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I think that specific HQ choices should have the option of spending points to buy a warlord trait instead of rolling for it. Preferably ones that are 100% combat based - no special rules (e.g. techmarines), psykers or whatever-nots. Things like Warbosses, Chaos Lords, etc. It would make a lot of sense fluff wise that these hardened generals would develop a specific warlord trait.

This would really help make certain list become a lot more formidable. Some builds really do need the right warlord trait to be the cherry on the cake.

I think that is a pretty decent idea. I am a very much a fluff player. I don't like the idea that my Chaos Lord which is as much of a character as any named hero in 40K to me keeps getting different special abilities (often becoming a strange, inconsistent and often contradictory warfare genius) each battle. And I have a better reason that most (hey, it's Chaos or Galvanius has been around since the Horus Hersey, he's bound to forget some things) for this ever evolving knowledge or lack previous knowledge of battle.

I noticed that many of the named characters in 40K don't have to go through this process. It seems against the idea of 'Forge the Narrative' that these characters don't have to follow the same rules Galvanius the Destroyer, Chaos Lord of the Black Legion and loyal lieutenant of Abbadon the Despoiler. Sure, I can ask permission from my opponent to pick the warlord trait under the Forge the Narrative, but I think there should be rules in place so I don't have to ask permission. I think spending a few points to take the random out is a good compromise.

Right? It makes so much sense for a made character to be able to have their own trait.

Personally I think GW won't do this as it means people won't buy their special IC characters. You only buy huron for the fluff, or for the d3 infiltrating units.

One of the issues rolling for WT has is that it's far too easy to get a redundant trait based on who your WL is. In my opinion the warlord trait table of each codex should have had some more thought put into them to have all 6 warlord traits be useful in some manner. Instead right now in general it seems we have 3 WT that are garbage, 1 that is situational and 2 that are good. After re-working the tables themselves I think it'd be fair to just let all warlords simply pick their trait from the codex table with the exception being named characters who come standard with their own trait.

This adds a layer of depth to list building and gives players more opportunity to build a strategy that works with their WT as opposed to just crossing their fingers. I don't think this should cost points though. I feel WT are just a mechanic that can be added that you get to pick one for free for your WL and play, since both players get to pick freely then it's fair as long as the codex WT table options are roughly balanced.

Our group has toyed with this method and it works fairly well, no one misses random warlord traits, we like being given the power to pick our strategy. We also have played with psykers not rolling random powers. If you have a psyker you pick one school of magic for him and he knows all powers from that tree. He's still limited by his ML for how many powers he can cast but now he has the versatility to cast from a list as opposed to whatever random powers he rolled. Our thinking was that since you pay points for a psyker you should know what you're getting. This obviously runs into the problem of invisibility being a sure thing but we houseruled how invis works because honestly GW writers were drunk when they made it.

Getting to pick your options as opposed to randomly rolling for them just seems like a good idea to me, I really dislike how random the game can feel far too often. It works for chaos daemons cause that's kind of their schtick ain't it? All the other armies though could use the depth of strategy that picking your options as opposed to rolling for them offers.

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.

Absolutely. Random warlord traits and psychic powers should be purged from existence and replaced with paying points for traits and powers. It makes no sense that my Tech-Priest, or Commander, is so mentally unstable that he forgets his aptitude for conquering cities, and instead gets Eternal Warrior.
Formations should also have a points cost.

I too am firmly in the camp of choosing your own warlord trait and paying for it. Same for psychic powers.

I'd like to see the psychic trees brought into line a little more, as in fewer 'junk' powers that are never/rarely cast and more balanced powers in general.

I realize that some psychic powers are going to matriculate to the top of the heap as superior in any system, that's just the nature of things, but I'd like the disparity to be a little less stark is all.

I love running my Librarian and Librarian Dreadnought, and also have Mephiston on my painting table as well about to be started up at some point soon. I'd LOVE to be able to purchase specific powers for them and would not mind paying for said powers with points in the slightest.

Hoping to see more information on 8th and the coming changes soon, fingers crossed.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

I think depending on the cost paying for powers is a rough one to try to balance though, that's a lot of powers that would need individual points costs associated with them. On top of that you're paying already for the ML of your psyker (it's either rolled into the unit cost or 25 points per ML usually). That's why our group just lets you select 1 psychic tree and get all powers from it, you're still limited on how many you can cast by your ML so strategy and turn by turn power choice becomes a tactical aspect of the game. Apart from having to modify certain OP powers it's worked very well for us. I think if they want us to pay points for a psychic power on top of paying points for our ML then psykers may need a points drop.

I get that they're trying to do a balance thing (handled as they often do through randomization), but it's at odds with all their "forge the narrative" stuff where the idea is you're making personalized characters. A bit unfortunate.

I'm fine with the random Psyker powers as is, due to it being hard to control the warp and gak. However, Warlord traits would be better if they were done on a D3, with there being a basic one to switch to like a Primaris. That way you can plan much better around a strategy and stuff. However that would require much rebalancing.

Buying Warlord Traits I don't like simply because it's too hard to determine what they're worth. Look at Master Of Ambush. How are you pricing that? 25 points? 100 points?

I think Psychic Power selection should go back to the original method; i.e: you just paid for the powers. Mastery should be determined by the final number of psychic power a model has (in essence, making actual mastery levels "free").

I'm also in agreement that Warlord Traits should be paid for. This way it makes it harder to swap warlords on the fly and forces you to build your army around your warlord (which should be the case).

I'd prefer they bring back some sort of strategic asset system and work the warlord traits into that. Warlord traits are to personalize how your warlord goes to war, what better way than to customize how you wage war?

Weave in some of the old apocalypse/cities of death/planetstrike/etc stratagems, codex based stuff like "send in the next wave" as some kind of reserve manipulation.
Command benefits for leading at the front (aoe). Re-deployments, tons of possible choices. Could also be used to sneak in fortifications.
Divide them into tiers and allow picking multiple lower tiers..something like that.
Unique character could have better versions?
I'd settle for anything that reduces randomizing at the army list stage though.

It's pretty clear GW went with random Warlord traits and Psychic powers for the same reason it went with random missions and objectives; they felt they needed a way to artificially keep the game experience fresh and interesting. Its surprising they haven't randomized wargear options for the army - as well as troop selection. If it wasn't for WYSIWYG, I'm sure they would have done that as well, just to force us to buy a wide selection of models to throw at each other.

There is no defensible reason for GW to have made Warlord Traits and Psychic powers random. They should have point costs for each, and the key to any trait/power being used is to have them APPROPRIATELY costed, which is the biggest problem GW's staff has with this whole game. Random =/= balance, nor does making a "1" suck and "6" rule in such randomness.

Psychic Powers being random is justified but it can be pretty lame, true.

Well this is what happens when they stopped caring about the actual rules during the Kirby era. They should have at least left a rider in there saying "if you choose to not use the random chart, you can instead select/purchase a warlord trait/psychic power at the point cost listed." And say you can pick missions if you do not feel like using the randomization, instead of only implying it with the "Forge the Narrative" bullcrap.

There are ways to do random good, but you generally have to give your players some way of working with the random on the fly as well as not making the randomness into a key part of the army. If the player gets a bad result, he should still be able to make the best of the situation, not have the points be a complete waste.

The problem with random warlord traits is that you can have a bonus which is completely useless. Like the +1 Strenght to the warboss who is already S10

Or other different traits that have no synergy with the specific list. I like the randomness of the psychic powers for example but warlord traits can even disappear completely IMHO.

It's random cause it's very hard to make them balanced.

It will just end up like psy powers from earlier editions where you only ever see <10% of them being used.

Another thing with warlord traits is that a fixed point cost doesn't address the problem of scaling effects. For example, how much would a fnp-for-the-squad or furious charge cost? It's one thing when taken in the context of one codex it's avaliable to. For example, dark angels. They don't benefit from it TOO much. But than the barkstar formation comes along and it's suddenly a gamebreaking trait. How much would you charge for it? 20 pts? Too cheap for a barkstar. 100 pts? Too expensive for the codex. Or the ork trait that makes the whole army fearless. How much would it cost? It's only that good when taken with armies that allow eternal WAAAGH!

If you just slap a static point cost on warlord traits, you'll just make things worse balance-wise. You'll also need to take into account their power level in relation to other traits in different contexts. Allies don't make it easier.

And as for special named characters with fixed traits, they allready pay for it with fixed - usually not that great - loadouts for points.

If you still want to make it feasible, you'll need to rewrite all the warlord table traits to keep them in line with each other and to give smaller bonuses. For example, master of ambush shouldn't grant infiltrate for 3 units + warlord. 1 unit w/o a warlord is good enough to build a strategy around.

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.

AoS keeps the "Warlord Traits" and Psyker Powers to one thing. For all intents and purposes, they are the same as Special Characters in this respect. The only choice in this regard is to either take the Character for their Trait/Power or not. That isn't much of a choice, to be honest.

Roknar wrote:I'd prefer they bring back some sort of strategic asset system and work the warlord traits into that. Warlord traits are to personalize how your warlord goes to war, what better way than to customize how you wage war?

Weave in some of the old apocalypse/cities of death/planetstrike/etc stratagems, codex based stuff like "send in the next wave" as some kind of reserve manipulation.
Command benefits for leading at the front (aoe). Re-deployments, tons of possible choices. Could also be used to sneak in fortifications.
Divide them into tiers and allow picking multiple lower tiers..something like that.
Unique character could have better versions?
I'd settle for anything that reduces randomizing at the army list stage though.

If the games stays close enough to the 7th edition, I could see the "Battle HQs" getting something like this, akin to mentioned in the OP. It really wouldn't take much and could be even listed as part of their options.

And let's face it, it is rare when you don't know who your Warlord is going to be when you are building your lists, so that part won't be a concern.

koooaei wrote:It's random cause it's very hard to make them balanced.

It will just end up like psy powers from earlier editions where you only ever see <10% of them being used.

Another thing with warlord traits is that a fixed point cost doesn't address the problem of scaling effects. For example, how much would a fnp-for-the-squad or furious charge cost? It's one thing when taken in the context of one codex it's avaliable to. For example, dark angels. They don't benefit from it TOO much. But than the barkstar formation comes along and it's suddenly a gamebreaking trait. How much would you charge for it? 20 pts? Too cheap for a barkstar. 100 pts? Too expensive for the codex. Or the ork trait that makes the whole army fearless. How much would it cost? It's only that good when taken with armies that allow eternal WAAAGH!

If you just slap a static point cost on warlord traits, you'll just make things worse balance-wise. You'll also need to take into account their power level in relation to other traits in different contexts. Allies don't make it easier.

And as for special named characters with fixed traits, they allready pay for it with fixed - usually not that great - loadouts for points.

If you still want to make it feasible, you'll need to rewrite all the warlord table traits to keep them in line with each other and to give smaller bonuses. For example, master of ambush shouldn't grant infiltrate for 3 units + warlord. 1 unit w/o a warlord is good enough to build a strategy around.

That is a very good point, and one I have brought up for why they were randomized in the first place. However, that just means the developers need to be better about balancing the system in the first place.

Another possibility I could see would be to have stacked traits. Say you can take 3.
Master of ambush could be 1 to 3 units as you take increased tiers. A bit like talent trees in games I suppose. Or taking buffs from personal, to unit, to aoe.
That would allow us some customization while also giving us less traits overall, ie making it a bit easier to balance.

My suggestion would be that if you take a generic CAD list, you should be able to pick your warlord trait.

 Venerable Ironclad wrote:
My suggestion would be that if you take a generic CAD list, you should be able to pick your warlord trait.

Maybe, if CADs lose objective secured.

I like this idea conceptually. There are a couple issues you have to work around though.

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?

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.

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.

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.

So instead of my archon or succubus having access to a bunch of generic traits they probably don't want, a handful of generic traits that are arguably too powerful for them, and all the crummy dark eldar traits that no one would ever take over labrythine cunning, I would instead have access to 3(ish) traits that are all theoretically useful for common types of dark eldar armies.

I might have, for instance,
* Something like Labrythine Cunning that allows me to manipulate reserves and generally feel like a calculating archon/archite.

*Something that grants me better Power From Pain or even victory points when characters in my army win challenges (representing characters proving their superiority, capturing prized slaves, etc.).

* Something that lets me make certain units troops. For instance, I might be able to make trueborn, incubi, archon courts, blood brides, hellions, etc. troops (or at least let them fill compulsory troop slots) in order to theme my army around my warlord's predilections. Sort of like a biker captain making biker marines troops, but in warlord form! Obviously you would want to be careful about which units you put on this list.

These three options support a variety of ways of playing a dark eldar army by providing additional, power for conventional units (reserve manipulations), additional rewards for playing a certain way (getting your characters into the fray), or additional versatility when building an army. Because these warlord traits can only ever be applied to a dark eldar army, they're relatively easy to price (especially if you add lines stating they only work on units of the warlord's detachment or faction), and coming up with something similar for each faction is much less daunting than creating six options that may or may not be used by a variety of factions.

Why lose obsec? I think CADs would benefit from choosing a warlord trait and obsec pretty fairly compared to other Decurion-like formations. +1 reanimation protocols and the Tau bonus BS and sharing markerlights stuff is far better than obsec in almost every scenario, with exception to maybe the demi-company but that's obsec in a formation not obsec in a CAD so it's different. A larger issue with 7th is that formations vary wildly in power but since a CAD is more or less the most basic way of building your force it should be simple to most players to get it and benefit from it.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I like this idea conceptually. There are a couple issues you have to work around though.

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?

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.

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.

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.

So instead of my archon or succubus having access to a bunch of generic traits they probably don't want, a handful of generic traits that are arguably too powerful for them, and all the crummy dark eldar traits that no one would ever take over labrythine cunning, I would instead have access to 3(ish) traits that are all theoretically useful for common types of dark eldar armies.

I might have, for instance,
* Something like Labrythine Cunning that allows me to manipulate reserves and generally feel like a calculating archon/archite.

*Something that grants me better Power From Pain or even victory points when characters in my army win challenges (representing characters proving their superiority, capturing prized slaves, etc.).

* Something that lets me make certain units troops. For instance, I might be able to make trueborn, incubi, archon courts, blood brides, hellions, etc. troops (or at least let them fill compulsory troop slots) in order to theme my army around my warlord's predilections. Sort of like a biker captain making biker marines troops, but in warlord form! Obviously you would want to be careful about which units you put on this list.

These three options support a variety of ways of playing a dark eldar army by providing additional, power for conventional units (reserve manipulations), additional rewards for playing a certain way (getting your characters into the fray), or additional versatility when building an army. Because these warlord traits can only ever be applied to a dark eldar army, they're relatively easy to price (especially if you add lines stating they only work on units of the warlord's detachment or faction), and coming up with something similar for each faction is much less daunting than creating six options that may or may not be used by a variety of factions.

I actually really like this idea. I'd even perhaps take it one step farther and create 3 warlord traits specifically for each HQ option. Either make them a free selection if you take that HQ as your warlord or assign points to them (points that will be easier to balance as each warlord trait is designed with that model in mind) if you prefer costed warlord traits. Named character HQ's would come stock with a specific Warlord trait as many of them already do. This insures that each warlord trait is always going to be fluffy, useful and fair for every warlord while also granting a tactical flexibility to us players that's not determined by random tables.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I like this idea conceptually. There are a couple issues you have to work around though.

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?

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.

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.

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.

So instead of my archon or succubus having access to a bunch of generic traits they probably don't want, a handful of generic traits that are arguably too powerful for them, and all the crummy dark eldar traits that no one would ever take over labrythine cunning, I would instead have access to 3(ish) traits that are all theoretically useful for common types of dark eldar armies.

I might have, for instance,
* Something like Labrythine Cunning that allows me to manipulate reserves and generally feel like a calculating archon/archite.

*Something that grants me better Power From Pain or even victory points when characters in my army win challenges (representing characters proving their superiority, capturing prized slaves, etc.).

* Something that lets me make certain units troops. For instance, I might be able to make trueborn, incubi, archon courts, blood brides, hellions, etc. troops (or at least let them fill compulsory troop slots) in order to theme my army around my warlord's predilections. Sort of like a biker captain making biker marines troops, but in warlord form! Obviously you would want to be careful about which units you put on this list.

These three options support a variety of ways of playing a dark eldar army by providing additional, power for conventional units (reserve manipulations), additional rewards for playing a certain way (getting your characters into the fray), or additional versatility when building an army. Because these warlord traits can only ever be applied to a dark eldar army, they're relatively easy to price (especially if you add lines stating they only work on units of the warlord's detachment or faction), and coming up with something similar for each faction is much less daunting than creating six options that may or may not be used by a variety of factions.

That's the best idea so far.

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.

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

I'd rather you just pick your warlord trait. would be fun to build a list around an infiltrating ork warboss, or something similar. give each codex a set and choose.

I think AoS is great in this regard. Roll if you want to, or pick the one you like most. No points cost at all, and from what little I've seen (Blades of Khorne) none are outright broken.

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?

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.

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.