Topic: 40K

[Finlay]

I wont be playing, at least not for ages, but I just want some focus to my collecting/painting.
Plus I like writing army lists.

surely the sponsons are useful when the enemy are close though- 3 HB and the main gun will annihilate infantry!

[rufus sparkfire]

My inquisition army is going to be so outnumbered.

Would Mordheim witchunter zealots look OK as rogue psychers? I'm not sure what else to use.


Also, are plasma guns any good? Surely meltaguns are much better?

Its always good to see guard armies winning 

From what I've read, imperial guard are now one of the best armies in the game!

[Aldaris]

Also, are plasma guns any good? Surely meltaguns are much better?

Depends on the job. Meltaguns are better generalists, but Plasma has rapid fire. Which helps a lot if the target is heavy infantry or a monstrous creature.

[Finlay]

Surely the extra range is useful?
I guess squads with heavy weapons in want plasma guns.

[Crimsonsphinx]

Plasma are the terminator/marine killing weapons of choice, and thus should always be included, even against things like Orks!.  Pretty much half the available armies and more than half the games you will ever play feature either power or terminator armour equivalents.  Melta are obviously vastly better than plasma at tank killing, but have only have half the shots of plasma at 12 inches.  My plasma vets throw down 7 plasma shots at 12 inches, more than enough to vaporise a marine combat squad!

Regarding the unleashing all your guns Finlay, in my experience, I often choose not to fire the heavy bolters on my LRBT because of wound allocation rules.  Say you inflict 5 wounds on 5 marines with your battlecannon, that is 5 dead marines if they are in the open.  If you fire the 3 heavy bolters as well, you could inflict say another 4 wounds, which could be allocated to allow the marines chances of survival by stacking two of the savable wounds on one or more models.  [EG marine 1 and 2 stack the 4 heavy bolter wounds, while marines 3,4 and 5 take the battle cannon wounds]

If they are in cover though, you might as well fire the heavy bolters. 

Depends on your main gun though.  If you tanks main gun has the same or worse AP than the heavy bolters, stick bolters on it.  EG my Punisher throws down 29 s5 shots a turn.

Rogue psykers can be done cheaply by Flaggies Rufus, they look pretty good as raving looney wizards IMO.

EDIT:  Finlay, I hope you dont think I am being harsh or overly critical, I am just trying to convey what has happened to me in the past!   Sorry if it looks like it

[GamesPoet]

Space marines have armor.  So do Orks, Tau, CSM, Eldar.

but not armour like this

That doesn't look like pistoliers legs.  That looks like armor worn by a knight.  That would be a bit different to include in 40K, to say the least.

[Finlay]

Regarding the unleashing all your guns Finlay, in my experience, I often choose not to fire the heavy bolters on my LRBT because of wound allocation rules.  Say you inflict 5 wounds on 5 marines with your battlecannon, that is 5 dead marines if they are in the open.  If you fire the 3 heavy bolters as well, you could inflict say another 4 wounds, which could be allocated to allow the marines chances of survival by stacking two of the savable wounds on one or more models.  [EG marine 1 and 2 stack the 4 heavy bolter wounds, while marines 3,4 and 5 take the battle cannon wounds]

EDIT:  Finlay, I hope you dont think I am being harsh or overly critical, I am just trying to convey what has happened to me in the past!   Sorry if it looks like it

That sounds mental/wrong.
Guess I need to buy the rulebook!

Not at all, I wouldn't put the list up if I didn't want advice.

[Crimsonsphinx]

Yeah thats how wound allocation works.  In an ideal world, you need to take the same AP guns.  Eg the Excecutioner with plasma sponsons/or multimeltas with a front lascannon for maximum marine slaughtering.

You just need to run the maths before deciding if its worth firing the bolters, so always fire your big gun first.  If you wound the whole squad, dont fire anything else

Your list seems more or less fine, you take more guys than I do, I rely a lot on my armour   Well armour and a massively pimped out HQ command squad.  I usually give all my commanders power fists too

[Aldaris]

The problem is wound allocation. You allocate wounds by numbers, and models with different equipment form different wound groups. So let's assume you have 4 T4 Models with a 3+ save and 2 wounds each, all of them with slightly different kit. All of them get wounded by a Battlecannon (S8 AP3) and they take another 4 wounds from Heavy Bolter shells (S5 AP4). 

So we have 8 wounds and 4 wound groups, who roll for saves separately. You allocate all 4 BC wounds (which instant kill due to S8) to 2 models, and the remaining 2 get 2 HB hits each. Result: you will lose 2 Models and most likely keep the other 2 alive. If only the BC had hit all 4 would be dead (all would have received an ID wound with no armor save).

This change was originally intended to make models with special weapons in units more vulnerable than in 4th, but actually opened the door for some pretty sick shenanigans.

[MrDWhitey]

Ork Nobz on Motorcycles?!

[McKnight]

You just need to run the maths before deciding if its worth firing the bolters, so always fire your big gun first.  If you wound the whole squad, dont fire anything else

I think the rules state that you have to tell your opponent what guns you choose to shoot with before rolling any dice?

[Crimsonsphinx]

Do you McKnight?  That is entirely possible, I normally do anyway.  I only take sponsons on my punisher most of the time, or plasma sponsons on my Executioner and Demolisher.

The key is to ensure that all of your shots either need them to make a save, or not make a save.  Mixing savable hits with unsaveable is just not useful.  That is the key here.  If they are in cover, you might as well fire all of your shots as they will still get a save of sorts.

The nob bikers take this to a further extreme, as they have multiple wounds whihc cant stack, so if you are lucky/cunning, you can ensure you take a wound on each model before 1 dies, which is contrary to most GW systems for wounding.

[MrDWhitey]

By "lucky/cunning" I assume you meant "annoying".

As it simply took zero "luck" or "cunning".

[Crimsonsphinx]

Well there is still an element of luck, you can fail saves etc. 

Annoying is probably a more accurate description, I will agree with you there MrDWhitey.

[rufus sparkfire]

I often choose not to fire the heavy bolters on my LRBT because of wound allocation rules.  Say you inflict 5 wounds on 5 marines with your battlecannon, that is 5 dead marines if they are in the open.  If you fire the 3 heavy bolters as well, you could inflict say another 4 wounds, which could be allocated to allow the marines chances of survival by stacking two of the savable wounds on one or more models.  [EG marine 1 and 2 stack the 4 heavy bolter wounds, while marines 3,4 and 5 take the battle cannon wounds]

That is so stupid.

I thought people said this game was good!

[Aldaris]

It is. There are a few, special cases where the rules are clunky however.

Wound allocation is rarely much of a problem, but certain (infamous) unit builds are designed to take maximum advantage of this inconsistency. The most notorious offenders being Nob Bikers.

One addendum: In Crimsons example all the marines would die anyway if they are similarly equipped. You roll all saves of one wound group at once, so if you have 5 marines with bolters they still all die in his example. If you have 5 marines wiht different kit it's another story.

[MrDWhitey]

That is so stupid.

I thought people said this game was good!

It is good. It has issues (but what game doesn't?), but given your proclivities to swing hyperbolically on minor issues I can understand that you have that reaction.

 

Wound allocation is rarely much of a problem

Once you get used to doing it, yes. Annoyingly, people here often don't bother with it, and get uppity when I insist. Then again, that was like, a year ago. I have no idea what it'll be like now. The new people at our club seem to play it right, and there's enough of them to resist the "oldbies" usual attempt at forcing their interpretation/rewrites of the rules.

[rufus sparkfire]

Well, I expect the new edition next year will change that rule anyway.

I'm definitely not buying a rulebook!

[Crimsonsphinx]

One addendum: In Crimsons example all the marines would die anyway if they are similarly equipped. You roll all saves of one wound group at once, so if you have 5 marines with bolters they still all die in his example. If you have 5 marines wiht different kit it's another story.

Thats not quite correct Aldaris.  Taking my example, 5 battle cannon wounds, and 4 heavy bolter wounds on 5 marines.  You would only need 3 different types of marines to get a benificial result.
Say you have a sergent, a special or heavy weapon and 3 bolter guys.  This is just about the most common set up of marines.   You divide the wounds like this.  Put 2 heavy bolter wounds on the sarg, 2 on the flamer, and the remaining 5 go on the 3 normal chaps who die outright.  You are still dividing the wounds correctly.

The other point is, it is never an issue whatsoever if your unit can't put more wounds on the enemy than you have shots.  For example, you cant do wound allocation bearding if you only inflict 7 wounds on a 10 man squad, no matter how many wounds you infict.  If in my origional example there were 10 marines, it totally would be worth firing the heavy bolters....

However, they would still all have died if you had only just fired the battle cannon.

It is worth pointing out that this is just about the only stupid rule, and generally 40k works really well.  The simple way to avoid this is to just take weapons that compliment each other.  Eg either rate of fire or armour penetrating ones.

I beleive 6th edition is going back to 4th edition for wound allocation.  I am unsure that it will be an improvement though...

[Aldaris]

Bottom line is you need sufficient wound groups to do those things.
 

And according to the 6th ed rumors on warseer, every 5th wound will be targetted IIRC. So 4 casualties are removed by the owner and one by the opponent. Subject to exceptions, elaborations and what have you, but I think that was the gist of it.

[Crimsonsphinx]

I beleive that is how it was in 4th ed Aldaris.

Of course when you are using guard, it usually doesn't matter what gun shoots you.  Most ranged weapons completely negate your save anyway so Finlay doesn't really have to worry about this rule himself!

[Finlay]

Company Commander! (given to me by Aldaris)
Not entirely pleased with him.


Autocannon


I'm trying a few guardsmen with grey armour, so I might need ot be repainting them all if I prefer it.

[Aldaris]

@ Crimson: not quite - in 4th edition only the controlling player removed casualties, which is why the guys with the special weapons and the Sarge would always last until the end. The wound allocation rules were implemented in 5th to remedy that, but obviously introduced a new problem.
If the 6th edition allocation rules really work as rumored that would be a problem for some guard builds - the commisar in big blob squads could be picked out again if enough wounds are inflicted.

@ Finlay: those look great! Very pleased what you did with the commander.
 

And I really need to pick up a third 40K army at some point. Perhaps the new Necrons...? I love getting excited about new stuff. Due to the bash I barely resisted the Grey Knights temptation, we'll see what happens when the next new book comes around.
 

[Finlay]

surely the squaddies could just pick up the special weapon dropped by the dead guy?

In that close up I can see like 3 spots of messiness. Have to tidy them now!

I've finished some grey armour guys, but camera battery has died,so I'll have to put them up tomorrow and see what people think.

[rufus sparkfire]

My solution to being put off 40K by reading about it: don't read about it.

Easy!


The wound allocation thing probably never matters anyway. Maybe it's like the building rules in fantasy, or all that stuff about scary trees made of blood or whatever the hell they put in the terrain rules.


On another matter, I am confused by razorbacks: a transport that you can only fit six people in. What good is that?

Company Commander!

That looks great. I like that model.

Nice cannon thing too.