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Post by macdaddy on Mar 14, 2018 5:30:53 GMT
Fury 6 on tanith is pretty rough. Why she couldn't have been 7 is beyond me.
Still using blood pack eh? You dirty masocist...
I feel infernal machines is the perfect list for devo host. Lots of easy corpses to grab use to get more corpses. Do you feel the list preformed well in this match up?
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Post by paradox on Mar 14, 2018 5:41:39 GMT
I stuck the ravagers by my objective (Pit II) and out of Ambush range. So when the thralls came in the ravagers definitely scooped them up. I was able to pop a pistol wraith by zapping a ravager in the back with a shaman. It bounced 3 times, catching a bonejack, bile, and my wolf rider champ. Of course I spiked a 9 into her. On the other side, I squares blood pack vs his objective, but ended up shooting Wraithe a bit, and nabbing a pistol wraith there with magic arrows from shaman two. Really, though, putting 2 heavies too close together in port range of Loki did him in. Would have been alot harder if I couldnt get them both in a go. Ill have to give it a few more goes.
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Post by paradox on Mar 14, 2018 14:49:11 GMT
Blood pack: Ive gotten about a handful of games with them now. They are not outright terrible insofar as performance - RAT6 POW13 is reasonably accurate and powerful to do damage at range - but I definitely see ravagers regularly doing more work in the same game. Given RNG10 and Assault, they can threaten shots from a fair distance away, and Treewalker gives them LoS many other units would lack.
However, given Assault and a shorter range, they rarely get to shoot more than once. RAT6 is enough to make shooting most troops dicey, especially factoring for buffs, concealment, or cover. Unboosted POW13s similarly just arent enough to seriously damage most lighrs, let alone heavies. And piling shots into 1-2 medium multi-wounds just result in poor piece trades. They can be dangerous to a set of solos whose DEF, ARM, or wounds arent too high of a combo. Eg, last game magic arrows from the shaman let two shoot down a pistol wraith, first missed second hit the numbers. The rest chipped shots into Wraithe for light damage.
But once you hit that opening volley, causing a scattering of light damage, or maybe killing a few models, there you are. 13/14 5 wounds Tough. DEF is only par for most troops ARM is the higher side of average. The average PS10 troop boxes blood pack with a charge attack, so youre wounds are almost meaningless, leaving you to rely on Tough. This usually means you lose 3ish models to a counter, shooting or charge or whatever. A shaman in the right place can mitigate this if you pop some toughs. But a spot of bad luck can see the unit seriously cut down or eliminated too.
Assuming you survive, you have MAT7 PS11 in melee. Maybe luck lets 1-2 back rank get a 2nd turn of assault. Most likely not, though. In most cases, youll do very light damage, maybe kill 2-3 models. From here, it's often a losing cause and by turn 3-4 the unit is dead or down to a single model, probably with a wound left from Tough.
The bottom line is that while the unit functions OK as an early ranged threat, its impact is DEFINITELY not anywhere near worth its cost. The cheaper ravagers with no ranged easily outperform blood pack on a regular basis. This is probably because RNG10 and Assault combine to oblige blood pack to close in rapidly, forcing melee. And blood pack are just bad in most melee cases. They lack both volume of attacks and hitting power, meaning swarms are effective at tarpitting them, and ARM/wounds from heavier targets stall them out. And their defensive stats are not enough either way to save them.
IMO, tharn are probably best as glass cannons. They needs to hit hard and fast. It seems to be how PP envisions them, and Im fine with that. But ravagers and blood pack probably have too much crossover. Their both rushing to melee. Heck, blood pack are too close in function to bloodtrackers too. Assault distances are close to trackers move and throw. But trackers have Stealth, DEF, and numbers on their side.
Id like to definitely see blood pack move to a more ranged roll. Im more sold on dropping assault the more I play. Go back to RNG12. Add Swift Hunter. Maybe also add Hunter. Drop cost. 9/15 is probably right, all things considered. And up ARM to 16, for consistancy with ravagers, if nothing else. This would let them move into a longer range, shoot, and move accordingly on kills, to better exploit terrain and play a better hunter vs hunted game.
Or if thats not them, then bloodtrackers need the tools to play that game, and blood pack needs to get better at assaulting. Given them 1" melee and PS12 on bow swings. Keep Assault and RNG10. But find some way to make them compelling vs ravagers. Make ravagers the hard hitters and put Overtake into blood pack instead. Let them focus more on troops.
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Post by macdaddy on Mar 14, 2018 18:55:34 GMT
paradox Sad to see another person come to same conclusion with blood pack. Granted you played more with them than I did. (I think 3-5 games in mk 3 running them) But yeah...super bleh unit. I actually think it would be thematic to have blood pack be the "big game Hunters" unit the theme desperately needs. Bloodtrackers almost fulfill that role, but fall short due to low range and the pow just does not get high enough. Would love to see them get a volume fire type rule that applies to all their attacks (even melee) (+1 to attack and damage on medium based +2 on large/huge) The unit would get up to 6 Pow 15's on a heavy (at rat 8!) and 6 Pow 13's boosted if they assault. With our typical debuffs in faction, that is 6 Pow 17's on a random heavy! no too shabby. Increase range to 12" and give them 1" on the bow and I think there is potential there. If they still overlap too much with ravagers, then they should drop assault, gain swift hunter or repo 3, and become a skirmishing ranged unit. A points reduction to 9/15 like you said would also be great. Bloodtrackers really need focus. The base unit wants to go after bigger game, but thier UA makes them want to fight infantry, and then they just end up being mediocre at both. I wonder if gang on them and a minifeat with nualla that gave assault would be OP? Also...repo 3 please...
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Post by wolfchild on Mar 15, 2018 10:06:31 GMT
Bloodtrackers really ought to be hit n run, with native repo. It fits the stealthy fight plan, dart out throw n dart back into cover/ stealth range. Some of Nuala’s tech needs to shift to the unit, but repo instead of swift hunter. Nuala should give something else, she’s basically a Tharn queen, so why not vet leader or something. Quick work is still good so she adds something extra to their toolbox.
Bloodpack essentially carry longbows; a long bow can punch a rider off a horse and penetrate armour, so they should be heavy hitters at range. A long bow also doubles as a 6” staff, so lower POW than an axe, still at least 1” melee range, but maybe better ARM in melee from unyielding? They can’t have proper native ARM than Ravagers or as good as Skinwalkers cos all they’re wearing are cloaks n a loin cloth. They’re still on a Ravagers body, so we’ll still end up paying for Heart Eater, they should still be able to handle themselves in melee.... but yeah, realistically they’re gonna need some defensive tech as with bows they shouldn’t be charging in.... just be harder to shift at range than lady Tharn bodies.
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Post by paradox on Mar 15, 2018 11:00:17 GMT
Blood pack and ravagers are wearing the same clothing. Visually for the models, theres no reason for a difference in ARM.
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Post by paradox on Mar 21, 2018 1:57:20 GMT
Got another game with Tanith. Madrak1 Band of Heroes pushed my stuff in. Turning off Tough hurt me. His dudes are accurate and hit hard, and he gets both DEF/ARM skew. Just bad all around. It came down to a sceario loss, and the ravagers and blood pack drew it out mainly on sheer luck. Id probably pick another list in an event.
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Post by wolfchild on Mar 21, 2018 10:55:31 GMT
Hope ur keeping a record of all this to throw at CID when it comes around .... they’d probably claim it’s inadmissable tho Been a few occasions (eg Immunities, and models impacted) where a very relevant criticism / observation has simply be thrown out without consideration. I know they wanna keep focus, but if they keep selectively ignoring relevant material then what’s the point of a CID cycle or asking for feedback. Love that ur still trying to make use of Bloodpack tho paradox. I recently bought some n want to get them painted or just on the table to try em .. really wanna make em work. ..... but my local community is collapsing; folk pulling out of games, others ditching WarmaHordes altogether. For some CID is very exciting, for others it’s driving folk out of the hobby. Keep on playing
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Post by paradox on Mar 21, 2018 14:48:45 GMT
I mean, going into the Tharn CID and reporting games and track record using pre-CID rules would not be very useful or helpful. PP wants discussion and reports of the CID rules offered, not wishlisting or grudges over rules past. I can understand that. However, its very fair game to discuss how new rules work as compared to pre-CID, and sometimes suggest new directions that PP has not tried yet. Thats a bit harder to accomplish because it can be difficult to know what suggestions PP is open to and when they just arent. Mostly, this exercise is to give me a good base of experience to comment from. Eg, I had a REALLY bad game witg ravagers in the pre-theme days that put me off them completely. They are not as bad as I felt after that game, but I avoided them unfairly for about a year. We all know blood pack are bad. How bad really can get exaggerated in memory though. Im confident the dev team knows blood pack needs alot of work, we just have to wait and see where their heads are on it. Meanwhile, Ive gotten a feel for them, and how I might fix them.
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Post by erythro on Mar 21, 2018 20:28:38 GMT
Just a spit ball idea. How about reducing thier ranged attack power a bit, but give them armour piercing. Suddenly they are a threat against medium bases (isn't it+2 power vs medium) and can be a headache for larger bases. Also gives armour penetration in faction
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Post by paradox on Mar 21, 2018 20:59:38 GMT
Just a spit ball idea. How about reducing thier ranged attack power a bit, but give them armour piercing. Suddenly they are a threat against medium bases (isn't it+2 power vs medium) and can be a headache for larger bases. Also gives armour penetration in faction So, like POW9 and AP? What are your thoughts there?
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Post by macdaddy on Mar 22, 2018 12:45:18 GMT
Just a spit ball idea. How about reducing thier ranged attack power a bit, but give them armour piercing. Suddenly they are a threat against medium bases (isn't it+2 power vs medium) and can be a headache for larger bases. Also gives armour penetration in faction Back in early MK 3, my issue with them was not really cracking arm. With Prey + Debuff/buff, the unit is chucking out Pow 13’s with an additional die of damage. They can smoke a heavy if they need to. Increased pow would be nice but I think AP is not thematic and unnecessary. My issues with them have been: 1: They have to clump up to shoot things and then die horribly afterward 2: Bad cmd without nualla means they cannot spread very far 3: Nualla doesn’t really do anything for the unit. 4: They struggle fighting into other infantry because other skirmishing infantry wither out threatens them, or can kill them once they commit.
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Post by paradox on Mar 22, 2018 13:01:22 GMT
Just a spit ball idea. How about reducing thier ranged attack power a bit, but give them armour piercing. Suddenly they are a threat against medium bases (isn't it+2 power vs medium) and can be a headache for larger bases. Also gives armour penetration in faction Back in early MK 3, my issue with them was not really cracking arm. With Prey + Debuff/buff, the unit is chucking out Pow 13’s with an additional die of damage. They can smoke a heavy if they need to. Increased pow would be nice but I think AP is not thematic and unnecessary. My issues with them have been: 1: They have to clump up to shoot things and then die horribly afterward 2: Bad cmd without nualla means they cannot spread very far 3: Nualla doesn’t really do anything for the unit. 4: They struggle fighting into other infantry because other skirmishing infantry wither out threatens them, or can kill them once they commit. Pretty sure we're discussing Blood Pack and not trackers here.
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Post by macdaddy on Mar 22, 2018 13:43:33 GMT
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Post by paradox on Mar 22, 2018 14:54:56 GMT
The prospect of POW9 AP blood pack bows does intrigue me. Vs ARM15-16 troops they'll be dice +1. Thats better than the POW13 at present. And it makes them pretty strong vs med base multiwound. Vs ARM18 jacks they will do straight dice. Thats enough to one-round a heavy if you land the hits. Maybe it's too strong on that math. Possibly bump that down to 7-8.
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