Loop holes 'r' us

[El Capitan]

Possibly.

Though 2 out of 3 marine players who havwe played in last 6 months have had predominatnely 1 st compny troops and its getting a little silly

[Charly]

tactical squads and veteran squads (ultramarines) dont have different roles really, vets are just better. only 3pts a model more. so there needs to be a limit.

[Adoni-Zedek]

You could always drop the cost of a tac marine from 30 to 25 points. That makes the vet squad roughly 33% more expensive than the basic trooper with only a minor increase in ability, which would probably cut down on the veterans a bit. That might cause all the non-marine players to cry "Foul!" though.

[El Capitan]

I was actually thinking before about the possibilites of dropping 5 ponts from every races basic troop type, altough it would cause havoc with some of the lists like Eldar, Necrons and Chaos, it would work nicely with Orks and Marines

[tturen]

Why not drop a percentage instead? Say a 16.5% points reduction or so would do the trick and a percentage would keep the unit balance. Although in the case of marines it would keep the existing imbalance in place, but heck at least they would be cheaper.

[Charly]

i think the points are perfectly fine. for both vets and normal marines. the only option as i can see if some limit on vets is needed is to use something similar to the skaven mainstay rule. but that can have some conflict with the background storyline of marines.

[Simon]

I really don't think there is a problem with a 1st company army.

The 1st company gets mobilised quite frequently, so it's not against background. If we start to force a player to take x in order to field y, then everyone will end up with very similar armies, if not the same. It is one of the greatest flaws of 3rd/4th Ed, and a big flaw in Warhammer. A mainstay unit not only wouldn't fit the background, it wouldn't fit the universe, because if you start to put that rule in then where do you stop?

Who else should get a mainstay unit?

[Charly]

yeah exactly. so we think the points are ok, and that we shouldnt use mainstay x allows y idea. so whats the solution to tactical squads in ultramarines and assault squads in blood angels being more or less redundant in their roles? as the veterans do it better, and +30 pts is neglegable. maybe we should just leave it as written in the codex. but i think il be fielding mostly veterans in the tournament...

[El Capitan]

Chaos and Orks now have them. Chos can no longer have an all terminator / veteran army...nor can orks have their equivalent. Necrons and Dark Edlar do, depending on commander choice. So do the Imperial Guard. In all these armies its impossible to have all veterans. Tyranids dont have a concept of a veteran unit, nor do the Eldar (aspect warriors are not veterans). The squats will have the equivalent of a 'mainstay'.

Which leaves us nicely with the Space Marines, the end of the 2-9th companies has already begun. At this rate Special Charcaters may as well come back, the 1st company overload is simply soemthing that has somehow been overlooked until now.

Next time read the rules section for 40k so i dotn have to regurgitate stuff here!


A note on 1st company armies - whislt they do seem fine on paper actually fighting them is another matter. Typically a majority of the army is rendered almost useless aginast them. Picture 20 terminators trundling towards you with 2 reinfored land raiders with supercharged engines. You can stop tehm with mass heavy weapons.......and therein lies the problem. You need a psecially selected army to fight them otherwise in the hands of a competent player they can pretty much run riot (as they have done in many recent games). As charly suggested, they should be an appendix army, but in a torunament what can be done? At elast agianst armies like necrons you can bring them down woth anything still, and assault armies can still take the fight and beat tyranids, but these 1st company armies are almsot unstoppable. In theory no, but in practice its only porr gaming thats stopped them winnign every time (theyve lost about ocne and smashed apart evrything else. Even are current 40k champion was stumped). Certainly in a tournament enviroonment they should wipe the slate, they would in mine, mays and brown's hands for sure. They should be treated as an appendix army, marines have plenty of variety in themselves, and its only recently that these armies have appeared, mark, luke, bentley charly and yourself all used very diff armies. If you want a 1st company battle, let your opponent know, theyre gonna need soemting special to fight them [in Mays case, more gretchin].

For the Tournament- as this has been A-Okayed by the Space Marine players who will be entering - There cannot be more Veteran and Terminaotr marines than their are tactical marines in the army. (for blood angels switch tactical with assault).

[Adoni-Zedek]

I tend to agree with Mike. An all-terminator army is fun to play (I've fielded one once), but unless your opponent knows what he's facing, you will pretty much wipe the board with him. Allow them when your opponent agrees, otherwise they probably need to be limited.

I don't have a problem with this in my group, but we're adding a couple new members, so I may need to implement some restrictions later.

(Or cheese out my own army and give them a thrashing once, and then encourage them to play more balanced armies there-after)

Woo Hoo! I just hit 50 posts! ;D

[tturen]

20 trundling terminators? Our Chaos player fields more than that with regularity. One of our Wolves players has come close and they are far better armed than Smurfs. The basic problem these armies have in combat is poor mobility and a lack of ranged weapons(Wolves excepted!). Focus on takeing out the Raiders early and the termis will struggle to win. An army like the IG tends to be particularly good at destroying such forces and Wolves work well. Neither army needs an advance notice to be effective. Eldar mobility should also counter as well.

Terminator heavy armies just have not been a problem in our games but we do adhere rather closely to the original rules and the gamers around here tend use a heavy handed aproach to the army list. Now when you alter the rules to impact army construction or tend to play fluff based forces then issues like this can be a problem and you may need to change rules yet again.

[Charly]

terminators arent too big a problem rules wise. with the new models having monster bases it really limits where a terminator can actually go, which fits in with the design of the armour i think. so if its possible to get monster bases seperatly i think all terms should go on them. then against term armies all u need to do is take high ground or heavy cover positions, outshooting them should be easy enough as a normal marine army should have twice as many troops. i dont even think there needs to be a limit on terminator armies or the ammount of terminators you can take in a army. the main problems is just the veteran space marines, and even devastators.

[El Capitan]

[the following is an angry rant - you have been warned...(later edit)]

a terminator army should be able to destroy either 3 tanks or at least 20 ish models on the first turn and this is before we talk about land raiders.

4 assault cannons at 2+ to hit....

they hit like krak missiles, its very rare a vehicle survives. When deployed in the singular assault cannons are excellent for suppressing support but they aren't game winners, jam a load together and you should be able to wipe put my regular chaos army very quickly.

Firstly - fire all 4 assault cannons at my predators (max. i can fit in would be 4). They should be annihilated no problem. Add the land raiders lascannons to the mix. That leaves about 40 infantry with mixed weapons (typically bout 4 - 8 heavies but never more than 2-3 lascannon types). It might take out a miracle 10 terminators in a turn, but with half a brain cell all the assault cannons should be left and if only one fires there goes a god chunk of marines. And don't forget the land raiders....

Same goes for browns sisters... very different army but similar composition..

and luke...

and monovies eldar..

Mays orks will be a different matter but you should have all things that can hurt you gone by turn 2 at the latest, by then that should be enough points to win the game anyway. And against Simon all those synapse creatures and the tyrant should be in several easy to distribute steaks on the first turn. (bear in mind that even if you hide the terminators can leap out in safety from combat speeding land raiders...just ask brown about the heavy flamer horror the other day)

The only thing that stops this is bad players, but in the hands of a good player is gonna come down to taking an army packed with heavy weapons to take it on, and that means much less troops (never mind the annihilation of fun), so whoever gets the first turn, the terminators should be able to do significant damage to win the game straight up, or the other army gets to go straight onto overwatch.

We've done a lot to advance the army lists, and everything has met restrictions mixed with new selections. The whole point of this thread was to spot loop holes, and an all terminator one certainly is a very big loop hole. Terminators are outnumbered 10 to 1 when a chapter deploys so the 'its possible' arguments don't fit either. A 1st company army would be making a last stand for an entire chapter (Macragge) or be on a very specialized mission (Vengance), not stood around on overtime whilst the rest of the chapter goes home. They don't fit in via background, and they don't fit in with fun or strategy. One, even two terminator squads clunking around is a nightmare, it always annoys me when people say one squad is rubbish - use it right instead of sending it alone on an ultra mission. A well planned attack can win a game, jam in a terminator squad and it becomes a masterstroke.

Throw in an army of terminators and everything becomes a simple form of choosing targets and winning. The 1st turn becomes the only turn, but battles should be going to the wire, as they frequently do among the best players. Our deploy first pick a table edge has eliminated much of the predictability of the early stages of the battle and its balanced up the game and increased the strategy beyond what we could have hoped for. Yet these extremist armies, should counter balance that, moreover they can only be responded with extremism, and calls for the character restrictions lifted and soon enough we'll have chief librarians jump packing around with a captain and a chaplain and it'll be back to the old days of a big character fight, with some infantry running around as an afterthought.

This isn't Dynasty Warriors, this is 40k! The only way to fight fire in this case is more fire, and then we have a big pyre with the rulebook in the middle.

At present I am completely in favour of the restriction - there cant be more veterans than there are standard troops (and terms count as 2), the restriction is in place on Chaos and should be whacked into the loyalists as well. !st company armies should be an effective appendix, that way they'll still roll out in the same way special characters do.

This must be implemented for the Tournament, as a 1st company army is pretty much certainly going to win in a limited environment. Now where is Luke, an all terminator army was always his jokey threat.... . .

[Simon]

admin said:

There cannot be more Veteran and Terminaotr marines than their are tactical marines in the army. (for blood angels switch tactical with assault).

I'm not so sure about this, as I pointed out earlier. Blood Angels don't have more assault troops than tactical marines, so if you are going to do this then bring it in as Tactical Marines/Grey Hunters across the board...

[James 40K Champ ***]

1st company armys are tard.

[Adoni-Zedek]

Another option is the one I mentioned in the Terminators thread. Increase the S/T of termies from 4 to 5, increase wounds and attacks to 2 each, and increase the base cost to 70-80 points. This increases their cost substantially. You can then get 3-4 marines for each terminator (or 6-7 guardians with shuriken catapults). A 20 Terminator army would easily run 2000 points, and that doesn't include characters or transportation. If the player wants heavy weapons, that will further cut down on the number of termies, resulting in a max of three squads, which in turn means no more than 3 assault cannons. Throw in a Landraider, and a terminator captain, and you're looking at two squads of termies, maybe three if they don't take heavy weapons.

In my Terminator only army (used exactly once), I had three termi characters, 10 terminators (5 w/ thunderhammer/storm shield, 5 with chain fists, 1 assault cannon, 1 cyclone, 3 stormbolters), a Land Raider, two dreadnoughts, and a techmarine and 2 apothercaries in power armor. And that ran 2500 points. I could have dropped both dreadnoughts for another 5 terminators (though I don't have the models.) for a total of 18. Only 5 can ride in the Land Raider (7 if you guys allow the crusader). While this army is very tough, it is fairly slow. It also is incapable of sustaining casualties. Each lost terminator represents a substantial reduction in fighting strength. And while the 2nd wound is useful, most weapons that will readily penetrate terminator armor inflict multiple wounds anyway, so it's not as useful as you might initially think.

All the same, though, the idea of more powerful terminators makes many people wince. But if each terminator costs more, you can bring in fewer assault/autocannons in any given game size.

[El Capitan]

okay thats noted. I didnt have a copy of the angels of death book to hand. Then we have the why bother with assualt trops when you may as well pay a few extra points and make them veterans. Altough blood angels are specialised as it is, hmmm, id have to look at ze book again.

[James 40K Champ ***]

Although I can see how that change might be ok, I personally think thats a bit drastic. I doubt that would discourage our marine players taking them (it would probably make them want them more) and the actuall result in game would be either they get killed or they survive, either way the result is a big thing.

One good thing about termis is they are quite slow, meaning in a game, you can usually plan your attacks around a squad of terms, but f the whole army is terms (even worse if they have 2 wounds), most of peoples weapons become useless. Weve tried to put emphesis on basic troops, which cant do jack against terms

[tturen]

"a terminator army should be able to destroy either 3 tanks or at least 20 ish models on the first turn and this is before we talk about land raiders."

Under ideal circumstances against an ignorant opponent this is possible although its highly unlikely. Against a good general such army will have few targets to fire upon and those it can locate should be in cover so the AC's will be hitting on 3+. Given the low AP of the Ass Cann anything bigger than a Pred is pretty safe particularly if it has ablative and or reinforced. A Pred should be hull down or simply not a lead element. In short the Ass Canns are going to have great trouble takeing out heavy armor and half those that hit will then be jammed. Takeing out 20 models is even more remote in most cases the number will be about half that and thats assuming the enemy is not in hideing and all AC's have targets.

Under ideal circumstances just about any 40k game can be over after turn one. You don't need terminators to create a scenerio like this.

Keep in mind two Predators can for 300 points put that kind of fire down range for a similiar effect with 4 HB's and two twin linked Laz Cans. The Ass Canned termi's cost more than that by themselves. In fact the Predators are far more deadly in that their mobility means they cannot easily out manuvered like the termi's and they can easily pick targets unlike the slow termi's.

Then of course a Termi army is not particularly effective if it doesn't get first turn. It can't hide so its easy to target and its slow and can be easily out manouvered. The only weapons of concern to its opponent if it doesn't go first are the Ass Cann's that can themselves be avoided with superior mobility and good use cover. Concentrate your forces and destroy an army like this one piece at a time. In any case its the two Raiders that present the real problem.

If you have to restrict an army like this it is in large part due to rules tinkering. So yes given that you have tinkered with the rules, as one might expect because of this, you will have to continue to do so in order to close 'loop holes'. That or everyone needs to be on the same 'spirit of the game' page.

[Charly]

"Increase the S/T of termies from 4 to 5, increase wounds and attacks to 2 each"
Terminators are still normal veteran marines, just in terminator armour. so change stats there and u have to change stats of vets, making them all champion level characters.

"2 apothercaries in power armor"
apothecaries cant do anything for terminator armoured troops. no?

"Only 5 can ride in the Land Raider (7 if you guys allow the crusader). "
crusader is restricted to black templars only i think.