Monday, July 9, 2012

6th Edition 3 Games In

I got a few games of six edition over the weekend.  I won two and lost one.  My initial 6th edition Marine list turned out to be light on troops, but I think I can make it better.

I have to say I really like the Storm Talon.  It's a fairly versatile gun platform.  The 360 degree arc on the Assault Cannon gives it more movement and firing options than most of the other fliers that have exclusively hull mounted guns.  Though these are the halcyon days before people adjust their armies to really deal with fliers.  Talons do have trouble cracking the armor of the bigger armor 12 fliers.  But that could just be my epic bad dice leading me to hit with my typhoon missile launchers only one out of every six shots.    All-in-All, it is a pretty balanced unit, and I don't see me running marine lists without one or two.

I had fun with the new psychic powers.  I rolled up Hallucination in my first game and got a Strike Squad to hit itself in the face with it's own force weapons.  Psychic Shriek also turned out to be equally fun, nearly wiping out a unit of Trukk Boyz.  I was trying the powers with an Epistolary, but I don't think the upgrade is really necessarily.  I never seemed to get two powers that would actually work well cast on the same turn.  The effects of the Warp Charge 2 powers also don't seem to really justify the 50 point cost of the upgrade compared to what the Warp Charge 1 powers do.  For Eldar, I'd probably take the upgrade to Mastery Level 2.  It's only 20 points there, and Divination is loaded with enough Warp Charge 1 buffs to make 2 powers a turn useful. 

I played a list with some Tau allies, and while I liked having a pair of Broadsides in my Marine army, I think overall it degrades the efficiency of the list.  Basically I was bringing along 500 points of Tau to get those Broadsides.  With the points I spent on the Firewarriors and Suits, I could of brought along more Tac squads and Devastators.   I could run the mandatory troops and HQ for the detachment at bare minimum, but that would even be less efficient.  They would be dead weight in the army, and I'd still end up paying essentially 250 points for those two Broadsides.

If you're not careful your allies can really negativity affect efficiency of your list.  This goes especially for imperial codexes.  Any allied unit needs to be the prime choices from their codex or covering a weak spot in your own list.

I'm still playing around with what I want to do with my lists.  My Eldar are still in limbo.  I'm sort of intrigued by weapons platforms.  Unfortunately, everything is still just too expensive.  For everything Eldar can do, just about every newer codex can do better for 20% less points(I'll stop complaining about Eldar for now).   I think I can sit on both my Tau and Eldar until we see if August is going to bring another wave of fliers.  For my marines, I'm thinking about seeing what I can do with Vindicators and foot Terminators in this edition.


6 comments:

  1. Had some good games did you? Good. I liked the tau for you as the blacksun filters make a difference. Could you just take a hammerhead instead and save some points? It can move and shoot. The firewarriors are great but I feel you need a way to buff their cover saves. And if the ymagrls wouldn't have been there it would have been tougher. :)

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    1. The Hammerhead and the two Broadsides cost roughly the same points, and the Broadsides are the better buy for the points.

      It's not that the cost of the Broadsides that is so bad, it's the cost of the Fire Warriors and the Commander that I need to buy first. I have to either sink a lot of points into the Tau, or none at all to get the most use out of them.

      I'm still debating the issue with myself.

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    2. Just buy a tau commander for 30 points and have him join the fire wariors.

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    3. Suit commanders start at 50, and you have to add three guns or systems.

      Or do you mean Ethereals? You do know that when one of those dies, I have to leadership test all the Tau units to make sure they don't run off the board?

      Anyway, even if I do that, an Ethereal and six Fire Warriors cost 90 points. Add that to the 180 points for the Broadsides themselves, and you've spent about 270 points for two BS 3 twin linked rail guns and a very fragile scoring unit.

      I'm not sure it's worth it to go that direction.

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  2. Good post, man.

    I've thought about allying Space Marines into my Tau to get a Storm Talon, but I'm not sure it's really worth the effort to bring some kind of HQ, some Troops and the ST (both in $$, time to assemble/paint AND in points).

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    1. I think I like Orks better as a Tau ally. They essentially replace your Kroot. They do the same job; only better and cheaper. I've been thinking about running two big squads, a power fist warboss, and a Dakka Jet with my Tau.

      I'm waiting to see if we get fliers for more armies in August before I buy anything else.

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