So when I asked today why Marines were front loaded on points rather than place the points back onto the Thunderhawk, I was advised that people do not want to pay for the transport if they are using it for strafing runs only.

If this happens to be the case, then why can't we place the same type of thinking to Land Raiders if bought as a formation and not used for transport? Why should I pay for the ability I am not using?

Let us also make this same rule for the various Tyranid formations, other flyers, AV and War Engines that are not used for their Transport capacity, but for other nefarious deeds.

If it is the argument, are we seriously entertaining this type of reasoning? If so, why and what justification is there for it over any other transport?

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This thinking has been applied to Land Raiders (and Falcons and Ork wagonz and other transport-tanks).

The value of transport capacity on aircraft is vastly larger than transport capacity on an MBT transport. Generally, tanks gain about as much from being in a "dedicated" homogeneous formation of specialists as they lose from having unused transport capacity. Aircraft just don't.

So are troops in other lists 'front loaded'? That is what I am getting at...

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I was only responding to the bit about whether "wasted" transport capacity had been taken into account as a general rule.

I don't know that the "front loaded" argument is really valid. Was this in the context of the cheaper troops/more expensive Thawk discussions? If so, I've never seen anyone take a Thawk just for strafing even at the current point values.

Allow me to then present to you a battle report where one was used just for this purpose viewtopic.php?f=84&t=19607

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Interesting.

Overall firepower has been compared to other air formations as a theoretical comparison (e.g "same firepower, but this one also carries troops...), but I cannot recall empty transport strafing in a dedicated fashion being a serious consideration on point costs.

So Marines (vanilla list) are not costed to be transported in a Thunderhawk?

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They are; Assault marines would never be worth 175 points if they were costed for ground use.

People use them as such a fair bit in the UK. Matt Otter I think especially liked it. Yes they can switch roles and air assault your terminators in or similar so it makes them overall a great 'bomber' choice. Indeed I think even as purely a bomber they beat marauders in EpicUK having less firepower but more survivability, less cost and the obvious multi-role capacity.

And as for assault marines they aren't worth it for thunderhawk use either!

So there you go then. You pay for the transport even though it is not used.

In this case, should not Land Raiders be cheaper as Marines have already paid to be transported?

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Yes, and Hena has agreed to drop them to 75 points for this reason.

Only if they replace a Transport - so essentially it has been paid for.

If I use Land Raiders as a formation (thereby not using transport), where is my discount?

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It's cancelled out by the advantages of an extra activation and a task-dedicated formation.

That is the chicken and the egg principle.

If I cannot afford the formation, how can I take advantage of it's activation?

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The point is that Transportability has to be paid for somewhere. If the cost goes in the basic formation, people complain about paying for transport they aren't using, and mud marines being to expensive. If the cost goes on the thunderhawk people complain about using it for strafing.

Assault Marines are the classic example; there's no right answer for them because they don't have a transport cost included. If you make them cheap enough to be useful on the ground then they're too good for air insertion, and if you price them for air insertion they're too expensive for ground use.