|
Bane CID
Apr 30, 2017 19:04:32 GMT
via mobile
Post by schostoppa1 on Apr 30, 2017 19:04:32 GMT
I think Warriors UA will be worth it at 5 points. A full unit of warriors are costed at 1.5 pts each. For five points you get two more, one with an extra attack, and at 1/3 tough rolls an expected outcome of 4 toughs, provided you can keep the leader safe (can be a big if sometimes). hopefully they switch tough to the standard. that would help big time.
|
|
|
Post by fossilfinder on Apr 30, 2017 23:27:09 GMT
We've also been trying to fix the Desecrator and make it appealing, at least in the theme. I think increasing the POW on the gun to 13 or 14, increasing its range to 12", and swapping Scather for some sort of Caustic Mist-esque AoE Hazard that auto-points enemy models but Friendly Banes can gain Concealment in might get it there.
I think Bane Knights getting Set Defense is good. I still feel that 17 points makes them awkwardly costed for the theme and being slightly more durable while much slower is a pretty poor sidegrade in my opinion. I personally think they should be tried with CMA, since PP wants them to be the bricky Banes and has been unenthusiastic about giving them back a speed enhancing mechanic, and Brutal Charge is both at odds with their new intended role and much more difficult to get mileage out of now that they are truly a slow unit that probably isn't going to be getting the alpha on much.
Bane Riders probably could work with just 2" melee back. I think trying them with something like Phantom Hunter would be interesting.
Bane Warriors seem more appropriately costed now but either moving Granted: Tough onto the Standard or swapping the Tactics and Granted benefits on the Officer would be nice, I feel.
The theme seems strong to me. I hope they try out including Darragh (free points or not) and maybe Deathjack or Malice. TBH the unbonded character jacks aren't the most attractive thing in the theme because they cut into your unit points but they'd be useful for list flexibility, which is quite lacking in the theme at the moment.
TBH in theme I don't think the Wraith Engine is worth it. It's the same price as an entire unit of Bane Warriors, doesn't count towards a free Tartarus or Bane Warrior UA, and under Unhallowed Bane Warriors still die to unboosted POW12s or boosted POW10s on average, and Knights only become truly durable as a 32-point module with either Scaverous or Skarre2.
I made the suggestion that Bane Witch Agathea could maybe get Field Marshal: Apparition but PP's not interested in changing her kit at all.
|
|
kuarnix
Junior Strategist
Posts: 145
|
Post by kuarnix on May 1, 2017 1:20:53 GMT
As someone who has stubbornly played Bane Riders because I painted them and it took forever, I would like a 2" melee range but I think they will be workable with Vengeance. It pops them up to a 14" threat if they take damage, or will let them maneuver around once they are stick in to get off more charges (or kill more infantry). I'm down, though they are still expensive so they may not fit everywhere. I don't think they need any other fancy rules.
|
|
Kavrae
Junior Strategist
Posts: 182
|
Post by Kavrae on May 1, 2017 12:54:52 GMT
Quick notes from my first Bane CID game as Goreshade1. Ran him with Wraith Engine, two max units of Warriors, min unit of Knights, and max unit of Riders. Will work on a full battle report whenever I'm a bit more rested.
Bane Knights - I really didn't miss having Vengeance as I was more concerned with body blocking with them and staying in b2b than doing damage. Instead, they were a nice roadbump to get to the heavier hitting Banes and Goreshade. Between Wall of Steel and the Wraith Engine, it wasn't even worth shooting at them. In melee they still die fairly easily but did their job of being in the way. Where they're better than just taking a unit of Mechanithralls for jamming is that they actually take some attention to remove rather than throwing out some randomly deviating blasts. Where they fall a bit flat is that they're horribly slow... so they won't be protecting anything faster than SPD 5 and certainly won't be holding offensive zones. So no worries about overlapping roles here. Final note - 17 points is annoying when literally everything else adds up to 10 points increments nicely.
Bane Warriors - Between the point reduction and theme points, I was running a 99 point army. Add Goreshade's free min unit, and it was downright spammy. Prowl/Stealth didn't come into play much, but it was a nice bonus. End result is that it guaranteed at least some Banes reach the target. And as you know, whatever a Bane touches is probably dead.
Bane Riders - Probably my favorite change. Trading Curse for a MAT increase made target selection so much easier. Adding Vengeance also made them finally feel like Cavalry, by having some good non-linear speed. Allowed me to actually get into the fight with them when one got sniped out by a Defender. I actually broke out my untouched Bane Riders last night and started painting them.
Wraith Engine - Happy with this change. Granted, my Ghost Fleet army will be quite sad with the loss of blast protection... but it works nicely for the Bane army! Makes the Knights really difficult to remove, while mostly protecting the Warriors from blasts and POW 10s. (theoretically, also POW 12s with tough mitigating the death rate). Only thing is I'm worried we might be getting too focused on anti-ranged tech.
4" Clouds were pretty good. Not great, but good. I honestly used them mostly for LOS blocking by putting them up against a rock. Didn't really use them for Prowl at all, since I was spamming banes and would fit maybe 1/3 of them in the clouds. Might work better if I put them together to protect one unit fully? Going to be heavily terrain dependent, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Adds an element of improvisation instead of "Banes are stealth, deal with it".
|
|
|
Post by Cryptix on May 1, 2017 13:07:05 GMT
If you ran Asphyxious for the clouds, do you think you could take advantage of prowl more often?
|
|
npe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 221
|
Post by npe on May 1, 2017 13:21:15 GMT
If you ran Asphyxious for the clouds, do you think you could take advantage of prowl more often? Unfortunately Gaspy1's clouds cause one point of damage and Gaspy2's cause continuous corrosion so your banes melt if you take advantage.
|
|
|
Post by Cryptix on May 1, 2017 13:24:09 GMT
If you ran Asphyxious for the clouds, do you think you could take advantage of prowl more often? Unfortunately Gaspy1's clouds cause one point of damage and Gaspy2's cause continuous corrosion so your banes melt if you take advantage. Not if you place them after the banes move. Its if you enter or end your activation in them.
|
|
|
Post by Morganstern on May 1, 2017 13:37:41 GMT
If you ran Asphyxious for the clouds, do you think you could take advantage of prowl more often? If you're doing this then you may as well place the clouds in front of the banes to block line of sight instead.
|
|
|
Post by Gamingdevil on May 2, 2017 13:04:52 GMT
If you ran Asphyxious for the clouds, do you think you could take advantage of prowl more often? If you're doing this then you may as well place the clouds in front of the banes to block line of sight instead. Well, sometimes that's too far up to fit in control. It's just another tool in the box.
|
|
|
Post by jest on May 2, 2017 16:09:58 GMT
As someone who has stubbornly played Bane Riders because I painted them and it took forever, I would like a 2" melee range but I think they will be workable with Vengeance. It pops them up to a 14" threat if they take damage, or will let them maneuver around once they are stick in to get off more charges (or kill more infantry). I'm down, though they are still expensive so they may not fit everywhere. I don't think they need any other fancy rules. What do you play them under? I was thinking Scaverous with Death Ward and the new Wraith Engine but maybe armor skew isn't necessary with the new stealth tech banes are getting...
|
|
|
Post by Gauner on May 2, 2017 17:28:20 GMT
I think the changes are pretty good too. A few more tweaks and I think we're good to go:
- Give the Riders 2" melee. Done.
- Warriors are great. On the CA, swap Tough to the Standard Bearer and change the mini-feat to return d3+1 models, rather than base it off of killing infantry, since that isn't really their role.
- Reduce the Knights to 9/15 and swap out Brutal Charge for something defensive. Set Defense might not be quite enough, not sure without testing. One thing to consider here is that keeping the Knights at 10/17 can make getting to 60 points (the sweet spot for maxing the theme benefit while leaving room for a Wraith Engine) a little difficult if you want a max unit. 9/15 gives much more flexibility, particularly if there might be a 2 point WA in the works for the Banes. I mentioned this on the CID forums and Soles thought it was a good point.
- The Wraith Engine needs... something. Cleave is mostly useless, since you almost never want to attack with it. If you are going to risk going corporeal, then the reward needs to be better. It seems like they are giving Incorporeal too much weight in Mk3. Magical Weapons just aren't rare enough. It could use some more boxes (30?) and they should swap out Cleave for something else, I think. Maybe just go full support and give it some other synergy?
- Soles seemed very receptive to adding Darragh Wrathe to the Theme. He basically all but said it was a done deal. Not free of course.
- Agathia needs something. More defense? A new feat that actually synergizes with Banes, rather than duplicates what they already have?
- Lots of people offered up an FA restriction on McThralls. FA 5 was the most common offered. Probably not a bad result if they're going to stay so cheap.
Anyway... just my two cents.
|
|
|
Post by fossilfinder on May 2, 2017 18:18:27 GMT
I think the changes are pretty good too. A few more tweaks and I think we're good to go: - Give the Riders 2" melee. Done. - Warriors are great. On the CA, swap Tough to the Standard Bearer and change the mini-feat to return d3+1 models, rather than base it off of killing infantry, since that isn't really their role. - Reduce the Knights to 9/15 and swap out Brutal Charge for something defensive. Set Defense might not be quite enough, not sure without testing. One thing to consider here is that keeping the Knights at 10/17 can make getting to 60 points (the sweet spot for maxing the theme benefit while leaving room for a Wraith Engine) a little difficult if you want a max unit. 9/15 gives much more flexibility, particularly if there might be a 2 point WA in the works for the Banes. I mentioned this on the CID forums and Soles thought it was a good point. - The Wraith Engine needs... something. Cleave is mostly useless, since you almost never want to attack with it. If you are going to risk going corporeal, then the reward needs to be better. It seems like they are giving Incorporeal too much weight in Mk3. Magical Weapons just aren't rare enough. It could use some more boxes (30?) and they should swap out Cleave for something else, I think. Maybe just go full support and give it some other synergy? - Soles seemed very receptive to adding Darragh Wrathe to the Theme. He basically all but said it was a done deal. Not free of course. - Agathia needs something. More defense? A new feat that actually synergizes with Banes, rather than duplicates what they already have? - Lots of people offered up an FA restriction on McThralls. FA 5 was the most common offered. Probably not a bad result if they're going to stay so cheap. Anyway... just my two cents. Soles mentioned that they weren't receptive to altering Agathia in this CID because she's a Battlebox caster and those apparently must remain simple and unchanged through this edition, which is a bummer. He also mentioned that even if they were open to changing her kit that the current Battlebox casters couldn't have any rules that referenced specific infantry because they feel that it would be too limiting to new players getting them or somesuch. I suggested FM: Apparition on her because that doesn't effect the infantry and would be a neat, relatively simple change for her but that got nowhere to my knowledge.
|
|
|
Post by tarviche on May 3, 2017 3:51:41 GMT
I tested out the new Mechanithralls in a couple of games this weekend. I used:
Deneghra1 (Infernal Machines theme) -Deathripper -Deathripper -Leviathan -Seether
Aiakos1 -Leviathan
10 Mechanithralls + 3 Brutes (ambush) 10 Mechanithralls + 3 Brutes 10 Mechanithralls + 3 Brutes Necrosurgeon Necrosurgeon
Both opponents conceded around turn 3 or 4 after the same pattern: I advanced, they shot most of a Mechanithrall unit off the table, I ambushed a unit and then hit them with Denny's feat and the ambushing thralls + Leviathan shots and ran to engage or to the edge of their debuffed threat ranges. Brute thralls tended to dissolve almost as quickly as Mechanithralls, but the sheer numbers (and the unexpectedly useful recursion from the Necrosurgeons, who I may have been underrating) were overwhelming. Both players complained that a) Deneghra1's feat is deeply unpleasant and oppressive, which is absolutely true, and b) they simply didn't have the volume of attacks to remove that many thralls, certainly not enough to counterpunch while debuffed.
To be fair, one opponent was a Khador player who's still fairly new and probably didn't leverage Conquest's AOEs properly or protect his Manowars from the ambushing unit, and the other opponent was a Legion player who was trying a Ravens list that wasn't super optimal.
I also found that not having room for a Skarlock or the WSC was very annoying, and I'd consider dropping a couple of Brutes or even a Necrosurgeon to get the Skarlock. Having a Ghost Walk dispenser with a separate activation is just too important, especially for freeing up arc nodes for assassination runs.
I feel like a list with more sprays, more electroleaps, or just more plain old POW 10 shooting would tear this list apart pretty easily, and I think the Necrosurgeon (and the Sepulcher, even more so) still needs a buff to make recursion more powerful, like letting stitch thralls contribute to recursion or something. But the sheer volume is definitely effective.
(I also really sympathize with the view that they should nerf Deneghra1 hard and rebuild the entire faction from the ground up without the limitations imposed by having to balance around her power...)
|
|
|
Bane CID
May 3, 2017 5:16:48 GMT
via mobile
Post by Cryptix on May 3, 2017 5:16:48 GMT
(I also really sympathize with the view that they should nerf Deneghra1 hard and rebuild the entire faction from the ground up without the limitations imposed by having to balance around her power...) Deneghra is our faction identity, like it or not :V
|
|
|
Post by Morganstern on May 3, 2017 12:52:02 GMT
I'm interested to see what drops this week. All of the battle reports so far seem to come to similar conclusions. These being Bane Warriors are good but UA is nearly there, either move tough to the standard or change the Officer to Tactics Tough and Granted rise. Bane Knights are tough with wall of steel but need something else, perhaps set defense. Also points slightly high. BLT OK at 6 pts. Maybe veteran leader instead of curse. Bane Riders better with vengeance and +1 MAT but still feel a little weak for their points. Would be better with 2" melee range. Theme force seems to be working well, may need to include 1 or 2 more support pieces.
Get ready for week 2
|
|