Oh, spätauf, nice to read.

For the sake of cc/ff weapons: They are unchanged since 3.16 for TCCW, 3.10 for LasBurners, same Version for Melta Cannon. Just to think of.

I, too, have to raise some concern about the lasburner. I played against 2 reavers, 4 warhounds, 2 sentinels, 2 pairs of thunderbolts. I played an engagement army (tyranids) with next to no shooting. I looked at those stats and frankly did not bother. i managed to manoeuver it to a win, but lasburners are too good.

I also consider the ark change a mistake. titan lists struggle internally to make ends meet, but to lower it to 150 because of that is in my opinion, a bad decision. I know you do not want to make external comparisons, but in this case, I think you should. the difference between 3xvolcano and the ark is that you get free unlimited range and indirect pinpoints to target exactly the usual threats (we), to reduce your enemy's ability to deal with 5-6 titans (which you can arm for engagement tactics instead). In other words, by choosing 3 free weapons, you get the volcano cannons anyway.

more to follow

/fredmans

Oh for sure, there were no WE targets in our second game with the titan legions. I'd still happily take the Ark for 275 in the majority of my lists or a hypothetical spacecraft with just 2 pinpoints for 225. I wouldn't choose to take one Volcano Cannon let alone three, I find it too expensive. The pinpoints can hit anywhere in the table too, while Shadowswords need LOS and can be deployed out of sight and then move out to shoot.


I'm suggesting one or two sensible changes not completely restatting them. I think it'd be a real shame and bad for the list if you didn't go further than a points increase. The unit is too powerful with its 20cm infiltrate and just doesn't match up with the background for it or with any other Knights (no other Knights having infiltrate and it seeming ludicrous on such a non stealthy unit like this).


Fair enough, but I'm pretty confident something will have to be done with the Forge Knights and definite with the Ark.

Ok, I played a game last night with AMTL 3.22 vs Codex Marines. I took the Ark Mechanicus, some forge knights, and two reavers with laser burners. One had two PC and one had two GB. The balance was in thunderbolts, warhounds, and sentinels.

Marines had 2x Dev +2 Las raserbacks, Tac with SC, tbolts, thawk, termies, 2x speeder, and 2x pred annihilator

Short summary: I played marines, by the end of t3 I was pretty badly mauled but pulled off a victory when my termies managed a combined assault against the BTS reaver killing it and a dev detachment took his blitz.

Ark came in t2 dropped it's template ineffectually on the board and generally did nothing useful.

Forge Knights: The most spectacular display of fail the entire game. Failed to activate t1, failed to rally in the end phase, charged my speeders t2, scored 1 kill, took two losses, rolled a 1 for combat resolution and were promptly wiped out.

Laser burners: helped the reaver take out two termie stands. Without the extra dice I don't think that would have happened. I don't know that I feel it's OP in any way, but it is a bit funny that it has a better CC benefit than FF. However, unless that was a type that crept in prior to 3.10, it's intentionally been that way for quite a while.

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-Vaaish

Making them less durable than they already are and less capable of getting into CC aren't sensible changes. I've used forge knights many times because I like having the paladin models on the table with AMTL and they consistently under perform. IF they do their job they always come out damaged from the engagement and they just evaporate once broken which really isn't that difficult since you only need to kill two of them. While they might be a bit undercosted at 225 points, we might as well just take them entirely out of the list with the changes you are suggesting for them.

Unless you can engage a formation, Forge Knights have no AP capability and their only weapon is 30cm. They move at the same speed as a sentinel, which isn't exactly speedy. Basically, unless the Forge Knights can charge a formation before they take a BM or worse, lose a unit, you aren't going to see much in the way of return. I think if you look at their combat performance over the past three or so years you'll see that this is usually the outcome.

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-Vaaish

Forge Knights have close to Terminator offensive capabilities for a cheap price, while being extremely hard to kill. They can attack on their own, but ideally should be used in combination with titan(s) getting support fire to boost their kills further.

I note you haven't given any justification or explanation for why the Knights should have infiltrate. If you want them to be a bit less slow give them 25cm move instead (the same as Palladins). That would be a lot less objectionable that infiltrate.

I don't get how you think 4+ reinforced armour, invulnerable and walker is a justified combination for a non-combat unit. Main battle tanks from other races like the Hammerhead, Predator or Defiler do fine with 4+ armour. Stat them more reasonably and if you still find them poor and struggling reduce the cost accordingly. 5 Forge Knights without reinforced armour would still be as tough as a Defiler and with +1 model in the unit, plus a fair bit cheaper. They'd still be used.

Glyn, this isn't up for debate. If you think they are too cheap, noted. If you want an explanation for the stats, search the AdMech forum. They have been around for ages, though I would wager they are based on older versions of the knight Paladin and armed differently or based around the land raider stats.

Second, I don't see any proof they are extremely hard to kill. In your own game all three formations were basically combat ineffective by the end of the game. In my own games they rarely perform much of anything before dying. In the prior discussions we've had on forge knights most have agreed they are one shot weapons that do very little.

Last of all, you make claims that doing X will make this unit used or that Y unit is the bees knees and everyone will take it. You have to remember you are looking at units whose stats haven't changed for years in the case of the Forge Knight or whose price point has been extremely low in the case of the Ark (3.19 dated 2011) and neither are being used in any way close to what could be called regularly. There just isn't support for your claim here in the scope of everything from the last 3-5 years.

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-Vaaish

It may seem a small thing but I just had a look at v3.22 and although can find in Ark Mechanicus's transport rule: 4 Tetrarch Lander for the love of life can't find any other mention of this transporter in this pdf. Can anyone tell me whether I'm missing something perhaps between the lines?

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Nope, you aren't missing anything. The Tetrarch is part of the AdMech Cataphractii list that's extremely experimental. I added the transport rules to the Ark so it wouldn't need to be updated later. Since the list is very experimental it's not part of the PDF at this point. Instead, you can find the rules here:

viewtopic.php?f=22&t=26304

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-Vaaish

Hey guys,

reading Mordoten's batrep vs steel legion, I had a quick look at the stats for the ark mechanicus battleship, is it really 150 points for a two template barrage AND two pinpoint attacks?

that seems incredibly powerful for the points, I know it's in a SR2 army but still it's orders of magnitude more powerful than either a SM strike cruiser or the cruiser available to the IG

can someone link me to the discussion where the stats were agreed? I'd be very interested to read how it was justified

many thanks!

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Yeah, it´s waaaay to cheap for that firepower...

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basically no one ever took it so over time the price was dropped until it hit 15 around the AMTL 3,18 mark... and no one took it still until recently.

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-Vaaish

I think that reasoning is a little flawed, people probably didn't take it because they wanted the points to spend on ruddy expensive titan loadouts..... if I had that option in a steel legion list, it would be first pick, EVERY time....

it also seems tailor-made to deal with stuff like shadowswords, cobras and their ilk AND can drop a big barrage to make the opponent wary of placing his deathstrikes in obvious locations and force him to move out of his deployment zone towards your waiting guns....

it synergises SO well with the list, the fact that people weren't taking it most likely shows that spaceships aren't part of the meta of certain groups, I know the guys I play regularly (Steve54 and dptdexys among others) make heavy use of spaceships (at least in chaos, tau, eldar and marine armies) and a choice like this would be like christmas to them.... after having two shadowswords destroyed in quick succession by tau pinpoints on multiple occasions I've found myself saying 'well at least they don't get a barrage too....'

it just struck me as grossly overpowered, AFAIK it is pretty much the most powerful spaceship in the game shooting wise.... maybe that's somewhat fluffy for admech, although Eldar and Necrons should have it beat with their significantly higher tech level.... my suggestion would be to drop it to 2x pinpoints OR a 5BP barrage and even that is pretty damn good value for 150 points

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And that's the point... AMTL isn't steel legion But, back to to stats, 2x pinpoints and the barrage is a pretty good translation of the BFG stats. It's got s4 lances and s10 batteries as well as a nova cannon. Points wise, now that people are actually using the thing, we're looking to boost it 200 points and see how that works with the titan list. I may also add a note that the Ark can't arrive until turn 2 to help with the deployment zone threat.

What we don't want to do is boost hte points so high that the ship becomes useless due to competition with ground formations and lowered activation count.

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-Vaaish

I'm not sure what you mean by that? steel legion are composed of large, expensive (for the most part) companies with limited support slots for cheap activation boosters, they're a better comparison than marines for example.... I thought the netEA idea was units to be internally balanced across lists, right now the IG pay 150 points for a 3BP template and single pinpoint, you get double that for the same points for AMTL, regardless of how often it's used or not, the list-synergy argument can only go so far surely.....?



That may be the case and if you want to use those stats in epic then it should be priced according to its abilities, NOT because it's rarely used, following that kind of logic a guard artillery company should probably be about 350-400 points as nobody ever takes them....despite 9 manticores having the ability to break even very large formations with an 18BP barrage....



that's a step in the right direction, as it's designated as a 'battleship' I assume that places it in a similar category to the emperor class available to steel legion or a marine battle barge? (I don't play BFG myself) maybe going the whole hog and giving it slow and steady is the best option....



the ship is far from useless, even at a higher points value, people rarely take spaceships in steel legion armies but rug hasn't been dropping the points to encourage their use.... some formations in an army list are always going to be fringe choices, rarely taken, IMO that's not a bad thing.... if the list is internally balanced then it's up to the players to choose the armies they want to play... right now that spaceship is a steal, in our local, spaceship-heavy meta, I would expect to see an ark mechanicus in every AMTL list that turned up, it would be first on my list every time

there is naturally a break point, at say 250 points I would expect the ship to be rarely included, but dropping it below a certain threshold makes it an auto-choice because it can be purchased without impacting the list significantly.... in the background are titan armies often supported with spaceships?

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