[Dire Avenger]

I was playing a game yesterday and during the game my friend couldn't scratch either of my two falcons. It got to the point where I felt guilty for taking such unkillable vehicles. So do you think that taking a list with a few falcons is cheesy or powergamerish, due to the fact they're very hard to destroy?

[El Magnifico]

it depends on two things:


1) is your opponent a "noob" (new to the game)

2) what armies are you up against.


falcons (and fire prisms) are nigh on indestructable, this is true - but they are a lot of points.

as an example:

Falcon - 195pts
- scatter laser
- holo-fields
- vectored engines
- spirit stones


now then, the chances of that tank blowing up from any single dice roll is 1/36 (as you need a double 6 to destroy it), the chances of crippling it are 1/9 (as any result of double 5 or better will imobalise it).

beware multi-shot, mid strength weapons (auto cannons, rapid firing plasma etc) as they can cause the weight of rolls needed to immobalise/destroy your vehicle.



against elite armies, falcons perfom spectacularly as the pulse laser (and most i see have a starcannon for good measure as well) is awesome for picking at side armour of tanks and removing terminators etc.


your problems start when you face orks, horde nids or "horde" guard. taking 3 falcons (according to most, "cheeze") you have spent a minimum of 600pts on 3 models that will in all likelyhood never be able to shoot - giving your opponent a 600pts advantage in the shooting phase. plus barring striking scorpions (and LOTS of them!) i cant think of a reason why you would want to get near an ork army. play against someone who brings lootas and watch your holo-fields fall from the sky.



that little rant over i just realised i never posed these questions properly ......

what sort of army does your mate have?
what did he try to take out your vehicles with?
would you consider wraithlords (arguably BETTER protected than a falcon if a farseer with fortune is nearby)


you could also try taking a falcon without holo-fields (trust me, cheap falcons can and do work )

[JTD]

Okay having fought against and with skimmers, the latter was a while ago though, I have realised several things about skimmers.

The first is that everything can strike it lucky. I have fought a skimmer (Tau hammerhead) and gotten hits for 4 turns in a row and I never scored more than a shaken result every time. Bad luck, eh? I have also had a falcon downed on the second turn by a single shot from a psycannon from a lucky greyknight. The thing was destroyed and troops inside crippled. Bad luck, eh? So in accordance with Murphy's law and the lascannon rule, there will be occassions when everything goes your way and times when you'd swear the die were rigged.

The second thing is that Eldar tanks are made to be durable, but in a funny way. While easy to make incapable of firing they are harder to down completely what with rolling 2 dice on armour penetration results and reducing stunned to shaken results. So yeah we get great transports, but we won't get to fire that often.

So in answer to your actual question no it's not power gamish to take so many tanks. You are sacrificing numbers for the majority of your units possessing an armour value instead of armour saves. This will give you an advntage against certain armies while you ill face problems if you were to face an army with many high strength shot weapons, orks or Tau for example, or even necron for their gauss weapon's ability.

Pros and cons my friend, pros and cons.

JTD

[crazedmongoose2003]

You know, to this day, I still submit that the holo-falcon, whilst too durable to be Eldar-esque and probably should be made less durable next edition, is not cheese tactically (I only think it doesn't work in terms of style) and some players are merely incapable of thinking outside of the box.


Seriously, we all learnt that a Monolith can be easily ignored by trying to phase out the rest of the army. We all know you can nullify a dreadnought or a carnifex by charging a large mob of guardsmen or whatever into it. What is different about the falcon? It's a near 200 point unkillable tank with medium firepower that's really easy to stop from firing. So spend minimal efforts on it each turn at the start to stop it from firing next turn, and then just work on the rest of the army. Heck, you have anywhere from a 200---600 point headstart that way, whilst your opponent has these 200 point floating pieces of metal that's incapable of doing much else.


If the Necron phalanx can find a counter for the falcon fortress, then no other players should be allowed to complain. Because in my opinion that's the most disadvantageous set up as far as versing a falcon based army goes.

[redbeard]

Playing at adepticon last weekend proved two things;

1) A falcon or fire prism that are stunned each turn do absolutely nothing to an ork horde.

2) If you put enough shots on a falcon, it will die. Necrons are good at that.

Take what you want to take, play what you want to play, let others do the same. Falcons are hard for marines. I say, bring more falcons, maybe less people will play marines. They're not that bad against some armies.