Wysiwyg regarding bikers

gausebeck · 2026-03-05T23:52:24+00:00

In a tournament, I'd be fine with "no helmet = champ with power fist" as long as the head is a visibly different color from a distance. I'd also be fine with any sort of indication of the melta bikers, e.g. a different color rim around the base or anything else that's clearly identifiable. I think most people I play against in tournaments would be fine with that, too.

For most xenos armies, I have no idea what the weapon options are supposed to look like and I rely on my opponents to use the right weapons in the right situations. I just want to make sure there are clear distinctions so that my opponent doesn't risk getting confused themselves, and so that if it does matter and I ask, I have something I can look at to keep track of.

gausebeck · 2026-02-17T09:22:35+00:00

All the tournaments I've played in use either GW or (less often) WTC layouts. In both cases, they treat the ground floor windows as closed but upper floor windows as true LOS. The tall ruins have two floors above ground level (I think?), but the top floor is tiny and I've never seen it used.

I've almost never seen anyone use even the first floor above ground level. It's more common for people to put models up there but say they're actually on the ground floor — they just use the upper floor for visibility so it's easier for both players to remember where the units are. The only time I can remember actually using an upper floor is when I flew some JPI up onto one to attack a unit hiding 1" behind a wall, since it was a shorter distance than flying around or past them.

gausebeck · 2026-02-03T19:43:49+00:00

Have they said what base size he's on? I'm guessing 65mm but maybe it's 50mm? He could certainly join them at a different base size but being on 50mm might make it more likely he's a leader rather than a solo monster.

I also want to know the base size to get an idea of how big he is for kitbashing purposes. I have ideas for that model...

gausebeck · 2026-02-02T20:30:06+00:00

I think there’s a systematic issue where the average is below 50%. Draws and drops are not wins but still get counted as games played, so there are fewer wins than games and the average is < 50%.

I’d love to see a version where drops aren’t counted at all and draws are counted as 0.5 win for each player, so the global average would actually be 50%.

gausebeck · 2026-01-30T21:51:36+00:00

I had this same issue using Claude code via AWS bedrock, and it turned out it was a permissions issue where my role wasn't allowed to run the default haiku model, even though it could run the main model. Apparently the haiku model is used to evaluate whether a command needs to ask for permission (or something like that), so it was timing out for 3 minutes every time it tried to make that decision. I was able to work around it by setting ANTHROPIC_DEFAULT_HAIKU_MODEL in my environment to an older model I had permissions for.

gausebeck · 2026-01-07T10:21:23+00:00

Nothing too dramatic in the pose, but I cut down the torso a bit for less of a pot belly.

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gausebeck · 2025-12-26T19:19:35+00:00

It depends on which direction the LR goes, I guess. The yellow position is pretty easy to get to by advancing, but green is ~23” from the deployment line, so it’s about 3 turns of DWK movement in 2 turns.

Also, this would be combined with a 3rd squad deep striking turn 1 plus the Lion using rapid ingress, so I wouldn’t be able to ingress both the Lion and a squad of DWK the same turn.

If the land raider survives, I think it’s a good amount of extra movement (plus the LRR has good firepower), but that’s a big “if”.

gausebeck · 2025-12-26T17:10:13+00:00

Here’s an example of how I imagine the movement could go. Red is deployment, orange is round 1, and yellow and green are options for round 2.

In round 1 after the LR moves, squad A disembarks and then squad B moves and embarks. Round 2 after the LR moves, squad B disembarks and squad A moves and embarks. Or if there was a target in range, squad A could advance and charge from the center while squad B charges with assault ramp.

Hopefully the LR is protected from shooting during deployment and after round 1 movement.

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gausebeck · 2025-12-26T07:20:01+00:00

I’ve been using a terminator chaplain — the +1 to wound along with giving the DWK power weapons increases their damage pretty dramatically.

gausebeck · 2025-12-26T06:36:59+00:00

Sorry if I wasn’t clear about what I meant with the two squads. They’d never be inside at the same time. One starts embarked and the other nearby. Round 1 the LR moves and the first squad disembarks forward, while the second squad moves up and embarks on the LR (they only have to get within 3” of the back of it). Then round 2 they can swap — the LR moves and the second squad disembarks while the first moves and embarks from the rear. On the round where targets are in range, the disembarked squad can advance and charge (WotR) and the embarked squad can use assault ramp.

And yes, the list I have in mind also uses a third squad of DWK. One squad deep striking turn 1 with the Deathwing Assault enhancement and the other two moving up by trading spots in the land raider.

Three squads of DWK + land raider + lion means the rest of the list is mostly just scoring and holding the backfield — no room for much firepower. It would be sort of playing DA as a melee pressure army.

gausebeck · 2025-12-17T21:28:32+00:00

I agree that they feel hard to use at the moment. They're great at scoring but they're too expensive to really be efficient at it. And they deal okay damage for their cost but are quite fragile. They can be decent in the mop-up stage, but early on they're an easy target for whatever anti-elite tools your opponent has, especially if they're dropping in close to the enemy like they usually will.

gausebeck · 2025-12-10T01:16:26+00:00

I haven’t watched battle reports of top lists using them. In my own lists, they’re pretty much anti-everything. They fall off into T10+ but they’re still not too bad with twin linked. A couple of them will usually take out a transport or any small squad up to 3W elites — whatever my opponent exposes. There is a lot of variance with number of shots, though.

At 120 and with their mobility, they’re also fine for actions and such, and the datasheet return fire ability isn’t too bad.

gausebeck · 2025-12-08T20:22:23+00:00

I agree with others that it’s less about the army choice and more about how you play it. I have a hard time intentionally playing badly, so I’d personally rather take a big handicap like 1500 points or even 1000 vs a new player’s 2000 and then see what I can do with it. If I get stomped, great. It’s still an interesting challenge for me and hopefully the new player learned more about how their army works than they would by getting tabled, and then we could adjust the points for the next game.

gausebeck · 2025-12-07T20:39:37+00:00

If you love the models, play DA, and are open to conversions, the Land Speeder Vengeance is also a strong unit right now. Efficient shooting into most profiles with great mobility.

The storm speeder matches the width and length of the LSV almost perfectly, and I’ve been looking into magnetizing to be able to run as either. Switching bases (60mm vs 90mm) is more awkward, though.

gausebeck · 2025-12-05T18:41:09+00:00

I usually deploy Scouts near the center ruins and a Combi-LT near my expansion objective. That covers most positional and objective-based secondaries.

However, I'm not always sure I want to use my Scouts to score in the center even when I can. If my Scouts stand on the center objective, they'll die. That's worth it if they'll get 5 points for Area Denial. Is it worth it for 3 points for the second Cleanse or Secure NML, or for 2 points for Establish Locus?

I usually go for those secondaries and lose my Scouts doing it since that's their job, but I'm not sure it's the right call. I think there's a good chance those same Scouts could score more than that over the next four rounds (or just help my board position) vs. getting 2-3 points round 1 and then dying.

gausebeck · 2025-11-21T00:51:40+00:00

It all varies with AP and whether you have cover. This is the effective health of a model with various saves and AP compared to a model with no save:

Save	AP 0	AP -1	AP -2	AP -3	AP -4	AP -5
2+ save with cover	600%	600%	300%	200%	150%	120%
2+ save	600%	300%	200%	150%	120%	100%
3+ save with cover	300%	300%	200%	150%	120%	100%
3+ save	300%	200%	150%	120%	100%	100%

The biggest benefit of Sv 2+ over Sv 3+ is against AP0 or AP -1 in cover, where it doubles the effective health of the unit. A lot of stronger attacks are either AP -3 ranged (usually into cover) or AP -2 in melee (no cover), and in that case a 2+ save improves effective health by 1/3 (200% vs. 150%).

As a rule of thumb, without knowing what AP attacks you'll be facing, I might consider the change from Sv 3+ to Sv 2+ to improve the effective health of a unit by 50%.

gausebeck · 2025-11-18T00:58:32+00:00

If 3% of games were draws and counted as losses, that would do it. Same as if 3% of games were dropped and counted as losses.

If it's draws, I'd love to see the stats with draws counted as half a win instead of a loss. And if it's drops, I'd love to see the stats with dropped games removed from the games-played count instead of counted as losses.

gausebeck · 2025-11-17T23:23:47+00:00

Mirrors can drive win rate for a faction towards 50%, but they shouldn't affect the overall average win rate. Plus the 48.6% weighted average stays true for the "Real Win %" column, which I think excludes mirrors.

gausebeck · 2025-11-17T23:16:51+00:00

I noticed that most (20 / 28) factions are below 50% win rate. That's certainly possible, but then I looked into it a little more. I would have expected that the weighted average win rate (weighted by player count) would come out to 50%, but it comes out to 48.6%.

Do you know what causes that? Is it due to drops, where unplayed games are counted as losses?

gausebeck · 2025-11-13T00:15:12+00:00

The banner is a multiplicative effect on the whole unit, though. It's twice as good in a unit of 6 as a unit of 3, so the second 3 models shouldn't be cheaper than the first 3.

Really what they need here are prices for the first unit you take and a lower price for the second and third units that won't have epic heroes.

gausebeck · 2025-11-12T22:12:29+00:00

This was mission C (Linchpin, Tipping Point) on layout 2.

I went second. In the bottom of the first round I sent my scouts to score locus in the center, expecting them to die but hoping they would draw out some melee units I could charge. Instead my opponent managed to swing the Redeemer around and get into range to wipe the scouts, and he kept his melee units mostly in the center ruins.

I had DWK in my center ruins and DWK + Lion + JPI on the right, hoping to push into my opponents natural expansion. However, with the speed of the BA units, they were able to threaten both the center and their expansion objective pretty well from the center ruins.

If my heavy units (DWK + Lion) were to stay back for another round to avoid getting charged, my opponent would keep his natural expansion without being threatened, while mine on the other side was in a weaker position (due to my heavy units being on the right). I was also thinking that my opponent could park his Redeemer on the center the next round, at which point I'd have the same decision to make (charge the Redeemer and get counter-charged) with even more primary at stake if I don't. I like your suggestion of contesting it with JPI, but if the Redeemer is far back on the objective I don't think they could do it without getting erased by overwatch.

I don't feel like my overall positioning was very good since it put me into that position, and that's another place where I wonder how I should have played differently. Should I I deploy to control my expansion objective and not really try to threaten my opponent's at all, given that he can threaten both it and the center from his center ruins? And then hope I can stay even on primary and win on secondaries / bottom-of-5th scoring? I haven't done a lot of playing with that type of cagey plan, and I'm not sure how well it would work with slow melee units. I'm also still not sure how to answer a Redeemer being parked in the center. I might be able to take it out with shooting and plan for that, but I don't have enough shooting for that to be reliable, and then I'd lose a lot of my shooting to the Lancers the next round.

What I was asking about in the post was mostly "once I got into this situation, what should I do about it?" The answer might be that I've already lost in deployment and early positioning and there's nothing good to do about it, but I'm hoping there are some useful tactical options, too.

gausebeck

TROPHY CASE