Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Iron Hands Venerable Dreads

Haven't seen any anyone post about this.  Land Raiders seems to be the mainstream first choice for abusing It Will Not Die, but I think Venerable Dreads may be the better option.  

The core of the list would be two Master of the Forges, two basic Techmarines, and 4 or 5 venerable dreads. The venerable upgrade will make it difficult to one-shot the dreads.  Then on your turn you have a 5+ and a 4+(3+ with harness) from a Techmarine to restore hull points.  Throw in all those Bolster Defenses and maybe a Skyshield and those Dreads become pretty survivable.

Another bonus to using all those Techmarines and MotF is they can tank for Tactical squads with their 2+ armor saves.

Iron Hands Marines w Allied Ultramarines - 1850 
Master of the Forge w/Conversion beamer
Master of the Forge w/Conversion beamer
Tigurius
Techmarine
Techmarine
Dreadnought w/ 2x TL-Autocannons, Venerable 
Dreadnought w/ 2x TL-Autocannons, Venerable 
Dreadnought w/ Plasma Cannon, TL-Autocannons, Venerable 
Dreadnought w/ Plasma Cannon, TL-Autocannons, Venerable 
10x Tactical Squad w/ Flamer, Lascannon
10x Tactical Squad w/ Flamer, Lascannon
10x Ultramarines Tactical Squad w/ Flamer, Plasma Cannon, Verteran Sergeant
Thunderfire Cannon
Thunderfire Cannon
Skyshield Landing Platform


Sunday, September 15, 2013

According to the Marine iBook codex, these are legal

Some fun with the broken Force Requisition tool.




I'm going to assume undefinedptr is a special piece of wargear that gives the player the ability to crash their opponents codex and reduce all of their models to 0 for every stat.




Thursday, September 12, 2013

Fail Requisition; not a good collection manger; not a good army builder; not really sure what it is

GW eventual sorted out their Apple book store upload issues and the version of the Space Marine codex with the Force Requisition feature is available...without the ability to add units from Elites or Fast Attack.  Those aren't really important right?  They swear we'll get them in a few days.

On the surface the interface isn't too bad.  It could be the basis of a basic quick and easy army builder tool if it weren't missing some key features.  It lacks a strait up list view of the units you've added.  It also has no way to edit a unit once created other than to delete and recreate it.  

They say it's a collection manager, but its structured pretty badly for that.  Collections don't always match legal unit sizes and composition.  How do you represent those 20 extra plasma guns you have from the bygone days of 4th edition?  It doesn't have a way to specify what version of a model you are using,  Is it a 2nd ed Tech Marine model, or a 3rd ed Tech Marine?  These are all the features you'd want if you where managing your collection of Space Marines collected over a decade in the hobby.  And who gives a hell about points in your collection?  My closet isn't limited to only holding 4000 points of Space Marines.. 

The UI is structured better to be an army builder, but with a few fatal issues in that regard.  You can't set a target point size, your can't make more than one list, and you can add allies(not even allies from the same codex using another Marine Chapter).  It's also annoying in that any new unit you create is not added to the point totals until after it is saved, and, as I mentioned above, immutable from that point forward. 

Software is hard, and I pity the poor dev who had to develop this in whatever scripting support apple provides in their iBook framework.  But this seems like something that should have never been advertised and released.  It feels like some prototype a dev wrote as a proof of concept, and some manager decided to ship as a real product. 

It's disappointing really.  A fully integrated in codex army builder would be the killer app for digital rule books.  

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

iBooks Space Marine Codex pulled from iTunes

From the digital division's Facebook Page:
Hey everyone,

The enhanced edition of Codex: Space Marines will be unavailable for a short time while we resolve the upload issue with the new Force Requisition feature. We are working with Apple to solve this as soon as possible.

We realise this might have caused some inconvenience for you, so to thank you for your patience, we’ve added bonus content to the codex - all the Space Marine Datasheets from the Apocalypse rulebook and the Black Templars ones from Warzone Armageddon.

If you’ve already bought the enhanced edition of the codex, then you’ll be able to update your copy automatically once the codex is back on sale.

Thanks again for you patience while we work hard to get this fixed.
I’ll update you as soon as we have more news.

- Eddie

Yay, I get some free stuff I need another book to understand and use.  For a version of the game I avoid like the plague.

Monday, September 9, 2013

Space Marine Codex Review: Get your 3+ on

I'm still a little pissed about the iCodex bait and switch on the army builder tool.   There's apparently been a Facebook message from GW's digital division stating that "technical difficulties" with apple prevented the version with the new tool from being uploaded.  They say it should be up some time this week. We'll see.

So Heldrakes still exist, and Marines got no Interceptor units.  This is a serious problem, but otherwise the codex looks solid.  

Chapter Tactics

I like pretty much all the various Chapter Tactics.  The Ultramarines version is a little bit of a let down compared to the rumors.  It's more situation than the others, but its better than a kick in the teeth.  I guess it's OK since Tigurius is stupidly awesome to make up for it.  My favorite is probably Iron Hands for army wide 6+ FNP and It Will Not Die on all characters and vehicles.

I prefer the Chapter Tactics that don't force your hand at army creation (Ultras, Iron Hands, Imperial Fists), but you can make some nasty lists around the others too.

Warlord Traits

Not the best, not the worst.

Relics

There's a storm shield that gives you eternal warrior for 50 points.  And some other decent but overly expensive stuff.

Wargeer

Grav weapons are nasty, but skip-able on most units.  On Tacticals it just doesn't gel with their range bands and the rest of their shooting.  Do you really want to get a 10 man tactical squad within 18 inches of a T6 2+ nasty for only two shots?  Take plasma instead.  Bike mobility may make them worth it, especially since you can get two.  The pistol seems to be a bit more universally usable but still expensive for a single shot.

Relic blades are way over costed.  You don't pay 25 points for a melee weapon unless it's AP2.

HQ's

Tigurius wins at being a special character in the Marine Codex.  He's got re-rolls out the wazoo, 3 powers, and only 165 points.  None of the others seemed to have changed much in relative strength, but I may have been too blinded by Tigurius's awesomeness to notice.

The generic chapter master is much improved.  20 more points, but +1 to attacks and wounds.  His stat-line now matches Calgar's.  I personally like Iron Hands Masters with Sheild Eternal, Artificer Armor, and a Thunder Hammer.  4 wounds, 2+ , 3++, 6+ FNP, It Will Not Die, and Eternal warrior for 230 points.

The librarian came down in points, everything else had minor adjustments.  Techmarines are one per HQ, and don't take up a force org slot.  Still 50 points base for a 1 wound model.  Space Marine Servitors are no longer the worst unit in the game.  Honor Guard got cheaper, but not enough to make them worth it.  

Troops

Tacticals getting cheaper was a lie.  While the base cost came down, Veteran Sergeants and weapon options are no longer free.  So a 10 man unit with Veteran Sarge, flamer. and missile is actually 10 points more expensive.  It is fair to say that building the unit is more flexible.  

Scouts are cheaper and can take Land Speeder Storms as dedicated transports.  Stil BS3.  Sniper scouts still have a place in some lists.

Elites

Cost adjustments all around here.  I still think Vanguards are still too costly.  Legion of the Damned are a lot more interesting.  Not that much more expensive than Sterngaurd for a 3++, and all their ranged attacks ignore cover.

Fast Attack
I think Assault Marines came down in price enough to justify taking a unit.  At least in Ultramarine lists where you can buff them for a turn.   Bikes are nice too.  GW really wants you to buy bikes this edition.  They must have really high profit margins given that the molds are at least 15 years old.

Heavy
Shooty Centurions are nice.  The grav-cannon setup has range issues, but I think their justified in order to deal with Riptide and Wraith Knight spam.  Their point cost and lack of invul make them not quite over the top.  Their a good unit to run in an Iron Hands detachment since the sergeant gets It Will Not Die as part of the mix.

I really like 65 point Whirlwinds.  Especially when the tournament meta relies so much on hiding weak-sauce troops behind terrain in order to win games.

I'll pass on the new AA tanks.  Ground based AA needs interceptor.  Using your own fliers for flyer defense is a better option when you don't have it.

Conclusions
What to do about Heldrakes and cover ignoring Riptide Ion blasts is the trouble.  I'm not seeing any good counters here and marines need em badly since the 3+ save is all they have going for them.  It's just like the previous codexes where they give out a few shiny new toys to cover up that they didn't fix any of the basic structural problems with the army or the edition.  Still the band-aids are enough to get them onto the table at least.  And the grav weapons are enough of a hard counter to make players think twice about spamming Riptides and Waithknights.  Unfortunately tying up hard counters in specific armies is not a good strategy for overall game balance.


Saturday, September 7, 2013

Warning about the iBooks Marine codex!!

As far as I can tell from the copy I downloaded it doesn't include the promised "Force Requisition" collection management/army builder tool.  This is very annoying as that was the sole reason I bought the iBooks version over the ebook one.

I'll let you know if the situation changes.