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Made in us
Shadowy Grot Kommittee Memba






Its pretty clear Drukhari are still too strong, and I think there's a lot of invisible power in their armywide rules. Here's my proposal for a purposefully less powerful rule that will replace Blade Artists and Power from Pain. Drukhari will no longer have a unique rule that they only gain if they take only Drukhari detachments, Power from Pain will be present on all units except for Sslyth, Ur-Ghul, DRUKHARI BEASTS units, and Medusae (who fluffwise, are not Drukhari and therefore do not get a benefit to their abilities from killing)

Power from Pain: Drukhari delight in agony, and the nearby presence of living beings - whether friend or foe - suffering and dying invigorates them with waves of narcotic power.

Place a Pain Token next to any Drukhari unit after any attack has been fully resolved that either

-Causes at least one unsaved wound to the unit
-Destroys an enemy model within 6" of the unit or the transport the unit is embarked within

A Drukhari unit may only ever have 1 pain token at a time. At the beginning of either the Shooting phase or the Fight phase, a unit's Pain token can be spent to gain one of the two following rules:

-When a model in this unit would lose a wound, roll a D6, on a 6 the wound is not lost
-Add +1 to hit rolls in the Fight phase for this unit




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Additional:

Change the "Art of Pain" custom wych cult trait to "While a unit with this obsession is within Engagement Range of enemy models, it is always treated as having a Pain Token."

Change the first clause in the Black Heart kabal trait to:

"During their Command Phase, one Black Heart unit can be given a Pain Token."

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/13 15:15:20


"Got you, Yugi! Your Rubric Marines can't fall back because I have declared the tertiary kaptaris ka'tah stance two, after the secondary dacatarai ka'tah last turn!"

"So you think, Kaiba! I declared my Thousand Sons the cult of Duplicity, which means all my psykers have access to the Sorcerous Facade power! Furthermore I will spend 8 Cabal Points to invoke Cabbalistic Focus, causing the rubrics to appear behind your custodes! The Vengeance for the Wronged and Sorcerous Fullisade stratagems along with the Malefic Maelstrom infernal pact evoked earlier in the command phase allows me to double their firepower, letting me wound on 2s and 3s!"

"you think it is you who has gotten me, yugi, but it is I who have gotten you! I declare the ever-vigilant stratagem to attack your rubrics with my custodes' ranged weapons, which with the new codex are now DAMAGE 2!!"

"...which leads you straight into my trap, Kaiba, you see I now declare the stratagem Implacable Automata, reducing all damage from your attacks by 1 and triggering my All is Dust special rule!"  
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran




A few questions of execution:
  • How long are these abilities meant to last? Until the end of the phase, the turn, the battle round?
  • Is the second condition intended to give a Pain Token to all DRUKHARI units within 6" of that destroyed model? Or just one of your choice?
  • If Drukhari enjoy the suffering of nearby "friends or foes", why do they only get Pain Tokens when enemy models are destroyed? Why not any unsaved wound, and why not allied models?
  • Does the first condition include wounds prevented via Insensible to Pain or Power From Pain itself? They're still unsaved. Does it include mortal wounds, which aren't "unsaved"?

  • Observations:
  • This makes HAEMONCULUS COVEN units much less durable, as they not only lose their invulnerable save, the new PFP "defense" is redundant with Insensible to Pain.
  • This makes WYCH units much less able to get into melee, as DRUKHARI now have no way to offer Advance-and-charge (except BEASTS, because they never had PFP to begin with).
  • This encourages the use of RAIDERS - an already powerful, cheap, and ubiquitously popular transport - even more than before, since they still have their full invulnerable save and can keep your now-squishier, slower infantry alive and mobile.
  • KABALITE WARRIORS broadly don't care about losing Advance-and-charge or a free +1 to hit in melee (though it was a nice benefit in a pinch). They also spend their days aboard RAIDERS where possible, as your only dedicated ranged infantry, and have a decent enough armour save that the Invulnerable loss won't be as big of a kick in the teeth as it is for WRACKS; in fact, the FNP bonus is stronger for them, as a defensive tool.


  • Overall, I don't really care for the execution, here; it has too many knock-on changes and perverse incentives. It also doesn't really encourage any sort of interesting behaviour or decisions; you want to kill enemy models, and your enemy wants to kill your models, and this gives you a bonus whenever either of those things happen, which they obviously will. If you're looking to nerf Drukhari, I'd instead focus on a few specific break-points like Raiders, Incubi, and Lords of Comorragh.

    Don't get me wrong, though; PFP is powerful, and it's a mechanical concept that should be a bit more interesting and played-with than it is. It should be something that encourages more of an overt shift in the Drukhari playstyle, encouraging them to dart around and bleed at the enemy with tricky raids in the early game, wearing down their defences and key units before they go in hard on the mid-late game, latching on to objectives like a tick and throwing themselves into bloody melees.

    Unfortunately, the rest of the army isn't geared strongly-enough around that notion, and most of its units are too specialist to really play like that; you're never going to have Wyches or Grotesques switch from harassing people at range to going in for the melee kill, because going in for the melee kill is literally all they can do. Plus, the progressive method of scoring objectives means that it's very unwise to play hit-and-run or bypass objectives in the early game. You have to be squatting on them ASAP and never let go.

    This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2021/07/13 15:34:26


     
       
    Made in us
    Fixture of Dakka





    Lots of excellent points from RevildRas there. I feel like the proposed nerfs would be pretty severe (especially for coven units), and the 6+ FNP and +1 to hit are so minor that I'd almost rather not have them so I have one fewer things to think about.

    Blade Artists smacks of power creep to me. I feel like every unit that has it is perfectly good without it. You could probably just remove the rule entirely without it being a big deal.

    Power From Pain is a problem. It's clunky and doesn't really represent what it's supposed to very well, but removing it would hamstring the already nerfed coven units.

    Something I've pitched in the past is to tie it to whether or not a unit is at half strength or starting strength. Sort of like that new stratagem we have that lets you reroll to-hit rolls against enemy units have suffered casualties. Maybe we could do something like...

    * If a PFP unit begins a phase within 6" of a unit below its starting strength (including itself), it gains a 6+ invul until the end of the turn. It gains a 5+ invul instead if the unit is below half strength.

    * PFP units may declare charges against enemy units below their starting strength even if the PFP unit advanced that turn. If a PFP unit declares a charge against a unit below half strength, they may reroll the charge if it fails.

    And then tweak a few things to support this new mechanic:
    * Shoot to Torment: Enemy units that suffer one or more casualties to a KABAL unit's Poisoned Weapons counts as being below half strength for purposes of Power From Pain for the rest of the turn.

    * Ditch the succubus's reroll aura. Instead, when an enemy unit is destroyed during the Fight phase, all unenaged wych cult units within 6" of the succubus may immediately consolidate 3" (in addition to any other consolidate moves they make that turn).

    * Ditch the haemonculus's Toughness aura. Instead, all PFP units within 6" of the haemonculus gain a 5+ invul save instead. (He radiates pain so hard that nearby units are basically treated as being near below half strength units).

    *The animus vitae now causes the target to be below half strength for the rest of the turn.

    I know I'm forgetting a bunch of other interactions that would need to be tweaked, but you get the idea.

    Things I hope this achieves:
    * Kabalites become good support units for the rest of your army.

    * You don't have to wait for your pain batteries to "charge up".

    * Coven armies, though slightly less durable in the long run, can use their haemonculi to become more durable throughout the game.

    * Wych units are less likely to be left stranded and exposed to shooting after killing a thing. This also forces your opponent to spread out more to avoid being caught in melee.

    I guess this doesn't do a ton to depower drukhari, but PFP probably isn't the best place to do that anyway given how integral it is to the performance of many units.


    ATTENTION
    . Psychic tests are unfluffy. Your longing for AV is understandable but misguided. Your chapter doesn't need a separate codex. Doctrines should go away. Being a "troop" means nothing. This has been a cranky service announcement. You may now resume your regularly scheduled arguing.
     
       
     
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