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Post by khadorific on Oct 16, 2017 13:59:37 GMT
It seems like PP really tries to keep things consistent, and giving the Spriggan Sturdy and base armor of 20 would do that while going a long ways toward making it worth taking. Or, simply giving it shield guard ability would do it for me.
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Post by Havock on Oct 25, 2017 6:52:57 GMT
What is the fluff behind the chassis anyway? Is it more advanced or just a parallel model?
I'd almost be inclined to keep it as is, +1 mat and speed, effectively making it the mirror to the cygnaran hammersmith/centurion.
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Post by welshhoppo on Oct 25, 2017 7:39:31 GMT
What is the fluff behind the chassis anyway? Is it more advanced or just a parallel model? I'd almost be inclined to keep it as is, +1 mat and speed, effectively making it the mirror to the cygnaran hammersmith/centurion. Its more advanced. Its newer than the Juggernaut chassis (by about 150 years)
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Post by Soul Samurai on Oct 25, 2017 8:10:43 GMT
The fluff behind the Devastator was originally that Khador wanted a way to use lower quality cortexes in a military capacity, so they developed a warjack that, well, just needed to lumber forwards then trigger a bunch or airburst grenades.
The fluff behind the Spriggan is that the Empress charged the Mechanics Assembly to build her a warjack that would bring her victory, and they gave her the Spriggan.
I don't remember off the top of my head any fluff connection between the two, plus I'm not sure that the old "lower grade cortex" thing would still be considered canon seeing as the Demolisher now has ranged weapons on the Devastator chassis. The old metal versions had some shared parts though so perhaps there was always a link.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Oct 25, 2017 12:12:29 GMT
From its original release in Superiority back in Mk1:
"When Queen Ayn Vanar ordered the Mechaniks Assembly to give her a warjack that would turn the tide of the Motherland's ongoing wars, they provided her with the Spriggan. The name is taken from an extinct group of warriors from the icy forest north of Skirov who were wild and savage spear wielding beserkers famed for charging naked into battle and tearing foes asunder. Based on the innovative chassis originally developed for the Devastator, the Sprigan elated the High Kommand its stellar performance during initial field tests in 602 AR. The prototype ignored withering enemy fire while splitting infantry formations up the middle like so much firewood as it concentrated on the heaviest rival warjack in the field."
"Beneath the machines armored exterior, the Spriggan's dual grenade launchers a re all but impervious to damage that would normally impair external armaments. By unleashing volleys of anti-personnel explosives, smoke-piercing flares, or disorienting flash bombs, the Spriggan is capable of disrupting opposing battle lines in preparation for its inescapable charge."
"The jack's tremendous weight allows for it to stampede through infantry units and crush underfoot those too slow to avoid its lumbering assault. With its massive lance, it pierces enemy warjacks to the core before they even get close enough to strike. It can fend off blows with its formidible assault shield, which is sturdy enough to turn aside any weapon and heavy enough to deliver crushing counter-attacks. The Spriggan personifies the Khadoran Empire on the battlefield; it is brutal, versatile, and unstoppable."
Rules-wise the Mk1 Spriggan was pretty similar to the Mk3 with a couple of exceptions: In Mk1 the Spriggan had "Steam Roll" which allowed it to trample infantry during a charge. (This got changed to Bulldoze in the conversion to Mk2.) The grenade launchers did not have the "L" and "R" designations, meaning that they did not get damaged when the left or right arm got damaged. (I think this was recently changed in Mk3 errata.) The grenade launchers had 3 different types of grenades: Explosive (AOE 3 that only did POW5 blast damage - this got changed to a normal POW10 in one of the edition changes to make operate the same as other AOE attacks), Flare (slight differences, we don't care), and Flash Bang (AOE 3 that does no damage, -2 MAT, RAT, and CMD and cannot give or receive orders orders for 1 round, is not cumulative with itself.)
Based upon the fluff and old rules I think there is a case to be made to make the Spriggan a trample-bot, but I personally would really like to keep Bulldoze in addition considering the number of medium-based infantry and light warjacks and beasts out there - I think this would also help keep the Spriggan in line with its fluff.
One of the areas that can be used to increase the utility and ability of the Spriggan would be to give it another ammo type for the grenade launchers. While I don't think that PP would want to go back to the rules for the Flash Bang grenades, maybe changing their rules to making them a knockdown for warrior models or living models might be of interest.
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Post by elricaltovilla on Oct 25, 2017 16:20:02 GMT
Given the wording in the fluff about charging towards the biggest enemy Target on the field, maybe give it the territorial rule that they gave the Dracodile in CID? Free charges against large or huge based models.
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Post by smoothcriminal on Oct 25, 2017 23:10:31 GMT
Well that lore description is exactly what cavalry does. Give it Crushing weight or Cavalry subtype and then maybe it will be worth 19. Flashbang can be warrior model-specific Blind.
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Post by Armchair Warrior on Oct 26, 2017 2:14:04 GMT
What is the fluff behind the chassis anyway? Is it more advanced or just a parallel model? I'd almost be inclined to keep it as is, +1 mat and speed, effectively making it the mirror to the cygnaran hammersmith/centurion. Its more advanced. Its newer than the Juggernaut chassis (by about 150 years) I don’t understand from a fluff = game perspective how the Empress says ‘build me the best warjacks ever’ and we get one which is 58% more expensive than a Juggernaut, but has a worse cortex (lower MAT) and worse armor (ex Shield, but you have to look at it that way or you would just give a Shield to a Juggernaut). The Gun is the weakest of any jack artillery. I just...don’t...get it.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Oct 26, 2017 4:38:59 GMT
I don’t understand from a fluff = game perspective how the Empress says ‘build me the best warjacks ever’ and we get one which is 58% more expensive than a Juggernaut, but has a worse cortex (lower MAT) and worse armor (ex Shield, but you have to look at it that way or you would just give a Shield to a Juggernaut). The Gun is the weakest of any jack artillery. I just...don’t...get it. Exactly! Oh, and you forgot -1 POW on both melee weapons (despite the fluff describing the shield as " heavy enough to deliver crushing counter-attacks"). I don't think that using the Devastator chassis necessarily meant that they used the same cortex, so the MAT 6 thing doesn't make sense to me and MAT 7 is the first thing I feel needs to be fixed, both from a gameplay and from a fluff perspective. I can live with everything else as it is now (except maybe the price), though there's changes I wouldn't mind seeing.
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Post by gobber on Oct 26, 2017 5:24:37 GMT
Dual attack and high explosive 10 grenades would at least let those prominent grenade launchers do anything when stealth isn't in the list. As it is they're basically two rat4 pow10 shots that limit your heavy to 4" of movement. Pow5 blasts make those grenades among the weakest in the game (compare pow6 blast grenades on pigcommandos, pow8 blast trenchercommandos under minifeat, etc).
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Post by Soul Samurai on Oct 26, 2017 6:32:01 GMT
High Explosive on the grenade launchers would give him near-Behemoth levels of ranged damage output - arguably more since Behemoth needs focus and can lose Powerful Attack if the opponent scalpels out the S boxes.
Well, obviously the smaller AOE and lower range means the Spriggan would be doing a lot less work than Behemoth even then, but still, I don't think High Explosive is very likely on those tiny little grenades.
Perhaps POW 11 or 12 for POW 6 blast damage, and/or a slight range increase (either through RNG or Assault)?
Sorry for shooting down* other people's ideas, just trying to manage expectations I suppose.
*The pun was not intended, but I'm glad it's there.
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Post by gobber on Oct 26, 2017 7:00:04 GMT
High explosive [8]? At 19 points it should be most of the way to being a behemoth. Just making the grenades pow 12 has some real merit though, having the option to boost those would let it contribute in odd assassinations and whatnot
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Post by shortsleeve on Oct 26, 2017 8:43:22 GMT
i may be wrong but torch flare arent shoot but place within the reach, put that on him plus range 12 it become a auto destealth ,pow 5 that you can boost ,it may kill most stealth unit.
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Post by Blargaliscious on Oct 26, 2017 12:12:09 GMT
Its more advanced. Its newer than the Juggernaut chassis (by about 150 years) I don’t understand from a fluff = game perspective how the Empress says ‘build me the best warjacks ever’ and we get one which is 58% more expensive than a Juggernaut, but has a worse cortex (lower MAT) and worse armor (ex Shield, but you have to look at it that way or you would just give a Shield to a Juggernaut). The Gun is the weakest of any jack artillery. I just...don’t...get it. Not to be a nit-picking jerk, but the Empress never said anything about the best warjack ever, she wanted one that would change the tide of the Motherland's ongoing wars. If you only look at it from a MAT/RAT and POW perspective, the Spriggan has some deficiencies compared to the Juggernaut. If you look at the whole package the Spriggan compares nicely, and it has a HUGE advantage with Bulldoze built into it - it doesn't matter what is between the Spriggan and the charge target, those things are getting shoved aside and that poor bastard is getting a war lance run through it. I haven't used Spriggans extensively, but I have always been relatively happy with how they perform (as over-priced as they are.) And yes, a charging Spriggan that has Bulldozed meatshield warrior models out of the way has won the game for me. The grenade launchers are not going to compare to the Destroyer's Bombard from a POW perspective. The true strength of the grenade launchers is in the mechanism that allows it to chose different types of ammo, but that got reduced when the Flash Bang grenades got eliminated.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Oct 26, 2017 12:21:29 GMT
i may be wrong but torch flare arent shoot but place within the reach, put that on him plus range 12 it become a auto destealth ,pow 5 that you can boost ,it may kill most stealth unit. You EITHER place a flare that does no damage completely within the weapon range, OR you make a normal RAT 4 POW 10 AOE 3 attack (that scatters as usual when you miss). The Spriggan/Torch is not going to take out a whole unit by himself. He will de-stealth 4-6 models, then someone else will need to shoot at them to actually kill them, so you've spent, what, 30 points of activations to kill 10 points of models? And now your 18/19 point jack is sitting around 10" from the enemy's front line, waiting to be killed. Well, that's a bit of a worst-case scenario. The point is the Spriggan is certainly not taking out a whole unit by himself unless they are ARM11 or less and they've all clustered into a tiny 3" circle. Which is unlikely at best. I mean, it did happen to me once, but that was back in MKII when the Spriggan was considered one of our best non-character jacks anyway, and my opponent was a pretty new player.
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