It does seem a tad overpowered; I mean, look at the other 40k games/the fluff. How does a thunderhawk compare to a freakin' manta?
Pretty comparable. They are both super heavy vehicles (they are both
not fighters nor bombers but more like flying titans
). The manta is larger (actually it's more like a corvette but that's not a concept in the game unfortunately) though not as tough as the TH. The TH packs a titan based weapons payload (which is the form we're discussing here for use in BFG vs the ground attack variants which you'd tend to see in Epic). The TH is more adaptable as it can work as pure gunship, pure TK, or a capable assault craft while the Manta is probably the best assault craft in the 40k universe though but that's all it was designed to do.
All that means IMO is that the manta should be a resilient A-Boat / Bomber and the TH is an A-Boat / Fighter (note the slashes and NOT dashes). The Annihilator was an attempt to put some bomber power into the marine fleet. I applaud the effort but I am not so sure as to the execution. But as it stands that is the variation of Bomber / Fighter TH. Personally I think it should simply be a resilient bomber and be done with it. The armour and good AA defense bubble around it models well as resilient but giving it Fighter isn't a good fit I feel. It's carrying a monster turbo laser destructor, the same blasted main weapon a warlord titan carries for christs sake. It's not optimized to target swarms of relatively weak targets.
why does it have even more bombs?
Not following you here. Are you asking why TH has bombs? Ummm because they've had them since they were originally created in epic 20 years ago and that has continued till today. I think you are meaning something else though.
I'm all for SM love, but it does seem unbalanced. With the assault carrier option, you can really get away with all ordnance SM bombing the ess eych eye tee out of other fleets.
Actually I don't see the problem with the TH stats. It models them fairly well I think. I think the problem is in Assault Carrier spam and don't think they belong in the game. However they were not added to 2010 documents so I am not sure what you are referring to (are you just meaning the regular SC??? Am I not not up on the cool kids lingo???
).
Like Sigoroth, I don't think SM were designed to dominate in the ordnance phase.
This is were I think we will agree to disagree. The marines are crippled in ships of the line fielding only light cruisers and the occasional BB, which frankly isn't worth the points in anything other than in planetary assault and when taken, tends to be used more for the threat (aka bullet magnet). Just take a look at the use of venerable BB is fleets. The marines make up for it with a combined arms approach with a shock and awe style attacks, quickly gaining aerospace superiority otherwise they are toast. Basically the Guard and Navy are envisioned as WW2 armies and WW1 (ala Juttland) naval fleets in space. Big lumbering gun ships and big cock swinging "ohh look at my battleship" fleets. The Marines are modeled after the Royal Marines and the US Marine Corp and how they fight in modern times. Small, fast, agile with the intention of achieving air superiority ASAP.
Against Eldar and Tau there's never been an issue I've seen. In fact TH spam is pretty much a losing game against Eldar and they are better served as pickette lines. Against the IN they are great at sweeping the skies clear of furies but while you are busy doing that you're going to get mauled by torps. Focus on picketters and you're open to attack by combined shotgun torp and bombers as you'll never win the arms race against an IN carrier fleet as there's simply more targets than you can counter. Chaos has a bit more trouble but frankly they've got the best lances around and can match the marines in maneuverability and remember, the ability of Chaos to pump out AC was the entire reason Mr Chambers limited AC to number of launch bays to begin with as an optional rule which was codified eventually. I have no clue how they stack up in practice against 'Nids and DE as no one I know plays them and the less we talk about 'Crons the better.
I think the whole distablising effect of TH, Mantas and other continually occurring questions like this are simply because the AC rules are complete crap in the game. No amount of tweeking is going to fix a fundamentally broken system, it's just lipstick on a pig. Turret supression, fleet def turrets, CAP are all signs of an underlying issue. BFG is a completely elegant game
until you bring out AC and then it's dice rolling attack modifier city. I'd like to see more work on a new alternative set of aerospace rules personally.
I'm actually more curious who named it the TH Annihilator. AFAIK there's nothing of the sort name-wise anywhere (and not needed). You should have a TH Interceptor and TH Bomber and be done with it
