Vulkan and Stigma?

[eagleboy7259]

So everyone knows by now that there is little you can't do better with either the Blood Angels or Space Wolves codex. Outside of the special characters, there the only thing Vanilla seems to get over their more recently updated battle-brothers is Relic Blades, Land Speeder Storms, Bikes as Troops, Ironclad Dreadnoughts, and Special Libby Powers. Competing with that are troops with Counter-Attack, Furious Charge, Thunderwolf Cavalry, Storm Ravens... etc. It's near impossible to make use of all those things for the sake of being Vanilla, so my question:

In the face of the more recent Blood Angels and Space Wolves codexes, has the use of Cheesier builds based on Special Characters, like Vulkan, become more acceptable?

[thecactusman17]

The current edition kind of makes this old argument moot. The way that 5th edition special characters are integrated into their codii, with rare exception, is vastly different from the way they were previously.

4th edition characters were meant to be a bit of decoration, a rare sight on the board for a fun game. And to this end many 4th edition characters, especially from the earliest codexes, were not too great, overcosted, or had little effect on the overall design of an army. Named characters with some real oomph behind them were restricted in their own rules to full size and super-sized games, where the extra power would be mitigated by the enemy's additional resources. There were certainly exceptions--Eldrad comes to mind as the most obvious. But by and large there was little that a special character did besides either look pretty or radically unbalance the game toward one side or the other.

In 5th edition, GW realized they could sell more of their models by making them actually worth a damn in the game. "cheesy" builds that rely on characters aren't typically cheesy due to the characters themselves but instead due to the extra units and pre-game rules that they tend to bring. Here's a selection of particular rules out of my Dark eldar book. See which ones sound cheesiest to you. Note how many of them affect more than one model or unit.

"Reposition the model into B2B with a different model at the start of the assault phase."
"The model gets additional attacks equal to the difference in weapon skill"
"(unit) are a troops choice"
"(unit) and (unit) get a bonus pain token. (unit) are a troops choice"
"Choose your combat drugs. Also, your transports can deepstrike and one ranged infantry unit gets improved firepower."
"Redeploy D3+1 units at the start of the game."
"Seize the initiative on a 4+"

Many of the selections there that will sound effective to most players share a common theme: they are designed to elevate and enable other units within the army, without directly joining with the special character in question. Vulkan is another example, conferring special abilities to the users of all weapons most closely related to his chapter. Many further do this by allowing units to be taken in a different force org slot. While that's not a new thing, it's now common for at least one Special Character to shift a unit from one section of the FOC to another, or make it a scoring unit. Nobody was getting mad at people playing Belial, why would they get mad at Astorath, Baron Sathonyx, or Logan? And in 5th edition, almost all the codexes have multiple characters with comparable cheesiness levels.

Where the real cheese has gone are the other sections of the FOC. Elites, Fast Attack and Heavy Support are getting some pretty ridiculous stuff now. Twolves, flying land raiders, Imperial skimmers that outgun and almost outpace Eldar, troop MCs that spawn whole new units onto the field, entire squads of psykers and now even flyers on the tabletop. This is where the real abuse is happening. But with the wide-ranging upgrades to everyone else, it isn't too abusive to really worry about.

[Tynskel]

I wouldn't call it abuse. It is bringing back 2nd Edition when it was at its prime--- take pretty much whatever you want.

[sangrail777]

I don't think it's cheesy at all. SM Codex was built with the special charectors in mind to open builds for those who wanted to run with something diffrent.

[Daemonette666]

I don't think it's cheesy at all. SM Codex was built with the special charectors in mind to open builds for those who wanted to run with something diffrent.
I would love to see what they have install for the Chaos Space Marine Codex when they give it the 5th edition make over. Especially if it folows the "not Cheesy" trend of some of the newer codexes like Dark Eldar, Space Wolves or Blood Angels.

[thecactusman17]

Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Guard, Dark Eldar and Tyranids are all very well balanced against the other 5th edition codexes, with the exception of one exceptionally powerful artillery list.

[Nikephoros]

Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Guard, Dark Eldar and Tyranids are all very well balanced against the other 5th edition codexes, with the exception of one exceptionally powerful artillery list.

Tournament results from two and a half years ago are where you get your opinions on current game balance?

[oldone]

Blood Angels, Space Wolves, Guard, Dark Eldar and Tyranids are all very well balanced against the other 5th edition codexes, with the exception of one exceptionally powerful artillery list.

I agree with you about most 5th edition codex are balanced against each other, with the expception of tyranids, who seem to get powerful but not to the other codexs. for example T wolfes, blood talons(my old one eye hates these things), liby dread are all quite other the top but everyone to the own.

[thecactusman17]

Tourney results from two and a half years ago don't change the fact that no codex since has been devised to make that amount of dice being thrown at you survivable by any great margin. Even the best played BAs/Twolves/DE are going to have trouble against that much firepower being directed against them.

[Warp]

I would love to see what they have install for the Chaos Space Marine Codex when they give it the 5th edition make over. Especially if it folows the "not Cheesy" trend of some of the newer codexes like Dark Eldar, Space Wolves or Blood Angels.

I wonder if Chaos will even get a 5th ed. codex or if they'll go straight for 6th with it. Seems like there's basically no rumours out there at all on this.

OTOH, some of the older SM codexes got PDF updated, Chaos did not, maybe a sign they'll come before the updated ones?

[thecactusman17]

I think that Chaos will get a pretty comprehensive codex I think, eventually. It wouldn't supprise me if they got it last or nearly last and got the biggest one yet. Allessio Cavatore recently mentioned (on an article that appeared on this site!) how the old Codex was designed to shy away from the Chaos Gods with the understanding that individual codexes, or a codex specifically for the legions, would eventually come out.

I think that sounds fine. A rundown of the existing CSMs shows a codex that really isn't focused much on the "chaos" portion of the CSM, and as such has few of the really crazy cool stuff that Chaos is meant for. They get some great gear, but by and large they are recolored, sometimes slightly respecced, marines. I am looking forward to some really cool marines in the future.

Wait, I hate Marines. Well, at least they'll be different beyond the damn paint...

[BuFFo]

I would love to see what they have install for the Chaos Space Marine Codex when they give it the 5th edition make over. Especially if it folows the "not Cheesy" trend of some of the newer codexes like Dark Eldar, Space Wolves or Blood Angels.

Don't even lump the master piece of balance and beauty with those two Marine abomination armies.

[Vaktathi]

After having literally a year go by playing nothing but Vulkan led SM armies, I don't think I'll ever get over seeing him as "cheesy". He's still a relatively default choice for most C:SM armies, with really no thought required to utilize what he brings to the army (include in army, your guns are better, use him like you would any other SM Captain, but he's slightly better in CC too). That said, not as bad as C:SW.

[somerandomdude]

with really no thought required to utilize what he brings to the army

That's because, he doesn't really give you a whole heck of a lot.

In a 2000 point army, you'll include 19-27 melta/flamer/hammer weapons. The more you include, the less you have for long range suppression/anti-tank/anti-infantry. All of that is for 190 points.

So, for 7-10 points per weapon, you get twin-linked/mastercrafted. That seems pretty reasonable, and if they gave the option in a codex somewhere (they probably do I just can't think of one) that's probably what it would cost.

Sure, you can say that you've got a beefier CC Captain, but A) who uses Captains anymore and B) you'll either be using him with the TH/SS which don't need the help or using him with a Tac squad/Sternguard who will probably still struggle with combat.

All he does is take SM from an effective multi-range army to a (move effective) dual range army. In order to properly utilize Vulkan (and not spend a lot of points on nothing), a SM player has to ignore all of those great things like Rifleman Dreads and Predators.

Also, points are at a premium in all lists, particularly SM lists, so you're either giving up on a Librarian (nearly mandatory for what he brings), or there's another 100+ points off your melta-fund.

I never understood why people thought Vulkan was so cheesy...

[DarkLink]

There is a little more though to bringing Vulkan than one might think.

Vulkan buffs flamers and meltas. Those are very short ranged weapons. That makes you vulnerable to counter assault, and you don't have Chapter Tactics to run away like normal SMs. Meaning that, more so than non-Vulkan armies, you have to design your list to be able to handle being in combat.

Of course, as he master crafts thunderhammmers this just means you take some THSS terminators:rolleyes:.

[lowdog]

In this thread alone I've seen people complain about vanilla builds, IG builds, wolf builds, blood angel builds, tyranid builds, and the possibility that DE might have "cheesy" builds.

If everyone is cheesy, then doesn't that cancel out and mean no one is cheesy? That it's just the current state of the game?

[BuFFo]

In this thread alone I've seen people complain about vanilla builds, IG builds, wolf builds, blood angel builds, tyranid builds, and the possibility that DE might have "cheesy" builds.

If everyone is cheesy, then doesn't that cancel out and mean no one is cheesy?

Nope. This just means people are ignorant and have no clue what the reality of what they are talking about is.


That it's just the current state of the game?

Online it is.