escalation Lord of wars (IA2 specific)

Firstly: I think Escalation is basically ok as is, minus the Eldar dick titan. It's an obvious mistake, much like wave serpents, heldrakes or the entire 5th ed Nid book.

AND as long as both ppl know what they are playing. I think you pretty much have to kmow you are gpong against a superheavy or d weapon.

I think it's more fun with D weapons as Str 10, Ap 1, etc. But I'm not married to it.

So... Marines. Your lord of war choices are, what, the felblade, the typhoon and Cerberus plus whatever was in escalation? (The Thawk?)

While the thawk and felblade are the big sexys, I'm not sure either is a good/great choice. Both cost a boatload of points, and limit your ability to have other models. On the extreme end, a thawk and 3 dw squads, plus belial is something like 1800 points.

The typhoon and Cerberus on the other hand, clock in at about 350 points, are basically super LR, with around 5/6 hp if I remember. That's a lot easier to work into an existing list.

Thoughts?

I think you're right on.

I took on Mike's Felblade with a TAC list. I didn't build a list to face a Lord of War. A C'Tan would've crushed me (I think? Maybe?)

You forgot to include the C'Tan in the list of things they got wrong, certain builds of that guy are ridiculous too.

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The key thing is the extra VP's they cough up. While Mike's Felblade more than made up it's points, that didn't factor in the 4VP's that it gave to me. That's 4 VP's that are available to me that aren't available to him, and he can't take away. That's more than an objective.

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It'll be interesting to see what kind of lists people bring on the 12th. Test games have been a blast, so far.

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Lastly, I think formations are completely reasonable and fun. The Tau one and the 'Nid one are the only things that are "really good", but a Heldrake is "really good" too. I'd really like to field 3 Helbrutes that deepstrike, I think it'd be a lot of fun, and after playing a 5 walker list yesterday, they're really glass cannons still (my favorite thing!)

Yes the ctan is busted too.

The fellblade is, IMHO, the worst LOW choice. Expensive, give up the most VP, only one without a D weapon.
The THawk is situational. It's expensive as hell, but its an AV 12 superheavy flyer. Can be damn near invincible. You have to build the list around it tho.

Your point about the extra VP is exactly why Escalation does work, and why I think it's way more fun when both have one.

Formations: other than the Obvs broken ones, my issue with formations is breaking FOC. I think it'd be better if they had to fit in the FOC (which would make troops from them scoring).

with 2/3 of the missions being objectives , the broken FoC doesn't seem to be that big of an issue, every time someone takes 4 heavy support choices, they reduce thier chance to score by 1 unit.

Re: scoring.

I'm pretty sure the latest formations have put the scoring debate to rest, the formations Still list the entries as Troops, or Elites, or HQ. It think its just our knee-jerk reaction to change that has us trying to restrict the usefulness of formations in general. "its new, its overpowered and you shouldnt play it! "

also remember that the definition of a scoring unit is up to whatever mission you are playing. the Astro guys understand this, remember the funky rules where any model with a "hand" can pick up an objective? seems much more sensible to me than your unit of strengaurd looking at that Relic and thinking to themselves..."its not my job to pick it up"

dataslate helbrutes wrote:Each Formation will tell you what units you need to take and what, if any, options or restrictions apply to the
units that make up that Formation. The army list entries for each unit in the Formation (the units’ profiles,
points values, unit types, unit composition, special rules, battlefield role etc.) can either be found in the codex
corresponding to the Faction on the datasheet, or elsewhere in the dataslate itself.

Wouldn't unit type just be "infantry, walker, bikes" etc?

battlefield role.

inside the formations, they are even worded as "troops"

gw digital wrote:Also - just got a reply from GW digital about adding brood lords and scoring units from the formation. Here's the reply-

Hey Jonathon,
The unit is the same as the one that appears in the codex in all regards, so the unit's battlefield role stays the same as do any options that aren't specifically mentioned as being changed.

- Eddie

Thats good IMO, as otherwise formations like the Nids Endless Swarm is beyond useless.

My main issue is the breaking of FOC, I'm a "small FOC" guy. If youre gonna have a FOC that says 0-3 HS, I think you should have no more than 3 be they from Primary, Allied, Formations or whatever. I also tend to believe Formations should be from your Primary detachemnt (except for the obvious exceptions ie Cypher). But thats me.

I'de be OK with that. your right that it seems odd that a support carde would show up to assist another race without having any Tau HQ or ground support around.

I can see a fantasy style % system in our future.

this "living 6th edition" is getting confused for sure. i'm actually in favor of a 6.5 rulebook, even though i own a BRB and a DV rulebook =/

Rhaevyn wrote:
I can see a fantasy style % system in our future.

2nd Edition 40k had this. I could see it resolving issues too. "Troops, min 25%" and "Elites max 30%" is the kind of thing you'd see there.

Expect Necrons to rejoice, "Heavy max 20%" Sweet, 20% of my army is Annihilation barges!

Mike- sounds good! I'm excited to see some cultists screening hell brutes on the table!