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Post by macdaddy on Mar 14, 2018 14:22:34 GMT
Haight I also found (and still find in the case of haley and Una) Una 2, Pre-nerf Wurmwood, and Pre-nerf haley 2, not only boring to play, but also to play against. Sometimes casters are boring because they are OP and cause un-interactive gameplay. Like throwing a butload of boosted Pow 14 crit stationary sprays at a caster with little effort or worry of retaliation all with a whopping 19" threat with bulldoze...yuck. If you think the BE is bad I really recommend trying it out with a different caster. Its actually a really strong (probably too strong) Battle engine. Consider the following: It has very solid speed and threat range It has very solid durability It has powerful infantry control It also can dent up heavies Its in a faction with easy access to damage buffs meaning most of the guns should be +2 pow when they fire at heavy targets Its a really really strong battle engine. Perhaps on its own for 18 points it is acceptable, but combined with in faction support? I fear it will get absurd quickly. Consider this in respect to mackay, who really needs a nerf. 1: Karchev feat + magical weapons and run and gun 2: Combine point 1 with Mobility (the only thing that really balances karachev is lack of PF) 3: Vet leader to all the BE's cuz reasons 4: Very powerful Variable Main gun 6: 5 INITITIAL ATTACKS..... 7: Arm 19 and 36 boxes...so assassination is off the table unless you are Butcher level killing power 8: A very strong jack centered spells list. 9: Return fire...on a bunch of battle engines with high power scathers and rat 7 spray 10's...yeah...seems fair. It makes me cringe seeing people put her in green, but then you go back and see the same people were complaining about Battle bears and Madrack 1 being OP
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Mar 14, 2018 15:04:18 GMT
All fair.
I'm going to try to test it out a bit more, see if i come around. I'm open to the fact that my "Snore, this is boring" mentality maybe clouded me to some bullshit interactions.
I'll give it some more testing. Again, i agree, with McKay, 2 railess is probably overtuned. I have not focused on it with other casters as much (took one with Lukas a couple times, ultimately did not like it in comparison to a Toro and 5 other points of stuff, but its because i think the rest of my list had similarly powered answers to what the BE brings 0 namely, pies and sprays).
Also, 10/19 with 36 boxes is tough, no doubt, however its not assassination proof. Its easily hit without boosting, and ARM 19 is good, but most combi-jacks and dedicated melee's will be getting through for 4-6 damage per swing unboosted on average - absolutely, focus can power that down, McKay is not a caster sitting on tons of focus in my estimation. She's also fairly easily shot unless you cloud wall her up / have another railess fume her, etc.
Don't get me wrong: i'm not saying its not a tough nut, it is, but its hardly assassination proof.
Regarding McKay in particular: I would be 100% fine if she dropped Vet Leader. Seems overkill. I really like Return Fire on her, as it makes for not only utilitarian opportunity, but also some really nifty interactions. Removing it would ratchet down her intricacy a notch and she's not exactly rocket science already. I'd recommend Sentry as a spell, but someone already has it.
EDIT : I think i also know what is contributing to my possible dissonance on this subject. I basically use the Crawler in terms of battle engines, and i used the Strider a very little bit in Cygnar. I have very high standards for BE's to be worth taking (as any 18+ point model should require). THe crawler has 2 large, good pies, a decent melee, and then 2-4 shots with a POW 12. It also has some support vectors in with it as well, and i regularly use ragman with the crawler as a method of disbursing death field - this is perhaps at least contributing to why i'm mostly fine with the Railess currently. Of course, crawler is slower, and doesn't have as many access to debuffs as the Railess.
In any event, i want to test out some things a bit more, and then revisit.
EDIT 2: Thinking more on this, what are the real nuts and bolts issues: McKay, tankiness, Manuverability, Speed, Offensive attack economy, Offensive damage economy, or some combination of all ?
If Manuverability is the issue, drop Reposition (maybe keep on McKay as she's the queen of Tanks?)
If Speed is the issue, drop it to 5 SPD and perhaps examine the Reposition issue above as noted.
If Offensive Attack Economy is the issue - this i don't know how to get around. The model clearly has 4 cannons which means its going to have 4 guns. You can however make some of the guns less stellar. Drop the bash maybe ? I mean, the bash isn't the problem.
If Offensive damage economy is the issue - What about dropping the POW 14 sprays to POW 12. So it has a big gun, and then a lot of infantry mulch which with stacking debuffs can get into the realm of putting small (non-spike) damage on heavier armor?
If McKay is the issue - Drop veteran leader ? Change feat from boosted damage to 2 or 3 static instead ? You get more reliability but less spikeyness which is both good and bad. Feat then begins to resemble 50% of Baldwins, more widely applied, but less living-the-dream-scalability.
If Tankiness is the issue - drop some boxes ? 34 ? 32 ?
The issues to me right now seem to be that its too fast for how offensive it is, and its too tanky for how fast it is, and McKay dials it up to crazy.
So, maybe, drop Vet Leader, drop Repo on Non-McKay Interceptors, drop Speed to 5, maintain current offensive attack and damage economy.
Or, perhaps, Drop Vet Leader, drop to speed 5, drop POW 14 sprays to POW 12's, change McKay's feat to +2/+3 damage instead of boost.
Or, Drop to 32-34 boxes, drop either Repo or down to speed 5 (but not both), drop veteran leader.
Would any of these combinations keep the interceptor relevant outside of a McKay list but normalize this battle engine both with and without McKay ?
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Post by chillychinaman on Mar 14, 2018 21:22:38 GMT
Can someone explain to me the "benefit," of the Arc Node gaining True Sight?
If I remember correctly, the caster also needs to be able to ignore clouds and stealth, of which it only applies to Sylvetro's gas mask, to be able to channel to them. And without a gun, it's not like the Liberator is shooting stealth targets.
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Post by gobber on Mar 14, 2018 23:10:23 GMT
Can someone explain to me the "benefit," of the Arc Node gaining True Sight? If I remember correctly, the caster also needs to be able to ignore clouds and stealth, of which it only applies to Sylvetro's gas mask, to be able to channel to them. And without a gun, it's not like the Liberator is shooting stealth targets. You use the arc node's abilities for determining line of sight and the caster's abilities for determining attack roll bonuses/penalties. Both rules apply in the case of stealth; you'll automiss if the caster doesn't ignore stealth but would ignore stealth on any intervening models that block LOS because of the arc node's true sight (which is mostly a downside by preventing you from targeting the back ranks of a clump of stealth models). The true sight arc nodes will effectively defeat cloud walls, but not concealment, nor will it do what you'd like it to against stealth.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Mar 14, 2018 23:16:13 GMT
Yep, it's anti cloud tech in faction on the arc.
Which is.. interesting as it already has a jack with anti-cloud tech and if memory serves it can take the Minion Duo who can get rid of clouds too (i have to double check if i'm correct on that).
It's a nice addition, but i didn't think the Liberator really needed much, its pretty superb as is for an arc node - functional DEF 15 ARM 19 on approach, and maintains that if melee attacker is living.
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Post by Trollock on Mar 15, 2018 7:36:48 GMT
As stated above. The arc node is used for drawing LoS (so you can cast spells through a cloud wall if arcing through a Liberator). The caster is used for making the attack roll (so if the caster can ignore concealment and such, he still does so while arcing)
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Provengreil
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Posts: 850
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Post by Provengreil on Mar 15, 2018 13:07:57 GMT
With regard to the Railless, I think its detractors (of which I freely admit I am one, though quietly) have one major issue with it, one that is shared by rather a lot of the battle engines.:
It sounds like it was designed by a four year old.
Listing everything cool it has beyond a more standard heavy warjack of similar cost inevitably results in an excruciatingly long string of breathless 'ands'. It's almost impossible to describe some of them without suddenly talking like that.
Example: The Defender has a really long range, a boostable and strong gun, good armor, good boxes, and a nice hammer.
The railless interceptor has speed 6 and high armor and a huge amount of boxes and 3 sprays and damage types and pathfinder and that exhaust cloud thing and reposition and immunity to stationary and grievous and....well, I can't get to CID at work so That's what I can remember, but you get the point.
in fact, much of the crucible guard could be described this way. there's a LOT of stuff going on, even outside the warcasters(who generally SHOULD be complex), and IMO it's risking being grymkin all over agian. The recent design philosphies of PP have every model solving most of its own issues. High range stuff getting both arcing fire and carapace makes them impossible to efficiently deal with, as an example. When designing their stuff, PP need to start asking not just what it should do, but also what should be done against it because CID has produced a number of pieces with no good counter strategies.
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Post by Trollock on Mar 15, 2018 13:36:30 GMT
What you say about the railless is true, but you are forgetting a few key diferences between it and a warjack. It can not boost and it can not buy attacks. The jacks have better peak preformance, but it costs you focus to get there. The battle engines are very solid against "fair" things, but if they come up against "unfair" things such as extreme DEF or ARM, they do almost nothing. A jack can boost to compensate.
As for what can be done against Storm troopers? If they hang far back so you cant reach them, you claim scenario. If they come up to contest, you charge them with a melee model/unit. Seems like decent counter play to me.
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Provengreil
Junior Strategist
Choir Kills: 12
Posts: 850
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Post by Provengreil on Mar 15, 2018 13:43:19 GMT
What you say about the railless is true, but you are forgetting a few key diferences between it and a warjack. It can not boost and it can not buy attacks. The jacks have better peak preformance, but it costs you focus to get there. The battle engines are very solid against "fair" things, but if they come up against "unfair" things such as extreme DEF or ARM, they do almost nothing. A jack can boost to compensate. As for what can be done against Storm troopers? If they hang far back so you cant reach them, you claim scenario. If they come up to contest, you charge them with a melee model/unit. Seems like decent counter play to me. I disagree on scenario. If Crucible guard goes first, they'll have their cake and eat it. It even happened to me last night: my opponent hasn't put the batrep up yet, but look out for Lukas vs Malekus.
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Post by jisidro on Mar 15, 2018 14:38:39 GMT
I still find it odd how people say Lukas "only" makes a cloud wall and casters a Force hammer/desintegrate on any given turn? How many casters do this much? And ofc twice as much on feat turn.
Perhaps he is not for everyone but he isn't a static caster.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Mar 15, 2018 17:39:23 GMT
I still find it odd how people say Lukas "only" makes a cloud wall and casters a Force hammer/desintegrate on any given turn? How many casters do this much? And ofc twice as much on feat turn. Perhaps he is not for everyone but he isn't a static caster. A million times this. He is ve st flexible and dynamic. Good spell slinging, support, assassination assisstance. and credible, if last ditch, melee threat.
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Provengreil
Junior Strategist
Choir Kills: 12
Posts: 850
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Post by Provengreil on Mar 15, 2018 17:56:05 GMT
I still find it odd how people say Lukas "only" makes a cloud wall and casters a Force hammer/desintegrate on any given turn? How many casters do this much? And ofc twice as much on feat turn. Perhaps he is not for everyone but he isn't a static caster. A million times this. He is ve st flexible and dynamic. Good spell slinging, support, assassination assisstance. and credible, if last ditch, melee threat. Yeah, the people who say they also want ashes to ashes sound crazy to me. There has to be stuff a caster CAN'T do.
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Post by trollsareblue on Mar 15, 2018 18:17:11 GMT
Ugh. This is annoying.
Liberator Things to test: Are there compelling reasons to include the Liberator with certain casters? Is it too expensive for its role? Do you find the Node Capacitor rule to be too much of a drawback?
Week 1 testers: The Node Capacitor rule sucks. Plz change.
PP: Nah, we'll give it True Sight.
Week 2 testers: No one cares about True Sight. The Node Capacitor rule still sucks.
PP: Too bad, we're keeping it.
Why even put it on the watch list then? Do they know how iterative development is supposed to work?
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Provengreil
Junior Strategist
Choir Kills: 12
Posts: 850
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Post by Provengreil on Mar 15, 2018 18:26:53 GMT
Ugh. This is annoying. Liberator Things to test: Are there compelling reasons to include the Liberator with certain casters? Is it too expensive for its role? Do you find the Node Capacitor rule to be too much of a drawback?Week 1 testers: The Node Capacitor rule sucks. Plz change. PP: Nah, we'll give it True Sight. Week 2 testers: No one cares about True Sight. The Node Capacitor rule still sucks. PP: Too bad, we're keeping it. Why even put it on the watch list then? Do they know how iterative development is supposed to work? it's probably like the paladins, where they have super seekrit testing results flying in the face of every public facing analysis, including the ones supplemented by battle reports.
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Haight
Junior Strategist
Posts: 396
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Post by Haight on Mar 15, 2018 20:41:01 GMT
I think its just an aesthetic design choice that the Crucible should have arcs, but they should kinda suck for arc'i'ness.
In my experience, such abstractions made manifest on the table rarely go away. So to me, i like at it like "is this a decent light jack that just so happens to have a shitty arcnode on it?" If yes, happy.
And I am good with a functional most of the time 15/19 with a PS 13 chain weapon melee light that can sling a couple spells before crapping out.
THe arc can also be repaired, as a note. Additionally, native ashen veil on it has ALL SORTS of neat uses. Oh you're a MAT 6 beast ? You're MAT 4 now, get fukt.
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