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Sigh. I never wanted this to become an argument over these things should even be in the game or not, thats all besides the point. They exsist, they are here, and they are some cool models for sure.

There are 3 schools of thought it seems beyond should they even be here....

1. The rules as they are, while not perfect, would be acceptable if the units were easier to access / fit easier into their army.
2. The rules themselves are the problem, if the units were worth the pt value and cp investment then that part would be fine but at the moment they are not even close.
3. A combination of 1 and 2 lol.


Personally I am in group 1. Sure I wish things were a bit stronger or tougher, but really I would rather them just fit into their army better. If the titanic unit comes inside an armys codex it should be easy to add it in without so many hoops to jump through. If it doesn't (ie your allying a knight in to a marine army) then the current system makes sense to me. Thats 2 different codexes, 2 different armies, it should be that way.

I am not trying to make things harder for people to play with their models with this thread, its supposed to be about finding a way to make it easier...

LoWs are cool! They're fun models! They should be something you consider putting in 2kpts army.
The game is flat out better with a larger variety of viable units for all armies.

rbstr wrote:
LoWs are cool! They're fun models! They should be something you consider putting in 2kpts army.
The game is flat out better with a larger variety of viable units for all armies.

A game that has to represent both Grots and Titans can't ever be balanced.

Maybe that's the problem here, i am not looking at if they are balanced or not. I dont care that my wraithknight is a joke compared to a imperial knight. I just want an easier way to use said knight. If it dies to grot cannons I am cool with that. Lol

 BaconCatBug wrote:

rbstr wrote:
LoWs are cool! They're fun models! They should be something you consider putting in 2kpts army.
The game is flat out better with a larger variety of viable units for all armies.

A game that has to represent both Grots and Titans can't ever be balanced.

A game made by GW was never going to be balanced anyway.

Might as well shoot for awesome.

As someone firmly in the "these units shouldn't exist in 40k in the first place" camp, I don't see any reason why the auxiliary detachment doesn't give detachment bonuses. That just seems silly. That's not the place to draw the line. The place to draw the line is either totally, or to say "fine, you can use the models, but we'll make them deliberately not very competitive, so you can use them in fun games but they don't become a part of the competitive meta." Which is pretty much the situation now. Letting someone's terribad super heavy get a trait isn't going to change that.

 Blackie wrote:
Relegate Superheavies to narrative play only or 5000 points matched games. Problem fixed

I have to agree on that idea: superheavies IMO dont belong in a 2000p game, they belong in apoc games. (heck i think even imp knights dont belong in a 2000p game, armigers are fine tough)

 skchsan wrote:

The point is that any thing/rule non-knights will benefit from will benefit knights to a greater degree. Then, all non-knights LOW players will want even better rules which again, knights will benefit most from. The cycle will only continue.

RE: all other counter points & rebuttals - all these suggestions are based around excluding knights - 'we should make a rule that benefits all non-knights and exclude knights only.' This only goes to show that the key factor on why these LOW related rules are skewed so. The 40k design space is currently skewed as to pretend that these units fit in the given design space - 'since our current soft cap on T is 8, we'll give knights T8, but because it should be tougher than say, a land raider, because its a huge effing hellbot of doom, we'll give it invul saves, and then a rule that give it even better invul saves just because its a huge effing hellbot of doom!'. This trends' been spiraling out of control since the day of plastic kit baneblade and IWIN FW. It really needs to stop.

Knights already have special rules to fix their 4x LOW list. The problem is two fold: those special rules don't affect the IG BladeSwords, etc., and many of the one-off LOW's in other armies are slightly to severely mis-costed/powered. Yes, a Generic BRB rule would help knights more -simply because they get to double dip with the BRB and Codex Special rules. A generic rule in the individual codexes would not. A generic but slightly modified each time rule in each codex might even be better. I wouldn't count on it, but it might be.

Fix the cost/power of the LOW's, give each codex their own special DET focused around their LOW options i.e. a BaneSword Superheavy Det in the IG codex itself. -X CP (because I know it's not going away even if it is stupid) with a way to get back X CP if you meet some sort of fluffy requirements. Hell, I'd even give IG a 4 x Super Heavy that gets CP back if all the other units fit inside the Super Heavies, and must start there or some such to be CP free/cheaper and you could see a fluffy Mechanized Super Heavy group being ambushed by some Eldar en route to their duty station.

Another thing that needs "fixing" is equal access to LOW's. They did the Fortification, but must be aligned Det. They're released a bunch of aligned fortifications for equal access. A few factions need a non-Forgeworld LoW. Nids need some sort of Titanic Carnifex style mob, I don't know what to do with GSC (Stolen BladeSword?), SM and CSM of all varieties could see a 30K Superheavy cross over, or bring back the Thunderhawk to the main codex for a reasonable price, Tau have one, Orks have one, CWE have one, but DE don't a simple mirror/cross over might work or a DE Thunderhawk since theyre a little more flighty, Demons need one, preferably not a super demon, but some sort of construct demon engine that spews out demons, warpfire, or whatever- somethign they can all use with different paint/bits. Sisters and Custodes need one.

Azuza001 wrote:
Maybe that's the problem here, i am not looking at if they are balanced or not. I dont care that my wraithknight is a joke compared to a imperial knight. I just want an easier way to use said knight. If it dies to grot cannons I am cool with that. Lol

Balance isn't the actual issue. You can balance whatever the hell you want - it's all arbitrary rules and parameters. If you want the game to be such that an army of 500 grots has a 50/50 shot at beating a Warlord Titan you can do that. Just takes some imagination.
The issue that many people have very specific conceptions of what 40k is supposed to look like in their minds and those conceptions seem objectively correct to them. In this case it's that 40k isn't supposed to include models that are as strong as a Knight. Anything that doesn't fit within that framework simply cannot be "balanced" because they don't want it to be there to begin with. The aesthetic of the game is really what they want to mandate and it would be so much better for them if you couldn't have a slightly larger big stompy robot than that other one.

-2CP for Super Heavy Auxiliary, -3 for Super Heavy (an Armiger Detachment should cost the same as a Leman Russ Detachment) -4 for Super Heavy with 1+ Titanic models (A Knight army should not have 6 more CP than a Wraithknight army. -6CP would be equivalent to the Knight army bringing 2 Battalions or 3 Patrols, while the Wraithknight army only gets to bring one for free). Having a list based around a single LOW like the Castellan list or pet Wraithknight/Tesseract Vault is pretty cool if the pts are right and you don't get infinite CP. Castellan were OP as much because Astra Militarum were OP for most of 8th as they were OP on their own. Relics and Stratagems were a major part of Castellans being OP, when those aspects were paid for by AM then it got out of hand. The Castellan list shows why it should cost CP to bring one, but -2CP is enough, especially for the cheaper LOW like the Necron Obelisk. The Necron Obelisk is worth somewhere around 200 pts currently because of the CP cost of bringing one. With an extra CP they'd be worth a tiny bit more at least.

 BaconCatBug wrote:

rbstr wrote:
LoWs are cool! They're fun models! They should be something you consider putting in 2kpts army.
The game is flat out better with a larger variety of viable units for all armies.

A game that has to represent both Grots and Titans can't ever be balanced.

SC1 has dog-sized Zerglings and sky-scraper sized spacecraft and is considered balanced by most.

I personally still like the idea mentioned earlier in the discussion to add a single LoW slot in the Brigade detachment for various reasons:

1. it would not effect Knights, as their Codex cannot build a Brigade
2. it would allow IG to take one Baneblade etc., Eldar to take one of their Titans, Orks to take a Stompa etc.
3. just looking from a Guard perspective and my personal taste: it would give another reason to put everything into one Brigade instead of taking two Battalions to profit from two sets of regiment traits/WLT/relicts/stratagems/orders


Regarding "there is no place for LoW in WH40k": I wholeheartedly admit that my perspective is IG centric but out Lords of war are really not that problematic I think. The Baneblades are not as durable as their weight in Leman Russ (same toughness/save, less wounds, less advantage from Terrain, less wound healed from "Jury rigged repairs" regimental trait), can't be ordered, can't be commanders, have worse tank ace traits and on the Firepower site I'm not sure if they are really better then their weight in LRs (I did not do the math, but aside from the Stormlord and the Shadowsword firing at their prefered targets I doubt it.).
And those are our best LoWs. The Macharius, Valdor, Minotaur, Gorgon, Preator, Crassus etc. are farther down the "power for points" list.

Azuza001 wrote:
Maybe that's the problem here, i am not looking at if they are balanced or not. I dont care that my wraithknight is a joke compared to a imperial knight. I just want an easier way to use said knight. If it dies to grot cannons I am cool with that. Lol

See, but you are starting from the idea that to have fun the game should have something like imperial or eldar knights in it. Which means that for others to have fun, they either have to have armies that generaly blow vehicles easy, which is bad for the game, because in order to make your knight fun everyone elses fun with their vehicles that aren't knights is made null or close to it, or they have to have some sort of knight of their own to match it. Which as bacon said brings design problems, unbalance and really hurts those armies without such a unit or option to have one. Now I of course understand that knight players do not like the fact that right now their knights aren't good, and that their rules kind of a don't fit the 9th ed core rules. It is ones right to ask for a fix of those rules, but changing of core rules is a big thing. And a minority, because that is what the knight players are, should never have the option to decide what the majority can or can not do, just to have fun.

 vict0988 wrote:

SC1 has dog-sized Zerglings and sky-scraper sized spacecraft and is considered balanced by most.

Sc1 is a pure game where balance is alpha and omega due to multiplayer popularity. astat change is just some keystrokes away and can be applied worldwide whitn a few days.

40k will never be anything else then a hobby model that has some use besides static display.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I personally still like the idea mentioned earlier in the discussion to add a single LoW slot in the Brigade detachment for various reasons:

1. it would not effect Knights, as their Codex cannot build a Brigade
2. it would allow IG to take one Baneblade etc., Eldar to take one of their Titans, Orks to take a Stompa etc.
3. just looking from a Guard perspective and my personal taste: it would give another reason to put everything into one Brigade instead of taking two Battalions to profit from two sets of regiment traits/WLT/relicts/stratagems/orders


Regarding "there is no place for LoW in WH40k": I wholeheartedly admit that my perspective is IG centric but out Lords of war are really not that problematic I think. The Baneblades are not as durable as their weight in Leman Russ (same toughness/save, less wounds, less advantage from Terrain, less wound healed from "Jury rigged repairs" regimental trait), can't be ordered, can't be commanders, have worse tank ace traits and on the Firepower site I'm not sure if they are really better then their weight in LRs (I did not do the math, but aside from the Stormlord and the Shadowsword firing at their prefered targets I doubt it.).
And those are our best LoWs. The Macharius, Valdor, Minotaur, Gorgon, Preator, Crassus etc. are farther down the "power for points" list.

Yes, that would work for the Guard, but many factions have trouble filling out a brigade in the first place, much less with enough points left for a LOW. Try to fill a csm brigade that is actually functional and still has enough points leftover for a LOW. And no cheating by using spawn for FA.

Add a LOW slot to battalions and it could work, and it would still require more tax units than the old Combined Arms detachment.

rbstr wrote:
LoWs are cool! They're fun models!

[Citation needed.]

Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of things like Lords of War, Flyers, and Death Stars in the game. It's mostly my personal taste, but I like the game more as a company-level skirmish and that means that those big hitters just don't have a place there. Furthermore, they tend to make the whole game about just these things. Just look at how more prevalent Lords of War have shaped the whole game around them and basically increased the necessary level of anti-tank firepower to such a level that a more regular list, bringing a few tanks for instance, won't even get to use them because they get blasted off within moments.

Flyers are a similar thing. Their speed on the very small tables that we play on just makes them feel very odd. Especially more supersonic flyers that somehow manage to circle around a single city block.

Death Stars are a little different, and I see them more as a failure of game design. Currently, the game encourages stacking as many buffs as possible on a single unit because they only strengthen each other. That means that you get large single untouchable units with incredibly damage output, which again leaves more regular units in the dirt. I think that currently the main issue is the amount of stratagems and the general inflation in stats that sets such elites even further apart from the rest of the army.

Edit: I managed to post this before the part about the actual topic. Sorry for that.

However, despite all this, I don't see superheavies, primarchs, flyers, and all those other fun things leaving us any time soon. So, they have to be balanced somehow. My ideal way to do it would be to include a LoW slot in the Brigade detachment, and perhaps to have some extra hoops for Battalions to also gain such a slot (just three Troops and two HQ doesn't really do it). There should be a little more tax. I definitely disagree with making the Super-heavy Auxiliary detachment free. Of course, I'm against detachments having their current prices, but in that system, there should definitely be a price to it. And if one wants to take one, either get a superheavy without army traits, or take one in the enlarged Brigade or boosted Battalion detachment where they would get such a trait.

Now, I want to note that I also think that it would be a good idea to have a souping tax for different factions, or yes, subfactions. But that's another discussion entirely.

And, of course, completely ban them from lower points levels. Knights for instance have no place in Combat Patrol games.

I think a LoW slot in a Brigade detachment would be reasonable.

At least then you're getting to the scale where a LoW might feasibly be present.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I personally still like the idea mentioned earlier in the discussion to add a single LoW slot in the Brigade detachment for various reasons:

1. it would not effect Knights, as their Codex cannot build a Brigade

Brigade and Batallion? Its hard enough to build a SM Brigade at 2K while still having 800 points left for a LOW. I'd really just say if you don't want to tailor a specific LOW det for each codex to make them fluffy and seperate like the knight one, make the Aux LOW require a Brigade or Batallion and be free or join to anything for X CP.

@ Bretons post: I have to admit that I'm not familiar enough with the other codices to know who could build a brigade and still have points for their superheavy and who doesn't.
Nontheless I (personnally) find a batallion too low of a treshhold.

What I could see if lot's of codices struggle would be to say they can proxy one fitting FOC slot with a superheavy within a Brigade. It's just an idea fired from the hip, but let's say either it occupies 3 heavy support slots (the army has heavy support in form of a LoW) or 3 HQ slots (it's an army build to protect and support the LoW).
Both seem to me as reasonable drawbacks of taking a superheavy. But again: my focus is mostly from a guard perspective where this would mean a Baneblade would take the spot of 3 Leman Russ or tank commanders which sounds about right balance wise.

Breton wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I personally still like the idea mentioned earlier in the discussion to add a single LoW slot in the Brigade detachment for various reasons:

1. it would not effect Knights, as their Codex cannot build a Brigade

Brigade and Batallion? Its hard enough to build a SM Brigade at 2K while still having 800 points left for a LOW. I'd really just say if you don't want to tailor a specific LOW det for each codex to make them fluffy and seperate like the knight one, make the Aux LOW require a Brigade or Batallion and be free or join to anything for X CP.

I would consider this a feature, not a bug.

Those who wish to play a LoW would be free to request a larger game size.

 vict0988 wrote:
SC1 has dog-sized Zerglings and sky-scraper sized spacecraft and is considered balanced by most.

You're ignoring how vast its design space is.

Armor types, weapon types, hidden bonus damage, backswing, front swing, swing timer, movement speed, framerates, abilities, just to mention a few. Not to mention the amount of user input variables such as real time micro and macro, ability to adapt army mid game, proper counter units, etc.

If 40k had design space that was even remotely close, LOW may be worth considering. But it doesn't.

 skchsan wrote:
IMO, the inclusion of knights in the game creates unreasonable level of expectations from the non-knights LOW which is why I believe knights is the root of the problem.

Um. what?

Looking at WKs, Stompas, Stormsurges, KLOS, and baneblades, you'd want 400-500 points of almost anything else besides these big useless things.

 skchsan wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
SC1 has dog-sized Zerglings and sky-scraper sized spacecraft and is considered balanced by most.

You're ignoring how vast its design space is.

Armor types, weapon types, hidden bonus damage, backswing, front swing, swing timer, movement speed, framerates, abilities, just to mention a few. Not to mention the amount of user input variables such as real time micro and macro, ability to adapt army mid game, proper counter units, etc.

If 40k had design space that was even remotely close, LOW may be worth considering. But it doesn't.

BCBs claim was that you can't balance something with that much diversity in units,and they gave a perfectly balanced example that does just that.

People in this thread:

"Oh no, a single stompa is ruining the game, it should be banned and people who field it are horrible!"

Same people:
"Those 6 nauts and 9 battlewagons you brought are no problem whatsoever."

 Jidmah wrote:
People in this thread:

"Oh no, a single stompa is ruining the game, it should be banned and people who field it are horrible!"

Same people:
"Those 6 nauts and 9 battlewagons you brought are no problem whatsoever."

Uhm, no? I mean, I would very much be in favour of returning to a normal Force Organisation Chart.

the_scotsman wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
IMO, the inclusion of knights in the game creates unreasonable level of expectations from the non-knights LOW which is why I believe knights is the root of the problem.

Um. what?

Looking at WKs, Stompas, Stormsurges, KLOS, and baneblades, you'd want 400-500 points of almost anything else besides these big useless things.

Nearly all single model units that are not knights that costs between 350-600 is considered useless precisely because how well knights perform at similar point range, thus creating this expectation "anything that costs just as much as knights should at least be on par with it."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nekooni wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
SC1 has dog-sized Zerglings and sky-scraper sized spacecraft and is considered balanced by most.

You're ignoring how vast its design space is.

Armor types, weapon types, hidden bonus damage, backswing, front swing, swing timer, movement speed, framerates, abilities, just to mention a few. Not to mention the amount of user input variables such as real time micro and macro, ability to adapt army mid game, proper counter units, etc.

If 40k had design space that was even remotely close, LOW may be worth considering. But it doesn't.

BCBs claim was that you can't balance something with that much diversity in units,and they gave a perfectly balanced example that does just that.

SC and 40k is not even in the same ball park, let alone same sport.

Only thing they have in common is theme.

 skchsan wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
IMO, the inclusion of knights in the game creates unreasonable level of expectations from the non-knights LOW which is why I believe knights is the root of the problem.

Um. what?

Looking at WKs, Stompas, Stormsurges, KLOS, and baneblades, you'd want 400-500 points of almost anything else besides these big useless things.

Nearly all single model units that are not knights that costs between 350-600 is considered useless precisely because how well knights perform at similar point range, thus creating this expectation "anything that costs just as much as knights should at least be on par with it."


Automatically Appended Next Post:

nekooni wrote:

 skchsan wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:
SC1 has dog-sized Zerglings and sky-scraper sized spacecraft and is considered balanced by most.

You're ignoring how vast its design space is.

Armor types, weapon types, hidden bonus damage, backswing, front swing, swing timer, movement speed, framerates, abilities, just to mention a few. Not to mention the amount of user input variables such as real time micro and macro, ability to adapt army mid game, proper counter units, etc.

If 40k had design space that was even remotely close, LOW may be worth considering. But it doesn't.

BCBs claim was that you can't balance something with that much diversity in units,and they gave a perfectly balanced example that does just that.

SC and 40k is not even in the same ball park, let alone same sport.

Only thing they have in common is theme.

They're both games with factions that aren't copies of each other, and therefore need a lot of attention to balance them correctly. Blizzard invested the time to do so, GW didnt. It's possible. That's the point.

GW isn't even able to balance marines Vs marines properly.

 Dolnikan wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
People in this thread:

"Oh no, a single stompa is ruining the game, it should be banned and people who field it are horrible!"

Same people:
"Those 6 nauts and 9 battlewagons you brought are no problem whatsoever."

Uhm, no? I mean, I would very much be in favour of returning to a normal Force Organisation Chart.

Ah ok then:
"Those 3 nauts and 4 battlewagons you brought are no problem whatsoever."

 vipoid wrote:

rbstr wrote:
LoWs are cool! They're fun models!

[Citation needed.]

"LoWs are cool! They're fun models!" -rbstr, 2020

"I enjoy bringing LoWs as nice centerpiece models for my armies" -VladimirHerzog, 2020

the_scotsman wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
IMO, the inclusion of knights in the game creates unreasonable level of expectations from the non-knights LOW which is why I believe knights is the root of the problem.

Um. what?

Looking at WKs, Stompas, Stormsurges, KLOS, and baneblades, you'd want 400-500 points of almost anything else besides these big useless things.

Exactly. We just want these units to have a fair price. 905 points + 3CP for a Stompa is ridiculous.

vipoid wrote:

Spoiler:

Breton wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I personally still like the idea mentioned earlier in the discussion to add a single LoW slot in the Brigade detachment for various reasons:

1. it would not effect Knights, as their Codex cannot build a Brigade

Brigade and Batallion? Its hard enough to build a SM Brigade at 2K while still having 800 points left for a LOW. I'd really just say if you don't want to tailor a specific LOW det for each codex to make them fluffy and seperate like the knight one, make the Aux LOW require a Brigade or Batallion and be free or join to anything for X CP.

I would consider this a feature, not a bug.

Those who wish to play a LoW would be free to request a larger game size.

And those who wish to never have to play against anything bigger than a terminator are free to request a game of Kill Team.