So, obviously the new FAQ's are up. I'm not going to go into a deep analysis here ... there are plenty of blogs doing it now who are more oriented toward it.
First impact on those of you building Dark Angels lists:
All of your tactical squads should get 10 points more expensive.
Whether you're spamming tacticals, or trying to play around with salvo, your range capabilities against units just took a substantial dive in the early game. The reason for this is a unit of bolter marines can no longer kill any models that are 25+" away from them.
So, take a situation where you have 10 guys with salvo up, and a target infantry squad with 10 opposing models. If 2 models are 24" away, and the other 8 are 25+ away, YESTERDAY you could kill up to 10 with your shooting. TODAY and into the future, you can only kill 2.
In comes the Heavy Bolter. No, it doesn't benefit from Salvo, but it fires 3 S5 shots stationary vs. 4 S4 shots from the salvo. It is obviously better than a non-salvo bolter. It can be snap fired, even if that won't cause much damage, when on the move.
Spending 10 points to give each tac squad (Even if you're spamming naked tacs) a Heavy Bolter is now a BIG DEAL. Doing so ensures you can kill most models in a target unit, regardless of how far away they are, as long as one is 24" away. So, go strip 60 points off your tac spam list start-points from elsewhere, and add in 6 heavy bolters.
I'm starting to like the idea of having Salvo, but I do NOT like the idea of risking too many points on it. I also like something simple like razorbacks to hide a simple banner command squad, and not investing in a land raider. Take SEVERAL razorbacks or rhinos for LESS than a Land Raider, and have more transportation utility in games for doing other things. Also, don't go investing in a Crusader banking on long-lasting impact of trying to salvo hurricane bolters. I don't know it's a rule that will stick.
Darkshrouds with assault cannons were great for a hot minute. Move along. There are times where it won't hurt you to have a heavy bolter darkshroud to boost some dudes, but ... yeah.
So here's a sample list; again we're staying boring for now
Librarian w/ Auspex - 70
Command Squad w/ 4 Flamers, Banner of Devastation, Rhino Transport (they can fire 2 salvo bolters out of the top, and keep 3 flamers for utility work in various games) - 220
*remember, we don't care about them shooting ... we care about them living, so they plan on using this rhino and the other 2 to good effect if someone is trying to pry them out of a trips-hull bunker and kill the banner
10 Tactical Marines w/ Heavy Bolter, Rhino Transport - 185
10 Tactical Marines w/ Heavy Bolter, Rhino Transport - 185
10 Tactical Marines w/ Heavy Bolter - 150
10 Tactical Marines w/ Heavy Bolter - 150
10 Tactical Marines w/ Heavy Bolter - 150
Ravenwing Attack Squadron - 246
6 Ravenwing Bikers w/ Combi-Melta, 2 Meltaguns
Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta
Ravenwing Attack Squadron - 246
6 Ravenwing Bikers w/ Combi-Melta, 2 Meltaguns
Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta
Ravenwing Attack Squadron - 246
6 Ravenwing Bikers w/ Combi-Melta, 2 Meltaguns
Attack Bike w/ Multi-Melta
1848
5-10 scoring tac units
6-9 ravenwing units
3 rhinos to bunker and shield your banner, or provide mobility when needed for tacticals/scorers
The Ravenwing come especially in handy for their outflank capabilities, overall flexibility, and helping hog-tie things like Flamers of Tzeentch. If flamers are en-route, no reason a single attack bike or combat-squadded trio w/out meltas or combi-meltas can't bait the Overwatch and allow a handful of spare tacticals or even other ravenwing to pin down those annoying templates, freeing up your salvo blasts to focus on screamers.
You've got 9 Ravenwing units, all of them can have melta, which should free up any worries you have about running into a mech-heavy meta-buster. With Scouts allowing both alpha strike and outflank, Ravenwing are just as good as ever at making sure they get their shots off before torrent twists them into the dirt.
/rambling away
Why no blob anymore? Because of the new rules reducing their shooting effectiveness??
ReplyDeleteI'm a little confused as to how a Heavy Bolter adds what you state, bare in mind I havn't fuly read & understood the rule you mention. So bassically if the Heavy bolter at the back is in range of the whole unit you are shooting at, the entire unit of bolters can reach the units beyond the first row?
Exactly.
DeleteThe way the FAQ clarifies, it's all about ANY of the weapons' guns. You don't build separate wound pools for different ranges. I've seen a couple people starting to try and argue that, but they aren't reading the FAQ ruling I guess:
"When making a Shooting attack against a unit, can Wounds
from the Wound Pool be allocated to models that were not within range [of] any of the shooting models when To Hit rolls were made (i.e. half the targeted model are in the shooting models’ range, and half are not)? (p15)
A: No."
The result of this is that if models were not within range of ANY of the shooting units' guns, you can't kill them. As long as models are within range of ANY, they can be allocated to as per previous.
Adding a heavy bolter extends the range of bolters 12" effectively now (whereas previously it was irrelevant), so long as at least one target model is within range of the bolters being extended.
But wouldn't the heavy bolter be in a different wound pool - its AP4, the bolters are AP5. So while the HB can kill out to 36", the bolters can ony kill out to 24". The "any" you mention is qualified by the early reference to wound pool, so shouldnt it be read as "any of the shooting models [in the wound pool] when To Hit rolls were made"?
DeleteAnother question - if the bolters are rapid fired, can they reach out to 24"?
No - the rules for wound pool are clear. There are different groupings based on AP in there, but there is only THE wound pool, not multiple ones.
DeleteBolters rapid firing can reach out to 24, so long as each rapid firing model has at least one enemy mode in the target unit within 12" at the time to hit rolls are made.
To provide clarity there by including the rule:
DeletePage 14 from the big rule book
The Wound Pool
Finally, total up the number of Wounds you have caused. Keep the dice that have scored Wounds and create a 'pool', (sic) where each dice represents a Wound. If there are Wounds with different Strengths, AP values or special rules, keep them separated into groups of Wounds in the pool. If all the Wounds are the same, the Wound pool will consist of only one group.
Notice, the FAQ ruling refers to wounds from the Wound Pool, and makes no mention of separate groups w/in the Pool, or separate weapons, specifically referring to ANY (and the ANY being about the time rolls are made to hit ... so it's not like you have to have a wound in the pool from the correct range either).
How would you develop this statement with. IDK, A guardsman squad with an AC for instance.
DeleteDoes this Rule Faq'ed is applyed in this example?
Yeah, silly enough ... but this is how I thought it was going to be when the rules first released and I took a cursory look through. You'll want to buy a 10 point autocannon for your guard blobs so that you can extend the wuond impact of your lasguns to "like it just used to be." C'est la vie.
DeleteThe unfortunate thing is, there are a lot of arguments popping up where people want to cancel the clear RAW here and institute their own RAI of creating entirely separate wound POOLS for each weapon type.
While silly, I think it makes more sense the way it is written. Otherwise you are creating multiple pools and changing the way units with different guns kill off models, and also change the options a play has when allocating wounds with different APs.
DeleteAny thoughts on getting the Power field into the list to help keep the Rhino bunkers alive?
ReplyDeleteRu486baby -- too lazy to log in.
I am not a huge fan of the power fields. It's like begging someone to find a way to get a guard blob into combat w/ the bearer and suddenly have a 4++.
DeleteI think its' more like just use the RHino bunker to keep the rhino bunker alive. If someone wants to try to mow through 3 rhino hulls to get at your command squad in the firepower meta of present where much more fire is directed toward anti-infantry, more power to them.
I think trying to over-insulate the salvo banner and create some kind of whacky salvo focused thing is the wrong way to go, b/c of the inherent limitations ... especially since if you ARE within 6" of the banner and want to move, you basically can't fire at all.
As one of those people building using a LR (though Crusade or Godhammer will depend on the rest of the list) I can say they are likely worth the points in 6th. Especially in the current metas.
ReplyDeleteOn a seperate note I like this list much better than the initial one. I'd suggest dozer blades on the Rhinos though as they might need to drive over their destroyed friend to get the banner where it needs to go.
That's the other value of the Rhino btw ... if you need to spread your army out at all, you can use the shooting phase additional move to spread the range love around more of the banner, b/c you are never reliant upon the rhino or included squad to fire.
DeleteMy problem w/ the LR is they are still relatively easy to kill for a variety of weapon types (necron warrior killteams w/ stormteks, meltaguns in general, etc.). I also don't think your hurricane bolters will benefit. 260 points is a LOT of points to burn, plus w/e you put inside there.
Perhaps more important is the simple fact that salvo lists are easy enough to play around w/ the movement phase ... so if someone is investing too much on trying to create a salvo bunker, he's investing a lot of points in a list I'd like to dance with. But maybe that's just me :p
It's you :)
DeleteI'm not 100% on whether the hurricane will benefit which is why which LR is based around the rest of the army, not the banner.
As for the items that kill landraiders they just aren't as prolific anymore. Do they exist? Yep but it's generally in small, easy to handle numbers. Also I feel like there is a way to include a LR in your current list that greatly enhances it's performance but that's for my blog :)
There's certainly a way to include a LR there.
DeleteI think you're also forgetting about the high prevalence of things like Flamers of Tzeentch. Sure, you can bubble wrap bury your LR in there, but I'm not as sold as you on the absence of LR solutions in the meta. The minimum investment to get a LR w/ banner inside is 410, and you don't get anything more than that in the process.
I'm also not / haven't ever been a huge fan of putting LR's in lists. Not my personal cup o' tea.
Bizarro 40k...the Heavy Bolter guy somehow gives magical extra range to the Boltguns?
ReplyDeleteCome on, you know that's not how it's intended to work.
Sadface.
I actually think it is. While that's arguably a cheesy WAY of doing it, I think the point is not to create the slowest-game-in-the-universe by trying to break a UNIT'S fire into each individual model, and the rules support that ... the original simplification in the rulebook went too far with the "Out of Range" permutation added at the end of the Wound Allocation rules.
DeleteThe game as a whole is absurdly bizarro. Flying mechanical dragons belch armor dissolving fire out of their butts.
When I first read the FAQ I got the same impression... Not bizarro.
ReplyDelete