Sooo, my Reconquest phase 1 review

So I have been reading up on the Resistance. In short, the models are awesome, the setting for the army is great. The way the models should be used…not so much. Ever the pathetic critic I have a lot of opinions on this book.

 

Foremost. Let me explain why I left 40k.

1. Special rules. Army wide special rules are ok. Unit special rules sucks.

2. No balance.

3. Game assume no LOS blocking terrain. This happened when 40k ignored the marvelous rule of area terrain blocking LOS.

4. New shit always felt as the new best shit.

5. Special rules ignored the basis of the game.

So let me give you the breakdown. I feel that The resistance break several of the above. I know, I know – I love DZC and Hawk but this army list feels just like a wishlist of lots of people who doesn’t like DZC and so the Resistance should go above and beyond to try to ignore the basic rules.

First the good:

+Great, freaking great models. Did I say great? I meant GREAT! Nuff said. I’m drooling over the models. I want an army so bad because of the models.

+The High tech units are really, really cool. I really want an army that focuses on them. It should work. Man, I want an Mega tank as an HQ…

+The rest of the book is amazing! Fluff, setting, sheer coolness of the world. I claim at Horus Heresy level or close to.

+There are small fixes in the book for the experimental units. Some are not enough though.

The bad

I for one don’t care about spelling. So it is not an negative thing for me.

But the rest will take some time. It will feel like whining but I feel there are so many other places you can check out that are 100% positive so readers can just ignore what I write anyway – the positive thing about having your own blog, I would say.

The special rules added are pretty good. Though, I really don’t understand why evasive is there. There is no point. Units with evasive are so fast or have so skilled riders that they evade bullets and light based weapons created to track fast moving target – a skimmer is fast but evasive units are worse to hit. This is the new thing that was made to make sure the Resistance are better than everybody else. Are we Swedes really the only people in the world using terrain? Because then the evasive rule should not exist. I’ll come back to this for the new bikes but as 40k assume there is no place to hide evasive is used as an excuse for units to move in the open instead of using the speed to move from strategic place to strategic place. Evasive feels like someone requested a special rule that could ignore tactical movement so you don’t have to think.

Dispersed formation means a unit can only take a single DP but it could be changed to “tough” as I feel that it should only be falling masonry that should be the point. It feels like someone wished that Hawk removed the double damage rule and so The resistance got it. I don’t like it anyway. The UCM snipers could have just tough and it would be finished and add +1 to soft cover instead. Done.

Rare squads I can see the point but really. It is only needed if things are too good. More specifically it is created for the Ferrum. But if you instead just removed the horrible ability to be able to attack both ground and air target effectively there would be no need. Hades becomes rare because…well I don’t know it sucks having three in an army but it is freaking cool. The Rare rule doesn’t really do that much.

Fast mover with transition is the best idea since salt and pepper spices. I love this idea with an fast mover sweeping in and firing.

Focus fire is much better now as an rule. Barrage weapons are a bit more awkward but I guess they are alright.

As for the points in the army lists they are mostly good. PHR overall is still expensive but why oh why didn’t my Destroyers get an dodge instead of an passive save? Now they are still good at finding objectives and surviving falling masonry. With a dodge instead they would be used as shock troops instead – as they are supposed to! Also the Reaver gunship is horribly cheap. Really cheap. It should have costed about 60-64 points. But now…? The harbinger stayed at armour 6 I’m sorry to say. It feels like the new standard and so DZC have started with it’s inflation in effectiveness. More so with the resistance.

Katanas got an increase in points and I think the Dreamsnare as well. Both good decisions.

Then we have The Resistance…

There are a lot of whys here. I know the basic idea – I really do. Balance the cheap units out with expensive units. But it feels over the top. Apparently school bussess that are taken out if an tire blows are more durable than tanks created to withstand AT fire…So let us warm me up for a whine.

Again, let me emphasize that I love DZC and Hawk wargames.

Subterranean rule and the Worm (The drill) is a really cool and original idea. I think this was a good way to give the Resistance some cool flavor. But my god that drill is tough! 50 pts and it takes 9 sabres to take it out in one go? That’s a lot.

The hovercraft though are just plainly dumb. Why can they move at full speed? most likely because someone thought that DZC’s basic ideas should be removed. For no point what so ever the Hovercraft can move in at full speed even though it is a ground unit. I know they don’t have the dropships for it but it is 15″ in turn 2 if the player wants it. Drop turn three and the units inside can shoot anyway and with the drills they should be able to deploy turn 2 (instead of being in reserve) and so you would have units in the front turn 2 – a faster army than PHR. But the Hovercraft are just faster than fast skimmers like Scourge fast skimmers like hunters. Do you know what happens to guys in such speeds if the hovercraft should be hard to hit as well? They should estimate 50% casulties unless the hovercraft have grav plating or something. Why did it get the skimmer bonus? It is freaking huge. It should be a sitting duck with an bulls eye in the middle.

Then we have the rule that units can disembark and shoot. Do you know how hard it is to fire while standong on top of a truck? And driving of an ramp at the same time?  At the same time as trucks next to you? Again, someone wished that hawk ignore the basic rules of DZC and their wish was fulfilled.

One thing to note here, though. The design aspect and most likely the problem with the resistance is that the trucks are cheap units and would be spammed if being to cheap. But heck, you could have just gone with forcing the resistance to take a hovercraft instead and lowering the costs of the trucks. And remove, skimmer bonus, move at full speed when entering and shooting while disembarking.

I find the model and concept cool but the rules are nothing near what I have expected.

So both the Leviathan and the Kraken are very, very cheap for what it does. They are high speed, no reactive fire possibilities against them and one of thee most guaranteed way of delivering units to the battlefield in the game. Again. If they have so much movement, use terrain instead of assuming people don’t have it! We have LOS blocking terrain almost everywhere! High speed units should be fragile.

then we have the lifthawk. DP 4 and armour 6. So inflation. The new army has the new best rules. And AA. I said it is 2 shots AA as well? Of course it is… It should be enough with armour 5 and DP 4. But right now they feel more high tech than PHR and that just feels wrong. And it is not slower. But I can understand one unit. They have tough assault dropships to move infantry. Cool. Ok.

But why the heck did the Fast mover get armour 6? And 3 DP? Though the points feel right I really don’t like the other aircrafts toughness. The chopper has armour 6 – ok. But 2 DP! Ok it is at least expensive? Only 60 pts! What the…? The poor falcon is a memory only.

The Technicals I kind of like. though they could have been slower. Again, a sabres active firing pase of 4″ should be about 70kph. so the techicals fire with ac 2+ while moving around 100kph. that must be some of the most sophisticated systems in the universe. I like the AA though. Cool with AA Energy 5.

The wagons are a bit strange though. With DP 2 they are as tough ti kill as an Scourge hunter. They are just cheapper and when alon much weaker. I think they feel alright overall.

The Hannibal and the Zhukov was something I wasn’t prepared for. I expected the hannibal to be much tougher. The main cannon should be E 11 and the cost should be much higher. But 45 points feels low. I thihnk I would have preferred it to be stronger and more expensive to get the feel of being an tough tank. The Zhukov feels about right though I think it must be the best balanced unit in the army.

The Battlebusses feels wierd. Again a bus has better technical systems so that it can move faster than high tech tanks (as fast as Shaltari skimmers while shooting) for peanuts in points. With guns it becomes more expensive so I feel that the balance is there but DP4 for a units that becomes useless if one weel is blown of?

MT Jackson is really cool and I like it’s weapons and launchers as a way to make sure it is needed even after infantry has jumped off.

The Alexander is an beast. And the best darn looking piece of HQ in the game so far. It is slow but really tough. Freaking amazing model. Though it has a special rule on it’s beast weapon I could have lived without. It doesn’t feel it add so much.

Thunderstorm is ok. But the technicals with E2? They are _more maneuverable_ than skimmers? Come on!

The infantry is pretty good balanced overall. Lots of options here which is fun. I feel they are all around where they should be in points though the veterans are way much better than Scourge old ones (though I must admit it is the old ones that suck). Only problem I have is with the freeriders. With an movement f 16″ the evasive rule is not needed. It should have been removed directly. There is only one time it should be used and that is if the freeriders are to be used without tactical movements. I e go straight towards the enemy and stop in the open. I do not like this type of units. And it seems that the evasive unit works when the infan try is inside a building as well?

The arch angels have been used. When I see the pathfinder archangel I feel someone though “wait a minut! If we go with this unit as is there might actually be a risk that the AA reactive fire ruls is used sometimes against the Resistance – we must take heed to make sure that the basic rules are ignores as much as possible so E2 is just fine.

 

I know it feels  like a lot of whining. I’m tryly sorry for both that and my poor written post. I had to do something quick tonight and write this off me. Overall the Resistance just feels over the top. The army feels more high tech than Shaltari, tougher than PHR, faster than scourge and will most likely have better command cards than UCM.

Sorry, sorry.