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As for them not being grimdark enough... they are religious fanatics proficient in setting up extermination camps and using "lesser" species as their shock troops, that's a solid 8 on my grim-dark meter.
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Again, I would look at Tyranids because I like the classic, devouring xeno swarm adversary, but next would possibly be Tau.
I greatly prefer the "holdouts against chaos triumphant" that is the AoS. Even if I dont play Order, this is a narrative that speaks more to my nature.
Besides, my (being built) FEC will be great defenders of the Mortal Realms...so who can hold it against them if they need meat for the tables...
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Actually, as my army is built on the foundations of a SW kill team, I pictured them as a band of survivors of Armageddon wars, that were joined by some AWOL troops, local gangs, and renegade assassins. They salvage whatever equipment they came across, and only take on missions where there's something in it for them. A close analogy is a medieval-like mercenary company for the highest bidder. Also, in the beginning I played several games against Steel Legion, leaded by Commissar Yarrick. The narrative was just so obvious - my dudes are deserters pursued by troops loyal to the empire. In the near future, they are likely to visit Necromunda and fill their ranks with local underhive scum
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Because if their doctrine, Cadians are a perfect fit for trench warfare - turtling and cowardice. You just feel pain and discomfort every time you have to move a unit.
Lascannons and auto-cannons in infantry squads ruled. I fielded a particularly deadly veteran squad with snipers and a lascannon.
On the flip side, regular lasguns saw way less action than before. We both used nacked squads to seize objectives and create bubbles, but that was pretty much it.
Artillery is also devastating and worked much better than tanks, armored vehicles and sentinels. If you're playing against Cadians, you need to find a way take out those Basilisks, Wyverns and mortar teams. But especially Basilisks and Wyverns.
I did not realize that the new Codex not only lowered the Valkyries pts cost, it also gave them +1 to shoot if they are hovering. That is, if your Cadian Valkyrie is stationary, you hit on 3+, re-rolling 1 (as opposed to old 4+ without re-rolls). There's very little reason not to equip it with a lascannon. And now you have to choose whether it enters the combat as an alpha strike transport or a weapon platform. Crazy stuff. But again, if you're facing squads armed with lascannons, that Valkyrie will be lucky to last for more than a turn, hovering or not.
Bullgryns can definitely lock a Leman Russ in a close combat. You will not kill it unless you're very lucky, but it will not kill the Bullgryns either. I sandwiched commander Pask this way and rendered him useless for the game.
There're two awesome, awesome stratagems. Take cover and Overlapping Fields of Fire. My favorite being the first one, because I used it with scions. I dropped a 10-men squad with plasma guns into a cover position. They dispatched a sentinel and a squad of regular troops on their turn. On my opponent's turn, when all guns were aimed at them, I used "Take Cover", which grants +1 to their save roll. Their armor is 4+, 3+ because they are in cover. With this stratagem (which costs only 1 CP), they had a 2+ save for the duration of the shooting phase. Basically, he was targeting 10 terminators.
Because these stratagems are so cool, I recommend taking a Warlord trait that gives a chance to recover spent CPs. And the heirloom that gives a chance to gain CPs when your opponent is spending them.
As for the Assassins, I'm still happy with Eversor/Callidus combo. They are very effective against squads of guardsmen, in particular if you manage to deploy them in such way that they don't draw too much overwatch fire when charging.
The game was a lot of brutal fun, but we both felt Cadians (or any IG army) are now noticeably overpowered compared to other factions. Before the new Codex, I was barely losing any games, now I am afraid that people will start to refuse to play against guard.
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- Michael Barnes
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I finally got a Basilisk. Man, that kit sucks. The tried and true Chimera chassis is fine, it's the Basilisk parts that are no good. Like, under the platform, that big void space- WTF.
I built my poor Valkyrie with a lascannon. I'm not sure why you would go with the Multilaser there. Actually, I can't see what the point of the Multilaser is on anything.
Are you running all plasma on your Scions? It seems like EVERYBODY runs plasma on EVERYTHING. It's like, default choice. I kind of hate that. It's effective, but I like having different weapons. I feel like GW knew how stonky plasma was this edition by giving the Primaris a full damn squad of plasma dudes with not one, not two but three different types of plasma guns.
I think my favorite unit right now is in Death Guard...there's a new figure that came out, Foul Blightspawn. At first I was like, eh, another toxic/disease dude. But it turns out he's awesome. The fluff is great. They are Plague Marines that have been specially selected to go to the Plague Planet to learn how to brew diseases. So this guy walks out into the fight with a gigantic keg and pump that are implanted in his body attached to a sprayer hose. He basically trots out and sprays everything with his homebrew diseases. The hose is Assault D6 and the strength is...2D6! And it does -3AP/3 damage! That is outrageous...at least when it works! It's a very Skaven-y sort of thing...it can be STUPIDLY POWERFUL- if Knuffle smiles on you (a lot), you are looking at 6 S12 shots all at -3AP and 3 damage. Nonsensical!
Of course, I've not been that lucky with him...usually he flops because without transport, he's slow and kludgy. But one day, his time to shine will come.
OH, he also STINKS. He has a smelly aura that cancels a charging unit's fight. And he has super powerful Unholy Death's Head grenade, a 2D6 blight grenade carried by a Nurgling.
If they put this thing in Cataphractii armor and gave him Teleport Strike...he would be so overpowered it's ridiculous.
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Think about it. A scion equipped with plasma is now more expensive than adding a lascannon to your troops squad. And that lascannon will re-roll to hit if used properly.
I think it was a right move to nerf plasma by upping its cost, too. Before It was sorta inefficient not to go all plasma. Now I am considering stuff like meltaguns and flamethrowers.
And I think that with storm-trooper doctrine the hot-shot volley guns are pretty awesome. The thing is that you need to get the right balance of anti-heavy armor, anti-medium armor and crowd control weapons. And before plasma guns were kind of good for everything.
Man, I was wondering if that stupid gap on my vintage Basilisk was because the previous owner screwed up the assembly.
As for autocannons, imho they're not worth of another heavy weapons kit acquisition. They were kinda useless before, and now I guess they're better. But not better than lascannons or mortars. By the way, yes, Wyvern outclasses mortars, but they're still cheap and useful. And Master of Ordnance is at the top of most useless units list (unfortunately). He gives a more restricted re-roll to hit than the one Cadians already have with their doctrine.
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- Michael Barnes
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I _love_ this set. I think it will replace the game mats for 1500pt+ games. It's sized "just right" for my Danish table, with some overhang that doesn't matter because it's stiff. The building foundations match up with my Pegasus Hobby ruins, and it's easy to throw out a little blown-to-shit avenue for a pickup game in no time. On the other side, I like using the Shadow War terrain and all of my industrial stuff for a sort of worksite like feel. The terrain set isn't really enough if you're getting serious about playing, but if you have no terrain to start with, this is a great way to get some on the table. GW sells this with the Know No Fear starter, and that is a great way to get into the game.
It also comes with three fun campaign-linked missions, I really enjoyed running through them although the no vehicles/no monsters rules make me sad. They are all 50pl/1000pt deals. I've played through them with Primaris and Death Guard and they were fun for both sides.
It's a little expensive (I got it for $65, which is like $23 off retail), but I think it is better than any of the mats I have and it folds right up and goes back into a sensibly sized box- that holds the terrain too.
I've actually been really enjoying playing Primaris in general lately...there's all kinds of internet grousing about them, but so far I've found them fun to play. I run them like the elite, stormtrooper-like force they are supposed to be. 5 man units outfitted for their specific roles. So Stalkers for my long range guys, Autos for the assualt guys, and plain old Bolt RIfles for the line troops. The biggest surprise has been Aggressors- I really don't like these models much, but they have proven themselves time and again as a KILLER crowd control/countercharge units. 2d6 automatic flamer hits at 8" range. Firing TWICE if they didn't move. That is a potential fo r 24 shots auto-hitting PER MODEL. WFun stuff. I think I want another set to build with the Boltstorm Gauntlets- a unit of three not moving puts out _36_ shots- and you park Guilliman nearby and you are rerolling every miss. That is BRUTAL. it's only 4/0/1 on the damage profile, but against GEQs, that is a unit of ten models easily erased from the table.
Reivers have been fun too, but I really think they needed a little more punch in CC. They can't stand up to TEQs in CC reliably, which they need to do to effectively deepstrike and deal with threats.
Hellblasters are, oddly, the top heavy support choice and the best way to interdict armor. It's somewhat appropriate, because a Primaris army really needs to be infantry-focused. So far, the only other pure Primaris choices other than infantry are the Redemptor and the Repulsor, so these plasma slingers take on the role of HWTs or similar lascannon-y type unit.
I've been enjoying Death Guard too though, they are a really fun army. I've been running a 50pl Poxwalker gang with Typhus leading two units of 20 poxies in Rhinos. Two units ride out to objectives, clown car out, and Typhus drops the homer into support them. Poxies are incredibly fragile (7+ save, sad face) but Typhus gives them survivability and more damage output. I also bring some Blightlord Terminators in this army with mixed arms, one Drone, and a Lord of Contagion.
Word of advice- the Data card sets are GREAT. Having your discipline powers and strategems out on the table is such a benefit.
In other news, I played against a friend that was running a super-competitive Smite spam list- Magnus, Brimstone Horrors out the wazoo, Malefic Lords...that was some motherfucking bullshit. It really wasn't much fun. The competitive level game is just so much different than "I like these tanks, I want to use those and this cool looking dude that has a neat back story". Which is what I like.
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- Michael Barnes
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But yeah, with 40k, look up “how should I build <<model name>> and you usually get all of these power gamer answers...then that leads to all the mathhammer charts, optimal builds, and all of that crap instead of “I thought the plasma cannon looked the coolest” or “I needed another anti-armor weapon”. It’s like with the Cadian Heavy Weapons teams- people say not to bother with the rocket launcher...but I really wanted a rocket launcher team, so that is what I built.l
I’ve been told that building my Aggressors with the flamers was a mistake..but I had no other units in that army with flame weapons so I wanted them to be my flamethrower dudes.
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And, the worst thing of all, it makes the game considerably less fun. Yeah, sure, after 20+ games I got to a good list that tends to table opponents on turn 2, but not enjoying the game as I used to (and the tabled person even less so). So I think about taking it back a couple of notches, but it is not really working. That goddamn Basilisk and the Wyvern... I'm too used to these bad boys now. It is really hard to break the well-oiled mean warmachine I've spent months building, or even to change my frame of mind to pure "fun mode", as much as I want games to be fun. At least I'm not running Conscripts, duh.
To an extent, the fault is also with the fellow players. Like when you lose, the first thing you usually hear is that "you should switch this flamethrower to plasma" or whatever (but usually plasma), and when you win it is usually "it sucks that you can take so many plasmas, I hope they fix this in chapter approved". I realize the constant bitching is part of warhammer culture, too. It was way cooler when the new edition had just landed and people really didn't have a clue of what worked and what didn't, and I had a lot of fun figuring that out, without any dogmatic contaminations. Maybe we'll have some more of that with Chapter Approved.
And, by the way, it is much, much worse when you read the lists people play in tournaments.
I can't talk about Aggressors, but as for those rocket launchers on Cadians... yeah, they're supposedly sub-optimal, but they're still good weapons and Cadians are already really strong so you probably can afford them.
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- Michael Barnes
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But yeah, I actually like reading the mathhamer/statistics navel-gazing...it's part of it. And I _do_ want effective, useful units that are exciting and fun to play with...and it's not fun doing something stupid like running a gunline with 5+ BS units. I try to build with fun, versatility, visual appeal and effectiveness all in the mix. I don't magnetize. But I do "counts as" a bit, and that's fine.
It does make the game less fun, and it really gets away from that wild, goofy tone that underpins everything regardless of the layers of Grimdark on it. Warhammer is GOOFY. It always has been. It's why there's room for Orks and weapons that blow up on a 1 in it. When I play with friends or at home, we just lean into all of that and enjoy. Running lists that would probably be laughed off the table at a tournament. But then it does become clear when you have something that is just running the table that the other player may not be enjoying having the shit shot out of them with the Basilisk, and they may not have an effective counter. There again, at home, I just lay off the massacre and give them a sporting chance.
But with that Smite spam thing...it's just bullshit and it needs to be fixed or tweaked a bit. 50 Brimstone Horrors, which are like the ULTIMATE pee-on unit next to Gretchin, suddenly have tremendous power to just dish out mortal wounds.
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- Michael Barnes
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