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Post by shasoevan on Apr 17, 2009 5:34:08 GMT -5
Youdo make a good point their Brian.
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Post by Dr Carnivean on Apr 17, 2009 7:59:50 GMT -5
Actually Brian, I use Gift of Chaos in all my Legion of the Kraken lists, and in about a dozen games or so, I've only even had the opportunity to cast it 3 times and actually turned someone into a spawn only once, so I have to agree that while it might not follow normal rules conventions, it certainly isn't something that's broken and worthy of disdain. The thing with GoC is that you have to be within 2 inches of your target at the start of your turn to use it (and since I'm often mistaken about these kind of things, I'll allow myself cover by saying it could be in the start of the shooting phase, but I'm pretty sure about this one). So in most cases, you have to have already been in combat for a turn if you were charged, or two turns if you did the charging. That's why with one or two casters in my lists with it, I never really got the chance to use it much. Either the other unit was already dead by the time I could use it, or I was. The one time I actually got to turn the librarian into a spawn was because I had forgotten to assault the objective the turn before (costing me the game), so I was sitting right there next to the guy at the start of my turn. There may be ways to build an army that maximizes your opportunities to use it while not giving too much up to do so, I don't think this list is the way to go if you were trying to do that, and there are lot more things in the warhammer world a lot easier to make cheesy broken armies out of (your land raider spam army, half the daemon and vampire counts codex, empire shooty stuff (particularly steam tank), elf shooty stuff, Dark elf shooty and big monster stuff, that 30 point Eldar thing that makes all enemy psychers roll and extra d6, the list goes on) Eric's eldar list would gut this spawn list by turn 3. The war walkers alone would wipe out a thousand sons unit every turn (unless they all have some ridiculous ward save I'm not aware of, as I've never used them. My guess is if they get anything, it's an additional 5+ or maybe a 2+ save from the get-go). My Legion I think would have them wiped out by turn 5 or 6. No rhinos to transport them across the field and no big weapons to soften the other side up while your making your way to them means six units of five are basically going to get picked apart before they even engage, and armies that don't have a lot of shooting are going to have good enough melee troops to wipe out a five man unit (most likely depleted by shooting to 3 or 4) in the first combat round in many cases, so they won't even get to cast the spell. Having the winged daemon princes will help get in there early and possibly make a spawn or two, but without the presence of land raiders, defilers, or predators to occupy people's big guns, those DPs are going to get a mouthful of lascannon, heavy bolter, star cannon, brightlance, multimelta, etc, so at least one will probably get taken out by shooting before it gets into combat. All and all, for ubercheesy armies, I'd say your land raider spam marines are much much worse. With this list you're probably guaranteed to make a spawn or two, but you're most likely going to lose the game.
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Post by bob on Apr 17, 2009 8:29:42 GMT -5
What point? None of those things he lists break core game mechanics, in fact all they do is enable them.
The lists you guys mention don't break any game mechanics or play warhammer differently than anyone else...they simply try to take advantage of 'take-all-comers' lists by overloading one type of weapon system.
Jason, it's 6" at the start of the movement, not 2". That's really not very hard to do, as you say particularly once in combat. Having one of them in a list is unpleasant. Having this many is not playing warhammer anymore, it's playing cheese-hammer.
You guys can play against this list if you want to, I applaud you. I hope you manage to find some fun it. I will continue to choose not to, as I do find it disdainful. It's not designed to be fun, it's designed to be as un-fun as possible on purpose...that's my problem.
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Post by Dr Carnivean on Apr 17, 2009 9:07:11 GMT -5
Usually I agree with you, Bob, but herer I just don' t see any evidence yet to your argument that it's so badly designed or breaks core rules mechanics that nothing else in the game does or to an extent that nothing else in WH does. As to being completely un-fun, I don't see evidence of that either. If you had anecdotal stories of every time you played someone using Gift of Chaos, you had your general and half your army turned into spawn and lost the game horribly, then that would be a different story. I know I can say for instance that every time in 6th ed I played an army with a steam tank (bout 6 or 7 times) I lost badly, and in a 3000 point game watched it eat 2500 of my army on its own and in another game watched it hold up a greater daemon for 10 combat rounds -after of course devouring the nurglings and plaguebearers that had initially charged in with the GD. People on other boards might have a horror story or two about GoC, but were those out of how many games played where it was used? And how many games did they play against a list that had it that they didn't even know about because the person never even had the opportunity to cast it? I do have a lot of first hand experience with it and I can say it's never once influenced a game in the slightest, and if it were anything that I hadn't already painted a model to represent, I would have ditched it awhile ago. Warptime on the other hand, made such a big inpact in the few games that I've started using it, that I think it might be broken (and it costs less than GoT) A lot of my personal experience with the above things could stem from the fact that I'm not that great a player, but it don't think that would be enough to swing the reality that far into the opposite direction of what I've observed from personal experience. I agree that Bri can make some cheesy, un-fun lists (I was the one that lost practically his entire 2000 point force from his 3 land raiders and dreadnaught showing up right in front of me on the first couple turns of the Apocolypse game and spent the rest of the day pretty much doing nothing but watch the rest of my army die) but I just don't think this particular list is one of them.
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Post by bob on Apr 17, 2009 9:23:26 GMT -5
Jason, name one other thing in either WFB or 40k that can eliminate any model (with no targeting restrictions) about 1/3-1/2 the times it's used with no saves of any kind and regardless of how many wounds the target has?
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Post by Dr Carnivean on Apr 17, 2009 11:23:12 GMT -5
Instant model removal has been around for awhile in various forms in GW rulebooks. In second the warp spiders, I think, did it with their template weapons and there was anti-daemonic stuff out there (used by space marines, naturally) that could instakill anything daemonic with no saves regardless of wounds, toughness, etc. Currently the only other things I know of that have it in some form are the grot cannon in 40K and the giant in WFB, and both of those are random effects, so no, I can't think of anything that can do it with that success rate, but I will point out that the success rate doesn't take into account the opportunity to use it, whether the other guy has a psychic hood or that eldar doohicky that adds the extra dice, etc. Even still, I grant you your argument that there is nothing in the game right now that lets you specifically attempt to remove a particular model with no saves, regardless of wounds, and that it does violate the existing WH core rules more than most other things do. I guess my feeling is just that I don't think that automatically makes something bad, cheesy, or broken. GW has made me buy too many editions of their rulebooks in the years I've been playing for me to hold any current GW rules set sacred in my heart or treat it as scripture. At this point I don't even think that THEY have any respect for their rules If someone asked me which was more un-fun to play against; something that totally breaks the existing core rules but generally has only a marginal impact on the game, or something that follows the established rules but is five or six times more powerful than what it should be for it's point cost, I'm going to go with the latter every time. The problem, I think, with math-hammer sometimes, is that it makes things look tougher on paper than they actually are. Being able to insta kill a model 1/3 to 2/3 of the time sounds really great, but when you're only even getting to attempt it one in every three or four games, a single guy with a lascannon is going ultimately remove a lot more models in a game on average than a single guy with the GoC ability, because he can probably shoot it almost every turn that his unit is alive. The lascannon guy will just happen to do it following the conventional warhammer rules. I remember there used to be a big hoopla on the boards about the Casket of Souls, too, because when you first look at it on paper and what it does, you think OMG that's unbelievably powerful. And if it went off every turn or even every other turn it would be. But what the people railing against it were overlooking (and what anyone who has used or played against the casket more than once knows) is that even an army with no casters, no dispel scrolls, and no magic resistance can stop it going off 3 of 6 turns on average just with their two dispel dice, and 2 dispel dice is a very rare army build. And armies that generally have only two dispel dice usually have something like big nasty flying things like my dark elves that will charge the casket on turn 2. It's probably something we'll just have to agree to disagree on. I have a hardness in my heart for the steam tank and a couple of other things in the game, so I understand how some things you just don't ever want to play against because you hate them or have a problem with them. I do, though, think the fact that you can have a five man core unit with a sorcerer in it is uber-cheesy, so we can double-team rant that one if you want
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Post by bob on Apr 17, 2009 11:40:05 GMT -5
I don't see how it's that hard to use. I'm not in a vacuum here, I'm capable of evaluating something's effectiveness without having played with/against it a hundred times. The math-hammer doesn't lie, it's statistics that will work every time, given enough use. I've never been impressed with the Casket, for the reasons you mention, it's statistically not that impressive. 16 casts of Gift is. One steam tank is a pain, I agree with you. Having eight of them would be a bit over the top, don't you think? That's the problem with this list: it's eight steam tanks. Again, I invite you to play him and see how much fun it is to have all your important models spawnified. Hope you have fun! I'll be playing something funner-er.
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Post by Dr Carnivean on Apr 17, 2009 12:36:57 GMT -5
Mm I did forget the mark of tzeentch will let him spam it. And that the TS sorcerers would have the mark and be able to spam it as well. Yes 16 is definitely over the top, but as I mentioned, I think it's more of the problem of the Thousand Sons letting you have a sorcerer in a five man unit troop choice (at least I thought all of the special marines were troops - I know berzerkers, plaguemarines, and noisemarines are) You need 10 to have a heavy weapon, so to me, letting them have sorcerers at five is pretty lame. Letting any unit champ be a sorcerer to begin with is screwy, I think. If he dropped a unit to give them all rhinos, I would say it was a potentially broken list, but as it stands currently, the Kraken Legion does not fear it. He'll find defilers and dreadnaughts very hard to spawnify Or to put it another way Dangerous to your starfleet, admiral - not to this battle station (Course the guy that said that got him and his station blowed up an hour and half later, but I digress)
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Post by bob on Apr 17, 2009 12:50:58 GMT -5
Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.
And he doesn't have to worry about your defilers or dreads....your dreads will blow up your defilers then blow up each other.
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Post by Dr Carnivean on Apr 17, 2009 17:32:55 GMT -5
lol Unkind.. True, but unkind Oh, and Yes, I am going to try and work it into every single thread on this forum Peter Cushing was/is a god to anyone who ever routed for the villain in a movie.
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Post by shasoevan on Apr 18, 2009 5:36:41 GMT -5
I though I was going crazy, I saw that pic on one thread and it was on a different one.
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