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 juraigamer wrote:
Heh, as expected.

Which brings me back to one of my core problems with the game.

The damage is too damn high. What good is a system with damage boxes and tactical combat when you just crush a model/unit in one turn? There is great promise if the game came down to more than just one turn of "this better work" instead it's all about an alpha strike.

That being said, in terms of army balance there are other issues. From what I've seen of tournament lists, it's pretty much always the same things. The games internal faction and external balance needs to be refined.

I see your point on this aspect, Everyone can kill in 1 turn. I think tho the way to fix this would be to remove 'buying attacks'
Most things can only 1 shot after buying a ton of attacks. If you want to house rule this to try it out...

Seiges feat would put it to 20

19/2=9.5, round up to 10
+3 Shield
+2 Other Shield thing
+5 Feat

Remember BEDMAS! Divide, then add!

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
Seiges feat would put it to 20

19/2=9.5, round up to 10
+3 Shield
+2 Other Shield thing
+5 Feat

Remember BEDMAS! Divide, then add!

Wa hey, I was right. Got to love finally getting rules right Still, ridiculously high armour even when you are having it halved (sort of).

I never actually thought about stopping people from buying more attacks, this actually makes sense. If the MK III ruleset removes that ability and does something to keep weapon master infantry from being the next best thing, we might have a great game.

So you basically just made Jacks and Beasts pointless.

Their entire point is that they are the one thing that can buy extra attacks besides the Warnoun.


I do think Fury is a tad too powerful, but not enough to break the game. Make Frenzy more of a downside.

Jacks are just right. At most a regular Jack(that doesn't have a special rule like Deathjack or the Avatar) can have 3 Focus. Which is either a charge and 2 additional attacks or 3 additional attacks and no charge.

Maybe change frenzy so that the fury doesn't go away. So you're beast will continue to be out of control until you suck the Fury off with your Warlock, which may cramp your ability to manage your other beasts.

 motyak wrote:
But then you get models that can survive almost anything. Kill an Arcane Shielded Centurion on pStryker's feat turn with one model. P+S 20s are swinging at dice minus 9. Even Siege's Feat only drops it to 20, or maybe to 16 (I'm not 100%, would AS and feat be added before or after the halving?) for one hit. Armour piercing drops it to one of those as well. It is pretty hefty.

I recommend not trying to kill it that turn. Instead try any (or all) debuffs that you have avialable to you, blinding, throwing, disrupting, freezing, knocking down and arm locking it are a just the tip of the iceberg for methods of ignoring it for a turn.

It wouldn't be much of a Feat if you could just kill things under it anyway.

Why would I want to kill him? I'm running the centurion in this scenario But yeah, he's slow and what not so you can just ignore/work around him for a turn and try and hit something else, but I was trying to point out that not everything can be one rounded easily.

 Grey Templar wrote:
So you basically just made Jacks and Beasts pointless.

Their entire point is that they are the one thing that can buy extra attacks besides the Warnoun.


I do think Fury is a tad too powerful, but not enough to break the game. Make Frenzy more of a downside.

Jacks are just right. At most a regular Jack(that doesn't have a special rule like Deathjack or the Avatar) can have 3 Focus. Which is either a charge and 2 additional attacks or 3 additional attacks and no charge.

Maybe change frenzy so that the fury doesn't go away. So you're beast will continue to be out of control until you suck the Fury off with your Warlock, which may cramp your ability to manage your other beasts.

Hardly pointless, You can still boost attacks. Tho this rule would heavily skew towards Jacks and Beasts that have more additional initial attacks.

I suppose it would require additional fine tuning to REALLY house rule for everything to survive longer
Probably would also need to remove the boosted damage on charges

Any change that discourages taking jacks/encourages leaving out jacks is IMO not good for the franchise.

What if the only way to get boosted damage was from charging? I know there are some spells and feats that do the same thing, but ignoring those, wouldn't the game get more tactical? Focusing on power attacks and positioning even more?

 juraigamer wrote:
What if the only way to get boosted damage was from charging? I know there are some spells and feats that do the same thing, but ignoring those, wouldn't the game get more tactical? Focusing on power attacks and positioning even more?

This called an infantry list. Play a dudeswarm some time.


Seriously though boosting damage is almost always grossly inefficient on 'Jacks/Beasts. You get more damage output out of buying more attacks. Just because anything in the game *can* get one rounded, doesn't it mean it will every time by every piece. The issue is it sounds like you want every game to run like two Attrition lists getting stuck into each other. That provides a less interesting game with more limited tactical considerations not more.

It sounds like you expect damage boxes to represent something that has some variety of insurance against any threat in the game. They're not really there for that. They how much resources are needed to put a particular target down, and how they hold up to incidental damage from sub-optimal attack vectors, how much risk goes into taking a free strike from a blocker, etc.. etc..

Boxes aren't going to save you from the Bronzeback or 4-focus Avatar with Ignite . However a free strike from Vilmon is going to mean very different things to a Templar vs a Warpwolf Stalker.

Chongara wrote:
[boxes represent] how much resources are needed to put a particular target down, and how they hold up to incidental damage from sub-optimal attack vectors, how much risk goes into taking a free strike from a blocker, etc.. etc..

That's very well put.

What? Boxes don't represent resources need to kill, boxes are just hit points, which don't matter when one jack or beast goes all out vs one jack/beast. The first strike(s) are the most important, they often negate the need for a second (round).

I'm not entirely sure where people are getting the idea that one-rounding things happens too often.

Hell, take a Juggernaut on a Juggernaut- 4 pow 19's vs arm 20 comes out to ~24 damage. That's well below the amount one would need to actually kill the Jug (34). This is actually the case for the majority of things- you often need a hair more 'force' to push things over the edge, either in the form of some buff or additional input from another source.

And therein is a significant bit of strategy. How do you deny some portion of the opponent's force from reaching your high-value targets, putting them out of range for being killed? This is why chaff/jamming infantry is so incredibly important, something that hasn't really been mentioned in this discussion. The proper use of jamming infantry and screening is pivotal, simply because the damage is so high. You need to prevent your opponent from leveraging all their force against you.

Besides even all /that/, that doesn't even speak to balance, it speaks to the style of the game. When I look at tournament standings, I tend to see a pretty healthy mix of factions at the top. Sure, it's pretty rare to see minions or mercs or ret in those positions, but that's (unfortunately) to be expected due to their more limited selections. While there's certainly some factions that appear higher more often (coughcryxcough), I'm never /surprised/ to see something like Trollbloods top 8.

Hell, the ease with which everything is killed is probably one of the reasons the game /is/ balanced. If everything had to go out into some grindy, attrition-y thing, then even small balance problems would show through /much/ more easily.

 BoardroomHero wrote:
Sure, it's pretty rare to see minions or mercs or ret in those positions, but that's (unfortunately) to be expected due to their more limited selections.

For two of those(Mercs and Minions) it's less about limited selections and more about them needing to be balanced not just in Faction, but across EVERY Faction that can take them.

Hell, for Blindwater, even if there were more options, you'd most likely still see dual or triple Posses regularly cause they're just that good.

 juraigamer wrote:
What if the only way to get boosted damage was from charging? I know there are some spells and feats that do the same thing, but ignoring those, wouldn't the game get more tactical? Focusing on power attacks and positioning even more?

You mean, so that you can truly build certain armour models such that the only way to kill them is to bring specific models? Boosting and extra attacks exist in order to give you the tools to mitigate rock paper scissor situations. If you only bring rock and scissor you can boost a scissor to become a paper so to speak. Or put in game terms, if you forgot or were unable to bring armour piercing then your mandatory 'jack can still kill your opponent's heavy jack - or that if you didn't bring spray attacks your jack can still kill a fair number of Winter Guard.

The slow pace and the high survivability of certain models, in close combat especially, is one of the things in Warhammer 40k that makes that system so bad (if we ignore the poor implementation).

Try to focus on the objective of each game instead. Why do you want to kill the 'jack? Is it because you're playing a kill point game (in which case you are doing it wrong) or is it because it's standing on an objective marker or in the way of the enemy caster? Remember that the Warbeasts and Warjacks are simply resources you use in order to secure victory. Taking one round or three rounds to kill it isn't going to make a difference except test your significant other's patience when the game gets into it's fourth hour. It's all about the resources needed to kill a warnoun. Does it take one beast to kill it? Did it need to be forced? Did it need the action of a supporting model to accomplish it? How much of my opponent's army did it force to dedicate in the action? Will I be able to capitalize on the situation by killing more models of his next turn or did this put me in a strategically more advantageous situation?

I don't know, it feels like you're essentially complaining about how a pawn in chess shouldn't be able to kill a hostile pawn in just one move.

NOTE - This is not suggestions to make the official game different

This is suggestion to make everything survive more

My two best suggestions so far is that
1 - No buying attacks
2 - Charging does NOT give you an additional die on damage

and Yes, this means that the balance of everything would drastically shift,
Would it make for an interesting game? Perhaps...
Would the game be longer? Very likely...
Would the game be unplayable? Doubtful

Find a friend and try it out for a game or two, You might just enjoy it

Ok the thing with one hit point weapon master infantry is that they are all pretty much glass cannons. My full unit of forgeguard that I own, even with higher than average armor for infantry, they still can die very quickly. Taking away damage output from them would mean they would stay in the case. No seriously why take them if the damage output went down?

Don't look at Warmarchine from a 40k prespecitve. 40k has horrible balance and units/models that are basically invincible (unit of tzeench daemons with grimwar and forewarning for 2++ re-roll able or sear councils with fortune). I mean I remember watching games of 40k with a Iron armed TMC that basically won the game by themselves or watched a single helldrake lol an entire army or any game with the swarmlord vs. chaos daemons. The fact that any unit can die if you put enough resources towards it is a good thing in warmachine. The worst feeling in any game is when no matter what you throw at something you don't do anything.

Damage output in warmachine is just fine, big expensive warbeasts and jacks hit like trucks but that is the point and the reason that they are taken. Besides if you make it that a fully buffed bronze back can't wreck something in one turn you do realize that other heavies such as the cannoneer wouldn't be doing jack damage to something.

Edit: As far as alpha strike being important, it is very important in warmachine, well until you realize that the game gives you plenty of tricks to mess with that. Spells like inhospitable ground, or phaley temporal barrier can take that ability right away. Covering fire from my cyclone keeps banes away from my units. Using terrain to your advantage can also limit your opponents alpha strike. So yea plenty of ways to deny your opponent that easy charge.

Edit:

NOTE - This is not suggestions to make the official game different

This is suggestion to make everything survive more

My two best suggestions so far is that
1 - No buying attacks
2 - Charging does NOT give you an additional die on damage

and Yes, this means that the balance of everything would drastically shift,
Would it make for an interesting game? Perhaps...
Would the game be longer? Very likely...
Would the game be unplayable? Doubtful

Find a friend and try it out for a game or two, You might just enjoy it

I don't have to try it, I have played enough warmachine know that is not a good idea. A few things: A) that does not make everything survive more that makes jacks/warbeasts survive more. A lot of models like arcane tempest gun mages depend on high defense to survive and will still die in one hit even without the bonus die for charge damage. Also most times when a jack is fighting gun mages 9 times out of 10 you are boosting to hit because of the high defense anyway. Most infantry have one hit point and only decent arm so they will be just as vulnerable as before. Medium base infantry or shield wall infantry stand a better chance but they still die generally in one hit to heavies. B) You also made the game more rock paper scissors which is bad. One unit I use a lot press gangers now is rather useless towards anything with a damage grid or spiral. Before I could at least in a pinch charge them in verses a heavy to try take it out, without the charge bonus they don't have much chance at all. Now press gangers aren't good normally against jacks anyway but at least I can do something on the charge, that makes them less of rock/paper/scissors unit. C) Not every faction is jack/warbeast heavy. I play both mercs and cygnar, they can pull off large battle groups but they generally work better with infantry. Melee infantry with your changes will have serious issues killing anything with a grid or spiral. This will hurt infantry heavy armies. D) Also a lot of times people buy attacks after preforming combat maneuvers with heavies, such as trample. You trample through the infantry that you are in combat with up to what you actually want to kill and then start buying attacks. So trample, slam and other maneuvers would probably be used even less.

So yea you would make the game even more rock paper scissors. Which is NOT an improvement.

juraigamer wrote:Heh, as expected.

Which brings me back to one of my core problems with the game.

The damage is too damn high. What good is a system with damage boxes and tactical combat when you just crush a model/unit in one turn? There is great promise if the game came down to more than just one turn of "this better work" instead it's all about an alpha strike.

That being said, in terms of army balance there are other issues. From what I've seen of tournament lists, it's pretty much always the same things. The games internal faction and external balance needs to be refined.

I've seen huge variety in tournament lists, actually.

Regarding damage being too high - no. It's a feature, not a bug. High damage output means you can go out and kill stuff. It's a huge weakness in 40k that the ability to survive is is much greater than the ability to kill. You need to hit, wound, roll armour saves, fnp also and various other tricks. It means out of every hundred shots, very little killing is done. 50 space marines with bolsters actually accomplish very little, when you think about it. This excessive survival ratio means most your basic guys with basic guns are worthless. 40k boils down to the guy with the meltagun and power fist, everything else is nothing more than an ablative wound. In warmachine, that basic nook with a rifle is a viable and effective piece. He can play a vital role and reliably be aggressive. He can win you games, and he can reliably kill stuff, that is a good thing.

Regarding your issues with units being able to kill anything on a charge, maybe you should expand your tactical knowledge of the game, by playing and using denial tools, infantry tarpits, charge lane blocking, and jamming? Learn to use to full breath of options in the game instead of blaming the game, and then asking for the game to change because of what seems to be a bit of a refusal to step up and learn effective counters. With respect, what your doing is unsporting.

 juraigamer wrote:
I never actually thought about stopping people from buying more attacks, this actually makes sense. If the MK III ruleset removes that ability and does something to keep weapon master infantry from being the next best thing, we might have a great game.

So change the game before changing tactics. Because it must be the game that's wrong? No offense mate, but we already have a 'great' game here. It's solidly built, ans extremely well balanced. No extra attacks, and no extra damage dice for weapon masters won't so somehow make the game better. It won't add anything. Infantry will still be shredded (that won't change) and the rest will just be boring dice rolling where you roll a load of dice and nothing really happens. Warmachine is about over the top carnage, beating the scrap out of your opponent, and applying brutal. overwhelming force, not nickel-and-diming them.

Talamare wrote:

I see your point on this aspect, Everyone can kill in 1 turn. I think tho the way to fix this would be to remove 'buying attacks'
Most things can only 1 shot after buying a ton of attacks. If you want to house rule this to try it out...

Nope - you just skew the game, you don't improve it. All this will do is invalidate beasts and jacks, and put even more emphasis on dudeswarm and weapon master infantry.

Everything can be killed in one turn? Well then stop it getting the drop on you, or stop it getting there in the first place. Solved.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

I don't have to try it, I have played enough warmachine know that is not a good idea. A few things: A) that does not make everything survive more that makes jacks/warbeasts survive more. A lot of models like arcane tempest gun mages depend on high defense to survive and will still die in one hit even without the bonus die for charge damage. Also most times when a jack is fighting gun mages 9 times out of 10 you are boosting to hit because of the high defense anyway. Most infantry have one hit point and only decent arm so they will be just as vulnerable as before. Medium base infantry or shield wall infantry stand a better chance but they still die generally in one hit to heavies. B) You also made the game more rock paper scissors which is bad. One unit I use a lot press gangers now is rather useless towards anything with a damage grid or spiral. Before I could at least in a pinch charge them in verses a heavy to try take it out, without the charge bonus they don't have much chance at all. Now press gangers aren't good normally against jacks anyway but at least I can do something on the charge, that makes them less of rock/paper/scissors unit. C) Not every faction is jack/warbeast heavy. I play both mercs and cygnar, they can pull off large battle groups but they generally work better with infantry. Melee infantry with your changes will have serious issues killing anything with a grid or spiral. This will hurt infantry heavy armies. D) Also a lot of times people buy attacks after preforming combat maneuvers with heavies, such as trample. You trample through the infantry that you are in combat with up to what you actually want to kill and then start buying attacks. So trample, slam and other maneuvers would probably be used even less.

So yea you would make the game even more rock paper scissors. Which is NOT an improvement.

"I dont need to try it, I KNOW ALL AND KNOW ALL WILL FAIL"
"MY UNIT WON'T WORK AS WELL, SO I REFUSE TO THINK OF OTHER WAYS TO PLAY"
etc etc

If you want to keep being closed mind it, Go for it.
If you want to just have a joke game or two with a friend, its up to you

 Talamare wrote:

"I dont need to try it, I KNOW ALL AND KNOW ALL WILL FAIL"
"MY UNIT WON'T WORK AS WELL, SO I REFUSE TO THINK OF OTHER WAYS TO PLAY"
etc etc

If you want to keep being closed mind it, Go for it.
If you want to just have a joke game or two with a friend, its up to you

Meh, I said my 2 cents. If you are going to suggest trying fundamental changes like that and then just say those that criticize are closed minded that is your problem.

 Talamare wrote:
I KNOW ALL AND KNOW ALL WILL FAIL

He didn't say he knows all. He made a reasonable argument supported by specific examples.

*Warning* Turn away if you don't have a sense of humor..

To anyone complaining about this being not balanced, either does not have the necessary unit's or figures to make themselves more powerful or needs to refer to page 5.. LMAO Remember this is a joke.. We are fighting about miniatures and rules for said miniatures for goodness sake..

I actually love this ruleset. I have played since MK1 and if you want to talk about unbalanced.. Lets talk about that set of rules.. Granted certain things put out crazy damage, try not to be in its way.. Find a counter to it.. In this game there is a counter to everything that is powerful, just takes some ingenuity and dedication to find it.. But it is there..

Agreed with the content of his post---and I also agree with his post.



Sure, there are piece trades present in WM--at least at the start/midlevel of the game. As you progress in the game, you begin to learn how to mitigate those piece trades---or make those piece trades appear to be favorable to the opponent while really wanting to bait them into initiating.

For example, yeah I can make my Stalker in my eKaya list pretty much capable of dropping any heavy in the game if I invest enough support and Warlock Fury into it. Primal, Forced Evolution, Warp Strength. Of course, this takes 2 Fury from a support Gorax, a spell spent from my Warlock and exposure of a 10 pt beast--which I really hope doesn't roll a double 1 for a hit or miff some damage rolls--else I invested all of that energy and threw away my heavy. Or oops, I forgot about Enliven on the Menoth heavy and make sad face as he walks away. Or, even if he doesn't, I drop his 8 pt Reckoner into the dirt--and hope (If I have enough Fury left to Sprint)--that he can't get his second Menoth heavy into me after he washes his focus with Choir--as the Menoth player will swap 8 pt heavies for my Stalker all day.


This also assumes you can get your Stalker into the Reckoner that isn't being shielded by self sac, tough Errants (or Enliven)---and my opponent is unaware of how hard/fast I can push my Stalker.




Using another example (infantry), when you first start playing and...perhaps...are used to another game...your first inclination will be unit swapping entire units. Well, I charge this big unit into his big unit because they can all get there and kill those front 5 guys dead--now he smashes the rest of his front unit into what's tying him up---now our second units go. After you play a bit, you find yourself starting to even swap individual models from intertwined units into each other--more carefully committing units rather than just trying to roll buckets of dice.


And I don't mean any of this in an offensive way. I played 40k for "years" and I still find myself wanting to the do the before mentioned--then getting my head to switch more into WM mode.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

Meh, I said my 2 cents. If you are going to suggest trying fundamental changes like that and then just say those that criticize are closed minded that is your problem.

 Manchu wrote:

 Talamare wrote:
I KNOW ALL AND KNOW ALL WILL FAIL

He didn't say he knows all. He made a reasonable argument supported by specific examples.

Hardly, he gave a few scratch examples without supplying anything concrete

I will even break down his arguments

 Blood Hawk wrote:

I don't have to try it, I have played enough warmachine know that is not a good idea. A few things: A) that does not make everything survive more that makes jacks/warbeasts survive more. A lot of models like arcane tempest gun mages depend on high defense to survive and will still die in one hit even without the bonus die for charge damage. Also most times when a jack is fighting gun mages 9 times out of 10 you are boosting to hit because of the high defense anyway. Most infantry have one hit point and only decent arm so they will be just as vulnerable as before. Medium base infantry or shield wall infantry stand a better chance but they still die generally in one hit to heavies. B) You also made the game more rock paper scissors which is bad. One unit I use a lot press gangers now is rather useless towards anything with a damage grid or spiral. Before I could at least in a pinch charge them in verses a heavy to try take it out, without the charge bonus they don't have much chance at all. Now press gangers aren't good normally against jacks anyway but at least I can do something on the charge, that makes them less of rock/paper/scissors unit. C) Not every faction is jack/warbeast heavy. I play both mercs and cygnar, they can pull off large battle groups but they generally work better with infantry. Melee infantry with your changes will have serious issues killing anything with a grid or spiral. This will hurt infantry heavy armies. D) Also a lot of times people buy attacks after preforming combat maneuvers with heavies, such as trample. You trample through the infantry that you are in combat with up to what you actually want to kill and then start buying attacks. So trample, slam and other maneuvers would probably be used even less.

So yea you would make the game even more rock paper scissors. Which is NOT an improvement.

A - 1 HP Infantry with Low Armor that rely on Defense won't see any real changes... Correct... Irrelevant... (Edit- and Honestly they don't need any changes, they are already considered the most "survivable" infantry type, Edit2 Outside of Tough abuse)
A2 - 1 HP Infantry with High Armor or Medium Armor with 8 HP... WILL be able to survive much longer, which is already an improvement. Considering these types of infantry now are often no different in survivability than their lower arm cousins
B - The game has been based on counters ever since the beginning, relying on having tools that work better in situations makes the game BETTER. Ubiquitous "WIN" units are bad, which is also why most of us quit 40k
B2 - "My extremely low Pow unit will no longer be able to hurt heavies, and that makes your suggestion bad"
C - No, Melee infantry designed to kill infantry will have a difficult time killing heavies. Melee infantry designed to kill heavies won't be hurt at all...

D - Agreed, The idea is to also make those power attacks more popular. So we would need to improve the overall suggestion in a way that would promote power attacks

 Talamare wrote:
If you want to just have a joke game or two with a friend, its up to you

The key words here are "joke game". You are talking about a "joke game" and want people to take it seriously?

@ Juraigamer: You may not like the Chess comparison, but it is very apt. The piece trade is very similar. In both games you offer up your pieces in order to put the enemy in a worse position. Both games are very much about move/countermove. The game is designed with offense in mind to keep things aggressive, fast and tactical. Also in both games the King/warcaster being lost causes you to lose the game. All pieces in both games tend to have various power levels, but all are useful. The number of parallels you can draw between the two is enormous. I played 40k for about 15 years. I've played chess since middle school. and when I switched to warmachine I found that thinking like a chess player was more helpful in a lot more ways than thinking as a 40k player.

Increasing defensive stats and/or reducing offensive ones will just make a relatively boring game where you go back and forth battering your head on a wall and/or roll buckets of dice. 40K is actually much more reliant on good/bad dice rolls than Warmachine. In Warmachine the dice are set up to reward good stats as your rolls average out much more. Also Warmachine rewards tactics and knowledge of the game much more as you have to rely on these things instead of buckets o' dice.

All that said, there are still ways to play the hard to kill game in Warmachine. Terminus is probably the ultimate example. Wintergaurd deathstar is another. And it can also be done multiple ways thru bringing units back, maxing ARM, maxing DEF, using clouds or other things to make you harder to kill. But OTOH everything you can bring can also be countered. Both of those have hard coutners in the game that make their defenses all for naught.

 Talamare wrote:

A - 1 HP Infantry with Low Armor that rely on Defense won't see any real changes... Correct... Irrelevant... (Edit- and Honestly they don't need any changes, they are already considered the most "survivable" infantry type, Edit2 Outside of Tough abuse)
A2 - 1 HP Infantry with High Armor or Medium Armor with 8 HP... WILL be able to survive much longer, which is already an improvement. Considering these types of infantry now are often no different in survivability than their lower arm cousins
B - The game has been based on counters ever since the beginning, relying on having tools that work better in situations makes the game BETTER. Ubiquitous "WIN" units are bad, which is also why most of us quit 40k
B2 - "My extremely low Pow unit will no longer be able to hurt heavies, and that makes your suggestion bad"
C - No, Melee infantry designed to kill infantry will have a difficult time killing heavies. Melee infantry designed to kill heavies won't be hurt at all...

D - Agreed, The idea is to also make those power attacks more popular. So we would need to improve the overall suggestion in a way that would promote power attacks

A: What game are you playing? Between chain lightning, storm pods, stormsmiths, gunmages with deadeye I cut straight through high defense infantry. Most survivable infantry type? Please. That is just cygnar too, and other factions have pop and drop (pKreoss anyone), ash to ashes, blast damage, electroleap type effects, slams, throws, etc. Plenty of effects deal with high defense. Only infantry that I see reliably survive until the end of the game are the medium base kind, such as Man-O-War Shock-troopers.

A2: What you mean shield walled 1 hp models? Given what you pay for them their durability shouldn't go up. Remember that a full unit of these guys are still cheaper than most heavies. For what you pay for them they are just fine.
The 8 hit point infantry are basically one weight class smaller than light warjacks. So yea they die horribly to heavies and high damage units like doom reavers and troll champions but so do light warjacks.

B: Based on counters yes, but I did say that press gangers are not good at fighting jacks. My point is that at least they could potentially try to hurt a jack if the situation absolutely called for it. On the charge they can put a dent in a warjack, probably not kill it but maybe help another model lets say my heavy to finish it off, or finish off the enemy jack after my heavy went to town. With the no more boosted charge damage they can't even do that.

To use a different example it would be like if the black 13th didn't have brutal damage as an attack type (just didn't exist) I probably wouldn't field them in my TAC list. Why? because if I go against gators for example (which are really popular I have found) I won't be doing much damage at all to all those medium base infantry and warbeasts. Or at least not enough to warrant spending the pts on them.

B2: Yes that means that press gangers are much more a rock paper scissors unit, please explain why you think that is good thing.

C: "No, Melee infantry designed to kill infantry will have a difficult time killing heavies. Melee infantry designed to kill heavies won't be hurt at all..." YES THEY WILL. Getting the charge against heavies IS how units like forge guard get the job done vs. jacks. Even if I don't kill you on the charge I will at least maybe cripple an arm or cortex and make that jack far less useful and then finish you off next turn. Any melee infantry that want to drop that jack fast need that charge bonus to do it otherwise you will lose a good chunk of those infantry, since any hit on those from the heavy WILL squash them.

D: Then you have a strange way of going about it then. Most times people don't use those power attacks because a lot of times just charging in and getting your initials and extra attacks from focus/fury is just better. Making it so you can't attack period if you weapon lock will probably make me less likely to do that over just attacking.

Nicely put, Age of Egos. The things you describe match my experience very well.

 Blood Hawk wrote:

D: Then you have a strange way of going about it then. Most times people don't use those power attacks because a lot of times just charging in and getting your initials and extra attacks from focus/fury is just better. Making it so you can't attack period if you weapon lock will probably make me less likely to do that over just attacking.

In general people use less power attacks because they are often not needed, Why get clever and fancy attempting to disable when buying more attacks and just pounding them will remove them completely
One potential solution would be that power attacks are no longer a choice between initials or power attacks

 Talamare wrote:
NOTE - This is not suggestions to make the official game different

This is suggestion to make everything survive more

My two best suggestions so far is that
1 - No buying attacks
2 - Charging does NOT give you an additional die on damage

and Yes, this means that the balance of everything would drastically shift,
Would it make for an interesting game? Perhaps...
Would the game be longer? Very likely...
Would the game be unplayable? Doubtful

Find a friend and try it out for a game or two, You might just enjoy it

The biggest problem with your ideas is the amount it would exponentially slow down the game. Charges doing more damage make charging worthwhile (past the extra threat range), particularly when with some models it's a commodity you have to pay for. Not being able to buy attacks would just really, really make the game take a lot longer.