30k vs 40k 7th

[Valkyrion]

I'm taking my first tentative steps into 30k, partly because I don't like the direction 40k is going and also because I've reached a point where I can sensibly afford some of the higher priced toys.

 

I got the isstvan and crusade army lists when they came out a few years ago, but obviously there was no rule book then as it was a supplement to 40k, but now there is a proper rule book and it, and the two other marine centric books are winging their way to me as I type.

 

I've obviously not read the AoD rule book yet, but I remember 7th fairly well and I don't want to make my current armies redundant or consigned to the shelf so my question is this/these;

 

Can I play a HH army (I'm thinking Alpha Legion) vs the 7th edition Codex Space Marines, using the HH AoD rules? 

 

Main thing is not having to rearm all my current tactical, assault and devastator squads and flicking through my Isstvan books there doesn't seem a viable way to have a 10 man tactical squad with a flamer and heavy bolter, for instance, using the HH rules. 

 

Ditto 7th ed Astra Militarum instead of using the other book - I don't want to have to buy yet more books and I'm hoping to only buy the two army list books, the rule book and maybe the Malevolent book for the daemons rules - which segues nicely into;

 

Can I play the HH rules set, using Codex Daemons and Codex Tyranids from 7th (6th) or would I be better served actually just playing 7th edition 40k in that instance? 

 

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. 

[No Foes Remain]

The squad type you'll be looking for is the Veteran Tactical Squad, they are basically a mix of 40k tactical squads with a dash of company veterans. They all get bolter, chainsword/close combat weapon and a bolt pistol and can swap out the bolters for combi-weapons, special weapons, heavy weapons and certain close combat weapons (lightning claws, powerfists) and can swap out their melee weapon for a power weapon.

  In most lists they are a elite choice, however in two generic Rite of Wars (basically less OP formations from 7th [you don't get :cuss for free and there are limitations for each RoW]) they become troops choice. The first being Pride of the Legion (which is a great one for those dipping their toes into the Heresy) they second is unlocked by a Centurion Console option which was added in a later book (book 6 I think?) by the name of Delegatus who unlocks Chosen Duty.

 

  In terms of playing against 40k 7th ed books, it's 'mosty' balanced but the general rule is to not use formations from the codexes.

 

  Something else for you to look at is 1d4chan's 30k tactics section, I find this really helpful for just general options and to refresh on unit choices but I know a lot of people don't like it but it's there for free advice. At the end of the day, your HH force is your own, you don't need to take all the more powerful units to fit in. Just making a force that is true to your ideas is far better, want to do a Legion force that isn't well equipped for dealing with other legions due to them being a full anti-ork force? Go for it.

[Valkyrion]

Cheers.

It's not just the pseudo tactical squad though - my marines have stormravens, stormtalons, the HQ tanks and so on - nothing that couldn't be proxied, but there's enough to remember without thinking my stormraven is a stormeagle.

 

If I do go the Alpha Legion route then I'm going to pick up Alpharius - he's the only Primarch that doesn't necessarily have to be a primarch if you follow, so helps with narrative play. I've read here and there that if one side has a Primarch then the other needs one too, or something powerful enough to take one on. 

Is that right? Would Alpharius wade through a 7th ed demi company and make it too one sided?

[Lucien Eilam]

The rules are ~99% compatible. There might be a handful of weird or unclear interactions, but anyone familiar with 40k will be used to that even within the same edition. And if you're doing this, you’re probably not approaching it with a massively competitive mindset anyway, and willing to house rule stuff on the fly.

 

40k vs 30k balance can be all over the place. A Legion list built with AoD is likely to be skewed toward dealing with a lot of vehicles and PA/TDA, and might struggle against, say, an Ork infantry horde. But it’s also easy to build a Legion list that will make infantry hordes evaporate. How much fun it’s going to be will depend a lot on your own, hyper-local meta.

 

Alpharius is brutal against infantry in a world where invulnerable saves and Eternal Warrior are relatively limited, but generally comes off second-best against things like other Primarchs. I think something like a 7th ed. biker Chapter Master with the Shield Eternal could at least cause him problems.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The answer is complicated. Yes, you can have a game between 7th ed codexes and a legion list.

 

But, the 7th edition codexes are way, way stronger (for the most part). The marine one certainly is. Between detachments, formations and their extremely low point costs it gets a little one sided. Theres also a large amount of ignores cover in 7th ed books.

 

Alpharius is a great support primarch, and will make playing against 7th codexes more fair. But nothing really makes up for free units and objective secured on everything. Or infinite summoning.

[Valkyrion]

By using the 7th ed codexes I'd try to play as much as possible by AoD rules - including the three FOC variants in the army list book - so no formations, just the normal unit entries plus allies.

It was the formations that put me off 7th in the first place - the chaos ones wanted possessed everywhere and I'll not be blinded by such a shameless cash grab again - so I have absolutely no qualms about binning them, but because AoD is designed for marine on marine action I had wondered if the balance would be skewed in favour of the 40k armies over the 30k armies. 

 

To clarify my own position - I have a tyranid, space marine, imperial guard and chaos daemon army - to which I hope to add an Alpha Legion Heresy force - as well as smattering of other small units. Can all of those armies play each other using the AoD ruleset and be more or less evenly matched?

[SkimaskMohawk]

The answer then comes down to the lists.

 

If you have a lot of grav and ignores cover from the marines you'll tend to do well since their point costs are lower and suited to msu. Daemons depends on how much summoning you have. Ironically the daemon list in 30k is completely imbalanced as well.

 

Nids would get hosed iirc.

 

Guard should be pretty decent.

[Lucien Eilam]

It’s absolutely possible to build balanced, evenly matched lists with those criteria. It’s also possible to build hopelessly mismatched lists.

 

Since all the armies are your own in this case, you should be able to arrive at a place where they’re fun to play against each other.

[Imren]

in terms of gameplay competetiveness, 30k Alpha legion is a special case, at low point costs they are not very competetive, but at higher points games, AL can build the filthiest list that win 30k competetive GTs (more prevalent in north america).

 

If you build an AL list around the following:

• RoW Coils of the Hydra
• Alpharius
• 10x siege tyrants
• 10x volkite culverin squad with master of signal
• 5x plasma cannon skyslayer scimitars
• 3x javelins with missile launchers and mulitmelta
• Rapier laser destroyers
• 3x tactical squads

 

You can field a wannabe "6th/7th ed Tau(dar) gun line army" that mulch most opponents, you rapiers and infantry will enjoy legion astartes rule (AL), preferred emeny anything thanks to Alpharius, your plasma cannon scimitars will dance around the enemy at arms length and hose them down with BS5 and rerolls on ones plasma small templates. Your tyrants are joined by alpharius giving them BS5 reroll ones, thats 20x S8 missile shots each turn that will hit, same with the culverin squad, that with the master of signal will hose down 40x S6 shots at BS5 rerolling ones, against such a gunline even a custodes list with sekhmet allies will not fare well since inevetebly the weight of fire that hits will cause the enemy to roll those needed ones on the armour saves. if the enemy units are in vehicles the redeployable and rerolling ones laser rapiers will do short work of the land raiders and spartans making the enemy elite infantry forced to footslog against this insane gunline.

 

So yes, with 30k alpha legion you can definetely bring pain to a 6th/7th ed 40k army (but with running the risk of being regarded as a WAAC).

 

The above list suggestion is of course the epitome of 30k WAAC, you can of course tone it down a few notches depending of how competetive you and your opponent wish to play.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Brother Tyler
Removed derogatory term.

[SkimaskMohawk]

But that list loses to Spartans, straight up.

 

Laser rapiers don't make "short work" of them, they glance on 6s with two dice. Still need an average of 3 hits through cover to get a glance.

 

That sample core runs you at least 2500 points, so unless these tournaments are playing at a very large point amount of 3-3.5 then you arent getting too much more in your list.

 

Very, very confused how it gets called the highest tier of waac when it's basically a static gunline that requires los, has no protection from being shot at, and can't kill high armour. What's the game plan for Iron Fire? Or Air Cav? Mechanicum ordo reductor? That full brick of tryants averages 3.2 hull points against a Krios. Hope it doesn't get cover, because you just dedicated 1000 points to not killing ~150 points. It's a tournament list, so you'd expect to go up against stuff like that, right?

 

And then when you get down to scoring, you have a total of 3 units that can hold an objective, with no mobility. But you're offering martial hubris+primarch in return.

 

Just a terrible list really. It reads like it's the core of a 4000+ point list used on those barren tables that have the tall mechanicus terrain that has no los blocking and leans on the fishing for first turn.

Edited May 30, 2021 by SkimaskMohawk

[Imren]

Yes the list is for higher point games (3000 or 3500 points).

 

Sure, in a treadhead meta, especially against spartan and Krios spam you rather have graviton on your rapiers and mulitmelta om your scimitars. The rapiers have legion astartes rule, so they infiltrate and therefore highly probable to get LOS first turn with them and haywire glance the spartan. That's hundreds of points now that struggle to move and unload its deathstar cargo wherever they need to be.

 

With alpharius you get a rerollable 4+ to seize the initiative, so yes, you mostly likely get first turn.

 

With eight multimeltas on skimmers (three of them BS5 and the other five with preferred enemy everything) combined with the graviton rapiers (rerolls ones) you will deal with armour.

 

This list is quite powerful because it has weight of fire with lots of S8 krak missiles that almost all hit due to BS5 combined with preferred enemy everything.

 

You keep your tactical squads in rhinos and keep them there as long as needed, they all infiltrate and can reach their objectives relatively safely.

 

Playing a flyers and pod heavy list against this list is pretty much the least smart thing you can do. Reserves heavy lists (lot of pods and air cav) will struggle even more with Alpharius negative modifiers for enemy reserves. Add a cheap damocles command rhino for :cusss and giggles and a flyers/pod/reserve heavy list player might as well pack up and leave the table. Those units in reserves with need to win the million-dollar-lottery to come on the table and play at all.

[SkimaskMohawk]

3500 is the recommended cap to the game. I don't have a lot in faith in lists that are only decent at a point range where you can basically take anything. Even that list at 3000 is rough because you're basically at 2700 to get decent output on your rapier choices and then need the rhinos, so you're left with 200.

 

And obviously there's more optimal adjustments, but the framing was this was the filthiest waac GT winning build. The gimmick either needs to be very strong or it needs to be properly equipped to deal with competition instead of being skunked by the most popular heavy vehicle.

 

And yes, I understand that alpharius grants 4+ seize, but as I mentioned, the gimmick has to be strong. And the gimmick of going first with mid range, direct fire shooting isn't strong enough, especially since it's coming from these big expensive blocks that generate all your output and are easily traded out. It's not a GT winning, waac list if it needs a large point limit and is hoping for a sloppy table, a first turn and and a poor matchup.

 

 

And man, I'm trying not to dunk on it too hard, but I played iron warriors. I can tell you that mass STR 6-8 shooting alone doesn't cut it. That's with bs5 tank hunting tyrants and valen-buffed havocs. You need either quality shooting or melee to back it up.

 

As to flyers and pod lists being a bad matchup. Not really? Signal corruption is -1, but that itself is offset by a Damocles, which don't hurt your opponents reserve rolls either btw. Pod lists in particular front load their good units into their automatic first wave. The second wave is the filler. If the first wave can just come down and blast the 2 main damage units then that's it . For Air Cav, what's the plan if a storm eagle makes it in off the 4+/3+? The tyrants average 0.65 pens, 0.325 after jink, to go with 1 glance. The volkite do 0.78 glances after jink. The javelins average .85 succesful armour pen results after jink. 6 las rapiers average .81 successful armour pen results. The plasma bikes can't hurt it. So on average you get 3.4 hull points off a storm eagle with your entire ~2200 combo waac gt build. That's just 1 plane. What if there's 2 in at once?

 

What about an artillery list?

 

It's just a really fragile, not well rounded list man. It's not waac, it's not even highly competitive.

[Valkyrion]

If I may interject with a daemon related question - 

I'd expect daemons of the ruinstorm to be balanced for AoD (although skimaskmohawk suggests otherwise!) and would likely use those rules over Codex Chaos Daemons, but is it game changing in either direction to not use their funky deployment rules? 

Simply for fluff reasons you don't want daemons only materialising out of thin air, but also because I wonder if the ruinstorm army list could serve as a nice proxy for Codex Tyranids too? 

 

Lastly, where I might I find the most relevant rules for the FW Greater Daemons to us in 30k?

[Gorgoff]

 

 

Lastly, where I might I find the most relevant rules for the FW Greater Daemons to us in 30k?

In the Demon of the Ruinstorm army list.

Which is ok, but struggles from lack of intern balancing and the impact it has on other armies.

It's either very unpleasant for the opponent or for the demons.

There seems no middle ground at least from my sparse experience. I din't like it to play against them because you kinda have to tailor your army around this which always bugs me.

When you can't compete with a regular army against a faction there is something wrong with the balancing.

Pretty much the Talons of the Emperor effect.

I never lost against them, but I didn't enjoyed most of these games.

 

But as I said my experience against Demons in 30k is sparse and I believe it is possible to come up with armies which are both competitive and fun for both sides.

 

Edit: regarding the AL list. I didn't find the list waac either. 

I definitely see against which kind of foe that'll work but it is a meta army.

You need the right opponents, the right tables, the right missions and the right points played to make it work.

These are at least two conditions that you have no influence on and two conditions that you granted can influence, but then very quickly get a bad reputation if you do it just to make your concept work. Not worth the struggle to be honest, but you just made an example and don't play it as far as I understood you right. 

Edited May 31, 2021 by Gorgoff

[Lucien Eilam]

Balance has never been a strong point of AoD, even compared with 40k, and Ruinstorm lists are so rare I’m not sure any meta ever really settled.

 

It can be a pretty confusing list to play against, because so little is set in stone for any unit type. Personally, I would play Tyranids with the Tyranid codex. It may not have been designed for 30k, but at least it’s fairly clear what everything is and does. 

 

The Forge World Greater Daemons are covered in AoD by the Ruinstorm Arch-Daemon profile, in the Lords of War slot.

 

If you want the named Daemon Lord rules for 40k, I think the last 7th edition compatible version was in IA13 – War Machines of the Lost and the Damned, which has been out of print for years. I’m sure there are PDFs out there somewhere.

Edited May 31, 2021 by Lucien Eilam

[Mogsam]

I always struggle with mechanicum for the same reasons. If you don't tailor your list, you don't stand a chance.

 

Demons seem to be a bit like that, but their ability to just completely ignore the objectives, start halfway up the board and come armed to the teeth for combat makes them so good. If they run into a heavily tailored list against them, they'll do poorly, but against a balance generic list I'd bet on the demons.

[SkimaskMohawk]

So the thing with daemons is that you just literally auto win with khorne. You just get into combat and gain more points than your opponent can possibly score. The same thing to a smaller extent with undivided. The good news is that their build doesn't change; high toughness, multiwound, vulnerable to flesh bane and some morale hijinks.

 

Mechanicum has to play the same game as their opponent at least, but has a variety of builds that can skew the matchup. Do you go anti tank or anti MC? Do you deal with multi-wound infantry or the dirtiest chaf in the game? If they go heavy in one direction it can be frustrating. If they go wide on all it can frustrating. I had ~10000 points of mechanicum and all the options; if my friends went all in on anti vehicle and I had a small amount of them in that list, they were done. It also doesn't help that a lot of their units are criminally undercosted; Krios, triaros, adsecularis, magos, thallax, vulturax, artillery tanks, peltasts. You can really just take so many high quality units that your opponent will never be able to out trade you.

 

They also just happen to have the best tools to counter daemons with a combination of lots of augury scanners and high access to flesh bane templates off of destroyers.

[Mogsam]

For me, both armies highlight the underlying issue with monstrous creatures rule. They're just too good. Having multiple high wound, high toughness units that can't be shaken or weakened without killing them is infinitely better than what the marines can put against them.

 

I think castellax are a good example.

For 105 base, They're better than dreads with most of the same rules.

 

They can't be incapacitated, have smash, have cybernetic resilience, cause fear, have impact hits and for some baffling reason have rage. They're an. Absolute bargain.

 

Compare it to a cortus who has half these rules, but might injure itself if they try to use them, can be one shot killed, can't fight another dread without dying etc.

 

Demons are similar. Having 3 T6 wounds means that you have to kill them outright before they stop being a threat, which is hard enough by itself - but applied to every single model its so good. Especially when they start rotating wounds to the rear.

[Valkyrion]

I think the daemons being 'too good' is kinda fluffy in one sense - the 30k marines had never encountered them before so didn't know how to deal with them.

Also the Khorne rule is fluffy too and he cares not from whence etc...

 

That said, I don't think the multiple warp points deployment is a good idea - 30k, like 40k, is supposed to represent a snapshot of a wider battle, so by the time you start rolling your dice the battle should be well underway and all/most units on the board.

If khorne had to footslog most of their army across the board then the opponent has at least 2 turns of shooting to whittle them down. 

[Brofist]

Let's talk actual rules.

 

There are some fundamental differences between 7th and the AoD rules. A few got "smoothed out" over the years, but many remain. You'll need to decide what to do about scoring units, different FOCs, psychic powers, and general army building. Its been so long I don't remember if there's more.

 

Runestorm daemons need an FAQ. They are totally busted in some formats and combos, like ZM.

[SkimaskMohawk]

For me, both armies highlight the underlying issue with monstrous creatures rule. They're just too good. Having multiple high wound, high toughness units that can't be shaken or weakened without killing them is infinitely better than what the marines can put against them.

 

I think castellax are a good example.

For 105 base, They're better than dreads with most of the same rules.

 

They can't be incapacitated, have smash, have cybernetic resilience, cause fear, have impact hits and for some baffling reason have rage. They're an. Absolute bargain.

 

Compare it to a cortus who has half these rules, but might injure itself if they try to use them, can be one shot killed, can't fight another dread without dying etc.

 

Demons are similar. Having 3 T6 wounds means that you have to kill them outright before they stop being a threat, which is hard enough by itself - but applied to every single model its so good. Especially when they start rotating wounds to the rear.

Kind of?

 

The thing with the mechanicum MCs is that they kind of suck in melee, outside the arlatax. Castellax are a great unit, but are actually ranged support; equipping them for melee gets you 5 attacks a model, but at low WS, initiative and strength. The siege wrecker cranks the price up and if you want volume of attacks against units from paragon of metal you now have 160 points of WS 3 I2 melee robot. Which does worse against all its targets compared to a stock Cortus.

 

I will agree that their defensive Statline is an issue, but more on how it skews list building; because there's no potential for explodes you need volume of fire all of a sudden and can't rely on otherwise good sources of anti tank like the laser destroyer or grav rapier.

[Lucien Eilam]

As much fun as the “show me on the doll where the min-max WAAC player touched you” anecdotes are, in the context of this topic the armies in question all belong to the same person, whose objective is to build evenly-matched lists.

 

Unless your contention is that it’s completely impossible to achieve, I’m not sure it’s adding much.

[Gorgoff]

Didn't they change the cost of each Castellax to 120?

I am sure that that happened but can't find it anymore.

Have they changed it back to 105?

[The Scorpion]

Didn't they change the cost of each Castellax to 120?

I am sure that that happened but can't find it anymore.

Have they changed it back to 105?

Castellax can also no longer score, even when taken as compulsory troops with Legio Cybernetica

[SkimaskMohawk]

@gorgoff they were 85 originally, 105 is after the nerf...

 

@scorpion if adsecularis and thallax didn't exist, that'd be a problem. Instead you can get extraordinarily cheap scoring units for you backfield and fast ones for the mid field.