Elementalists?

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**JNAProductions**

Spoiler:

I'm working on a new army-the idea is that they're themed around the four elements-fire, earth, air, and water.

So far, I've got the four basic troops, and the Earthen Elite. There should be at least four options for each unit type, probably more.

Thoughts on what I have so far, especially for points costs?

**curran12**

Some assorted thoughts and questions:

Psychic Stats: This is not good, as it has no means to be denied as-written. If it is a psychic power, the opposing player should have a chance to deny. This may be your intent, but as it is worded, it's just a free stat boost that is turned off in the presence of exactly two units (Culexus and SoS), which is not a worthwhile thing.

Jet pistol - I'm S7, how does that work for its AP?

Vulcan Spreaders seem exceptionally powerful, especially since your squads can get 4 of them for 15 points each. How come they get more special weapons than any other Troops choice I know of? What are you basing the 15 points per gun cost on?

Wings of Cover - No rules issues, but I gotta be honest man...that name is just...AWFUL. Especially since it doesn't even do anything for your cover save.

Hail of Stones - Too powerful for a WC1 primaris. One shot at that is fine, not 3.

Aerial Bombardier - This doesn't work, as Vector Strike is a rule for flyers, not jump.

**JNAProductions**

Psychic Stats-They are meant to be undeniable. The thing is, you will NOT have enough warp charges to power them all up to the second number, so you have to make decisions about who needs buffs where. It is intended that the first number be pretty much always active-I'd point them with that in mind.

Jet Pistol would be AP-, then.

Vulcan Spreaders can have their points costs increased, easily. I'm just kinda throwing a few numbers out and seeing what sticks. And should I drop it to two weapons per 5, or even one per 5?

Better name suggestion for the wings?

And I'll drop Hail of Stones to Assault 1.

Aerial Bombardier should work, I think? I mean, you still go over units with the jump type, so why would vector strike not work? And is this a "The RAW doesn't quite work" issue, or a legitimate "I don't understand how this is supposed to work" issue?

Overall, thank you for your comments!

**Wyldhunt**

An elemental-themed faction sounds cool. Like, you could have the fire guys be the most millitaristic, have the earth guys be in charge of their technology, make the air guys be their pilots. Maybe have the water guys be some sort of diplomats? You could even have some fifth element that serves as their ruling caste.

It reminds me a bit of the benders from the Avatar series. Maybe take some other anime-related tropes to match the general aesthetic? For instance, you could make some mecha suits that they use in times of crisis. "Crisis suits" if you will...

I kid. More seriously, I struggle to see how these units would work overall. That's partly because I'm tired right now, but I do feel it's hard to comment without having a better idea of what the army would look like together. Could you explain the mechanical gimmick of the army in one or two paragraphs? For instance, dark eldar might be...

"A faster, squishier off-shoot of the eldar race. They get more durability and power as the game goes on (Power From Pain) and have tons of poison, but armor saves better than 5+ are extremely rare. They're reliant upon their open-topped skimmer transports for mobility, but these same transports let them move assault units into position quickly." Something sort of like that.

I notice a lot of very high statlines on these guys. Terrablades, for instance, are each as skilled with a melee weapon as a chapter master. Aero troopers shoot with more accuracy than space elf samurai dedicated to the art of shooting things (dark reapers) and centuries old space marine veteran marksmen. What's the justification for these stats, and would it dramatically alienate your intended playstyle or fluff to lower these numbers?

You seem to be drawing on special rules from a lot of different codices that make it a little tricky to keep track of what's what. Dune Strider from skitarii(?) for instance, and battle focus from eldar. It's hard to say with certainty at this time, but you might want to consider whether or not relatively cheap models really need that many different special rules. They might be fine as they are.

I don't think I like coalition of power. Again, it's hard to say without knowing more, but you could easily spam tons of small units with this army to generate enough dice to put a tzeentch list to shame. The reason this can be problematic is that Bob, who likes to take a single librarian in his casual games, will never have fun with his librarian against this army. You'll generally have enough dice to constantly shut down his psychic phase. Also, having to bust out the tape measure and figure out how many units are within 6" of each other as opposed to 12" can slow the game down. Especially as this army looks like it will be doing something in every phase of the game. Compare to daemons who sort of get away with things like the warp storm table because so few of their units will have any shooting of note to resolve.

It's hard to say much more without knowing more. at a glance, I look at it and see an army full of ridiculously high WS and BS scores, lots of mid-strength weaponry that will crush infantry but struggle against non-infantry, squishy soldiers with no delivery system (except aero troopers), and a psychic phase that will involve lots of book keeping.

Knowing how the army is meant to play hollistically might help.

**JNAProductions**

Probably a good idea. This is why I take it to the forums to have my ideas mercilessly torn down and reconstructed better than before.

The general idea is that everybody in the army is psychic to one degree or another, but most not to the point where you can actually cast powers. (Represented by the Psychic [Stat] (X/Y) abilities.)

Hrm... I'm trying to figure out what EXACTLY I want these guys to be, but I'm struggling.

I suppose I want them to be a specialist army-each unit has a role (and they can be potentially kitted out for different roles) and they EXCEL in that role, but crumple under other stresses.

**curran12**

I strongly object to anything that is effectively un-deniable and unstoppable. As I've said, there are only two things in the game that can stop it, and despite this "Psychic Stats" being psychic in nature, it is immune to defenses. Shadow in the Warp, etc just plain doesn't work on it because...reasons? It's too much. I'm fine with them having a self-cast blessing to boost their stats, but by having it just be there and be unstoppable, it is unreasonably powerful.

**Wyldhunt**

I've been kicking around a similar concept for a bunch of human psychic trained to keep a tight lid on their powers by Thousand Sons sorcerers. Basically, it's like if the X-Men were founded by a Thousand Sons' psyker and each guy had a squad of riflemen at his back trained to work in tandem with the psyker's carefully-controlled minor gifts.

It sounds like what you want to do is sort of like the old version of how eldar were meant to work: everyone does their niche job very well, but doesn't do anything else particularly well at all. Plus squishy.

So with that in mind, I'd recommend taking away some of the upgrade options on your guys and defining their niches a bit better. If your air guys are meant to be fast, short-ranged fire support that speeds up to an enemy and tosses shots at t hem, then is there any reason to make aerial bombardiers optional? By reducing options, you reduce customization, but you also make it easier to design around them. For instance, you might decide that dunestrider and battle focus, despite being okay on a non-jump unit, are a bit redundant on a jump unit. Or maybe you decide the air guys are meant to be a drive-bye shooting unit that shoots and scoots sort of like warp spiders.

If the idea is to give each unit a very specific job and to make them exclusively good at that job, then have rules that reinforce that.

Want tough but slow earth guys? Give them slow & purposeful, low initiative, and mediocre melee punch, but balance it out with a 2+ armor save (or whatever). You get the idea. Look at (non-warp spider) aspect warriors or chaos daemons for inspiration.

**JNAProductions**

Okay.

Earth Guys-Tough, hard to remove, and hit hard, but inaccurately. Should probably have a low WS/BS, but high T and rules like FNP.

Fire Guys-Hard hitting shooting specialists. Should be able to be kitted out for all ranges.

Air Guys-Highly mobile short-range skirmishers.

Water Guys-Melee specialists. Reasonably tough, but hit quite hard when they make it in.

**Wyldhunt**

Cool. So if I were to take those broad concepts, I'd be tempted to do something like this for the basic units:

Earth: Make them T4 with relatively good armor (4+ or 3+) and maybe FNP. Consider giving them a mechanic that lets them bolster terrain they're in (they're shaping the earth to form barriers) if they don't move, run, or charge that turn. This makes them a tough-to-remove-but-slow objective holder sort of like plague bearers or nurglings. Consider making an artillery piece heavy support version of these guys that flings bolders or messes with enemy mobility by shaking the earth. Earth is now your objective-holding support artillery.

Fire: Sounds like these guys should be your main ranged offense. There are lots of directions to go with them. Consider letting them combine their shooting into a single, longer ranged, harder hitting attack the way shadow spectres used to or let them choose between multiple weapon profiles the way oblits can (but with less impressive guns). That sort of thing. How much versatility these guys have is going to depend on how important you want the psychic phase to be and how many different sub units you want to make. For instance, do you want one unit to be able to offer tank-busting shots, or do you want a dedicated devastator/fire dragon equivalent for that?

Air: Lower their ballistics skill to like, 3 or 4. Remember, there are only a handful of people on Earth that qualify as BS4. Rather than giving them tons of special rules, make them jump AND jet packers. So they'll be insanely mobile, but they'll have to get dangerously close to shoot before running away. Makes them good at getting to objectives and lending fire support where needed. Think cheap swooping hawks with worse range or spiders but without the shenanigans.

Not sure what ot say about water. There's a million ways to make a unit good at melee.

Other things to consider:
*Should units be able to actively support one another, or is each unit meant to stand alone?
* Do multiple units of the same elemental type support each other or do their own thing?
* Does the army have transports? Can they deepstrike? Infiltrate? How do they get around? Tyranids tell us that footslogging rarely makes for a fun game unless you have some trick up your sleeve.

**JNAProductions**

Air should be able to Deepstrike.

Water should be able to Infiltrate.

Earth should probably have a transport.

Fire should have some sort of mobility coolness.

New ideas, with what you've said taken into account:

Terra Trooper
Infantry

WS-2
BS-2
S-3
T-4
W-1
I-2
A-1
Ld-8
Sv-3+

Wargear
Stone Armour (3+ Armour Save)
Earthen Handcannon (S3 AP6 18" Pistol)

Special Rules
Feel No Pain
Slow And Purposeful
Stone Fortifications-In any movement phase, a unit of Terra Troopers may elect to erect a bunker of stone. This grants them the Shrouded special rule, but they are considered to have gone to ground until the start of their next movement phase.

Vulanite Troopers
Infantry

WS-3
BS-4
S-3
T-3
W-1
I-3
A-1
Ld-8
Sv-5+

Wargear
Vulcan Blaster (S4 AP5 30" Rapid Fire)
Fiery Radiance (5+ Armour, 5+ Cover)

Special Rules
Vulcanic Combination-This unit may increase its power by shooting its guns as one. Any time they shoot, they may elect to change their weapon type to Heavy in order to combine fire. The unit fires a single weapon, with the following profile depending on how many people are left in the unit:
1: Standard Vulcan Blaster
2-3: S5 AP5 36" Heavy 1
4-5: S6 AP4 42" Heavy 1
6-8: S6 AP3 48" Heavy 2
9-11: S7 AP3 60" Heavy 2, Melta
12-15: S7 AP2 72" Heavy 2, Melta
16-20: S8 AP1 80" Heavy 3, Melta

Aqau Trooper
Infantry

WS-4
BS-3
S-4
T-4
W-1
I-4
A-1
Ld-8
Sv-4+

Wargear
Aqausalis (4+ Armour)
Jet (S4 AP* 8" Pistol, Web)
Longsword (AP5 CCW)

Special Rules
Amphibious
Crashing Wave-Once per game, may choose to run and charge. If this is done, also gain HoW.

Areo Trooper
Jump Jet Pack Infantry

WS-4
BS-4
S-3
T-3
W-1
I-5
A-1
Ld-8
Sv-6+

Wargear
Aero Shields (6+ armour, 6+ invuln)
Aero Lance (S4, AP4, 8" Assault 1, or S+1/User, AP3/4 melee, with the first profile on charge only)

Special Rules
Hit And Run

**CadianGateTroll**

Lols! Avatar the Last Air bender!

You gotta get lightning and lava benders. Even Metal Benders up in the psychic phase!

Their Lord of War should be like all 4 element bending Avatar Giant.

**HANZERtank**

You're redone terra troopers special rule, gives +3 to cover saves at the cost of no shooting or assaults right? Just checking if that was intentional.

Also, give your water troops amphibious, like the chimera. Just throw it in because why not.

Don't know what else you could add to them, I feel they need something to help get to combat, because as far as I can see they don't have the speed or resilience to make it across a boaed

**JNAProductions**

HANZERtank wrote:
You're redone terra troopers special rule, gives +3 to cover saves at the cost of no shooting or assaults right? Just checking if that was intentional.

Also, give your water troops amphibious, like the chimera. Just throw it in because why not.

Don't know what else you could add to them, I feel they need something to help get to combat, because as far as I can see they don't have the speed or resilience to make it across a boaed

That was only intended to be +2 to cover. Though, looking at it now... Is +3 too much?

Sure thing!

And yeah, I really don't know what to give them.

**HANZERtank**

Because they count as going to ground they gain an immediate +1 to cover saves, then shrouding gives an additional +2.

For the Aqau troops, something I'd thought of was Crashing wave? Omce per game they may charge 6+d6 instead of 2d6 and gain hammer of wrath. Gives them a chance to get in with a more reliable charge and do a bit more damage.

**JNAProductions**

Added Crashing Wave-made it a run and charge+HoW, though.