Good catch Kyrt! Another approach could be to simply note the road bonus doesn't apply to the BA. We also of course should confirm that this is in practice an actual issue vs a theoretical. I could say that being all up in your grill is probably a BA feature fluff-wise/style-wise. However that needs to be balanced with the significant additions of shooting ability the BA have gained recently where the number of playtest groups at this point is concerning.

edited to clarify point about tester spread, not list

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Yeah I'm not saying it's a problem, it's just I saw it when catching up on the thread and noticed that nobody commented further.

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Actually, that's why it's included in unit characteristics, not in a special rule. BA vehicles are simply faster than the others -that's the reason why they don't have AdMech allies here -to keep their secrets for themself. So no need to nerf them more, it's an advantage from the beginning -and teh reason of a big drawback..

And with roads, it's +5cm.

Batreps to follow tomorrow, blood angels vs EUK iyanden. Possibly one of the more one sided games I've played

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TBH all the road effect does for me is remind me how silly it is for them to have the bonus in the first place. "Slightly faster engines" surely is a tiny effect, and one that would only be relevant on a perfectly flat surface (road) anyway. There's no way a predator should be as fast as a falcon over normal terrain.

But I digress.

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I don't think that's a digression at all. Preds and rhinos should not have the same speed as valkyries and vultures. I think there are ways to make the BA "in your face" without the +5cm movement.

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Cool.
Can you spitball some ideas?
(I've thought the +5cm on assault idea was a internetsting one)

Also, AFAIK, the +5cm movement for lack of titans has been a defining feature of the list from day one. Why bring it up now?

(not argumentative, I just like to dig and get perspectives on things. Also you likely HAVE been talking about the movement since day 1 )

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It never seemed like a good defining feature to me. I don't really buy that tradeoff either... Remove some of the rarest/slowest units in the game and compensate by bumping up the speed of some of the most common/fastest? I don't see the connection there. Why now? Why not?

The BA have a lot of assault troops already. To make them more in your face/assault-y, put more of them in transports, both air and ground. The Storm Chicken could be less shooty (less shooty therefore cheaper and more common in list builds) and more of a very-fast assault transport skimmer (or go radical and make it an alternative to the T-hawk). The rhino-transported ground troops aren't exactly slow at 30cm either... T-hawks and Storm chickens packed with assault marines added to tacticals with assault upgrades moving up in a coordinated chop-a-thon sounds like it would do the trick of following the BA fluff.

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Hey guys, this is going to go more off on a general list theory tangent with captPiett for a bit. It's not a call to action just two dudes talking (and abusing the thread )

captPiett, you and I have some similar thoughts on the BA list in a figurative "clean room environment".

Couple of questions though.

To be clear, you mean allowing Assault marines to take Rhinos or are you meaning to load up Devestators in Redeemers?


Even less shooty? Not sure if you're aware that the missiles were dropped from 4 shots to 2 with their rice reduction. My personal like would be to see the 2x one shot missiles replaced with a single missile attack, lose the one shot deal (games tend to get very binary-4x missiles allowed silly planetfall shennanigans that turned the game boring). I've earlier described earlier in the thread, the Storm chicken as a flying Razorback, not a tank hunter.


This is were I wish I could become Cher and "turn back time" (wheres The Bissler? ). I think the Raven should have been an AC from the get-go. I understand why it wasn't with the frankly, DUMB, rule in the EA book about flyers must take the whole unit. IIRC, at that point we hadn't already introduced the TBrick Transporter which approved the pattern for how to over ride that restriction, hence the skimmers we have by legacy. Also note that because it's not an AC, Assault Marines cannot have extended assault range really restricting the usefulness.

I happen to know that XM had decided that's the type of change that would bust the list back to Exp, being a huge change.

Thanks for your insights! Much appreciated!

OK digression / abuse complete

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Two quick responses that may not do your questions justice, Jimmy:
I notice there's no jump pack-less assaults in the list. I'd add those in to solve the transport problem (they could fit into rhinos, etc. and no change necessary to regular assaults). For storm Ravens, you could have foot assault in them to pack more in, or jump troops to have more mobility. Both could add dreads but they'd be more viable with the ground pounders because they wouldn't slow the fm down (this would only matter if there was some way to get over the multiple flyer transport problem however)
On the storm Raven stats: all those heavy bolters and assault cannons could just as well turn into ff 3+, and then give them a paltry missile shot (no slow firing or single shot) to lay BMs. That way (similar to sm bikes), you'd have to use them in assaults or they'd be a waste. So instead of a flying razorback, it would be a flying ff monster. That abstraction is entirely plausible, I think.

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C'mon man, where were you in the last 12-15 months?

Slowest rarest? Nothing personal, but ever saw a SM list with Warhounds?

The +5cm is in the BA theme from the very beginning, so now to re-design the list, can't be a real question. IMHO the classic, Rhino based BA army is not the most popular choice -Stormraven is a more BA like unique choice!

The current state of the list is after a lot of playtesting, lot of discussion (just check the 20+ pages of only the 2.4 thread!) -sure it's still not a perfect one, and every opinion is valuable, but re-defining the list at this point is nonsense to me..

That's why I called it a digression

I'm not really interested in experimental lists, generally the only people who are are the ones who are going to play that army. I don't play blood angels, but I still have a vested interest in making sure they represent the army well and are balanced. Hence I get interested when the word "approved" starts getting bandied about... I think that's fair, if frustrating for the people who want their shiny toys and like the way the list was designed in those experimental days. We can't really do anything about that, except try not to let it get to us, get defensive etc.

Evidently captPiett and I have similar views. For my part, it's for these reasons:
1. The +5cm rule is jarring and does not make sense to me, for the reason I explained (i.e. faster engines isn't going to help you unless you're on a road).
2. The effect is nowhere near significant enough to be worth the game effect it has been given (i.e. to make predators as fast as vultures).
3. At some point after I stopped playing 40K GW evidently introduced this thing about Blood Angels engines and somehow that is being transferred to be a defining feature of the list at Epic scale. I just don't think it defines Blood Angels. If it existed in 2nd and 3rd edition I don't remember it, so clearly was not important to them then.
4. I don't think the power balance of the list needs faster annihilators. There is no design reason for it.

I am just trying to push back against an effect that is common in variant lists: to overstate minor differences that have no business being represented at this scale, because without them the list is too bland or has no reason to exist. Let's be honest, the raison d'etre for a Blood Angels list is essentially "to have a blood angels list". That sounds derogatory but I don't mean it to be. IMO it's fine, if it just means "include the death company, because blood angels always have the death company and the codex list doesn't allow it". But when it becomes "well we have a blood angels list now, what else can we change?" that's when you start to implement every difference from 40K even if the list already feels like blood angels. In that environment, almost anything can be justified (witness teleporting assault marines). IMO, restraint has a value all of its own.

If it were me, and having faster engines is seen as important enough for Blood Angels that it needs to be represented, I would make it a simple special rule that allows them to get +5cm if they spend at least half their move on a road.


But I digress further


Let me just say, I know commentary is cheap. I am not going to lose sleep about it. It's up to you to decide how much you care what non-players of the list think.

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Ha! [looks around at the smoking ruins of the thread]
digressions over, thanks for coming along.

Cool input Kyrt. Thanks for the perspective. Certainly gives something for me to chew on.

Pi Just to be absolutely clear, I don't think anyone's ire is raised (I believe that you were joking about that-being sure ). I love that people stop in and provide some fresh eyes on things.

Thanks all.

Someone go test something now

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batrep here viewtopic.php?f=84&t=29134

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How did the Stormraven get the stats it did? After looking at Steve's report I took a closer look.

These things have equivalent armor to a Predator in the fluff and 40k. Yet they have better armor in EA. On top of that, the missiles are effectively 4 single shot Krak missiles in 40k (AT6+). "Twining" them in EA I'd expect AT5+, not AT3+. Something like this would be a little easier to stomach game-play and fluff-wise:

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