The big one...RZ moves must now be taken in full towards the nearest enemy, but no direct lifting of the 1" invulnerability rule. It could be argued from the wording that we get to ignore it if you roll high enough, but....I wouldn't do so. Major nerfage right there to have one without the other. It is now fairly easy to get pulled off an objective unless you voluntarily GTG.
Short run: We got our Typhoon MLs back up to 5th standards, The Black Sword must be a sword, Abhor The Witch got a nerf (along with the rest of the psychic saves, you can only take one), We lost our ability to have PA HQs leading Terminator Command squads, Everybody got their Drop Pods back.
The big one...RZ moves must now be taken in full towards the nearest enemy, but no direct lifting of the 1" invulnerability rule. It could be argued from the wording that we get to ignore it if you roll high enough, but....I wouldn't do so. Major nerfage right there to have one without the other. It is now fairly easy to get pulled off an objective unless you voluntarily GTG.
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All Black Templars enjoy the thought, or at least the dream, of the old Black Tide lists. Here is a variation after approval of the creation of the High Marshal's Own IG Regiment attached to the Panacea Crusade.
Including Allies can be a lot of fun. How do we justify it in some cases? Well, speaking as a Black Templar, I find a few oddities in our choices of allies, but the trick is to make it "fluffy" for fun. For other Space Marine chapters, it is simply joining together for a similar purpose, but IG can be a bit more problematic, although assuming that the Crusade arrived at the target location to be joined by or to join with other Imperial forces fighting in the same area. Here is one way to do it though...
This is killing me. I spent seven months looking forward to taking my now illegal and broken in any case Deep Strike list to NOVA 2012. I've got a few games under my belt and everything with how I play Black Templar is off a bit. OTOH, the only change to my Necron list is a losing a few extra Cryptek, Scarabs and a Spyder to fit in a pair of Night Scythes. This is the same basic list that I've been undefeated with for the last several months in solo play. I've been beaten twice in team play, but in both cases I crippled both of my opponents singlehandedly while my partner was focusing more on not being tabled. Looking over the models to be built/finished, painting to be done and other features, plus my limited time to do that and practice with a list, I'm stuck.
Well, my Testbed list performed in many ways sort of like I expected. Including at my LGS where I played a leisurely game with an older gentleman about my age who was learning and we were double checking all the rules and discussing tactics as we went. Of course, to the derisive comments of the younger "boys" who were of the opinion that since they knew how to stick it in, pump fast, finish quickly and roll off to the next engagement they had a clue how to play. Needless to say, I was hearing severa rules mistakes being made by all participants, although in many cases it appeared to be in the interests of speeding up the game process. OTOH, with the obvious attitude of not sticking to the "wham, bam, thank you ma'am" ethic = stupid, I quit bothering to correct their "issues". Anyway, back to 40K.
A few funsies:
1) Precision Shots & Strikes: allocate them to non-Character heavy/special weapons guys. Only Characters are allowed to use the "Look Out, Sir" rule vs Precision. Generic Apothecary in a squad, pop him and end FNP! 2) PW/PF butchery: In the assault vs a squad with a Sgt with PF/PW and no IC, call him out. Either he accepts and you get a chance to use your higher I to remove the threat or he bails and you still remove the threat. Oh, and the squad's Ld probably goes down 1 in either case. 3) Tarpitting: What, here comes that super CC unit. Just slam your IC in and challenge. That CC unit that could have gone through your unit like a hot knife through butter now has to sit and cheer on their leader while you and he solo each other. Even if he is a monster, with some lucky dice you can tie up that unit for a couple of assault phases. Might not be much, but your squad can either move backwards (buying more time) or a counter charge unit can come up. Even if you do lose, position yourself so that you are ready to torrent the enemy again. Of course, realize all this can happen to you also, but speaking as a Black Templar player under 6th, I don't have any unit that wants to be in CC as much as possible anymore and the only "character" is in the Terminator Command Squad. This actually can give us an advantage in CC with Crusader squads with PW/PF or Terminators. Nobody to call out. And for that part I'm happy enough. Just the BT are killy enough to get above the "fail" point in Nike's metrics system. As long as we remember that the metrics do not tell you if you have a strong or winning list, simply that it isn't too weak to make the cut. We also have to remember that there are some key changes in 6th Edition, namely that Power Weapons do not necessarily get past armor saves (which means my Reclusiarch got 5/6 to wound but had to eat the 1/3 to get past armor save for CC with his Crozius) and that glancing hits are more effective at degrading vehicles, which means all anti-tank got 16.7% "better" in most ways.
The next issue is objective seizing, but going with Stelek's 4+2 rule and giving my opponents choices with downsides (kill the transports with troops and you ignore the artillery, kill the easy to kill Speeders and you ignore the Terminators, kill the Terminators and you ignore the objective grabbers, etc.) plus the newly enhanced mobility potential of vehicles (12" move + 6" "run") and either list should be fine. I'm leaning towards the Reclusiarch led Black Templars supporting a unit of the "High Marshall's Own" IG Regiment, but I might change that up later, partly depending on how the extra rules from NOVA & GW come out. It does mean I can mostly finish painting what I need to paint and simply hold a few models back until then. The weakness, as always, high KP. (19 in this case), but I have a lot of firepower to throw downrange, so, maybe it will balance out. OTOH, I have extra vehicles and bodies for blocking and tarpitting, although I'm thinking about adding a handle to one of my Chimera's and redoing my EC so I can have him holding onto the outside and "running along" Looking over the issues of mobility (still required), the lack of even a hint of real updating in our FAQ and some of the changes, do the Black Templars work better as Allies, even if they get the bulk of the points, than as the primary detachment?
After all, our troops aren't top of the line by any stretch of the imagination and any metal box except a Drop Pod is way overpriced, so having just one Troop isn't a problem and a simple Las/Plas works fine for a rear area objective holder (note, I'm expecting a 5 point cost for Flakk ML upgrades, which means it can become a ML(Flakk)/Plas squad easily enough. For our Land Speeder Typhoons, 6th has made it so that having three in one squadron is not the detriment it was in 5th Edition nor do we get any bonuses for LOS shooting with the spare Speeders which makes the considerations of tactical flexibility and KP vulnerability more important. The amusing bit comes with our THDC Terminators, because to get more than one as the Ally force you have to go ahead and buy that extra HQ anyway. I'm torn here, because when I work builds with primary BT, by the time I buy requirements and wants (HQ, CMD Term, 2x Term, 3x LS-Typhoon, 2xTroops, EC), I end up with low points left for the Allies, but when I build the other way, I still get HQ, CMD Term, 3x LS-Typhoon, 1xTroop, EC, but I end up with enough points to flesh out the allies some. The question, is it worth the extra expense? Also, while I do have duality, I don't have the repeated units that normally work into lists. I think I'm going to run Nike's metrics over these lists and see what I get. Yes, things have changed, but the basics of what can you kill Just putting the thought down, but given the silliness of not being able to take the EC as a Warlord and not being able to use the Allied detachment CO as the Warlord put another thought in my head. Why not take IG as primary and Black Templar as secondary? Of course, the first thing that pops up is that I end up taking an extra BT HQ anyway (EC is free slot) to open up the Terminator Command Squad. OTOH, it seems to avoid the problems I've been having with transportation. The concept is to use the combination of IG HW Squads, Typhoon Speeders and a pair of THDC Terminator squads to open and escort the way for IG Troops in Chimeras to score objectives. Given the new Squadron and Cover rules, having one, two or three Speeders isn't real important now, whereas in 5th a pair of Speeders was critical for maintaining full fire and cover in the most efficient manner.
Edited for addition to list. Well, it is going to be 6th Edition at NOVA this year, although given the way MVB wrote the first "discussion" post, it was fairly obvious that there would be no discussion. So, now we are left with what to do, especially with incompetent GW FAQ writing.
Allies have become a non-issue IMO from both the mass "only in Codex: X" smeared all over the FAQs and the inability to share rides among "brothers in arms". One question to be answered, if you are allied at brothers, you can attach characters to either ally's squads, but does the presence of an allied IC prevent the squad from getting into a transport or not? I've worked out some basics, especially my minimum core BT list and most of a variation on my Necron list. The sad part, I'm more excited about my Necrons than my Black Templars. Maybe too much investment in wanting to use my Deep Strike list... |