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Yeah, I'm against bringing back the old force organization of Core, Special, and Rare. I think the keyword restrictions in place now are enough. Adding new categories would be entirely artificial.

Talking about the dwarven engineer and the orc bully, the same goes for the TK necrotect. He can currently boost an undefined amount of screaming skull catapults at the same time.

Solaris wrote:
Yeah, I'm against bringing back the old force organization of Core, Special, and Rare. I think the keyword restrictions in place now are enough. Adding new categories would be entirely artificial.

Talking about the dwarven engineer and the orc bully, the same goes for the TK necrotect. He can currently boost an undefined amount of screaming skull catapults at the same time.

Yeah, the Necro will also recieve the same treatment when it's TK:s time to be updated

Three lists updated today! High Elves, Lizardmen, and Vampire Counts v0.6 can all be found at the blog!

Attila, you migh very well have crushed poor Solaris spirit. He was planning on getting himself a prince on dragon but at 700 points it seems a bit steep. Personally I thank you for making everything he likes more expensive

I ran Skaven vs Orcs&Goblins today. A few notes: The weapon teams are not very differentiated all costing 75 pts. But they have wildly different range and effectiveness. Both my ratling guns were slaughtered while the mortars fared much better both in kills and survival.

The goblin Rock Lobber and Doom Diver are both steals (A doom diver assassinated my 90 pt skaven chieftain the first turn :() A dwarven grudge thrower is more than twice the cost of the rock lobber and is not more than twice as strong. (I'd rather have 2 rock lobbers than 1 grudge thrower any day).

He fielded 8 regular trolls and we were abit confused about how to resolve their too stupid to die rule. The way we played it was we allocated wounds until they all died, then rolled for too stupid to die and then allocated any remaning wounds to those who were too stupid to die and rolled again. I don't know if this is correct but when played that way they are really lackluster at their current points cost. My much cheaper rat ogres made mincemeat out of them.

I have also tried the warriors of chaos again and found them well balanced (except for the poor chimera)

Good work with the updates

Deusvult wrote:
Attila, you migh very well have crushed poor Solaris spirit. He was planning on getting himself a prince on dragon but at 700 points it seems a bit steep. Personally I thank you for making everything he likes more expensive

I ran Skaven vs Orcs&Goblins today. A few notes: The weapon teams are not very differentiated all costing 75 pts. But they have wildly different range and effectiveness. Both my ratling guns were slaughtered while the mortars fared much better both in kills and survival.

The goblin Rock Lobber and Doom Diver are both steals (A doom diver assassinated my 90 pt skaven chieftain the first turn :() A dwarven grudge thrower is more than twice the cost of the rock lobber and is not more than twice as strong. (I'd rather have 2 rock lobbers than 1 grudge thrower any day).

He fielded 8 regular trolls and we were abit confused about how to resolve their too stupid to die rule. The way we played it was we allocated wounds until they all died, then rolled for too stupid to die and then allocated any remaning wounds to those who were too stupid to die and rolled again. I don't know if this is correct but when played that way they are really lackluster at their current points cost. My much cheaper rat ogres made mincemeat out of them.

I have also tried the warriors of chaos again and found them well balanced (except for the poor chimera)

Good work with the updates

Haha yeah that was one big increase in points, but that dragon just hits through the roof with its damage output, and can take a ton of beating too. Could always lower the cost if it proves too high from gaming experience, though

Thanks for the input on the Weapon Teams, I'll take a closer look at it when Skaven goes v0.6! The same goes for the O&G warmachines - they'll get theirs for sure

The Rat Ogres are too cheap now though, and will get a slight raise in next update. They have about the same damage output as the trolls when counting the vomit as well, but don't get the troll regen and other special rules. On that topic, I would play the Too Dumb To Die like this:
1. Allocate wounds to the first troll.
2. Did it die? If yes, roll a dice.
3. If it stands back up, put the next damage on him and see if it still is too dumb to die.
4. Continue allocating and rolling for it until the roll is failed, and then continue to place damage on a new troll.

When it comes to the trolls for speed's sake i would just roll all the saves at once then do the too stupid to die for any that died other wise your'l be doing 4 save rolls followed a too stupid followed by one save rinse and repeat 30 odd times

Uhm, I don't know about this. Some of the HE changes seem borderline insane to me o.O If you rely on playtesting for the Prince of Dragon, I think you'll be out of luck - at 700 points he will never see any play at all. He costs as much as two Greater Daemons. Does he really perform like two?

The Griffon I don't know about, he's never really done anything for me even at the previous price of 250, so I don't think he'll do any better at 275. Maybe other people have different experiences though?

Great job on the Silver Helms and Dragon Princes, I think they are now differentiated enough to serve different niches, without one clearly outperforming the other in every scenario. The Silver Helms still have an initial cost of 135 for 5, is this an error? Should be 125.

The price increases for the Prince and the Mage are probably fine, especially the Mage has really been a staple of mine in every list I've played.

The Bolt Thrower at 130 pts... I don't know, that's harsh. But it seems to be in line with other Warmachine costs in 0.6, so I guess that's fine. It does tend to perform fairly well after all.

Swordmaster and White Lions increases are probably fine. I don't have any experience with the Lions, but the Swordmasters tend to do well. Since they have identical stat lines, that means White Lions should do well too, so these are probably fine. Btw, I assume that the initial price of 60 for 5 White Lions is wrong, and should be 70 instead?

I assume the Sea Helm price is placeholder for when prices for Command Abilities are implemented (at least I hope so). This guy is now officially a General-only type of character I think, the price is just too high if you don't get to use the Command Ability.

All in all, a sad day for HE players

Sunday commentary time!

-I think Hellstriders should have their ppm reduced by 2 points, the runeshiekd upgrade increased by 1 point, and the enrapturing banner increase by 5-7

-Marauder Horesmen are quite overcosted. Their cost should probably drop to 15ppm, though increasing the shield upgrade by 1 point.

-skeleton archers need a 1-2ppm reduction

-skeleton warriors should probably be only 9ppm above 30 to account for how many of them won't be attacking

-grave guard should drop 1ppm but then cost 1ppn to upgrade to great weapons

-both morgast units should have a 15-20 increase for the first model to account for their spell buffing.

-the new summoning spell is cool, though I'm noticing that it's worth more on wizards that can cast two+ spells a turn. Not sure how to address this.

Hi all:
I used Skarbrand in league today vs Skaven. He died turn two after he killed a 20+ unit of Plague Monks. One unit of 5 Jezzails killed him. I still think Jezzails are too good and Skarbrand might need a small point reduction. He is scary on paper, but can he kill his pts. value before he gets put down?

TBF plague monks aren't an ideal measure of Skarbrand's effectiveness. They are 1-wound and have no save, rendering the -2 rend on his main attacks pointless and the effect of his single uber attack nearly so. I think its more a case of Jezzails needing an increase (which others have been saying as I recall) than Skarbrand needing a decrease. Against armies with significant ranged capacity its unlikely he will kill his points value anyways because he will be the target of first priority, but in that scenario he will enable other units to get into combat unharmed where they would otherwise have been shot up.

Solaris wrote:
Uhm, I don't know about this. Some of the HE changes seem borderline insane to me o.O If you rely on playtesting for the Prince of Dragon, I think you'll be out of luck - at 700 points he will never see any play at all. He costs as much as two Greater Daemons. Does he really perform like two?

The Griffon I don't know about, he's never really done anything for me even at the previous price of 250, so I don't think he'll do any better at 275. Maybe other people have different experiences though?

Great job on the Silver Helms and Dragon Princes, I think they are now differentiated enough to serve different niches, without one clearly outperforming the other in every scenario. The Silver Helms still have an initial cost of 135 for 5, is this an error? Should be 125.

The price increases for the Prince and the Mage are probably fine, especially the Mage has really been a staple of mine in every list I've played.

The Bolt Thrower at 130 pts... I don't know, that's harsh. But it seems to be in line with other Warmachine costs in 0.6, so I guess that's fine. It does tend to perform fairly well after all.

Swordmaster and White Lions increases are probably fine. I don't have any experience with the Lions, but the Swordmasters tend to do well. Since they have identical stat lines, that means White Lions should do well too, so these are probably fine. Btw, I assume that the initial price of 60 for 5 White Lions is wrong, and should be 70 instead?

I assume the Sea Helm price is placeholder for when prices for Command Abilities are implemented (at least I hope so). This guy is now officially a General-only type of character I think, the price is just too high if you don't get to use the Command Ability.

All in all, a sad day for HE players

Don't worry Solaris, there will be ups and downs before we hit 1.0 where the balance should feel good enough

Well, comparing the Dragon to a Bloodthirster, the Dragon has more than twice the killing power, but it doesn't have twice the staying power. It does have a really good CMD ability though, so as long as we don't do seperate CMD from base cost that has to be included in the total. All that said, this is pretty much just theoryhammering and formulamaking, so it's a great possibility for decreased costs if it is too high in reality.

The same is true for the poor Sea Helm - as long as we don't seperate the ability from the base cost, he is pretty much out of luck unless used in certain lists as the general.

The Silver Helms and White Lions should indeed cost what you write...sloppy of me!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Sunday commentary time!

-I think Hellstriders should have their ppm reduced by 2 points, the runeshiekd upgrade increased by 1 point, and the enrapturing banner increase by 5-7

-Marauder Horesmen are quite overcosted. Their cost should probably drop to 15ppm, though increasing the shield upgrade by 1 point.

-skeleton archers need a 1-2ppm reduction

-skeleton warriors should probably be only 9ppm above 30 to account for how many of them won't be attacking

-grave guard should drop 1ppm but then cost 1ppn to upgrade to great weapons

-both morgast units should have a 15-20 increase for the first model to account for their spell buffing.

-the new summoning spell is cool, though I'm noticing that it's worth more on wizards that can cast two+ spells a turn. Not sure how to address this.

Thanks, I'll look into these things. The Morghasts used to cost more for the first one, but they are pretty easily killed after all so we decided to change that. In the beginning there were many things that cost more for the initial unit if they had a "unit based special rule" but that made the lists abit harder to use, and I think the PPC might already be hard enough with its scaling points costs for units.

Smellingsalts wrote:
Hi all:
I used Skarbrand in league today vs Skaven. He died turn two after he killed a 20+ unit of Plague Monks. One unit of 5 Jezzails killed him. I still think Jezzails are too good and Skarbrand might need a small point reduction. He is scary on paper, but can he kill his pts. value before he gets put down?

As Ninth says, maybe it would have been better with a different target - he can pretty much oneshoot lots of beasts out there But on the other hand, as Solaris pointed out, the most extreme damage dealers (dragon, skarbrand, etc) might well be overpriced right now, and will get decreased in that case! In any way, the Jezzail will go up in v0.6

Ninthmustekteer, you can only cast the same spell once per phase per wizard so problem solved as wizards with 2 spells will only be able to summon once unless you paid for both spells and then ones a baby version,
I have a question tho about zombie shambling horde rule i get it that you cant merge several small units, but it does allow for reinforcing zombie units but with the not allowing the horde to go above starting numbers but what does that mean for the zombies left over? Or can i reinforce over the starting number as long as there not the from the original army?

On the summon spell, I meant that the wizard in question can cast the summon and something else, unlike one spell wizards which have to sacrifice their single spell out in favor of summoning. The versatility aspect is what I am referring to.

[Edit] In regards to morgasts, I still feel the initial model should cost a bit more, because quite frankly the initial model is better. If its a matter of the unit becoming overcosted (I doubt it since they are so powerful) then the additional models can cost less. It's not really adding complexity since other units are (rightly so) costed the same way, and its something which is present in 40k and other wargames anyway, so people are used to seeing it. I agree that the scaling unit costs are as complex as we should go but I disagree that it means we should avoid other units using less complex pricing schemes.

Ninth, you have created a monster! Every time you win against Tristan he pulls out the Warscroll book and comes up with more heinous combos. I got home and Tristan had several more truly horrible things to throw at people.

When he goes overboard I just proxy something worse and remind him where the end point is to excessive optimization . To bring this on topic though, I tried out the pox riders from Tamurkhan and I think both them and the plague toads need a 10ppm increase. While their damage output is 'meh' at best, the 4+ extra save against regular or mortal wounds is quite potent.

Hey guys,
So anyone have any thoughts about the mortis engine? its good, but im not quite sure that its worth 280+ pts.

Its very dependent on what you are playing it against. I think that vs daemons or undead it certainly isn't worth that much. But I also think that against almost everything else its easily worth that amount (or more). The reason here is it's main ability is wail of the dammed, which is entirely dependent on enemy bravery for how effective it is. Its going to be one of those units that's very difficult to price since context has such a huge effect on how well it will perform; aside from the bravery there is also how many units the enemy has (a few blobs vs msu), if the enemy is ranged or melee heavy, and if the enemy is running a lot of wizards or not. So all this leaves me asking what is the context that leads you to think it's over costed? Because at a glance it seems appropriate to me but I'm not very sure.

The wail of the damned ability does D3 mortal which is decent but not anything extraordinary. besides that the mortis engine performs similar to an amped- up corpse cart, with the reliquary rule being it's main boon. since undead have singular wounds for most infantry (In the VC list) it leads me to think that a points reduction of 20 points should be made, since the blasphemous tome upgrade is the real potential in synergy, 280 points seems very appropriate (with the upgrade).

My issues from play testing my VC's are...

Mannfred and Neferata cost way too much. Arkhan getting his summoning nerfed should drop down a hundred points or so as well. These guys are decent but they're definitely not worth 700 freakin points. It's insane.

Nagash at 1200 points? Come on now... The only reason everyone cries about him is due to his insane summoning potential which is nerfed to the ground. At this point he's a waste of money. No one in their right mind is going to field him.

It just seems like everything is over costed with this comp.

I'm playing enough games to get a feel of it but I'm just no sold yet.

I'll keep my eye open and pop back to check for updates but right now it's not working out.

Probably best to clarify whether or not Nagash starts with the Will of Nagash spell or he has to pay for it like every other wizard that would bump his price to 1300pts, pretty interesting tho looking at his rules in correlation with pcc maybe it would be worth making it so his "death magic incarnate" abilty is changed to doubling the amount of points that he can summon so then he'd be the only one who could summon zombie dragons and terrorgheights.

Also @ screaming echo, if you compare all the factions prices together you see that they are very similar depending on what unit your looking at, the only way some thing could be over costed is if some thing some where was of the same power was under costed, with the players in control after time all the units will have reasonably fair points costs.

From my experience fighting Mannfred I would say he is worth every one of his 700 points, at least as general. The re-roll 1's to hit and wound on a huge aoe is amazing, and makes his attacks almost auto-hit (2's with re-roll 1's) with his wound rolls not far behind. He is resilient because of ignoring the first wound each turn and his healing ability, and can cast two spells a turn. I simply do not see how he is not worth his points. I haven't experienced Neferata on the table but she doesn't look like she is overcosted either. Arkan I have seen several times and can say that he really needs to be used right to be worth his points, and having the summon spell is part of that. All in all undead are a very synergy driven army, if you think something isn't worth its points try combining it with different units and combos before passing judgement. For example, mannfred+corpse cart+30 or more zombies = zombies that hit on 2's and wound on 3's, re-rolling 1's for both of those. These are zombies that cost an average of 5 points a model.

On a different note, I tried out some different units today. I'll have to try some of them a few more times but I have to say Be'Lakor is not a 300 point model. I would put him easily at 400 points or more. I really think he should be more like 450-500.

Also, after several games with the 0.6 daemons I have to say good work with the points balancing; all the units I've tried that had changes feel much better where they are at (even the ones that went up).

i played against daemon's yesterday @ 1750 with my skaven, very balanced even tho my skaven lost :( , he chosse to endure and at the end of the 6th turn he had a wounded herald of nurgle left that robbed me of victory.......Curse you Mr Nurgle!!!!!!

I've been pondering how to assemble my next box of paladins and I can't but help feeling like the retributors are superior to the others (especially the decimators) when priced at 40 pts each. The protectors have a nice niche but the decimators just feel weak. They have such massive bases that it will be difficult to get any real value vs a horde of clanrats or dwarf warriors, how often will you get more than 4 attacks each? I think they should probably be a bit cheaper than the others.

I find that its quite easy to get more than 4 attacks each against most infantry, use them against units that have a 1" melee range and then if your enemy keeps them back to reduce your attacks then at least your decimators won't be receiving many in return. They are a much more niche unit than the other paladins but are very powerful within that niche, a good example of a unit that may not quite be worth its points a lot of the time, but is worth much more than its points some of the time. If you want to give them more utility then you can add a starsoul mace as well. Their main problem is outside of the PPC's 'jurisdiction' so to speak; really the ideal size is a unit of 3. That said, I do think retributors have a slight edge on the other two because their basic weapons are better. It might be good to add an extra 2ppm to them.

Morning, a question about the Grand Invocation summoning for the Daemons. Can a unit of Pink horrors take it as they have the Chaos and Wizard keywords?

a 2nd question on the Skaven Warplock the power accumulator cost of a potential 1 MW on a failed roll, is 95 points fair for a spell that dishes d6 MW with only that risk?

I would assume yes on the first question but Attilla is the one who makes the calls. As for the second, personally I think its a matter of utility that puts the cost back down; most wizards' signature spell brings something to the table that couldn't be done otherwise, while the warlock engineer's spell is identical to arcane bolt unless he uses the power accumulator. Either way he effectively only has 2 spells; Mystic Shield and Warp Lightning, to other wizards' three. Granted it isn't a huge difference, but he is priced similarly to many other level 1 wizards. In my opinion he's ok.

On the topic of wizards, Heinrich Kemmler seems undercosted to me at 150 points. In my eyes 2 spells a turn puts him at 150 without any other abilities, but he has an extra movement ability (that can pull him out of melee without needing to retreat), and the ability to look out sir on a 2+ instead of the necromancer's 4+.

I think with the warplock engineer you have to look at him in a certain light, compare him to a warp lighting cannon @160pts, the warplock has less range, less wounds and less Armour but can do the same amount of damage but its straight up harder and with the chance of taking dmg and not working at all. so all in all 95pts is about right in this man's humble opinion.

Thanks everyone for the points input you have provided. It has now come from different sources that the most expensive models are too expensive for what they do, so it'll be a priority to check that more closely for 0.7 alongside command options. I'll also take a closer look at all the other units mentioned here, from plague toads to Engines, Kemmlers, Warplock Engineers, paladins and more

Also, welcome Sinister_Dexter and Screaming Echo, and thanks for taking the time to voice your questions and concerns!

To answer some of the more direct questions:

@ Hettar
Nagash does not start with the summoning spell. Argh, another good idea (summoning more points) that unfortunately means changing a warscroll, so doubtfully will happen :/

@ Sinister_Dexter
Yes, the horrors can take summoning spells, for the reasons you mentioned

Heads up that Orcs & Goblins, Skaven, and Warriors of Chaos have been updated to v0.6.

Also Solaris, I have taken a really close look at the formula and it does indeed put the points cost too high for many monsters. So the High Elf Dragonrider among others will recieve a more proper cost soont

Dwarf bolt thrower seems too cheap, should be the same a cannon or near about as it can quite easily do the same dmg

Sorry if I missed it, but do you have an army building tool like www.scrollbuilder.com? For lazy gamers like me, I'd definitely use PPC if I could click my way into an army and not have to read the document/add it up myself.