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Compact, simplify, tune to purpose. Extra AP and D on 6s to wound removed due to mixed save units and save order weirdness. Lash whips lets a single model tank infinite melee damage and finding wording that works would be a hassle, maybe it should improve durability, I am not sure how that would work.

Melee Weapons

Boneswords S User AP-3 2D

Bone mace S User AP-3 3D Each time the bearer fights, it can make one (and only one) attack with this weapon. This is in addition to the bearer’s attacks.

Thresher scythe S User AP-3 1D Each time the bearer fights, it can make two (and only two) attacks with this weapon. This is in addition to the bearer’s attacks.

Lash whip and bonesword S User AP-3 1D Each time the bearer fights, it makes 1 additional attack with this weapon.

Lash whip and monstrous boneswords S User AP-3 2D Make 2 hit rolls for each attack made with this weapon.

Monstrous boneswords S +2 AP-3 d3+3D

Monstrous crushing claws S User AP-3 3D Each time the bearer fights, it makes 2 additional attacks with this weapon against VEHICLE or MONSTER units.

Monstrous rending claws S User AP-6 3D

Monstrous scything talons S User AP-3 3D Each time the bearer fights, it makes 1 additional attack with this weapon.

Rending claws S User AP-2 1D

Scything talons S User AP- 1D Each time the bearer fights, it makes 1 additional attack with this weapon.

Ranged Weapons

Bio-plasmic scream 18" Assault D6 S7 AP-3 2D Blast

Deathspitter with slimer maggots 24" Assault 3 S7 AP-1 2D

Other Wargear

Chitin thorns The first time the bearer passes a saving throw in each Fight phase the attacking model's unit suffers 1 mortal wound.

Toxin sacs An unmodified hit roll of 6 made with a melee weapon by the bearer automatically wounds non-VEHICLE targets.

HQ Units

Tervigon

Armed with monstrous instead of massive melee weapons.

Brood Progenitor: Friendly <HIVE FLEET> Termagant units within 6" of this model inflict 2 hits instead of 1 on unmodified hit rolls of 6.

The Swarmlord

WS 2+/3+/4+ S 6/6/6

Bone sabres S +2 AP-3 6D.

Elites Units

Maleceptor

Armed with monstrous instead of massive melee weapons.

Heavy Support Units

Carnifexes

Remove Living Battering Ram ability, increase Strength characteristic from 6 to 9. Tusk cost reduced unless the model is armed with scything talons or crushing claws. Monstrous acid maw cost reduced if the model is armed with scything talons or crushing claws. No other comments on costs in this thread because with all the changes I am suggesting here there are too many to list, this is just a note based on some awful Carnifex loadouts you can make.

Trygon

Armed with monstrous instead of massive melee weapons.

Trygon Prime

Armed with monstrous instead of massive melee weapons.

Stratagems, Psychic Powers, Relics, WL traits, Hive Fleets

Probably need pruning and tuning, maybe a few additions, not sure what I would want to change here. Stratagems for auto-wound on unmodified 6s to hit with (monstrous) rending claws for one unit and a fight last Stratagem for a unit near a lash whip and (monstrous) bonesword model.

 vict0988 wrote:

Melee Weapons
...

Have you crunched the numbers on where this puts various weapons against various potential targets? At a glance, these all feel very samey; variations on the same general theme. I'm not sure what would make me want to take monstrous rending claws over the seemingly-more-versatile monstrous bone swords, for instance. The former can ignore 3+ saves instead of reducing them to a 6+ and is good against 2+ saves, but I'm generally fine with leaving my opponent a 6+ save and the list of things with 2+ armor but not an invul is pretty short. Meanwhile the monstrous bone swords appear to be equal to the claws against light infantry, better against multi-wound targets, better against vehicles, and maybe even almost as good against vehicles as monstrous crushing claws. Maybe availability and points pricing will separate them out a bit more, but they feel very samey to me. Very falchions vs halberds or force axe vs force staff.

I don't think I like lashwhips as a source of bonus attacks that also makes your bone swords less killy. Partly because it contributes to the samey feeling of the weapons. Partly because I'd be really reluctant to go from killing a marine with a single attack (bone swords) to needing a second successful attack (lashwhip + bonesword.) And if I'm taking lashwhips on my warriors, presumably to be better at clearing large units of non-marines, I have to ask myself why I'm using melee warriors for that job instead of guns or hormagaunts or genestealers.

Maybe lashwhips could have some sort of utility rule tied to them? Maybe they grant the unit something like the wyches' No Escape rule with lashwhips being in range of enemy models granting shardnet style benefits (to give you a reason to take more than one of them). Or maybe each model with a lashwhip can reduce an enemy model within 1"'s Attacks by 2 (minimum 1) at the start of the Fight phase. Or heck, just keep the, "Models with lash whips get to swing even if they already died" rule. It basically makes your lashwhip warriros into the model you feel more comfortable killing off when you get stabbed and helps your monsters get their hits in when they get murderized by some tough guy in melee.

The Swarmlord

WS 2+/3+/4+ S 6/6/6

Bone sabres S +2 AP-3 6D.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Swarmie should feel like a big deal, but expressing that through 6D weapons raises some flags for me. For one thing, it doesn't really help against 1 and 2 wound infantry units. So while he's able to put down a captain pretty reliably, a squad of tarpitting wyches or ork boyz or what have you won't care. For another, 6D on weapons means he's 2(?)-shotting basic dreadnaughts along with pretty much any transport short of a land raider.The swarmlord, to my understanding, is supposed to be a duelist crossed with brilliant commander (of a tyraniddy sort). These rules make me think of him as more of a brute force wrecking ball. Not especially good at dealing with hordes. Not good at overcoming an enemy's skillful techniques. Just hard hitting enough to kill anything he manages to hit.

Remove Living Battering Ram ability, increase Strength characteristic from 6 to 9.

Mechanically fine. Does kind of lose some of the cinematic appeal though. Maybe give carnifex a shock prow style stratagem so you can recapture the feel of living battering ram?

Tusk cost reduced unless the model is armed with scything talons or crushing claws. Monstrous acid maw cost reduced if the model is armed with scything talons or crushing claws. No other comments on costs in this thread because with all the changes I am suggesting here there are too many to list, this is just a note based on some awful Carnifex loadouts you can make.

Sounds tricky to convey cleanly on a rules document, but sure.

Stratagems for auto-wound on unmodified 6s to hit with (monstrous) rending claws for one unit

Hmm. When would you opt to use that stratagem? If I'm sitting there with, let's say, a tyrant, I know I only have a handful of attacks, but those attacks probably have high strength. So spending CP is only worth it if:
A.) At least one of my to-hit rolls is a 6.
B.) The same attack that would roll a 6 to hit would also roll low enough to not wound.

So if my tyrant is making about 6 attacks, I should average a single to-hit roll of 6. Then, assuming I'm stabbing marines (S6 vs T4), I'd have a 1 in 3 chance of failing the to-wound roll. Against a T7 or T8 vehicle, that improves to a 2/3rds chance of failing to wound, but I'd still be spending CP with a 1/3rd chance of the stratagem not accomplishing anything I wasn't going to accomplish already. And I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure just taking monstrous bone swords instead of monstrous rending claws increases my average damage against all targets enough to make them the more effective choice without having to spend CP on them.

and a fight last Stratagem for a unit near a lash whip and (monstrous) bonesword model.

Ah. I didn't see this on my first read-through. That would help lash whips. Still feel I might prefer some sort of always-on benefit though.

EDIT: Any thoughts on how to handle the four-arms thing? It's annoying when you have something like a scything talon + rending claw genestealer and he's really only benefitting from either one or the other on a given turn. Would it make sense to go back to granting bonus attacks for multiple sets of melee weapons on 'nids?

The only math I did was in regards to deathspitters with slimer maggots, trying to find out if the dakka was over the top with 2D. Which it kind of is, makes double slimer Fexes into glass cannons.

When you allocate wounds to a unit it must be allocated to a wounded model. If a lashwhip model is reduced to 0 wounds it sticks around, so it is still part of the unit and wounds can and must still be allocated to it, this means a unit with a lashwhip can never suffer more than 3 wounds each Fight phase. That's why the rules have to change. Wraiths got the double attack treatment with their whip coils and it feels really cool, there is a distinct use for them compared to the regular Wraiths and you can mix and match.

Monstrous rending claws would probably end up being cheaper, as they currently are. For Hive Tyrants you've got 20% more damage vs 3+ Sv, compared to the 25% vs everything for monstrous scything talons. I think monstrous boneswords should be the premiere option, if you see a monstrous bonesword Hive Tyrant you should think "oh gak, he is going to come and cut me to pieces".

I think weapons being similar is good, that makes it easier for players to remember and evaluate weapons. You should not need a Goonhammer article to explain what weapon to take if you want to hunt Drukhari Raiders with your Hive Tyrant or Carnifex.

I like your Swarmlord criticism.

Totally agree on the Stratagem angle with Carnifexes, I just don't see it being an ability. I especially don't like Carnifexes having to charge to make their crushing claws work. The main reason for removing the +1 to hit is because of the cap on +1 to hit on a unit. The 4+ to cause 1 mortal feels too dinky. I considered psudeo-flight during the charge phase as well.

The auto-wound Stratagem would mostly be for Genestealers and to a lesser extent Broodlords. It could also just be re-roll wound rolls, maybe 3 CP for big Genestealer units and 2 CP otherwise, that would make it a bigger help for Hive Tyrants.

I am sorry the format confused you.

When you allocate wounds to a unit it must be allocated to a wounded model. If a lashwhip model is reduced to 0 wounds it sticks around, so it is still part of the unit and wounds can and must still be allocated to it, this means a unit with a lashwhip can never suffer more than 3 wounds each Fight phase. That's why the rules have to change. Wraiths got the double attack treatment with their whip coils and it feels really cool, there is a distinct use for them compared to the regular Wraiths and you can mix and match.

That seems like the sort of thing that could be clarified with a single sentence added to the existing rules. "Wounds may not be allocated to a model that has already been reduced to 0 wounds." Or something like that. I suspect that between scything talons, rending claws, bone swords, and lashes + swords, one of those options is probably redundant/less good at its own job than another option. I'm just not sure which one is the redundant. Maybe making the better options pricy enough fixes this.

 vict0988 wrote:

I think weapons being similar is good, that makes it easier for players to remember and evaluate weapons. You should not need a Goonhammer article to explain what weapon to take if you want to hunt Drukhari Raiders with your Hive Tyrant or Carnifex.

Interesting. Can you explain your reasoning there? It sounds like we want the same end result but interpret how to get there in very different ways. To me, it's preferable to have a smaller number of weapons that each have clearly-defined jobs versus having many weapons that step on each others' toes. When you have many weapons that are similar but just slightly different, it's easy to end up witih one option out of several that is mathematically superior to the others but isn't obviously superior until you crunch the numbers. Either a force sword or a force axe is a straight up better weapon against a wider variety of targets, but I couldn't tell you which one is better without breaking out a calculator. Compare that to the 7th edition harlequin weapons where one was clearly the anti-horde weapon, one was the meq killer, and one was sort of versatile but also the best at killing "big" stuff.

You shouldn't need a goonhammer article to tell you which weapon to do a given job, but having multiple similar profiles makes it more difficult to tell which weapon is the best at a given job. And worse, makes it easy to end up with never-take options that are straight up less efficient at their job than a similar weapon. I feel that your melee weapon profiles are similar enough to one another that they're more like force weapons than harlequin weapons. But maybe my initial impression is incorrect.

The auto-wound Stratagem would mostly be for Genestealers and to a lesser extent Broodlords. It could also just be re-roll wound rolls, maybe 3 CP for big Genestealer units and 2 CP otherwise, that would make it a bigger help for Hive Tyrants.

I am sorry the format confused you.

Such a strat definitely makes more sense on an entire squad of 'stealers than on just a single broodlord.

Wyldhunt wrote:

 vict0988 wrote:

I think weapons being similar is good, that makes it easier for players to remember and evaluate weapons. You should not need a Goonhammer article to explain what weapon to take if you want to hunt Drukhari Raiders with your Hive Tyrant or Carnifex.

Interesting. Can you explain your reasoning there? It sounds like we want the same end result but interpret how to get there in very different ways. To me, it's preferable to have a smaller number of weapons that each have clearly-defined jobs versus having many weapons that step on each others' toes. When you have many weapons that are similar but just slightly different, it's easy to end up witih one option out of several that is mathematically superior to the others but isn't obviously superior until you crunch the numbers. Either a force sword or a force axe is a straight up better weapon against a wider variety of targets, but I couldn't tell you which one is better without breaking out a calculator. Compare that to the 7th edition harlequin weapons where one was clearly the anti-horde weapon, one was the meq killer, and one was sort of versatile but also the best at killing "big" stuff.

Let's take the current monstrous rending claws versus current monstrous scything talons. You are trying to kill Wyches and Raiders in scenario 1, Rhinos and Tactical Squads in scenario 2.

4 attacks hitting on 2+, S6 is the same, AP-3 is the same. Rending claws get re-roll wound rolls and AP-6 on 6s and D3 on 6s, but are normally only d3D. How do you figure how much the extra AP and D on 6s is worth it against which target? How does the re-roll 1s to hit versus re-roll failed wounds stack up? This is not something I think many people can do in their head.

Vs Wyches rending claws and scything talons are the same.

Vs Raiders rending claws deal 17% more damage.

Vs Tactical Squads rending claws deal 0-7% more damage, it's complicated.

Vs Rhinos rending claws deal 167% more damage. The math looks like this (3*6/5+2)*10/6/(3*7/6), this is the kind of math you don't just need a calculator for, you need a Goonhammer article.

Now my rending claws and scything talons. More AP math 1/1=1 vs 4+ Sv or worse, 6/5=1,2 vs 3+ Sv with no invul. One attack math 5/4=1,25. This is math where it's easier to just do it in your head than get a calculator. It's easy to figure out that scything talons are always better, but even without a calculator it is obvious that +1 A is better in cases where the extra 3AP don't play a part.

You shouldn't need a goonhammer article to tell you which weapon to do a given job, but having multiple similar profiles makes it more difficult to tell which weapon is the best at a given job. And worse, makes it easy to end up with never-take options that are straight up less efficient at their job than a similar weapon. I feel that your melee weapon profiles are similar enough to one another that they're more like force weapons than harlequin weapons. But maybe my initial impression is incorrect.

All roads lead to Rome, rending claws and scything talons look different, but at the end of the day they have to deal damage. I am just making the road to Rome more obvious.

I don't see how you can call the Harlequin weapons all unique when they are all S User AP-, they have a special rule that differentiate each of them, I use a single stat change instead, I think I am using the exact same method as those old Harlequin weapons.

Which of the old Harlequin weapons is best against Rhinos and Raiders? It's the anti-horde one. So it's not like there is a total separation of church and state in these old weapons.

A change I'd love is for a clear difference between monsterous scything talons vs monsterous crushing claws

Scything Talosn - rr 1's if multiple pairs and additional attack as per normal, ap 2 and d2 - Damage overspills on infantry units

Crushing claws - no -1 to hit, Str x2 ap 2 D3 - reroll wound rolls of 1 vs vehicles or monsters

Thoughts?

 Gir Spirit Bane wrote:
A change I'd love is for a clear difference between monsterous scything talons vs monsterous crushing claws

Scything Talosn - rr 1's if multiple pairs and additional attack as per normal, ap 2 and d2 - Damage overspills on infantry units

Crushing claws - no -1 to hit, Str x2 ap 2 D3 - reroll wound rolls of 1 vs vehicles or monsters

Thoughts?

Re-rolls waste time. Give crushing claws -1 to hit against units other than VEHICLES or MONSTERS instead, you can increase AP to compensate. Overspill on Infantry or double attacks and D1 is the same, except it also spills over on other 1W units like Drones and I can't think of a reason why scything talons should be especially effective against infantry versus Beasts or Drones.

Scything talons - Each time the bearer fights they can make one additional attack with this weapon. Make two hit rolls for each attack made with this weapon S User AP-2 1D.

Crushing claws - Subtract 1 from hit rolls made with this weapon against units other than VEHICLES or MONSTERS S x2 AP-4 3D.