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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Wolf Scouts vs. Speeders: the Same?



G'day AbusePuppy,

I tried to send you an email but I think my browser was naughty.

I would like to hear your thoughts on why the Scouts are *not* like Speeders, as per our small discussion on Space Wolf Grey that never came to fruition.

I think they have the exact same job of taking out Armour and give the gong to the Speeder in every category bar mêlée ~ of course :P

I am always open to being wrong and love being illuminated so I can get madder skeeyulz.

Cheers, Marshal Wilhelm


Came out of this discussion, which ended up rather circuitous, but (in my part of the conversation) brought up an interesting thought: how similar are Wolf Scouts and Speeders, anyways?

Both of them tote a single (usually) Meltagun. Both have the potential to arrive at inconvenient places, and both are fragile enough that they tend to be thrwaway units. However, in my opinion, they have grossly different roles in an army, not to mention occupying different slots (and thus competing with different units.)

Let's not be hasty, though; to be fair, I'll play Devil's Advocate, because it isn't hard to see how they could be considered the same. Let's start by looking at the basics of each unit.

Land Speeders are exactly like their Space Marine counterparts, save for the rest of the contents of the book and how they play into the army design (which is rather relevant, but not something we'll go into here.) They are fast, fragile, and in the iteration we're discussing, carry a Multimelta and Heavy Flamer, giving them good anti-armor and decent anti-infantry capacity. They function as a harassment unit, able to go nearly anywhere on the board and threatening a rather large area around them (12", nominal 24" range on the gun). They are, however, relatively easy to shoot down- however, as vehicles, it is quite possible for them survive a significant barrage of firepower and escape largely unhurt with only a bit of luck.

Wolf Scouts, on the other hand, differ significantly from their SM counterpart. They are Elites (and thus not scoring and in competition with some other very good units), but come with WS/BS 4, giving them a lot more potential.They can be giving any one special weapon- almost always a Meltagun and have a few other useful options, such as bringing a Wolf Guard along for a Combimelta, Power Fist, or Meltabombs. With their variety of special deployment rules, they can arrive almost anywhere on the battlefield, but once there they are stuck at standard infantry speeds. With Behind Enemy Lines it is possible for them to screw up and not come in from the right board edge, but they generally do what is needed.

So both of them, in terms of comparison, are melta delivery systems with reasonable, if not particularly great, survivability. Are they the same?

No. Most definitely not.

The Speeder is an on-board threat that pushes the enemy back- it can easily move forward and aim for early shots with double penetration. In a vehicle-heavy list, it adds saturation, relying on offering other targets in order to stay alive. It is mobile, able to go to whatever part of the battlefield we need it at on any given turn. It excels most in a mid-range shooting SW army as a way to wreck heavy tanks without sacrificing a squad of Grey Hunters. (Remember, SW doesn't get any other Melta- think about that next time your hear that Tacticals suck. Rushing your troop squads in the enemy's face and disembarking is a dangerous plan.)

The Scouts are an off-board threat, a potential unit to wreck anything the enemy leaves within 12" of their board edge. Unlike the Speeder, they push the enemy forward, since they don't want to hug the back edge for fear of being shot/assaulted. They are protected from attack by virtue of simply not being on the board until they arrive and do their job, but they are not a mobile unit, simply being very flexible in terms of arrival points. If there are two targets you want to kill on opposite sides of the board, Wolf Scouts can only kill one of them. Their main usage is to force the enemy into a "rock and hard place" situation when running an extremely aggressive SW force with TWC, etc.

Hopefully it should be clear that, while they are both able to reach many points on the table and carry a melta weapon, Wolf Scouts and Land Speeders are utterly unalike based on their own qualities alone- this is not even to mention the units they compete with (TWC, Lone Wolf, Dreadnought, Wolf Guard), which give them even more difference in application.

Comments (40)

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why is it everytime we need to compare units to each other. if everyone paided attention to the fact that everyone has a favoriate unit or a certain way to play with scouts or land speeder. good god i wish i could slap the nex person that say this is the best unit in the game or something like that of course. reguardless scouts push the army and foward so land speeders can pop the darn tanks that you like kiling so much... in the end every unit dies in different ways.
3 replies · active 732 weeks ago
That's really not what the article is about, at all. It's a comparison of functional similarities in view of how they affect gameplay, not a comparison of "which one is better".
Also, the person explicitly asked me to compare the two, as the thought never would have occurred to me to do so otherwise.

And yes, Speeders and Scouts are apples and oranges. They don't line up or compete for space in any meaningful way.
The need to compare and contrast is to examine which unit does what and how. I ask my family what they thought of their meals when I go out to a restaurant, after all, no need for me to work my way through the entire menu to narrow down to what I might like to eat. It also serves as a bonding and reconnection exercise, strengthening friendships and sharing conversations over and of a shared interest, food.
Why wouldn't I do that in 40K as well?

I don't have unlimited amounts of games to play test things. I have my previous experience and I can theoryhammer [usually reasonably well, but not always] what units should and should not be able to do.
However, nothing beats getting the men out and rolling dice on the table.

That is why YTTH and 3++ have an audience. Some dudes just have better gamer minds, more experience and/or play more games. Then when you add in the cadre of experienced dudes that visit here, you have the potential to be illuminated.

If I think, say, Scouts are lemons and never play them, I could be missing out on something that outside of *my* theoryhammer, could actually be a great unit and fun to play with.

So why wouldn't I ask the question and get someone, in this case AP, to prove the merits of Scouts to me?

I only have x amount of dollars and x amount of points. Better to measure twice and cut once, if you catch my drift.

I hope you had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year
:)
AP what do you mean by this comment: "(Remember, SW doesn't get any other Melta- think about that next time your hear that Tacticals suck. Rushing your troop squads in the enemy's face and disembarking is a dangerous plan.)"

What melta does C :S M have that C :S W doesn't?
16 replies · active 732 weeks ago
that's C: SM and C: SW respectively. Stupid emoticons.
MM in tacs I suppose?
Vanilla SM get Multimeltas in their troop squad- this means they can pop transports at 24" and wreck _anything_ at 12", whereas SW have to halve this distances. This means that SM can afford to run shooty troop squads that sit in midfield and threaten a large area, whereas SW are forced to play more aggressively. A Tactical Squad in a Rhino will, most of the time, wreck an opposing Grey Hunter's ride before they can get to grips with them.
Puppy, NOOoooo..... , Just no. Seriously, I don't know you in person, maybe we can be best war gaming buddies, but just reading your writings and articles, some time it really makes me question your thought process. Maybe I'm the crazy one here.

Seriously, MM is heavy weapon, to get that full 24", you need to sit your ass in the spot, so they can't move and shoot, and now the SW player have to be dumb enough to move in range and say "oh crap, I can't reach that rhino with my melta gun, guess I'll just have to die now thanks to those dumb ass Long Fangs with their fail back up." Lets say we don't count the Long Fangs, but why would someone with a clear state of mine move in that MM radius without back up or some forms of shooting to take out their ride first? If they just want to suicide or play like a dumb ass, I guess that would qualify for SM wreck SW's ride most of the time statement.

I'm not trying to be an internet tough guy here because people can eye ball distance and avoid these kind of silly mistakes, everyone can do it with practice.
So what you're saying is that my zero point multi-melta is having a drastic effect on how you maneuver your troops through midfield? :)

I think someone just realized the whole point of the rhino bunker tactical squad.
LOL, is MM bunker a new thing? Maybe you misunderstanding my point. SM MM ride don't wreck SW's ride most of the time. Only works against baby seals. We aren't playing a game with just have 1 unit vs 1 unit. If it's 1v1, it would of been stupid. You have 24" inch reach, and I have 21" reach. Are you going to move 2.9 inch, and I back 2.9 inch? How often we see that in 5-6 turns games. LOL
I don't think you get it Alex. I park my Rhino, now you have to think before entering a 4 foot across area and think real hard before entering a 2 foot across area. SW have no way of projecting that think of threat area from a durable troops choice.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Tacticals are strictly better than GH, they just function very differently and Tacticals are better at claiming a piece of midfield for their own. GH are better at holding the backfield and seizing the forefield.
That is the whole point bro. The Greys wouldn't move within 12" of the Tacs. That means there is a12" insta-death bubble that they cannot enter. From12-24" the Tacs can still take out the Grey's Rhino. What can the Greys do. Nu'in!

Greys *do not* have that threat bubble and so must twiddle their thumbs or rush in.
Thumb twiddling = Tac win
Rush in = Tac win

Is AP saying that it is one v one? No, it is army v army. However, it is gaining advantages with units that gives advantages with armies. I think you have blurred the two....? :P
Yeah, the MM is a heavy weapon; so what? Your plan is to move + pop smoke T1 and then sit on an objective the rest of the game, so that doesn't hinder you any. The GH can only move 6" if they want to fire (or they can get out- everyone knows that voluntarily demeching yourself is a good idea!), so it's not like they've got world-class maneuverability.

No, neither unit exists in a vacuum, but Tacticals directly contribute more to a shooting army.
Oh C'mon. You seriously looking at this game at a 1 unit vs 1 unit perspective. This is where you fail. By the way, think GH using razorback with twin-linked lascannon. I don't give a f@#& about your 24" MM bubble. I de-mech you at 36. Seriously, do you always go first? Are people above still using GH in Rhino? Any serious SW players here? Under the right moment or circumstance, voluntarily disembarking is not a bad idea, you might want to try it sometime.
You get Vehicle Destroyed Results regularly on single Lascannon shots? Stop using loaded dice, please. :P
Buddy, in most case, the razorback with las gets 2 shots before the MM fires back. Yeah.... I like my odds. After they get de-mech, TWC joins the dinner.

Again, looking at this game at a 1 unit vs 1 unit perspective is fail.
Then stop ^^.
Alright, why don't you go ahead and compare armies in the space provided in a comment box? Because that sounds like a hell of a prospect to me.

I'm not saying Tacticals are better than Grey Hunters, but they aren't necessarily worse, either. They serve different roles in their respective armies and they do different things.

TL Lascannon is a bad setup for a Razorback. LasPlas does the same thing, is still functional after a Weapon Destroyed hit, and costs the same.

Lascannons are range 48", by the way.

Sometimes disembarking is an acceptable choice, but you never want to do it unless you have to because it exposes you to fire, and that's bad.

Razorwolves is a different army from Wolves using Rhinos; the former is a shooting army, the latter is usually more inclined to close combat. Neither one is blatantly superior to the other, unless you subscribe to the BoLS Army of the Week thinking, I suppose.
I already wasted enough my times to read your fails and correct you. When you type GH's ride, I'm thinking razorback. I sure as hell never experience tac marine MM me first. Guess I'm in the baby seal pool here.

LOL, everyone knows Lascannons are 48". In most cases, it's only about 36" or less after deployment before you can melta me. Get to the point.

When you stated tac marine will take out GH's ride in most the time, are you comparing GH in razorback with heavy bolters? Sure as hell I don't know any GW player uses rhino in competitive gaming. Since you like GH in crap rides, I choose the next level of crap choice. That's the TL las.

Do I detect a change of mind? Under the right moment or circumstance, voluntarily disembarking is acceptable, Don't write shits like "everyone knows that voluntarily demeching yourself is a good idea!"

LOL, don't even compare to BOLS and their fail shits.

I think I done here.
You don't see Rhinos in competitive play? Ya, kiddie pool. Rhinos are excellent for every MEQ army because of top-hatch fun. A lot of Hybrid Wolves run LasPlas and Rhinos because it gives the Grey Hunters a lot more survivability in midfield and the ability to affect the battle since they aren't forced to disembark. Ergo flexibility for the SW army. Are pure LasPlas armies possible? Absolutely but they play a LOT differently.

MM tac bunkers sit in midfield and help the SM player control it. You want to shut down a single MM tac squad? Go for it, the rest of the SM army has much better offensive output. It's all about board control for MM Tacs rather than midfield pushing and a buffer for the Grey Hunters to the rest of the army. Grey Hunters cannot camp midfield as well as Tacs because they lack a Heavy Weapon, have Ld8 (Ld9 equates to one special and one one-shot special) and are better used as MSU (where they can still get one special and one one-shot special). Whilst this makes them much better at damage potential and you create more targets for your opponent, killing 24 Marines over 4 squads is a lot different to killing 30 Marines over 3-4 squads.

Read this: http://kirbysblog-ic.blogspot.com/2010/09/compari...

Oh and your last line should be "I think I'm done here." If you're going to be derogatory, do it properly please.
Cool article although to me, there's not much comparison. The only thing that even makes it a discussion is slot competition (Scouts have lots, Speeders have little)

Wolf Scouts ability to disrupt/affect your opponents deployment is almost beyond value. They also come in (more or less) at your discretion giving you a huge threat radius and allowing you to focus fire an area of concern. They also bring a 1-2 of a double melta blast followup by a PF charge, Along that line, the squad always has a CbM/PF wolf guard attached.

Speeder by comparison project threat, but its predictable or extremely vulnerable. 12" move plus shoot is nice, but it limits where a deployed speeder can attack. DSing allows a wide threat, but the speeder is a big oddly shaped model and mishaps are a serious risk. Plus, in order to fire, a speeder necessarily exposes itself while a wolf scout squad has 3 ablative wounds and can hide much easier.

Wolf Scouts are among the best units in 40k IMO
7 replies · active 732 weeks ago
Of course that they have to be good. THey are in the ELITE slot. They are competing with Wolf Guard, Lone Wolves and Dreadnoughts. Duh.

Also, your Wolf Scouts pop a tank and then die. And in your configuration they are more expensive than a speeder. So yeah.
But the squad has 2 melta shots, which you need to be "reliable" anti-tank, so a better cost comparison is 2 speeders. Also, 5 t4 bodies in cover aren't instantly eliminated without an expenditure of effort, effort focused back, away from the rest of my list. Finally, the turn that speeders stop flat-outing in usually the turn they die as well.

I still maintain scouts are superior.
Wait you need two melta shots to be reliable? Since when? Pen on AV 14 on average rolls seems pretty reliable to me.
You never roll one or two on a to hit die? Or less then 7 on two? You have roughly a 38% chance of effecting any damage to a landraider per melta shot. Two in a unit is a great idea.
But with a MM you get more turns of shooting so yeah.
IMO, 2 at BS4 is still not really enough. 3 is my 'Killing Minimum' with 2 the 'Crippling Minimum'
Scouts can fairly easily get Melta, Combi-Melta, and Meltabombs/PFist, which ends up being sufficiently reliable.
Different units, different FOC slots, different armies.
1 reply · active 732 weeks ago
Same army.
Whilst they might be different FOC slots, most people buy Wolf Guard, meaning you cannot have 3 Scouts. Speeders compete against TWC and Fenwolves [who function as extra wounds for the mighty ThunderLord] making it hard to have 3 distinct Speeders.
Also, if you aren't playing at 2K+ points value, then after you buy Fangs, Rune priests and Greys, you only have x amount of points left for these goodies. So they *are* competing for the spare points.

They both blow up tanks and have good deployment ability. DSing and BELing. They are not particularly survivable. Hence the comparo ;)
So this is what I said on Space Wolf Grey:
"Speeders are better than Scouts, imo. OBEL? Deepstrike thanks. Meltagun? Multi melta thanks. Number of attacks? Heavy flamer thanks.
Once the Speeder comes in, it is *far* more mobile and has that amazing advantage of having an AV. The only thing Scouts do better is being able to hide/lock-up a unit in mêlée"
And then my second post:
"I'll tell you why Speeders are better.

Bang-for-buck, speed, survivability.

Whilst Mg, Pp and MB are all good things, they all lack range and the Mg is your only great anti-tank weapon.
If you can assault for the MBs, you are already within MELTA range. Sure it is not automatic, but very good. Then you assault the vehicle with your MB. The vehicle explodes and kills your 4+ save Scouts *sad face*

You are paying a whopping 15 points for the Pp. Yeah they are decent against rear AV, but that is a lot of points for the privilege. Then you only have the 4+ to save you from gets hot! I know guys who don't like plasma on 3+ Marines!

So MB and Pp, both expensive items, and less effective than the Mg, put the Scouts in danger just from using them. Bad enough you have to get close enough for the Mg, let only helping to kill your own men off with their own weapons.

The Mg, whilst a solid gun, is on Infantry. 6" MELTA + 6" move compared to 12" MELTA + 12" move. Are we even comparing the same fruit here? :)

When your Scouts have just assaulted a vehicle, they are in a delicious clump, whether or not the blow the vehicle or not. Guess what my shooty squad has as its special weapon? Flamer. Thanks for the bunch up, I appreciate the help :P

Okay, so the Scouts OBEL into the right position and don't end up on the other side of the table [1/6 chance of that happening and another 1/6 if I haven't deployed my tanks next to a short edge]
The Speeders don't have any worry of turning up in an irrelevant position.
What happens when you play Bloods and they just fast away from the edge but also away from your normal guys? The scouts are left running like those dogs with stumpy little legs, trying to catch up.
Anyway, back to the scouts turning up into the right position. They pop a tank. Then what? Your foe has his other firebase a long way away. D'oh!
Meanwhile the Speeder uses its 24" threat bubble to attack another vehicle.

We all know how Mech is great. Speeders comply to that philosophy. Sure it is AV10. But it is still AV. Bolters are hopeful and even when they do glance you, chances are it will just be a stunned and you can flat-out to *move-block* something. Meanwhile the scouts are dying.

If you are having regular success with your scouts, your foe knows they are coming, and you are still getting attacks against his Armour the turn you come in, maybe your foe needs to wise up a bit. It is much easier to counteract what the scouts will be doing because the are so much more *predictable*

Speeders have obvious targets, yes, and so are also predictable, but how can you really protect all of your tanks from something that can turn up anywhere, has a threat range of 24" and can boogy 24" to completely relocate? You can't. Unless your whole premise is around move-block and cramming a lá Tau.

If you are using scouts, enjoy using them and are having success with them, great. Don't stop using them. But you will not convince me they are as good as Speeders from what you have said. Hopefully that does not come across as rude. I am looking forwards to Abuse Puppy's counter. I am always open to being taught something.

**Scouts can assault Devs, etc. That is something the Speeder cannot do and so the scouts get full marks in that category."
Big issue for me is the FOC. Most SW armies will have lost elite slot right off the bat for wolf-guard which leave sonly two free.

Nice article puppy :) x
So, all things being equal, I still think that, once on the table, Speeders are better [especially when you have a Mech heavy Wolf list].

However, I can see that the threat of the Scouts BELing and melta'ing your prize tank, therefore compelling the whole force to be 12" away from table edges and thus closer to the rest of the Wolves is a good thing.

Perhaps they ought to ignore the threat of the Scouts, deploy normally, suffer the one lost tank, if and when the Scouts turn up, and enjoy the extra 12" to fight the rest of the Wolves with?
Or deploy their guys within 1" of the edges, meaning the Scouts cannot get a meaningful shot on a tank....?

Because surely, buying a 100 point unit that fears your foe into deploying 12" closer to your mid-ranged army is a ridiculously good buy. So good, in fact, that the enemy is better off ignoring the perceived threat and only dealing with the on table reality of what the Scouts actually do, not what they might do. Then the army is in a better position blasting the daylights out of the regular Wolves, if they are a shooty list.

What happens when you might a non~ or lightly~Mech list?
BELing Scouts offer no great threat to Daemons, Jumpers, Bikes, all of whom can naturally get away from table edges.
Necrons naturally move into the midfield and Mg on foot are no real threat to Monoliths and cannot engage the Destroyers.

Against those armies, you just end up with second rate Greys, with less goodies, less armour and no wheels, if you deploy them on the table.
1 reply · active 732 weeks ago
Once on the table Speeders are better in general, yes- but Scouts do their job when not on the table (forcing the enemy to change their deployment strategy) and cannot be eliminated before they do their job- I'm sure anyone who's seen a Speeder on the table knows that they aren't particularly hard to shoot down.

If the enemy chooses to ignore the Scouts- which is certainly possible- then you're trading your small unit for something important of theirs, and they're spending time shooting the Scouts rather than your other units. (They may not be super-hard to kill, but with Ld9 and T4 they aren't going to just evaporate, either.)

Against DS/Scout/etc armies you use the Scouts as bubblewrap, infiltration defense, and all the other usual things. It's far from ideal, but they aren't worthless. Given that the point of such armies is to invalidate as much of the enemy's strategy as possible, it's not surprising that they do so to part of this one.
Thank you for putting my email up and responding to it AbusePuppy. I hope you have a Happy New Year and that you still have Christmas pudding left.
Omnomnomnom!

I have posted so many times in an effort to make it easier for others to respond to the points I am trying to get across. Hopefully it works :P
I use Scouts and Land Speeders along with GH in Rhinos to Sandwich armies.

Works nicely so far for me.
1 reply · active less than 1 minute ago
mmmm.... tic tac sandwich
omnomnomOW! my teeth!
everyone kinda agree then that dependin on how you play a sw army and point depending on the army. but general they will some what change to the follow of a game litle bit always depending on what you opp is running against you. heck running scouts and land speeders probley going to be the next art bozy list i run if i can get them painted in the paint in the next six mounth.

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