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I know it's traditional to wait for a model to actually be released before tinkering with its rules, but this one I couldn't resist. It's an Adepta Sororitas Knight with jump jets and wings. That can Deep Strike. And that Stomps any unit (friendly or enemy) that it Deep Strikes on top of -- unless it's another super-heavy, in which case it mishaps as normal. It's a hell of a way to get a Destroyer close combat weapon in your enemy's backfield right fething now. But the Knight Angelus pays a price in terms of both firepower and its defense Ion Shield. Also you can't spam them, because unlike regular Knights, it's only available as a Lord of War choice. You can take Saint Celestine, three squads of Seraphim, and three squads of my homebrewed Principalities and deep-strike them along with it, though....

Yes, this is madness, specifically a return to the original idea behind my madness in this thread. But it is also fething awesome.

Or not. You tell me. All comments welcome, constructive criticism encouraged, and vitriolic abuse tolerated.

[UPDATE: The final (?) versions of this unit -- and 29 others -- are now in my Sororitas fandex/expandnex]


Knight Angelus: 510 points
WS:4 BS:4 S:10 Armour:13/12/12 I:4 A:3 HP:6

Background:


Force Organization: A Knight Angelus is a Lord of War for a Codex:Adepta Sororitas army
Unit Type: vehicle (super-heavy walker)

Wargear:
Heavy Bolter
Reaper Chainsword*
Ion Shield*
Pillar of Fire**
Wings of Light*

* See Knight-Paladin and Knight-Errant rules.

** Unique Wargear:
Pillar of Fire: Template S:7 AP:3 Ordnance 1, Torrent

Wings of Light:
The Knight Angelus may use its Wings of Light once per turn:
- to enter play by Deep Strike (once per game, obviously!); or
- to move up to 24" in the Movement Phase; or
- to reroll its charge distance during the Assault Phase.
While using the Wings of Light, the Knight Angelus can move over all other models and all terrain freely. However, it cannot end its move on top of other models and can only end its move on top of impassable terrain if it is actually possible to place the model on top of it.
However, the Knight Angelus may not use its Wings of Light in the same turn as it uses its Pillar of Fire or its Ion Shield.

Special Rules:
Deep Strike
Hammer of Heaven*
Limited Power*
Shield of Faith

*Unique Special Rules:

Hammer of Heaven:
When the Knight Angelus enters play by Deep Strike, it suffers a mishap as normal if it lands on top of or within 1" of a Gargantuan Creature, Super-Heavy Vehicle, or Super-Heavy Walker.
However, if the Knight lands on top of or within 1" of any other unit, the Knight does not mishap and immediately makes a Stomp attack on the unit(s) instead. The Knight is then immediately moved the minimum distance so as to be no longer within 1" of any surviving model. Note the Knight must make this attack even if the units landed on are friendly.
A Knight Angelus suffers a mishap as normal if it lands on top of impassible terrain or partially or wholly of the board.

Limited Power:
The Knight Angelus may not use its Pillar of Fire or its Ion Shield in the same turn as either making a Deep Strike or using its Wings of Light.


Design Notes

Deus Imperator, what have you done?

You just can't resist hurling large lumps of blessed iron at planetary surfaces, can you?

I think, fluff wise, the things the Hammer of Heaven lands on should be moved, rather than moving the Knight itself.

Other than that, it looks shiny, although a piddly little standard Template doesn't really do the Pillar of Fire justice, I think.

Your added points are way too low, mostly because the "fair" points you're citing as justification are completely broken*. Adding 24" movement and turning a deep strike mishap into an attack are worth way more than 10-15 points each for conventional vehicles, especially for vehicles that want to get up close to kill stuff. Add all of that to a unit with a melee D-weapon and it's just absurd, if you don't deep strike you're consistently going to be making turn-1 charges that erase whole units from the table.


*Not only are the actual numbers broken, the whole system is broken. You simply can't apply the same point increase to a 50-point Sentinel as a 250 point Land Raider if you give them the same ability. At absolute minimum they need to add a percentage of the unit's initial cost, and probably need different values for different types of vehicles (assault transports, gunline artillery, etc) because the value of a rule/upgrade depends greatly on what the unit is trying to do. For example, no-scatter deep strike is pretty much worthless on a Basilisk but would be pretty nice on a Chimera full of melta vets.

Peregrine wrote:Your added points are way too low, mostly because the "fair" points you're citing as justification are completely broken*. Adding 24" movement and turning a deep strike mishap into an attack are worth way more than 10-15 points each for conventional vehicles, especially for vehicles that want to get up close to kill stuff. Add all of that to a unit with a melee D-weapon and it's just absurd, if you don't deep strike you're consistently going to be making turn-1 charges that erase whole units from the table.....

Cost is definitely tricky, and I'm certainly willing to change it -- I'm even willing to think hard about giving up the deep-strike-on-yo-head thing, as much as I love it.

That said, you're paying Baneblade prices for something with 1/3 fewer Hull Points and zero long-range firepower. True, the Ion Shield and Shield of Faith go a long way to make up for the lack of HP. But ranged firepower is a real shortfall: In fact, discounting the lone heavy bolter, you have precisely one serious ranged weapon that you can't actually use a lot of the time. Compare that to "11 barrels of Hell," which can make turn-one shots that wipe entire units from the table without having to get into close combat, or for that matter close at all.

What you get in return for giving up firepower is a terrifyingly mobile Destroyer close combat weapon you can basically get anywhere you need it in a hurry -- which is a pretty good trade. This thing is a waste of points against infantry, even with a nasty flamer and Stomp, but it's death on wings to vehicles, including other superheavies.

It's also a bit of an eggshell armed with a hammer: If you don't send it into the enemy's backfield with a lot of support, it's going to wreck stuff for a turn and then get ripped apart by melta guns, melta bombs, and power fists (or their equivalents).

Furyou Miko wrote:
I think, fluff wise, the things the Hammer of Heaven lands on should be moved, rather than moving the Knight itself.
Other than that, it looks shiny, although a piddly little standard Template doesn't really do the Pillar of Fire justice, I think.

Both good points. I'm a little leery of giving it Hellfire though, given that other Knight weapons don't get apocalyptic templates and, um, I think I have some cause to worry

Why not give it a Large Blast template and Ignores Cover, then?

 Peregrine wrote:
Your added points are way too low, mostly because the "fair" points you're citing as justification are completely broken*. Adding 24" movement and turning a deep strike mishap into an attack are worth way more than 10-15 points each for conventional vehicles, especially for vehicles that want to get up close to kill stuff. Add all of that to a unit with a melee D-weapon and it's just absurd, if you don't deep strike you're consistently going to be making turn-1 charges that erase whole units from the table.


*Not only are the actual numbers broken, the whole system is broken. You simply can't apply the same point increase to a 50-point Sentinel as a 250 point Land Raider if you give them the same ability. At absolute minimum they need to add a percentage of the unit's initial cost, and probably need different values for different types of vehicles (assault transports, gunline artillery, etc) because the value of a rule/upgrade depends greatly on what the unit is trying to do. For example, no-scatter deep strike is pretty much worthless on a Basilisk but would be pretty nice on a Chimera full of melta vets.

Generally, the difference of the base unit is costed into the unit.

I.E. A Power Weapon costs the same for a S3, S4, S5, S6 model. Whatever takes it, it's 15pts.

According to GW math:
Giving the 35pt Sentinel Deep Strike currently is around 10-15pts.
Giving a 250pt Land Raider Deepstrike, was free.

GWs costing they generally just pull out of their ass and proceed to not care.

The system I have constructed is based on averaging across MANY codexes, weapon costs and experience, and while no means foolproof, is definately a solid base for pricing units.

It is a flat system that's worked pretty damn well so far.
And while a scaling system would be great, it'll need a MASSIVE document, likely hundreds of pages long to create templates for, as you scale every aspect of the game and create equations for it.

AND, on top of that, at the end of the day, the times I've tried a scaled system, the points work out about the same (give or take a few)!

This is why, according to my flat system, rules / weapons / upgrades always are priced at what they are.
The abilities of the platform it's on are priced at what THEY are, and the two come together to get the total.

 SisterSydney wrote:
I know it's traditional to wait for a model to actually be released before tinkering with its rules

The rules have been released. That's enough.

I'll get to the unit in a moment. Just going to pop to some other threads!

I agree with Peregrine here. I see you insist on doing this the Ovion way, Sydney, but that system really does not work.

A 24" move is crazy. Hell, why would you -ever- want to pick the reroll charge distance thing when you can move 24"?

I can only ever imagine that to be useful if you start the turn very close to an enemy unit, and even then, what use is rerolling assault move when you can place yourself 1" away from the enemy and use Pillar of Fire?


Automatically Appended Next Post:


That is still not reliable in the slightest and does not seem worthwhile to me. There's too much positive and negative synergy in this game to rate anything individually.

Shrouded on a squad of Hammernators would be almost irrelevant, for example, but imagine gettin' Shrouded on a Wave Serpent, or Lootas, or Warbikers, or Devastators...

True, but Ovion's got a framework to start with, which is more than anyone else has got. And I think the result isn't insane: you're paying 115 points more than a regular Knight -- a 30% premium -- for vastly more mobility but much less firepower and slightly less protection. That seems fairly fair.

As for the 24" move, that's actually a toned down version of the Eldar Revenant Titan's 36". Now, there are people who'd say the Revenant is insane, and they may have a point. But it's a precedent.

Deep Striking a super-heavy -- that doesn't have a precedent as far as I know.

Re-rolling charge range makes this more like a regular Jump Unit. Sure, it'd be silly to charge infantry -- even dangerous -- but since Pillar of Fire doesn't do much to heavy armor (it's S:7), you do want that charge distance to make sure you can use your Destroyer chainsaw on heavy tanks and super-heavies.

So, we can break objections to this unit into two related but not 100% overlapping categories:
1) It's underpriced for what it does. (Or someone could say it's overpriced, I guess). In which case, let's talk about changing costing!
2) What it does makes no sense at any price. In which case, let's talk about toning down the rules!

 SisterSydney wrote:
I know it's traditional to wait for a model to actually be released before tinkering with its rules, but this one I couldn't resist. It's an Adepta Sororitas Knight with jump jets and wings. That can Deep Strike. And that Stomps any unit (friendly or enemy) that it Deep Strikes on top of -- unless it's another super-heavy, in which case it mishaps as normal. It's a hell of a way to get a Destroyer close combat weapon in your enemy's backfield right fething now. But the Knight Angelus pays a price in terms of both firepower and its defense Ion Shield. Also you can't spam them, because unlike regular Knights, it's only available as a Lord of War choice. You can take Saint Celestine, three squads of Seraphim, and three squads of my homebrewed Principalities and deep-strike them along with it, though....

Yes, this is madness, specifically a return to the original idea behind my madness in this thread. But it is also fething awesome.

Or not. You tell me. All comments welcome, constructive criticism encouraged, and vitriolic abuse tolerated.

Knight Angelus: 510 points
WS:4 BS:4 S:10 Armour:13/12/12 I:4 A:3 HP:6

Background:

Spoiler:

Some Knight Houses swear fealty directly to the Imperium, others to the Adeptus Mechanicus, but a few devote themselves to the Ecclesiarchy. For their piety and fealty, these holy warriors are rewarded with a unique pattern of Knight: the Angelus.
At rest, the Knight Angelus merely seems more streamlined and elegant than conventional Knights, as well as more lightly armed. Only the tell-tale exhaust tubes of jump jets betray its unique nature. When the Knight Angelus activates for battle, however, from its back unfold enormous shimmering fields of energy. These Wings of Light, along with the jump jets, allow the Knight Angelus to fly for brief periods or even leap from a low-orbiting spacecraft and smash down on the heads of the infidel.
The same arcane generators that project the Wings of Light can also produce an Ion Shield like that of other Knights -- but they cannot do so at the same time as they form the Wings. Likewise, the Angelus' main ranged weapon, its Pillar of Fire, is not a flamer but in fact the redirected and concentrated exhaust of its jump jets, which when wielded this way cannot be used for movement. Thus at any given moment, the pilot must choose between mobility and combat power.[/i]

Force Organization: A Knight Angelus is a Lord of War for a Codex:Adepta Sororitas army
Unit Type: vehicle (super-heavy walker)

Wargear:
Heavy Bolter
Reaper Chainsword*
Ion Shield*
Pillar of Fire**
Wings of Light*

* See Knight-Paladin and Knight-Errant rules.

** Unique Wargear:
Pillar of Fire: Template S:7 AP:3 Ordnance 1, Torrent

Wings of Light:
The Knight Angelus may use its Wings of Light once per turn:
- to enter play by Deep Strike (once per game, obviously!); or
- to move up to 24" in the Movement Phase; or
- to reroll its charge distance during the Assault Phase.
While using the Wings of Light, the Knight Angelus can move over all other models and all terrain freely. However, it cannot end its move on top of other models and can only end its move on top of impassable terrain if it is actually possible to place the model on top of it.
However, the Knight Angelus may not use its Wings of Light in the same turn as it uses its Pillar of Fire or its Ion Shield.

Special Rules:
Deep Strike
Hammer of Heaven*
Limited Power*
Shield of Faith

*Unique Special Rules:

Hammer of Heaven:
When the Knight Angelus enters play by Deep Strike, it suffers a mishap as normal if it lands on top of or within 1" of a Gargantuan Creature, Super-Heavy Vehicle, or Super-Heavy Walker.
However, if the Knight lands on top of or within 1" of any other unit, the Knight does not mishap and immediately makes a Stomp attack on the unit(s) instead. The Knight is then immediately moved the minimum distance so as to be no longer within 1" of any surviving model. Note the Knight must make this attack even if the units landed on are friendly.
A Knight Angelus suffers a mishap as normal if it lands on top of impassible terrain or partially or wholly of the board.

Limited Power:
The Knight Angelus may not use its Pillar of Fire or its Ion Shield in the same turn as either making a Deep Strike or using its Wings of Light.


Design Notes

Spoiler:

I'm using Ovion's costing rules, but since his are calibrated for normal vehicles, not Super Heavies, I'm multiplying all the costs by three.

So, starting with a Knight Paladin:

REPLACE
2 Heavy Stubbers w/ 1 heavy bolter: +/-0
Replace Battle Cannon with Pillar of Fire: +/-0 (as a rough guess)

ADD
1) Wings of Light & Deep Strike:
- basically a Jump Unit, albeit without Hammer of Wrath (15 pts normally, x3 for Superheavy): +45
- wait, vehicles can't normally be Jump Units! (10 pts x3): +30
2) Hammer of Heaven:
- Partially immune to Deep Strike mishaps (10 pts x3): +30
- Holy feth, can ATTACK on a Deep Strike? (10 pts x3): +30
3) Shield of Faith, which gives you a 6++ whenever you can't use the Ion Shield's 4++ instead, as well as Adamantium Will in case some one decides to try a psychic power on a super-heavy for some reason (10 pts x3): +30

SUBTRACT:
Limited Power: a major restriction on both its main weapon (-10) and more importantly its Ion Shield (-20): -30

Net: +135 points

Ok, so first - straight costingTotal: 430

But of course the system falls apart a little with the crazy big stuff, because GW/FW doesn't even know what they're doing with it... plus I'm not sure how well the Knights are priced in the first place... soo we could say lets double those special rules up because why not: Total: 485. (later math goes NO, and WHAT, and my brain hurts)
(And honestly, pricing it roughly against the Eldar Revenant in my head, I get around 850 to 900, and against the Warhound I get 690.)
You got 510.
(Again, brain hurts)

Superheavies are just priced so painfully inconsistently against each other.

Most things I can justify the math.
This, no idea.

I mean, pricing it against say, a Dreadnought in a Drop Pod (135pts), that can't mishap, etc...Total: 505.
I still don't know what it should actually cost mind.
But it's basically a Knight with Agile and Deep Strike at the end of the day.

Knight vs Dread:Total: 420
So overshooting the actual by 50pts, making my system overprice it for this?

So ultimately, I get several different costs for this:
Straight off the Knight = 430
Arbritrary increase due to Superheavies are hard to cost = 485
Roughly priced off a Revenant = 850 (dubious at best)
Roughly priced off a Warhound = 690
Priced against a Dreadnought = 505

Enjoy.

Doubled movement for 30 points?

Almost immunity to mishap (Replacing it with an attack to boot) for 20 points?

On a superheavy?

Underpriced, like, a lot.

But then, I am of the opinion that your way in general does not work. (The arbitrary upgrade-to-superheavy for 100 pts, for example.)

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Doubled movement for 30 points?

Almost immunity to mishap (Replacing it with an attack to boot) for 20 points?

On a superheavy?

Underpriced, like, a lot.

But then, I am of the opinion that your way in general does not work. (The arbitrary upgrade-to-superheavy for 100 pts, for example.)

That wasn't arbitrary, I costed up the rules that are granted to a Superheavy a while back at 100pts, relative to the rest of the system.

But as I said, everything breaks down at this level, because the source material is schizophrenic.

But to fix it properly, it needs regular testing and adjustment.

Exactly, you need to patch and repair your own method afterwards to make it work.

I don't see the point. Might as well go with what seems right, after a few simple comparisons and playtesting. No need to say X is always worth Y unless Z and then fill in whatever holes this creates.

Which has been my point all along.

It's a solid basis, drawn mathmatically from GWs own units (and backed up as such), but requiring experience and testing to get perfect.

But I've said the whole time, it's just a base and for confirmation or adjustment, you need to playtest thoroughly.

I just prefer having a framework to pulling a number out of my ass.

I prefer pulling a number out of my ass.

Or well, for example, if I were to design a Chaos Land Raider with Hades cannons instead of Lascannons, I'd try to assess how strong they are compared to Lascannons and price that way, instead of compare SM Lascannons to SM plasma cannons, then SM Plasma Cannons to Forgefiend ectoplasmas (Which are, supposedly, equivalent to Hades guns).

Or whatever.

You know what I mean.

I think pricing via gut feeling, ask a few people, play a game or two and so on goes a lot more towards a good result than your calculations.

Haraldus, let me try approaching this differently and flat out asking you: what do you think this should cost? Or do you think it is broken at any price?

I understand, you consider the methods that Ovion and I are using to be fundamentally and unfixably flawed, not just an imperfect way to get a reasonable starting point. You have a legitimate and defensible position -- but your case is going to be a lot more persuasive if you go beyond saying "what you're doing won't work" and get to "but I think this would work instead." If you don't offer an alternative we either have to give up (and, ok, maybe we should) or ignore you.

I'll gladly offer my idea of a price. Gimme a moment and I'll think up something.

My opinion is just in general that mathematics and pricing won't work; there is too much negative and positive synergy for it to be viable at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd place it at 550 in Apocalypse games and 500 in normal matches.

The extra 50 points reflect how good deep strike becomes with massive tables and lots of units to mishap on, as well as how good 24" movement becomes on just massive tables. 500 is round and seems appropriate for a Knight with tons of mobility buffs.

Great idea for a unit, though.

Aha! Thank you, Haraldus, that's exactly what I needed -- a point cost (500-550) and a qualitative assessment ("great idea").

It's looking like 500-ish is the median of the madness in our methods, so I'm tempted to say 525 -- exactly 150 more than the Knight-Paladin -- and have done. Then somebody someday can actually play test the fething thing... a lot because the sheer unfamiliarity of a deep striking super heavy is going to cause both sides problems the first few times out.

Personally, I suspect this would work best either
a) as a Lord of War in a high-points 40K game where you can buy Seraphim and Principalities (or Marine allies) to deep strike in with it, so the Knight Angelus provides the Destroyer core of a larger and more balanced strike force. "Hey, Celestine, those tanks giving you trouble? STOMP SHRED CRUNCH. Ok, have fun!"
b) bought in multiples in an Apocalypse game and deep struck as near as possible the enemy's long-range superheavies (Shadowswords, for instance, or most Reaver builds) to kill them before they can shoot the rest of your army up at range. Jump on top of the escorting infantry and normal-sized vehicles, then hew the enemy superheavies apart in melee. WS:4 I:4 A:3 Destroyer is going to make serious problems for superheavies several times its size, because except for a Lord of Skulls or a twin-power fist Titan, they're all optimized for ranged combat.
Then run like hell before the rest of the enemy army converges on you.
Yes, in Apocalypse a Knight Angelus is actually the plucky underdog.

I'm not sure about the initiative though, I aways thought I4 seemed kinda high.

A lord of skulls is going to wreck this thing, it is tough enough to survive the opening hits and will turn the Angelus to paste with its return attacks, but it does cost almost 900 points. Otherwise I don't know which unit it can't really do well against.

I actually agree on that.
I don't know why Knights, the supposedly worst, smallest Titan(esque), has I4, when even the Eldar speedy ones are only I2/3.

But, it is what it is.

Knights are definitely the best superheavies in melee except for the Lord o'Skulls. And even Skulllord McStupidname (doesn't Khorne focus-group what he calls things?) had lower Initiative, so it's gonna get hurt.

Otherwise, only a dual-power-fist Titan -- a stupidly sub-optimized build -- can put out as many destroyer attacks as a Knight, and they're going to have trouble hitting with WS:2 vs WS:4. That makes some sense given that the Knights are smaller, nimbler, and not optimized as long-range firepower platforms.

It is a bit odd that the Eldar Titans have lower Initiative than a piece of clunky Imperial tech, but then the Revenant is definitely optimized for shoot-and-scoot, not melee. [Edit: Now that I look at Apocalypse, I see the Phantom Titan is a lot nippier in melee, with I:3 A:3 and the option for a Destroyer melee weapon, but at 2,500 points it would still take serious damage from a Knight before killing it.]

I wonder if Knights are going to become mandatory escort for larger, snootier Titans in Apocalypse. [Edit: "shootier" Titans. Damn you, autocorrect. But now I can't get the images out of my head of a Warhound daintily mincing along or a Reaver with its nose in the air or an Imperator that doesn't even bother looking down at lesser superheavies when it talks to them.]

Offensively, the one flaw of normal Knights is walking all that wonderful melee power up the board before its 6 HP are gone. The Knight Angelus literally leaps over that problem to deliver your three WS:4 I:4 Destroyer attacks right where you want them, which is definitely worth a hefty increase in point cost.