Sunday, February 10, 2013

Next week and beyond...

So, next week we play that Crusade of Fire game with multiple steps...  750 points and I have to keep a legal army...  So, either I keep playing my Deathwing and field an 11 man army or...  Well I guess I could field a Librarian, 2 Tactical Squads and "other"...  But not sure I can move fast enough, nor am I confident I could survive long enough to even get to the center of the table.  If we go by the rules in the book, I field Belial and simply teleport to the entrance and then enter the bunker on turn one...  Needing the second "Troop", I will likely only be able to field 2 min size Deathwing squads, some weapon upgrades and...  Maybe a Terminator Librarian?  Or just a really tooled out couple of squads...  Then the lads will have to survive the tunnel fight.  Only thing I really dread is that the scenario was clearly NOT written with a lot of armies in mind...  Thinking of the ones that can create more "Troops" or that can simply keep bringing the ones they have back from the dead ("Send in the next wave" for the IG).  I don't think it will be as much a problem with the only objective hopefully NOT being anywhere really near the entrances...  It was REALLY a disappointing end to the last multi player game with 2 of the 3 teams having the ability to simply appear right on top of the damn objectives on the last turn...   Really felt like we played out the whole game for nothing...  Hoping this one is different...

Kind of brings me to where I am with the game itself.  Maybe we have been playing the Forgeworld stuff for long enough that we have a bit more available to us WRT Fliers and defense against them...  The Hyperion missile turrets are cheap and REALLY powerful...  Not as powerful I think as the Fliers themselves are, or at least the Fliers we see on the table...  Vendettas, Heldrakes,Necrons the occasional Storm Raven and...  Yeah, that's pretty much it.  The ones that have come out in the 6th Ed other than the Heldrake are pretty expensive and weak overall...  So, probably what was intended and well balanced.  Problem is that the ones that are coming up from the 5th edition are simply too powerful and cheap in comparison.   Maybe they'll update this all in the upcoming "Flier Compendium" coming up next week, but being the cynic I am, I suspect it will simply be reprinted rules and nothing at all new..  No points adjustments, as GW is loathe to make changes on the fly, even to save their own cash cow game...  To a point I can see that as some games I have played in the past had the feel of perpetual "beta" as the developers kept making changes on the fly, FAQs became the rulebook, and that probably killed the system...  But I think that not making changes and NOT admitting that there might be a problem will kill this game.

I have to wonder if the developers and play testers are playing the same game we are really...  I know in typical English fashion, GW holds "competitive play"  in a great deal of disdain...  (yes, I'm mostly Scottish... Some English, Irish, etc., but mostly Highlander :-) )...  A lot of things do not really make sense...  Assault Cannons being the one that sticks out to me at the moment assembling Deathwing...  At one time, it WAS the single most powerful weapon in the game.  3 follow fire dice, Str 8, -5 save modifier and d12 wounds per hit?  Not as bad as the original rules where it was just a "keep rolling until you roll a 1"...  It would keep firing until you ran out of targets or failed to hit or wound...  2nd edition was insane (the first rules I have up there) where you could put 2 of them on a Dreadnought...  Now, they are still priced at a huge premium, one of the most expensive weapons, but Str 6, AP 4 unless it Rends...  4 shots...  "Eh" is the best thing I think I can say about it.  Not strong enough to do much against anything but the lightest Vehicles, not enough to deny 3+ Armor saves in general...  Not AAA...  So, really looking at it as someone who is good at math and actually plays the game this is just something that makes no sense whatever.  Seem that they are costing it in that it has the potential to do 4 wounds at AP 2 to "whatever"...  But that's a LOT of 6's to roll.  Just not happening.

And of course the "meta" or design philosophy we are more or less forced into with this edition.  Scoring units only really, and the Armies with strong Scoring options have a much easier time these days.  IG, GK and Necrons are all really easy to field these days...  The armies with the ability to make things Scoring like DA or Marines/Chaos are also pretty good, if more limited with the choices being made for the player if they choose the options...  I guess these days when I am building an army, if it is NOT scoring, I have to have a REALLY good reason to bring it at all before I seriously consider them...  Liking my BA with lots of choices as "Troops", but with all of the "can never score" ones really they are a bit worse off than most other Armies...  But Jump Infantry is pretty good as a Scoring option, at least locally...  Eh, too tired right now to go further, but something to expand on I think...

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