Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

There seems to be a pretty established consensus that the Sky Lantern is currently a real problem in Warhammer: The Old World. While I don’t particularly care about things like the competitive meta – are sky lanterns really any worse than 100 goblin poison bricks or triple dragon – I’ve seen people posting that they would like to play Cathay, but they don’t want to be ‘that guy’ and I think that’s a real problem for the first new Warhammer army in two decades.

The effectiveness of a unit in Warhammer can be assessed in terms of mobility, lethality, durability and cost, and arguably the sky lantern excels at all of these. To me it feels too good at too many things, especially things that a hot air balloon shouldn’t be particularly good at.

Mobility:
When I think of hot air balloons, I don’t typically think of speed and manoeuvrability, yet the Sky Lantern has Fly 8” and Reserve Move, making it able to run rings around many enemy units. It’s ability to leave combat whenever it likes and simply jump behind the enemy (while dropping bombs and shooting in 360 degree LOS) makes it almost impossible to pin down. Reducing its Fly speed to 6” or even 4” would make it much more reasonable and feel more like a balloon.

Alternatively, lean into the fact it’s a dirigible, and therefore less manoeuvrable than a winged flying creature such as a dragon. Perhaps you could determine the wind direction using a scatter dice at the start of the game, and if the lantern tries to move against the wind, its speed is halved. You could roll for a change in wind direction at the start of each battle round.

Lethality:
Here I don’t think the Sky Lantern is too bad. It’s very effective, yes, but I don’t think its damage output would be egregious if it wasn’t for the other factors here. I do wonder why its impact hits are strength 5, the same as an Empire War Wagon, but that’s not a dealbreaker for me.

Durability:
I do think the Sky Lantern is too durable for what it represents. A hot air balloon seems to me like it should be quite flimsy – made of lightweight materials and not heavily armoured. Toughness 5 with 7 wounds (10 with a Magistrate aboard) and a 4+ save is ridiculous. Again, a War Wagon has T5 and only 6 wounds (though with better armour, as it should be). These issues are compounded when used as a character mount, giving it access to ward and regeneration saves. I would look at dropping it to T4, potentially dropping the save to 5+ and/or the wounds to 5 or 6.

Also, why the hell is it unbreakable? Most things that are unbreakable are either because they’re mindless (undead, chaos spawn) or because they’re basically insane and would rather die than run (Dwarf Slayers, Flagellants etc). It seems crazy to me that a sky lantern can disengage of its own free will but not be forced to do so.

Cost:
At 135 points (170 with the full suite of bombs etc) the Sky Lantern seems pretty under-costed for what it can do. It should probably cost more, but I actually think that the cost is not the biggest problem, the mobility and durability are.

So, that’s my thoughts on how I would ‘fix’ the sky lantern. What about you? Would you change it, keep it the same? Change its cost?

IMO easiest way is just removing the plethora of unneeded special rules.

Keep the cost and remove: reserve move, unbreakable, Disengage, Feigned Flight, Fire & Flee.

Random movement. If squigs get it, why not the literal baloon?

Not Online!!! wrote:
Random movement. If squigs get it, why not the literal baloon?

Fair, but I don't think the balloons need to be even stronger.

 Daba wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
Random movement. If squigs get it, why not the literal baloon?

Fair, but I don't think the balloons need to be even stronger.

1 D6 +3 ? And no mechanic to correct it, also should be affected by wind spells and if it flies over the table edge it counts as destroyed.

It should have “flammable” - it’s made of lacquered paper and wood.
That said, shooting down hot air balloons with arrows and bullets is surprisingly hard; the bag isn’t pressurised so a hole doesn’t send it off in random directions like a party balloon or cause it to explode. It can keep its toughness but lose a wound or two.
Fire and flee can definitely go; it’s not manoeuvrable enough. But feigned flight, representing them just firing up the burners and floating directly up and away? Totally works.
Unbreakable should be paired with unstable though. Once it’s grounded and fighting it shouldn’t be too hard for a “boarding party” of sorts to actually get into the gondola of the defenders are pushed back.

Simple.

2 options.


Option 1: Make a new unit that is even better and people will use it instead.

Option 2: Insert Stormcast Eternals into the Old World and in the insuing backlash of seething anger, people will no longer care about balloons.


Both sound and reasonable options in my book.

I agree to the original poster. Just leave the points cost as it is and degrade its abilities and stats.

T4 4+ RW would be enough
Also slower and not so tough impact hits. That will do the trick.

Give it Random Movement with a re-roll for direction.

T5, W4, no AS

Treat like a Chariot, but no impact hits:
4 Crewmen
Equipment: 4 Crane Guns
Point Cost: 160p
Special Rules: Flying Model (10”), March Blocker, Scout, Sky Lantern

Sky Lantern: Models shooting at enemy units within 12” of the Lantern can be targeted with an additional modifier of -1 on to-hit rolls, and ignore any obstacles when determining LOS. All other modifiers still apply.. In the shooting phase, the Sky Lantern can drop bombs on a unit that they moved over (at least partially) during the movement phase. Place the 3” template on the unit, roll the scatter die and a D6 -On a roll of 6, the Sky Lantern suffers one wound (consider the roll a misfire-do not resolve the template), On a roll of 1 to 5, move the template the amount of inches rolled in the direction determined by the scatter die, when a hit symbol is rolled ,the template stays where it was placed. Resolve the template. It causes S2 (4) AP (1) hits If the Sky Lantern has moved during the movement phase using its fly movement allowance, .The crew may still shoot with its Crane Guns in the shooting phase. The crew has a 360” arc of sight and each crewman may pick a separate target. The Sky Lantern cannot declare attacks during the movement phase.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Give it Random Movement with a re-roll for direction.

Roll for Wind Direction, and all Baloons can only go that direction?