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Magus? Have you met my friends the Krono hive fleet?

fe40k wrote:

In response, Magnus is a Primarch. He's supposed to be OP. I don't think he's overcosted compared to RG, who I have a lot more trouble with due to the fact he's a Character with less than 10 wounds.

Taking 2 Primarchs in a list is what should be illegal. No one should be able to double down on OP characters at 1,000 points.

No character, or unit, is "supposed to be OP".

Fluff =/= rules; this is a game, it needs to be balanced as such.

What about the armies that don't have Primarchs? are they "supposed to be UP"?

No, other armies are not supposed to be OP. Primarchs are special due to their place in the fluff. Game designers seem to aim to make them as powerful as possible whilst not unstoppable.

So I disagree with the notion fluff != rules, OP is how Primarchs should be. The backlash against GW would be considerable if Primarchs had weak rules, no one would buy the models for $100 a pop unless they're tough as nails.

The arguments about balance don't really register. Primarchs are balanced against each other, not lesser units. This is a thread about how Magnus often goes down the first turn of shooting, it's not like he's an autowin option. He's a points sink that sometimes works.

If you really want to complain about competitive balance, perhaps I can point you at some of the more practical examples, like signums and Armorium Cherubs on Devastators? Because those have had more of an impact on games I've played than any Primarch ever could.

to answer the OP: no, Magnus is plenty survivable.

I don't mind the primarch models being good if they are costed appropriately.

 techsoldaten wrote:

fe40k wrote:

In response, Magnus is a Primarch. He's supposed to be OP. I don't think he's overcosted compared to RG, who I have a lot more trouble with due to the fact he's a Character with less than 10 wounds.

Taking 2 Primarchs in a list is what should be illegal. No one should be able to double down on OP characters at 1,000 points.

No character, or unit, is "supposed to be OP".

Fluff =/= rules; this is a game, it needs to be balanced as such.

What about the armies that don't have Primarchs? are they "supposed to be UP"?

No, other armies are not supposed to be OP. Primarchs are special due to their place in the fluff. Game designers seem to aim to make them as powerful as possible whilst not unstoppable.

So I disagree with the notion fluff != rules, OP is how Primarchs should be. The backlash against GW would be considerable if Primarchs had weak rules, no one would buy the models for $100 a pop unless they're tough as nails.

The arguments about balance don't really register. Primarchs are balanced against each other, not lesser units. This is a thread about how Magnus often goes down the first turn of shooting, it's not like he's an autowin option. He's a points sink that sometimes works.

If you really want to complain about competitive balance, perhaps I can point you at some of the more practical examples, like signums and Armorium Cherubs on Devastators? Because those have had more of an impact on games I've played than any Primarch ever could.

So what you're saying then is that armies that do not have a Primarch or do not want to be run with Primarchs do not deserve to be played.

I think the problem here is that you are giving "OP" two different meanings.

OP means over powered. By definition of a balanced game, thats bad. A OP primarch is a primarch that is too powerfull for his costs.

You can have primarchs that are, very, very powerfull but aren't OP because they have a fair cost to their power. So yeah, one can have primarchs that are very powerfull and give them costs of 400-700 points to make them balanced.

 Fafnir wrote:
So what you're saying then is that armies that do not have Primarch or do not want to be run with Primarchs do not deserve to be played.

Yep, that's exactly what he's saying.

 Galas wrote:
I think the problem here is that you are giving "OP" two different meanings.

OP means over powered. By definition of a balanced game, thats bad. A OP primarch is a primarch that is too powerfull for his costs.

You can have primarchs that are, very, very powerfull but aren't OP because they have a fair cost to their power. So yeah, one can have primarchs that are very powerfull and give them costs of 400-700 points to make them balanced.

This. A thousand times this.

A unit can be powerful without being overpowered. Primarchs and most other Lords of War are supposed to be powerful, because they are powerful in fluff.

There is no justification for anything ever being overpowered on the tabletop. If you want to bring the red avatar of head explosions to the table, an enemy with a decent army should have a realistic chance to beat him.

I'd also like to point out that both Daemon Primarchs do not feel overpowered in any way when they are actually leading their respective legion. Cherry-picking across the chaos faction is the problem.

 Jidmah wrote:
I'd also like to point out that both Daemon Primarchs do not feel overpowered in any way when they are actually leading their respective legion. Cherry-picking across the chaos faction is the problem.

Absolutely agree here; this is why I think the "Primarch of X" rule should include a clause where, in matched play, 50% of your points must be of the correct <Legion/Chapter> to field the matching Primarch (so in a 2000 point game you need 585 points of Thousand Sons to run Magnus).

 techsoldaten wrote:


Taking 2 Primarchs in a list is what should be illegal. No one should be able to double down on OP characters at 1,000 points.

IMHO primarchs should belong to 3000+ points games.

Wait... how has this thread devolved into someone actually arguing Magnus isn't good enough? Mind is truly blown.

 Arachnofiend wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
I'd also like to point out that both Daemon Primarchs do not feel overpowered in any way when they are actually leading their respective legion. Cherry-picking across the chaos faction is the problem.

Absolutely agree here; this is why I think the "Primarch of X" rule should include a clause where, in matched play, 50% of your points must be of the correct <Legion/Chapter> to field the matching Primarch (so in a 2000 point game you need 585 points of Thousand Sons to run Magnus).

This wouldn't solve any problems though. It wouldn't even prevent double primarch lists.

I really see no way to fix the Primarch's soup problem but to disallow anything that's not from the codex of that army. Even if you would limit it to one chaos god only, you could still get a some nurgle-aligned chaos warband to cast warptime on Mortarion.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Blackie wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:


Taking 2 Primarchs in a list is what should be illegal. No one should be able to double down on OP characters at 1,000 points.

IMHO primarchs should belong to 3000+ points games.

You do realize that pretty exactly the same as saying "IMHO you should not be allowed to field ork boyz", right?

 Jidmah wrote:


You do realize that pretty exactly the same as saying "IMHO you should not be allowed to field ork boyz", right?

No, because boyz are standard cheap troops while the primarch are superheroes that are supposed to lead huge legions.

Can anyone explain to me why Magnus is being discussed as OP?

Robute has fewer wounds but is hands down the best force multiplier in the game from RR hit/wound, can resurrect, provides CP, assists in regenerating CP, and has character rules.

Mortarion has mortal wounds from attacks, an aura ability for further wounds, has a solid invuln, is a psyker, and disgustingly resilient for best melee/mw monster in the game.

Magnus has +2 to psychic, and an improved smite, and provides RR saves on TSons.

Rate these 3 in terms of power and tell me which need point adjuatments.

 Blackie wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:


You do realize that pretty exactly the same as saying "IMHO you should not be allowed to field ork boyz", right?

No, because boyz are standard cheap troops while the primarch are superheroes that are supposed to lead huge legions.

Well, that's just an opinion that has nothing to do with whether a Primarch is balanced or not. First and foremost a Primarch is a Lord of War that cannot be fielded more than once.

Putting point limits does absolutely nothing to balance them, it just bans them from some games and keeps them overpowered in others. Whether you ban Mortarion, Magnus, generic chapter masters or ork boyz makes not difference to the game. You're just pointing to a unit and removing it from the game.

There is also no fluff justification for Primarchs to not fight small battles. There are multiple instance of Primarchs leading small strike forces (no more than 500 points on the tabletop) to take out valuable targets, securing valuable relics and the like in the fluff.

 Melissia wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
So what you're saying then is that armies that do not have Primarch or do not want to be run with Primarchs do not deserve to be played.

Yep, that's exactly what he's saying.

That interpretation is... baffling and offensive. Trying to overinflate my point to have some other meaning is toxic and lowers my impressions of the community.

What I am saying is Primarchs enjoy a special status in the game and the rules need to reflect that, anything else would be a let down. That's why they cost so many points. Comparisons with other units are very hard to make, my impression is GW balances them against each other.

'OP' is slang that actually means very little, like 'cool' or 'stupid' or 'dumb.' It's the word people use when they can't quite grasp the actual problem. In the case of Magnus, the usefulness of the unit is completely relative to whatever else is on the board. Magnus fighting with a pure Thousand Sons force is not very hard to deal with, but paired with Mortarion the two are absolute beasts. The fact there are situations where he becomes more powerful than he otherwise would be is not a reason to make outrageous claims about his abilities, it's a reason to limit the situations where that can happen. Maybe.

If you really want to talk about imbalances that affect the game, there are plenty. Look at Devastators versus Havocs, they get all kinds of special rules for about the same cost. Look at Eldar Wraith-things, tell me the amount of damage relative to their cost is reasonable compared to similar units in other armies. Look at AM with orders that have a 50% - 88% chance to turn 3ppm conscripts into high volume killing machines turn after turn. I could go on. The reason imbalances like this matter more than a Primarch is these units appear more frequently in more armies than Magnus ever will. Perhaps they would make better targets for discussions about aligning points with... damage output? saving throws? wounds? ... all these factors that create complexity that prevent meaningful direct comparisons.

The point is there is no pure quantitative measure of the effectiveness of ANY unit in the game and pretending the word 'OP' means something is misleading. Points are more like horseshoes than math. If you believe the presence of a single unit with exceptional rules is a reason to pick one army over another, then why would anyone ever want to play anything other than Eldar? They have multiple exceptional units by most people's standards.

I wish my Baneblade had the survivability of Magnus

 techsoldaten wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Fafnir wrote:
So what you're saying then is that armies that do not have Primarch or do not want to be run with Primarchs do not deserve to be played.

Yep, that's exactly what he's saying.

That interpretation is... baffling and offensive. Trying to overinflate my point to have some other meaning is toxic and lowers my impressions of the community.

What I am saying is Primarchs enjoy a special status in the game and the rules need to reflect that, anything else would be a let down. That's why they cost so many points. Comparisons with other units are very hard to make, my impression is GW balances them against each other.

'OP' is slang that actually means very little, like 'cool' or 'stupid' or 'dumb.' It's the word people use when they can't quite grasp the actual problem. In the case of Magnus, the usefulness of the unit is completely relative to whatever else is on the board. Magnus fighting with a pure Thousand Sons force is not very hard to deal with, but paired with Mortarion the two are absolute beasts. The fact there are situations where he becomes more powerful than he otherwise would be is not a reason to make outrageous claims about his abilities, it's a reason to limit the situations where that can happen. Maybe.

If you really want to talk about imbalances that affect the game, there are plenty. Look at Devastators versus Havocs, they get all kinds of special rules for about the same cost. Look at Eldar Wraith-things, tell me the amount of damage relative to their cost is reasonable compared to similar units in other armies. Look at AM with orders that have a 50% - 88% chance to turn 3ppm conscripts into high volume killing machines turn after turn. I could go on. The reason imbalances like this matter more than a Primarch is these units appear more frequently in more armies than Magnus ever will. Perhaps they would make better targets for discussions about aligning points with... damage output? saving throws? wounds? ... all these factors that create complexity that prevent meaningful direct comparisons.

The point is there is no pure quantitative measure of the effectiveness of ANY unit in the game and pretending the word 'OP' means something is misleading. Points are more like horseshoes than math. If you believe the presence of a single unit with exceptional rules is a reason to pick one army over another, then why would anyone ever want to play anything other than Eldar? They have multiple exceptional units by most people's standards.

I've seen Magnus more in CSM lists this edition, and RG in more SM armies in this edition than Eldar Wraith things, devastators or havocs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
as for primarchs it comes down to costing them appropriately, which is easier to some extent for Magnus than for say, Rowboat. One is pretty much a solo beatstick, the other is an aura buff machine. It is much easier to balance less synergistic units.

 Jidmah wrote:
Putting point limits does absolutely nothing to balance them

Not to play the devil's advocat, but point limits actually balance these kind of units.

Taking Magnus at 500pts and at 3000pts makes a huge difference. At 500, no army will ever be able to kill it before it can charge and annihilate everything. At 3000, you'll get dozens of Lascannons to take care of him.

What's more, at 500pts if Magnus destroys a 100pts unit, he killed 20% of the opponent's army. At 3000pts, the same unit is only worth 3.33% of the army. It's less impactful.

 Nym wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Putting point limits does absolutely nothing to balance them

Not to play the devil's advocat, but point limits actually balance these kind of units.

Taking Magnus at 500pts and at 3000pts makes a huge difference. At 500, no army will ever be able to kill it before it can charge and annihilate everything. At 3000, you'll get dozens of Lascannons to take care of him.

What's more, at 500pts if Magnus destroys a 100pts unit, he killed 20% of the opponent's army. At 3000pts, the same unit is only worth 3.33% of the army. It's less impactful.

This is very true, however in general a game can only ever be balanced around one specific point level unless certain units are only for low point games and others for high point games. Right now my impression is this level is meant to be 2k points.

 Jidmah wrote:
You do realize that pretty exactly the same as saying "IMHO you should not be allowed to field ork boyz", right?

No, it doesn't, and the comparison is awful and you should feel ashamed for having made it. Magnus is a legendarily powerful, inherently unique named character-- there's not really even a category of generic character that can replace him, for even daemon princes or greater daemons aren't on the same level.

Ork Boyz are a representation of the untold quadrillions of common Orks. In the rules as written, you can't take multiple Magnuses already, but you are encouraged to take multiple Ork Boyz.

You are not comparing apples to apples; nor apples to oranges; it's closer to you trying to say "this apple is actually an orangutan."

No, it's not, it's a fethin' apple.

 kronk wrote:
If you kill Magnus, he should split into 2x mini-Magnuses, like pink horrors split into Blue Horrors.

Magnus is latin for 'great', so when you kill him he splits into 2x Modicus ('moderate') and when you kill those they split into 2x Parvus ('small').

This is the only logical solution.

 Melissia wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
You do realize that pretty exactly the same as saying "IMHO you should not be allowed to field ork boyz", right?

No, it doesn't, and the comparison is awful and you should feel ashamed for having made it. Magnus is a legendarily powerful, inherently unique named character-- there's not really even a category of generic character that can replace him, for even daemon princes or greater daemons aren't on the same level.

Ork Boyz are a representation of the untold quadrillions of common Orks. In the rules as written, you can't take multiple Magnuses already, but you are encouraged to take multiple Ork Boyz.

You are not comparing apples to apples; nor apples to oranges; it's closer to you trying to say "this apple is actually an orangutan."

No, it's not, it's a fethin' apple.

Yeah, I know all that, I've even read the novels.

Still, what's the difference between the game piece "Magnus" and the game piece "Ork boy"? Correct, none but numbers and rules.

Fluff should never, ever affect the balance of a game. GW alone has over 20 years of precedence on how terrible of an idea that is.

Any game piece must must be balanced, whether it exists once, twice, a hundred times, a thousand times, or countless billion times in the background lore.

If anything, you should be ashamed of bringing fluff to a discussion about survivability.

 techsoldaten wrote:


That's why they cost so many points.

The problem is: they all are way undercosted. That's why they're auto-takes in any list even at mid sized formats. The ork stompa costs 977 points and it's not even a strong unit, I wouldn't include it in a list for more than 450 points. Magnus, mortarion, guilliman, celestine... they all are 100+ points undercosted.

If we want to have balance we shouldn't have auto-take units/characters.

 Blackie wrote:

 techsoldaten wrote:


That's why they cost so many points.

The problem is: they all are way undercosted. That's why they're auto-takes in any list even at mid sized formats. The ork stompa costs 977 points and it's not even a strong unit, I wouldn't include it in a list for more than 450 points. Magnus, mortarion, guilliman, celestine... they all are 100+ points undercosted.

If we want to have balance we shouldn't have auto-take units/characters.

That's the part about the overcosted / undercosted argument I don't get.

Not to just throw this back at you, I am genuinely interested in your opinion: but Chaos Primarchs don't actually seem that powerful relative to the other stuff you can do with CSMs.

I play Black Legion, Magnus and Mortarion will never have a place in my lists. I have both models and could run them in a Supreme Allied Command detachment.

It's just that Abaddon + massed Lascannons is a lot more lethal with 18 - 22 S9 shots at 48 inches. With the negative AP modifier, each shot has about a 77% chance to do d6 damage against most things in the game. I've had many games where I cleared out all of my opponent's long range guns & deep strikers the first turn - sometimes before they can move - and had 2 free rounds of shooting while they footslogged to get into range.

Primarchs have an obnoxious number of wounds and a great save, but they must fight up close to be effective. Which means they have to make their saves, opponents will have their entire army shooting at them.

By comparison, it takes about 90 wounds across 8 units to remove all my Lascannons - at distance. Most armies are not capable of fighting at that range, much less spreading out damage across every unit in my army. Flyers and hordes wreck me, but most other things are not hard to deal with.

Are points really supposed to be relative to every other unit in the game, or are they supposed to be relative to the army? I don't think the answer is as obvious as some make it seem. When I can outclass those Primarchs with regular troops, what does that mean about the cost of the unit? Should Lascannons be doubled in points? Because they get a lot more done than M&M right now.