmers or SHTs that haven't moved yet!  Apart from maybe first turn, why would you ever have Devastators on Advance orders    

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Fire bad, tree pretty - Buffy

Hi Zap,

again, thanks for your help! Since I am still coming to terms with some points of the netepic Rules, your tips are indeed a great help.    

While you're mentioning flyers: Even Thunderhawks seem to be a bad investment when you are low on activations, since the THG is one activation and the Scouts in it a second. So the Thunderhawk will get charged even before the Scout could leave their transport.

The charging issue: Well, you can only move your troops within your AA range, or not? Anything else would get a visit from a vampyre filled with striking scorpions or harlequins. And it really hurts to see your terminators being beaten up by those 150 pts scorpions.

cheers sanjuro