BrianDavion wrote:
I would ditch all legion tactics all together
This sounds a bit extreme but hear me out, there is no real centralized Legion so why should all black legion, emperor's children etc warbands fight the same way?
So with that in mind each
CSM warband splits it's chapter tactics up into 2 groups, (much like how Necrons are done) "Orgin" and "Devotion"
I can get behind this concept. Honestly, I feel like the same should be true of all the factions. Instead of tying a specific chapter tactic to a specific chapter, just have options available that fit those chapters. Half the craftworld and ork traits fit different factions than the ones they're assigned to. The evil sunz rules work really well for teleporting/footslogging orkz but are less useful for the speed freakz units they're meant to associate with, for instance. The blood axe rules are supposed to be good for sneaky footsloggers, but instead end up being more effective on things like bikers. The Iyanden traits strongly reward fielding large squads of living infantry (the opposite of what the craftworld is known for), and the Biel-Tan trait is most effective when you field lots of vehicles and guardians but not a lot of aspect warriors. Plus, you can imagine an army representing the biker company of the Blood Angels maybe wanting rules that focus on bikes rather than focusing on stabbing things.
So yeah. High concept seems sound. Especially if we divorce the faction traits from the premade factions.
Orgins would be:
Black Legion: Rapid fire is treated as assault when running
Iron Warriors: Ignore light cover
Renegade: Fallback and Shoot Like Ultramarines (I've always thought advance and charge made little sense for a renegade space marine chapter. the UM CT is a solid one and makes them a little more shooty which I think on average renegades would be)
World Eaters: +1 Attack on charge and all units gain the <khorne. keyword where approperate May take Bezerkers as troops
Night Lords:Within 3 inches subtract 2 from leadership (this is straight out better then the Loyalists similer chapter tactic but 1: that sucks 2: Night Lords won't be stacking it with Reivers for a total of -3)
Emperor's Children: give them the re-roll hit chapter tactic. the emperor's children are obsessed with perfection, and that IMHO suits it more then fight's first and all units gain the ><Slaanish> Keyword where approperate may take noise marines as troops
Alpha Legion: just give them the stealthy sucessor tactic from codex Space Marines
Word Bearers: replace "and they shall know no fear" with the Warded Subtrait.
Oh. Well, I guess we're not divorcing the faction rules from the premades after all then. I feel like many of these are obviously better than the others.
* The
BL trait is super niche (only helps a bolter marine if the enemy is exactly
d6" outside of his 30" threat area) and has been kind of meh for a while now.
* Renegades: Fall back & Shoot represents high levels of coordination between the disciplined UM units. I don't get that vibe from most of the renegade warbands I've read about. Fall back and shoot is a fine rule though.
* World Eaters: Obviously more powerful than most of the others.
* Night Lords: Would you ever want to take this over the World Eaters option? You're playing Night Lords, so presumably you're fielding lots of close combat units; probably lots of raptors. Would you really rather have this than an extra attack on the charge? Also, Night Lords currently
do stack up to -3, although the flat -2 means you don't have to put several units in the same area to get more of a benefit. Ideally, morale would get a rework that lets Night Lords feel more fluffy. Barring that, I think there are probably other, more flavorful directions we could go with these guys. Force tagged units to fall back in the following turn. To-hit penalties while you're within X" of enemy units (hiding in the confusion), a
raw melee offense bonus, raptors as troops, etc.
* Emperor's Children: Seems good to me.
* Alpha Legion: A bit reductionist, but sure. (
AL are not sneaky in the same way that
RG are sneaky.)
* Word Bearers: This feels like a downgrade to me, and do you see yourself ever taking this option over any of the others? Would you really rather have this one than +1 attacks and berzerker troops or the
EC rules? Plus, summoning isn't great, but at least their summoning gimmick felt fluff-appropriate.
Basically, you've got some severe internal balance issues with the above options. On the plus side, most of them feel a bit weak, so you can have fun dreaming up more powerful versions!
ok, now keep in mind these are only HALF the battle here, and reflect where the warband came from, next up is devotions, which reflect why this warband stays together.
Devotions:
Khorne: May re-roll advance and Charge rolls (gains keyword <khrone> where approperate)
Slaanish: Fight First gains slaanish keyword where approperate
Nurgle: 6+++ FNP gains nurgle keyword where approperate
Tzeetch:5++ invul save (or +1 to invul saved up to 4++) gains Tzeetch Keyword where approperate
Seekers of Knowlege: Knowledge is Power trait from codex space marines
Charismatic Leader: +1 LDR
The Long War will never end: DTTFE activates on a roll of 5+
Vengence: Favored Enemy
Flight from the foe: Infantry gains +1 move
* The Nurgle one is a nice enough bonus but weirdly discourages you from taking plague marines in a nurgle army. Assuming we aren't just assuming that anyone who wants to field plague marines will just field death guard instead.
* Seekers of Knowledge strikes me as a Tzeentchier bonus than the actual "Tzeentch" options.
* Charismatic Leader seems like a never take. Do you see yourself ever taking this over one of the other options?
* Long War and Vengeance: I'm not a fan of either of these because there's a good chance they won't do anything against a random opponent. If you're not sure who you're going to be playing against on a given day (as is the case at my own local gaming group), then you're gambling that these won't do anything at all. It's one of the major complaints about
DttFE in general, and you're doubling down on that same problem here.
Flight From the Foe: Okay, this one might be even weaker than Charismatic Leader. Maybe swap it out for fall back and charge per the loyalist build-a-bear options?
In general, I think I like what you're going for, but I don't like most of the specific options. Splitting things up the way you have should make me feel like there are more x + y combos than before. I should feel like I can build a ton of different flavors of army than I could before. But it mostly feels like I'd be making sidegraded or downgraded versions of the existing options. I think tying specific gods to options from both categories is part of that. If I choose any of the god-aligned options from either list, then it cuts out 3 of the options available to me from the other list. Another part of it is that a lot of the options on the list are just the options we already have in the existing rules. So rather than seeing the possibilities of combining X with Y, I'm kind of just seeing, "Okay, if my Origin is Emp's Children, then do I want to be extra good at killing xenos, imperials, casting psychic powers, or just swing first in the fight phase like I already do? "
Also, Vengeance and Long War are both kind of just variations on being really salty towards certain enemies. I think my preference would be to feel like the options evoke something more juicy and evocative. Like, where's my option for being a bunch of cyborgs that want to fuse demons with their transhuman flesh and heretechal machinery? The closest thing on the list is probably just having an Iron Warriors origin, and maybe dedicating myself to Nurgle (for some reason) so I can get 6+
FNP. What if I want to lean into my warband being full of mutants? Or what if I'm an
AL or
WB warband that makes extensive use of cultists? Or what if I just want to be really big on summoning daemons? Ideally, I'd like your list to make me feel like I could play one of these concepts, and right now it doesn't really facilitate any of them.
Hope that wasn't too discouraging. I'd love to read some other posters' thoughts.