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It is hard, but Girlyman is so much worse. Standard captain is cheap, and is best with plasma, but is slow and only does damage in CQC.

With Reapers at 42ppm seems rather high. That's more than an LC Marine!

Rangefinders are very nice, and should be factored in. Guns on everyone dovetails with every wound costs full price.

Their gun is better than the ML (IoM or CWE), but is it really better than a Lascannon? And certainly not that much better!

As for D:3 vs d6 on the Krak missile, it's really only nice for 3W no-FNP targets. Just about anything else, and you'd rather have d6.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Even buffing a single unit in a certain range is hard to balance, e.g. the Trojan. It gives a single "Regiment" vehicle within 6" re-rolls to hit.

It's 98 points.

Generally, it is considered overcosted when used with a Sentinel, Hellhound, other Trojans, Atlases, etc. Even other Leman Russes generally never see the benefit, since 100 points is a lot to give them re-rolls to hit.

However, on a Baneblade or its ilk, it's pretty good.

True, but it is easier to cost that than it buffing multiple baneblades. Further restricting what sorts of units can be buffed would make it even easier to do something.

But however you do it, it tends to either be awesome on a Baneblade but terrible on a scout.

Or awesome on a Wraithknight but terrible on Storm Guardians.

Or awesome on Primaris, but terrible on Tac Marines.

One of the places where auras are easier to balance than per-unit enhancements are when the unit that gets buffed can have far-ranging differences in power. If you can have 4 5mans or 1 20man, the aura is the same in either case, but the per-unit is either OP on the 20man or worthless on the 5man.

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Even buffing a single unit in a certain range is hard to balance, e.g. the Trojan. It gives a single "Regiment" vehicle within 6" re-rolls to hit.

It's 98 points.

Generally, it is considered overcosted when used with a Sentinel, Hellhound, other Trojans, Atlases, etc. Even other Leman Russes generally never see the benefit, since 100 points is a lot to give them re-rolls to hit.

However, on a Baneblade or its ilk, it's pretty good.

True, but it is easier to cost that than it buffing multiple baneblades. Further restricting what sorts of units can be buffed would make it even easier to do something.

Well, that's not exactly true, but only because of the huge size of Baneblades.

I feel like you could fit more LRBTs within 6" than Baneblades, meaning you'd get more bang for your buck for smaller vehicles out of the Trojan than you do now.

Bharring wrote:
With Reapers at 42ppm seems rather high. That's more than an LC Marine!

Rangefinders are very nice, and should be factored in. Guns on everyone dovetails with every wound costs full price.

Their gun is better than the ML (IoM or CWE), but is it really better than a Lascannon? And certainly not that much better!

As for D:3 vs d6 on the Krak missile, it's really only nice for 3W no-FNP targets. Just about anything else, and you'd rather have d6.

It should be rated against a missile launcher. Not a Las cannon. Compared to a space marine with a missile launcher which costs 43 points a 42 point Reaper with a Repear launcher is a MF steal. Can move and shot with no penalty is a big deal for a heavy weapon.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

Breng77 wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Even buffing a single unit in a certain range is hard to balance, e.g. the Trojan. It gives a single "Regiment" vehicle within 6" re-rolls to hit.

It's 98 points.

Generally, it is considered overcosted when used with a Sentinel, Hellhound, other Trojans, Atlases, etc. Even other Leman Russes generally never see the benefit, since 100 points is a lot to give them re-rolls to hit.

However, on a Baneblade or its ilk, it's pretty good.

True, but it is easier to cost that than it buffing multiple baneblades. Further restricting what sorts of units can be buffed would make it even easier to do something.

Well, that's not exactly true, but only because of the huge size of Baneblades.

I feel like you could fit more LRBTs within 6" than Baneblades, meaning you'd get more bang for your buck for smaller vehicles out of the Trojan than you do now.

Somewhat that assumes though that you get more firepower out of the extra small tanks, a 6" bubble seems like it could easily fit at least 4 bane blades which is more than you will have in a 2k list. Which means that unless we think point for point the LRBT is better than a bane blade those aura buffing units still are harder to balance than a single buff unit would be. Obviously there would be more benefit on buffing single big units but not as much of a difference as buffing say your whole army. Further you could also build mechanics into buffs to mitigate that if you wanted.

Am I looking at the wrong rules? I could have sworn an IoM ML is 25pts - putting the guy at 38pts, not 43. Where am I off?

I agree that the Reaper Launcher is most similar to the IoM ML. And that the Reaper should be only a little cheaper than the Dev (both including the weapon). I jus tthought it was upper-30s, not lower-40s.

You right - ML is 25 - I thought it was 30. I never buy them because they suck. However my point remains - the reaper is better than a marine with a missile launcher by a large margin - can move and shoot with no penalty / is actually effective vs multiple targets / ignore negatives to hit which is always good against flyers and amazing against things trying to reduce your to hit.

And loses full price per failed save, is T3, no Signum or Cherub, can never hit on 2s (CWE doesn't have those buffs anyways).

I think the T3 is the big con. I don't see Reapers being worth more points than Devs, but they certainly shouldn't be so many points cheaper.

Bharring wrote:
I think I agree with the core point that auras are really hard to balance.

Warmahordes seems to manage it fine considering every army is basically made to stay within a certaim range of one model.

Warhamhords, unless it's changed a lot has a fairly static number of heavies/lights/non-Jacks you want with each Caster. And the Caster defines the army, he isn't just another piece or the leader.

WarmaHordes is a lot more balanced, but also a lot less customizable. I think it's a better game to compete in, but it's worse at the hobby aspects as I enjoy them.

Bharring wrote:
And loses full price per failed save, is T3, no Signum or Cherub, can never hit on 2s (CWE doesn't have those buffs anyways).

I think the T3 is the big con. I don't see Reapers being worth more points than Devs, but they certainly shouldn't be so many points cheaper.

T3 is super buff in 8th ed. Gives S5 the finger.

S5 is no worse at killing T3 per model than it is at killing T4. It's not as big a difference as it was last edition, but it still matters.

Bharring wrote:
Because:
-2xS5 ap-2 D:2 shots is much much better than d6xS4Ap0 D:1.
-Always hits on 3s at range
-"free" exarch (maybe I double-dipped)

Compared to:
-S/T:4
-Signum
-Combat Squadding
-Cherubim

I think they're about equal. Perhaps reapers cheaper by a point or three, but not substantially.

Who's combat squadding with Devastators?

That's the scam, though. S5 is now the anti-marine strength, not the anti-geq strength. S6 is a lot more expensive than S5; at least for the IoM it is.

 Sim-Life wrote:

Bharring wrote:
I think I agree with the core point that auras are really hard to balance.

Warmahordes seems to manage it fine considering every army is basically made to stay within a certaim range of one model.

If I recall very few of those models have static buffs just for being in their command range though.

And, in WarmaHordes, a lot of units are only taken with a specific Warcaster, and a lot of Warcasters are only taken you're taken those specific units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
S7, S6, S4, and S3 are all reasonably common, too, and they kill T3 much better than T4.

Bharring wrote:
And, in WarmaHordes, a lot of units are only taken with a specific Warcaster, and a lot of Warcasters are only taken you're taken those specific units.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
S7, S6, S4, and S3 are all reasonably common, too, and they kill T3 much better than T4.

and killing said warcaster ends the game, and they are not untargetable.

I guess if these guys get spammed in tourneys, they will go up.

It's a very different game. They managed to balance it. But some of the costs required to balance it I'd rather not have in 40k.

KurtAngle2 wrote:

2) 3 pts, 4 if Infantry squads get bumped to 5 (as they should)

Infantry Squads can get bumped to 5 points when any of the "Infantry" units(Infantry Squad, Veteran Squad, Heavy Weapon Squad, and Special Weapon Squads) gain the following special rule:

Entrenched--A unit with this special rule that remained stationary during the Movement phase counts as being in cover or adds an additional +1 to their Cover saves if they have one.

Conscripts:
Should be 3 PPM, are now 4PPM.
In all honesty Conscripts where only ever better than regular Guard because GW fubared really badly on IG infantry choices, and the combination of the Conscript and Commissar nerfs brought them down enough, but this was apparently not enough, and in typical GW sledgehammer fashion they also increased the points so that your average significantly-worse-than-regular conscript now costs as much as your regular Guardsman.

 Kanluwen wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:

2) 3 pts, 4 if Infantry squads get bumped to 5 (as they should)

Infantry Squads can get bumped to 5 points when any of the "Infantry" units(Infantry Squad, Veteran Squad, Heavy Weapon Squad, and Special Weapon Squads) gain the following special rule:

Entrenched--A unit with this special rule that remained stationary during the Movement phase counts as being in cover or adds an additional +1 to their Cover saves if they have one.

Actually, one version that rule exist in the Cities of Death advanced rules. Is great, we play with it all the time. Grenades and flamers have full hits against entrenched units.

 Galas wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

KurtAngle2 wrote:

2) 3 pts, 4 if Infantry squads get bumped to 5 (as they should)

Infantry Squads can get bumped to 5 points when any of the "Infantry" units(Infantry Squad, Veteran Squad, Heavy Weapon Squad, and Special Weapon Squads) gain the following special rule:

Entrenched--A unit with this special rule that remained stationary during the Movement phase counts as being in cover or adds an additional +1 to their Cover saves if they have one.

Actually, one version that rule exist in the Cities of Death advanced rules. Is great, we play with it all the time. Grenades and flamers have full hits against entrenched units.

That's nice for Cities of Death. Should be a Guard rule for the non-Conscript Infantry units. They know the value of duck & cover.

For aura buffs, I think you need a combination of costing based on (or very close to) their maximum efficiency and changing the specific rules for certain buffs to make them less good. IT's correct that Guilliman is very difficult to cost appropriately because he has a wide-ranging effect that differs according to the army and the difference is pretty big. One way to deal with that would be to reduce what his buff actually does.

A practical example from the top of the page: the Trojan. If it's of marginal usefulness paired up with Russes and Sentinels but very good when paired with a Baneblade, you could just change its rules to only affect Superheavies. It's more restrictive, but also easier to balance.