I'm in favour of such a change as a balance to the major price drops on the ground troops mentioned elsewhere.

I believe that forcing a change to such common air heavy lists is what the whole point of raising the cost of the thunderhawk is about. Leaving it at the standard 1/3 and moving the thunderhawk there would handily force a bit of a change the the most common builds. Looking through the lists, the most common combination seems to be 2x warhounds, 1-2x thunderbolts, and 2x thunderhawks which runs between 1050 and 1200 points. If the warhound are separate that goes up to 1100 and 1250.

Under the proposal to move the Thunderhawks to the 1/3, that would be enough to cause the loss of the cheap thunderbolt formations or might put pressure on the warhounds if the thunderbolts were deemed essential for the activation count and harassment. It also means you might see more warhound pairs since the singles are burning precious points. It's a simple change that affects the most popular builds enough to change up a bit without completely invalidating them. Moving the thunderhawks and changing the limit to 40% might as well just leave things as they are now since very few of the more popular builds would be affected by this if I understand your math correctly.

Whether or not this is the best route, I don't know. It is, however, a very simple and easy to test route that required minimal changes and should have just enough affect on the list to shake things up a bit.

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-Vaaish

Honestly, this would work better as a two step process: get infantry and vehicle costs to reasonable levels that are generally agreed to work for those infantry and vehicles.

Once there, evaluate aircraft in that context.

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My Thunderhawks and Landingcraft to air with 'max 1/3 titan limit as well as max 40% air and titans combined' proposal would have allowed 12 of the first 18 lists I looked at to have been used as is, required a 50 point drop for 3 and a more significant drop for the other 3. I viewed affecting a third of the 18 lists as reasonable not just ‘very few’, but changing 13 (and some by as much as 600 points) seems to me to be too much of a change. I did just look at the newest 18 Epic-UK lists and a longer count-up on lists there and here could obviously assess the impact of the change more thoroughly.

I’m not sure just 1/3 for all air/titans is a good idea as it rules out even some pure air Landingcraft builds like the example I gave. It’s a big change that clearly isn’t popular with some people.

I suggested the 40% idea as it seems as a good midway compromise between no change and 1/3. I think it may be the best of the discussed options myself, or at least worth considering, obviously it would need lots of testing.

Mind you I have been assuming for all this that we're talking about both Thunderhawks and Landingcraft moving to 1/3 and that this was being used as an alternative to 225 Thunderhawks rather than as well as. If it’s just Thunderhawk moving to air and Landingcraft freely available then I guess I’d be fine with that option personally (though the 40% option may still be a better compromise).

Yes. 'Themed' is definitely the correct word here as I went with all the Literature representations of the IF (Space Marine, Sons of Dorn) to fashion the list. No doubt a concentrated ground-pounder force could do without the Siege items and concentrate on the troops + vehicles.

The biggest issue I see in all these discussions is the inclusion of Imperial airplanes and Imperial War Engines.

I wonder what marine lists would be like if
1. Only Marine air craft options were Thunderhawks and the Caestus
2. No War Engines or one WE per 1500 points (to represent the rarity of such things in line with Marine Tactical operations)

Once you take out the 'allies' portion of the discussion, I think a faster progression to a viable Marine list will take place. That of course forces people to accept a major difference in a list that they are used to which in itself I think is sad. When you only see 1 type of Marine list being competitive at a competitive tournament level (if this is the case - please excuse me if I am wrong), then surely you go one of two ways: make the ground pounders more attractive (this WILL effect other lists), or support a Marine ground pounder list.

For all the talk about Land Raiders, Vindicators, Predators etc, making them cheaper will/should flow onto Chaos. If Marines end up only paying 75 points for a Land Raider, no one should expect Chaos forces to do the same. Most likley they would move down to a 65 point average. If people are fine with that, then sure thing.

What I see from these discussions is people not wanting their favourite winning lists to change (air assaults with air support + WE). If those people never budge, then development will not move forward. Sometimes something has to give in order to move something forward, and I do not envy Dobbsy in the eventual decision he has to make. I do ask however that when he does make one - whatever it is, we all support it with the playtests to give him a good chance to either keep or change whatever the new issue at the time may be.

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I agree with this. SMs are an autonomous fleet based forces who often fight independently. Thunderbolts and Titans should only be occasional/optional additions to a viable epic SM army, not ubiquitously taken as happens now. For all my playing around with ideas on Thunderhawks here I would far rather they be left be and see both Warhounds and Thunderbolts take a price rise instead as the main tweak to the list.

Space Marines already are paying 75 points for a Land Raider in both Epic-UK and Net-EA lists, it was a change Hena agreed to.

So that we understand exactly what Marines get by default:

Quoted from back on page 2.
Best not to assume that tanks are the default Marine mode of transport into battle.

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OK guys, let's not start getting tit-for-tat please. I think we all know the Marine list is playable both ways.

I'm not saying it won't ever happen but so far I'm leaning towards ground changes more after some very good reasons to hold off on a price increase on the TH just now.

For those who would like to see a change, don't panic. My thoughts are to look at the ground changes first and see how that effects people's lists. If what I think will happen happens then we will be looking at a change in the future.

Does that mean that those of us that don't want too much change should panic...

Sorry mate, couldn't help myself.
You are in an unenviable position. The Space Marines are 40K and this is an iconic list.
No pressure mate...

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Nah it's all good. In the end I don't get the final say anyway so anything I put forward will possibly be khyboshed regardless. All I can do is discuss and propose

thats the point. its called a restriction for a reason. if it doesnt actually change the composition of the lists, there isnt any point in doing it. i say your suggested restriction doesnt go too far enough! all it stops is massed aircraft alongside warlords. you should have to pick between massed air, titans, or a blend of a smaller number of both.

I dont think that you need a landing craft, 3 thunderhawks, and two thunderbolt squadrons to be a fully air inserted list. you could do it with a landing craft and 2 thunderhawks without a problem, or reduce one of the thunderbolt squadrons and rely on the AA built into the marine craft.

i'm not opposed to the raising of thunderhawk price (though i do think 25 points would be quite sufficient)
however, it wont solve the problem (which is that warhounds are too prevalent, and that aircraft being restricted is a core principle of the game) because people will still take as many thunderhawks as they need, as many warhounds as they want, and make up the difference by dropping a commander or a speeder formation or something else.

you're currently saying "you can have your cake, and eat it too, but it will be about 2% less cake than it once was"

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Well, it does say that a Marine formation will "usually" come with enough Rhinos to transport it.

Also, in the language of the SM Transport rule, the Drop Pods are "replacements" for the Rhinos. You can also choose not to use the Rhinos. But Rhinos are the intended default.

I'm not saying it means Marines should be a ground list. But it does rather suggest that Rhino-loaded infantry were expected to be a very common sight.

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also, you may not have to buy drop-pods, but without a spaceship they wont do you much good.

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I was looking at the composition as well as just the points. Most of the lists I looked at that were above the 1/3 all followed the same pattern, 2 thunderhawks, 2 warhounds, and 1-2 thunderbolts. I was under the impression that was the build we wanted to shake up since that seems the most efficient build. Doing 1/3 meant that the air assault lists could remain largely intact, but a cost of the cheap CAP thunderbolts. Since they are a fairly important source of AA, it should put more pressure on taking alternatives to the warhounds to free up points in the 1/3 since most air assault builds aren't going to want to drop a thunderhawk. Doing 40% means that those "standard" builds aren't affected at all which sort of defeats the purpose of the change.

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Vaaish speaks the truth.

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