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Post by jdeckert on Nov 1, 2018 5:13:33 GMT
Impervious flesh on ARM 18 does sound crazy on it's face - but I'll hold off on judgment until I do the math, as requested.
The other immediate reaction I have - I don't really like the combination of pseudo-thresher and overtake. It means that - in order to get the daisy chain - you'll still be doing fiddly things with your facing so that you can maximize the distance you move.
Lastly, as far as balance goes on charging your own models, we have a pretty good idea of what charging your own models does in terms of balance. Not a lot. It makes polarity shield, cloud walls, etc. a little less powerful, but it's not any more of a hard counter than spell ward, RFP abilities, etc.
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Post by Soul Samurai on Nov 1, 2018 7:19:23 GMT
I cannot really comment on balance or power or anything as I'm not a good enough player. But here's my initial reactions:
Impervious Flesh just kind of feels like it came out of nowhere, you know? OK, B1 had Iron Flesh, but it still feels a bit strange that suddenly B2 just doesn't get wounded as easily, then he's B3 and it's gone again? I mean, yes, models gain and lose spells and magical abilities, but just "my skin is tougher right now" seems a little bit strange.
I don't feel like PP is likely to hand out "any-time Thresher" and "Retaliatory Strike" together. I don't really see Unnatural Disaster ever happening either. And "one free spell, no questions asked" sounds unlikely too; coupled with focus 7 that would make him second only to OW2 for magical power in Khador. But hell, they've done stuff before that I didn't think they would ever do, so nevermind; just ignore me.
Homicidal Maniac, Murder Spree (which doesn't need to be on Lola and could just be on Butcher himself?), Overtake; that's a lot of rules to parse when making normal attacks, and then remembering you have to keep track of Conferred Rage and Arcane Dementia and feat tokens, plus figuring out interactions with Retaliatory Strike and Unnatural Disaster; basically there's so much going on with a single melee attack that it feels clunky and messy. At best it needs to be streamlined, if not downright simplified. Plus it's weird to have "always-on Thresher" AND "Berserk" at the same time. Honestly, this is my big issue: all these rules together feel kind of messy and redundant.
Sorry for the negativity, and again: I'm not the most prolific player, so you can treat this advice as being from the "casual side" of gamers. Just remember: an important part of the creative process is being prepared to "murder your darlings".
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Post by borderprince on Nov 1, 2018 11:24:23 GMT
Some thoughts, which will mostly be negative because those are the easiest to spot first. In no particular order:
1 - I agree with SoulSamurai that managing this version's melee attacks will require quite a lot of house-keeping at once. That might not be too much of a problem, as Butcher2 has always had quite a bit going on when making melee attacks.
2 - Homicidal Maniac + Murder Spree in effect means you are giving Butcher2 two chances to kill models within melee range (all of them are targeted by the melee attack the first time, if that attacks destroys one model, the others can then be hit again). I think that probably gives him too much melee power, without much cost. It just feels like the two rules in combination are (possibly intentionally?) trying to make sure that Butcher2 really can cut through lots of models, without needing to use his resources to do it.
I'm OK with wanting Butcher2 to be able to kill lots of models, it's his thing. But the second part - the absence of use of resources - bothers me. To me that doesn't fit with how WM is meant to work as a game. We are meant to be thinking about resource allocation as players, and Butcher2 in this model to some extent throws that out of the window. Yes Butcher2 needs some compensation for random Focus, but this might take it too far.
Maybe limit murder spree to initial attack, or perhaps "First attack in a turn", so that you can still have the really dangerous retaliatory strike interaction?
3 - Retaliatory Strike - absolutely fine with this.
4 - Arcane Power. 2 thoughts:
(i) looks powerful (especially combined with Murder Spree) - Butcher can, if he wants, use the free spell to reliably get 3D6+9 to hit Thresher attacks. Again, this triggers my concern about resource allocation. It makes Butcher2 extremely good at what he wants to do (fine, this is WM), but without any real cost to doing so;
(ii) seems to go against a very consistent practice at PP, of limiting free spells to cost 3 or less. They've done this with Blood Boon (as you note) and the Soul Slave. The only model with Arcane Power at present is Sevvy2, who has no spells above cost 3. I think this is a deliberate choice by PP - it helps avoid the Mk1 Vlad1 problem, where he could cast both S&P and Might of Kings every turn, aka, being able to do everything.
5 - Impervious Flesh:
(i) No real background reason for this. I suppose you could try to rationalise it as "so mad he just doesn't feel injuries", but that would be more easily represented with something like Tough. Or Unyielding for when he is in melee;
(ii) Models with Impervious Flesh tend to have lower ARM values to compensate (Swamp Horror, for example). Butcher2 does not and also has the ability to camp. The only other model with ARM18 and Impervious Flesh is the Hellmouth Maw, which is (a) really annoying to take out and (b) unable to camp;
(iii) WM has always been a game where barring lots of camping, fairly normal attacks can kill casters (the old "Boosted POW12s kill casters" saying), and if not kill, at least chip away at them. Assassination is an important part of the game, and the possibility of fairly lowly warriors damaging an unprotected caster is a design feature which ensures assassination is always an option. I worry that Butcher2 is perhaps too well-protected in that way. Even boosted damage won't have much effect on him if the POW of the attack is fairly low. A boosted POW12 will cause one point of damage on average rolls, ignoring camp entirely. Adding camp to that, and he can handle being shot by Defender level weapons or POW12 charging/boosted Weaponmasters (which is about the level of the power of attacks from most casters in the game).
My concern here is not really that Butcher2 is too tough. It's that he's too tough against too wide a pool of models in the game, making assassination a much more difficult game plan than against most casters ("all" would be too hyperbolic without checking, but it might be true), quite possibly too difficult. It also encourages the Butcher2 player to target models which can harm Butcher2 early in the game. Take out the melee weapons on the jacks, for example, and there might not be much left which does more than scratch Butcher2's paint, giving him something of a free rein.
In general: I think the most important criticisms here are that several of these rules seem to potentially challenge the way WM usually works/has worked and some consistent design decisions by PP. There aren't that many casters which do that and doing so does need to be thought about, and justified, very carefully, thinking about those wider systemic points.
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Post by michael on Nov 1, 2018 12:16:28 GMT
Sorry for the delay, fellas. I’ll post that stat card soon.
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Post by michael on Nov 1, 2018 12:31:51 GMT
I’ll get to it soon, I swear.
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Post by hocestbellum on Nov 1, 2018 12:54:36 GMT
Maths! A fully loaded, charging juggernaut has a 6.5% chance to kill Impervious Butcher2 with no camp. On average it would only manage about half damage.
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Post by michael on Nov 1, 2018 13:45:51 GMT
I’m working on it. Nearly there. Keep waiting.
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Post by michael on Nov 1, 2018 14:13:53 GMT
Had to rescue a baby from a burning building. Gotta give me some more time over here. I’m trying as hard as I can. I’ll post it soon.
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Post by The Snark Knight on Nov 1, 2018 15:08:59 GMT
I feel like it might be a little more palatable if Homicidal Maniac REQUIRED him to run or charge when he can. At a glance it looks like the old school berserk portion in conjunction with Murder Spree might be too much melee output, or that Impervious Flesh plus Retaliatory Strike and everything else might be too much of a disincentive to attack him in melee.
Charging him with stuff and hoping that it dies before Butcher gets to activate is a weird place to be in as an opponent though.
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Post by michael on Nov 1, 2018 15:28:25 GMT
Keep waiting... Just a bit longer...
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Post by Soul Samurai on Nov 1, 2018 15:40:17 GMT
Keep waiting... Just a bit longer... Please stop. Seriously.
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Post by michael on Nov 1, 2018 16:15:32 GMT
Keep waiting... Just a bit longer... Please stop. Seriously. I’m amused, though, and that’s what is important. Also, I haven’t read anything anyone else has wrote yet, so I hope nobody is waiting for something from me.
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Post by jdeckert on Nov 1, 2018 16:47:51 GMT
Maths! A fully loaded, charging juggernaut has a 6.5% chance to kill Impervious Butcher2 with no camp. On average it would only manage about half damage. Does that include the chance of crit: stationary or the chance that Butcher cripples its arm or cortex with retaliatory strike?
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Post by hocestbellum on Nov 1, 2018 17:00:41 GMT
Nope. But if the Jugger crits on the first attack it's still only a 34.2% chance. Given that there's only a 1/12 chance of critting I'm going to roughly napkin-math that to about 9~10%.
Basically, I feel that giving a single caster pretty much top-drawer durability, damage, magic ability, and army support abilities may be a little bit over the top.
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Post by michael on Nov 1, 2018 17:10:37 GMT
See, I knew nobody would read what I wrote...
This iteration of Butcher2 is resilient by design. I already said one fully-loaded heavy would not do the job, and it will likely take two to kill him. It is quite likely (in my experience) that Butcher is easily exposed to two enemy heavies after he’s gone on his killing spree. He tends to really outpace his army if you’re not careful.
Compare and contrast against:
— Karchev (full camp) — Barnabus2 in his standard configuration: Execration, Spiny Growth, covered by Wrong Eye’s Star Crossed — CID Makeda3
Also: I encourage everyone to reserve judgement until you put him on the table and play him. I have done that.
Remember earlier when I asked you to remember that theory and practice are not identical? This is why.
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