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Post by Swampmist on Jul 20, 2017 7:05:45 GMT
Honestly, the main difference is that champs, woth 2 p+s 12 (14 with new stone ) WM attacks apiece, are WORTH DELIVERING.
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Post by greytemplar on Jul 20, 2017 7:19:37 GMT
Yeah, Bastions and Cinnies got hit hard by the Heavy Infantry General Nerf. Now it seems like they're bringing the power levels back up, but in a controlled slow way to make sure we don't go back to Miserable Meat Mountain days. Miserable Meat/Metal Mountain never went away. It just changed form. It's just a jack/beast wall instead of a bunch of heavy infantry.
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Post by WantonRanger on Jul 20, 2017 8:41:14 GMT
#betterbastions Which is fine btw. Bastions are almost unplayable, so a better version existing is fine. Just gotta wait for our turn now :^) This would be fine if the PP timescales were not so terrible. I mean they function in basically constant year+ waits.
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regleant
Junior Strategist
Sometimes things go right
Posts: 267
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Post by regleant on Jul 20, 2017 10:37:53 GMT
Champs are better bastions yes...but that's not really hard to accomplish now is it?.... But that's okay because it's forum-wisdom that jacks are strictly better than beasts, so Hordes factions should have better infantry than Warmachine factions for balance. I'm cool with it.
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Post by dicebedamned on Jul 20, 2017 12:42:57 GMT
The synergy between Defensive Line and Sanguine Bond probably means it will come up more often, but that itself does not remove the problem that at 5 boxes Sanguine Bond is more often than not a liability.
I preferred the week 1 CID where they were cheaper. Retaliatory strike is all well and good, but most things that hit a Champion will kill it dead by +3, and should you Sanguine Bond to get your Retaliatory Strike chances are that you just weakend 3 other models to the point that trivial damage will finish them.
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Post by gargs454 on Jul 20, 2017 13:35:46 GMT
Don't they get a bonus for staying by each other? At least that's a pretty big synergy with SB. In my experience, unless it's clearly superior to disperse the damage, taking 8+ damage is usually when you decide to forget SB and just remove the model. The devs seem to think it's going to be this big deal with retaliatory strike but as an opponent of trolls who faces them very very often...I just don't see it being a big deal. Under a caster like Ragnor it might be great for 1 Turn that's really all I can think of. Yeah I don't think the devs have quite yet figured out the issues with healing mechanics. I think they thought, for instance, that the Vessel getting a heal mechanic would suddenly make Cinnies and Bastions playable, but if that were the case, you'd already have been seeing them played with Tristan2. They haven't quite figured out that the real issue is that the models are dead before they can be healed. If Sanguine Bond simply prevented damage, as opposed to spreading it out, it could, in theory, work -- assuming it prevented enough damage, but a three inch range damage spread just isn't likely to help all that much.
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blakeh1
Junior Strategist
Posts: 181
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Post by blakeh1 on Jul 20, 2017 14:19:10 GMT
Which is why the old 8 wound and CMD rng over 3" bubble was so effective. There were enough boxes to soak up damage, but if enough was applied they did crumble eventually.
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Post by streetpizza on Jul 20, 2017 16:34:02 GMT
Available synergy for champs:
- Chronicler for concealment so 14 def vs shooting on the approach - Unit of warders behind them for arm 20 shield guards for any shots that come their way - Borka1 for arcane ward +2 def and spell imunity can combine with point 1 to ensure always def 16 - Madrak 1 sure foot for +2 def same as Borka - Horgle inviolable resolve for +2 arm making them arm 20 under the stone but you can put that on the shield guard unit instead - Calandra for star crossed makes them really hard to hit - Grissel 2 for deflection - Gunnbjorn for ranged attack immunity on the turn it counts - Jarl for quicken and cloud defense - Ragnor for feat turn against shooting
If people are having trouble delivering Champs they only have their own lack of imagination to blame.
Protectorate has a similar dearth of options for Bastions and Cinerators but the difference is we don't also have a universal +2 arm swing to rely on. Bastions with defenders ward under something similar to the stone? Yeah that'd see play.
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draycos
Junior Strategist
Posts: 167
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Post by draycos on Jul 20, 2017 16:57:08 GMT
What if Sanguine Bond (or replacement rule) read: "If this model takes damage during your opponent's turn you can instead choose to deal 2 points of damage to both this model and one additional model in this unit within 3 (4?) inches."
This maxes out at 4 total damage per attack. To kill a bastion (assuming you attack the same one) would take three attacks. If you attacked a new Bastion (in the unit) with 6 separate attacks that is 24 damage. Depending on positioning you could distribute this to leave each bastion on 1 health. It would take another 6 normal attacks to kill the rest of the unit (as you are not choosing to spread it around). This rule would leave them weak to fire, acid and blast/aoe. Thresher would also give these guys a bad time.
If focused on shooting just one guy in the middle you could probably kill 2-3 or so with 3-4 attacks.
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Post by greytemplar on Jul 20, 2017 18:29:32 GMT
Whwereis why the old 8 wound and CMD rng over 3" bubble was so effective. There were enough boxes to soak up damage, but if enough was applied they did crumble eventually. Indeed. Mk2 sanguine bond and heavy infantry in general were exactly where they needed to be. Perfectly balanced. It was only specific heavy infantry interactions that were a little much. But it had nothing to do with having 8 boxes. And bastoions certainly werent super mega op.
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thelat
Junior Strategist
Posts: 480
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Post by thelat on Jul 20, 2017 19:03:46 GMT
I miss their MkI ability: +1 STR for every wound.
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Provengreil
Junior Strategist
Choir Kills: 12
Posts: 850
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Post by Provengreil on Jul 20, 2017 19:43:56 GMT
The devs seem to think it's going to be this big deal with retaliatory strike but as an opponent of trolls who faces them very very often...I just don't see it being a big deal. Under a caster like Ragnor it might be great for 1 Turn that's really all I can think of. Yeah I don't think the devs have quite yet figured out the issues with healing mechanics. I think they thought, for instance, that the Vessel getting a heal mechanic would suddenly make Cinnies and Bastions playable, but if that were the case, you'd already have been seeing them played with Tristan2. They haven't quite figured out that the real issue is that the models are dead before they can be healed. If Sanguine Bond simply prevented damage, as opposed to spreading it out, it could, in theory, work -- assuming it prevented enough damage, but a three inch range damage spread just isn't likely to help all that much. I still feel they need to re-inspect how they, themselves paly the game. Time and again it seems to me as though they don't respect each other's rules in playtesting and so easy to avoid gotchas start taxing units or even entire themes/factions (see: Jason Soles' exemplar theme tactics thread: put the horses in the bushes).
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Post by chillychinaman on Jul 20, 2017 20:13:55 GMT
I remember on the old forums it was discussed to give Bastions Impervious flesh and dropping them to ARM14.
With that they have about a 50% chance to shrug off POW10s and it takes a couple POW14s to put them down.
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Post by Swampmist on Jul 20, 2017 20:39:02 GMT
just confirmed that trollkin Sorcerers, their WA, can have wounds passed to them through the bond (and is a known and entirely purposeful part of why they think sanguine bond will help the unit.)
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Post by chillychinaman on Jul 20, 2017 20:43:06 GMT
just confirmed that trollkin Sorcerers, their WA, can have wounds passed to them through the bond (and is a known and entirely purposeful part of why they think sanguine bond will help the unit.) I'm obviously missing something, how does passing wounds onto the Sorcerer help the unit? I mean besides eating shots meant for a Champion.
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