Tuesday, January 21, 2014

6th Ed Wolves clarification, minor Tau Rant

It occurred to me after I posted last that I sounded a lot like I was just complaining and did not intend to actually run the Wolves in sixth edition…  Not true at all.  It is just looking to be more of a “challenge” than I had anticipated…  Frankly I am considering them and my Fleshtearers at this point.  The FT I think can compete more readily simply because they HAVE a flier and at least initially, the fast moving Deep Strike based force can surprise a lot of folks.  Wolves?  I guess I’ll see. 

The one thing I am far less sure that I can deal with is the Tau and the apparently completely legal ability to add an IC to a “unit” consisting of a Riptide and its wargear.  Because the “wargear” consists of drones and thus “models”, this means that the MC is no longer a “unit of one” and thus is apparently eligible to have IC(s) join it.  So, back to the 5th Ed wound juggling and attendant stupidity.  And of course, there is the new Void Shield that may or may not confuse this situation…  This is putting me in a difficult situation as the League Organizer…  It is technically legal, just REALLY stupid.  Causing more arguments and more than one player just quit the game rather than argue the stupidity.  It would be one thing if this were something that were equally applied and EVERY army could do something of the sort, but right now there is really only one army that can do this effectively…  TECHNICALLY, the Wolves could do this with a Lone Wolf, his wolf buddies and then adding their uber-characters to the mix…  “Eh” at best there.  Most people shrug and ignore that…  The new MCs with ICs that would grant amazing bonuses that were CLEARLY never playtested correctly or accounted for in terms of the cost?  This is a game breaking problem.  The simple fix is that if a unit begins as a single model unit, it is ALWAYS a single model unit, wargear being a model or no has no effect on this designation.  Or declare that ICs cannot join MCs, no matter what.  Or alternately, let everyone do it.  I’m sure Wraithlords or Wraith Knights joined by Farseers or Grey Knight Dreadknights being joined by any number of their ICs wouldn’t be an issue J…  Or Tyranid MCs?  Yeah, so making it equal and closing the loophole being exploited seems the best case all around.  Will GW do it?  I doubt it.  I’m going to look at what the major TOs come up with and I guess our local group will use that as an official FAQ to house rule the game…  OK, I guess I was a bit sidetracked by a short rant there..

Got in an actual game last night with my Wolf Legion list…  How different than the 40K Wolves?  Not really sure…  My list was:
Praetor (Paragon Blade, etc., “Pride of the Legion”)
Forge Lord (Rad Grenades)
Primus Medacae (SP?  Centurion upgraded to Medic, AA and PS)
Cataphractii (10, Plasma Blaster and Reaper, various other weapons)
  Spartan (Cataphractii Transport, Ceremite upgrade)
Veteran Tactical Squad (HB, ML, SGT w/AA and PS)
  Rhino (Havoc Launcher)
Mortis DN (2 * TL LC)
Facing an old friend returning to the game after a long time away…  He brought an Iron Hands list with loads of DNs…  His Tac Squads were his Troops and they mostly stayed behind in Terrain camping objectives.  He had a Librarian in Terminator Armor with a Terminator Assault Squad (TH/SS) who combined with one of the DNs wrecked the Spartan…  Then the Cataphractii led out by the 3 ICs hidden in came out to deal with the new Terminators…  The Terminator suits were all remarkably resilient as I had one even survive to the end of the game.  I need to put more “real” weapons in the mix as the loadout with too many Power Swords and even Axes simply did not do well against an enemy DN.  We were locked in combat for a long time until the Chain Fist finally tore it apart.

Somehow we wound up drawing with him getting First Blood (my Spartan), both of our Warlords dying and I had Line Breaker.  We each camped one Objective and one was contested after 7 turns…  Good game, and glad his first 6th ed game was against my friendly Legion list as opposed to a Tau or Eldar death list…


Did I learn anything useful for my 40K Wolves?  Yes, I think so…  Logan might be leading my forces out or Bran Redmaw with a load of Wolf Guard…  Logan makes them Troops, and the Special Rules he grants might be amusing.  The DNs are actually fairly good these days…  At least the ones with enough shots.  The 2*TL LC Mortis was amazing, coming in on turn 4, but killing a DN each turn until time ran out.  I cannot field that with the Wolves unfortunately, but it has me thinking…  If the Tau stupidity continues, allied Grey Knights with a Vindicare Assassin and the GK Rifleman might be amusing…  Or maybe someday soon my Wolves will be allowed to field a competitive list using the stuff the rest of the Imperium gets…

4 comments:

  1. Honestly I'm tired of everyone pissed and moaning about an ic with an mc. Tyranids had been doing it since their fifth ed book and no one moaned.
    Its been in the rules for almost nine years now, get over yourself. I say fine to not using it if psykers were never allowed to cast divination on friendly units. The tau commander with relic simulates prescience and perfect timing, but is worse because it only functions in the shooting phase instead of all phases like the powers do.
    And it still only effects one unit at a time, and is limited by his movement, not thrown 12" like the powers. Or 24" for eldar. And its not like tau pay 200 points and give up one of their only BS5 models to do, god no, its just free and magical. :/

    And wolves have no room to talk with their jaws-remove-all-tau-from-play-wolf power, which only really works because of 6th edition technicality.

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    1. But in all seriousness, what do you say to new or returning players when they are faced up against the Tau or Taudar army that is built to min/max and just wipe armies off the table? "Well, it's legal, so..."? I don't think there is much dissension were I to say that those two books are currently overpowered, and with Allies, etc. the situation gets worse. And the kid wanting to play his new Tyranids or DA against that had best just get used to losing?

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  2. How exactly is it worse? Is there a good chance the expensive model can kill itself? Are the powers a random roll that they HAVE to get somehow? Also, how many Marine Librarians can cast Div these days? And of course it is usually fielded with the special "Earth Caste" BS that by an odd chance pretty well negates the Riptide disadvantage for overcharging :-)

    Yes, Jaws is still broken.... If only the Tau had a magic "Immune to Magic" item... Oh, wait... And of course, Jaws is short ranged, requires a few rolls to cast, etc... And of course, it still is a roll... :-) I tend to use Living Lightning myself, but I'm strange...

    Too many "exceptions" to the basic game rules break the game... Just my opinion of course...

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