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... 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.

We warmahordes now

"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.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 MagicJuggler wrote:

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.

Thank you, MagicJuggler.

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!)

What, you don't enjoy seeing Tinyhead Guilliman every time your opponent fields Ultramarines?

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...

 Silentz wrote:

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.

 Silentz wrote:

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!

I will say this a lot of characters are way over powered for what they can do, typhus for example is stupid broken.

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.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 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?

Too complicated.

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.

Cruddice loves auras.

Hes been pushing the canned strategy with them since the empire 8th ed book.

Pancakey wrote:
Cruddice loves auras.

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.

Etc.

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.