We are all familiar with escalation, and till now it has been controversial and probably for good reasons. I have been for accepting the additions to the game and think these should be allowed, if not forced down people's throats either. Well a new edition is here (sorta) and escalation is in the BRB as well as stronghold. Now I'm sure many will buck this and continue to ban lords of war, but I think with one of the changes in particular, lords of war are not the monsters they used to be.
The big change I am talking about is to D weapons. No longer do they just destroy everything. And they balanced its damage out for vehicles and infantry, which is something I felt the old D weapons were unfairly skewed against. Lets be honest here, the main issue everyone had is in how powerful they were, they just removed so much from the board and in many cases like the revenant if you went first you won. Shield generators could help you if you were lucky, but the events that have run escalation showed that most times, the one who went first won.
Changing D weapons was a necessary thing, they were just too powerful and while they countered deathstars, they countered everything else. So with the new edition we are getting a more palatable D weapon. For vehicles and buildings: a 1 the model is unharmed. Much better than before as though infantry could survive on a one, vehicles still suffered a pen hit. 2-5 model suffers a pen and D3 hull points. You could still possibly survive even with this result. 6 you get the old D weapon with no saves a suffer D6 + 6 hull points and/or explode. So you need to get lucky for the D weapon to do maximum damage. For infantry its pretty much the same, 1 does nothing, 2-5 suffer D3 wounds, and 6 is D6+6 wounds with no saves at all.
For anything but 6s, you will be able to make cover and invul saves. The power of the D is now much more limited, it still is powerful and can deal damage, but you are no longer just removing models. If a 6 is rolled, then the super gun appears, but now its a much smaller chance and will not be the norm.
With this change, I no longer feel that lords of war are a big deal. They are expensive and give you VPs if you hurt them. There big advantage is now only a small one. So if you face a revenant now, well you'll take the wounds the same as if it was a basilisk or other large blast high S low AP weapon. Powerful but no too powerful.
All in all this is a good thing. Lords of War should be cool, approachable and most of all fun. They should not traumatize players. Hopefully people will take another look at this and realize these are not the same lords of war that they previously were. With this, Lords of War can become regular part of games and be fun, but not overpowered. The D has been reigned in.
And really, with unbound and unlimited FoC, is escalation really that big of a deal anymore? I don't think so.
GG
Not for nuthin,' but a lot of people have superheavies layin' around, and who ever really plays Apocalypse with any kind of regularity?
ReplyDeleteIt'll be nice to see 'em on a table, and I guess we'll find out if it works out for better or worse.
Should be a fun ride for a bit, until folks work out some kind of unbound/lords of war/invisible psyker power combo, or whatever ungodly new deathstar thingy comes next....
agreed, the times I have played escalation I enjoyed it, and its nice not having to get an apoc game organized to do so.
DeleteWell there will always be those combos in some fashion, so as I see it play to have fun and nothing says you have to use those combos. Its not worth banning a whole section of the FoC just because there might be a super combo
I have to give GW credit. I think they listened to the folks like me that said D was game breaking and toned it down in a rather elegant way. It CAN still nuke deathstars and such, but it isn't guaranteed auto death for everything. From what I can see of the new rules (my FLGS owner sold my buddy the book yesterday so he could teach everybody tomorrow) I like most of the changes they implemented, and I agree that we can now welcome super heavies with open arms. One thing that does concern me though, invisibility cast on knights and other super heavies is going to be pretty ridiculous, guess i can make up for that with sticking an allied farseer right in with my archon in a transport now for rerollable 2++. Time to embrace the cheddar.
ReplyDeleteServicious, the Disgruntled Dark Eldar
It can happen, but psychic powers are harder to get off now, easier to peril, and easier to deny. So while they can do mean things, counters are better available.
DeleteWhen I played with my friend we were new to Escalation he had a Stomper and I had my Baneblade it was a close game I got his Stomper down to one hull point then he charged in with that huge chainsword. He hit me and rolled a 6 on the damage table
ReplyDeletebeen a D weapon things went bad for my tank. Until it went BOOM and took the last hull ponit of his stomper and then it went BOOM as well we both laughed and called it a draw I was just happy to use my baneblade pulse it was a blast no pun intended XD
yeah I've got a baneblade I'm eager to use
DeleteApparently escalation and so forth arent in the rule-book. At least none of the units are. Someone with the book let people know.
ReplyDelete"Also not sure if its been mentioned above, but theres no fortifications in there, no bastion skyshield etc. It does say there are other publications etc which leads me to believe that is how they plan to keep stronghold assault from having no sales at all.
So in other words, if you want to use a fortifcation you need SHA....."
I don't mind that, there is no well this fort is the book but that isn't. Everything is SHA is legal and the same for escalation. No more arguing which rules to use.
DeleteI'm not so sure this is toned-down at all!
ReplyDeleteConsider the Shadowsword, which fires a single 5" blast template at strength D, low AP. If this blast lands fully on 5 of 10 terminators in a squad, the entire unit could be facing as many as 15 wounds! Granted, they now have the ability to make cover and invulnerable saves, but at 5+ this is still going to hurt quite a bit.
Previously, 5 wounds, 5 models removed, half the squad gets away scot-free.
As it is written, models suffer D3 wounds, so will depend whether those wounds carry over to the unit as a whole. WIll have to see whole D weapon section and how the wound allocation for it is written. Otherwise I think it is appropriate, its powerful and will hurt, but you aren't SOL if you get hit by one.
DeleteI don't imagine they'd change wound allocation for only Strength D weapons, but I suppose we'll have to see..... I just thought of Strength D Template weapons. Oh god, that could be a MONSTER.
DeleteWhere it *has* been toned down is for vehicle killing. the D3 hull points removed means that most vehicles would likely survive being hit by one... A Land Raider or Battlewagon would need to be hit twice, at a minimum. Again, we'll see how it comes out in the new book....
It could be and it should. But its not just going to wipe the board any more, its a fair trade. We'll see.
DeleteReading through the rule book, Destroyer weapons explicitly state that wounds from each hit do NOT carry over to other models. Excess are lost. So if your termis for example are and 5 are under the blast, even if each suffers 3 wounds a piece, only 5 can be killed.
DeleteYou nailed it on the head. Neat how that works.
ReplyDeleteHey you get lucky sometimes
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