Trying to make equally strong lists for skirmish fun

[Maschinenpriester]

Hi guys!

 

Was not sure if this belongs to the List section though...

I have just played a game against my Brother again. It was a mess (For him).

 

Almost everytime he takes out his dark angels he loses and he rages a lot while doing so...

In my opinion he just plays too many Terminators. Like 20 - 25 in a 2000 poing game - with Terminator HQs as well.

Or he tries his luck with expensive bikes and tries to alpha strike me.

 

Because I got like 40 - 80 cultists in my list he fails doing the deepstrike effectively.

 

I was thinking of maybe building fixed lists together which are equally balanced against each other, so the both of us can have fun.

Not talking about his eldar which just butt:cuss my Emperors Children anyways.

 

I am askinf for some creative hints for concepts for lists which are both fun and interesting to play and equally strong against each other.

 

 

I am making a list of stuff what the both of us have in posession:

 

Me - Emperors Children

 

Bunch of Noise marines (6 Blasmasters; Many sonic blasters)

Havocs (4 Lascannons, 4 Heavy Bolders, 4 Rocket launchers)

Rhinos

13 Terminators (Fully magnetzied for almost any loadout)

80 Cultists (36 CC; 37 Autocannon 4 Flamer, 3 Stubber)

4 Helbrutes (Almost comletely Magnetzid for any loadout)

Some vanilla marines and lots of different ones with carious cc loadouts used as CHaos gernerals and sorcerers, etc.

1 Warpsmith

1 Daemon Prince (not finished yet)

 

 

My Brother

 

5 Scouts

25 or so Terminators (Some magnetized, some not - Cyclone launcer, Plasmacannon and minigun are available, lots of dark vangeance guys)

1 Venerable dread

looots of Marines - also some with plasma and melta. Some sargeants and caprains

6 bikes - also thos special DA bikes with plasma talons and banner and apotecary

devastators (4 Plasma cannons, 2 Heavy bolters, 2 Lascannons, 1 Heavy meler, 1 Gravgun, 2 Rocket launchers)

 

I was thinking of maybe putting more terminators in my lists.

I just feel like if I play Helbrutes AND Terminators I heavily lack bodies, but my broter does anyways. so maybe it gets balanced that way.
Also i think rhios are fun because they are mobile so maybe they are a good counterpart to 3-6 bikes?

 

I am thinking best size for games are 1500 points, not to big not too small.

 

thanks for any advide and Idea!

[Kite Senet]

This doesn't answer your original question (and to do so would require strong familiarity with both CSM and Dark Angels, a pretty tough order) but one idea is to try a self-stabilizing campaign system. That is, for example, you might each start the campaign with 1500 points; when one of you wins, he must take a 25 point handicap, so that if you have a win-loss margin (that is, the potentially negative quantity #ofWins - #ofLosses) of M before a game you always have 1500-25*M points to work with in your next game. Eventually such a system will stabilize, where you and your brother are each winning approximately 50% of the matches over time, even if one of you is a substantially better player.

 

My brother and I are doing a similar idea, where we each start with 4 Power and whenever one of us loses we gain 1 more Power to work with in the next game; we (admittedly bizarrely) call this particular escalation campaign "A Drop of Honey" in reference to the old Persian myth of the same name.

[Maschinenpriester]

Great idea! Even I am not very familiar with those so its als ohard to think of lists for him. ^^

He really insists on playing his nators so this might help it a bit =)

Edited March 11, 2018 by Maschinenpriester

[Kite Senet]

Glad I could help.

Keep in mind, however, that while this campaign system should mathematically guarantee[1] an even 50/50 win/loss ratio, it cannot guarantee they will be good games. It's possible you'll just alternate between games that are a mess for you vs a mess for your brother. Also, the rate of convergence to equilibrium may be slow; it might, improbably, take a TON of one-sided games before you start getting an even matchup.

[1] I haven't gone through a proof, but with the assumption that the probability of victory given a proportion of the total points is continuous, and that P(100% of the points) = 100% victories and P(0%) = 0% victories (which seem intuitively obvious), it would seem that probabalistic convergence towards an equilibrium would be guaranteed by the Intermediate Value Theorem, but I wouldn't know for sure without a proof.

 

Sorry, I'm a mathematician so I love complicating things like this with abstract math.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Kite Senet

[Trevak Dal]

Sounds like his army is using the Fast Attack and Elite choice army formations to get the Deathwing and Ravenwing lists in, with emphasis on Deathwing.

 

Though I'm guessing he doesn't have enough on board guys to offset a lot deepstriking.

 

Your guys are mostly troops, so that means a likely batallion of Noise marines (and we all know Emperor's Children love a good butt :cussing, they just prefer to be pitchers than catchers most of the time)

 

Who dump a lot of shots into slow moving elite army of his.

 

Terminators this edition are hard to play with if you are going in Mass, because loyalists usually have to take powerfists.

 

Since he has a lot of marines, maybe both of you should start out with patrol detachments.

 

Tell him to take ONE Terminator unit and ONE Ravenwing unit, and the rest troops and some devs.

 

So like

 

Hq Terminator Company master/whatever

 

Elite: 5 Deathwing guys, barebones

 

Troops

 

3x5/10 tac squads, if possible Sargent combiPlasma, plasma gun

 

 

Fast Bikers (not the spinners and rims ones with the plasma talons, though I think they might be elite...)

 

Heavy: 2x5 devestators.

 

Now I dont know if it will be a "fun" game, but marines- particularly Dangles are better suited to shooting, as are your Emperor's Children so you guys will be cover camping :cusss popping shots at one another, with him having to be more aggressive since you ignore cover with Sonic weapons.

 

If he's set to taking Deathwing, he's going to need to take barebones squads. More guys > shiney toys, but it won't help with much since he won't have antitank out of close combat (with fists which is risky).

 

All in all it seems like you have a more balanced force that is backed by a hordable cultist screen. He is in a position where he is going to have to play catch-up/plastic arms race to try and meet your flexibility, but it seems like he likes the Deathwing aspect of dangles, so he's kinda :cussed, like how I am with Tau and crisis (so I'm just not getting the codex and they are gonna sit in my closet and take up space)

 

Maybe try narrative missions where you go by Power Level and WYSIWYG so he can deepstrike all his Deathwing?

Edited March 11, 2018 by Trevak Dal

[Maschinenpriester]

Thanks for all the ideas so far!

 

@ Kite senet

 

Don't worry i am an engineer so.. =D Math works ^^

 

Maybe a good thing would be to tinker a bit beforehand in order both faction have a unique and interesting starting list to start of with.

 

Trevak Dal summed it up correctly i guess. Problem is he seems to insist on playing his nators. And I dont want to get us in an "BUY MORE PLASTIG GUNS" arms race, because I think we allready got enough to tinker around with. On the Other hand I dont want to just leave the cultist sceen away, which would lead to a T1 Alphastrike desaster for me.

 

SO i guess its just reducing them a little taking more nators or hellbrutes to lower my bodycount, and from then going as kite senet said, with the reduction of points.

Edited March 11, 2018 by Maschinenpriester