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Fixture of Dakka





 Charistoph wrote:
Chaospling wrote:Random or not (preferably not), do you think that Warlord traits an important aspect of the game? - Be it for the background of the character or just for the sakes of the rules.

In a way...

koooaei wrote:Earlier editions did well w/o warlord traits. But they're pretty characterful.

Earlier editions kept the equivalent of Warlord Traits relatively simple, but just tied in to the Characters that were around at the time. It was something that a lot of the combat Characters had that differentiated them from the Psykers and Chaplain types and from being just a beat-stick.

Wyldhunt wrote:1. Not all warlord traits are created equal. It's pretty rare, for instance, that I would prefer to get the "Make 3 pinning tests" warlord trait over Master of Ambush or Conqueror of Cities. You could use points costs to assign different values to different traits, but it's pretty easy to end up with traits that never get taken. Assuming the 3 pinning test trait (Princepts of Deceit?) was only 5 points, would you ever really take that over, for instance, some meltabombs or just about any other 5 point warlord trait?

And yet, a good reason for putting a price point on them. As the Warlord Traits are not created equal, leaving it to a die roll is rather unbalanced, isn't it?

Agreed. I'm all for assigning some sort of cost to traits and making them "pickable." I just wanted to point out that there were some easy-to-overlook challenges to doing so.

Wyldhunt wrote:2. Not all warlord traits are equally effective between different warlords or armies. A trait grants, for instance, furious charge is basically worthless to someone like an ethereal or farseer. To the right melee character, however, it might push your strength up high enough to start doubling out enemies you wouldn't have doubled out before. Consider Master of Ambush. Infiltrating a few IG or Tau units usually isn't all that helpful. After all, who wants to deploy their shooty units closer to the enemy's assaulty units? That same warlord trait in an army containing a corpse thief claw formation, however, suddenly allows a large unit of monstrous creature to deploy dangerously close to your opponent's lines. Such a warlord trait might only be worth X points to an IG army, but it might be worth considerably more to a dark eldar army. Of course, a dark eldar army without a corpse thief might not get a ton of use out of that warlord trait either, so even assigning a points cost on a a codex-by-codex basis is difficult.

A good point. Maybe they should be left to an internal list much like Relics are.
Yep! As recommended below.

Wyldhunt wrote:3. There are a ton of warlord traits at present. As a result, going through and assigning a points cost to each one can be a little bit daunting.

Indeed. A bigger reason to be leaving it to an internal list.

Wyldhunt wrote:The issues mentioned above also make it tricky to use a non-points resource to purchase warlord traits. For instance, you might decide you want to give each player X "trait points" to spend on their warlord traits with weaker traits only costing 1 point and more powerful traits costing more trait points. But even with a separate resource (or sub-system for obtaining "trait points"), it can be hard to figure out how many "trait points" a given trait is worth.

So with all that in mind, my pet idea for making warlord traits purchasable is to...
1. Basically get rid of all existing traits. Some might be recycled, but most will be removed or altered.
2. Generic trait tables stop being a thing. All warlord trait tables are faction-specific.
3. Warlord trait tables probably get smaller. Say... 3ish for each faction.
4. Warlord traits are priced with the assumption that they'll be used effectively. If the eldar trat list (inexplicably) included a trait that granted your warlord furious charge, you would price it as though the trait were being taken by an Autarch or Asurmen or some other melee character rather than by a farseer.

I can't say those are bad. Since we already have 6 per Faction any way, why not keep it at that level, so long as it is exclusive to that Faction? That is already cutting the number by 24 as we are dropping the core number.

Alternatively, we could go 3 very simple and generic Universal Traits, but then also have 3 powerful Faction-specific ones for it as well. No one would usually use the 3 Universal ones except as a Challenge.

OR it could be set up so that the 3 Faction-specific versions are only usable by certain Characters, like the Captain or Autarch, while Characters like a Farseer or Chaplain would only have access to the Universal Traits.

Hmm. I don't love the idea of taking a weaker warlord trait for the sake of making it a challenge. I have my howling banshee-centric army list for that. ;D Making some especially powerful traits only "unlockable" by certain warlords might be interesting. Imagine a haemonculus with absurdly powerful (but appropriately costed) healing abilities or an autarch with the equivalent of labrynthine cunning. That might be neat.
I'm not a big fan of having "universal traits" though for the reasons mentioned above. One man's crummy 10 point trait is another man's extremely powerful 100 point trait. Having a static price for a trait that can be way more or way less powerful depending on which type of army made up of some combination of the 20+ factions in the game you're fielding is tricky.

I'm not really opposed to sticking to 6 traits instead of 3. I am opposed to having 6 traits just because it's the number of sides on a standard 40k die and ending up with a bunch of unappealing or unbalanced options as a result. In a system where traits are purchased instead of randomly generated, I don't particularly care how many traits are available so long as they're all (roughly) equally appealing.



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For me I would agree that they would need to be faction specific if you want to have them costed correctly.

I would also say that they should not confer to other factions, otherwise costing them appropriately would be extremely difficult. Allies really make costing any buffing abilities extremely difficult.

I think a better idea might be eliminating warlord traits entirely and simply allowing for purchasable detachment traits that effect a specific detachment and no other models.
   
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There's actually no reason you couldn't have an agreed upon chosen warlord trait like AoS does; both players just have to agree, or a TO has to make it a rule prior to the event. That's all. Same could be done for psykers and Daemon gifts and stuff like that too. I'd be happy to allow my opponent to choose his spells if I could choose my Daemon gifts. Takes away some of the random and allows for battle plans.

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 warhead01 wrote:
I like the way AoS handles that kind of thing. It's been really good not to have to roll and not to have to pay extra points. I hope GW does that for Warlord Traits in 8th.

I also hope we start to see less Special Characters released.

I actually was disappointed when GW added "Warlord Traits" to AoS.

I liked the "Command Abilities" that were, for all intents and purposes, Warlord Traits that were part of the unit profile better.
   
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Wyldhunt wrote: Hmm. I don't love the idea of taking a weaker warlord trait for the sake of making it a challenge. I have my howling banshee-centric army list for that. ;D Making some especially powerful traits only "unlockable" by certain warlords might be interesting. Imagine a haemonculus with absurdly powerful (but appropriately costed) healing abilities or an autarch with the equivalent of labrynthine cunning. That might be neat.
I'm not a big fan of having "universal traits" though for the reasons mentioned above. One man's crummy 10 point trait is another man's extremely powerful 100 point trait. Having a static price for a trait that can be way more or way less powerful depending on which type of army made up of some combination of the 20+ factions in the game you're fielding is tricky.

I'm not really opposed to sticking to 6 traits instead of 3. I am opposed to having 6 traits just because it's the number of sides on a standard 40k die and ending up with a bunch of unappealing or unbalanced options as a result. In a system where traits are purchased instead of randomly generated, I don't particularly care how many traits are available so long as they're all (roughly) equally appealing.

The first part was mostly just musing about them.

The reason for having six is to allow for a good level of variety without unbalancing things. 6 can be divided by 3 or by 2. That allows for Space Marines to have a Strategic, Personal, or Tactical Trait exclusive to them, while an IG Commander may have 2 Strategic and a Command Trait, while universal ones would comprise of a Tactical, Strategic, and a Command Trait (categories used are just for the general concept that is already known).

And again, the reason for restricting it is to give a Space Marine Captain a role in the army other than just a Beatstick. Characters like Farseers and Chaplains have a different role in the army than being a commander, so lesser Traits.

Keeping the universal ones to 3, also makes them easier to balance across the board.

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But why bother trying to make any universal traits at all when you know they are going to be more difficult to balance, nearly impossible to assign a fair points cost to that will be acceptable for all armies and (for the fluff players) be shoehorned in to fit "generic army fluff". To me making faction specific traits covers all the criteria above more easier as well as having the ability to tailor the traits to play with and enhance the armies existing playstyle and fluff. Universal traits IMO are like universal psychic powers. Garbage for some armies and downright OP for others and impossible to balance across them. Faction specific rules are a better way to go IMO.

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Things like working with the objectives cards could be universal and aren't really affected by army choice. Reserve manipulation is pretty universal useful too I'd say, don't see any faction getting much of a leg up over others there.
   
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 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
But why bother trying to make any universal traits at all when you know they are going to be more difficult to balance, nearly impossible to assign a fair points cost to that will be acceptable for all armies and (for the fluff players) be shoehorned in to fit "generic army fluff". To me making faction specific traits covers all the criteria above more easier as well as having the ability to tailor the traits to play with and enhance the armies existing playstyle and fluff. Universal traits IMO are like universal psychic powers. Garbage for some armies and downright OP for others and impossible to balance across them. Faction specific rules are a better way to go IMO.

One more reason to keep them to 3.

Do you know why 30K is so "balanced"? The game is centered around 1 army with slight differences between them. It makes things so much easier to balance when the number is small.

The fluff reason behind it is simple, those who would normally access them would be ones who have only had a more generic understanding of command because their attentions have been elsewhere, either in technical, philosophy, or arcane.

These universal traits would be kept relatively simple and have applications that can affect every army. Roknar gives some indications on this, but some will favor others more. For example, an Imperial Knight army may not care as much about Reserves manipulation, but a Daemon army would. Space Marines and Tyranids would be somewhere in the middle with their drop pods (or equivalent). Necrons favoring their Scythes or Deathmarks would also be interested in Reserves manipulation, but not so much for the Warrior Swarm.

Of course, we could end up seeing an AoS factor in it where the Commanders are the only ones with Traits, and like the Uniques today, they have the only one to use.

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I can see what Roknar is saying about objective card manipulation traits being generic, it doesn't affect the army as much as it affects the player. I can see that quite easily as a generic trait and unless your strategy is to ignore objectives and just try to table your opponent it should be useful almost equally to every army.

Reserves manipulation as a generic trait I'm on the fence on. You're right that certain armies can certainly benefit greatly from it while others don't stand to gain much if any benefit. In this sense it's then a generic trait that an army has access to but really gains nothing from. I'd almost move that into the faction specific traits that way new and interesting spins on reserve manipulation can be used by different armies that may enjoy it.

To be clear I'm not against the concept of having a small selection of generic traits, my stance is simply that would they be valuable enough and easy enough to balance to make the effort worthwhile over just doing faction specific traits that would be easier to balance. Kind of like video games like battlefield having a single player campaign, they're alright, nothing groundbreaking and they're pretty short. We all know the real draw of the game is the multiplayer so why not just focus 100% of your effort on multiplayer maps/weapons/other stuff as opposed to half-assed single player stuff you know people will just forget about after a few days? To be fair though I did like Battlefield 1 story. This isn't a perfect comparison to what were discussing but it illustrates the point about how you can choose to divide your efforts or just focus on doing one thing really well.

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Yea, those were just two examples off the top of my head for what could possibly be generic traits. You'd have to put some thought into them. I was just saying that it shouldn't be too hard to find traits that aren't too affected by factions specific combos, since that's what makes them very hard to balance.

My stance on reserve manipulation was that it's something every army has and can stand to benefit from if that's something you want to focus on, while simultaneously not being overly useful for any faction compared to another. I'm fine with traits being better for one army than another, so long as it's not a huge difference.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/22 20:35:45


 
   
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And remember, these aren't random traits. You would be choosing the Trait to suit your army. That makes it far less useless than if it was because of a die roll.

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You guys are right on both points. Though I'm not sure if generic traits would still be necessary to have at all if the faction specific traits were well done but I can see that they could work well all the same if they were well written and thought out generic traits.

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 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
You guys are right on both points. Though I'm not sure if generic traits would still be necessary to have at all if the faction specific traits were well done but I can see that they could work well all the same if they were well written and thought out generic traits.

In addition to that, we don't know how army building in 8th Edition is going to work, and it will take 8th Edition to add point costs and reduce the pile of Warlord Traits to them. Will there be room to be carrying a Trait Character if you have your Psyker and Chaplain/Painboy/Techmarine, or will it all be Unbound for a season? Will you be required to take a Trait Character, either by rules or your army gets steam-rolled without them? Too many unanswered questions.

Barring that, let's try running the exercise for 7th Edition:
Pick one Warlord Trait tree - Select a codex tree or one of the BRB trees, Blood Angels, Strategic, Personal, etc.
Price Point them against each other - Just the ones for the tree for now. Higher points for those you would choose to take for your army or why you would choose that tree to roll on in the first place.
Present them here - Give your suggestions here and we can see about comparing those who copied each other to iron them out.
Massage the points between trees. - After we have a good selection of codex trees, and the 4 BRB trees, try balancing the points against each other. Higher points may be required for army-situational Traits.

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Could be fun. I'll join in with Black Legion I guess.

Black Crusader:
Preferred Enemy for your Warlord and friendlies within 12".

I quite liked the idea for this trait but limiting it to marines makes it nigh pointless on the table top.
It meshes well with their legion trait of having hatred on everything and them being more elite in general.
Also nice in a Black Legion warband to give you a head start on the formation bonus so to speak or indeed, the normal warband to get the best of both.

Blessed Flesh:
Models with a mark of chaos only.
Your warlord becomes a daemon of it's respective mark of chaos in addition to the mark of chaos.
Your warlord may only join units with the daemon special rule or daemons of the same type and may not leave those units once joined.
So long as the warlord is joined to a unit and that unit has a mark of chaos, they also count as daemons of their respective mark.

Possession is rampant in the Black Legion, we even have our own formation of possessed. I figured it made sense to have a possessed HQ, but also, while I'm at it, inject actual daemon rules like KDK have.
Attempting to make up for the fact that there is no possessed formation in our decurion. This gives you some extra incentive to take these guys.
Khorne admittedly gets the short end of the stick here as the effect is the same as their icon. On the plus side, you can now buff their invuln via a legacy and your lord doesn't need to borrow Icons.
Then again, warp talons couldn't get an icon in the first place so this it's still useful.
Tzeentch is strong with cursed earth, but first you need to get it. Mutilators and obliterators get the most out of this but also pay the most for MoT and are limited to three models a unit.
Also doesn't fix the lack of grenades, but neither do any of other gods.
Nurgle doesn't really help possessed or muties, but isn't a bad option for a cult of destruction that's cover camping in some ruin. Likewise, warp talons risk some dangerous terrain for a 2+ cover save.
Although a nurgle lord on palanquin will tank a fair amount of wounds for possessed so long as they have cover.
And finally, Slaanesh is a budget version of the tormented formation...with fnp if you add the icon. Plus they get to run faster so it helps with mobility.
Doesn't mesh too well with the formations though since the extra initiative is wasted, the tormented already have rending and you'd need this warlord in addition to the prince with the favoured, making it expensive.

Daemonologist:

Psykers only.
Before your warlord attempts to manifest a power, you may choose a friendly model with the VotLW special rule within 6" of your warlord, remove that model from the game with no saves of any kind allowed.
If you do, that power won't trigger perils of the warp. You may sacrifice a model for each power you attempt to manifest.

Very powerful, but also potentially very expensive over the course of a game. VotLW so you don't go sacrificing summoned daemons or cheapo cultists/renegades, you'll need a worthy sacrifice to appease the beasts of the warp.

Not going to assign actual points but Black crusader would be the most expensive as it's the most versatile, then Daemonologist as it's strong but get's more expensive every time you use it.
And finally blessed flesh as the cheapest, as it's more fluffy than powerful, although it does allow for some powerful stacking of buffs when taking the possessed formations or the cult of destruction.
On the other hand it might allow some shenanigans when joining with actual daemons. Such a unit of warp talons could, for example, use no scatter daemon icons and be joined by heralds, summoned or otherwise.

If they were to have three trees, I'd divide it into militant, (daemonic/) cult based and psychic trees. Those are the main pillars of the Black Legion. Sounds similar to WB, but they kind of have a lot in common, minus the zeal.
They already have deepstriking buffs in the decurion and raptor talon and TAF in general. Though there could be some further assistance in the militant or psychic trees maybe.




This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2017/04/24 20:30:32


 
   
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I've always just thought of allowing a Warlord Trait purchase for 15 points, with any additional traits generated being random as normal. So in this instance, free would mean you take your chances, or you can pay 15 points to pick your own.

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I've used the ability to pick Warlord Traits to incentivize/buff weak HQs in the past; in my homemade Ordo Malleus book the Inquisitor can pick a Warlord Trait to give him a distinct role from the Grey Knight hero (who's tougher, punchier, and a stronger psyker).

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