A Suggested Quick and Dirty Jack Marshal Fix

My suggestion to fix Jack Marshal is the following steps.

1) Do not change current Jack Marshal Rules

2) Fix/Balance Power Up


Current Jack Marshal rules are good as it is. The problem is with Power Up being too efficient, the current reasons why one should Marshal a warjack is weak.

No, but having 8 warjacks capable of getting a free focus each turn does seem too efficient compared to hordes' restrictions and unit choices available.

Personally imo, with the advent of power up's efficiency, most units are slightly overcosted. They should be 1-2 pts less.

But I digress and I guess u have a point. My suggested solution is not a "quick and dirty" fix.

I thought you had solved it with the two abilities idea, but then I remembered Redeemers getting Take Aim! and Strike True! That's a lot of RAT 5 POW 16 (Base 12 + Take Aim! + Choir) with POW 10 blast damage rockets heading your way.

It's not exactly broken on its own, but with pSevvy or Feora3, you have this 15 point module (Redeemer + Reclaimer + 1 member of a choir) that out guns almost anything in faction (the Revalator is the main exception here).

I think that really is the problem when it comes to capping power up.
Do you make it an arbitrary number?
Do you tie it to a stat?
Either option gives a bad result somewhere, but of the two, I'd rather it be tied to the focus stat.

But enough of that digression. It's Jack Marshal that's being examined, not power up.

I think removing the 1 jack limit would go a long way to fixing it. The buffs already work best with volume of attacks, so being able to take more really drives down the price, hopefully to the point where it can compete point for point with the more straight up powerful options.

A marshal can control up to 1/2 CMD warjacks perhaps?



That could be a way to balance it.

Im personally not that super impressed by the worst case redeemer scenario, because you cant boost and need to aim.

Im not sure why one would marshal more then 1 jack. Since at the moment charging takes up your entire thing.

Actually, they do have access to a focus in the form of Power Up from the Vassal, though that does take the module up to 18 points.

As for aiming, I can hit my opponent with a lucky drift from a Redeemer at the bottom of one. If I go first and run, I can aim for the rest of the game, though the SR2017 terrain rules will mitigate this.

Under pSevvy, anything with less than armour 20 is going to get dented It does an average of 9 damage from three rockets to ARM 20 without a boost, 12 to ARM 19 and 15 to ARM 18.

The problem is that it outguns everything in faction.
A Reckoner boosting damage under pSevvy will do 7 damage a turn to ARM20, 8 to ARM 19, 9 to ARM 18.
A Judicator with one boost could do 15 damage to ARM20, 19 to ARM 19 and 23 to ARM 18, While these numbers look impressive, they need the Judicater to aim to hit a target within 8", which is less than it's charge range (9"), and it's still only RAT4 with the rockets when aiming, so is more likely to do far less. (at 14 ", it can do 11 damage, but again, the RAT is a problem, it's more likely to do 7) I've left out the secondary blasts because they have a small chance of doing any damage and can be considered outliers when they do.

The fact that one module as described in my earlier post (ie without a Vassal) would nearly outgun the Judicator for far fewer points is the problem. Whether that's a problem with the Judicator or your proposed change remains to be seen.

It's only the melee output of these two examples that set them apart from the Redeemer, but there are more efficient melee 'jacks in the Protectorate.