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 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

stratigo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

Or simply don't have access to a 96x48 table.

Harlequin faction focus :
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/28/apocalypse-faction-focus-harlequinsgw-homepage-post-4/

The profiles are beastly!
I can't wait to read the reaction of the “movie marines should be tabletop marines” when they read about the fluff-accurate Harlequin!

Jesus Harlequins are absurd...

Yeah, 6+ (or 5+) save that's always on d12, and -1 to hit and a save booster...

This isn't a 'glass cannon' army anymore. Its shockingly durable. Though statistics will catch up to the small number of wounds eventually.

Dont forget the Shadowseer -1 to be wounded on top of that.

Yeah, harlies seem pretty powerful. -1 to hit, -1 to wound with a shadowseer nearby, 6+sv always on a D12 that you can bump up to a 4+sv with a stratagem, and they demolish stuff in melee while effectively flying? pretty nuts. Harlequin Troupes near a Troupe master might be one of the best ways to concentrate enough punch into one unit to effectively down titanic enemies with melee rather than shooting (Which I definitely am thinking is the principal way people will need to take them out)

Harlequins do seem expensive, but....damn do they look good compared to some other similar units. Take a look at them alongside Striking Scorpions: Harlequins cost 1 point more at 5 models, 1 point less at 10 models. Harlequins move 2" more, always roll saves on D6s, have perma -1 to hit (compared to Scorps who have a trait they definitely don't benefit from), casually dish out double the attacks at better to wound rolls vs infantry and MUCH better vs tanks. And the scorpions get Infiltrators and Deep Strike.

Now, admittedly we do not know what Infiltrators does, I believe we know that Deep Strike is the same as base 40k distance-wise, but critically we don't know if you get to move or act after deep strike at all, as you do in 40k. It certainly seems like 40k's Charge phase is replaced by the Assault order which lets you move twice then Fight.

So maybe infiltrators is a ginormous game changer, and maybe at the end of the day you just aren't likely to need a million attacks to kill most targets in melee, and at the end of the day you've got a 1W unit that costs 8 power level that will be fairly vulnerable to basic anti-infantry fire. And I am just grabbing one random unit with a similar role and statline to compare, but I think it does highlight a potential balance concern - Harlequins look like supremely potent damage dealers.

The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Harlequins might be the unit that benefits the most from the removal of toughness.

stratigo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

And even the people who do have 5000pts don't necessarily have an effective 5000pts. If half of that is basic stuff from starter boxes, how well will they do against someone who brings a dedicated Apoc army with Titans and such?

 Tannhauser42 wrote:

stratigo wrote:

 Imateria wrote:

stratigo wrote:
I suspect 100 will be common for a lot of folks, up to 150. Your collection starts to get unwieldy if you start adding units too far beyond this, so that'll be a more limited set of players.

I think you'll find entirely the opposite, anyone thats been collecting an army for more than a couple years will easily have more than 3000pts worth of models.

A lot of people don't have a coherent 5000 points of any one faction they can throw together. Even more simply don't have the space to transport too vast an army.

And even the people who do have 5000pts don't necessarily have an effective 5000pts. If half of that is basic stuff from starter boxes, how well will they do against someone who brings a dedicated Apoc army with Titans and such?

Depends how many of them are Harlequins

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

The more I look at the datasheets the more I think GW is either lazy as and wrote the entire game in an evening or has absolutely no clue how to do math. Even comparing extremely similar units like the LRBT variants, where the only difference is the stat line of the gun, it's nonsense. Why does the vanquisher cannon, the dedicated anti-tank gun, have barely weaker anti-infantry firepower than the "do everything ok" battle cannon? And why is my poor Valdor, a LoW with a titan-scale gun, outgunned by that vanquisher even without counting the LRBT's shoot twice rule (which will almost always apply)? Has nobody at GW ever looked at statistics 101 and figured out how to calculate the average outcome of dice?

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

Now do that math for two wounds. Since, uh, 41 percent isn't super likely to kill a harley unit, ya know. And two wounds they ignore just as efficiently. And then they scale FAR superior with their buff they revealed and their army trick. I don't since many 5 man squads running about really. On the opposite, the custodes scale better with MSU, with their buff giver being a plus one attack per unit aura.

Also my shield captains each a solitaire's lunch in 40k and I am annoyed that is now the opposite.

In the case of Harlies, there's also (perplexingly) morale to consider - so they can easily get their saves off but then die by failing two morale rolls in a row?

And I'm not so sure putting 6 large blast markers on a Reaver Titan is going to be much of a game changer. That's only 4 or 5 damage. Questors are in trouble, though.

abyrn wrote:
Harlequins might be the unit that benefits the most from the removal of toughness.

Thing is, for other units, in theory toughness and armor are worked into the Apoc saving throw. In the Harlies case, it just became super good, and got a special rule dropped on top.
For a lot of other units, high toughness (Death Guard) or invulnerable saves (Farseers, Warlocks, Genestealers), just got completely scrubbed out in the conversion. And DG got their 'ignore damage' rule downgraded to boot (though there may be good mathematical reasons for that, at least).

Peregrine wrote:The more I look at the datasheets the more I think GW is either lazy as and wrote the entire game in an evening or has absolutely no clue how to do math. Even comparing extremely similar units like the LRBT variants, where the only difference is the stat line of the gun, it's nonsense. Why does the vanquisher cannon, the dedicated anti-tank gun, have barely weaker anti-infantry firepower than the "do everything ok" battle cannon? And why is my poor Valdor, a LoW with a titan-scale gun, outgunned by that vanquisher even without counting the LRBT's shoot twice rule (which will almost always apply)? Has nobody at GW ever looked at statistics 101 and figured out how to calculate the average outcome of dice?

This really does seem to be a problem, and it isn't even particularly rare. I've noticed a lot of options that are 1 A at 7+, followed by an option that's 2 A but 8+. An 8.33% chance difference pales in comparison to having multiple dice.
Or obvious things like the 'choice' between heavy bolters and missile launchers. So many units have this as a decision, and missiles are 100% of the time always the correct answer. +12" and 7+ vs 9+, with...no downside. If you've got an option for other weapons, you might choose them instead, but there is zero reason to bring a heavy bolter if you have a choice about it. Ever.

And its further complicated by units that have completely flipped, either role or which weapons are actually good. Even in little ways, its annoying or will involve people proxying or altering models- Take the Necron Praetorians. In 40k, void blades and PCs give bonus attacks in close combat. In Apoc, for no reason whatsoever, Rods of the Covenant are the bonus CC attacks option. Particle casters are...short ranged anti-infantry gun fighters for... reasons.

Maybe its to get people to buy new kits, or maybe its just a messy set of data sheets that weren't done very well.

stratigo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

Now do that math for two wounds. Since, uh, 41 percent isn't super likely to kill a harley unit, ya know. And two wounds they ignore just as efficiently. And then they scale FAR superior with their buff they revealed and their army trick. I don't since many 5 man squads running about really. On the opposite, the custodes scale better with MSU, with their buff giver being a plus one attack per unit aura.

Also my shield captains each a solitaire's lunch in 40k and I am annoyed that is now the opposite.

Yeah, at two wounds the harlequins cost 2x as much as the custodes. I HOPE a 15PL unit is better than a 7pl unit. Unless you mean "Do the math for me just blatantly playing into the hands of their ability" which seems...dumb...if your opponent is running a 5-man harlequins squad at you, deal 1 wound splat to it and stop. Or deal many wound splats to it and kill it with Morale+saves if it simply must die. If your opponent is running Harlequin troupes, they're probably in a Battalion detachment with 3 squads - the best way to handle them is to shoot them up for 1 wound splat and switch to a different target.

If you don't see 5-man troupes running around, you don't see them using transports as their only transport can only take 1 min squad. So maybe the meta will be 10man squads of harlequins but that is a pretty gigantic expense for what is likely to be absurd overkill. A battalion detachment with 3x10 harlequins a troupe master and a shadowseer costs more than 2 imperial knights in apoc, and only slightly more than 1 knight in 40k. It's tough to say though without knowing how transports actually function in apoc whether skyweavers will be worthwhile investments.

It's true, in a melee duel in 40k, a 114-point custode captain deals about 2.5 damage vs the 2.1 damage dealt by the 98-point solitaire, and the custode captain has 1 more wound so he's likely to win unless the Harlequin player uses some command points. In Apoc, the 8pl Solitaire has about a 50% chance of killing the 6pl shield captain with his normal damage output, and the shield captain only about a 20% chance of killing the Solitaire at the same time (assuming -1 to hit but not assuming -1 . The shield captain has gone from costing 16% more to 25% less than the solitaire. A 41% shift in cost resulted in a 49% shift in advantage, and the Solitaire's detrimental Path of Damnation ability has gone from an inability to take warlord traits in 40k to an inability to become the warlord. Which, in apocalypse, translates to if you kill the rest of the Solitaire's detachment, leaving him actually "Solitary"....he immediately runs away. Which far from being annoyed at I find kind of hilarious.

It seems like the biggest complaint about custodes is that their shooting is so lopsided versus their melee, which is the opposite in 40k. I definitely get that and feel pretty much the same - I'd have given them 2x melee attacks and not rapid fire shooting weapons. But looking at the units versus each other, it honestly doesn't seem all that imbalanced considering.

Yeah, maybe the datasheets are bit messy, I noticed that tau have a different profiles at pulse rifles (when comparing strike team and cadre fireblade). Also daemon princes have different Power level value from different factions.

I'm really curious what the “Inferno” rule is going to be but I wouldn't be surprised if they waited until the Sororitas faction focus to tell us about it, since literally every battlefield role can be equipped with an inferno weapon (for a total of… oh wait, just 4 different weapons lol)
I hope the rule is very good. I suspect it might just be “Can shoot in melee” though.

 Spreelock wrote:
Yeah, maybe the datasheets are bit messy, I noticed that tau have a different profiles at pulse rifles (when comparing strike team and cadre fireblade). Also daemon princes have different Power level value from different factions.

That first one is definitely on purpose. There are many instances of the same named weapon having different stats when there is a more numerous unit using it.A unit where the base size is 10 vs a unit with the base size 5 is going to have a more powerful version of the weapon with the same name.

Dunno about the two daemon princes. It seems like the Daemons bonus is actually better than the CSM bonus, which is the only reason I'd think they'd be different.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I'm really curious what the “Inferno” rule is going to be but I wouldn't be surprised if they waited until the Sororitas faction focus to tell us about it, since literally every battlefield role can be equipped with an inferno weapon (for a total of… oh wait, just 4 different weapons lol)
I hope the rule is very good. I suspect it might just be “Can shoot in melee” though.

My money is on "Do not make a hit roll, hits automatically."

 Hybrid Son Of Oxayotl wrote:
I'm really curious what the “Inferno” rule is going to be but I wouldn't be surprised if they waited until the Sororitas faction focus to tell us about it, since literally every battlefield role can be equipped with an inferno weapon (for a total of… oh wait, just 4 different weapons lol)
I hope the rule is very good. I suspect it might just be “Can shoot in melee” though.

It'll be 'this weapon hits automatically'...

If so it's going to be strong. Not OP but strong.

stratigo wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

stratigo wrote:
The harlies make me more than a little disappointed in my Custodes. Like they have more attacks and easier damage. They’re even better at shooting

Well sure, except that they're not better at shooting. Custodes' guns are double the range and rapid fire. And harlies have a 41.6% chance of taking a wound off a small blast, while custodes have a 25% chance, and start with two wounds.

The 8x attacks is really what seems like a crazy thing in a game like apoc, where that allows you to chew right through stuff like tanks or knights. And since that's never...really been something Harlequins have been supposed to excel at, it seems a little out of line. That makes them four times as good at harming tanks as a Thunder Hammer equipped Terminator assault squad, which....uhhhh....

I get that you need new ways to balance units in apocalypse, and a terminator assault squad is much more durable having double the wounds and having less chance of failure at a large blast than harlequins do vs a small blast and they cost just 1 more power level...but 4x more offense in melee is a LOT in a game where the cap for the damage you can deal is much, much higher than in standard 40k.

I do think their durability is being overestimated considering the structure you're likely to see Harlequins in. Since they're the only troop option, you can pretty much only put them in Battalions, meaning you'll always have 3 harlequin squads at a time to target (at least, if they want the -1 to hit trait). So the best way to kill them it seems would be to put a small blast on each one, and if they close to melee, sac smaller squads that cost less than 8PL and trade blows - your little cheapo cultists or whatever will take 8 billion blasts and die, while dealing 1 blast or so to the harlequins, trading up heavily if they manage to deal just one wound.

Now do that math for two wounds. Since, uh, 41 percent isn't super likely to kill a harley unit, ya know. And two wounds they ignore just as efficiently. And then they scale FAR superior with their buff they revealed and their army trick. I don't since many 5 man squads running about really. On the opposite, the custodes scale better with MSU, with their buff giver being a plus one attack per unit aura.

Also my shield captains each a solitaire's lunch in 40k and I am annoyed that is now the opposite.

They are 18 points for 2 infantry wounds... Seriously, even if you dump 4 large blasts on them to be sure that they are deady dead, it will be SO worth it. For the same amount of points AM can deploy twelve times that amount of wounds.

the_scotsman wrote:

That first one is definitely on purpose. There are many instances of the same named weapon having different stats when there is a more numerous unit using it.A unit where the base size is 10 vs a unit with the base size 5 is going to have a more powerful version of the weapon with the same name.

Dunno about the two daemon princes. It seems like the Daemons bonus is actually better than the CSM bonus, which is the only reason I'd think they'd be different.

There are more odd things, for example space wolves; their Wolf guard datasheet has Power level 5, "unit include 5models" but their profile has two lines (5 models and 10).

 Peregrine wrote:
The more I look at the datasheets the more I think GW is either lazy as and wrote the entire game in an evening or has absolutely no clue how to do math.

Why not both? I've had this feeling with a lot of recent publications (Forbidden Power, GHB2019, literally the entire Necromunda range...)

Actual scene inside GW studio:

Jervis Johnson *slips a 10 pound bill in an intern's pocket*
"Here, kid, have 20 pages of new scenarios for me by lunch."

Has there been a price hike on the Baneblade?

On Amazon it jumped from $140 to $160.

Lucky I got mine last week

Might be time to start asking some questions...

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Has there been a price hike on the Baneblade?

On Amazon it jumped from $140 to $160.

Lucky I got mine last week

Showing as £85 on GW UK, and $140 in the USA (but out of stock so that may be why the amazon sellers have put their prices up as they don't have to compete with GW at present)

NZ site has all the pre-orders up, including a bunch of bundles that I'm sure have 0% discount.

But there are the packs we saw the boxes for. Near as I can tell the Chaos Marine one is a 35% discount of buying everything separately.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Might be time to start asking some questions...

Because?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
NZ site has all the pre-orders up, including a bunch of bundles that I'm sure have 0% discount.

Yes, if it doesn't have a box it doesn't get a discount.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Might be time to start asking some questions...

Because?

This is what's shown on the box, with the new Spiritseer out of "Wake the Dead" vs the box contents showing the resin one.