skurkious
Junior Strategist
For Kith and Kriel!
Posts: 206
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Post by skurkious on Jul 10, 2017 21:08:15 GMT
What does everyone think of them dropping Rok to 19? While its cool they are looking at making him cheaper I can't help feeling like "we are the faction with the least heavies and now we don't even have one over 20 points?" I guess we have the most gargatuans but those aren't really cost effective($$) to have all of. Do you want an artificially expensive heavy? No, I want Mulg to be what he was and 22 points! lol its a sensitive subject for me :-p
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jul 10, 2017 21:16:50 GMT
Looking at the Troll Basher, I'm not sure how well it fits into its niche. Sure it's a cheap melee oriented light that's intended to be fire and forget, but it seems like in that role it's outshone by the Axer and Slag at +2 points and the Bouncer at +1.
The slag, while situationally useful, is a weaponmaster against a large portion of the field (warjacks, wolds and battle engines come to mind primarily) and with a bit of buff love will one round a khador heavy. Each attack before buffs averages 2.5 more damage than the basher and it has an assault shot to boost. That said, its animus is worthless compared to the bashers which does have some utility in a relatively low mat faction.
The axer has +1 armor, +1" of reach on its weapon and brings rush into the list - a key buff animus for getting your opponent to respect your raw threat. On top of that, it has thresher which allows it to clear out infantry relatively efficiently.
The bouncer admittedly hits less hard than the Basher, but has 2 initials and effectively 3 more armor, a comparatively valuable if not more valuable animus and shield guard.
The Basher, with Beat Back and Crit Stagger seems to want to be a piece that trades up into a heavy, maybe not one rounding it but pushing it around and staggering it so that it's less likely to finish him off on another round. I get that it's tricky to balance low point cost models (especially ones that can force multiply as hard as beasts) but it feels like his niche isn't quite there. Unfortunately I won't have time to get some reps in with him until after LnL, but my gut instinct is he needs a bit of shaping to get him in a good place. Either +1 pow to make him hit harder than the Axer, or +1 arm to bring him in line with the sturdiness of other brawly lights.
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skurkious
Junior Strategist
For Kith and Kriel!
Posts: 206
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Post by skurkious on Jul 10, 2017 21:50:56 GMT
What is the basher's animus?
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A-Mo
Junior Strategist
Posts: 204
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Post by A-Mo on Jul 10, 2017 21:55:25 GMT
Chiller. Basically a -2 def debuff while within 2". Seems pretty good to me.
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skurkious
Junior Strategist
For Kith and Kriel!
Posts: 206
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Post by skurkious on Jul 10, 2017 21:57:26 GMT
Not as good as the Argus but I'll take it!
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Post by robobengt on Jul 10, 2017 22:07:11 GMT
My first thought with the theme is to drop Jarl with a Glacier King, ice troll and Tuffalos into the Northkin Theme with the new hooch hauler and dual fire Eaters. It just sounds good to have free upkeeps on Weald secrets on the glacier King, free quicken on the tuffalos. And reposition on something? I immediately thought of all those casters with several upkeep spells. The new stone aura lets you get them out! Once those upkeeps are out drop magic bullets like mad! Lol. Unfortunately, the free upkeeps are only when the spells are on northkin models, so no free quicken on tuffalos.
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mattmcd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 521
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Post by mattmcd on Jul 10, 2017 22:08:08 GMT
My first thought with the theme is to drop Jarl with a Glacier King, ice troll and Tuffalos into the Northkin Theme with the new hooch hauler and dual fire Eaters. It just sounds good to have free upkeeps on Weald secrets on the glacier King, free quicken on the tuffalos. And reposition on something? I immediately thought of all those casters with several upkeep spells. The new stone aura lets you get them out! Once those upkeeps are out drop magic bullets like mad! Lol. Unfortunately, the free upkeeps are only when the spells are on northkin models, so no free quicken on tuffalos. I've since decided the new bears would work instead. :-)
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Post by robbleyourworld on Jul 10, 2017 22:14:38 GMT
I'm all about the bears. Unbuffed they're threatening 14" from a table edge with 4 pow 15's and 2 Pow 16's at MAT 8 all for 9 points. Your opponents playing a brick or is respecting this and is keeping important pieces fairly centralized run them into a forest and make your opponent play around them. Alone they seem awesome but add in some of the other northkin buffs and these things will do work
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Post by gobber on Jul 10, 2017 22:35:34 GMT
Looking at the Troll Basher, I'm not sure how well it fits into its niche. Sure it's a cheap melee oriented light that's intended to be fire and forget, but it seems like in that role it's outshone by the Axer and Slag at +2 points and the Bouncer at +1. The Basher, with Beat Back and Crit Stagger seems to want to be a piece that trades up into a heavy, maybe not one rounding it but pushing it around and staggering it so that it's less likely to finish him off on another round. I get that it's tricky to balance low point cost models (especially ones that can force multiply as hard as beasts) but it feels like his niche isn't quite there. Unfortunately I won't have time to get some reps in with him until after LnL, but my gut instinct is he needs a bit of shaping to get him in a good place. Either +1 pow to make him hit harder than the Axer, or +1 arm to bring him in line with the sturdiness of other brawly lights. I think playing around crit stagger is the key. Doomy123, Horgle2, and Calandra all have ways to make those crits likely. It's also great as an effect on the free strike with the doomies; rather like the talon warjack the threat of that ability means your opponent can't just ignore the basher if it's jamming. Implacable doomy3 feated bashers are going to be pretty annoying to get through.
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jul 10, 2017 22:39:52 GMT
Looking at the Troll Basher, I'm not sure how well it fits into its niche. Sure it's a cheap melee oriented light that's intended to be fire and forget, but it seems like in that role it's outshone by the Axer and Slag at +2 points and the Bouncer at +1. The Basher, with Beat Back and Crit Stagger seems to want to be a piece that trades up into a heavy, maybe not one rounding it but pushing it around and staggering it so that it's less likely to finish him off on another round. I get that it's tricky to balance low point cost models (especially ones that can force multiply as hard as beasts) but it feels like his niche isn't quite there. Unfortunately I won't have time to get some reps in with him until after LnL, but my gut instinct is he needs a bit of shaping to get him in a good place. Either +1 pow to make him hit harder than the Axer, or +1 arm to bring him in line with the sturdiness of other brawly lights. I think playing around crit stagger is the key. Doomy123, Horgle2, and Calandra all have ways to make those crits likely. It's also great as an effect on the free strike with the doomies; rather like the talon warjack the threat of that ability means your opponent can't just ignore the basher if it's jamming. Implacable doomy3 feated bashers are going to be pretty annoying to get through. Yeah but their design focus isn't "obnoxious road blocker" it's "budget light that takes buffs well". I'd argue that the Axer and the Slag explicitly do that better, and the Bouncer does it similarly well while also having amazing utility (and on certain targets is just explicitly better due to 2 initials and chain weapon).
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Post by robbleyourworld on Jul 10, 2017 22:48:38 GMT
Looking at the Troll Basher, I'm not sure how well it fits into its niche. Sure it's a cheap melee oriented light that's intended to be fire and forget, but it seems like in that role it's outshone by the Axer and Slag at +2 points and the Bouncer at +1. The Basher, with Beat Back and Crit Stagger seems to want to be a piece that trades up into a heavy, maybe not one rounding it but pushing it around and staggering it so that it's less likely to finish him off on another round. I get that it's tricky to balance low point cost models (especially ones that can force multiply as hard as beasts) but it feels like his niche isn't quite there. Unfortunately I won't have time to get some reps in with him until after LnL, but my gut instinct is he needs a bit of shaping to get him in a good place. Either +1 pow to make him hit harder than the Axer, or +1 arm to bring him in line with the sturdiness of other brawly lights. I think playing around crit stagger is the key. Doomy123, Horgle2, and Calandra all have ways to make those crits likely. It's also great as an effect on the free strike with the doomies; rather like the talon warjack the threat of that ability means your opponent can't just ignore the basher if it's jamming. Implacable doomy3 feated bashers are going to be pretty annoying to get through. I mean if you can pull it off its a good effect but fishing for crits always leaves a sour feeling in my stomach. Calandra + the knot is your most likely way to do to pull it off if put puppet strings on it and you boost to hit on your initials you've got a pretty decent crit chance assuming you're willing to spend focus on Calandra. Of course if you pull it off on something like a legion throne its pretty crippling
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Post by gobber on Jul 10, 2017 22:55:45 GMT
Again, none of those stagger and it's 20% cheaper; if I'm going to be throwing away buffed lights offensively that's fantastic. It's always worth sending them in for that chance. I really don't think it needs to hit harder; 4x pow18 does 20 damage to a khador heavy which is going to cripple systems in addition to the likelihood of stagger under any of those casters. They do best with Horgle, where they're more likely than not to one-round khador heavies (52.9%) and average 34 dmg if everything hit.
I'd have to do the math, but I'm pretty sure Doomie2or3/Horgle will give higher odds than Calandra as they can give it four boosted attack rolls, which is a 90.2% chance of a crit without Knot added in.
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gdnerd
Junior Strategist
Posts: 656
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Post by gdnerd on Jul 10, 2017 22:56:21 GMT
I think playing around crit stagger is the key. Doomy123, Horgle2, and Calandra all have ways to make those crits likely. It's also great as an effect on the free strike with the doomies; rather like the talon warjack the threat of that ability means your opponent can't just ignore the basher if it's jamming. Implacable doomy3 feated bashers are going to be pretty annoying to get through. I mean if you can pull it off its a good effect but fishing for crits always leaves a sour feeling in my stomach. Calandra + the knot is your most likely way to do to pull it off if put puppet strings on it and you boost to hit on your initials you've got a pretty decent crit chance assuming you're willing to spend focus on Calandra. Of course if you pull it off on something like a legion throne its pretty crippling With D3 is pretty reliable as his feat is additional die on attack rolls for a round so you can just run these guys up in your opponents face and they either have to kill it under doom3 feat or walk away and pray that they don't get staggered. Still, I don't think that's the pattern they want for these guys - they're supposed to be undercosted beatsticks rather than obnoxious speedbumps.
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Post by robbleyourworld on Jul 10, 2017 23:06:26 GMT
I mean if you can pull it off its a good effect but fishing for crits always leaves a sour feeling in my stomach. Calandra + the knot is your most likely way to do to pull it off if put puppet strings on it and you boost to hit on your initials you've got a pretty decent crit chance assuming you're willing to spend focus on Calandra. Of course if you pull it off on something like a legion throne its pretty crippling With D3 is pretty reliable as his feat is additional die on attack rolls for a round so you can just run these guys up in your opponents face and they either have to kill it under doom3 feat or walk away and pray that they don't get staggered. Still, I don't think that's the pattern they want for these guys - they're supposed to be undercosted beatsticks rather than obnoxious speedbumps. lol I should really read my cards more I totally forgot about that portion of his feat. Thats pretty solid, gives you a pretty decent crit chance against a def 13 model with initials and 2 bought attacks.
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Post by gobber on Jul 10, 2017 23:16:11 GMT
Fwiw, Doomy 2's wild aggression and Horgle's feat vs things on fire give the same 90.4% crit chance if you can make 4 boosted attacks. Both of them give ways to charge for free as well, which helps a lot with that.
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