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I've been reading the thread about Stompa's being "overpowered" and it was a great LOL... until I realized I really liked the Stompa model.

What would make the Stompa a practical unit to field? I'm not talking about making it amazing or OP, just make it into a unit that would be practical to field.

-Matt

Well, I'll leave it to the ork players for the specifics, but I'd start with a minimum points drop of 300 and a less punitive bracket system.

As above, a points change.

Generally the easiest way to fix something is by altering its points.
While you can tweak rules, it’s a sensitive area as it’s easy to go from not great to OP with 1 or 2 tweaks.

Only time it’s easier to tweak rules is for a model that’s far too strong.
You’d end up with a model that costs an insane amount of points and it’s then priced out of the game.
Easier to just tone back the rules a bit.

That’s what I wish they would have done for the castellan knight, in a pure knights lis it was a strong choice but what made it OP was souping in a guard detachment to farm CP in a pure knights list you just don’t have the CP pool to make it the god machine soup makes it. I would love to see them tie more of its power to the mono faction rules and then drop its points again.

Also if we do get an 8.5 or 9th ed I really hope the balance CP better by game size or modify the CP a mounts by faction(they have done this in a limited way for knights) because armies like guard get so many they don’t even need to use them tactically(my regular guard opponent spends more pre-game then I get in total) while other factions get almost none comparatively.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Well, I'll leave it to the ork players for the specifics, but I'd start with a minimum points drop of 300 and a less punitive bracket system.

Pretty much this. Letting units being transported by the Stompa charge out after it moved would also make it more appealing since it is paying for the ability but rules for transports are generally bad in 8th.

I did a Stompa Revision a while back. Never assigned points, but the idea was to make it much more badass.

Probably change to have brackets at 1, 1/2, and 1/4 wounds. Points cut, maybe to castellan range or slightly under. Maybe an invulnerable save upgrade option.

The "Blitza-Gatler" kustom job should also just be the standard stat line for the super-gatler, no cp needed.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
The "Blitza-Gatler" kustom job should also just be the standard stat line for the super-gatler, no cp needed.

shouldn0t you as a CSM player love to spend CP to get specific units /S

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
The "Blitza-Gatler" kustom job should also just be the standard stat line for the super-gatler, no cp needed.

shouldn0t you as a CSM player love to spend CP to get specific units /S

Well, yes, I started a thread about it several months ago. Was suggesting strategems to upgrade units similar to veteran intercessors and red butchers. Was personally hoping for something similar for Terror Squads and Night Raptors. Though I'd prefer just pay for it in points.

But as far as the Stompa goes, making the super-gatler D2 means it would be an excellent primaris eraser, and the enemy of my enemy......

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
The "Blitza-Gatler" kustom job should also just be the standard stat line for the super-gatler, no cp needed.

shouldn0t you as a CSM player love to spend CP to get specific units /S

Well, yes, I started a thread about it several months ago. Was suggesting strategems to upgrade units similar to veteran intercessors and red butchers. Was personally hoping for something similar for Terror Squads and Night Raptors. Though I'd prefer just pay for it in points.

But as far as the Stompa goes, making the super-gatler D2 means it would be an excellent primaris eraser, and the enemy of my enemy......

This is why I like giving my Boss Nobz Killsaws (Sx2 AP-4 D2), never know when yer gonna run into some Primaris!

Any more ideas for the Stompa or does that pretty much cover it?

I think I"m gonna ask my gaming buddies if they would be "OK" if I ran the Stompa at 600pts with a 3+/5++ and the 40-21, 20-11, 10-1 bracket system (losing M: 3" WS: 1 A: 1 at each step). Will see how well he fairs with those upgrades and if he is still worth fielding.

-matt

Cheape, an invul save, and a less punitive bracket would do it.

It's actually not god awful in terms of output, just it's bad at 850 points. Visions of the Smoke is a potentially very nasty buff on it.

Part of the problem is that the Stompa occupies a place above Knights but below actual Gargants and Titans. I think that's a good place because it'd be a bit cliche for each faction to have a 1:1 giant-robot-analogy. The problem comes from the fact that the Stompa is half your army, but can't actually replace half an army's-worth of utility. That means holding objectives, securing board area, and providing synergy with the rest of the army. That kind of systemic problem is harder to fix.

Another problem is that its stats are pulled in every direction. It has a great melee profile, a variety of guns for every occasion (though not enough of the right guns for any particular one), and transport capacity. It's extremely hard to make use of each of these elements in every turn. To make it good, you can reduce its points cost so it's efficient without using literally every aspect. I dislike this because it messes with the scale the Stompa is trying to portray. Alternatively, you can make each aspect better so that it can be worth-while without using every part.

I think the thread has lots of good suggestions, and I'd use them all at once. The Supa-gatla is really underwhelming, and upgrading it to the Blitza-gatla just brings it to par. It needs rules to make its assault transport capacity better, and maybe give it something similar to the Trukk's Open-topped. I think the Effigy rule has a lot of room for improvement; it could provide a more powerful Waaagh! effect or improve Dakka Dakka Dakka.

Mostly, I think the ork super-heavies (m/gorkanauts included) could use actual wargear options. Giving players a choice tends to mean they find ways of making it viable.

Now this may be crazy, but shouldn't a unit called a stompa have a stomp attack? Either in addition to the heavy hitting melee swing or in exchange with a better transfer rate then the usual X3. Either they make it comparable to an imperial knight, (which we already have the naughts for) Or make it properly devastating for the 900pts it costs. Maybe make the guns a set number attacks like the Deffstorm megashoota went from 3d6 shots to a set 18, maybe a constant accuracy buff when it targets big things like vehicles and titans to give it a strong duelist feel.

There's a lot of ways they could make the stompa viable, either make it very much cheaper or upping it's damage output to something that matches a knight or 2. Who knows, maybe the forgeworld point updates will give us something viable, if only by stripping away useless weapons and making a set role for the good old stompy boy.

Actually they could make it pretty viable right now by simply letting us use more of the Kustom Jobs on it. Sparkley bits would be a blast. As would dirtygubbinz. I'd even enjoy using Orkymatic pistons to make a laughable fast super heavy sprinting around to dive into melee.

I'm not sure what it will do (probably nothing) but I sent GW an email asking if they had any plans to fix the Stompa. I went over the suggestions mentioned here as some possible solutions to the model being unplayable.

-matt

Cut tbe points down to around the 600 mark, give it an upgrade option for an Invulnerable save, and maybe even give it BS4+.

 Valkyrie wrote:
Cut tbe points down to around the 600 mark, give it an upgrade option for an Invulnerable save, and maybe even give it BS4+.

I think I'd say 1 at a time as GW trying to balance multiple buffs applying to a units don't have a good track record see Marines 2.0
Though I would say it's biggest issue is it doesn't know what it's trying to be, but most LoW are overcosted because the lethality in 8th is crazy high.

How to fix it is very much the same as asking what's wrong with it.

So what is wrong with it?
1) The elephant in the room: While being on a similar power-level as a knight, lord of skulls or daemon primarch it costs almost twice as much points
2) The damage table. The stompa starts degrading its melee profile after losing the first 10 wounds, that's only one more wound than it takes to degrade a naut. After losing 20 wounds the stompa is already harmless enough in combat so you can get away with tarpitting it with intercessors, not to mention that it's almost immobile and will be unable to go around any terrain. At 10 wounds it will struggle to fight its way out of a unit of guardsmen and be unable to move in a meaningful way.
3) As with many ork units, it's shooting would be ok if it had BS3+, but it has BS5+. The deff cannon averages roughly two successful wounds rolls against most targets, which is ok for a buggy, but not for a something of this size. The gattler actually becomes decent with the kustom job (at the price of 1 CP), and supa-rokkits maybe hit once every other turn. Five big shootas and a skorcha are just random guns accidentally killing something sometimes. Just as a milestone - the same amount of points spend on squigbuggies will outshoot a stompa about thrice against any given target, and that's before considering the squig mines or their kustom job.
4) Getting access to cultures requires a supreme command detachment.
5) Stompa mob specialist detachment requires you to field at least three super-heavies.
6) Effigy rule is useless, orks rarely care about the number you roll - either you are not in danger of failing the test due to mob rule, a nearby warboss or simply being just one model, or you have taken enough casualties and an extra five models lost don't make a difference.
7) There is no point in transporting things, as melee units are not worth transporting and shooting units can't shoot out of stompas.
8) Even if you use everything possible to buff it and ignore all point costs attached to those buffs, it still is extremely weak for its costs.

How do we fix all that? To answer this, we keep in mind that the codex Stompa is a plastic mono-build model. JNAProductions's Stompa rules are pretty awesome, but new weapon or wargear options are very much out of question for the codex datasheet.

That leaves us with two ways to go - drop the points until it's worth fielding, or improve it to where it is worth 870 points.
Dropping points has already been addressed, and I agree that it should drop by 300-400 points if nothing else is changed to bring it in line with similar models - the lord of skulls or the flamer/harpoon knight are very similar in style and power to a stompa.

Personally, I would prefer to make it worth 870 points, so stompa mobs don't become common. To this, I would fix all of the problems above, except 1) obviously.
- Do not degrade weapon skill, degrade strength instead. Attacks and movement is fine, but holding off a stompa in melee should be a desperate measure even when it's damaged, not a low risk no-brainer.
- The number of shots of the deffcannon and supa-rokkits should be doubled to 2d6 and 6d6 respectively so both weapons are actually worth shooting.
- Big Shootas should have grot gunners like they did in the past.
- Super-heavy auxiliary detachments should be able to benefit from cultures.
- Effigy should just flat out make orks near it auto-pass morale, or make every unit within 6" count as having 10 more models than they actually do for all rules counting models (mob rule, green tide, waaagh! energy).
- Repair crew should stack with big mekaniak/mekaniak.
- Delete the specialist detachment and give all benefits of it to the stompa for free - 5++, a choice between mork's or gork's one and have it perform Stomp!, Stomp!, Stomp! automatically a the beginning of very fight phase.

That should be enough to at least make it a real competition to not just spend those 870 points on nauts instead.

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Probably change to have brackets at 1, 1/2, and 1/4 wounds. Points cut, maybe to castellan range or slightly under. Maybe an invulnerable save upgrade option.

The bracket keeps being mentioned but that's never been issue for me. 3/4 times it's been flat out blown to bits in turn 1. In the one case it survived 1st turn with whopping 4 wounds. Even if you bracket at 10% of wounds that would have done it.

It's expensive bullet magnet and not even particularly tough one.

tneva82 wrote:

 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
Probably change to have brackets at 1, 1/2, and 1/4 wounds. Points cut, maybe to castellan range or slightly under. Maybe an invulnerable save upgrade option.

The bracket keeps being mentioned but that's never been issue for me. 3/4 times it's been flat out blown to bits in turn 1. In the one case it survived 1st turn with whopping 4 wounds. Even if you bracket at 10% of wounds that would have done it.

It's expensive bullet magnet and not even particularly tough one.

This is why I believe in the points drop and the 5++ save. The 5++ save would give the Stompa a slightly better chance of surviving the full attention of the opponents shooting for a turn and dropping the points to 600 would mean you still have something left to fight with after the Stompa has fallen.

Like I said at the start of this thread, I'm not looking to make the Stompa "good" I just want to make it possible to play with. Even at 600pts with a 5++ and the improved bracketing the Stompa would not be suitable for tournament. But it would hopefully be viable for friendly games against less competitive lists.

-matt

Orks have KFFs, so giving the stompa a 5++ save is very easy. That still doesn't help keeping it alive.

Giving it a 5++ save would just make running a stompa cheaper, but not more survivable.

That also adds up price making it to nearly 1000 pts thingie.

Everything dies. Stompa dies ridiculously easily for the cost. Knight dies fairly trivially t1 as well. Not as bad though as plenty more where they came from. Losing stompa criples your army just like that.

I'd argue that a model worth almost a thousand points should at least have a chance at surviving first turn.
As it is now 470 points Mortarion is more likely to be alive turn two than a stompa.

tneva82 wrote:
That also adds up price making it to nearly 1000 pts thingie.

Everything dies. Stompa dies ridiculously easily for the cost. Knight dies fairly trivially t1 as well. Not as bad though as plenty more where they came from. Losing stompa criples your army just like that.

Really the issue is offensive buffs are soo good now their just is nothing in the game that most armies can't just point and delete these days, heck even killing 2 knight's turn 1 is easily viable for a number of armies aswell.

The stompa pays a lot for T8 with 40 wounds 3+Sv, it's almost 2 knight's worth of wounds, the sad fact is GW over values Toughness in an edition where it has repeatedly been devalued.
Heck even Imperial Knights need CP spent to hope to survive so could arguably be said to be overcosted.

A 5++ won't actually help half as much as you'd think, unless your wanting it to work in melee aswell.
It also suffers from having a transport capacity in an edition where transports suck.
Has anyone tried deepstriking one, IRCC thier is a strat to do this? Makes it way more valuable as you can skip the alphastrike.

Pulling 150-200 points off the model, sounds like a huge buff but probably about what it takes to make it playable

The only way to deep strike it is using the stratagem for the stompa mob, which not only requires you to spend 4 CP (+1 for the detachment) to do so, but also to field two more Lords of War.

 Jidmah wrote:
The only way to deep strike it is using the stratagem for the stompa mob, which not only requires you to spend 4 CP (+1 for the detachment) to do so, but also to field two more Lords of War.

Ahh okay I remember my ork playing friend being excited he could do it. But that requirement is just nuts, isn't that basically your entire army and the CP for said army to make it happen.

I've been reading some news about 9th edition being good for vehicles. Any one think the Stompa will get some love?

-Matt

The huge anti-tank gun will be better at killing hordes.

So, no.