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Post by W0lfBane on Aug 16, 2017 11:48:06 GMT
What an improvised mess.
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Post by ForEver_Blight on Aug 16, 2017 12:31:43 GMT
+1 grump/gripe/grievance
Order of train wrecks so far - Everyone gets a theme, but not really - Everyone gets a book, except those that get a magazine - Cancel the books - Clearly themes are not created equal - Themes need to all go through CiD before release - Lets release themes and not put them through CiD - Lets give everyone merc and minions in theme - But not give Mercs or Minions anything - Lets give Mercs everything in theme - ? ? ? - Profit!
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Aug 16, 2017 12:42:56 GMT
+1 grump/gripe/grievance Order of train wrecks so far - Everyone gets a theme, but not really - Everyone gets a book, except those that get a magazine - Cancel the books - Clearly themes are not created equal - Themes need to all go through CiD before release - Lets release themes and not put them through CiD - Lets give everyone merc and minions in theme - But not give Mercs or Minions anything - Lets give Mercs everything in theme - ? ? ? - Profit! Surely you aren't insinuating they are making Mk3 up on the fly?
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on Aug 16, 2017 13:18:05 GMT
Again, one person's "they are making it up on the fly" is another person's "they are listening to customer feedback and adjusting their plans accordingly".
Half full glass, or something.
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regleant
Junior Strategist
Sometimes things go right
Posts: 267
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Post by regleant on Aug 16, 2017 13:34:44 GMT
You can make some people happy all of the time, you can make all the people some of the time, but you can't make all of the people happy all of the time.
It seems like PP is trying to make all of the people happy all of the time, and it's not working... so yes, I think PP should stick to their guns and follow through on statements they've made.
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Post by BoxyBrownMD on Aug 16, 2017 13:37:09 GMT
So when Mercs had 4-Star and the same ability to take a ton of models with less buffs, no one complained. But now Mercs gets more buffs to fix a incohesive faction that had major issues with a large pool of models unable to synergize with each other, everyone freaks out? Now that Mercs finally got a fluffy and flavorful generalist option that appeals to the taste of the faction, everyone else is whining to get the same treatment because they want to have new toys too. Remember when Cygnar had its thematic Sword Knight and Trencher army? Or Khador with its Doom Reaver and Iron Fang army? I don't. Because it makes no sense for them to receive a generalist theme for already cohesive factions that are covered by other themes. Like I said before, I believe that the point limitation should be raised to 30 to bring it in line with other themes. However, NO other faction besides Minions would make any sense to get this kind of generalist theme. You can say this was Privateer Press being lazy and now going through each individual model in Mercs to fix their issue, but now, I am playing all my shelved models thanks to this theme and not feeling like I already lost when it hit the table. Good job, PP.
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Post by ForEver_Blight on Aug 16, 2017 13:50:50 GMT
Again, one person's "they are making it up on the fly" is another person's "they are listening to customer feedback and adjusting their plans accordingly". Half full glass, or something. Pessimism/Optimism/Realism I get that it is better for them to progress their game and content towards what the customer wants. That's a good thing. It's the execution that is haphazard and contradictory. It shows an extreme lack of order in the company as a whole. If you print books and no one buys them because you are already supplying the content therein to the user through another paid platform. Admit you goofed and stop printing books. That's what they did and that's fine. That's taking feedback into account. But when it comes to the themes they have been completely bonkers and in most cases have clearly not listened to feedback/statistics/etc. They keep making promises they cannot properly fulfill, when they do release the content it is either broken powerful or completely meaningless. When they specifically implemented a system to have a community review cycle on all upcoming content. Lets go to analogy central and pick up another idea. You're building a boat. You know how to build boats, it's been your job for years. To spice up your boats you start adding dodads like lights, stereos, and diving boards. But your customer wants a fishing boat, not an entertainment boat. But you insist that you want all the boats on the lake to be entertainment boats because that's YOUR vision. So people stop buying your boats. Your sales drop. So you try to start surveying your customers for opinions and allow for some minor customization in the boat build process. It's not much but it's closer to the options they wanted from your product. The person then gets what they ordered and they are happy. So you turn around and ignore the customers survey and make a whole line of boats with bathtubs on them... Yes it's something you are allowed to do, it's your company and you build the product. But not a single soul asked for it. They were asking for well made, balanced, and logical boats. A bathtub fits into none of those qualities. It might be helpful in some imaginable situation. But it's not a good product for the customer who was just engaged to get a product they DID want.
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Post by Rowdy Dragon on Aug 16, 2017 14:02:48 GMT
Again Im not seeing "Stuff that Nobody wanted" allot of people wanted Generic themes. Its that they are being kinda wibbly wobbly about it.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Aug 16, 2017 14:13:57 GMT
I like this theme, it's not fluffy and is only cool rulewise... BUT - It's a theme that puts mercs back as a faction (with it's own idiosyncrasies) - It enables merc list construction - Gives what appear to be non-broken benefits (I'm sure some combo will appear to have a shot go into the opposing deploy...) What I don't like is the endless boat of free points, this one maxes out at Eyriss(7) + Acosta (6) + Alten (6) + Hutchuk (6) for 25pts... The 5pts options are probably better Orin/Kell and I'm sure Sylys will be taken as well... For a "modest" 7+5+5+4 benefit of 21pts... How many points will the last theme to be released give out? 30? 40? 50? Well, your endless boat of free points comes at a cost. Assuming a 75 point list, to be able to get the 4 free solos you have to spend your 75 points on units and warjacks since points spent on solos don't count towards free solos. If your army was only going to have 4 solos in it, then this works out fine. Considering the variety of powerful solos the Mercenaries have some may find the lack of other solos a bit constraining. In your 25 point example above none of your choices are jack marshals, so you are pretty much giving up on the Flank bonus for the marshaled warjacks. If you were to pay the points for the jack marshals in addition to getting your free solos your free points just dropped to whatever the difference in costs are *and* the jack marshal solos you paid points for don't contribute towards the free solos. (Remember that points spent only on warjacks and units contribute towards the free solos.) As soon as you start buying solos for your army your number of free solos starts dropping. The only flexibility you get towards getting a 5th solo after your 4 free solos is if your free warjack points on your warcaster is above 25 points. If you spend exactly 100 points on units and warjacks then whatever warjack points your warcaster has above 25 will tell you how much you can spend on a 5th solo. For the Mercenaries this means about half of their warcasters could afford a 5th inexpensive solo, after the 4 free ones, if they spent all of their other points on warjacks and units. Oh, and you want to make sure that your army is a good construction, also.
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wishing
Junior Strategist
Posts: 353
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Post by wishing on Aug 16, 2017 14:15:41 GMT
However, NO other faction besides Minions would make any sense to get this kind of generalist theme. I would say that Minions is the last faction that it makes sense for to get a generalist theme, at least if by "make sense" we mean "something they used to be able to do". Mercs were born with 4-Star, which was the hodgepodge collection contract. I.e. they have since the start been able to make a generalist army. Minions were born as being divided into two halves, the Gator half and the Farrow half. There are no "generic humans" in Minions the way there are in Mercs. If Mercs were like minions, there would be only two kinds of warcasters - Rhulic ones and Cephalyx ones. If you played a Merc army, you'd have to pick which one you want, you can't pick both. Even though forced contracts are no longer a thing in Mk3, the divide between the two races is a theme for Minions more than any other faction in my view...
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Post by dazzla on Aug 16, 2017 14:19:52 GMT
IMO the irregular theme force is a mistake. I thought that theme forces are (were) intended to confer benefits that were offset by limitations in list building. Does this approach still apply?
Presumably PP had spent considerable time balancing models and points. This is essential to game balance. And I believe that overall PP had been doing a good job on game balance. Giving a theme that has so few restrictions the ability to gain significant additional points makes me wonder about balance.
If some Merc models needed a buff then it is best to give the models a buff rather than have a theme.
Alternatively, may be I could look forward to a new Menoth theme which allows me to take any Menoth model and receive free solos for every 25 points, plus some other benefits. It will mean I can use some of those models that I have left on the shelf because of restrictive themes and will bolster the competitiveness of the faction.
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Post by jisidro on Aug 16, 2017 14:25:04 GMT
I like this theme, it's not fluffy and is only cool rulewise... BUT - It's a theme that puts mercs back as a faction (with it's own idiosyncrasies) - It enables merc list construction - Gives what appear to be non-broken benefits (I'm sure some combo will appear to have a shot go into the opposing deploy...) What I don't like is the endless boat of free points, this one maxes out at Eyriss(7) + Acosta (6) + Alten (6) + Hutchuk (6) for 25pts... The 5pts options are probably better Orin/Kell and I'm sure Sylys will be taken as well... For a "modest" 7+5+5+4 benefit of 21pts... How many points will the last theme to be released give out? 30? 40? 50? Well, your endless boat of free points comes at a cost. Assuming a 75 point list, to be able to get the 4 free solos you have to spend your 75 points on units and warjacks since points spent on solos don't count towards free solos. If your army was only going to have 4 solos in it, then this works out fine. Considering the variety of powerful solos the Mercenaries have some may find the lack of other solos a bit constraining. In your 25 point example above none of your choices are jack marshals, so you are pretty much giving up on the Flank bonus for the marshaled warjacks. If you were to pay the points for the jack marshals in addition to getting your free solos your free points just dropped to whatever the difference in costs are *and* the jack marshal solos you paid points for don't contribute towards the free solos. (Remember that points spent only on warjacks and units contribute towards the free solos.) As soon as you start buying solos for your army your number of free solos starts dropping. The only flexibility you get towards getting a 5th solo after your 4 free solos is if your free warjack points on your warcaster is above 25 points. If you spend exactly 100 points on units and warjacks then whatever warjack points your warcaster has above 25 will tell you how much you can spend on a 5th solo. For the Mercenaries this means about half of their warcasters could afford a 5th inexpensive solo, after the 4 free ones, if they spent all of their other points on warjacks and units. Oh, and you want to make sure that your army is a good construction, also.
I'm not convinced Jack Marshalls are good enough... And the only thing I see you have to more or less give up are models with repair, they aren't attractive as free options and there is no merc unit of mechaniqs.
You most likely get the advanced move since you probably have units and heavies... But anyways, the real bónus of this "theme" are options options options and powersolos.
As an aside... poor warlock "juniors" they don't fit anywhere are don't count towards points... I feel that the call out to prevent, for exemple, WE&SJ to get taken for free should also include another call out to permit him to count towards free solos.
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Post by W0lfBane on Aug 16, 2017 14:59:24 GMT
Again Im not seeing "Stuff that Nobody wanted" allot of people wanted Generic themes. Its that they are being kinda wibbly wobbly about it. A lot of people want a lot of things but that doesn't mean it's always a good idea. The more themes that get released the less i like the idea of themes. Also like i really want them to just set out a plan and follow through with it and not change their plan half way through. Like all these sudden improvised changes of what they set out as what they were gonna do are ok for the short term but i feel like they'll be a problem in the long term. They are being overly reactive
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Post by Stormsmith Dropout on Aug 16, 2017 15:04:06 GMT
Flank does help Marshalled jacks a bunch.
A Mangler marshalled gets a Mat 8 Pow 20 charge at 4 dice, Mat 8 Pow 18 at 3 dice, and another pow 20 at 3 dice.
Kills an Ironclad 80% of the time. Kills a Juggy 42% of the time.
Compare that to a Mangler with 3 focus, but none of the marshal stuff.
Kills Ironclad 37% of the time. Kills Juggy 7% of the time.
Mangler under a marshal, any marshal, is better in this theme than one in a bg.
A Rover under Raluk is kinda interesting. If you can give it a free charge (Magnus1 has Iron Aggression, or Hunter's mark from Lanyssa) and flank, it gets a rat 5 pow 14 assault, mat 8 four dice pow 19 charge, then a pow 15 and 16 with 3 dice, and another pow 19 at 3 dice.
Kills Ironclad 90% of the time. Kills a Juggy 59% of the time.
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Post by gobber on Aug 16, 2017 15:25:29 GMT
Moving this here
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