Grav weapons and matched play book.

[Mandragola]

Hi all,

 

My copies of these have arrived now (in two boxes, annoyingly because ones from GW and the other FW). 
 

 

the Grav weapons are interesting though not super powerful, at least on my first reading. The warlord one seems a far better deal at 30 points compared to 20 for the smaller version, thanks to that second shot. I’ll give these a go at the goonhammer open next weekend. 

 

I could definitely see the warlord arm pairing well with a bellicosa or quake cannon. You get a long-ranger gun that can target. it’s the nearest thing to a sniper rifle currently in AT, which is not at all what I expected Grav to do. 
 

Here’s my initial look at the matched play rules, which I quite like. Key takes:

 

Deployment map is chosen by whoever has control of the battlefield, using the two dice results from the roll off. This “roll two and pick one” approach is used a lot in mission selection and I quite like it. 
 

I think (though am not certain) that these maps tend to put you nearer than the original ones in the book - though not as near as some of the OW cards.
 

Strats selection is a bit different. You have your whole hand of strats during the game, which can exceed the strat points you have. You then spend those strats until you run out of points. So you'll now have choices during the game about which strats you play.

 

Tertiary objectives are nerfed, or might be. They come out of your maximum 15 points for secondary objectives (so 40 VPs is the hard maximum, 25 for primary, 15 for secondary). You also need to have the required strat points at the time you play them, so don't accidentally spend them all! But in the other hand you can have a tertiary in your strat hand available if you need it, which could be very useful. 
 

Game length is fixed at 5 turns. No rolling for random game length.
 

Initial thought is that I'm not sure all primary missions look equally easy to achieve, though they might not be too far off. Secure and Hold looks very difficult, not least because it requires you to hold 3 objectives at the end of the game. To do that you'll need 3 units alive, in the right place. Many other missions only require you to do one thing. 

 

secondaries look good. The Priority assignment mission is confusing! Spear and shield, alpha and beta... quite a lot of stuff now will be secret during games so we’ll have to show up with post-it’s or something. 
 

I do like the look of the rules they've suggested for tournaments and doubles events. The deployment maps for doubles look quite fun.

 

Overall I think I like this book. It's arguably the best set of missions we've had. It does the job of the OW cards but arguably in a better way, creating more fair battles. Fixed scoring for missions is a great move, as is having choices over which you pick.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I think the Warlord Grav looks really interesting as a reasonably priced long range weapon. Fitting nicely into the Apoc, Quake and Bellicosa set, potentially replacing either to give an option to try and target damage after the other has blown a hole.

 

The Destructor could be fun on a Warhound, being able to disrupt and kill knights in early stages of the game.

 

But I'm just not seeing it on a Reaver, if it had been a Reaver arm weapon, I'd get it. But I don't think it works on a long ranged Reaver, the Apocalypse and Volcano Cannon work far better, and without the Apoc to strip or finish, the Volcano is going to struggle.

[Mandragola]

I think that's right. It just isn't a great gun on a Reaver, not because there's anything particularly wrong with it, but because there aren't good weapons to pair it with.

 

It's getting odd now that there haven't been any resin Reaver arms. They could be used by both Reavers and Warbringers. I think there's a real need for some sort of longer-ranged arm for them. Without that, they're stuck wanting to go forwards and the range of this thing is wasted. Missile pod arms would be a great help for a Reaver and even more so for the Warbringer.

[Noserenda]

Missile arms are such an easy conversion for the Reaver too, but some of my group are really dubious about allowing so many missiles in one place i dont see the problem, missile boats would be super specialised by their nature.

But it really is weird how they have seemingly never thought of doing Reaver/warbringer arms, id be all over getting a warhound plasma on one for example :D 

 

[General Zodd]

I think there might be an edge case for the Reaver version in Venator maniples. Barring the potential proximity limitation due to Carapace, having a decent armour-cracking weapon with 360 arc, which isn’t Draining and with good range could be useful for when shields go down.

 

The other place is in Extergimus maniples for Legios who can swap in Reavers. S12 without Draining adding to the Extergimus heat is decent. Though I agree the single shot nature is a major limitation.

 

Dual Grav Warhounds for long range sniping seems decent as well. My Fureans might find a use for that…

 

My book hasn’t arrived yet, so good to hear some positive initial thoughts!

[Mandragola]

I agree the Grav hat looks like fun in a Venator. I’ve never actually tried that maniple so maybe I’ll give it a go. I could run a VMB/volkite hound as well, maybe. 

[Lord_Borak]

I bought two of each whilst at WHW. So it's nice to see they're actually pretty decent. Good shout on the Venator. I will certainly be running that :D It's also nice to have a high strength weapon that isn't draining. 

 

Wishlisting is always nice :D I'd go for a Plasma Blastgun on a Reaver arm any day. Maybe like the Warmaster arm though with the -1 to hit at long range bit removed. As for Missile arms on a Reaver/Warbringer. I'd prefer it if they'd fire a few more shots than the carapace weapons. It would be a fairly lacklustre arm weapon otherwise.

Edited October 23, 2022 by Lord_Borak

[General Zodd]

This is clearly a tangent away from the main topic, but I’d be very hesitant about adding Plasma Blastguns as arm weapons for Reavers. They’re so useful that I’d worry they become ubiquitous, like the Warhound one has!

[Sherrypie]

Yeah, the problem point is indeed that everyone would go for plasma arms on Reavers any day, given their superb damage potential and Reaver's durable reactor track. They are okay on Warhounds because they can and will overload themselves occasionally, but as reliable weapons on durable platforms like Reavers? Yikes.

 

On the Grav stuff, I like 'em. Relatively cheap and uncomplicated long range sniping with disruption capabilities. Ruinator in particular seems like it would pair nicely with Extermigus bonii and stuff like Praesagius' traits to avoid taking aiming penalties while still pushing hard into locations you want to hit.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

I'd put the PBG on the carapace of a Reaver. Limits numbers and at least warhounds and knights can avoid them at close range.

 

It's not something Reavers need however. They need a long range, multi shot, low strength weapon.

[Mandragola]

Yeah to be honest I think the PBG and it’s OP-ness has probably been discussed enough. They’re too good right now, so of course we’d all put them on basically any hard point we could. If they lost blast I think they’d be more or less fair and could be stuck on other stuff, but that’s not relevant to these guns or this book.

 

I think the standard apoc launcher would be a great reaver arm. A load-out like apoc, volcano and Grav would then work fairly well.
 

It would be perfect for warbringers too. They currently suffer from not really having any good pair of arms to use with the quake cannon. Apoc and volcano cannon would work well, giving it an option to break shields or do accurate, long-ranger targeted shots. 

[Sherrypie]

Yeah, Warbringers in particular would benefit from missile arms as they're lorewise meant to be backline artillery rather than brawling at the front. As it stands, they struggle to break shields by themselves, leading to less than awesome usage of their top gun.

[Lord_Borak]

Would you just have them the same as the normal Reaver Carapace weapon? 2 of those and a Belicosa on top and it's basically a budget Warlord. I tend to run my Warbringers a bit more aggressively to be honest, with Gatling and Melta on the arms.

[Sword Brother Adelard]

Yeah, probably. If you think about it, Reaver weapons are often the same as half a warlord carapace weapon. (Gatling blaster, turbo laser Destructor, Apoc, Vulcan) So the same 5 shot profile would suffice.