Frateris Militia Whitterings

I have been busily looking at how I would prefer to play 40k universe tabletop gaming lately, rather than the disfigured spawn of Vetock we have been left with by The Mothership.

Totally Shameless Plug

Are you tired of your battlefields looking pedestrian? Are you embarrassed by the fact that when a vehicle leaves a nice lovely crater on the table there is no visual indication that this crater used to be the armoured chassis of a transport, infantry fighting vehicle or battle tank?  Do you feel it is immersion breaking that the craters left by the spiralling Stormravens is the exact same as that left by detonating Dreadnoughts?

Well, assistance is at hand!

Marine Cost: Brief Analysis.

In my article below, Chumby made the following comment:

"And hey, let them benefit from their armor, it's not like they don't pay for it."

So, I thought we should have a little look at this claim, see to what extent it's the case...

For a baseline, we shall start with Imperial Guard, since they're the best balanced statline, other than of course Marines themselves.  They're cheap, too - and enough things have IG statlines that we can adequately compare points costs and get a decent idea of what exactly Marines do or do not get for free.

A basic Guardsman, as we know, costs 5 points, give or take.  Technically, they don't actually, as that would make the Sergeants free in their squads, but I know most people probably don't agree with me in thinking of it that way...either way, let's just assume that 5 points is a fair cost for 3/3/3/3/1/3/1/7/5+ and a Lasgun.

Well, Marines have a point better in nearly all those stats barring Save, so that's a total of 6 stat upgrades.  If we price these at a point apiece, which is probably a little cheap, our Marine is up to 11 points...not bad, huh?  So, what about equipment? Well, the Marine has a Bolt Pistol, a Bolter, Frags, Kraks - and this is compared to a Lasgun and Frags - so it's going to be at LEAST 3 points worth of gear.  More accurately, a Bolt Pistol is 2 points for a guardsman who has the option, a Bolter commonly 3 points, and Kraks manage to squeeze in at one each - so Marines underpay, at best.

What else? Marines start off with Combat Squads, Combat Tactics and ATSKNF, unless from some variant Codex, but it's a fairer comparison if we only do it in relation to the most common tactical Marines, supposedly the epitome of Marine-hood.

These Marines are 16 points each.  We had one at 14 points, in Flak Armour, and without those rules.  Power Armour, for those GEQs who have the option, costs 8 points.

Since those rules are obviously worth more than a single point apiece (how much would Dark Eldar pay for ATSKHF? How much would Fire Dragons or Orks pay for Combat Squads?!) we know already that the cost is hugely disproportional.

So, no, to answer the original question.

Marines don't actually pay for everything they have.  They'd still underpay for the quality difference between them and IG if they were 22 points each.

Let's get this straight - I play Marines too.  But let's cut the crap and fanboi whining when Marines don't get everything available to Xenos, huh?  Marines get shitloads.

Brief Interlude

SinSynn asked in the comments below whether or not I play any other tabletop games, or have given thought to them.

Not Everything Is About 6th You Know...

Up stupid early for Q-Con 2012 (I forget what numeral we're on, hard to care) [24, apparently] and another 5th Edition 40k event.  My last, in fact.  I've read a little more of 6th now, though I still haven't got to read the whole book, obviously, and I have to say that my desire to play 40k at all has only diminished further, so this tournament is going to be shit.

Abhuman Defenders of Golgotha...

We all know what these squat abhumans are or were, mentioned only briefly and not by name, in the imperial Guard Codex.  (Page 24, if you're interested.)

I've been giving it some thought this morning, as I had my breakfast, and came up with some initial ideas for a nice little homebrew of how to represent them.

I have more ideas than I have time to type up now, but here's some teaser stuff...

Oh, ok, I've now kinda hit a wall.

I have tons of modelling work to do to fully prepare my army for the tournament on the 19/20th of May at Arkham GC, and frankly I can't be bothered.  This is an inopportune time to be lackadaisical, but I am.

/endlurk

So. This is an 'I'm not dead' post.

It's fair to say that I haven't posted in a rather long time. A prolonged and unfortunate series of events has occurred over the past few months making me somewhat reluctant to do anything to do with wargaming and to concentrate on RL.

Tournament next weekend!

Thanks to a very fortuitous set of circumstances, I will now be attending the Assault On Arkham event at Arkham Gaming Centre next weekend (dunno how I'm getting up there yet, but still....)

Firstly then a big thanks to our very own ItsPug, who provided me with his ticket since he can't go.  I didn't expect to get it off work, but things worked out neatly on that score too, and now I'm faced with the deliberations of what army to use.  It's 1850, so my options are many and varied - but the closeness of the event largely rules out Blood Angels - until I get my parcels from Waugh Games and Bits And Kits then I can't finish building enough Predators that I wouldn't be ashamed of putting on a table at an actual Tournament. :(

Know When You Have An Idea That Will Cost Several Monies But Would Be Great?

Sigh.

Sigh, sigh, sigh.

As I mentioned, I have a bunch of White Dwarf issues to atticise, including some as old as to be double figures, not even triple, and a bunch of 'Best of White Dwarf Articles' or 'Best of White Dwarf Scenarios' - ancient tomes the like of which is not seen today.

I Love Fluff.

I do.  Did any of you know that the first ever Index Astartes was Ultra- Marines in WD97, released January 1988? I doubt it. :p

Future Plans...

Just a brief update to let me procrastinate the moving house I'm ostensibly doing.

I Wasn't Always Amazing At 40k.

Just a little 'human interest' piece - the list I took to my first proper tournament, in 4th Edition.  Fifth was released just after the event, or just before...I forget.  Either way, it was played using 4th, since it was the ruleset people were familiar with, though I had barely played since 3rd, almost certainly fewer than 30 games altogether, including the three at the tourny.

TKE used Wall O' Text! Critical Hit!

WylyQuimby said:

"GW could, if they wanted to, update rules on a regular basis and still produce codices for fourteen armies on a quarterly basis. It’s not a question of difficulty but of interest. It won’t be long before we’re all using iPads/Kindles/generic tables or the like anyway. The printed book is going the way of metal models."

TKE can has reply:

Happy New Year!!!

So, no time really for it to be typed up now, but expect a review of the year in blogging, and a preview of what I'd like to do next year.  That, and finishing a few things still kicking around, and replying to an email I got about my Ork Homebrew rules that I shamefully forgot about until just now.

Onwards and upwards!

Looks like WarpCon is out this year :(

As much as I'd love to go, currently struggling on two counts:
1) the trip certainly wasn't cheap last year, and that was without drinking with the leds, something I'd much prefer to add to the experience this time if possible.
2) My Blood Angels (of Blood) aren't going to be painted.  No chance in hell.  Haven't got all the requisite sponson and turret weaponry even, or the Razorbacks to put my infantry in, or all the Land Speeders I need...
My army could be 100% built in time, no question.  Painted though, even to just 3 colours, seems very unlikely indeed.  While I'm not a good painter by any stretch of the imagination, I'm a perfectionist one, and can't simply glob dabs on to fulfill the minimum standard when I'm taking the army on a 1000-mile round trip or however far it is.

It's a damn shame, cos I wanted to go, but accepting defeat early means everyone will get over the disappointment so much sooner.  Ho hum.

Very Brief Idea...

Orks, right.  Their problems largely stem from the fact that they can fill their FoC for a stupidly low number of points, and even when they don't try, they still find it far too easy to fill.

Those of you familiar with Sid Meier's Civilization games will know of the Infinite City Sprawl, and I'm sure plenty of other strategy games feature the same idea...

So, my idea, is the Infinite Shitty Sprawl.

For every 2 Troops choices the Ork player takes, he can choose a single non-Troop above his allowance (ie, elite, FA, HS NOT HQ) and for every non-Troop he takes (including these bonus ones) he may take an additional Troops choice.

Thoughts??

Eesh...(Updated)

I know I'm in the middle of several things, and I'mma let me finish - but I managed to get my hands on Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary Edition a few days early, and yeah...I want to complete that bad boy, preferably before everyone else gets their mitts on it. ;-)

So, Joe, haven't forgotten your list, or your request Ryan - I'll get to them ASAP, but defeating the Covenant is more important for the next couple days.  :)

UPDATE: I have now completed Halo : CEA on Normal Difficulty, so, back to the Blogging! Hooray!!

Getting my bits arranged...

Today's been a fairly productive day, all told.

Monday Day Hobby Day, as I believe the saying goes...

So, today, I had some plans to proceed with my ongoing modelling projects, and basically build some toy souljers.