... and could actually be picking up on an issue I've noticed recently that encompasses 8th Edition as a whole.
A lot of the trouble with Conscripts is auras/character buffs. A lot of people's problems with Guilliman are auras/character buffs. A lot of why Celestine is so good are auras/character buffs, and part of the good thing about the Swarmlord is his auras/character buffs.
Perhaps 8th Edition is having trouble with synergy and achieving a balance there. I do think that in a vacuum, unit-to-unit or army-to-army (ignoring character buffs) the edition is pretty balanced (especially after that Flyer nerf). But the synergies that characters can add are very difficult to pin down in GW's point system, and I think they're causing trouble. Should the unit being synergized with bear the burden and be priced assuming you have the character nearby, meaning that if you don't bring the character, the unit is overpriced? Should the character be priced according to his synergy in optimum conditions, meaning that using them in a role where they aren't being 100% optimal they are overpriced? Should it be a rough average of the synergetic capabilities, meaning they are overpaying if they're not using it at all but underpaying if it's being optimized?
This is a head-scratcher for me, and I wanted to see if anyone else had any input on 1) if they think characters/synergies are part of the current 8th edition trouble spots and 2) how one could go about fixing it if so.
GW seems to have gone with basic math for basic weapons, meaning in general they're all relatively balanced if they don't do anything special.
They've gone over-conservative with basic, "additive" special things - like Melta, Grav, Haywire. Probably in the hopes of not creating another "Grav Always > Plasma" situation from 7th.
And they've gone over-liberal with the new "canned synergy" multiplicative buffs. This was probably coming from a place of good intentions - GW would rather see Guilliman leading an Ultramarines force with a varied bunch of units than 7th ed superfriends dominating the tournament scene, so they made it strong on purpose.
The problem is that spam is so easy and so rewarding in 8th. Sure, you could take guilliman with a nice TAC army of devastators, and tactical marines, and primaris marines, and one flyer, and some tanks.... or you could just take a flippity-flipton of undercosted Razorbacks and he can buff them all.
"Canned Synergy" is a good way of describing it. Honestly, I believe this is a trap that is very easy to fall into in modern tabletop design, plus it bleeds into the idea that "dependency=synergy."
I remember in Mk2, as far as Cygnarian Light Warjacks went, you had the Charger. It had a doubleshot Cannon, which could spend a Focus point to get a second shot, and had Powerful Attack, meaning you could spend one Focus to Boost both your attack and damage rolls! It competed with the Sentinel (had a shield and a gimpy anti-infantry minigun), the Grenadier (had a meh Grenade Launcher and cost an extra point), and the Firefly (had a meh gun, a slightly better spear, and cost an extra point).
If you didn't take Kraye for Guided Fire, the Sentinel was an inferior Charger. If you didn't take Trenchers for extra shots, the Grenadier was an inferior Charger. If you didn't take Stormsmiths so you could get accurate Triangulation attacks, the Firefly was an inferior Charger. You get the picture. (Incidentally, the Charger hecame somewhat obsoleted later on when the Minuteman came out, and had shorter ranged hi-power guns, but had Open Fists, better movement shenanigans, and a flak field, making for a truly nasty generalist).
In fact, playing to such "canned synergies" ended up creating a term in the WMH community called "Skornergy," where bespoke unit buffs and interactions could be placed on units that ironically worked terrible together! While the Stormsmiths were a handy "standalone" unit for sniping out Stealth models, Trenchers were a *terrible* unit in Mk2, and spending the points on them to buff your Grenadiers meant you ate up points that could be used to handle truly heavy threats!
Real synergies are those which arise in-game and aren't the result of explicit buffs. As a notable example, Grey Knights in 5th edition had an amusing power combo with Inquisitor Lord Karamazov and Interceptors. Interceptors are basically Power Armor Grey Knights with teleport packs. However, they were fragile for their cost, and their anti-tank questionable. Karamazov was a deadly anchor, with a fairly long-range "reroll Leadership" bubble, and a really thematic rule "By Any Means Necessary", which let him center an Orbital Strike Relay over one of his own units (even in melee) in which case it wouldn't scatter. The two units worked way better in principle than first intended, as the Interceptors could shunt to a car park, letting a solo model stand out in the middle, and Karamazov would focus a Lance Strike over that solo Interceptor. This done, the Interceptors could either use Incinerators on surviving Passengers, or Run back into cover.
There's more to synergy than "buff-stacking", and in fact hyper-focused buff-stacking of specific unit combos can result in certain combos that actually don't work as well in "practice" as the designers may have intended! Privateer Press learned this one in Mk2 as the community now has "Skornergy" as a word for when certain buff-combos ironically lead to a fairly non-workable army.
I could agree or disagree on how 8th is good or bad, if is an improvement or not, but this is what I used to say for AoS.
Modern design is compromised by this concept that synergy is something defined by small numbers pr-defined by the designer (and you are oh-so-smart to figure out) and not an effect of how the units move and play on the battlefield.
Yeah, I think this is dead on. My Autarch seems way over-costed if I put him in an elite melee front or in the back lines, but if I flank him with a pair of Wraith Knights and a few wave serpents for good measure, then he's a bargain.
I think GW tried to split the cost up a little both ways. WKs are straight up worse than Paladin Knights but cost more, and I think that's because we have access to a few pretty great buffs from farseers and whatnot, and they don't. It's frustrating though, feeling like I have to field x to field y, and I have to field z to make x the most efficient it can be.
I think the big problem with stuff like Guilliman's aura is that it strongly incentivizes very boring sorts of armies. Because he provides such a big buff to everything within 6" of him, you have a lot of reason to take a bunch of units that can just sit near him, maybe with all of them slowly advancing forward. Any independently-operating units you choose to take are at a disadvantage -- you just want to castle up with your one big blob. Often you even plan on tabling the other player such that you're not even too worried about having mobile units to take objectives. If Guilliman is viable in general, then he's going to be overpowered when you cram a bunch of stuff all around him.
I feel like an easy fix would be to just have aura abilities instead become "at the end of your movement phase, choose 3 units within 6"..." By capping the amount of synergy you can get out of the unit you can then choose point costs around a "reasonable" use of the unit, and you also promote more interesting armies.
For stuff like the Wraithknight, it just seems obvious to me that lots of abilities should have an exclusion for Titanic units.
Deathypoo wrote: Yeah, I think this is dead on. My Autarch seems way over-costed if I put him in an elite melee front or in the back lines, but if I flank him with a pair of Wraith Knights and a few wave serpents for good measure, then he's a bargain.
I think GW tried to split the cost up a little both ways. WKs are straight up worse than Paladin Knights but cost more, and I think that's because we have access to a few pretty great buffs from farseers and whatnot, and they don't. It's frustrating though, feeling like I have to field x to field y, and I have to field z to make x the most efficient it can be.
I agree. I feel like that actually inhibits fluffy armies as well - if Roboute Guilliman's buffs are priced into Space Marines, then what do Space Marines do who doing bring Roboute Guilliman?
Conversely, what does Roboute Guilliman, priced to Buff Space Marines, do in a Imperial Knight army? (if for some reason this was someone's fluff vision; I don't judge!)
This reminds me a lot of what happened to Hearthstone. For those that don't play it, Blizzard created a number of premade synergy cards (e.g., taunt, totem, beasts), most of which didn't work because they weren't powerful enough to compete with the meta decks. So, over time Blizzard created more and more powerful synergies and fewer generalist cards, strongly encouraging players to open one of the "canned archetypes."
sossen wrote: What, you don't enjoy seeing Tinyhead Guilliman every time your opponent fields Ultramarines?
It's not just Guilliman. I think part of the problem with conscripts is character auras/buffs, too. Every complaint I've seen is "this unit + this character buff is OP!" and I'm not surprised because that's notoriously hard to balance.
I think that balancing access to universal rules was the easiest way to balance different factions and to track buff and nerf effects. Gw decided that they wanted to wing it instead. So now we have a million rules none universal and no easy way to track their interactions.
We are still waiting for codexs to come out. GW has shown they care about updating FAQ's. Roll out codexs to adjust certain units. Looking at the space marine rules it rewards you for taking a dedicated SM force in the form of obj secured.
Different strategems also reward taking more of certain units. So that might cause some more spamming. We'll see.
Sit tight. Relax.
As far as buffs go. I highly doubt that GW never thought that conscripts with a company commander and commissar would be very good and used often. Without that great screen unit guard would have a huge issue running many armies. Guard don't have much else to help protect their tanks. Besides bullgryns they don't get much in terms of CC.
HuskyWarhammer wrote: This reminds me a lot of what happened to Hearthstone. For those that don't play it, Blizzard created a number of premade synergy cards (e.g., taunt, totem, beasts), most of which didn't work because they weren't powerful enough to compete with the meta decks. So, over time Blizzard created more and more powerful synergies and fewer generalist cards, strongly encouraging players to open one of the "canned archetypes."
There's nothing wrong with this approach though, is there?
Yes, it's a bit more "obvious" than the organic synergies that people discover, but it's important to have preconstructed 'decks' to allow people to say "I'm going to play Death Guard" and know that there will be great synergies they can use.
Honestly, the way to handle this properly is the most annoying way as well. "This autarch costs 10 points but also increases the points cost of all the units in it's detachment by 10%"
And then limit auras to only work within detachment.
That solution is awful and I'm not supporting it, but I think it would be the only possibly fair way to do it.
Deathypoo wrote: Honestly, the way to handle this properly is the most annoying way as well. "This autarch costs 10 points but also increases the points cost of all the units in it's detachment by 10%"
And then limit auras to only work within detachment.
That solution is awful and I'm not supporting it, but I think it would be the only possibly fair way to do it.
That's a good idea, actually. It is awful, as you say, and super awkward, but yeah...
HuskyWarhammer wrote: This reminds me a lot of what happened to Hearthstone. For those that don't play it, Blizzard created a number of premade synergy cards (e.g., taunt, totem, beasts), most of which didn't work because they weren't powerful enough to compete with the meta decks. So, over time Blizzard created more and more powerful synergies and fewer generalist cards, strongly encouraging players to open one of the "canned archetypes."
There's nothing wrong with this approach though, is there?
Yes, it's a bit more "obvious" than the organic synergies that people discover, but it's important to have preconstructed 'decks' to allow people to say "I'm going to play Death Guard" and know that there will be great synergies they can use.
Sure. Pre-defined gaming stifles emergent tactics, and reduced a lot of list-building and play to "buff-stacking." This was ironically one of the main complaints of 7th edition.
A lot of this, IMO, stems from units in 40k having a very limited range of in-game options, with "I move and shoot" being a meme phrase for how 40k is so deep and strategic, the same way "Forge the Narrative" is a euphemism for excusing sloppily-written Beer&Pretzels rules.
HuskyWarhammer wrote: This reminds me a lot of what happened to Hearthstone. For those that don't play it, Blizzard created a number of premade synergy cards (e.g., taunt, totem, beasts), most of which didn't work because they weren't powerful enough to compete with the meta decks. So, over time Blizzard created more and more powerful synergies and fewer generalist cards, strongly encouraging players to open one of the "canned archetypes."
There's nothing wrong with this approach though, is there?
Yes, it's a bit more "obvious" than the organic synergies that people discover, but it's important to have preconstructed 'decks' to allow people to say "I'm going to play Death Guard" and know that there will be great synergies they can use.
I don't want to speak for the entire community, but I think it's a mixed bag at best. I'm all for having neat combinations and the ability to facilitate those in game. It rewards smart deck building. However, there's no small number of complaints of being forced into using those preconstructed options due to the power differential of using them versus not, and because the power differential was implemented in a very ham-fisted manner. It might be in part that the meta is entirely these higher-level decks and it forces the response (rather than the wider variety we might see in 40k - for example, I ran mass scatbikes in tournaments, but never once did so in playing games with friends).
How about buff "auras" affect one friendly unit within X" range of the character at the start of the turn (ie before the movement phase). And a unit can only be buffed by a single aura at any given time.
I'd personally like to go back to being able to attach characters to squads for the purpose of things like moving and charging, but limit it so that only a single character may ever join a single squad. However, I doubt that's the way the rules would go.
They'd need to re-price a few characters centred around buffing, but I don't think it would be a bad way to go. Guilleman can stay at his currents points cost because he doesn't seem to account for the buff at all in his cost anyway!
Asura Varuna wrote: How about buff "auras" affect one friendly unit within X" range of the character at the start of the turn (ie before the movement phase). And a unit can only be buffed by a single aura at any given time.
I'd personally like to go back to being able to attach characters to squads for the purpose of things like moving and charging, but limit it so that only a single character may ever join a single squad. However, I doubt that's the way the rules would go.
They'd need to re-price a few characters centred around buffing, but I don't think it would be a bad way to go. Guilleman can stay at his currents points cost because he doesn't seem to account for the buff at all in his cost anyway!
The problem with this implementation is that you end up finding the "best" unit to grant a buff to. If you can only grant a reroll to one unit, do you buff a Guard squad or a Baneblade?
On a tangential note, I would be ok with 7e rules for ICs, and 7e shooting, with the following exceptions:
-Eliminate Look Out Sir. Rather, make it so you do not place any wounds on a Character, until all non-character models from that unit within 3" of said are in range and Line of Sight of the attack are removed. The wording is currently wonky (and me ead is bangin'), but the idea is that Characters are important enough that they will not "tank" hits for other Characters (barring certain special Bodyguards of course).
-The defender chooses all casualties removed versus Barrage attacks.
The Salamander Command Tank and Saber Searchlight kind of already have that conundrum.
The Salamander can only buff a single regiment vehicle (despite being an aura), the Searchlight can only buff a single regiment infantry unit.
So the Salamander pretty much has to be tied to a Baneblade to be worth its 100 points. Especially since squadrons automatically split into one-model units on deployment.
The Saber probably could make its points back on just about any infantry unit because it's only 20 (so basically, it just has to kill two more MEQs than it would without the searchlight). But realistically, your target options for the searchlight are basically Conscripts or plasma vets depending on if you want to kill infantry or vehicles. You can't use it on scions, because Sabers can't take the MT regiment.
The Trojan has the same problem as the Salamander: 98 points, can only buff a single regiment vehicle. Pretty much only worth on a Baneblade variant.
Though, if they could buff multiple units the question would only shift from "which unit is the best buff target" to "which combination of units is the best buff target". Which I suppose can at least be a slightly more complicated question, but once it's been solved you're more or less back in the same boat.
I'm not sure what a good way to handle that would be, other than shackling a buff-granting unit to a single target and pricing them together. For example, instead of a searchlight being a 20 point model that can buff any one infantry unit, it would be an attachment that those infantry units can take, it would be leashed to the unit that took it, and its cost would depend on the unit it's attached to. Which of course would just suck all the flexibility out of it and create a very rigid system. It would bring buff-stacking in line by brute force... but would the result be fun? It might not.
Unit1126PLL wrote: Perhaps 8th Edition is having trouble with synergy and achieving a balance there.
Hmmm... yeah you aren't wrong. Pretty much every balance issue or even potential balance issue save two (brimstones and stormravens) is due to synergy. Those other two are just the general "GW sometimes screws pricing up" we've all gotten used to, but aren't even quite as bad as examples form last edition.
Though I suppose part of the issue with brimstones is the synergy with changeling, so even there it is a factor.
This really doesn't really bode well for those armies lacking in characters, particularly now that subfactions are a thing. Most SM chapters have at least one (sorry IH), but for other factions it can be an issue. I mean, sure normal aura buffs have this issue to a degree, but the special characters tend to be the really powerful ones.
Backspacehacker wrote: I will say this a lot of characters are way over powered for what they can do, typhus for example is stupid broken.
That's not even an aura issue so much as he is just cheaper then significantly less useful HQs with worse wargear for no apparent reason.
Deathypoo wrote: Yeah, I think this is dead on. My Autarch seems way over-costed if I put him in an elite melee front or in the back lines, but if I flank him with a pair of Wraith Knights and a few wave serpents for good measure, then he's a bargain.
I think GW tried to split the cost up a little both ways. WKs are straight up worse than Paladin Knights but cost more, and I think that's because we have access to a few pretty great buffs from farseers and whatnot, and they don't. It's frustrating though, feeling like I have to field x to field y, and I have to field z to make x the most efficient it can be.
I agree. I feel like that actually inhibits fluffy armies as well - if Roboute Guilliman's buffs are priced into Space Marines, then what do Space Marines do who doing bring Roboute Guilliman?
Conversely, what does Roboute Guilliman, priced to Buff Space Marines, do in a Imperial Knight army? (if for some reason this was someone's fluff vision; I don't judge!)
Have separate points costs for RG depending on whether there are also buffable units in your army or not?
Dionysodorus wrote: I think the big problem with stuff like Guilliman's aura is that it strongly incentivizes very boring sorts of armies. Because he provides such a big buff to everything within 6" of him, you have a lot of reason to take a bunch of units that can just sit near him, maybe with all of them slowly advancing forward. Any independently-operating units you choose to take are at a disadvantage -- you just want to castle up with your one big blob. Often you even plan on tabling the other player such that you're not even too worried about having mobile units to take objectives. If Guilliman is viable in general, then he's going to be overpowered when you cram a bunch of stuff all around him.
I feel like an easy fix would be to just have aura abilities instead become "at the end of your movement phase, choose 3 units within 6"..." By capping the amount of synergy you can get out of the unit you can then choose point costs around a "reasonable" use of the unit, and you also promote more interesting armies.
For stuff like the Wraithknight, it just seems obvious to me that lots of abilities should have an exclusion for Titanic units.
OR even change auras to be "only infantry models gain X" so that way it's at least thematic.
Auras can definitely be priced appropriately; they just break a point system's ability to scale. If you put Aura buffs in a game you really need to have a pretty set competitive game size to balance towards with the understanding that auras are generally overcosted below that point or undercosted above.
That's not inherently a bad thing, as there are plenty of positive systems that break down how well points scale, but if the primary balance issue in a game is auras, the answer might just be to play at small point totals.
Hes been pushing the canned strategy with them since the empire 8th ed book.
Since 5e Tyranids, in fact. Half the notable "canned synergy" of that army was that a Tervigon could grant the bonuses of Adrenal Glands and Toxin Sacs to nearby units of Termagants.
Just because we can complain about something means we should.
I can't wait for "all that canned synergy is gonna give you salt poisoning" to become the next hot cheese whine
"God look at your hero leading his faction's troops into combat, soo cheesy, very canned synergy, much wow. How do you even get a game?"
The auras might be the only thing steming spam guys. I don't know how they will ever allow more variation without giving every unit in an army an aura it can share so that it becomes, edition 'stack all the aura, achieve power rainbow!'. Which would probably become too bulky and hard to learn.
It is simpler GW, hero leading units is kewl, thanks for the prompt nerfs like the flier spam, and try to keep it up.
The problem isn't with auras or characters inherently, but how to balance them.
Where do you charge the points? To the hero, who would then be useless without his troops, or to the troops, who would then be useless without the hero? Or to a bit of both, so they're both useless outside of the specific situation when they're taken together?
You can't see how this might make lists super rigid and unfluffy? I can't imagine how inefficient my superheavy tank company would cost if they all had to pay for Harker's re-roll 1s aura (if I were Catachan).
I can't imagine how inefficient Harker would be if he's paying for re-roll 1's to buff superheavies but is only standing near conscripts.
I'm going to be contrary and say that the problem isn't necessarily all the auras. It is though kind of, but it is from the approach that there's not a more reasonable way of getting rid of them.
There's snipers, which are adequate (but admittedly not utterly stunningly amazing) against things like commissars, but they're almost utterly ineffective against anything.else. If they were 2+ to wound anything (and made more expensive for certain armies to limit spam) then I think the problem would evaporate.
As an addendum to this: I think just about every army should also get some sort of sniper weapon as well.
Powerful aura characters are probably best balanced by missions IMO. The win condition for Guilliman-style armies that sit in a 6" bubble should be to effectively table your opponent. If you can't do that you should generally lose due to maelstrom/turn based objectives. Bubble armies "should" be the most powerful from a firepower perspective, and "should" be the weakest from a mobility/objective taking perspective. I think its an open debate on raw power vs objective play and depends entirely on how missions are designed. For example, Guilliman might be worth 600+ points in an eternal war or kill point mission, but may even be over-costed in a spread out maelstrom mission.
daedalus wrote: I'm going to be contrary and say that the problem isn't necessarily all the auras. It is though kind of, but it is from the approach that there's not a more reasonable way of getting rid of them.
There's snipers, which are adequate (but admittedly not utterly stunningly amazing) against things like commissars, but they're almost utterly ineffective against anything.else. If they were 2+ to wound anything (and made more expensive for certain armies to limit spam) then I think the problem would evaporate.
As an addendum to this: I think just about every army should also get some sort of sniper weapon as well.
The problem with this in regards to special characters is some just will not die. Celestine with her body guards and Robby are two good examples, not to mention Morty and the other DG characters once we see all of them (they can ignore even mortal wounds).
I think anti character options are limited by the huge difference in power between them. You can shoot Robby all game with the same snipers that kill two commissars a turn and he might still make it.
Sure, I won't argue that. That was kind of why I was suggesting the '2+ to wound' mechanic. It still doesn't REALLY balance it out, but it would at least help.
daedalus wrote: Sure, I won't argue that. That was kind of why I was suggesting the '2+ to wound' mechanic. It still doesn't REALLY balance it out, but it would at least help.
Giving them something like "2+ to wound against models with the Character keyword" wouldn't be a half-bad idea, at all.
One possibility would be making snipers much more generous about generating mortal wounds when targeting a character.
After all, a Commissar wouldn't care very much about a mortal wound being put on him. He was probably going to fail his saves anyway. Reboot and Celestine on the other hand...
the bubble buffs were the hardest part of learning 8th. So many re rolls and saves to keep track of. I need more tracking for buffs than I do for wounds!
I am thinking about printing out buff cards to place next to the units so I can recall quickly everything that is effected.
Same with psychic buffs and vehicle wargear upgrades.
Could they do it so that a selecting a character would allow you to buy the buffs for the affected units?
For example taking RG would allow you to purchase those buffs for your ultras at a sensible point cost, essentially meaning he would unlock more expensive but more powerful versions of units.
That way the more units you buff, the more you pay, which seems to be one of the main issues with pricing buffs.
I really liked the idea of auras on characters that could then be sniped as a strategy to the game, but a lot of characters are simply too tough to go down to sniping.
Would a generic psychic power, like Smite, that allowed any psyker to target an enemy unit and prevent all auras from working for a turn be too simple a solution?
My guess here would be to have different characters have different hindrances associated with their buffs. That way you'd pick the right character to go with the unit that synergies with it in terms of your list. It could be challenging on more potent SM buffs like reroll all failed hit or wound rolls all the time at 6', but that kind of huge buff could use some toning down.
Currently Tau are like that. If I want to reroll 1s from an ethereal's buff only units that don't move in the movement/psychic phase are buffed. Reroll misses in the shooting phase is once per GAME and wholly disallows the entire bubble from moving for any reason all turn. These are huge tradeoffs that make potent buffs tactical choices rather than permanent efficiency mods that can't be assigned a proper cost.
You could have a psych denial character give up that denial attempt in order to activate an aura, or a high wound count character injure itself to provide an aura, or have the situation where the character must be able to attack in melee and forfeit the attack to buff its comrades against that foe. All more interesting than permanent flat bonuses.
I'm a fan of "sidegrade" auras to an extent. One thing I experimented with in Forgehammer was classifying Auras as their own type of Psychic Power, that were not necessarily blessings or maledictions. Since the system used "Degrees of success" for determining if powers could pass or fail, the amoubt of successes for an Aura determined its radius, and not its strength.
Notable examples included:
-Telekine Dome: Ranged attacks shooting into or outside of the Telekine Dome are at -1 to wound/penetrate. So you could use it as a defensive ability, or an offensive one.
-Warp Quake: Units may not Deep Strike(Teleport) into this area. If a unit using Deep Strike (Teleport) scatters into a Warp Quake, place it in the closest area outside of the Warp Quake instead. Thus, you could use Warp Quake both defensively (prevent the enemy from getting too close to you), or offensively (set up a few Warp Quakes to act as an ersatz Inertial Guidance system).
And so on, so forth. The game should provide an open "toolbox" of powers, each power should have less explicit uses like "Free rerolls for your biggest guns. U is so smart synergist", and should allow for unconventional tricks. This one thing I feel Mat Ward "almost" got with his 5e codexes, for although they did have fluff that read akin to Eye of Argon, there were all sorts of tiny shenanigans you could pull off with them! From the comical (Plopping a Death Ray over your Lychguard, so their Dispersion Shields would reflect into a Knight), to the surprisingly utilitarian (Using "The Conjuring" to reposition your armor onto an opposing flank), his options at least encouraged more in-game decision-making besides "How do I optimize mah buff auras" (though he was guilty of that with Blood Angels).
Recently, chaps over on TheDarkCity were discussing the Archon (who's Aura is one of the worst in the game) and how it could be improved. One of the issues was that, even if he had a good aura, he and a lot of his army are going to be in transports for most of the game (so he'll be affecting few - if any - units).
Anyway, someone suggested an interesting solution to this:
What if, instead of being an aura, these abilities instead allowed you to select a single unit at the beginning of the game to apply the buff to. That unit (along with the HQ) gains that buff for the duration of the game.
So, to take the example of an Autarch, instead of giving a reroll 1s buff to all units within 6" you'd instead choose a unit at the beginning of the game (let's say some Dark Reapers). Those Dark Reapers would then reroll 1s for the remainder of the game, regardless of distance to the Autarch or whether he's even still alive.
Now obviously some tweaking may be necessary, but the idea is that auras wouldn't scale with how many models you can fit near your HQ. What's more, you also wouldn't have the issue of predominantly melee HQs wanting to stick near ranged units because of their auras.
A slight variation would be to make auras like MWBD - wherein the HQ chooses a single unit to buff within 6" each turn. This is the same sort of thing, with the advantage that you can choose the most appropriate unit each turn, but of course you have to be within 6" of them.
Another big thing is that there is a rather huge disparity between factions with the benefits of their auras.
Girlyman gives +1 to advance/charge rolls. He also lets all IoM units reroll 1s when rolling to hit and morale tests.
For Ultramarines he lets them all reroll all failed hits/wounds.
Beyond that regular Marines also have Captains who allow rerolls of 1s to hit, Chaplains who let you reroll to hit in combat and a leadership buff, and Primaris Lieutenants who let you reroll wound rolls of 1.
These are all REALLY good buffs for units and are relatively cheap. They are actually a lot better when you consider the BS and Strength of SM weapons. SMs hit on 3s so rerolling 1s means you have a 1/6 chance to miss, a 1/6 chance to reroll where you get a 2/3rd passing chance and a 2/3rd chance to it. For other factions who hit on 4s and 5s this is less advantageous, To wound is just as important since most everyone is T3-4 in the game so anytime you can reroll to wound rolls your golden. I see a lot of Marine players stacking Dev Squads with a Primaris Lt and a Captain to get to hit and wound rerolls on Heavy Weapons. Lascannons will wound just about everything on a 2 or 3+ so rerolling 1s means you almost can't fail.
SM players also have apothecaries who re really important when used to support multi wound models.
Orks on the other hand basically have the Warboss and Ghaz. They have the same ability, Charge after advancing, except Ghaz has +1 to attack on the charge which is better.
We also have the Painboy who gives a 6+ FNP and heals/kills wounded characters.
So there is a fair bit of a power disparity between these auras that causes a lot of problems with external balance.
vipoid wrote: Recently, chaps over on TheDarkCity were discussing the Archon (who's Aura is one of the worst in the game) and how it could be improved. One of the issues was that, even if he had a good aura, he and a lot of his army are going to be in transports for most of the game (so he'll be affecting few - if any - units).
Anyway, someone suggested an interesting solution to this:
What if, instead of being an aura, these abilities instead allowed you to select a single unit at the beginning of the game to apply the buff to. That unit (along with the HQ) gains that buff for the duration of the game.
So, to take the example of an Autarch, instead of giving a reroll 1s buff to all units within 6" you'd instead choose a unit at the beginning of the game (let's say some Dark Reapers). Those Dark Reapers would then reroll 1s for the remainder of the game, regardless of distance to the Autarch or whether he's even still alive.
Now obviously some tweaking may be necessary, but the idea is that auras wouldn't scale with how many models you can fit near your HQ. What's more, you also wouldn't have the issue of predominantly melee HQs wanting to stick near ranged units because of their auras.
A slight variation would be to make auras like MWBD - wherein the HQ chooses a single unit to buff within 6" each turn. This is the same sort of thing, with the advantage that you can choose the most appropriate unit each turn, but of course you have to be within 6" of them.
Any thoughts?
The problem with that is then you just find 'the best unit' for them to buff, and either you price him and/or that unit accordingly, making literally any other combo overpriced (because they are not 'the best unit' but he is still paying as if he was buffing 'the best unit!') or you price him and/or that unit just like anyone else, and that makes him and 'the best unit' the most efficient way to run them and you'll still never see anything else.
It's a different problem than auras, but it's still essentially 'do you cost him or the unit appropriately for the most efficient combo? Or do you price him as an average of his buff applied to a variety of units, therefore making him over-efficient if he's buffing said unit?'
Forge World has this problem with the Trojan and Salamander Command Vehicle. They both make one <Regiment> vehicle hit better (re-rolls and +1 respectively) but they're priced as if they're doing it to Baneblades - this makes them way over-priced for buffing, say, a Leman Russ or Chimera, even if that would be fluffy to have around. If you price them as if they were buffing a Leman Russ or Chimera, however, then they'd be ridiculously good as buff-bots for a Baneblade.
I think characters should be treated almost like psykers, each one has a set number of buffs they can hand out to a unit per turn, from a faction specific list like IG orders.
For example, a space marine lieutenant can make one unit within 6" Reroll 1s to hit, Reroll 1s to Wound, Fire after advancing, ect.
Captains pick two units, Chapter Masters get three, RG gets four, or maybe 3 on an upgraded list.
Crimson wrote: I actually like that the characters are now something more than just beatsticks.
Sure, there might be some balancing problems (cough... Guilliman...) but that's not an issue with the concept itself.
This is the problem with warhammer. Theres a good concept, that has some OP units like in this case Guilliman or in the case of Morale the Conscript+Commisar combo, but people make of it as if it was a generic problem of the core rules. No, is just a problem of some units being undercosted or overpowered.
Crimson wrote: I actually like that the characters are now something more than just beatsticks.
Sure, there might be some balancing problems (cough... Guilliman...) but that's not an issue with the concept itself.
This is the problem with warhammer. Theres a good concept, that has some OP units like in this case Guilliman or in the case of Morale the Conscript+Commisar combo, but people make of it as if it was a generic problem of the core rules. No, is just a problem of some units being undercosted or overpowered.
So you don't think it's an issue where the points for the buff are going, exactly?
Because buffs cost points, and some characters (like the Autarch mentioned earlier) clearly pay for the buff in their points cost... is that a good thing? Should the character be an awful choice if he is doing anything other than being a buff-bot?
Crimson wrote: I actually like that the characters are now something more than just beatsticks.
Sure, there might be some balancing problems (cough... Guilliman...) but that's not an issue with the concept itself.
This is the problem with warhammer. Theres a good concept, that has some OP units like in this case Guilliman or in the case of Morale the Conscript+Commisar combo, but people make of it as if it was a generic problem of the core rules. No, is just a problem of some units being undercosted or overpowered.
So you don't think it's an issue where the points for the buff are going, exactly?
Because buffs cost points, and some characters (like the Autarch mentioned earlier) clearly pay for the buff in their points cost... is that a good thing? Should the character be an awful choice if he is doing anything other than being a buff-bot?
Yes. If you buy a Psyker and you don't use Psyquic powers you are overpaying for a useless character. You should use a unit to their intended purpose. The buffers should have the buff costs in their cost.
what if they made buffs an upgrade for certain characters and then they tack on a points cost for each buff? Some characters can't select some buffs and vice versa?
SemperMortis wrote: what if they made buffs an upgrade for certain characters and then they tack on a points cost for each buff? Some characters can't select some buffs and vice versa?
Thats other option. Like "Honour aura: This units allow ally units of the same <Chapter> to rerroll to hits rolls of 1 in 6"" for X points for a captain, for example.
Crimson wrote: I actually like that the characters are now something more than just beatsticks.
Sure, there might be some balancing problems (cough... Guilliman...) but that's not an issue with the concept itself.
This is the problem with warhammer. Theres a good concept, that has some OP units like in this case Guilliman or in the case of Morale the Conscript+Commisar combo, but people make of it as if it was a generic problem of the core rules. No, is just a problem of some units being undercosted or overpowered.
So you don't think it's an issue where the points for the buff are going, exactly?
Because buffs cost points, and some characters (like the Autarch mentioned earlier) clearly pay for the buff in their points cost... is that a good thing? Should the character be an awful choice if he is doing anything other than being a buff-bot?
Yes. If you buy a Psyker and you don't use Psyquic powers you are overpaying for a useless character. You should use a unit to their intended purpose. The buffers should have the buff costs in their cost.
So you're willing to sacrifice fluff (Black Templar captains charging into melee) on the altar of efficiency? (The most efficient place for a Black Templars captain is milling around in the back with TLAC razorbacks)
Crimson wrote: I actually like that the characters are now something more than just beatsticks.
Sure, there might be some balancing problems (cough... Guilliman...) but that's not an issue with the concept itself.
This is the problem with warhammer. Theres a good concept, that has some OP units like in this case Guilliman or in the case of Morale the Conscript+Commisar combo, but people make of it as if it was a generic problem of the core rules. No, is just a problem of some units being undercosted or overpowered.
So you don't think it's an issue where the points for the buff are going, exactly?
Because buffs cost points, and some characters (like the Autarch mentioned earlier) clearly pay for the buff in their points cost... is that a good thing? Should the character be an awful choice if he is doing anything other than being a buff-bot?
Yes. If you buy a Psyker and you don't use Psyquic powers you are overpaying for a useless character. You should use a unit to their intended purpose. The buffers should have the buff costs in their cost.
So you're willing to sacrifice fluff (Black Templar captains charging into melee) on the altar of efficiency? (The most efficient place for a Black Templars captain is milling around in the back with TLAC razorbacks)
The rerrols to hit apply in meele too. Maybe they aren't as efficient, I can agree with that. I find in that case is because the TLAC razorbacks are undercosted.
Other option is to give as said before, buffs for points, and making a differentiation in rerrols to meele with rerrols to shooting with general rerrols, making the meele ones cheaper and the generic ones more expensive.
So you're willing to sacrifice fluff (Black Templar captains charging into melee) on the altar of efficiency? (The most efficient place for a Black Templars captain is milling around in the back with TLAC razorbacks)
Hiss buff works just as well for melee units than for shooting units. If it is still much more beneficial to buff shooting than melee units, then the issue is the cost/effectiveness-ratio of melee versus shooting units, not the buff itself. In this specific case the issue might be that the Razorback is undercosted.
So you're willing to sacrifice fluff (Black Templar captains charging into melee) on the altar of efficiency? (The most efficient place for a Black Templars captain is milling around in the back with TLAC razorbacks)
Hiss buff works just as well for melee units than for shooting units. If it is still much more beneficial to buff shooting than melee units, then the issue is the cost/effectiveness-ratio of melee versus shooting units, not the buff itself. In this specific case the issue might be that the Razorback is undercosted.
There will always be a 'most efficient unit(s)' to run the buff with, and that 'most efficient unit' will not line up with someone or another's fluff for their captain to stand near. So making the captain pay points for a buff in the 'most efficient' situation makes anyone else following the fluff and not making the captain stand next to said unit is hurting themselves.
So you're willing to sacrifice fluff (Black Templar captains charging into melee) on the altar of efficiency? (The most efficient place for a Black Templars captain is milling around in the back with TLAC razorbacks)
Hiss buff works just as well for melee units than for shooting units. If it is still much more beneficial to buff shooting than melee units, then the issue is the cost/effectiveness-ratio of melee versus shooting units, not the buff itself. In this specific case the issue might be that the Razorback is undercosted.
There will always be a 'most efficient unit(s)' to run the buff with, and that 'most efficient unit' will not line up with someone or another's fluff for their captain to stand near. So making the captain pay points for a buff in the 'most efficient' situation makes anyone else following the fluff and not making the captain stand next to said unit is hurting themselves.
Thats fixed with letting characters selects aura buffs as a wargear choice with associated point costs.
So you're willing to sacrifice fluff (Black Templar captains charging into melee) on the altar of efficiency? (The most efficient place for a Black Templars captain is milling around in the back with TLAC razorbacks)
Hiss buff works just as well for melee units than for shooting units. If it is still much more beneficial to buff shooting than melee units, then the issue is the cost/effectiveness-ratio of melee versus shooting units, not the buff itself. In this specific case the issue might be that the Razorback is undercosted.
There will always be a 'most efficient unit(s)' to run the buff with, and that 'most efficient unit' will not line up with someone or another's fluff for their captain to stand near. So making the captain pay points for a buff in the 'most efficient' situation makes anyone else following the fluff and not making the captain stand next to said unit is hurting themselves.
Thats fixed with letting characters selects aura buffs as a wargear choice with associated point costs.
There will always be a 'most efficient unit(s)' to run the buff with, and that 'most efficient unit' will not line up with someone or another's fluff for their captain to stand near. So making the captain pay points for a buff in the 'most efficient' situation makes anyone else following the fluff and not making the captain stand next to said unit is hurting themselves.
And there will always be the most efficient relic to equip a character with (solution: axe relics,) there will always be the most efficient unit to put into transports (solution: axe transports.) This is just silly.
There will always be a 'most efficient unit(s)' to run the buff with, and that 'most efficient unit' will not line up with someone or another's fluff for their captain to stand near. So making the captain pay points for a buff in the 'most efficient' situation makes anyone else following the fluff and not making the captain stand next to said unit is hurting themselves.
And there will always be the most efficient relic to equip a character with (solution: axe relics,) there will always be the most efficient unit to put into transports (solution: axe transports.) This is just silly.
Character buffs or auras aren't so much the problem. They're a tool like having a flying gunship that wrecks your enemy's tanks, or bringing a squad of lascannon devastators to wipe out any big stompy things. But whereas these units can be countered themselves, Characters cannot.
Gone are the duel mechanics. Gone are the squad joining rules that rolled over wounds to them by average toughness. Characters are now protected by their armies all too well and nearly impossible to remove from the table due to enemies choosing what models die first, allowing screening units to stay screening to the last model. Even if you have line of sight on the character with no intervening units, you aren't allow to shoot it if there's a helicopter near you.
We definitely need some sort of anti-character answer. Only armies that have snipers have any sort of exception to this rule and those snipers tend to be very weak. Even the assassins can't handle your average beefcake of a character with its 4++ invulns and command point rerolls. I think to solve the "aura problem" we need more ways to defeat characters. Maybe give Sniper Rifles as a troop choice special weapon. Or more powers like Infernal Gaze that let you psychic target a character. Or bring back that duel mechanics so two characters can face off without needing to clear their intervening blobs first.
A lot of armies that have snipers do also have the ability to give sniper rifles to their troop choices. It's just that the sniper rifles do still tend to do a poor job of removing beefcake characters.
I think a big part of the problem with sniper rifles is that they don't have any rules specifically for characters, other than just being able to target them. So if you had a sniper rifle that could do a good job of flooring something like Papa Smurf, well... it would also be a mighty fine anti-tank weapon and cost quite a few points.
The Vindicare's exitus rifle is kind of already in "are you sure this isn't an anti-tank weapon?" territory (though it does have an excuse to be there). The only thing that really skews it toward murdering characters in particular is its 2+ auto-wound on Infantry, which of course means it doesn't work on non-Infantry characters like, say, Wolf Lord on Thunderwolf (he's Cavalry, and with 7 wounds he'll still get character shooting protection).
With the immense proliferation of characters in this edition and so many armies being re-tooled to pretty much force you to build around them (because characters are pricey single-model kits, and GW wants the money), I do think it would be a good idea to tune sniper rifles to absolutely wreck characters in particular.
I think the issue with the current rules is that some of the characters protected by them are far larger than is reasonable. The size and silhouette of a CCB is virtually identical to that of an Annihilation Barge, yet one of them can't be targeted if there's a closer model. Daemon Princes and Girlyman are the size of dreadnoughts, and yet are able to hide behind infantry a fifth of their size.
Here's my suggestion - add a size category to each model. Something along these lines:
Size 1 - Normal infantry, Jump Infantry.
Size 2 - Terminators, Bikes, Jetbikes, Destroyers etc. (larger than infantry but smaller than vehicles/MCs)
Size 3 - Dreadnoughts, Primarchs, Monstrous Creatures, standard vehicles
Size 4 - Wraithknights, Imperial Knights, Riptides, some super-heavy vehicles.
Size 5 - Any Super-heavies significantly larger than category 4.
(I don't know how much further you'd need to go. Are there any characters beyond Size 4?)
Anyway, the Character rule would then be ammended with the following: "Units more than 1 size category below the Character may be ignored when determining if any units are closer."
So, for example, if your opponent had a Daemon Prince (Size 3) and the only units closer to him were CSMs (Size 1) you'd be able to ignore them and shoot said daemon prince. Your opponent would have to have units of size category 2 or better (terminators, bikes etc.) to protect him.
Arkaine wrote: Character buffs or auras aren't so much the problem. They're a tool like having a flying gunship that wrecks your enemy's tanks, or bringing a squad of lascannon devastators to wipe out any big stompy things. But whereas these units can be countered themselves, Characters cannot.
Gone are the duel mechanics. Gone are the squad joining rules that rolled over wounds to them by average toughness. Characters are now protected by their armies all too well and nearly impossible to remove from the table due to enemies choosing what models die first, allowing screening units to stay screening to the last model. Even if you have line of sight on the character with no intervening units, you aren't allow to shoot it if there's a helicopter near you.
We definitely need some sort of anti-character answer. Only armies that have snipers have any sort of exception to this rule and those snipers tend to be very weak. Even the assassins can't handle your average beefcake of a character with its 4++ invulns and command point rerolls. I think to solve the "aura problem" we need more ways to defeat characters. Maybe give Sniper Rifles as a troop choice special weapon. Or more powers like Infernal Gaze that let you psychic target a character. Or bring back that duel mechanics so two characters can face off without needing to clear their intervening blobs first.
Duels were dumb anyway, so eh...
As for Snipers, lets see, Space Marines get troops with Sniper Rifles, Imperial guard can take units with Sniper Rifles, the Eldar can take troops with Sniper Rifles, Tau get Snipers, Necrons...
The problem with handing out sniper rifles like candy is that it's going to hurt some armies a hell of a lot more than others.
It's basically a death sentence to squishy characters like IG, Eldar and DE ones, whilst a super-resilient character like Girlyman (who most people seem to agree is one of the biggest problems) is laughing.
I'm not suggesting we keep their stats as is either. XD
We need an answer to characters and since we already have the sniper rules... can we at least get a weapon that can do well against them? For all the armies? Flamers answer the hordes, big shooty launchers handle the tanks, even Smite handles invuln spammers, we need something that handles the characters.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
vipoid wrote: The problem with handing out sniper rifles like candy is that it's going to hurt some armies a hell of a lot more than others.
It's basically a death sentence to squishy characters like IG, Eldar and DE ones, whilst a super-resilient character like Girlyman (who most people seem to agree is one of the biggest problems) is laughing.
Well judging by the post above you...
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: As for Snipers, lets see, Space Marines get troops with Sniper Rifles, Imperial guard can take units with Sniper Rifles, the Eldar can take troops with Sniper Rifles, Tau get Snipers, Necrons...
...seems like the armies that don't use hyper squishy characters already have them. I can only see it as a benefit to give some sort of sniper targeting weapon to Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, etc so they too can deal with those characters. Plus reworking the sniper rules to apply more damage against characters rather than needing super high strength. Wounding on 2+ regardless of their toughness, chance to deal mortal wounds, whatever helps take them down.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: As for Snipers, lets see, Space Marines get troops with Sniper Rifles, Imperial guard can take units with Sniper Rifles, the Eldar can take troops with Sniper Rifles, Tau get Snipers, Necrons...
...seems like the armies that don't use hyper squishy characters already have them. I can only see it as a benefit to give some sort of sniper targeting weapon to Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, etc so they too can deal with those characters. Plus reworking the sniper rules to apply more damage against characters rather than needing super high strength. Wounding on 2+ regardless of their toughness, chance to deal mortal wounds, whatever helps take them down.
Chaos can gain SR if you are willing to take the Forge World Renegades and Heretics, but I have long been an advocate of a Sniper Unit styled like Warp Talons. And give Ork Loota's the option to take, looted sniper rifles.
Buffing SRs could be useful, but have it be a 4+ other wise you are stepping on the Vindicare and Ilic's toes.
On the subject of auras it's basically what is happening in sigmar. You stack your wombo combo auras and then hope you get yours off before your oponant. Not to be the doomsayers or the really bad complainer, but this is that "sigmarification" so many people were yelling about.
One simple solution is so obvious I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned before (perhaps I missed it?). Allow auras to work only for one unit <name> at a time. So for example, if SM Captain has two tacticals, two devastators and two razorbacks within 6" only one of each can re-roll. Should go a long way to remedy unit spam problem. As far as balancing, a lot can fit into that 6" bubble but it's not infinite so we can always estimate just how much a given character is buffing and price it accordingly.
Mossada wrote: One simple solution is so obvious I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned before (perhaps I missed it?). Allow auras to work only for one unit <name> at a time. So for example, if SM Captain has two tacticals, two devastators and two razorbacks within 6" only one of each can re-roll. Should go a long way to remedy unit spam problem. As far as balancing, a lot can fit into that 6" bubble but it's not infinite so we can always estimate just how much a given character is buffing and price it accordingly.
Fine. I buff one Manticore, one Basilisk, one Colossus, one Leman Russ, one Wyvern, one Baneblade...and Dark Eldar eat gak and die.
Mossada wrote: One simple solution is so obvious I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned before (perhaps I missed it?). Allow auras to work only for one unit <name> at a time. So for example, if SM Captain has two tacticals, two devastators and two razorbacks within 6" only one of each can re-roll. Should go a long way to remedy unit spam problem. As far as balancing, a lot can fit into that 6" bubble but it's not infinite so we can always estimate just how much a given character is buffing and price it accordingly.
Fine. I buff one Manticore, one Basilisk, one Colossus, one Leman Russ, one Wyvern, one Baneblade...and Dark Eldar eat gak and die.
That's already better than buffing six Wyverns, right? Obviously it's no substitute for balancing point costs for force multipliers but it does prevent too efficient/undercosted units from taking advantage of buffs en masse and further skewing balance.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: As for Snipers, lets see, Space Marines get troops with Sniper Rifles, Imperial guard can take units with Sniper Rifles, the Eldar can take troops with Sniper Rifles, Tau get Snipers, Necrons...
...seems like the armies that don't use hyper squishy characters already have them. I can only see it as a benefit to give some sort of sniper targeting weapon to Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, etc so they too can deal with those characters. Plus reworking the sniper rules to apply more damage against characters rather than needing super high strength. Wounding on 2+ regardless of their toughness, chance to deal mortal wounds, whatever helps take them down.
Sorry, I should have said 'anti-character options', rather than sniper-rifles specifically.
Mossada wrote: One simple solution is so obvious I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned before (perhaps I missed it?). Allow auras to work only for one unit <name> at a time. So for example, if SM Captain has two tacticals, two devastators and two razorbacks within 6" only one of each can re-roll. Should go a long way to remedy unit spam problem. As far as balancing, a lot can fit into that 6" bubble but it's not infinite so we can always estimate just how much a given character is buffing and price it accordingly.
Fine. I buff one Manticore, one Basilisk, one Colossus, one Leman Russ, one Wyvern, one Baneblade...and Dark Eldar eat gak and die.
That's already better than buffing six Wyverns, right? Obviously it's no substitute for balancing point costs for force multipliers but it does prevent too efficient/undercosted units from taking advantage of buffs en masse and further skewing balance.
The issue is many said units can be made similar enough, and it penalizes armies with smaller unit selections.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Marmatag wrote: Why not just say half the models in a unit must be within the bubble for the unit to receive the buff?
Define within. Is a unit that "clips" the bubble inside it? What about a Baneblade that is just a single tank tread inside? Otherwise, the bubble now favors elite shooting over mobs. How do Napoleonic Sternguard sound?
Within never works since it just allows small elite choices to benefit more than the squads and I'm sure the intention was to have the commander buffing his troops mostly.
vipoid wrote: I think the issue with the current rules is that some of the characters protected by them are far larger than is reasonable. The size and silhouette of a CCB is virtually identical to that of an Annihilation Barge, yet one of them can't be targeted if there's a closer model. Daemon Princes and Girlyman are the size of dreadnoughts, and yet are able to hide behind infantry a fifth of their size.
Here's my suggestion - add a size category to each model. Something along these lines:
Size 1 - Normal infantry, Jump Infantry.
Size 2 - Terminators, Bikes, Jetbikes, Destroyers etc. (larger than infantry but smaller than vehicles/MCs)
Size 3 - Dreadnoughts, Primarchs, Monstrous Creatures, standard vehicles
Size 4 - Wraithknights, Imperial Knights, Riptides, some super-heavy vehicles.
Size 5 - Any Super-heavies significantly larger than category 4.
(I don't know how much further you'd need to go. Are there any characters beyond Size 4?)
Anyway, the Character rule would then be ammended with the following: "Units more than 1 size category below the Character may be ignored when determining if any units are closer."
So, for example, if your opponent had a Daemon Prince (Size 3) and the only units closer to him were CSMs (Size 1) you'd be able to ignore them and shoot said daemon prince. Your opponent would have to have units of size category 2 or better (terminators, bikes etc.) to protect him.
vipoid wrote: I think the issue with the current rules is that some of the characters protected by them are far larger than is reasonable. The size and silhouette of a CCB is virtually identical to that of an Annihilation Barge, yet one of them can't be targeted if there's a closer model. Daemon Princes and Girlyman are the size of dreadnoughts, and yet are able to hide behind infantry a fifth of their size.
Here's my suggestion - add a size category to each model. Something along these lines:
Size 1 - Normal infantry, Jump Infantry.
Size 2 - Terminators, Bikes, Jetbikes, Destroyers etc. (larger than infantry but smaller than vehicles/MCs)
Size 3 - Dreadnoughts, Primarchs, Monstrous Creatures, standard vehicles
Size 4 - Wraithknights, Imperial Knights, Riptides, some super-heavy vehicles.
Size 5 - Any Super-heavies significantly larger than category 4.
(I don't know how much further you'd need to go. Are there any characters beyond Size 4?)
Anyway, the Character rule would then be ammended with the following: "Units more than 1 size category below the Character may be ignored when determining if any units are closer."
So, for example, if your opponent had a Daemon Prince (Size 3) and the only units closer to him were CSMs (Size 1) you'd be able to ignore them and shoot said daemon prince. Your opponent would have to have units of size category 2 or better (terminators, bikes etc.) to protect him.
More abstraction may not be the best way forward.
Best maybe to offload the cognitive work of tracking unit types to the physical battlefield and check LoS with models (like snipers) able to target more distant units with a leadership test or by some other condition, for example so long as there are not enemy models within twelve inches or something like that.
IMO that's too many levels. I don't think there's enough of a difference between Space Marines and Scouts/IG to warrant putting them in a different size category (Primaris Marines might need one though).
Likewise, I would put Jump Troops in the same category as Space Marines because I don't think their size is that much different (especially compared to stuff like Nobz and Terminators).
I'm also a bit puzzled about some of your choices. Do you really think meganobz need to be two whole size categories above Terminators and Ogryns? Putting them on the same level as Dreadnoughts seems wrong. Classing Predators as 'small' and Leman Russ as 'Medium' also seems strange - are the Leman Russ that much bigger? I'd class Predators and Rhinos as medium and use thr small category for Raiders, Venoms, Piranhas and the like.
What if, instead of being an aura, these abilities instead allowed you to select a single unit at the beginning of the game to apply the buff to. That unit (along with the HQ) gains that buff for the duration of the game.
So, to take the example of an Autarch, instead of giving a reroll 1s buff to all units within 6" you'd instead choose a unit at the beginning of the game (let's say some Dark Reapers). Those Dark Reapers would then reroll 1s for the remainder of the game, regardless of distance to the Autarch or whether he's even still alive.
We imperial guard now.
Wait, is actually worse because needs even less skill than the average 40k game. With the IG before 8th and with the characters in most armies in 8th you need """"clever"""" positioning
IMO that's too many levels. I don't think there's enough of a difference between Space Marines and Scouts/IG to warrant putting them in a different size category (Primaris Marines might need one though).
Likewise, I would put Jump Troops in the same category as Space Marines because I don't think their size is that much different (especially compared to stuff like Nobz and Terminators).
I'm also a bit puzzled about some of your choices. Do you really think meganobz need to be two whole size categories above Terminators and Ogryns? Putting them on the same level as Dreadnoughts seems wrong. Classing Predators as 'small' and Leman Russ as 'Medium' also seems strange - are the Leman Russ that much bigger? I'd class Predators and Rhinos as medium and use thr small category for Raiders, Venoms, Piranhas and the like.
I think a simple "Size" modifier would be Unmodified Strength + Unmodified Toughness. No need for explicit sizemods that way. When in doubt, KISS.
We imperial guard now.
Wait, is actually worse because needs even less skill than the average 40k game. With the IG before 8th and with the characters in most armies in 8th you need """"clever"""" positioning
Er . . . what?
I honestly have no clue what you're trying to say here.
Backspacehacker wrote: On the subject of auras it's basically what is happening in sigmar. You stack your wombo combo auras and then hope you get yours off before your oponant. Not to be the doomsayers or the really bad complainer, but this is that "sigmarification" so many people were yelling about.
Auras will never be able to escape the WOMBO effect.
Multipliers and wombo combos aren't necessarily bad. They're a staple of card games, including the Warhammer 40k card game. They suck when you cast +2 strength to all units and only have one unit yet are amazing when you buff ten of them. You just have to ensure there are ways to break the combo that are readily available to most factions. With how many Stratagems the Space Marine codex was spammed with, the emphasis should be on how the game is being played rather than what combo you brought. Hopefully we'll see these COMBO BREAKERS!!! at some point.
Arkaine wrote: Multipliers and wombo combos aren't necessarily bad. They're a staple of card games, including the Warhammer 40k card game. They suck when you cast +2 strength to all units and only have one unit yet are amazing when you buff ten of them. You just have to ensure there are ways to break the combo that are readily available to most factions. With how many Stratagems the Space Marine codex was spammed with, the emphasis should be on how the game is being played rather than what combo you brought. Hopefully we'll see these COMBO BREAKERS!!! at some point.
The majority of SM stratagems are tied into specific units or combinations of units, many of them being copypastes/ports of Formation bonuses or Squadron benefits from 7e. Most have very easy requirements, like Kill Shot being "did you take 3 Predators? Congrats, a strategist is you."
Things like Cluster Mines being "a few mortal wounds if Scout Bikes survive melee" are not strategic, when the alternative could be "Scouts may lay some mine tokens down. Any unit without the <Fly> Keyword that moves within 1" of a Cluster Mine token takes D3 Mortal Wounds", or something that actually does more to impact decision-making.
True enough but they're going slow and simple without all that rules bloat this time around (yet). Too many changes at once is what broke the past editions. I'll wait for them to get settled into the 8th edition testing with these very mundane stratagems before adding something more complex and metagame worthy further down the line (like in 9th edition).
jeff white wrote:More abstraction may not be the best way forward.
Best maybe to offload the cognitive work of tracking unit types to the physical battlefield and check LoS with models (like snipers) able to target more distant units with a leadership test or by some other condition, for example so long as there are not enemy models within twelve inches or something like that.
IMO that's too many levels. I don't think there's enough of a difference between Space Marines and Scouts/IG to warrant putting them in a different size category (Primaris Marines might need one though).
Likewise, I would put Jump Troops in the same category as Space Marines because I don't think their size is that much different (especially compared to stuff like Nobz and Terminators).
I'm also a bit puzzled about some of your choices. Do you really think meganobz need to be two whole size categories above Terminators and Ogryns? Putting them on the same level as Dreadnoughts seems wrong. Classing Predators as 'small' and Leman Russ as 'Medium' also seems strange - are the Leman Russ that much bigger? I'd class Predators and Rhinos as medium and use thr small category for Raiders, Venoms, Piranhas and the like.
Oh, I was just having fun with it
Wasn't really pitching any concrete ideas.
Space Marines are pretty renowned for being significantly larger than the average Human of the Imperial Guard. I think it would be a disservice to the Brand if that wasn't represented by being a size category larger.
Same applies to Terminator, Nobz, and Ogryns being significantly larger and more intimidating than Space Marines.
As far as Meganobz are concerned, I probably just got the name wrong. I meant their Dreadnought/Wraithlord equivalent.
I feel there might be enough size difference between the Vyper, Predator, and Leman Russ. Even in previous edition there was a pretty significant Armor Value difference between these 3.
Altho, I could see a case being made that Dreadnought equivalent be a size bigger than Landspeeder equivalents. However, I figured then we couldn't fit Land Raiders snugly at 9.
As a closing reminder, I was just having fun with it. Not really taking it serious.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
MagicJuggler wrote: like Kill Shot being "did you take 3 Predators? Congrats, a strategist is you."
Oh, I was just having fun with it
Wasn't really pitching any concrete ideas.
Space Marines are pretty renowned for being significantly larger than the average Human of the Imperial Guard. I think it would be a disservice to the Brand if that wasn't represented by being a size category larger.
Same applies to Terminator, Nobz, and Ogryns being significantly larger and more intimidating than Space Marines.
As far as Meganobz are concerned, I probably just got the name wrong. I meant their Dreadnought/Wraithlord equivalent.
I feel there might be enough size difference between the Vyper, Predator, and Leman Russ. Even in previous edition there was a pretty significant Armor Value difference between these 3.
Altho, I could see a case being made that Dreadnought equivalent be a size bigger than Landspeeder equivalents. However, I figured then we couldn't fit Land Raiders snugly at 9.
As a closing reminder, I was just having fun with it. Not really taking it serious.
That's fine, I just thought I'd explain why I'd favour fewer size categories and bunch units together a bit more.
In any case, I think MagicJuggler's idea of using a model's unmodified strength/toughness is better than mine anyway.
I think the "model size" idea is pretty clever, but it also feels like a lot of effort to shoot Guilliman.
Some of the size categories proposed also would seem to penalize characters for taking terminator armor, which Im not sure I like.
The S+T idea is elegant, but i might suggest the requirement for picking out a target be greater than a difference of 1. Like, a Nurgle lord would be unobscured by normal csm, for example, which doesnt feel right. What it seems you're looking for is more like, you dont want a Hive Tyrant to be able to hide behind Gaunts. (For the record I dont know how many wounds a Hive Tyrant has, but you get my drift.)
The S+T idea is elegant, but i might suggest the requirement for picking out a target be greater than a difference of 1. Like, a Nurgle lord would be unobscured by normal csm, for example, which doesnt feel right. What it seems you're looking for is more like, you dont want a Hive Tyrant to be able to hide behind Gaunts. (For the record I dont know how many wounds a Hive Tyrant has, but you get my drift.)
Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
I'm also thinking that it might be both better and easier to just use unmodified Toughness (rather than adding in Strength as well). I think toughness has a better relationship with size than strength does.
So, how about: "You may ignore models with unmodified toughness values that are 2 or more below the unmodified toughness of the character, when determining whether any enemy models are closer."
So, a T6 character can hide behind T5 units, but not behind units with T4 or less.
Marmatag wrote: Why not just say half the models in a unit must be within the bubble for the unit to receive the buff?
Define within. Is a unit that "clips" the bubble inside it? What about a Baneblade that is just a single tank tread inside? Otherwise, the bubble now favors elite shooting over mobs. How do Napoleonic Sternguard sound?
Then define them just like WMH does with "within" vs "completely within".
The S+T idea is elegant, but i might suggest the requirement for picking out a target be greater than a difference of 1. Like, a Nurgle lord would be unobscured by normal csm, for example, which doesnt feel right. What it seems you're looking for is more like, you dont want a Hive Tyrant to be able to hide behind Gaunts. (For the record I dont know how many wounds a Hive Tyrant has, but you get my drift.)
Yeah, I think that's a good idea.
I'm also thinking that it might be both better and easier to just use unmodified Toughness (rather than adding in Strength as well). I think toughness has a better relationship with size than strength does.
So, how about: "You may ignore models with unmodified toughness values that are 2 or more below the unmodified toughness of the character, when determining whether any enemy models are closer."
So, a T6 character can hide behind T5 units, but not behind units with T4 or less.
Feel free to disregard the statement about Guilliman, it was mostly the immediate standout case.
Overall I like the idea and think its better then the simple 10 wound cutoff. But it does seem to put Daemon Princes in a tight spot, while leaving Azrael free to give every unit around him a 4++. (Which makes me think Guilliman is the target, as i cant think of other ginormous charcters that hand out such ginormous buffs.)
Insectum7 wrote: Feel free to disregard the statement about Guilliman, it was mostly the immediate standout case.
Overall I like the idea and think its better then the simple 10 wound cutoff. But it does seem to put Daemon Princes in a tight spot, while leaving Azrael free to give every unit around him a 4++. (Which makes me think Guilliman is the target, as i cant think of other ginormous charcters that hand out such ginormous buffs.)
Well, Guilliman is probably the worst offender in terms of balance, but I do think it's bad in terms if verisimilitude for, for example, CCBs to be able to hide behind Warriors.
Regardless, I get what you're saying. To be honest, this is one of my biggest issues with the current Character mechanic in general - it's all-or-nothing. Either you can shoot a character with no penalty or they're entirely immune to fire with no middle ground.
I honestly have no clue what you're trying to say here.
The official designers already made a good show of unoriginality making many characters an IG officer bestowing rerolls (and removing uniqueness of a specific army in the process). But at least, you have to keep track of the positioning. to bestow the buff, the character must be close to the unit.
The rule you suggest removes even that game element. Is just a remodelled "unlock unit X" dressed up as a continuous aura activated regardless the distance. And needs even less skill.
I honestly have no clue what you're trying to say here.
The official designers already made a good show of unoriginality making many characters an IG officer bestowing rerolls (and removing uniqueness of a specific army in the process).
But at least, you have to keep track of the positioning. to bestow the buff, the character must be close to the unit.
The rule you suggest removes even that game element. Is just a remodelled "unlock unit X" dressed up as a continuous aura activated regardless the distance.
And needs even less skill.
Because cramming all your models next to your character for aura buffs is "skill".
Because cramming all your models next to your character for aura buffs is "skill".
It is certainly is more strategic than having the buffs always on and hiding the character behind a building! Not to mention it is more immersive, the character is supposed to be leading the troops.
I honestly have no clue what you're trying to say here.
The official designers already made a good show of unoriginality making many characters an IG officer bestowing rerolls (and removing uniqueness of a specific army in the process).
But at least, you have to keep track of the positioning. to bestow the buff, the character must be close to the unit.
The rule you suggest removes even that game element. Is just a remodelled "unlock unit X" dressed up as a continuous aura activated regardless the distance.
And needs even less skill.
Because cramming all your models next to your character for aura buffs is "skill".
Is mediocre at best, but still needs more positioning and forethought than "take character X, get buff Y regardless of the position on the table".
In that way we go from mediocre to bad.
Because cramming all your models next to your character for aura buffs is "skill".
It is certainly is more strategic than having the buffs always on and hiding the character behind a building! Not to mention it is more immersive, the character is supposed to be leading the troops.
I disagree. Having an army wide buffs encourages more movement and positioning in actual dialogue with the opponents army. Aura/Squad buffs encourage glommed units and phalanxes.
I took Sicarius in about every game in 6th and 7th, partially because he gave Ld 10 to everybody in my army in a table-wide buff. It didn't break the game, and freed up my forces to, you know, move independently. It feels better IMO. Napoleon didn't march around in his front line. I like my commanders to be commanders, thank you.
Now, OTHER armies have had aura buffs that I think work great, like Necrons, whose various abilities actually encouraged phalanxes. But that was fine by me, because in pictures and fluff, Necrons were depicted as slowly moving phalanxes of Warriors. That worked great.
But when I'm using Abaddon not to lead spearheads, but to sit in the middle of a block of 60+ models acting as a firebase, the game is less interesting. I don't like commanders being encouraged to babysit, but that's what the current paradigm encourages.
The 3rd ed "We'll Be Back" was a rather good example of how to do "auras" and unit positioning right IMO. Since wiped-out units could join other units that were within 6", or within 12" of a Tomb Spyder unit within 12", you cared a lot about how you set your phalanx up. Further complicating matters was how Monoliths had to make the choice between using their teleportation gateway (which also granted WBB rerolls, but you could only teleport a unit from Reserve, or that was within 18" of the Monolith), or firing the Particle Whip.
All in all, there was a simple elegance to a lot of the Oldcron army list, even if it showed its age terribly in 5th edition. That said, there was still a certain hilarity in being able to attach a Destroyer Lord to a Tomb Spyder that had manufactured 2 Scarab Bases, leading to a Stealth T6 swarm where one model was ignoring Invulnerable Saves, and the unit acted as a "relay point" for repositioning your models as they reanimated into another unit.
What I think could be a solution is to penalize the number of points an army can take with certain auras, and express that in a percentage. For example: if you take RG, you get 5% less points. So in a 1000 point game, RG would cost another 50 points. In a 2000 point game, it would be 100 points.
I would limit this to named characters. For all non-named characters/HQs, I would put aura's in a point cost to the model, and make them optional. You want the Primaris Lt, pay another X points if you want the reroll.
Perth wrote: I think characters should be treated almost like psykers, each one has a set number of buffs they can hand out to a unit per turn, from a faction specific list like IG orders.
For example, a space marine lieutenant can make one unit within 6" Reroll 1s to hit, Reroll 1s to Wound, Fire after advancing, ect.
Captains pick two units, Chapter Masters get three, RG gets four, or maybe 3 on an upgraded list.
Hmmm Lets take this a step farther. Rather than a Psychic Phase have a Character Phase. During this Phase, psychics, buffs, etc can be performed by all characters. With some interaction and ability to deny the witch/buff, perhaps the assassin can make a special attack, etc. So characters get to do their special thing in their own phase
Perth wrote: I think characters should be treated almost like psykers, each one has a set number of buffs they can hand out to a unit per turn, from a faction specific list like IG orders.
For example, a space marine lieutenant can make one unit within 6" Reroll 1s to hit, Reroll 1s to Wound, Fire after advancing, ect.
Captains pick two units, Chapter Masters get three, RG gets four, or maybe 3 on an upgraded list.
Hmmm Lets take this a step farther. Rather than a Psychic Phase have a Character Phase. During this Phase, psychics, buffs, etc can be performed by all characters. With some interaction and ability to deny the witch/buff, perhaps the assassin can make a special attack, etc. So characters get to do their special thing in their own phase
Eww. You might as well just go back to 2nd Ed Dark Millennium Strategy Cards at that rate.
Perth wrote: I think characters should be treated almost like psykers, each one has a set number of buffs they can hand out to a unit per turn, from a faction specific list like IG orders.
For example, a space marine lieutenant can make one unit within 6" Reroll 1s to hit, Reroll 1s to Wound, Fire after advancing, ect.
Captains pick two units, Chapter Masters get three, RG gets four, or maybe 3 on an upgraded list.
Hmmm Lets take this a step farther. Rather than a Psychic Phase have a Character Phase. During this Phase, psychics, buffs, etc can be performed by all characters. With some interaction and ability to deny the witch/buff, perhaps the assassin can make a special attack, etc. So characters get to do their special thing in their own phase
Eww. You might as well just go back to 2nd Ed Dark Millennium Strategy Cards at that rate.
Or it'd make sense since Age of Sigmar already does that and this edition already borrows a lot from that game. It's called the Hero Phase, happens before movement, and it's when magic and Command Abilities can be used.
Unless you mean to "never go full Sigmar". I'm sure that's a meme somewhere.
Perth wrote: I think characters should be treated almost like psykers, each one has a set number of buffs they can hand out to a unit per turn, from a faction specific list like IG orders.
For example, a space marine lieutenant can make one unit within 6" Reroll 1s to hit, Reroll 1s to Wound, Fire after advancing, ect.
Captains pick two units, Chapter Masters get three, RG gets four, or maybe 3 on an upgraded list.
Hmmm Lets take this a step farther. Rather than a Psychic Phase have a Character Phase. During this Phase, psychics, buffs, etc can be performed by all characters. With some interaction and ability to deny the witch/buff, perhaps the assassin can make a special attack, etc. So characters get to do their special thing in their own phase
Eww. You might as well just go back to 2nd Ed Dark Millennium Strategy Cards at that rate.
Or it'd make sense since Age of Sigmar already does that and this edition already borrows a lot from that game. It's called the Hero Phase, happens before movement, and it's when magic and Command Abilities can be used.
Unless you mean to "never go full Sigmar". I'm sure that's a meme somewhere.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ... and could actually be picking up on an issue I've noticed recently that encompasses 8th Edition as a whole.
A lot of the trouble with Conscripts is auras/character buffs. A lot of people's problems with Guilliman are auras/character buffs. A lot of why Celestine is so good are auras/character buffs, and part of the good thing about the Swarmlord is his auras/character buffs.
Perhaps 8th Edition is having trouble with synergy and achieving a balance there. I do think that in a vacuum, unit-to-unit or army-to-army (ignoring character buffs) the edition is pretty balanced (especially after that Flyer nerf). But the synergies that characters can add are very difficult to pin down in GW's point system, and I think they're causing trouble. Should the unit being synergized with bear the burden and be priced assuming you have the character nearby, meaning that if you don't bring the character, the unit is overpriced? Should the character be priced according to his synergy in optimum conditions, meaning that using them in a role where they aren't being 100% optimal they are overpriced? Should it be a rough average of the synergetic capabilities, meaning they are overpaying if they're not using it at all but underpaying if it's being optimized?
This is a head-scratcher for me, and I wanted to see if anyone else had any input on 1) if they think characters/synergies are part of the current 8th edition trouble spots and 2) how one could go about fixing it if so.
Am I the only one to chafe at the use of the word synergy to describe the interaction that happens between character auras and units in 40k? What RG does for anything in the SM codex, what chapter masters do for their chapters or the equivalent characters in other armies do, are no more synergistic than a road is synergistic with the cars that drive upon its own surface. They were specifically designed with that role in mind.
GW has never really been good at attributing the points distribution of how things end up interacting on the tabletop. These models are force multipliers and RG is the worst offender. It is a difficult process to examine how many points that multiplier might be worth without the shortcomings of GW points assignment.
I think if RG just re-rolled misses or wound rolls and not both, he would still be taken, just not as much as he is. But the global buff of 'my dice get a second chance at destroying your minis' is just about the best global buff (really, 2 buffs) that anything could have been given. I'm hard pressed to think of a buff that would be better that just doesn't reek of satire (like a global buff of +1 to saves as well as re-rolls to those same saves).
They didn't get the buffs or the points right, but are in a place where they can't really correct the problem because there are too many sides to it; he's cheaper than he should be; he's stupidly survivable and then can resurrect on top of it; oddly, he can be tucked away with the character rules; as a force multiplier, he is a very effective fighter and so is immune to the desperate assault to try to wrap him up; his aura is like two auras from other characters, only better.
The force multiplier auras are one of two problems I can see with the game. The other being undercosted troops, when taken en-masse tend to provide the opponent with no good targets for their own attacks and create lopsided turn-to-turn casualty swaps.
But I will say, that comparing most factions together outside of the force-multiplying effects and the super spammable selections, the factions tend to be quite a bit closer together.
heckler wrote: Am I the only one to chafe at the use of the word synergy to describe the interaction that happens between character auras and units in 40k? What RG does for anything in the SM codex, what chapter masters do for their chapters or the equivalent characters in other armies do, are no more synergistic than a road is synergistic with the cars that drive upon its own surface. They were specifically designed with that role in mind.
the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.
"the synergy between artist and record company"
synonyms: cooperative interaction, cooperation, combined effort, give and take
"there's no synergy between the two, so no costs are saved"
Pretty sure the auras and troops produce a greater effect when combined than they can manage solo. They're the new deathstar and like it or not... that's synergy.
You probably aren't the only one to chafe at it, no.
But it's synergy.
Also, the road is in fact synergistic to the use of the car, and given modern tax systems, vice versa. The road allows for a smoother, safer, more organized car ride. The owners of the car pay taxes that maintain the road, allowing the road to be better at its job.
I know it's silly but... yes, actually, that IS synergy. Synergy is a very broad concept.
heckler wrote: Am I the only one to chafe at the use of the word synergy to describe the interaction that happens between character auras and units in 40k? What RG does for anything in the SM codex, what chapter masters do for their chapters or the equivalent characters in other armies do, are no more synergistic than a road is synergistic with the cars that drive upon its own surface. They were specifically designed with that role in mind.
GW has never really been good at attributing the points distribution of how things end up interacting on the tabletop. These models are force multipliers and RG is the worst offender. It is a difficult process to examine how many points that multiplier might be worth without the shortcomings of GW points assignment.
I think if RG just re-rolled misses or wound rolls and not both, he would still be taken, just not as much as he is. But the global buff of 'my dice get a second chance at destroying your minis' is just about the best global buff (really, 2 buffs) that anything could have been given. I'm hard pressed to think of a buff that would be better that just doesn't reek of satire (like a global buff of +1 to saves as well as re-rolls to those same saves).
They didn't get the buffs or the points right, but are in a place where they can't really correct the problem because there are too many sides to it; he's cheaper than he should be; he's stupidly survivable and then can resurrect on top of it; oddly, he can be tucked away with the character rules; as a force multiplier, he is a very effective fighter and so is immune to the desperate assault to try to wrap him up; his aura is like two auras from other characters, only better.
The force multiplier auras are one of two problems I can see with the game. The other being undercosted troops, when taken en-masse tend to provide the opponent with no good targets for their own attacks and create lopsided turn-to-turn casualty swaps.
But I will say, that comparing most factions together outside of the force-multiplying effects and the super spammable selections, the factions tend to be quite a bit closer together.
One thing that I do chafe at is the fact that in another thread we are talking about GWs inability to distinguish between things costing points for being good at things and things costing points for being bad at things. Everyone argues ork shooting is priced correctly because if they ever get into CC they are better then their opponents there.
Well in the case of girlyman, his aura buff also effects CC I Believe, so shouldn't he cost even more because he is applying basically 4 aura buffs not counting his other aura which gives a movement buff?
GW just needs to pay more attention to playtesting and less attention to telling people how things should be done. I am still waiting for the guys over at FLG to explain to me why the Stompa is so good according to them.
The only thing that makes pricing auras so complicated is how wide some of their buffs are.
If Guilliman only affected "Friendly <Ultramarines> TACTICAL SQUADS and ASSAULT SQUADS", it would be easier to set a correct point cost for it. It would also favor a certain game-style (lots of Tactical squads and Assault squads) which would otherwise not exist.
Notice how no one ever complains about Badrukk's aura ?
Nym wrote: The only thing that makes pricing auras so complicated is how wide some of their buffs are.
If Guilliman only affected "Friendly <Ultramarines> TACTICAL SQUADS and ASSAULT SQUADS", it would be easier to set a correct point cost for it. It would also favor a certain game-style (lots of Tactical squads and Assault squads) which would otherwise not exist.
Notice how no one ever complains about Badrukk's aura ?
I agree completely. As it stands, every game I have played against Girlyman has been a non-moving Gunline that can delete entire squads with alacrity. Girlyman sits in the middle of 4-6 Tanks/Razorbacks a couple of infantry squads and just mows everything down with his reroll to hit and wound on everything. Put it this way, he is usually giving TL to 8 Lascannons, 2-4 Asscans and a plethora of small arms/heavy weapons. TL on a Lascannons was what, 10pts per weapon last edition? then buffing those Plasma toting primaris marines so they don't over heat and die half as often is another buff. then throw on shred to everything, yeah your looking at a 20pt per weapon (depending on weapon) upgrade so just the 8 lascannons are worth 160pts for the auras alone. He needs a hefty increase in price or a hefty nerf.
Unit1126PLL wrote: ... and could actually be picking up on an issue I've noticed recently that encompasses 8th Edition as a whole.
A lot of the trouble with Conscripts is auras/character buffs. A lot of people's problems with Guilliman are auras/character buffs. A lot of why Celestine is so good are auras/character buffs, and part of the good thing about the Swarmlord is his auras/character buffs.
Perhaps 8th Edition is having trouble with synergy and achieving a balance there. I do think that in a vacuum, unit-to-unit or army-to-army (ignoring character buffs) the edition is pretty balanced (especially after that Flyer nerf). But the synergies that characters can add are very difficult to pin down in GW's point system, and I think they're causing trouble. Should the unit being synergized with bear the burden and be priced assuming you have the character nearby, meaning that if you don't bring the character, the unit is overpriced? Should the character be priced according to his synergy in optimum conditions, meaning that using them in a role where they aren't being 100% optimal they are overpriced? Should it be a rough average of the synergetic capabilities, meaning they are overpaying if they're not using it at all but underpaying if it's being optimized?
This is a head-scratcher for me, and I wanted to see if anyone else had any input on 1) if they think characters/synergies are part of the current 8th edition trouble spots and 2) how one could go about fixing it if so.
Its the Sigmar aspect of 8th. Aura buffs.
Except that in AoS it's not a big problem as you can target characters freely. On the other hand the problem there is that, the characters are so easy to kill, that the armies that are dependent on the character buffs (like Death, where it's due to the traditional fluff) have problems.
I think Auras should be universally changed so that the units need to be wholly within, not just one model. People some times do ridiculous looking stuff to get the aura by spreading the units.
Other option would be if objectives had to be placed further away than 12" from each other. So one cannot place them all together and easily hold them all with units affected by same aura.
Of course simultaneously with above the ranges of auras would maybe need to be adjusted.
On Reboute, it should follow the line of the chapter abilities... that is to say, it should effect Infantry, Bikes, and Dreads, leaving out the rest. (Ditto for Captains, Lts, and so on) ... in one pass, you get a massive reduction in brokenness while still keeping the intent intact.
Why not just change auras to effect models not units within range?
So, for instance, five marines of a ten man squad are within 6" of Girlyman. Only those five will be able to re-roll to hit and to wound rolls, and without a specific provision to vehicles, you won't end up with four Predators piggybacking off of the buff
It'll certainly help discourage the gunline strategy, whereas a single Tac marine barely within the benevolent gaze of the primarch can somehow inspire his comrade standing several hundred yards away, preoccupied with punching an Ork Boy to preform better in combat.
It also wouldn't unnecessarily punish horde armies who rely on characters for leadership. For instance, one Guardsman is within 6" of a Commisar, buffing his leadership to nine. Since the unit uses the highest leadership, it makes the ability functionally identical to its previous iteration.
Lastly, and in my opinion, most importantly, it helps to set a concrete point of reference for point balancing. Whereas now you can string out units from a character, creating some strange perversion of an octopus, that can be functionally infinite in length (and thus, infinitely difficult to balance), there would be the limitation that you can fit only so many Tac Marines into the aura space, or so many Terminators, or Nobz, Grotesques, Pain Engines, etc.
It wouldn't gut their functionally, it might help partially discourage stacking elite units next to it, and there certainly would be a noticeable decrease in table spanning blobs of infantry.
TheBaconPope wrote: Why not just change auras to effect models not units within range?
So, for instance, five marines of a ten man squad are within 6" of Girlyman. Only those five will be able to re-roll to hit and to wound rolls, and without a specific provision to vehicles, you won't end up with four Predators piggybacking off of the buff
It'll certainly help discourage the gunline strategy, whereas a single Tac marine barely within the benevolent gaze of the primarch can somehow inspire his comrade standing several hundred yards away, preoccupied with punching an Ork Boy to preform better in combat.
It also wouldn't unnecessarily punish horde armies who rely on characters for leadership. For instance, one Guardsman is within 6" of a Commisar, buffing his leadership to nine. Since the unit uses the highest leadership, it makes the ability functionally identical to its previous iteration.
Lastly, and in my opinion, most importantly, it helps to set a concrete point of reference for point balancing. Whereas now you can string out units from a character, creating some strange perversion of an octopus, that can be functionally infinite in length (and thus, infinitely difficult to balance), there would be the limitation that you can fit only so many Tac Marines into the aura space, or so many Terminators, or Nobz, Grotesques, Pain Engines, etc.
It wouldn't gut their functionally, it might help partially discourage stacking elite units next to it, and there certainly would be a noticeable decrease in table spanning blobs of infantry.
I Can cram well over 120 models into a 9inch bubble around my Big Mek with a KFF. That won't solve this problem.
Backspacehacker wrote: I find it kinda ironic that GW tried to do away with death stars and instead ended up making them a hell of a lot easier to do.
The problem was never that Death Stars did damage, it was that they were unkillable. Now the Death Stars just shoot you first more effectively. So I wouldn't call them the same thing, everything dies in this edition.
Backspacehacker wrote: I find it kinda ironic that GW tried to do away with death stars and instead ended up making them a hell of a lot easier to do.
The problem was never that Death Stars did damage, it was that they were unkillable. Now the Death Stars just shoot you first more effectively. So I wouldn't call them the same thing, everything dies in this edition.
Except Magnus, who can have a 3++ re-rolling 1s invulnerable save.
Backspacehacker wrote: I find it kinda ironic that GW tried to do away with death stars and instead ended up making them a hell of a lot easier to do.
The problem was never that Death Stars did damage, it was that they were unkillable. Now the Death Stars just shoot you first more effectively. So I wouldn't call them the same thing, everything dies in this edition.
Except Magnus, who can have a 3++ re-rolling 1s invulnerable save.
At, what, T7 with 16 wounds?
That's about four and a half d6 damage weapon wounds gone through to kill him. If we assume Missile Launchers or Lascannons, hitting on 3s and wounding on 3s, you need...
46 shots, with no buffs.
26 shots, with G-Man buffing them.
So, since he has no character protection, if you take six to seven squads of Devastators with G-Man, he's going down turn one, and the rest of his army follows suit soon after.
Also, how are you getting a 3+ Invuln with rerolls of 1s?
Backspacehacker wrote: I find it kinda ironic that GW tried to do away with death stars and instead ended up making them a hell of a lot easier to do.
The problem was never that Death Stars did damage, it was that they were unkillable. Now the Death Stars just shoot you first more effectively. So I wouldn't call them the same thing, everything dies in this edition.
Except Magnus, who can have a 3++ re-rolling 1s invulnerable save.
At, what, T7 with 16 wounds?
That's about four and a half d6 damage weapon wounds gone through to kill him. If we assume Missile Launchers or Lascannons, hitting on 3s and wounding on 3s, you need...
46 shots, with no buffs.
26 shots, with G-Man buffing them.
So, since he has no character protection, if you take six to seven squads of Devastators with G-Man, he's going down turn one, and the rest of his army follows suit soon after.
Also, how are you getting a 3+ Invuln with rerolls of 1s?
