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Post by jonnyboy on Aug 10, 2017 2:14:11 GMT
In the end it's very clear that PP want everyone to be in theme. That said, I enjoy making lists out of theme (MOW, kayazy, mercs all in one). I think there is a simple fix here and i mentioned it when the 'mercs in theme' was in CID
Give every faction a 'no theme/merc/ theme. Give the theme a very simple two theme bonuses.
-this theme can include any amount of allowed mercenaries. -For every 35 points spent (Most likely not including battle group points) you may have up to 4 free points of mercenaries. For a total of 8 free points in a 75pt army.
The intention with the wording is to allow armies to include unit mercenaries for free, such as herne/john, A+H, kayazy, etc. As well as solos
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kaos
Junior Strategist
Posts: 268
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Post by kaos on Aug 10, 2017 7:41:04 GMT
I tried to build sorscha1 out of tier and I ended up with one unit, some jacks and a bunch of mercs. I used wgi command and I was able to slot 2 mortars, 9 rockets, 2 destroyers and snipers. Free points are very nice and they really help. This wasn't because of free points though. It was because you no longer were using the Merc options you wanted in the list. The maximum 'free' points you can get in WGK is 14. So in your above list the only difference would be the 2 mortar teams if you made the same list out of theme. Was sacrificing your Mercs worth the two Mortar Teams? in a way yes. Because khador is a quite one dimensional army, so to achieve maximum efficiency you either spam jacks with jaws or rockets with wgi command. Tried the list yesterday and it's more powerful I could even achieve spending points for overpriced mercenaries. Then yes the argument what about ghost fleet can be made, but since in my meta no one is going to spend 300 USD to play that list when they have 500 USD worth of other cryx stuff, I don't really worry.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Aug 10, 2017 8:28:21 GMT
Give every faction a 'no theme/merc/ theme. Give the theme a very simple two theme bonuses. I don't think PP want everyone playing in themes just for the sake of "being in a theme"; I think one of the reasons for pushing themes is that they are easier to balance. Limiting the models that you have to balance together makes it much easier to maintain balance; and you don't have to worry about models being OP out of theme because playing out of theme is then inherently weaker. Well, regardless of whether that's true or not, saying "no theme is actually a theme now!" would defeat the purpose of themes.
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Post by welshhoppo on Aug 10, 2017 11:08:58 GMT
I also agree with the themes for balance.
It's pretty impossible to balance over 1000 different units and solos.
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Post by jonnyboy on Aug 10, 2017 11:57:34 GMT
Give every faction a 'no theme/merc/ theme. Give the theme a very simple two theme bonuses. I don't think PP want everyone playing in themes just for the sake of "being in a theme"; I think one of the reasons for pushing themes is that they are easier to balance. Limiting the models that you have to balance together makes it much easier to maintain balance; and you don't have to worry about models being OP out of theme because playing out of theme is then inherently weaker. Well, regardless of whether that's true or not, saying "no theme is actually a theme now!" would defeat the purpose of themes. You're probably correct about not wanting people to be in theme for the sake of theme. But people are already able to play a no theme and include mercenaries, unless 'no theme' goes away they will have to continue to balance mercenaries with each faction. You also have the mechanism of "model works only for X faction", which seems to work for the most part. It's possible 8 points of mercenaries could be way stronger than the free points of allowed in theme models from our other themes. The bonus could be adjusted to just allow one free mercenary, i don't think that is a whole lot. As for thematically, i don't think it would be hard to imagine a faction having a 'hired gun' or 'company of misfits' theme.
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Post by Netherby on Aug 10, 2017 12:38:29 GMT
They previously stated that they wanted around half of tournament lists to be in a theme and the other half not....
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Post by borderprince on Aug 10, 2017 12:39:02 GMT
As for thematically, i don't think it would be hard to imagine a faction having a 'hired gun' or 'company of misfits' theme. But that type of theme doesn't have to include all possible mercenaries a faction can field. Jaws is arguably an example - aside from Widowmakers the units are all irregulars, rather than typical members of the Khadoran army. The same could be extended to some mercenaries, but probably not all - Steelheads can probably be seen as readily available, but I doubt Alexia1 wants or is able to hang around regularly, and Boomhowlers are probably more trouble than they are worth in the longer term. For those type of odd units, the Ranking Officer probably needs to be included. There's a bigger issue too, which is the division between a faction list mostly made of mercenaries and a mercenary list. A list with a mercenary warcaster, jacks and warriors might still be working for Khador (see Ossrum's fluff intro in Colossals, or MacBain's intro too). PP seem to be trying to make this distinction stronger, both in terms of theme lists and spells focusing on friendly faction. Fluff wise, perhaps not every faction should be able to blur this distinction by taking a faction caster + battlegroup, but then mostly mercs. Cygnar arguably has a better claim than Khador, as it has been noted in the past that the Cygnaran military makes use of mercs more generally, sometimes on such regular/long-term contracts as to almost integrate them into the Cygnaran military. Khador, so far as we know, doesn't really do that. One other way around this would be to allow SR pairings to include a mercenary list, provided the caster and models will work for the relevant parent faction - but that throws up all kinds of other balance issues (and isn't especially/won't be seen to be fair to Ret, who don't have any merc casters who will work for them).
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Post by Soul Samurai on Aug 10, 2017 13:00:15 GMT
You're probably correct about not wanting people to be in theme for the sake of theme. But people are already able to play a no theme and include mercenaries, unless 'no theme' goes away they will have to continue to balance mercenaries with each faction. I don't expect the option of playing out of theme to go away, but that's not a theme. PP doesn't need to worry about balancing models out of theme nearly as much simply because it's unlikely for some kind of interaction to occur that is so much more powerful than the advantages of being in a good theme (both in terms of the "theme advantage" like sac-pawn AND the free points on top). That's not to say that it WON'T happen, only that it should be uncommon enough that the occasional occurrence will be permissible. Imagine if every other model PP released was either completely OP or unusable overpowered: people would soon have little faith in PP, and the game as a whole would generally be in an unplayable state. But if only one in, say, twenty or thirty new releases were problematic? And those were all fixed within three months thanks to constant CID and errata? That's not such a big problem. You also have the mechanism of "model works only for X faction", which seems to work for the most part. It's possible 8 points of mercenaries could be way stronger than the free points of allowed in theme models from our other themes. I don't know of any mercenary unit that is such good value for us that it's undeniably worth giving up on an equivalent cost in Khador models, AND the free points AND theme benefits of running in a theme. And if such models are released in the future, then chances are they will end up being toned down after too long? While there are some models that seem important in certain match-ups (A&H for magic weapons etc), I don't think those are "incredibly good" so much as "useful in certain situations", which means their inclusion (at the cost of theme benefits) is a difficult choice that has to be made based on complex factors such as the meta, list pairings, etc. My point is, overall playing in theme is more powerful than playing out by design, because that way there's less chance of lists being completely broken thanks to things like unforeseen interactions between models. That does not mean that going out of theme will always be the wrong choice or always be weaker, only that it's less likely to be unintentionally OP because you're starting from a position of disadvantage (no theme benefits or free points). As for thematically, i don't think it would be hard to imagine a faction having a 'hired gun' or 'company of misfits' theme. Now the idea of releasing Merc-heavy themes makes a lot of sense to me, and I wouldn't be surprised if that's the next step for PP once they've finished releasing and balancing "pure faction" themes. But those will still be themes, with strict limits and specific benefits, they still won't be "take anything you want and get bonuses on top!".
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Post by jonnyboy on Aug 11, 2017 1:53:08 GMT
Maybe that's not the way to go, a mercenary theme would be exciting. I'm justs still not a fan of 100% themes and would like an option to play a mish mash of models without being down 10-20 points.
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Post by tapecrawler on Aug 11, 2017 2:14:23 GMT
I agree with you jonnyboy but it goes against their unstated intent to balance with themes instead of trying to balance everything in each army against some weird jank that is not readily apparent. I'm disappointed a bit because I liked the options of being able to come up with snowflake lists and now sadly that is gone for the most part. It will be a real uphill struggle to find a non theme list that can equal the benefits of playing in theme. The themes are not what I expected, they are not as restrictive as the MKII themes and I'm disappointed with that aspect. The newer themes don't seem to follow the benefit/disadvantage design of the older themes which I thought made the game more strategic when it came to list pairs.
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Post by Havock on Aug 11, 2017 3:04:31 GMT
Denying AD is the strongest point of Jaws. Specifically it makes it unique and can guy an opponent's strategy right from the get go.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Aug 11, 2017 8:53:06 GMT
Maybe that's not the way to go, a mercenary theme would be exciting. I'm justs still not a fan of 100% themes and would like an option to play a mish mash of models without being down 10-20 points. Yeah, me too, I don't actually like themes - well, not unless they're super fluffy and centered around models I like. But as the "default" way of playing? Not really. Well, it is what it is, I guess. I guess the ideal is to play fun non-theme lists against other casual player playing their fun non-theme lists. That's not always easy in real life, but it is in theory an option.
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Post by jonnyboy on Aug 11, 2017 11:39:56 GMT
I think in the end I would be way more comfortable with themes if they only provided bonuses/abilities and not free points. Im with OP here, I think themes should be played for their special benefits, and that's all they should be anyways. Adding free points seems like it arbitrarily ups the total games points. As every theme will get about the same amount of free points, but unique bonuses.
Which i guess if PP goal here is to cut out non themed lists, that works. I would even be comfortable if they replaced free points in each theme with another minor bonus.
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Post by welshhoppo on Aug 11, 2017 14:44:42 GMT
Guys guys guys!
I found the one benefit for running out of theme that themes can't give you.
ADR.
Themes make it almost impossible to have a decent specialist and vanguard selection. Non theme lists do not have that issue.
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kaos
Junior Strategist
Posts: 268
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Post by kaos on Aug 11, 2017 14:52:50 GMT
ADR restrict your caster choices. Even worse than themes.Also I did ask around about ADR being useless in themes, but looks like people did find ADR still useful even running in themes, to fine tweaking the list.
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