Teach Me Imperium

[Cneo]

The Mars works well with the apocalypse, because the Apocalypse is all guns and the Mars has lots of launch bays - that's the same reason that the Emperor works well with the Armageddon. They compliment each other. Unless you really like ordnance or really like guns, of course, in which case the Emperor/Mars and Apocalypse/Armageddon are great, respectively.

That's the fact. I doubt between a pure gunship fleet or a mixed guns/ordnance. I usually play at close range with my SM fleet,  waves of T-Hawks and Boarding Torps. before boarding with ships are my most common weapons.

The idea of firing from 60 lots of guns...

This could work, its an aweful expense tho. 910 points out of an average 1500 doesnt leave you much to work with for your cruisers/ escorts. 
 

Maybe it can be reduced to 1 BC and take more cruisers. Gothics or Lunars work very well in pairs at close range, for the Escorts two squadrons might be enough IMO.

 

[ElectricPaladin]

Ok, I am beginning to understand the quandry here.

The Armageddon - for that matter, almost all the battlecruisers and grand cruisers - are good mid-range ships. The only problem is, what can you use to support them? You can't take a second grand/battle cruiser unless you're playing an enormous game. So where else can you get 45cm range weapons?

Tyrants - especially with the upgrade - can field a lot of 45cm weapons.

Dominators have a nova cannon, which can fire at extreme ranges. You can also downgrade the strength of its weapons (strength 6 is still pretty good, right?) and give its guns 45cm range.

And... that's it for ships that can support the Armageddon.

At the moment, I'm leaning towards a Dominator. Nova cannons seem like fun.

On the other hand, what about abandoning the whole Armageddon thing and fielding a Vengeance instead? Vengeances have 45cm lances and 60cm guns, which would let it straddle the line between my Emperor and the rest of my fleet.

If I were to do that, I could field something like this (organized by which ships will hang out together):

Fleet Admiral (Ld8, 1 Reroll)

Emperor-Class Battleship
Vengeance-Class Grand Cruiser

Gothic-Class Cruiser
Falchion-Class Escort x3

Gothic-Class Cruiser
Falchion-Class Escort x3

Space Marine Strike Cruiser
Firestorm-Class Frigate x3

I really like the flexibility this list seems to offer. I have two Gothic/Falchions to attempt to outflank and one Strike Cruiser/Firestorm to drive directly down my opponent's throat. In the mean time, my Emperor and Vengeance can hang back and engage the enemy at long and medium range. The Vengeance also makes attempting to close with my battleship a very unappealing prospect.

I have to admit, other appealing aspects of this plan include getting to buy the Vengeance model, which is neat looking, and not wasting any falchions or cruiser models by fielding an odd number.

[AndrewChristlieb]

Armageddon list is one battlecruiser per cruiser

Emperor 370
Armageddon 235
Armageddon 235
Gothic 180
Strike 145
Firestorm x3 120
Falchion x4 140
Fleet admiral 50
Reroll 25

Perfectly legal list although for fluff and function i would swap the firestorms for gladius frigates.


The Vengeance is pretty killer, i really dislike the looks but i have one in my bastion list and it makes a good pocket battleship in smaller games.

[ElectricPaladin]

Armageddon list is one battlecruiser per cruiser

Emperor 370
Armageddon 235
Armageddon 235
Gothic 180
Strike 145
Firestorm x3 120
Falchion x4 140
Fleet admiral 50
Reroll 25

Perfectly legal list although for fluff and function i would swap the firestorms for gladius frigates.


The Vengeance is pretty killer, i really dislike the looks but i have one in my bastion list and it makes a good pocket battleship in smaller games.

That's... really appealing.

Is using the Armageddon fleet list in any old game viewed as WAAC/TFGing, or is the assumption that I can use any fleet list I want and no one cares? Is Armageddon a perfectly viable alternative to the Segmentum Obscurum list, or is it specific?

[horizon]

How do you mean?
In the old days the Armageddon was overcosted, since FAQ2010 it is okay.

And yes, the list was legal as Andrew pointed out.

And no, do not use the alternative profile for the Dominator. 

[ElectricPaladin]

How do you mean?

It's like this: in a game that's so old, there are bound to be options that are now way out of balance: cheesy, beardy, and obnoxious. The BFG scene in my area is bound to be small, if it exists at all, and I don't want to develop a bad reputation. Getting to field an increased number of Battlecruisers with no discernable disadvantages is really cool... and I don't want to be That F^*king Guy.

That said....

I've decided to go with the Segmentum Solar, two Armageddons fleet list. I like that it lets me begin building my Space Marine collection, and I think it will be awesome to field a pair of Armageddons side by side.

The list will be (organized by firegroup/squadron):

Fleet Admiral

Emperor-Class Battleship

Armageddon-Class Battlecruiser
Armageddon-Class Battlecruiser

Gothic-Class Cruiser
Falchion-Class Escort x3

Astartes Strike Cruiser
Nova-Class Frigate x3

Which means that I will be purchasing one strike cruiser, two blisters of imperial cruisers, one blister of falchions, and one blister of novas (recall from the OP that I already own the Emperor-Class Battleship). That's almost $100, assuming I can't find any deals on eBay. This game is (relatively) inexpensive to get into.

So... it's decided. A twin Armageddons list.

I'll just call my admiral... Admiral Caspian Sollux

...
...
...

Yeah.

[Sigoroth]

Why doesn't your little emo guy in the picture have any arms? And is that the reason why he's emo?

[ElectricPaladin]

Why doesn't your little emo guy in the picture have any arms? And is that the reason why he's emo?

He has no arms because he's a character from Homestuck. They're all drawn that way in most scenes and only get arms for the really dramatic ones. He's emo because his world was destroyed and he was accidentally denied the chance to live in the new one he and his buddies made.

And his online handle was TwinArmageddons.

Hense the funny.

[Sigoroth]

Ooookay. So a fleet with two Armageddons in it will from now on be called The 'Armless Emo Fleet, or TAEF. Got it.

[ElectricPaladin]

Ooookay. So a fleet with two Armageddons in it will from now on be called The 'Armless Emo Fleet, or TAEF. Got it.

I only own my first model, and already I'm spawning memes. Go me!

[Talos]

Play IN, and I can say that Sig is correct. TAEF, or the two armageddons specifically, are really good. Even just one has done really well for me so far.

As for the fleet lists, just remember that most races get to field all their ships in just 1 list (sometimes 2) whereas imperial are restricted for fluff reasons. So a list that lets you buy ships with less pre-reqs is just another way for you to level the playing field.

As for cheesy beardy combos, have you played Necromunda? Vaan Saars have the same problem your describing. There is no official solution to this problem, so it just depends on your players being reasonable, rather than obnoxiously tight assed when it comes to balancing issues.

[ThaneAquilon]

I haven't read the IN fleet restrictions, so I don't really know, but you don't think they exist for ANY balancing reason? you don't think it may be to offset the fact that IN have more than twice (often three times) the ships of the other fleets? (with the obvious exception of Chaos)

Also aren't you playing Van Saar?

[ElectricPaladin]

Well, my primary opponent is likely to be Necrons, so I don't think he'll complain.

Also, in 40k I play Tau. I deserve a little cheese.

[Sigoroth]

I haven't read the IN fleet restrictions, so I don't really know, but you don't think they exist for ANY balancing reason? you don't think it may be to offset the fact that IN have more than twice (often three times) the ships of the other fleets? (with the obvious exception of Chaos)

Yes, there are balance reasons behind the CB restrictions. However, these restrictions are not waived in the Armageddon Sector fleet list, merely lessened. Also, other restrictions are put in place. Notice that this list has no grand cruisers, Retributions, Overlords, Dauntlesses, Dominators, Swords or Cobras as default. So to use any of those ships you'd have to use the reserves rules. A practical impossibility for the Retribution and reasonably difficult for the escorts. To make up for this lack the list has access to SM ships, Falchions, Voss CLs, Armageddons, Oberons, Apocalypses and extra CB slots.

[Talos]

Fair point, gentlemen. I am not saying that imperials/chaos should get to field their entire list, as that would be ridiculous. They do have a more extensive list than the other fleets, that is for certain. I'm saying that one of the reasons they have these fleet lists is that since so many different vessels are added to those 2 lists at once, the designers add a new list to justify the inclusion of radically different ship designs in those 2 fleets. Because of their fleet restrictions, imperials can only field about 50-60% of their ships in any given list, although some list allow uber-reserves from either SM (Armageddon) or AdMech (Bakka).

Although I do play IN, I do not know if there are any fleet compositions that the lists do not allow for balance reasons. I always thought dictator + dominion would be good, but even that would not be over powered (as you may have noticed, IN don't really have quantity or quality with AC) .

Sig could probably enlighten us on combinations that the lists effectively ban, if he so chose to inform us.

I honestly think that for IN, the lists are just to balance fleets by forcing a "flavour" of sorts onto each fleet, thus giving it a focus/strength/weakness. In that way IN and Chaos are, despite their fleets being more versatile, in many ways just as limited as the other fleets. It does make it harder to build generalist lists, but certainly not impossible.