Wednesday, February 2, 2011

News Flash: BoLS Fails At Black Templars

Read this and then come back.

I'm not sure who Paintraina is, but he isn't writing competitive lists.  But don't let that stop him from telling you what is and isn't competitive... 

"I think the most successful templar armies will have lots of vehicular long rang firepower in the form of Annihilator..."

Is that so?  Did Destructors with LC sponsons shoot up in price?  The difference between the triple Annihilators and triple Destructors is 60 points.  That's nearly an extra Typhoon.  So let's compare apples to apples.  If you gave me the choice of 3 Destructors with LC sponsons and a Typhoon Speeder, or 3 Annihilators I would pick the former, almost every time. 

So you think you know what the most successful Templar armies will be doing?  Here's what I think: you don't have a clue what successful Templar armies will be doing.  My evidence, your list.

"Marshal: Terminator Armor, Lightning Claws

Emperors Champion: Accept any Challenge


Sword Brethren Terminator Assault Squad: 4 LC, 2 SSTH, Furious Charge

Land Raider Crusader Transport: Smoke Launchers, Dozer Blade

Crusader Squad: Power Fist, Meltagun, 10 initiates, 5 neophytes

Crusader Squad: Power Fist, Meltagun, 10 initiates, 4 neophytes

Landspeeder Typhoon

Landspeeder Typhoon

Predator Annihilator: 2x Lascannons

Predator Annihilator: 2x Lascannons
Predator Annihilator: 2x Lascannons
"

Simply put, it's trash.  A single rock in a single Land Raider.  Wow.  Do you know how much melta "successful" 1850 lists bring?  No, apparently you don't, so I'll tell you: enough to kill that thing on turn 1.  And then your only mech are 3 Predators you can shake and forget, and two Typhoons you can kill with small arms.  That is, if you get bored of killing his unmeched, non-threatening troop choices.  But he does manage to spend points on a Marshal to give a leadership boost to one squad.  Good investment there.  Congrats on not giving him a shield, so he'd actually be tough in close combat.

So what would a better 1850 list look like?

Emperor's Champ W/ AAC 140
5x Initiates in Rhino BP/CCW with Melta/Multimelta, Smoke, Extra Armor x3 474
5x Initiates with Bolters and Missile Launcher x2 180
3x Destructors with LC Sponsons  375
4x Typhoons 280
10x Assault Terminators with TH/SS

1,849
I wonder whose list would fair better?  Actually, I don't need to wonder at all.

Lastly, I don't want to sound like I'm bashing Paintraina personally.  He is probably a cool guy, but the fatal mistake he made was trying to tell people what "successful" (i.e. competitive) Templar lists would look like, and then publishing a fluffy carebear list.  If he had said, "here is a just for fun list I've been playing around with to enjoy the new rules..."  that would have been fine and garnered no comment from me. 

15 comments:

  1. you are not alone in thinking BoLS and the lists there for BT are full of ....... well, fail. I avoid them at every turn - there are just too many cases of "I don't know what I am talking about, but I am on BoLS so I am cool" going on.

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  2. Heh, BoLS has a few people who know what they're talking about when it comes to list building/tactics. I generally don't even read their stuff unless I'm bored though.

    In general, I go there for rumors news. I recently read a Goatboy article where he wants to use the Wolves codex for Word Bearers, and he was condemned something fierce. Their audience is the petting zoo (fluff bunnies), and as such, hard lists (and winning) are something they claim they don't care about.

    As for his list... you're right. That's the sort of list I'd love to play against in the 2nd round of a tournament- it's good enough to club a baby seal with in the first round (because baby seals don't like Terminators), and then lose by massacre to a good player.

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  3. I was really expecting him to talk about PotMS making triple-las annihilators worthwhile but he isn't even buying that. Confusing.

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  4. Oh, you've just broken the surface of the problem Nikephoros. While Paintraina doesn't exactly seem to fully understand everything going on in the BT codex (or the FAQ), the people in the comments are even worse.

    I was going to do an article of my own on it, but I couldn't get over the huge ass headache that I got from reading all of that crap. :(

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  5. Yeah, the pro-vindicator comments in the comments section are just bizarre. Saying that BT have the best Vindicator isn't saying anything special.

    I noticed that a lot of the comments were analysis of units in a vacuum. Yes, in a vacuum, the BT Vindicator is way better than other Vindis. But A BT player isn't making his list to compare to other marine codices, he is making to compare to other BT lists and that means you don't compare you Vindi to other Vindis, you compare them to the other heavy support choices.

    And not just in his list, but also some of the others from the peanut gallery are obsessed with single Land Raiders in their lists. It comes off incredibly strange that these people don't get how vulnerable and bad that is. So bad.

    Am I wrong in my opinion that BT players seem to be far behind the competitive curve?

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  6. You aren't wrong in that opinion. It is something I've been working almost two years to correct, most notably with my creation of Implausible Nature. Its been incredibly difficult.

    The new FAQ doesn't help things all that much, especially when all of these new or "Old Guard" players join the fray saying something is the shit, when it really isn't. Pretty much erases all of the work the few competitive BT folks out there have made over that time frame.

    Fortunately, some of the newer BT players ARE listening and can decipher good advice from the bad. So there still is hope. :)

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  7. It's just weird, but it seems like Vanilla Marines and Space Wolves players are willing to listen to reason and adapt their lists to what is competitive and good. Blood Angels slightly less so, you still see people trying to shoe horn bad units into their lists.

    But yeah, BT players seem to not understand the concepts that other marine players get.

    Part of my reasoning for that is that since they didnt have a 5th edition book they had to build lists that didnt adhere to 5th edition concepts and they could get away with it. So they are the last to learn 5th edition precepts.

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  8. The comments are full of stupidity on so many levels. Armies filled with Vindicators, single LRCs, less then 4 melta weapons in games above 1000 points...

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  9. In reference to rle68:

    You can't help some people. It just wastes time trying. :(

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  10. Those who think BOLS "tactics" are just there to spread misinformation and further confuse noobs to swallow that info bait + sinker, please raise your hands.

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  11. BTW Paintraina pretty much is spreading the gospel of Foot IG at 3++... here http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2011/02/foot-guard-how-viable.html

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  12. Against shooty lists it would be good to add a chaplain with 3 cenobytes. 3 ablative wounds vs ap1/2, the chaplain itself and you are 3"faster. Also the squad would be fearless, thats good ;)

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  13. Skip, what are you talking about? What unit and what list?

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  14. I'm talking about adding a chaplain to the 10 terminators in the list above

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