The Ridiculous List To Show That Escalation Should Be An Expansion

[Katharon]

Greetings to my fellow BoLS forum folk. So, due to the release of Escalation, the crazy-mind bending arguments surrounding it, and the recent news that GW will be allowing it in their Throne of Skulls and other tournaments (that they only host at Warhammer World) -- my own local gaming community has been beset by the same craze. Debates are still flaring and getting hairier all the time.

Now let me be perfectly clear: I think Escalation should be considered an Expansion. A stand-alone expansion pack for people that love Apoc but can never find the time to play in a game or never find enough people to partake of the legendary fun and destruction. It is, as most things are in this game we all love to hate and hate to love, optional.

Why do I think this? Because of the following list. My local gaming community believes that we should include Lords of War (Escalation) into the regular tournaments we routinely have going. Others (such as myself) have dissenting opinions. If you want to have an Escalated Warhammer 40K League (I'm coining that term, "escalated") then you are more than welcome to do so; however it shall not stain the tabletop of the regular Warhammer 40K tournaments and games. If it's a casual game between two consenting players -- go wild, do whatever you want. But the moment we automatically begin including Lords of War into the regular tournament gaming arena then we'll begin the long and painful road that Magic the Gathering took: pay to win.

So, in all its horrific glory, here is the list I devised to show just how imbalanced Lords of War makes regular 40K. (Side note: thank you ForgeWorld for making this list possible.)


Primary Detachment - Codex: Inquisition
Allied Detachment - Imperial Armor Volume 1 - Second Edition: Imperial Armored Battle Group


HQ

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor [25]

Troops

Inquisitorial Henchmen Squad #1 [12]
3 x Acolytes

Inquisitorial Henchmen Squad #2 [12]
3 x Acolytes

Lord of War

Reaver Titan [1,450]
Gatling Blaster
Volcano Cannon
Vulcan Mega-Bolter

[Cut off here for 1,500 Point Games]

Allies: Armored Battle Group

Company Command Tank [195]
Leman Russ Vanquisher
Beast Hunter Shells
Hull Lascannon

Leman Russ Battle Squadron #1 [155]
Leman Russ Vanquisher


[Cut off here for 1,850 Point Games]

[daboarder]

I'd remove all reference to "tournament play" the point you make stands in casual weekly games just as well.

[White Tiger88]

So we kill your troops and lock the titan in combat with a horde of nurgleings?

[Gotthammer]

Not that scary - superheavy walkers can be locked in HtH now, so getting something like hammernators or even a IG/Ork blob into base to base will shut the Reaver down and then it's game over for the Inquisitor.

Also if you really want to be a jerk it's better to equip a reaver with twin lasblasters and either a plasma blastgun or turbolasers on the carapace.
Also also the vulcan mega bolter sucks.

[Katharon]

So we kill your troops and lock the titan in combat with a horde of nurgleings?

If you ever get that close.

[Katharon]

Not that scary - superheavy walkers can be locked in HtH now, so getting something like hammernators or even a IG/Ork blob into base to base will shut the Reaver down and then it's game over for the Inquisitor.

Again, if you can get close enough. It won't be that easy, especially with the pie plates that Stomp puts down.


Also if you really want to be a jerk it's better to equip a reaver with twin lasblasters and either a plasma blastgun or turbolasers on the carapace.

I'll take 6 large blast template blasts with Primary Weapon, matched with a D-weapon on the side dishing out Massive blasts to take out the stubborn things, over the combo you mention. More pie plates means more stuff will get hit and less time trying to hunt down smart people who would spread out (deployment and first turn shooting are really important).


Also also the vulcan mega bolter sucks.

You kidding me? They are great at mob-control and killing anything with Marine armor or worse.

[daboarder]

So we kill your troops and lock the titan in combat with a horde of nurgleings?

Stomp, nurglings are dead, what next?

and thats only if the titan doesn't move and shoot the nurglings to oblivion before they even get close

[Gotthammer]

Trust me, a Titan with no support against an equal amount of points goes down - because it won't just be one unit vs one unit, it'll be a single titan against an entire other army. And ok, titans can stomp - so don't charge it and stand 1" away and shoot meltaguns into it. Reavers can't move very far due to their huge footprint so it is effectively a stationary gun platform - block it's LoS with terrain and just avoid it - the Inquisitor and his goons are basically ignorable for the purposes of manoeuvring.

Or use flyers since it'll have a lot of trouble shooting them down. And even if a unit in HtH only lasts one turn, that's possibly a fifth of the game the Reaver isn't shooting, which basically gives your army a free go.

I do acknowledge the VMB is not completely terrible now, forgot they'd bumped it to AP3 now >.<

[MajorWesJanson]

I do acknowledge the VMB is not completely terrible now, forgot they'd bumped it to AP3 now >.<

It's also the only titan weapon that can shoot at planes.

[Houghten]

It's been AP3 since at least 2008...

[daboarder]

Honestly with 350 pts I reckon youd be better taking a horde of gaurd infantry. You can force in a lot of bodies for that many points

[Katharon]

Honestly with 350 pts I reckon youd be better taking a horde of gaurd infantry. You can force in a lot of bodies for that many points

True. I just figured on getting extra vehicle-killing on the board, since people would want to rush it (as has been mentioned by several peeps already) and the best way to stop that is to destroy their rides...

[mikeramos]

Yes kill able but still if I had to play against that I would forfeit it just lacks any real fun for both players I mean how big of a dick do u have to be, we have been deciding on how to hadle The Lord of war our group Decided 25% of your total points, and no apocalypse templates, just to keep it balanced.

[flatscan]

So we kill your troops and lock the titan in combat with a horde of nurgleings?

How would Nurglings charge anything AV 10+ without being attached to an Independent Character (one that can at least Glance it)? The main rules say you can't assault vehicles you can't hurt (pg 76 under Assaulting a Vehicle).

[mikeramos]

A player in our group runs 2x farseers, 7x warlocks on bikes that alone is 580pts and tables my dark angels in two turns. I would rather go up against a scorpion grav tank at least I might have a chance a destroying it

[interrogator_chaplain]

Umm, doesn't the Reaver have a minimum distance? Something like 12" or 24", anything that gets within that can't be shot at because the Reaver can't look down? I know the Imperator has a minimum distance of 36".

[Katharon]

Umm, doesn't the Reaver have a minimum distance? Something like 12" or 24", anything that gets within that can't be shot at because the Reaver can't look down? I know the Imperator has a minimum distance of 36".

Not according to any of the weapons the Reaver carries. And there are no special rules about that in the Super-Heavy Walkers section either. So nope. As long as a template isn't covering its feet, it's all good.

[Katharon]

Or use flyers since it'll have a lot of trouble shooting them down. And even if a unit in HtH only lasts one turn, that's possibly a fifth of the game the Reaver isn't shooting, which basically gives your army a free go.

I do acknowledge the VMB is not completely terrible now, forgot they'd bumped it to AP3 now >.<

Also, I like to use the VMB against Fliers. Nothing flying in the air has anything better than AV12, so I can either Glance them to death or pen them on 6's. With 15 shots, I'm bound to get a handful.