Even if I don't play this one, I can live with that...after all, it is Robotech.
I've seen a few I've wanted to get into, but never could justify to myself the idea of getting a good game that will 90% likely get looked at and sit on a shelf. Palladium is doing a Robotech tabletop game on Kickstarter and I couldn't resist. I'm old enough that I remember when the show was playing originally and at the time all you had was "nothing serious ever happens and everyone will be back next week" on TV for cartoons. Then watching this nifty little anime, out of the blue, one of the major characters dies! Not some big heroic Horatius at the bridge thing (poem), but rather stupidly (hit, skipping medical check and dying of internal injuries at his girl's place). Necessary for story development, but it wasn't obvious at the time.
Even if I don't play this one, I can live with that...after all, it is Robotech.
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Edited the previous lists to include a Stormtalon w/ Skyhammer ML. That variation leaves me with 79 points to spend compared to 64 (Double LS-Typhoon) or 21 (Triple Plasma Bike Squad). Not much, but I could drop a Hydra into the mix then, which while fragile, would provide enough additional AA threat to make the list more secure vs. flyer spam.
The only other major build I"m considering strips out the Chimeras (and making a blob squad) for a big TH/SS Terminator squad or a big Crusader squad with krak grenades. The costs are about the same. Well, it is official, Black Templars not only get the Stormraven with S8 AP2 missiles, but we get the new and improved Stormtalon. Now, IMO, the Stormtalon was a better, although marginal, buy than the Stormraven before, but with the new rules, the ST is now the flyer of choice. At 110 points (-20 from before) with TL Ass Can & TL HB, the new 15 point Skyhammer ML (-10 from before, 60" S7 AP4, Heavy3, replaces HB) is almost a mandatory pick. Yes, you can get the TLLC or Typhoon ML and still come off cheaper than before even though the price on both of those went up by 10 points. It keeps Escort and adds Strafing Run to its special rules. So, a small profile flyer at 125 points that can do defensive AA fire and shoot up a lot of stuff on the ground at BS5 with Pinning added...what's not to like? AV11 & 2HP? It can hurt, but I've been running Necron flyers with the same AV11 and while it isn't all that hard to take one down, you still need to commit to it. All, I can say to that...try and park it near enemy formations...
Yeah, the most likely flying targets are AV12, but so what? It averages at least 1HP of damage each turn in the Ass Can + Skyhammer configuration and is >90% likely to score a penetrating hit (go, go, Rending). Nope, not the greatest flyer out there, but if I didn't have to pay the HQ tax and AACNMTO hadn't gotten nerfed, I'd be BT primary with three of these bad boys. As it is, I'll just pair it with a Valkyrie and see how it goes. Yep, time to start figuring out what I want to practice with. I've got two variations of IG main with BT allies, mostly around whether I want a plasma bike squad or a pair of Typhoon speeders. These are not my only options, just the first ones up in the slot.
Faeit 212 is calling it official now, Death From the Skies, a rules "compendium" (read rehash) of current flyers and supposedly gives C:SM and BT access to the Stormraven transport. So, we want the advertised "LR of the skies" available to us? At pretty much the same cost as a LR? Or more depending on the load out. You know, that costs enough points to buy two (2), count them two (2) Valkyries. Anyway, depending on the status of this book as far as "official" (IOW, do they update the FAQs to reflect the changes in the units?), it may or may not matter.
OTOH, a Stormtalon would probably be interesting, the price point is a lot lower with pretty much the same loadout of antiair weaponry, the biggest difference being the ability to swap out the assault cannon on the SR plus the ability to pay for hurricane bolter sponsons. The ST gets stuck with its assault cannon, but can get the same Typhoon ML for its heavy bolters as the SR. My big question...If we cannot afford LRCs, then can we afford its flying equivalent? Well, it seems like their checkout system isn't working. Since I still cannot post at Whiskey & 40K, no idea how this is going to affect trying to order stuff.
Here are the four missions for Coastal Assault 2013. All have Night Fight & Reserves rules as normal and are scored with Battle Points. Each mission has 25 points from three victory conditions (primary = 13, secondary = 7, tertiary = 5) and 3 bonus points that were supposed to be for both players to score, but in many cases weren't. One thing I'm unclear on at this point was if the scoring was considered as 28 points per game or 25 points max per game. This is mainly just for reference as I'll discuss each mission in more detail in its own post with the exception of mission #2 since the victory conditions for the primary and secondary were linked. For Primary & Secondary they are exclusive with only one player being able to score the points and nobody gets points for a tie. The Tertiaries can be scored by both players including if they tie. Also, all objective markers are placed by players with the exception of the Relic in mission 3 and the mission 4 tertiary objective which are both centered in the table.
Personally, I'm not adverse to "battle points", because even NOVA uses a version of them to set the pairing in the final brackets and, if some slots are open, to promote people to "higher" brackets. For example, if there are two slots open in the 4-0 bracket then the top two 3-1 players (by NOVA's numbers) will get bumped up to contend for best general with the 4-0 players. I do prefer straight win/loss tournaments for simplicity, but having multiple distinct objectives is fun also. Played in my local tournament, Coastal Assault, this weekend. Won all four games and came in sixth of thirty-six players. Four games in a battle points format. I didn't mark up one sheet, but it looks like I scored 75% of the possible points to get there. As for the games themselves, they were a lot of fun to play and there were some great players there. The biggest downside was two hour games at 1999 points and everyone it came up with expected a two and a half hour format. Ended up with two three turn games and two four turn games. I'll be breaking down the missions over the next couple of days.
I took a slightly modified version of my NOVA Necron list because of a time shortage and I didn't know I could bring unpainted models. If I'd known that I'd have brought a slightly different Necron list that could have been fielded quickly or an IG/BT list if I'd had more time In other news, my son was fastest of the Wolves at his Pinewood Derby race and third fastest in the entire pack. Again running a "Templar Express", this time it was a somewhat Rhino look alike with the storm bolter Marine on top and BT vehicle bling on it. I'll have a picture of that one later. Here
Most everyone got a new one, although for Black Templars, other than the fact that you need only one EC and one Vow per army, no matter how many "detachments" you have (which is really covered in the rules... ), this is the only goodie we got. Q: There is no Black Templars vehicles reference section at the back of the rulebook. Does this mean I should use the Codex: Space Marines vehicle reference section instead (meaning my Venerable Dreadnoughts are now Weapon Skill and Ballistic Skill 5, for example)? A: Yes Wheeee IMO, MVB is making a step in the right direction here. Dropping the points to 1850 is a good thing for several reasons, but the stated one of worrying about "Internet chatter" is the weakest IMO. First, it will stress the lists a bit more since the major difference between 2000 and 1850 points in most lists boils down to one unit. Second, 1850 point games do play a little faster which will help on the time issues, as will the proposed 3/3/2 game format (Fri/Sat/Sun).
I would have like to have seen how a double FOC would have worked out, but this works too. |