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apologist

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apologist last won the day on March 20

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About apologist

  • Birthday 03/19/1982

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    Ultramarines: The Praetors of Calth

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  1. Few more Detachments being worked up ahead of Maximal Fire Podcast’s event:
  2. I'm making a push on getting the Epic: Legions Imperialis force to 1,500pts by the end of next week, when I'll be taking them to an event. A Vanguard Detachment of Outriders (or a formation of bikers, if you prefer). These are a mix of SM2 plastics and Epic 40,000-era Tim Adcock sculpts. And more Tim Adcock sculpts – this time a Dreadnought Talon in the form of these lovely old war-washing machines.
  3. Pleased to see the Land Raiders coming up for order. Along with the Predators in a separate box, those are the last of the key tanks I want in my army. Vague musing – Much like Necromunda, Epic: Legions seems to have come out of the gate stuttering, and leaning heavily on nostalgia to keep going after the initial 'Wow!' has worn off. Likewise the bit-part patchwork way of releasing rules is similar. I'd be interested to spool ahead a couple of years and see what state the game is in; what's still outstanding (or upcoming) in terms of releases, whether more complete army lists are available in a single place etc. From what I can see, Necromunda is in a much healthier position, and there's some really creative material being developed for it. Whatever the underlying causes of this game's growing pains, I hope Epic gets to a similar place.
  4. Personally, I want in-game choices that are as minimally leashed to specific individuals or locations as possible. I’d like rules for Captains, Farseers, Warbosses etc. that allow you to select from as broad a variety of wargear as possible. Do I want Marneus Calgar to exist? Yes – but if I decide I want to make the Ultramarines Chapter Master from M36, I want to have the option to have the Gauntlets of Ultramar without Calgar’s personal rules. I’d like to be able to arm my Mordian sergeant with a rifle; my retro-themed Guardians with lasblasters; I’d like my Space Marines to be able to clamber into a Rhino or a Repulsor without having to demonstrate they have a particular implant. I’d like my Tau Pathfinders to be accompanied by a local kroot guide; my Space Marine Captain to be able to take his personal wargear and warlord trait to a mission regardless of whether he decides to wear Terminator or Scout Armour. I’d like my Khorne Champion to be able to bring the dread axe Facewrecker to battle, whether he’s riding a juggernaut, wearing a jump pack, or in Terminator armour. I’d like Thousand Sons Rubric Marines that can carry something other than a boltgun or flamer. Smaller than this, I’d like my cowboy-themed Rough Riders to have the option to just have a lasgun and leave their lance at home. I’d like Rotgub to have a shoota, even it Gutdreg decides to take a slugga and choppa. I’d like my Night Lords to have an Apothecary. I’d like my Catachans to share the same stats whether they’ve got a grenade launcher or a flamer. I’d like my Shas’El to be able to walk on foot (hoof?) every so often – and for my Lamb’s World Senior Officer to take the field on his own occasionally, without having to pretend to be a Cadian. I’d like to be able to play a particular subfaction without their iconic character – for when they’re out of action, not born yet, or simply just a few miles away from the battlefield. I’d like to be able to make my own Blood Angel Chief Librarian, or create a Salamander carrying a special character’s relic home. I’d like to be able to give my Commissar Lord a camo cloak like his men and a special power sword; or perhaps a power klaw and a bionic laser-eye – or perhaps a smelly adjutant with a melta gun. Or perhaps just a laspistol, trenchcoat, bad attitude and nothing more, because that’s on the model I made. In short, I’m not looking for an advantage – I’m looking to be able to reflect the stories my friends and I (or GW themselves) come up with; or – even more fundamentally than that – to be able to field models that combine bits from more than one kit because they look cool.
  5. The irony for 10th edition being, of course, that they've got a beginner-friendly fixed format in Combat Patrol. An ideal solution for me would be to have that format abstracting out details – very few options, fixed loadouts, weapons being simplified to 'combi-weapon' etc. – and for the main game to bring back some meat for list-building. As another poster pointed out elsewhere, there's a lot of fun to be had in planning – and we as a community spend far more time thinking about and realising our ideas through building and painting than we do playing.
  6. I think this really sums up the nub of the problem. Like @Timberley, @Iron Father Ferrum and others, I've found that the rules often get in the way of connecting the lore to the tabletop – and while that's sometimes been the case in previous editions, it's more prevalent in the latest edition. + Inconsistency + I don't think that it's necessarily a problem that rules do or don't make things 'special', but rather that the options that do exist are inconsistently restricted, and often mutually exclusive, which cuts down on the ability to customise things. I understand that the principle behind this is to avoid abusive combinations (the infamous cameleoline Assassin in Terminator Armour on a bike), and I think that's a good aim, overall. However, I don't think that GW have quite hit the sweet spot between restricting players from abusing the rules, and allowing players to meaningfully personalise their armies. Even things like weapons are often needlessly classified. Why do some datasheets have 'sword' rather than the more generic 'close combat weapon'? Why are some things specified, and other things not? +++ + Guard example + There are a few aspects to this. My main objection is that lore is inconsistently and arbitrarily muddled with rules. The Guard Codex is a perfect example of this – it feels really odd that there's a generic Imperial Guard infantry squad that can be assigned your own Regiment name; while the Catachan Jungle Fighters, Cadian Shock Troops and Death Korps Veterans, are picked out as specialist units. That just sits wrong, particularly as there aren't equivalent supporting units (like Command or Heavy Weapon equivalents), even where models for them exist. Had those units been given more generic titles – for example 'Deathworld Veterans', 'Shock Troops' and 'Hardened Veterans', for example, there wouldn't have been any crossover of the use of planet names – and players like @Timberley and myself would have quite happily made (say) Cadian-themed Hardened Veterans, or Death Korps Shock Troops. Of course, there's nothing stopping us doing exactly that – but it can create a barrier between you and your opponent. When fielding your Catachan models, there's an unnecessary awkwardness in explaining which models are 'Catachan Jungle Fighters' and thus have accompanying special rules, and which are normal Infantry squads/command squads/etc. with the 'Catachan Jungle Fighter' keyword – which doesn't interact with the 'Catachan Jungle Fighter' keyword on the Catachan Jungle Fighters.
  7. Regarding the Legions Imperialis equivalents, I suggest: * Bronze: Fully assemble, paint and base a Detachment (at minimum four LI Models); * Silver: Fully assemble, paint and base a Formation with all Compulsory Detachments filled. * Gold: Fully assemble, paint and base a Formation with all Compulsory Detachments filled and at least six Optional Detachments filled.
  8. This seems to undermine the flexibility of Crisis suits, which I always thought was their raison d'etre. Another step towards reducing options. :/ Actually, of all the opinions in the article, I think I disagree with this one the most: Interest and personalisation was implicit in the old rules by giving a range of options for you to choose from. Replacing that with fixed units and adding card-game style mechanics is a big turn-off for me.
  9. Old World Dwarfs? The Ironbreakers/Longbeards etc. have very similar decoration on their axes.
  10. The tank? If you mean the Primarch – good news! He's already out. @son of the forest gave this link earlier: https://ltcave.com/products/imperial-fists-rogal-dorn-primarch-of-the-vllth-legion-warhammer-the-horus-heresy-action-figure-by-joytoy
  11. The recent preview of all the new Kroot has given me a boot up the arse to get my Kindred painted in time for reinforcements. (Seems I'm not the only one – check out the 'Kroot Killteam covenant' thread in the Tau subforum, if you'd like to join the fun. :)) Progress has been decent, with four new members of the tribe ready for the field of battle upon Paradise XXII:
  12. As a result of contact with (and consumption of!) orks, Kroot were/are capable of developing technology – hence the Warpsheres and warp flight – but they have a cultural adversion to doing so in all but exceptional cases (such as the ability to pursue inter-system transport). They instead favour pursuing personal/societal genetic development through their roving mercenary actions. That’s where they get the majority of their ‘everyday’ tech, as they’re noted as being uncreative.
  13. Lovely model – my only slight hesitation being that the legs look oddly short. I hope that's just a quirk of the pose and/or photo angle, but the slightly more human-like and bulkier proportions of the new Carnivores is making me wonder. Other than that, great! While I would have been very happy with the steed being a new krootform, it's quite refreshing to see a different approach. I love the poncho, and looks there's a nice variety of heads and weaponry for the rider.
  14. Absolutely agree, @Captain Idaho – using the underlying statline mechanics is an excellent way of presenting the qualities of a unit. Is it notably resilient? That can be represented through a combination of playing with the Toughness, Wounds and/or Save characteristics, with the specifics helping to give the particular unit its character. Layering additional special rules on that complicates things. That's not inherently a bad thing (they can provide a distinctive or unique angle, for example), but at a certain point, you start to lose the baseline, and the whole game becomes much more abstract and the parts difficult to relate to one another. 3rd edition gives a perfect example of how the rules writers ended up tying themselves in knots. The Movement stat was removed, which made things very easy to remember – infantry always moved 6in. ...until we came to the Eldar, which had a new special rule to reflect their greater-than-human speed – fleet of foot meant they (mostly) moved 6+D6. Which was fine, until the Imperial Guard Rough Riders were released; which also moved faster than an unmounted human. But they couldn't use fleet of foot, as horses have hooves; so a new special rule – identical in mechanics – called fleet of hoof was created. Likewise for termagants, which became fleet of claw... In subsequent editions, this was glossed to just 'fleet' – but it was always an awkward, clunky and imprecise solution to the problem of different units moving at different speeds; a problem that would have been irrelevant if the M stat had simply remained in place. +++ The current edition suffers from a lack of coherency between the background and the statlines, and an unwillingness to de-escalate 'stat inflation'. Things have been tweaked and adjusted seemingly in isolation, so we end up with Termagants' weapons being the same Strength as Tau pulse rifles, or ork boyz that have to be T5. Those just 'feel' wrong.
  15. @Grotsmasha's advice is solid. I'd also suggest that for very large joints, it's a good idea to use two offset pins, rather than one central one. This helps to secure the pieces in the right position, and avoids putting too much stress on things. Drilling guide holes using a small pin vice will help you ensure the correct alignment – if it's slightly off, then you can correct as you bore out the hole with a larger pin.
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