bluebeard
Junior Strategist
crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women
Posts: 293
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Post by bluebeard on Sept 16, 2017 16:59:19 GMT
So, while rocking my son to sleep last night I was pondering; when is it right to use a theme?
I understand the free points issue and, technically, being out-pointend if you don't theme when your opponent does. But, the real question you have to ask is, does it matter?
If I'm limited on what I can bring, but get some additional pieces for free; does it out way the limitations of the theme.
For instance - If I go forges of war with Rahn and limit myself to Shyeel models, I'm handicapping myeslf in a way. I lost the hitting power of stormfall archers. No hardy sentinels to help late game attrition. Also, no halb units to jam with. Sure you gain free points for magisters, artificers, or mechaniks. But is it worth it?
What if I go shadows? Same thing happens, but with just mage hunter models. Blast damage would tear you apart.
In closing, you have to ask yourself is it worth playing a limited, free point gain list or a synergistic list that utilizes different aspects of our faction?
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Post by Tom_Bombadil_ on Sept 16, 2017 21:36:59 GMT
I find that it is often worth it for me to run out of theme and the biggest incentive for me is our character jacks. Imperatus is great no matter where you put him and mage hunters specificity really love Disco.
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bluebeard
Junior Strategist
crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and hear the lamentations of their women
Posts: 293
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Post by bluebeard on Sept 16, 2017 22:58:29 GMT
I find that it is often worth it for me to run out of theme and the biggest incentive for me is our character jacks. Imperatus is great no matter where you put him and mage hunters specificity really love Disco. exactly my point. I just find it weird so many have put such an emphasis on the free solos, and not the support/tactics provided by non-theme.
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Post by mcdermott on Sept 16, 2017 23:12:36 GMT
Ret is 2 themes down, once dawnguard and whatever else (probably vyre/nyss) comes out theme vs non theme's balance is going to shift.
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Post by Demeritus on Sept 17, 2017 0:36:44 GMT
For us I think we do better non theme because our faction likes to draw from tools from various "factions" (mage hunters and artificer/disco for example) within our kit that right now playing in theme is not playing to our greatest strengths. This is not to say our themes are bad but imo we are stronger out of theme than in.
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dagowit
Junior Strategist
Posts: 171
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Post by dagowit on Sept 17, 2017 5:52:58 GMT
PP has stated that they expect most lists to be in Theme eventually. They have also promised that more Character Jacks will find their way into Themes, so that might change things. Also, getting more Themes to choose from will change things. If new Themes drop for everyone, that will shake up the entire meta for a while...
As of today, I find that both Shadows and Forges are excellent skew lists. You lose some flexibility in list building but gain an edge when a very specific list onto the table (also a very thematic one but I suppose that isn't a consideration in competitive play).
Sometimes, I think the sacrifice is worth it. Forges is excellent for a Rahn Battle Mages list or a Vyros2 Myrmidon list. Defenders gives Thyron access to some of the defensive Solos he really wants. Ossyan in Shadows can scare most 'jack heavy lists.
I do not think Themes are always the right answer - or that the free Solos are worth the sacrifice of less flexibility. I do think that certain lists shine in theme, however, and I would always consider Themes if building for a tournament (possibly going one list in and one list out of theme, for example).
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SeBM
Junior Strategist
Posts: 102
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Post by SeBM on Sept 19, 2017 1:55:14 GMT
Were have 2 themes that are very specialist oriented. Youcan get incredible coverage with a pairing in theme and get free points for doing so. My last tournament, I ran Ossyan out of theme but could have built a better list for him in either Defenders or Shadows, but I did not have the models.
Themes are almost a no brainer at this point.
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Tucker
Junior Strategist
Posts: 103
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Post by Tucker on Sept 20, 2017 3:39:33 GMT
I play out of theme if there is a specific combo or strategy that I want to build my army around. This tends to only be worth it (from a competitive standpoint) for an assassination-oriented army, as those care more about having specific models at their disposal than they do about the free points or raw combat power of a typical theme force.
For example, I have an army helmed by Kaelyssa that has Moros and a Banshee on Kaelyssa, Discordia on Elara1, and then Strike Force and Stormfall Archers for infantry. The plan is to threaten the enemy warcaster with the warjacks and try to reduce his DEF to make him easy pickings for the infantry's guns. It's difficult to produce exactly the same effect with any of themes, so I find it worthwhile to forgo the theme bonus to put this kind of strange assassination threat on to the table.
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Post by Tom_Bombadil_ on Sept 20, 2017 14:05:23 GMT
^This I hadn't thought about it quite like this but most of my non-theme armies are weird assassination armies taking advantage of weird synergies over combat power.
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pithlit
Baby's First Wargame
Posts: 4
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Post by pithlit on Sept 22, 2017 8:58:37 GMT
PP has stated that they expect most lists to be in Theme eventually. Sorry, is there a source for this? I'd previously seen posts saying that they were aiming for somewhere in the region of 50% of lists being in theme, which seems like a pretty good thing to aim for, in terms of trading flexibility for free points.
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dagowit
Junior Strategist
Posts: 171
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Post by dagowit on Sept 25, 2017 19:46:43 GMT
PP has stated that they expect most lists to be in Theme eventually. Sorry, is there a source for this? I'd previously seen posts saying that they were aiming for somewhere in the region of 50% of lists being in theme, which seems like a pretty good thing to aim for, in terms of trading flexibility for free points. I tried to find it again but failed. The only quote I managed to find (from Pagani on including Mercs/Minions in Themes during the CID) is this: "Theme forces are a primary building block of list construction. While they should never be required, they are the basis of the game now and should be treated that way." Unfortunately "the basis of the game" could mean anything from "we expect most competitive lists to use them" to "they are a fluffy way for new players to get into the game". It is entirely possible that I was a bit too hasty in my initial interpretation. Anyway, if PP only wanted 50% of armies to be in Theme, haven't they already succeeded? Locally, at least, there seem to be more Theme armies than non-theme ones. Releasing even more Themes later this week will only give us more options for playing in a Theme competitively and as a result even more armies in Theme. It seems to me PP expects the majority of competitive lists to be Theme Forces (which, by the way, is by no means the same as saying that non-theme lists can't be competitive).
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