For their price, their firepower is hard to beat. I expect we'll see at least a few highly successful armies spamming them as their troops choice.
Edit: Lesson in reading carefully - Noise Marines are LESS the bees knees than I thought, b/c they don't come with sonic blasters (and they cost 3 points each to upgrade). Still very potent, however.
Do note - you can't have allied Noise Marine troops, for anyone who mistook that.
Interesting catch by Andrew G, Targetawgs in chat today - Plague Zombie hordes are not happening ... adding up to 25 more models is an option, which plague zombies cannot purchase. They still may be a promising and affordable backfield scoring choice for some lists.
Spawn in squads of 3 may have a lot of value ... 90 points for 9 T5 wounds that move 12" and ignore terrain, while no longer being held up by Mindless rules? Intriguing for some builds.
Havocs with Flakk Missiles are god awful. You're nuts if you invest 175 points in 5 models w/ 4 missiles that are easy to torrent. You're even more nuts if you invest 240 points trying to give them 5 ablative wounds to protect those missiles. Also, 4 S7 shots at 24-35 points/pop effectively is not exactly fun times.
Baleflamer ... holy hell.
Good codex, intriguing ... and a lot of builds immediately relevant even without allies. Let the fun begin (if it hasn't yet)!
Additional Edit:
As we start to break down the dex, the Heldrakes w/ Baleflamers are VERY good. I think you're going to see a much stronger case for the allowance of Forgeworld in varying quantities as a result of this and future dexes - the ability to have more than 1 interceptor AA platform is going to be increasingly important as the game continues to evolve (currently, people can only have one, in the form of fortifications, or 2 at 2k+ points).
Baleflamer? I'll take three, please.
ReplyDeleteSpawn are oddly one of the better points for beatstick units. D6+2 attacks on the charge, beasts, and the ability for 6pts to make them T6 is pretty insane. 180pts for 15 T6 12" move and re-rollable charge range is pretty insane. Not to mention all their D3 options have a purpose...My nids would kill for this in the FA slot....
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forward to really diving into the book. I'm seeing a lot of potential though the dragons are almost an auto-include....
I can't even begin to consider the number of possible builds in the book! Granted, I'm looking at it primarily from a thematic perspective, not a competitive one, but I'm supremely excited either way.
ReplyDeleteCurrently I'm planning to build this once I have the spare cash for the new daemon engines:
Lord: Nurgle, Power Axe (scythe)
Elites: 3x MM/PF Helbrutes
Troops: 7 plague marines, plasma, power weapon
30 cultists with ccw, 3 heavy flamers, mark of khorne
30 cultists with autoguns, 3 heavy stubbers
Fast Attack: 2x Blight Drones, Heldrake
Heavy: 2x forge fiends, Defiler
3 Flyers (Yay IA Aeronautica/FAQ making Blight Drones flyers), lots of fun units. Probably not the winningest list, but I'm excited to mess with it (and its around 2k on the nose).
I'm not so sure that I agree on this making Forge World more likely/reasonable. If anything, I think this Codex shows that GW does *not* intend to proliferate Interceptor to the extent shown by Forge World. Allowing the massed Interceptor weapons that Sabre Defense Platforms and the like permit is a zero-effort solution to the problem of flyers, but it creates other balanced players. Skilled players can develop flyer counters or mitigation techniques without relying on the Forge World crutch.
ReplyDeleteAre Bale Flamers good? Yes, definitely-- but they fill an EXTREMELY competitive slot, as well as one of the very few slots Chaos has for Skyfire weapons of their own. I don't think we'll see very many lists spamming them.
Competitive players will be fine either way. They aren't a tournament's only constituents, and in fact are not a majority constituent. Just to be clear where my own thoughts are at, they aren't/can't be just "good players will be ok either way."
DeleteFair point, but I feel like armies with 7+ Interceptor weapons (woo, Sabre Defense Platforms!) are *much* more of a balance problem than armies with 2-3 decent Flyers.
DeleteI actually agree a little more there. I think the biggest issue with interceptor weapons is they can target ALL reserves, not just flyers, which makes reserves in general a little more problematic. I think my biggest issue with the Forgeworld situation is the massive amount of PRESSURE and angst people apply to TO's in general in both directions.
DeleteIf another player or TO tries to tell me I'm doing something WRONG by not allowing it or BY allowing it, I feel like we've gotten to the place where we aren't recognizing this as the very open-ended, heterogenous and not-meant-for-tournaments-anyway-so-any-tourney-isn't-"true"-warhams game it is.
Interesting subject matter to pursue in another blog post perhaps ... and I want to also talk through the issue I have with those out there trying to tell TO's what is and isn't "6th edition 40k as a tournament" ... and trying to belittle or insult those who don't play it THEIR way.
OH - Kinglsey ... definitely NOT talking about you right there. Just the in general.
DeleteNo worries, I knew what you meant. :)
DeleteI have a bit of Forge World stuff myself, and I think allowing it would be very cool-- but at the same time, there are a lot of Forge World things, most notably Sabre Defense Platforms and Cæstus Assault Rams, that give me serious pause.