It is generally best in Epic to have specialised all or nothing units. 1 formation of pred destructors and 1 of annihlators is better than 2 formations of 2 and 2.

Looking at Hena's tactics... Is it really all that much better to put terminators in a thunderhawk rather than teleporting in? I haven't worked out the numbers, but in the few games I've played so far, my teleporting termies have always hit pretty hard and taken out what they need to, and that's even with getting blast markers during teleport sometimes. If they enter play from a thunderhawk then they don't risk blast markers from teleport, but isn't the threat of AA fire on the gunship a greater risk?

In every game I've played, I've taken 3 destructors to 1 annihilator, but there really isn't much in the way of logic behind that ratio

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Against another high SR army teleporting might not be your best bet given the higher propensity for you to loose initiative for that turn. But that's entering a list tailoring, meta-game area. I'm sure Terminators in a THawk pack just the same punch as teleporting ones do, but with a few different nuances on how they're deployed.

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Dave

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Squats 2019-10-17

Thanks Dave, wasn't thinking about SR at all when I did that post. It certainly would help make sure the Terminators hit first if they come in on a gunship. I'll have to consider that in the future.

Chris and I have discussed the tactic of dropping devastators down in a thunderhawk and having them do their thing, then having another thunderhawk come in and lift them away to safety. Is this really done a lot? And how would that tactic work with terminators?

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That's not a moon....it's a space station....

Then with 2 formations of terminators one teleport to be an anvil to the thunderhawk + Terminator Hammer.

In a high activation marine army you can teleport in terminators onto a safe flank. Overwealm it. Then land at end of turn, fire thawk guns, pick up terminators and fly away.

Mephiston, can you please explain your comment further?

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That's not a moon....it's a space station....

Sure. Teleport one formation of Terminators within FF support range of an enemy formation.

Then if you win the initiative you can do two things, activate the terminators to sustain fire at either enemy flak or the target formation. Then retain and use a thunerdawk with more terminators on board to assault the enemy formation, gaining the support fire from the teleported terminators. That's 8 3+ attacks, 4 3+ macro (more with characters) and 2 4+ attacks from the thunderhawk. It makes a real mess of virtually any formation.

Its even better if you don't need to use the teleported terminators before the air assault. That way they can be used to attack something else latter.

And remember that there is no need to do this turn one, turn two or three are valid uses of this tactic as your opponent will hopefully have spread out more by then.

Ok so I have pretty much gotten all my basics together to build up my retro army just need some help crafting the list at 3000 points.

Choices are:
Reaver
2 Warhounds
2 Thunder Bolt Formations
2 Thunderhawks
2 Assault Formations (1 with Chaplain)
3 Devastator Formations (2 with Libs) plus Rhinos
3 Tactical Formations plus Rhinos (1 Supreme Commander) plus Rhinos
2 Whirlwind Formations
4 Hunters
2 Lascannon Razorbacks
1 Predator Formation
2 Land Raider Formations
2 Landspeeder Formations (all normal speeders)
2 Bike Formations (all normal bikers)

If you haven't played too many games start with the practice scenarios in the rule book, they will help you get up to speed with the game. Start with the basic formations, then add WEs, then aircraft.

In terms of what your asking, I think 5 different people are going to give you 50 different answers though . Try starting with a Battle Company (2 tac, 1 dev, 1 assault in thawk), and add tank and air support. That will get you close to 2k easily. After that, throw in whatever else you want to try.

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Dave

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NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

I was just adding it up and it is about 7000 points so I am good to go now. Plastic/Pewter crack I tell you.

I'll give one of the 50 different answers...

1. 2x Warhounds. Very useful for early activations on turn 1. Surprisingly resilient, fast and deadly against light formations. Also a good shout for suppressing/killing enemy flak.

2. Tacs with Supreme Commander. Not everyone takes a SC but I never leave home home without one.

3. Thunderhawk with either 2x Devs, 2x Assault or one of each. With no terminators you want this for "deep strike" capability, Timing is critical with this group, too early and you will find the enemy counter attack does as much damage as your attack, too late, and you have spent too long with a fair amount of troops not doing anything (so the rest of your army is fighting uphill odds for too long).

4. Whirlwinds + Hunter. I always like to have at least one formation with a template attack. It is a deterent against the enemy bunching up his units too much. If he does the templates punish him, if he spreads out too much to compensate it is easier to find good clipping assaults.

5. Thunderbolts. A cheap formation that can be a lot more deadly than they seem on paper. If you need them for AA then that is their first priority. If they are not needed for AA the ability to strike anywhere on the table is useful, especially for punishing broken formations (where with BMs 1 kill becomes 3).

6 Landspeeders. A unit or two with the scout ability is very useful (I think the scout ability has already been discussed in this thread). With Landspeeders you have a fast unit that can add a lot of firepower in support of an assault.

That would be a solid start IMO.

You could add a large Tac formation for a BTS (with Hunter and Razorbacks).
Some more Land Speeders and or Bikes for a fast engagement style force.
Swap out the wahounds for a Reaver perhaps for a tougher BTS.
Add another Thawk for more air assault ability (with either the regular assault/dev load or a cheap load like bikes).
Add some tanks for more AT firepower (Land Raiders or Predator Annihilators).
And extra points can go on chaplains or librarians (probably in the THawk group).

Thanks for the advice. I have a formation of terminators but I was hoping to reserve them for my modern force since it only has 1 thunderhawk and has drop pods and some dreads for a more planetfall style of attack.

(bringing this discussion back to life)

After working hard to learn how to play Epic and do well, I went something like a month without playing and forgot almost everything, then suffered a horrible defeat last week. My tactics were bad, but dice rolling also sucked and there's nothing you can do when your dice want to bite it!

At any rate, my latest questions concern bikes. I already have some units of bikes but put together some attack bikes to include so I can drop a blast marker or two on a unit while they are out firefight range. In a unit of five bikes, how many would you replace with attack bikes? Also, when you include a character with a bike unit is it better to put the character on the attack bike, or a regular bike, or does it matter?

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That's not a moon....it's a space station....