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 Shandara wrote:
Warlord Traits, Psychic Powers, Random Rewards, etc..

they should all have balanced points values.

But that also means making powers like Invisibility cost a lot of points. Or toning them down to make them less gamechanging.

Psychic powers are completely impossible to properly balance, as one power can easily have wildly different levels of power between individual armies.

Look at for example, Iron Arm.
On a T3/T4 model with access to solid combat gear, such as a 4++/3++ & ap2 weapon with 3-4 basic attack, (ie: Grey Knight Bro Captain/Grandmaster), it's probably worth about 15-20pts, as it will shift them up to the same level of survivability as a basic MC. Thus, it can turn an otherwise nasty, but squishy close combat character into a monster.
But on that same T4 model with only 2 attacks such as a Librarian, suddenly it's not quite so hot, as he doesn't have the innate stats to fully exploit the power.

However, when used by any model that's already rocking T5/T6 to begin with, it's power is vastly improved. On a Daemon Prince for example, you're negating his one glaring weakness - namely T5. At T8, a DP becomes an absolute nightmare to deal with, as he effectively becomes a +1W Wraithlord, but with the combat stats to level entire squads. (S8 FTW!)
For a basic Monstrous Creature, Iron Arm is probably worth more like 25-30pts at the very least. On a FMC close combat beatstick though? Now it's easily worth 35-45pts or more!

Likewise, there's literally no way in hell you can properly cost lores such as Daemonology!
Most armies take huge drawback just for attempting to use the lore, especially the better powers. (Summoning, Cleansing Flame, etc...) Daemons & Grey Knights however would need to pay more pts though, in order to balance out their natural affinity to these lores.


Psychic powers are balanced by their randomness. Armies that rely heavily on the Psychic phase are able to greatly reduce the inherent randomness, by the simply fact that they bring so many Mastery Levels that they can all but guarantee at least 1 copy of a hugely critical power.

Meanwhile, everyone else gets bonuses elsewhere that can easily make-up for not being able to ensure a single powerful psychic ability.

 Happyjew wrote:
Here's the problem with assigning point costs to Warlord Traits.

One of the traits give Stealth (ruins) and move through cover.
How much should it cost? Let's say 15 points.

Is it still worth 15 points if the terrain is 90% ruins? What if there are no ruins on the board?

When do you decide which warlord trait you are going to purchase? When you make your list, or at game time? What happens if you neglect to leave enough points for a warlord trait?

Here's the issue with your argument - warlord traits shouldn't be so specific as to vary wildly between useless and a significant advantage in the first place. For everyday play, they should confer something much more MOTR that will always be useful, or at least offer the player a choice, and never be utterly redundant. Therefore you choose the option during list construction like nearly every other option. You could even have a premium option which allowed you to choose another option before you deployed which would be fluffy in itself.

Traits as specific as "stealth in ruins" should be reserved for campaign books or special characters, where its use can be moderated in its utility, or where the player themselves understands in advance what they're getting.

The same applies for psychic powers and all other aspects of the game where random has been substituted for any sort of player agency, free choice balanced with approximate equality of use or points costs to allow for a range in potency really needs to be the way forward if the game is ever going to start to become more of a game of strategy and less one of complicated snakes and ladders again.

 buddha wrote:
I think the best solution for warlord traits would just be to assign them point costs.

The best solution is to let you reroll if it does not apply to your Warlord or make it so that you always have "Ideal Mission Commander".

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
Warlord Traits, Psychic Powers, Random Rewards, etc..

they should all have balanced points values.

But that also means making powers like Invisibility cost a lot of points. Or toning them down to make them less gamechanging.

Psychic powers are completely impossible to properly balance, as one power can easily have wildly different levels of power between individual armies.

Spoiler:

Look at for example, Iron Arm.
On a T3/T4 model with access to solid combat gear, such as a 4++/3++ & ap2 weapon with 3-4 basic attack, (ie: Grey Knight Bro Captain/Grandmaster), it's probably worth about 15-20pts, as it will shift them up to the same level of survivability as a basic MC. Thus, it can turn an otherwise nasty, but squishy close combat character into a monster.
But on that same T4 model with only 2 attacks such as a Librarian, suddenly it's not quite so hot, as he doesn't have the innate stats to fully exploit the power.

However, when used by any model that's already rocking T5/T6 to begin with, it's power is vastly improved. On a Daemon Prince for example, you're negating his one glaring weakness - namely T5. At T8, a DP becomes an absolute nightmare to deal with, as he effectively becomes a +1W Wraithlord, but with the combat stats to level entire squads. (S8 FTW!)
For a basic Monstrous Creature, Iron Arm is probably worth more like 25-30pts at the very least. On a FMC close combat beatstick though? Now it's easily worth 35-45pts or more!

Likewise, there's literally no way in hell you can properly cost lores such as Daemonology!
Most armies take huge drawback just for attempting to use the lore, especially the better powers. (Summoning, Cleansing Flame, etc...) Daemons & Grey Knights however would need to pay more pts though, in order to balance out their natural affinity to these lores.


Psychic powers are balanced by their randomness. Armies that rely heavily on the Psychic phase are able to greatly reduce the inherent randomness, by the simply fact that they bring so many Mastery Levels that they can all but guarantee at least 1 copy of a hugely critical power.

Meanwhile, everyone else gets bonuses elsewhere that can easily make-up for not being able to ensure a single powerful psychic ability.

Then the issue lies with the powers themselves and you redesign them to have less variance. Or you simply price them accordingly in the codex entry for each unit.

Let us take the Ork codex traits. 1-3 are realy uesefull (Fearless on WAAAAGH!, 12" Reroll morale and pinning, 12" reroll run and charge), 4-6 are bad (1 reroll to hit/to wound per turn, 1 reroll armour/invuln per turn, +1 S). The first 3 can be used in different lists and enhance different aspects of the ork stile. The other 3 are just bad compared to thouse and they just don't add anything. They neither help in combat (the Lucky stickk does it much better), nor do they help the army. Rolling 4+ on the ork traits is just like having no trait at all. Don't know how to classify other armies traits, but I believe they have the ame situation.

 hordrak wrote:
Let us take the Ork codex traits. 1-3 are realy uesefull (Fearless on WAAAAGH!, 12" Reroll morale and pinning, 12" reroll run and charge), 4-6 are bad (1 reroll to hit/to wound per turn, 1 reroll armour/invuln per turn, +1 S). The first 3 can be used in different lists and enhance different aspects of the ork stile. The other 3 are just bad compared to thouse and they just don't add anything. They neither help in combat (the Lucky stickk does it much better), nor do they help the army. Rolling 4+ on the ork traits is just like having no trait at all. Don't know how to classify other armies traits, but I believe they have the ame situation.

+1 Strength is godlike compared to "warlord gains prefered enemy (space marines)" from the CSM book...

Or 'Enemies take Fear tests at -1 LD' .. so useful.

Technically, the CSM trait is that all friendly models (so Daemons/Daemonkin count) within 12" of the Warlord have the trait, rather than just the Warlord. Which, while admittedly is naff if you end up fighting Eldar, Tau, or Necrons, is handy vs Marines where every bit helps.

Warlord traits and psyker powers need general reworking. The "best" Traits are those with armywide applicability, while the best Psyker powers are those that attack from an unusual vector or are buffs. Pyromancy is just awful, Telekinesis mostly mediocre, Sanctic a crapshoot for getting Vortex or Sanctuary. Telepathy and Divination are your best ones, with Biomancy a good third place. Random rolls or not, even the tables themselves are not balanced against each other and that's sad.

The main idea I can see behind the principle of rolling for magic spells etc etc is to provide variety and as a skill tester. You might not always have the exact spell you want so you have to consider the spells you do have from new angles given your wizard placement, the lay of the battlefield, what you're facing, what positioning they have and so on.

Viewing warlord traits as your commander being able to spot a possible momentary advantage you have in the situation and pressing it goes some way of justifying rolling for them although it doesn't work as an explanation for every single trait. If each trait was equally powerful on the whole and possibly even somewhat obscure they would make for neat little options that the more tactically-minded characters could have (something that psykers and walking blenders wouldn't have).

M0ff3l wrote:

 hordrak wrote:
Let us take the Ork codex traits. 1-3 are realy uesefull (Fearless on WAAAAGH!, 12" Reroll morale and pinning, 12" reroll run and charge), 4-6 are bad (1 reroll to hit/to wound per turn, 1 reroll armour/invuln per turn, +1 S). The first 3 can be used in different lists and enhance different aspects of the ork stile. The other 3 are just bad compared to thouse and they just don't add anything. They neither help in combat (the Lucky stickk does it much better), nor do they help the army. Rolling 4+ on the ork traits is just like having no trait at all. Don't know how to classify other armies traits, but I believe they have the ame situation.

+1 Strength is godlike compared to "warlord gains prefered enemy (space marines)" from the CSM book...

Shandara wrote:Or 'Enemies take Fear tests at -1 LD' .. so useful.

That's what I'm talking about. Some traits are just plain bad. Getting to pick or buy traits would improve this slightly. But the best thing would be allowing to pick them and make every trait in the game usefell, so that the picking would not come down to taking 1-2 autopicks.

You could also deliberately make them quite strong, but only have the "martial" HQ types allows to select from them.

This may encourage the selection of Captains over Librarians, Autarchs over Farseers etc if they are perhaps a little less spectacular individually but provide a nice army wide support in change.

This may be playing into the hands of Smashfether etc (if that's still a thing?) a little, but I think it would be not the worst thing ever overall.

I really wish all psychic powers and warlord traits could be costed and chosen sometimes. It would add to the narrative feel, but at the same time it would also make some armies bat gak insane.

Imagine how crazy daemons would be if every single daemon caster got cursed earth? I would pay the points to make sure I got cursed earth!

Clexus assassins sure would be popular lol.

 Shandara wrote:
Or 'Enemies take Fear tests at -1 LD' .. so useful.

Warlord traits like these murder orks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hordrak wrote:
Let us take the Ork codex traits. 1-3 are realy uesefull (Fearless on WAAAAGH!, 12" Reroll morale and pinning, 12" reroll run and charge), 4-6 are bad (1 reroll to hit/to wound per turn, 1 reroll armour/invuln per turn, +1 S). The first 3 can be used in different lists and enhance different aspects of the ork stile. The other 3 are just bad compared to thouse and they just don't add anything. They neither help in combat (the Lucky stickk does it much better), nor do they help the army. Rolling 4+ on the ork traits is just like having no trait at all. Don't know how to classify other armies traits, but I believe they have the ame situation.

Being able to buy the first ork warlord trait would be huge since that would mean fearless orks in turn 2+ and later even without using the ghaz supplement.

 oldzoggy wrote:

 Shandara wrote:
Or 'Enemies take Fear tests at -1 LD' .. so useful.

Warlord traits like these murder orks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 hordrak wrote:
Let us take the Ork codex traits. 1-3 are realy uesefull (Fearless on WAAAAGH!, 12" Reroll morale and pinning, 12" reroll run and charge), 4-6 are bad (1 reroll to hit/to wound per turn, 1 reroll armour/invuln per turn, +1 S). The first 3 can be used in different lists and enhance different aspects of the ork stile. The other 3 are just bad compared to thouse and they just don't add anything. They neither help in combat (the Lucky stickk does it much better), nor do they help the army. Rolling 4+ on the ork traits is just like having no trait at all. Don't know how to classify other armies traits, but I believe they have the ame situation.

Being able to buy the first ork warlord trait would be huge since that would mean fearless orks in turn 2+ and later even without using the ghaz supplement.

You just pointed it out, that fearless would be a massive buff to your orks, stop fear and nullify one of the ork weaknesses but it comes at the opportunity cost of any other warlord trait you can build a list with... put a points cost to it and there you have an awesome thematic rule that means your HQ is more than just a beatstick character or a tax like the DE court...

I'm 100 percent on board with choosing the warlord traits. None of them as it stands are so powerful that they tip the scale.

Psychic powers would really need to be reworked though before picking them would be fair.

As mentioned, WTs and Spells should be point upgrades.

I'm fine with Warlord traits being free, to balance out the liability that is slay the warlord.

I never liked buying powers unless your going to price them per unit entry. Iron arm or preconation on my Lib or Inquisitor is decent. On a MC it's much more powerful.

If we had to spend points on traits and psychic powers we wouldn't have to spend as much money toys. Duh.

I think one way to do it would be you get to choose either:

1, pick your warlord trait at army list creation (so you are stuck with it, even if it ends up sub-optimal against the army you are going to face).

or

2, roll at the normal time.

Rolling gives a little more flexibility, especially if your warlord is in a CAD, but pre-choosing lets you go with a trait that suits your strategy/fluff (e,g. you are running Deathguard CSM so choose feel no pain to make your chaos sorcerer seem more plague-mariney,).

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
If we had to spend points on traits and psychic powers we wouldn't have to spend as much money toys. Duh.

You don't think it'd come built into a new edition with rewritten tables justifying the need for new codexes, codexes which came with a commensurate drop in average PPM to not only allow for it, but bump the basic average numbers up too?!

Duh.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
If we had to spend points on traits and psychic powers we wouldn't have to spend as much money toys. Duh.

Another very important point.

That's why we'll never see something like a 10 marine force that can take on an army. GW wants to sell us 50-100 marines, not 10.

I like the idea of random psychic powers but rolling for Warlord traits is just stupid.
Take a game I had some months back: My Tank Commander ended up with Outflank. So, as I was using a CAD and not exactly eager to commit my Warlord to a suicidal manoeuvre I chose to reroll.... And ended up with Furious Charge. On my Tank Commander.

We should be able to pick our Warlord traits.
And no, to all those GW lovers out there, 'forging the narrative' is not an excuse for such crappy mechanics or heinous lack of balance.
If the guys at Warlords can balance early war units against late war units for Bolt Action then GW can surely do something similar.

Some of the stories I hear about warlords rolling bad traits does make me question if perhaps the wrong model was chosen as warlord (doesn't have to be highest LD or an HQ anymore, after all) or if the wrong table was rolled on.

A decent house rule is to roll on the BRB warlord traits and being able to pick from any of the 3-4 tables for that number roll. Writing them out on an excel sheet actually shows some good options for any roll for most Warlords. Might actually get personal and command traits used this way. Not sure how to make faction warlord traits work considering how bad some of them can be.

But to the topic at hand the current warlord trait situation is a mess. Things like (warlord + 3 units gain infiltrate) should not be left up to chance as that completely changes the way an army plays and can actually hurt small number armies who might not want to infiltrate. It would be nice to just select a trait but some are way better than others. Conqueror of Cities vs Master of Offence (Furious Charge on the Warlord) for example is a one sided no brainer.

I'm really not seeing there being a big problem with rolling for warlord traits as you make that decision immediately before you deploy. First off, you have a minimum of 4 tables to choose from (BRB 3 + at least 1 for your codex). Second, you know what enemy you're facing and what will likely be their advantage of deficit. Third, you know whether you're going first or second before you roll it, so certain tables are going to be more advantageous than others. And fourth, you know your own Warlord's weaknesses as far as Warlord traits go.

It's not GW being lazy here. It's players being too lazy to bother looking at all the options available before the game starts and coming up with strategies as to what table works best in assorted situations for your army.

I think that the generic ones should be rolled for, but the ones in the book should have default options.

For example:

If you choose one of the charts from the main rule book, then you can roll off one of those charts as normal.

If you choose the chart in your book then you roll on that. If you don't like the roll, you may default to one of options available for your specific HQ choice.

Lets say you play Chaos Space Marines. Different Warlord traits are available for the different legions for example:

Warlord Traits:
One model in your army must be selected to be the warlord. They may roll on this chart to see which warlord trait they benefit from, or may roll upon the warlord trait charts provided in the Warhammer 40,000 rulebook. Any Warlord can default their roll on the chart to the “Lord of Chaos” result if they choose. Likewise, Warlords from the Black Legion may default to “Despoiler of Worlds”. Warlords from the Word Bearers Legion may default to “Blasphemous Rhetoric”. Warlords from the Night Lords Legion may default to “Midnight Clad”. Warlords from the Alpha Legion may default to “Black Operative”. Warlords from the Iron Warriors Legion may default to “Iron Resolve”.

1. Despoiler of Worlds: The Warlord may choose to re-roll any successful or unsuccessful reserves rolls.
2. Daemon Kin: The Warlord and his unit may re-roll any invulnerable saving throws of 1.
3. Midnight Clad: The Warlord and his unit gain the Shrouded special rule and may re-roll failed cover saves.
4. Black Operative: The Warlord and his unit gain the Infiltrate, Outflank, and Deepstrike special rules. If deployed in reserve, you may choose to come on automatically turn 1, 2 or 3.
5. Iron Resolve: The Warlord and his unit have Hatred and Relentless special rules.
6. Lord of Chaos: The Warlord has +1 Weapon Skill and Attack.

Tropic Thunder wrote:
I'm really not seeing there being a big problem with rolling for warlord traits as you make that decision immediately before you deploy. First off, you have a minimum of 4 tables to choose from (BRB 3 + at least 1 for your codex). Second, you know what enemy you're facing and what will likely be their advantage of deficit. Third, you know whether you're going first or second before you roll it, so certain tables are going to be more advantageous than others. And fourth, you know your own Warlord's weaknesses as far as Warlord traits go.

It's not GW being lazy here. It's players being too lazy to bother looking at all the options available before the game starts and coming up with strategies as to what table works best in assorted situations for your army.

The tables have general theme this is true, but it has nothing to due with laziness. It's pure bad game design. even with in each chart and assuming a reroll from a formation It's still unreliable. I can't plan a strategy around a maybe.

nareik wrote:
Some of the stories I hear about warlords rolling bad traits does make me question if perhaps the wrong model was chosen as warlord (doesn't have to be highest LD or an HQ anymore, after all) or if the wrong table was rolled on.

Ah, so we're supposed to forge the narrative, but it isn't our narrative, it's whatever the game decides is the narrative for us based on some arbitrary roll of a dice?

You want the guy in the Command Tank to be the leader of your armored assault force? feth you! You should have chose that Sgt over there in the HWT!

HoundsofDemos wrote:

Tropic Thunder wrote:
I'm really not seeing there being a big problem with rolling for warlord traits as you make that decision immediately before you deploy. First off, you have a minimum of 4 tables to choose from (BRB 3 + at least 1 for your codex). Second, you know what enemy you're facing and what will likely be their advantage of deficit. Third, you know whether you're going first or second before you roll it, so certain tables are going to be more advantageous than others. And fourth, you know your own Warlord's weaknesses as far as Warlord traits go.

It's not GW being lazy here. It's players being too lazy to bother looking at all the options available before the game starts and coming up with strategies as to what table works best in assorted situations for your army.

The tables have general theme this is true, but it has nothing to due with laziness. It's pure bad game design. even with in each chart and assuming a reroll from a formation It's still unreliable. I can't plan a strategy around a maybe.

That's part of the problem, then. If you're hinging an entire army strategy on a warlord trait there are other issues to cope with. Warlord traits are cherries. You can still have a good sundae without one.

I would love to pick the warlord trait that lets me Infiltrate 3 units of guys omg