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Post by sgregorbmmd on Dec 21, 2017 12:12:40 GMT
In MKII, the pirates had a niche in the game as fast anti infantry buzzsaws, especially pre colossals. Unfortunately, the changes to tough, proliferation of anti-infantry tech, and shift away from their preferred victims, living infantry, took a lot of wind out of their sails (yar har har) in the edition change. To make matters worse, the eventual release of the theme force was... uninspired to put it nicely.
Fortunately, it looks like the privateers will finally get their justly deserved reworking in CID late next year. CID saw the Llaelese Resistance theme force move from an unimaginative mess to something unique and potentially powerful with a great deal of room to grow, so I am optimistic that the Talion Charter will receive a similar treatment once it gets some time in the devs' collective spotlight.
What changes to the models and theme benefits would it take to make pirates a compelling choice in Mercs again? Armor piercing deck guns? Free power attacks? The ability to take blighted trolls and ogrun? Pirate's Life was my first Merc army, so I'm curious to see what it would take for the community to finally dust off their sea dogs.
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Dec 21, 2017 13:14:30 GMT
Gang Fighter for warjacks...
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Post by Azuresun on Dec 21, 2017 23:11:06 GMT
What changes to the models and theme benefits would it take to make pirates a compelling choice in Mercs again? Armor piercing deck guns? As any "how would you improve...." thread progresses, the chance of someone suggesting Armour Piercing, Carapace or Impervious Flesh approaches 1.
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Post by sgregorbmmd on Dec 21, 2017 23:56:28 GMT
What changes to the models and theme benefits would it take to make pirates a compelling choice in Mercs again? Armor piercing deck guns? As any "how would you improve...." thread progresses, the chance of someone suggesting Armour Piercing, Carapace or Impervious Flesh approaches 1. Have you tried playing pirates into even a mild armor skew?
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shoe
Junior Strategist
Posts: 706
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Post by shoe on Dec 22, 2017 0:18:36 GMT
lez wait til we see teh new stuffs first
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Post by Azuresun on Dec 22, 2017 0:36:30 GMT
As any "how would you improve...." thread progresses, the chance of someone suggesting Armour Piercing, Carapace or Impervious Flesh approaches 1. Have you tried playing pirates into even a mild armor skew? It was a joke, about how those three pop up over and over as wishlisting for nearly everything. Right now, there's a thread in the Protectorate forums about Bastions and ayup, there's Impervious Flesh and Carapace in the very first post. Circle players wanted AP for Blood Pack. Etc, etc. For actual suggestions: Keeping the solos alive is hard against electro leaps and sprays. Sacrificial Pawn (Sea Dog) from the theme would help to fix this. Maybe even to the warcasters, since it didn't break Winter Guard Kommand, and pirates don't have units with RNG 14 guns. Deck Guns....I can see what the intent was, a mobile, cheap artillery piece with decent power and range. But medium-power guns and weak blast damage just don't have a lot of use in the game at present. Armour Piercing is excessive, but perhaps Brutal Damage would do it. Or maybe a cumulative damage bonus based on how many other Deck Guns hit the target, like the Woldstalker ability. After all, they're meant to be fired in volleys. More knockdown from somewhere would be good, since the Privateer melee warjack kind of needs it to be able to do anything.
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Post by leotherat on Dec 22, 2017 13:34:26 GMT
The theme itself is a little too narrow, IMHO. We already have the 2 general crew types in Sea Dogs and Press Gangers. It seems to me that the only real place to expand is more special characters (as if we didn't have enough now). I suppose you could have a unit of marines but since they're supposed to be pirates usually everyone in the crew should already be a marine. There's no way to allow heavy Infantry or any type of Cav just due to, you know, they're usually on ships.
Pirates need more mobility and some way to gain a bigger punch. Maybe a new CA for the sea dogs but that seems so trite. Tallion just doesn't have a wide enough variety of base troops. Maybe a unit with pole arms and a dedicated shooting unit.
Just my intial 2 dabloons.
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sorlo
Baby's First Wargame
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Post by sorlo on Dec 22, 2017 18:36:12 GMT
Well for a polearm unit we could always have a unit with gaff sticks and crit knockdown. Not sure if reach infantry would help, what pirates really need is hard hitting infantry.
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Post by scarecrow on Dec 22, 2017 20:11:35 GMT
Do the stacking solo buffs not do enough? Are they too fragile to deliver reliably?
With Hawk, Rockbottom, and Walls a Sea Dog unit can charge 11.5" with boosted Mat 7 Pow 10 Weaponmaster charges, and a poor followup pistol shot. That doesn't sound too shabby to me, especially against only a "mild" armor skew
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crow
Junior Strategist
Posts: 310
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Post by crow on Dec 22, 2017 20:12:14 GMT
More of a silly answer than a serious one, but what if as a theme benefit you got something like an AOE5 POW 20 Template that you could use as an attack once every turn on anything upto 24 inches from your board edge (representing the Ship just off map firing its cannons). Of course this would cause a lot of problems but it'd definitely make the theme interesting
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Post by leotherat on Dec 23, 2017 13:24:55 GMT
Do the stacking solo buffs not do enough? Are they too fragile to deliver reliably? With Hawk, Rockbottom, and Walls a Sea Dog unit can charge 11.5" with boosted Mat 7 Pow 10 Weaponmaster charges, and a poor followup pistol shot. That doesn't sound too shabby to me, especially against only a "mild" armor skew The problem is getting everyone into exactly the right position to be able to do this. The Sea Dogs have to be within Hawk's command range when they attack to become weapon masters. Even then you're probably limited to only 1 unit being able to do this and probably only once per game. It's just too hard to depend on this as the basis of an army (at least to me).
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Post by 36cygnar24guy36 on Dec 23, 2017 17:13:18 GMT
Do the stacking solo buffs not do enough? Are they too fragile to deliver reliably? With Hawk, Rockbottom, and Walls a Sea Dog unit can charge 11.5" with boosted Mat 7 Pow 10 Weaponmaster charges, and a poor followup pistol shot. That doesn't sound too shabby to me, especially against only a "mild" armor skew They are only weaponmaster against warrior models, the issue is killing Jack's beasts and battle engines
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Post by Azuresun on Dec 23, 2017 17:55:22 GMT
Do the stacking solo buffs not do enough? Are they too fragile to deliver reliably? With Hawk, Rockbottom, and Walls a Sea Dog unit can charge 11.5" with boosted Mat 7 Pow 10 Weaponmaster charges, and a poor followup pistol shot. That doesn't sound too shabby to me, especially against only a "mild" armor skew As said, they're only weapon masters against warrior models, where you usually don't need the extra dice (maybe it'll have more use once more heavy infantry get changed back from their blanket nerfing after the warderpocalypse). Of course, you get Aiyana & Holt and can take non-Privateer jacks to break armour, but at that point, you're better off just going into Irregulars and having everything count for free points. And yes, Sea Dogs can do stuff if they get across the table and if the solos are alive with their auras in the right places. The problem is, those are two giant "ifs". Players who know how privateers work will dedicate everything to getting at Doc and it's not that hard if they have Arcing Fire, elevation, electro-leaps, boostable blasts or sprays. It's incredibly hard to get the solos into a place where they can't be scalpelled out and can get a worthwhile number of pirates into their bubbles. And even with 4+ tough and no knockdown, 13/12 infantry is still very easy to clear. Premeasuring made it easier to kite out of charge range, and there are more ways around Tough than before. The warcasters don't really offer much protection from getting gunned off the board either--Shae can put down a single cloud and make one unit hard to shoot. Fiona's feat doesn't help much against guns, and Montador is over in Irregulars, running a jack list.
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Post by fallenexile on Dec 23, 2017 19:04:27 GMT
The theme itself is a little too narrow, IMHO. We already have the 2 general crew types in Sea Dogs and Press Gangers. It seems to me that the only real place to expand is more special characters (as if we didn't have enough now). I suppose you could have a unit of marines but since they're supposed to be pirates usually everyone in the crew should already be a marine. There's no way to allow heavy Infantry or any type of Cav just due to, you know, they're usually on ships. Pirates need more mobility and some way to gain a bigger punch. Maybe a new CA for the sea dogs but that seems so trite. Tallion just doesn't have a wide enough variety of base troops. Maybe a unit with pole arms and a dedicated shooting unit. Just my intial 2 dabloons. What about a heavy unit of Deep Divers, complete with heavy suits similar to Khador MoWs. Give them Harpoons like Skorne Cataphract.
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Post by jagius021 on Dec 24, 2017 22:22:04 GMT
The deep divers would be an awesome unit, I really enjoy that idea. Basically water arcuii and maybe give them something lore that they are used to raid ships and harbors from below, so they get a bonus against constructs and structures. Or instead of drag they act just like the gobber raiders and they reel themselves in. Might make for another neat niche.
Or we go the route of cumulative damage and armor through a salvage squad. When the unit destroys a model with armor 18 or above, all privateers in cmd ra ge get +2 str and arm. Happens once a turn. Give them trash and repair.
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