Thursday 27 March 2014

Rich's Thursday Ramble : Perseverance.

Okay, a confession first.
I couldn't think of a topic for this weeks ramble.
Until...



I was catching up with my regular blogs over a coffee this morning and one of the guys i follow posted an interesting pseudo-rant.
I had originally chosen to follow this blog due to his posts concerning Dark Eldar in 40K and then WFB  Dark Elves. His GW posts have dried up of late and most of the recent material has focused on X-Wing, which has also all been worth a read. He posted some good army lists and his reasoning always seemed sound.
I'm not just bigging the guy up for filler or anything, just attempting to establish that he's not some knee-jerk crackpot with extreme opinions who hates everything.

Anyway.

The post today was inspired by Imperial Aces finally hitting stores and focused on the TIE Interceptor as a ship and where it stands in the game currently, or rather, where it doesn't.
He was quite scathing about the ship I consider to be my favourite in the game and pointed out that with several of the cards due in the forthcoming Rebel expansions, its standing is likely to fall even further.

It seemed quite harsh, but in all honesty, I couldn't disagree with a single point he made. The Interceptor, as a ship, is no more survivable in game than a 12 point TIE Fighter, and yet generally costs 2 to 3 times as much for 1 more attack dice and some more manoeuvres on its dial.
Upon reflection, this wasn't really news to me, and yet I've been plugging away with the Interceptors anyway as I just like the aesthetic and the idea that they're reliant on insane turns at breakneck speed.

And thus we arrive at the discussion point for today:
What are those pet units that you keep fielding despite them never performing on the table and why? They perpetually disappoint you but there's something that keeps you coming back for more.

TIE Interceptors aside, there was one unit that really stuck out for me.
Good ol' Hellions.
They look awesome, are fast, have a decent amount of shots, get a quite impressive (for eldar) S4 in combat and are usually even scoring. But they've never really performed. True, they've never been truly dreadful either, but at 16 points a dude, there were always much better things i could have spent the points on. And yet I kept going back for more.

So what units are consistently poo and yet you keep coming back for more like a sucker?

I'll leave you with this little ditty that popped into my head when I wrote the post title down.

Toodles!

9 comments:

  1. Although not an issue since I sold my Eldar, but striking scorpions. They look great, their fluff is awesome and always used to love out flanking them. Plus like you mentioned an Eldar unit that is str 4 is a big deal.

    But they would fail every time, die to a stray heavy bolter/beaten in combat by a sentinal/chased down by a lone devestator marine they out numbered 5-1....

    It always felt like humouring an idiot whenever they did something right though (as rare as it was) with all the praise I would pour on them.

    Cheers of 'Yeah! go scorpions, you managed to kil that squad of guard a third of your points cost!'.

    And when it came to selling the army I did toy with keeping the scorpions over anything else.

    Matt said it best when he said 'cool before rule' and I would field scorpions any day of the week purely for cool.

    It has just occured to me I could run a striking scorpion themed killteam for next year!!
    Cheers for the spark of inovation, I'm off to find an Eldar dex!

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    Replies
    1. I've never owned any, but i do keep looking at their entry in the current eldar book and really want to try them out.

      I think you could fit quite a few indeed in a kill team. 10 with an exarch?

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  2. Blood Angels... all of them! I love their background but they suck so bad it us painful to try and play with them. Ogryns would have been in the list but I seem to have got better with them over time.

    Thunmbs up for the song, took me right back to my teenage years!

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    Replies
    1. And ogryns may well be the new hotness in a few weeks!
      Fair point on the blood angels, though id suggest that, until the recent marine book, you couldve played them as a fairly decent normal marines force without suffering too much. The problem is that assault marines are dogshit.

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    2. The issue is that once 6th came out they were costed completely wrong. Every special rule they have got worse and assault is no crap compared to shooting. I really want to use my bikes as I'm really proud of how they came out.

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    3. bikes are pretty good too, but youre then back at the same problem youve got with the rest of the blood angels book, you might as well just use codex space marines.

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  3. I don't use them anymore but normal Ork bikes are pretty much dog poo as are traks

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    Replies
    1. Thats mainly due to their crap leadership isn't it?

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    2. I always thought ork bikes looked cool, so i have wondered why ive rarely ever seen them. Maybe they'll be improved in the next book?

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