Age of Darkness FAQ

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

 

how did I miss the Ashen Circle getting so many upgrades!

 

Between the lowering of points for squad, additional dudes, plasma pistol, the axe-rake becoming AP3 (!) and can now be joined by certain characters, Im scared of Rayray.

Did I miss something? Their unit size is the same and the plasma pistol was always an option

 

 

The unit size is the same, but the points of the of the base squad of 5 went down by 30 points, additional squadies went down 5 points, the cost of the plasma pistol dropped 5 points.

 

Those are some significant point drops

[SkimaskMohawk]

Ah sorry, totally misread. I thought you had said they were getting additional dudes and such instead of points lowering for all of them

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

No worries, I could have been much clearer in my post

[Purge the Daemon]

Ashen circle actually seem very playable I think we may finally see some zardu layak book burner lists coming up unfortunate you cant do it with lorgar though.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The chart is still wonky. Either it makes the chaplain irrelevant, or makes them becoming troops irrelevant. The invul is nice though

[Gorgoff]

I wonder why the mechanicum hasn't been nerfed.

They have horrible overpowered stuff at their disposal after all.

[Marshal Rohr]

My biggest hope is that they will stick a provision in the FAQs that allow you to group auxilia sections and weapons teams into a single troops slot so you can build your army as a company instead of just a platoon for larger games.

[Unknown Legionnaire]

That'd be nice indeed.

[Harrowmaster]

My biggest hope is that they will stick a provision in the FAQs that allow you to group auxilia sections and weapons teams into a single troops slot so you can build your army as a company instead of just a platoon for larger games.

 

I second this with the addition that something similar should apply to the militia list. Right now you can't really field the "numberless hordes" that they are said to be. 

[Kizzdougs]

 

My biggest hope is that they will stick a provision in the FAQs that allow you to group auxilia sections and weapons teams into a single troops slot so you can build your army as a company instead of just a platoon for larger games.

 

I second this with the addition that something similar should apply to the militia list. Right now you can't really field the "numberless hordes" that they are said to be. 

 

300 militia, just in the Troop section, already seems like "numberless hordes", especially when you consider that most Legion lists will have somewhere between 40 and 100 infantry.

[Marshal Rohr]

Kizz, I was referencing the auxilia baseline squad of just 20 guys, not the Levy Squads, they can stay the same.

[Gorgoff]

My biggest hope is that they will stick a provision in the FAQs that allow you to group auxilia sections and weapons teams into a single troops slot so you can build your army as a company instead of just a platoon for larger games.

That's 100 dudes, no?

[Marshal Rohr]

I was thinking more like 0-1 Platoon Commander, 0-1 Platoon Command Cadre, 1-3 Auxilia Sections, 0-1 Weapons Team OR 0-1 Reconnaissance Squad

 

Grenadiers would be 0-1 Platoon Commander, 0-1 Command Cadre, 1-3 Grenadier Sections

[Harrowmaster]

 

 

My biggest hope is that they will stick a provision in the FAQs that allow you to group auxilia sections and weapons teams into a single troops slot so you can build your army as a company instead of just a platoon for larger games.

 

I second this with the addition that something similar should apply to the militia list. Right now you can't really field the "numberless hordes" that they are said to be. 

 

300 militia, just in the Troop section, already seems like "numberless hordes", especially when you consider that most Legion lists will have somewhere between 40 and 100 infantry.

 

 

For just the expendable levy squads, everything else is 1 per slot and capped at 20 (or 10 for weapons teams).

[Rabidbunneh]

I wonder why the mechanicum hasn't been nerfed.

They have horrible overpowered stuff at their disposal after all.

Out of curiosity, what is it that you think is overpowered in Mechanicum? I know the Vultarax is pretty nuts (I swear by two of them in my Cybernetica), but I've seen a lot of hate about them in the community, a lot of it seems to be from a totally unique playstyle that doesn't quite match what legions do.

[Slips]

It mainly comes down to:

• Being able to field an army of MC's with T7+ and 3+/5++ on average
• liberal access to marine-erasing equipment (which most of the armies are)

[rendingon1+]

+ cheap fearless,fnp, 20 bodies adsecularis on objective/tie down melee units annoyance

 

Unfortunately some people still think that Mechanicum is somewhat "weaker".

[SkimaskMohawk]

Tech thralls are nuts. Unless there's some heavy artillery being rocked (medusas or scorpii) they're not going anywhere, especially not after the quad mortar nerf. They will tar pit and hold objectives extremely efficiently, so they need to be dealt with.

 

This leads into the next issue; if you need to commit to clearing chaf, what are you going to deal with their other stuff. Is it going to be monsters or vehicles? Artillery or krios? Arlatax or ursarax? There's a lot of units you can take, and if your opponent guesses wrong it turns into a disaster as their lascannons and multimeltas just get absorbed by the mc statline and then healed by the mechanicum, or theres a wall of Krios and triaros that laugh with their flare shields.

 

I will say, that since the nerf to grav imploders, theres not a lot of reliable ranged ap2. At least, not stuff you'll want for anti tank duty. The premiere anti 2+ unit is the thanatar, and they're a bit of a commitment both in points and modelling for the small blast version.

[StruManChu]

Darkfire Castellax still do the job for anti-tank. Maybe not well enough for Spartans, but enough for everything else. And for Spartans you've got Hoplites in Termites... You know, that other thing that should have been taken down a notch with the nerf bat.

[Noserenda]

Yeah my militia army always runs out of Troops and HQ in seconds just fielding a platoon or two, let alone fripperies like heavy weapon squads or recon!

Tbh Platoons would work, or even moving the Heavies to Heavy Support and the Recon to fast attack, maybe command squads to elites? It seems nearly all the squishy humans are concentrated in those 2 slots.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Darkfire Castellax still do the job for anti-tank. Maybe not well enough for Spartans, but enough for everything else. And for Spartans you've got Hoplites in Termites... You know, that other thing that should have been taken down a notch with the nerf bat.

I kind of phrased it badly. Mechanicum have a lot of options that an opponent can screw up trying to list build around. If they pick the wrong big thing, the game goes poorly for them.

 

Mech has plenty of anti tank. Darkfires do in a pinch, krios venators, vulturax, secutarii, myrmidons, ursurax, thallax, artillery tanks, etc..

[Rabidbunneh]

Fair points, I'd be happy if tech thralls got the same treatment as Levy, swapping fearless for stubborn.

[Brofist]

I don't agree that Mechanicum are that overpowered. A lot of it comes down to people who aren't used to playing against them, aren't familiar with how their list works, or have an army mostly tailored against other marines. I'll admit there are some outliers, but every faction has those. We can't complain about Castellax (nerfed 3 times already!) without considering how vets broke the internal balance of the game for years.

 

I took a pretty weak militia list for ZM to LVO and I ended up 7:2 because people weren't used to playing a bunch of dumb humans. I'm sure some of them think the army is OP now

[SkimaskMohawk]

Vets sure did break the balance a lot, but in the sense they were very cost efficient and basically made high durability elite units useless in a lot of cases.

 

Now in theory, they'd hard counter mechanicum. Wounding on 4s renders the enhanced toughness of the thallax to thanatars useless; rending takes out the save of the bigger things. But there's no way for them to actually bring their firepower in. Tech thralls are the ultimate screen any deepstrike units turn 1, while thallax gimp infiltration units.

 

And that's the problem; mechanicum have far too many options. Marines can't have the durable chaf, mass removal, manoeuvrable durable scorers, alpha strike denial, and extremely tough elite units in one list. Mechanicum can fit it all.

 

I have 2 legions, custodes and about 10k worth of mechanicum. List building is the easiest for the mechanicum, the biggest restriction being foc slots.

[Mazryonh]

Anyone here send feedback about the test rules to the FW team that wrote the FAQ? How are the newly adjusted units doing in your armies?