Legions Imperialis & Epic hobby chat!

[Valkyrion]

The high gloss black flooring with a spattering of white makes it look like a city floating in space. There's even a few comets and the gateway is almost perfectly lined up with what appears to be the arm of a galaxy. In fact, if you look at the bottom picture first, then scroll up half way, it looks like the arm is shooting out of the spire. Is that a Battlefleet Gothic board, or has it happened by accident? It may be accidental genius or deliberate madness, but either way it looks as cool as a cool thing. 

 

[DuskRaider]

Those are actually just paint flecks on my kitchen table lol. Everyone in the family paints in different mediums and the kitchen table is where most of it is made. We usually have a tablecloth on it except when we’re doing stuff like this. 

[DuskRaider]

Well here we are so far… I’ve been hard at work on these for a few days now. I’m not too happy with some of the striping, I was hoping the Tamiya paint tape would help me with the process but I think it hindered me more than anything. It worked wonders on Titans, but in tiny tanks with so many contours and tight spaces, it ended up making it more difficult. 
 

 

As you can see, I’m alternating the striping on the front of the tanks in squadrons of 4. This would allow me to keep track of which unit of Terminators is which. They will also receive some sort of numerical decals as well. 

I’m going to end up grabbing one more box of Spartans to have a total of 24. I’m going heavy into this theme as I had originally planned on doing, and will probably grab an extra to make a Command Spartan (as in it carries my Commander). 
 

As you can see, I’ve included the Land Raiders and remaining Predators in this batch as well. The Land Raiders are basically useless to me in a Heavy Assault formation, but they’ll come in handy when using a Demi-Company, paired with my 20 Rhinos. The aforementioned Rhinos, along with the last two Sicaran, will be the next batch. I’ve still got a primed Thunderhawk along with the unassembled ‘Hawk and six more Xiphon to tackle after that along with going back to all of the terrain and tiles. 
 

It’s funny… I thought I made a ton of progress when finishing the infantry and then I look at the pile still waiting to be painted and despair. At least it keeps me busy. 

[apologist]

A work-in-progress Legio Maximal Reaver:

 

 

[Sherrypie]

Starting off looking good, apologist.

 

Finished off a handful of smaller field artillery pieces for the Guard.

 

[apologist]

Right back at you, @Sherrypie – they look great!

 

 

 

Bit of a shonky pic here, but Profugon Iratus is almost ready to reclaim* his forgethrone of Nabed-Paleae, in Maximal Fire's event this weekend.

 

 

 

*Well, attempt to, at least. Given my record with my Salamanders, he might be better off without me!

 

Edited August 16 by apologist

[apologist]

... and complete; ready for the game tomorrow. Here's Profugon Iratus of Legio Maximal, marching out alongside the Salamanders. 

 

 

A couple of details. The watchful hare is a personal totem of Profugon Iratus' Maniple, symbolising the watchfulness, responsiveness and willingness to engage larger opponents fearlessly.

 

 

One of the Engines built on the Legio's forgethrone itself, the planet's name – Nabed-Paleae – is emblazoned on its carapace. Note also the shoulder flash; a cutlass to symbolise the Corsair Cluster, the Legio's domain and protectorate.

 

 

 

This shot shows the literally Titanic size of the War Engine, with the mighty Astartes dwarfed in its presence. A prehistoric carnadon is emblazoned on the Reaver's knee, and weapon banners hang from its guns as a statement of intent from the Moderati.

Edited August 16 by apologist

[DuskRaider]

So I just finished playing my first game in quite some time and the very first with my Heavy Assault Formation and yeah…

 

 

So this was an interesting one… and by interesting I mean I got stomped. It was a comedy of errors on my behalf, starting with setting the board. I was so excited to finally use my Titanicus Realm of Battle board that I didn’t even notice that I had screwed myself on deployment by taking up half of my zone with the massive building foundation. This wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had fielded footslogging infantry, but the fact that I was running a mechanized army ended up causing big problems. 
 

First I’ll say this: Spartans are cool. They have some great firepower and in theory are pretty durable. The problem arises when you try to jam a bunch into a smaller point game, and this was the biggest issue I encountered when playing this game in particular. My list was the following:

 

Heavy Assault Formation

1 X 8 Terminator Detachment

1 X 4 Spartan Detachment

  - 4 X Laser Destroyer Array

  - 3 X Hull Mounted Heavy Bolters

  - 1 X Hull Mounted Lascannons

 

1 X 8 Terminator Detachment

1 X 4 Spartan Detachment

   - 4 X Laser Destroyer Array

   - 3 X Hull Mounted Lascannons

   - 1 X Hull Mounted Heavy Bolter

 

3 X Kratos Detachment

  - 3 X Kratos Battlecannon

  - 3 X Lascannon Sponsons

  - 3 X Hull Mounted Lascannons

 

Heavy Assault Detachment

 

1 X 8 Terminator Detachment

1 X 4 Spartan Detachment

  - 4 X Laser Destroyer Array

  - 4 X Hull Mounted Heavy Bolters

 

1 X 8 Terminator Detachment

1 X 4 Spartan Detachment

   - 4 X Quad Lascannon Array

   - 4 X Hull Mounted Lascannons

2 x 2 Sicaran Detachments

  - 4 X Accelerator Cannons

  - 4 X Lascannon Sponsons

 

It seems like a decent amount until you realize just how many points are invested into Terminators and Spartans alone. Of 2001 points, roughly 1200 of that were just Terminators and their taxis. Not a great idea and the end result was a very unbalanced list. 

 

My next error was forgetting that the Dire Wolf can infiltrate and ending up with it staring at the flank of one squadron of Spartans Turn One. It managed to pop a Spartan before the return fire stripped its shields, but the damage was done. The resulting destruction left one base

of Terminators dead and the other left in the lurch, slowing down the rest of the Spartans. 
 

My only anti-aircraft units were the Sicarans, one which were easily destroyed by the Xiphons Turn One and losing me the sole Objective I had at that point. In return, I managed to dole out decent damage with the Spartans, downing a Thunderhawk with one squadron and some extremely lucky rolling while the Kratos took out a squadron of Sicarans.

 

Turn Two I made my biggest mistake. Rolling one squadron of Sicarans up a road, I had exposed my flanks to my friend and the result was a loss of two more and most of the contents within. In response, I was able to pop a squadron of Kratos but at this time almost half of my troops were gone. I was able to get the Dire Wolf down to a single wound, but at the cost of a Kratos and another Sicaran. 
 

On the other side of the battlefield, I rolled my other half of the army up and took out some Heavy Weapons Marines and pop another Kratos squadron, but it was too late at this time. He had already capped over 15 VP to my 3 and the one-two punch of aircraft and Titan were just too much to handle. 
 

So what have I taken from this game? Well, I made some horrible tactical decisions early on and it came back to bite me rather quickly. The other is while the Heavy Assault Formation is a really cool theme, it just doesn’t work well in smaller games. The points invested in that many Terminators and Spartans meant I had no real response to aerial threats or a Titan, though the Dire Wolf would have probably died the next turn. 
 

I think at 2,500 or 3,000 this list (or idea of it) may be a bit more viable when air and Titan support can be used, but as it stands it’s just too easy to counter. It’s also difficult capturing objectives when the vast majority of your points are spent on what is basically four units and they cannot afford to babysit them. An alternative would be to take perhaps 4 x Terminators each and, while it would cut down on the amount of heavy tanks, it would also open the list up to more choices for support. 
 

I think we’re going to try a 3,000 point game sometime soon and I may revisit this theme for that, but I am a bit gun shy at the moment. 

Edited August 19 by DuskRaider

[Metzombie]

Maybe I am missunderstanding you, but you do not need to keep units on objectives. After you capture them they stay under your control until the opponent captures them.

Edited August 18 by Metzombie

[DuskRaider]

 

Maybe I am missunderstanding you, but you do not need to keep units on objectives. After you capture them they stay under your control until the opponent captures them.

It was more keeping them in my possession. As quickly as I capped an objective, he had more units to take it away and unfortunately did so. By the end of the game, I had two and he had four. 

[Mendi Warrior]

I love your terrain and models. Very cool stuff!

[DuskRaider]

 

I love your terrain and models. Very cool stuff!

Thanks! I love the Titanicus board, even if it’s not exactly the size recommended for LI. 

[Mendi Warrior]

The Titanicus boards are great but were too pricey to my liking (and overstreched finances ...) to acquire in addition to all the rest .

[DuskRaider]

 

The Titanicus boards are great but were too pricey to my liking (and overstreched finances ...) to acquire in addition to all the rest .

Oh absolutely, it was certainly an investment. I’m glad that I did though, the going rate of a single tile now is $500+ and there’s no way in hell I’m paying that. It’s just kind of funny because I’ve owned it since 2018 or ‘19 or whatever and the very first game I play on it isn’t even AT 

[Crablezworth]

 

It was more keeping them in my possession. As quickly as I capped an objective, he had more units to take it away and unfortunately did so. By the end of the game, I had two and he had four. 

 

End game scoring is a lot more satisfying imo, might be worth a try if your opponents are down. 

[DuskRaider]

 

 

End game scoring is a lot more satisfying imo, might be worth a try if your opponents are down. 

That would probably help, but I can’t help but feel like I shouldn’t change the rules for my blunders. I made some glaring errors in building my list, I paid the price and learned some lessons from it. 
 

Rest assured, I’m not abandoning the theme of the army… however, after some thought, I believe the better idea is to take the base sized units of Terminators, giving me 4 bases in 2 Spartans per detachment. This gives me much more flexibility on the battlefield and it opens up a lot of points for support options, such as Leviathan Dreadnoughts, my much adored Xiphons, and squadrons of cheap Predators. Four detachments of Terminators rolling around in their battle limos is still a lot of Terminators and Spartans to deal with and it gives me the ability to even throw in a small Demi-Company to put more boots on the ground. 

[Crablezworth]

 

That would probably help, but I can’t help but feel like I shouldn’t change the rules for my blunders. I made some glaring errors in building my list, I paid the price and learned some lessons from it. 
 

Rest assured, I’m not abandoning the theme of the army… however, after some thought, I believe the better idea is to take the base sized units of Terminators, giving me 4 bases in 2 Spartans per detachment. This gives me much more flexibility on the battlefield and it opens up a lot of points for support options, such as Leviathan Dreadnoughts, my much adored Xiphons, and squadrons of cheap Predators. Four detachments of Terminators rolling around in their battle limos is still a lot of Terminators and Spartans to deal with and it gives me the ability to even throw in a small Demi-Company to put more boots on the ground. 

 

Well, its wroth pointing out sm2 had endgame/sudden death and not progressive. But I'd just say plant the seed with opponents. Like I'll put it in a different perspective, if yo were teaching a friend the game it would take the stress down a lot for them not having to fixate on scoring every turn and just sorta get a feel for things. 

[DuskRaider]

Well I built my Tank Commander and totally bit off Mandragola’s idea as well as added some aerial whips to the turret. Not much else I can think of adding at this point, especially at the scale. I can assure you that it will totally 100% probably be painted within a month or so… maybe. 

[Crablezworth]

Nice, you made the right choice going all AT think. Banner looks good, yo doin transfers or free hand? 

[DuskRaider]

 

Nice, you made the right choice going all AT think. Banner looks good, yo doin transfers or free hand? 

I’m definitely using transfers, my freehand isn’t as good as it used to be. I’ve got the FW transfers, so I can mix it up a bit as well. 

[vadersson]

 

 

Well, its wroth pointing out sm2 had endgame/sudden death and not progressive. But I'd just say plant the seed with opponents. Like I'll put it in a different perspective, if yo were teaching a friend the game it would take the stress down a lot for them not having to fixate on scoring every turn and just sorta get a feel for things. 

Somedays I really think they should have just copied more of SM2 for LI rather than just taking ideas from it.  Seems like SM2 was a much better version of LI in many ways.  :(

[Crablezworth]

 

Somedays I really think they should have just copied more of SM2 for LI rather than just taking ideas from it.  Seems like SM2 was a much better version of LI in many ways.  :(

 

Well,  I don't think its too difficult to see what they bolted on/where it went wrong. They added unlimited overwatch, for some reason, but didn't even tie it to one order like first fire, so its a nightmare. They couldn't decide if they wanted a lot of shooting in the movement phase so we got this very forced overwatch/point defense gimmick that is super bolted on. They went with progressive scoring, literally just because its in vogue/popular but didn't consider end game/sudden death. So its like an acid fueled demolition derby basketball game where one side can get such an lead that the opponent just taps out on turn 2. And finally, because its very difficult to point cost at an integer of 1, they just sorta abandoned costing different weapon loadouts for the most part, but randomly have a few weapons that cost points to be upgraded to. Infantry in sm2 were real slow and couldn't march out of transports. If they fixed those things it'd be closer to sm2 and better. 

[Crablezworth]

RG army is slowly getting there. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

Epic!

[apologist]

Fun event down at Poole the weekend before last. Had three great games.