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Post by oncomingstorm on Jul 9, 2018 6:35:03 GMT
Please note: I'm not talking about the models in the theme. Many of them are fairly good/in need of only minor tweaks, and presumably most of them will be competitively viable post CID.
However, in my opinion, the theme benefits of Devourer's Host are absolute trash, and need a rework.
Let's take a look at what we get:
- Free solo/UA per 20 points of Tharn: This isn't terrible, though it is awkward in that the Death Wolves do not count towards free points (which, IMO, makes them largely a poor choice when compared to our other options). Gets us a fairly middle-of-the-road maximum free point value of 17.
-Snacking for Warbeasts: This is an incredibly situational theme benefit. The healing is marginally useful (Circle beasts rarely survive a turn of being damaged), and the RFP is super situational. Even the lists that actually care about RFP against living models (some Menoth, the Morvahnas) rarely care when that RFP is only on a few models, as they still have targets for recursion. It's also a benefit that applies only to warbeasts...in an infantry focused theme.
Compare snacking to the benefits that you see in other such themes (the ones that actually see play) - Flank for Marshalled Warjacks (Legions of Dawn); Hand of Vengeance (Faithful Masses); Gang Fighter (Slaughter Fleet Raiders)...snacking does not compare.
- Free Corpse token for every 10 points of Tharn: This benefit is the one that everyone seems to go nuts over. However, to me, this benefit typically acts as a band-aid to the generally poor design of models with Heart Eater (Tharn Ravagers may be the exception). Rather than turning good units up to 11, this theme benefit allows one unit (almost always the Death Wolves, and nothing that's been spoiled makes me think that this is likely to change) or a few solos (the Lord of Feast in particular needs corpses to function, all the moreso in his proposed CID iteration) to function to an acceptable level. This is not good design, not least because it means that these units are then rendered subpar when taken in a theme that does not provide them with free corpses (When was the last time you saw Death Wolves in Wild Hunt?) It's also counter to the way most other themes are designed, which is to take models/units that are already functional, and provide them with a leg up via theme bonuses.
On top of the above, Devourer's Host is a battlegroup restricted theme. The logic for this escapes me (Wolds being creations of blood sacrifice + the Tharn being blood sorcerors feels like a natural fit), but regardless, this should militate towards stronger theme benefits, given that nearly half the factions' warbeasts (and a number of powerful synergies, ***blessedwoldwyrds***) are unavailable.
I don't know what a good replacement for Snacking would be, but IMO a better approach to the third theme benefit is as follows:
- remove the 'free corpse token' theme benefit. Models with Heart Eater start with one corpse each instead (alter the text of heart eater to this effect). This makes Death Wolves and the LOTF viable outside of Devourer's Host (though the lord of the feast may need a rework - his current proposed iteration practically demands he be loaded up before you commit him, and with the loss of thresher he has no way to do that himself). It also gives the theme force more play into a couple of lists that are currently straight up terrible matchups for it (immortals, CoC in general) without pushing it over the top in those matchups, and it forces corpses to be spread out more (rather than dumping them all onto a single unit, as is currently the practice).
- Add a new theme benefit: prior to deployment, place a 4" forest within 20" of your table edge. One solo may deploy in that forest (as per Llaelese resistance). Tharn have a number of abilities that centre around forests and concealment, and this provides them with a way to leverage those abilities (at least somewhat) in games where there doesn't happen to be a centrally placed forest on the table. On a broader level, it 'fixes' (for lack of a better word) the fact that the faction supposedly centered around generating and abusing terrain does not have a theme that actually provides them with the ability to place terrain.
Thoughts? Looking to refine my thoughts on this before CID. I've played Devourer's Host a ton, and it's the theme benefits, as much as any of the models (most of which are only a hair off of being very competitive) that strikes me as holding the theme back.
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Post by challenger on Jul 9, 2018 7:29:40 GMT
imo, 20pts of tharn is standard, as is the free points you can get (post CID you can get 2x champions for 7ps each and a 5pt solo for 19pts). But Death Wolves being free would be really nice. They make the free point math so awkward.
agree on snacking being corner case compared to the amazing benefits like HoV. I like snacking, in fact i like it a lot but its a theme where you take 1-2 heavy beasts and thats it (and taking 2 probably costed you a freebie if you also brought the death wolves...).
Agree on the corpse tokens being a patch for models who need corpses. im not sure what i'd like to see in its place. the forest seems interesting since its also quite a valuable piece of anti gun tech too.
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Post by paradox on Jul 9, 2018 11:11:42 GMT
Let’s at least be reasonable here: the free solo/CA is a pretty standard benefit. Hard to complain about, really. I would agree to changing the corpse token benefit to each heart eater starting with one. This makes Death Wolves far less auto-include. But it sounds like you want this benefit to be stock to heart eater. Thatd be insane. You would seriously impact any heart eaters game balance. I doubt PP goes that route.
That said, I di not find Death Wolves awkward to take. The only awkward thing is how autoinclude they are. They do not need to count towards free points. Point in fact, we’ve seen PP push back in many cases where players have asked that basically everything in a theme count towards free points. Thats not how it works. Thenes have options that just dont count towards points. Makes sense that an honorary nod to some wolf sworn does just also mean more tharn.
I would like to see a theme benefit that helped non-heart eater tharn though. That, and changes to the token benefit would probably be a strong change. Im ambivelant to snacking. Its decent, but does not encourage beast heavy lists.
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Post by streetpizza on Jul 9, 2018 13:11:42 GMT
The only point you've made that I 100% agree with is that snacking is trash.
There are a few good replacements for it which could really improve the functionality of the theme while remaining thematic:
- Grievous wounds for all warbeasts
- Gang with infantry models for warbeast
- One instance of battle group wide prey (I.E. one prey token for the entire battle group to share)
- A heart thrower mechanism where if a battle group model kills a living or undead model then it can give the heart token to one eligible model within 5"
Getting a free heart token on every eligible model to start the game would definitely be a power buff but not one I'm sure the theme needs. I do like the idea of placing a forest as a theme benefit but I would hope if the theme goes that route that it would be two forests like the snow drifts in storm of the north.
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Post by redcathal on Jul 9, 2018 14:16:03 GMT
Yeah snacking is corner case although I do think it's pretty thematic however if I was to replace it here would the ideas off the top of my head: - Sotn: Trade the snow drifts for two 4" forest aoes
- Stealing from Storm of the north again: Warlocks in this army can upkeep spells on friendly Tharn model/units without spending fury.
- Warbeasts gaining deathrage might be interesting
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jul 9, 2018 14:20:54 GMT
Let’s at least be reasonable here: the free solo/CA is a pretty standard benefit. Hard to complain about, really. I would agree to changing the corpse token benefit to each heart eater starting with one. This makes Death Wolves far less auto-include. But it sounds like you want this benefit to be stock to heart eater. Thatd be insane. You would seriously impact any heart eaters game balance. I doubt PP goes that route. That said, I di not find Death Wolves awkward to take. The only awkward thing is how autoinclude they are. They do not need to count towards free points. Point in fact, we’ve seen PP push back in many cases where players have asked that basically everything in a theme count towards free points. Thats not how it works. Thenes have options that just dont count towards points. Makes sense that an honorary nod to some wolf sworn does just also mean more tharn. I would like to see a theme benefit that helped non-heart eater tharn though. That, and changes to the token benefit would probably be a strong change. Im ambivelant to snacking. Its decent, but does not encourage beast heavy lists. I didn't say that the free points benefit was poor. I said it was average, and thus not a factor that balances out the other subpar theme benefits (unlike, say, irregulars). As for Death Wolves not counting towards free points, they have the dubious distinction at the moment of both being the best target for free corpses (because they're the only ones that can use them defensively), and also not counting towards either of the two theme benefits. That makes list building incredibly awkward. Numerous previous CIDs have shown this to be something that PP is attentive to. As for your second point, you're making a bold claim. Please provide an example of how providing a free token as part of the heart eater benefit specifically breaks individual models. IMO, the closest candidate for breakage are the Ravagers, and I'm not convinced it would be a problem for them. Blood Pack don't want to be in melee to use corpses, a single corpse on a solo is not liable to break anything (really just means that you can count on battle wizard going off when you need to), and not being able to stack multiple corpses is almost certainly a nerf to the Death Wolves and the LOTF (in DevHost). At the moment, the only models it would affect are the Lord of the Feast (needs corpses to function, would likely still need some means of corpse support even when starting the game with 1 corpse) and the Death Wolves (unplayed in Wild Hunt, because A) they're not actually a terribly good unit, with Skoll functioning like a Ravager grunt on a good day and B) they need corpses to be delivered and to be effective when delivered (at Mat 7 no way of ignoring tough makes them fairly hard to pac man with reliably.) streetpizza - the reason I'd suggest a single 4" forest rather than 2 3" forests is because of how potent forests are as a defensive tool for Warlocks. with 2 3" forests, you get a nearly perfect bunker to camp your caster in, that can't be ignored except with a very few spells and abilities (I think Treewalker is the only one?) One 4" forest requires you to use existing terrain to make a bunker, and constrains the locations you can place that bunker, which I think makes it a more likely prospect than 2 3" AOEs. I also really like the BG-wide prey idea. Grievous wounds is also interesting, but I suspect would be stepping on the bloodweavers' toes a wee bit. Gang Fighter...I'm still holding out hope for Gang Fighter as a replacement for Tracker in the Wild Hunt, so I'm honestly biased against seeing it in any of our other themes. ' |
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Post by jisidro on Jul 9, 2018 14:26:25 GMT
I'd like to see Death Wolves gain the Tharn Keyword "Wold Sworn Tharn Character Unit" and I agree that Corpse tokens don't feel like a bonus but as a necessity. Perhaps we could have a third benefit or a reduction in points for solo... but I guess our "third" bonus is the cav solo.
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Post by redcathal on Jul 9, 2018 14:42:39 GMT
Actually now that I think of it, ambush. Why do the savage barbarians not have an ambush? Because wolfsworn took that benefit? If so I'd happily trade that for ambush in DH
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Post by streetpizza on Jul 9, 2018 15:09:47 GMT
streetpizza - the reason I'd suggest a single 4" forest rather than 2 3" forests is because of how potent forests are as a defensive tool for Warlocks. with 2 3" forests, you get a nearly perfect bunker to camp your caster in, that can't be ignored except with a very few spells and abilities (I think Treewalker is the only one?) One 4" forest requires you to use existing terrain to make a bunker, and constrains the locations you can place that bunker, which I think makes it a more likely prospect than 2 3" AOEs. I also really like the BG-wide prey idea. Grievous wounds is also interesting, but I suspect would be stepping on the bloodweavers' toes a wee bit. Gang Fighter...I'm still holding out hope for Gang Fighter as a replacement for Tracker in the Wild Hunt, so I'm honestly biased against seeing it in any of our other themes. ' Remember DH gets 2 4" clouds and SotN gets two 4" snow drifts (although these don't block LOS). So the precedent is there. Hell the wall from faithful masses is a pretty huge bonus too. Arguably better in some circumstances. |
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Post by streetpizza on Jul 9, 2018 15:13:36 GMT
Actually now that I think of it, ambush. Why do the savage barbarians not have an ambush? Because wolfsworn took that benefit? If so I'd happily trade that for ambush in DH ... but why? The blood trackers and wolf riders give DH a ton of fast up field pressure already that's impossible to replicate in WH without the ambush benefit. Besides the fluff of the wolfsworn is that they're all about ambush tactics so it makes sense over there. The tharn are a fast barbaric horde that just rolls over their enemies like a wave. |
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jul 9, 2018 15:18:31 GMT
streetpizza - the reason I'd suggest a single 4" forest rather than 2 3" forests is because of how potent forests are as a defensive tool for Warlocks. with 2 3" forests, you get a nearly perfect bunker to camp your caster in, that can't be ignored except with a very few spells and abilities (I think Treewalker is the only one?) One 4" forest requires you to use existing terrain to make a bunker, and constrains the locations you can place that bunker, which I think makes it a more likely prospect than 2 3" AOEs. I also really like the BG-wide prey idea. Grievous wounds is also interesting, but I suspect would be stepping on the bloodweavers' toes a wee bit. Gang Fighter...I'm still holding out hope for Gang Fighter as a replacement for Tracker in the Wild Hunt, so I'm honestly biased against seeing it in any of our other themes. ' Remember DH gets 2 4" clouds and SotN gets two 4" snow drifts (although these don't block LOS). So the precedent is there. Hell the wall from faithful masses is a pretty huge bonus too. Arguably better in some circumstances. I think the argument would be that none of those bonuses outright deny access to the caster. Forests: - Block LOS, and can’t be ignored except with rare tech. By contrast, clouds are ignored with Eyeless sight and true sight, or removed by Edrea (and a few spells). - Provide concealment and trigger prowl (unlike a wall) - Are rough terrain (making drags harder to pull off). I do think there’s an argument that the wall might be stronger (though I’ve seen that wall be an out-and-out impediment to Menoth players, due to their lack of ubiquitous pathfinder) but I can see PP being leery about giving Circle a perpetual forest bunker. |
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Post by jisidro on Jul 9, 2018 15:51:22 GMT
Actually now that I think of it, ambush. Why do the savage barbarians not have an ambush? Because wolfsworn took that benefit? If so I'd happily trade that for ambush in DH Tharn Ravagers lost AD... as a theme AD is not part of Tharn's identity. As an effect of slow troops getting movement bonuses galore MoW now move up faster than Tharn (Excluding Bloodtrackers and BEs). |
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Post by paradox on Jul 9, 2018 16:43:08 GMT
Let’s at least be reasonable here: the free solo/CA is a pretty standard benefit. Hard to complain about, really. I would agree to changing the corpse token benefit to each heart eater starting with one. This makes Death Wolves far less auto-include. But it sounds like you want this benefit to be stock to heart eater. Thatd be insane. You would seriously impact any heart eaters game balance. I doubt PP goes that route. That said, I di not find Death Wolves awkward to take. The only awkward thing is how autoinclude they are. They do not need to count towards free points. Point in fact, we’ve seen PP push back in many cases where players have asked that basically everything in a theme count towards free points. Thats not how it works. Thenes have options that just dont count towards points. Makes sense that an honorary nod to some wolf sworn does just also mean more tharn. I would like to see a theme benefit that helped non-heart eater tharn though. That, and changes to the token benefit would probably be a strong change. Im ambivelant to snacking. Its decent, but does not encourage beast heavy lists. I didn't say that the free points benefit was poor. I said it was average, and thus not a factor that balances out the other subpar theme benefits (unlike, say, irregulars). As for Death Wolves not counting towards free points, they have the dubious distinction at the moment of both being the best target for free corpses (because they're the only ones that can use them defensively), and also not counting towards either of the two theme benefits. That makes list building incredibly awkward. Numerous previous CIDs have shown this to be something that PP is attentive to. As for your second point, you're making a bold claim. Please provide an example of how providing a free token as part of the heart eater benefit specifically breaks individual models. IMO, the closest candidate for breakage are the Ravagers, and I'm not convinced it would be a problem for them. Blood Pack don't want to be in melee to use corpses, a single corpse on a solo is not liable to break anything (really just means that you can count on battle wizard going off when you need to), and not being able to stack multiple corpses is almost certainly a nerf to the Death Wolves and the LOTF (in DevHost). At the moment, the only models it would affect are the Lord of the Feast (needs corpses to function, would likely still need some means of corpse support even when starting the game with 1 corpse) and the Death Wolves (unplayed in Wild Hunt, because A) they're not actually a terribly good unit, with Skoll functioning like a Ravager grunt on a good day and B) they need corpses to be delivered and to be effective when delivered (at Mat 7 no way of ignoring tough makes them fairly hard to pac man with reliably.) streetpizza - the reason I'd suggest a single 4" forest rather than 2 3" forests is because of how potent forests are as a defensive tool for Warlocks. with 2 3" forests, you get a nearly perfect bunker to camp your caster in, that can't be ignored except with a very few spells and abilities (I think Treewalker is the only one?) One 4" forest requires you to use existing terrain to make a bunker, and constrains the locations you can place that bunker, which I think makes it a more likely prospect than 2 3" AOEs. I also really like the BG-wide prey idea. Grievous wounds is also interesting, but I suspect would be stepping on the bloodweavers' toes a wee bit. Gang Fighter...I'm still holding out hope for Gang Fighter as a replacement for Tracker in the Wild Hunt, so I'm honestly biased against seeing it in any of our other themes. ' Maybe Ive got you wrong, but as I noted above it sounds like you want to change heart eater’s default text, regardless of theme or non theme, to start the model with a token. Correct? Assuming so, the Death Wolves instantly get MILES better. Sure, its not like getting 2-3 hearts each in a skew list, but its still really, really damned good, and DW are STILL a strong contender to include, regardless of free points, because Cannibal Magic is that good. I have a good number of Dev Host w/ DW reps in. They are good with theme hearts. Making that a heart eater baseline arguably breaks them. Further, this starts Kromac2 with a heart regardless of theme. That aside, that benefit might be enough alone to consider building Tharn lists out of theme. Maxing free points is hardly the end-all, be-all. Uncoupling heart tokens from points spent is one thing. I agree there, if its kept as a theme benefit. But making it a baseline rule? That really opens up non-theme considerations. Its a big change, and I doubt its even on the table. |
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Post by oncomingstorm on Jul 9, 2018 16:53:04 GMT
I didn't say that the free points benefit was poor. I said it was average, and thus not a factor that balances out the other subpar theme benefits (unlike, say, irregulars). As for Death Wolves not counting towards free points, they have the dubious distinction at the moment of both being the best target for free corpses (because they're the only ones that can use them defensively), and also not counting towards either of the two theme benefits. That makes list building incredibly awkward. Numerous previous CIDs have shown this to be something that PP is attentive to. As for your second point, you're making a bold claim. Please provide an example of how providing a free token as part of the heart eater benefit specifically breaks individual models. IMO, the closest candidate for breakage are the Ravagers, and I'm not convinced it would be a problem for them. Blood Pack don't want to be in melee to use corpses, a single corpse on a solo is not liable to break anything (really just means that you can count on battle wizard going off when you need to), and not being able to stack multiple corpses is almost certainly a nerf to the Death Wolves and the LOTF (in DevHost). At the moment, the only models it would affect are the Lord of the Feast (needs corpses to function, would likely still need some means of corpse support even when starting the game with 1 corpse) and the Death Wolves (unplayed in Wild Hunt, because A) they're not actually a terribly good unit, with Skoll functioning like a Ravager grunt on a good day and B) they need corpses to be delivered and to be effective when delivered (at Mat 7 no way of ignoring tough makes them fairly hard to pac man with reliably.) streetpizza - the reason I'd suggest a single 4" forest rather than 2 3" forests is because of how potent forests are as a defensive tool for Warlocks. with 2 3" forests, you get a nearly perfect bunker to camp your caster in, that can't be ignored except with a very few spells and abilities (I think Treewalker is the only one?) One 4" forest requires you to use existing terrain to make a bunker, and constrains the locations you can place that bunker, which I think makes it a more likely prospect than 2 3" AOEs. I also really like the BG-wide prey idea. Grievous wounds is also interesting, but I suspect would be stepping on the bloodweavers' toes a wee bit. Gang Fighter...I'm still holding out hope for Gang Fighter as a replacement for Tracker in the Wild Hunt, so I'm honestly biased against seeing it in any of our other themes. ' Maybe Ive got you wrong, but as I noted above it sounds like you want to change heart eater’s default text, regardless of theme or non theme, to start the model with a token. Correct? Assuming so, the Death Wolves instantly get MILES better. Sure, its not like getting 2-3 hearts each in a skew list, but its still really, really damned good, and DW are STILL a strong contender to include, regardless of free points, because Cannibal Magic is that good. I have a good number of Dev Host w/ DW reps in. They are good with theme hearts. Making that a heart eater baseline arguably breaks them. Further, this starts Kromac2 with a heart regardless of theme. That aside, that benefit might be enough alone to consider building Tharn lists out of theme. Maxing free points is hardly the end-all, be-all. Uncoupling heart tokens from points spent is one thing. I agree there, if its kept as a theme benefit. But making it a baseline rule? That really opens up non-theme considerations. Its a big change, and I doubt its even on the table. Non-theme is not a consideration. You’re really going to forgo 15+ free points of models, plus (hopefully) useful theme benefits in order to access a few out of theme synergies? I mean, you’re welcome to try, but the lack of non-theme lists anywhere in major tournaments in the last year tells me you’re fighting an uphill battle. And even if you were to do this, I can think of many models that would be higher on the list of ‘potentially game-breaking out of theme synergies’ than male tharn. Overall, playing out of theme is a red herring that scarcely warrants the consideration. If you think out of theme is the way to go, I encourage you to win a major tournament with such a list. Until that happens, I’m not inclined to treat suggestions that out of theme synergies are game-breaking (absent an actual game-breaking interaction, a la top of one shooting, broken trigger loops) as a serious balance consideration. You’re also not contradicting anything I’m saying about Death Wolves. They’re utter crap without hearts (neutered offensive output, easy to remove) and they’re pretty darn good with hearts. IE, hearts are a patch that are needed to make them, as you say, a ‘strong contender’ for lists (though I suspect they will be less so once CID brings up the other options in theme). Personally, I do not think that theme benefits should ever be a patch for an otherwise poor unit design (not least because Death Wolves are available – and not taken – in another theme where they do not get hearts). |
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Post by paradox on Jul 9, 2018 17:03:21 GMT
Maybe Ive got you wrong, but as I noted above it sounds like you want to change heart eater’s default text, regardless of theme or non theme, to start the model with a token. Correct? Assuming so, the Death Wolves instantly get MILES better. Sure, its not like getting 2-3 hearts each in a skew list, but its still really, really damned good, and DW are STILL a strong contender to include, regardless of free points, because Cannibal Magic is that good. I have a good number of Dev Host w/ DW reps in. They are good with theme hearts. Making that a heart eater baseline arguably breaks them. Further, this starts Kromac2 with a heart regardless of theme. That aside, that benefit might be enough alone to consider building Tharn lists out of theme. Maxing free points is hardly the end-all, be-all. Uncoupling heart tokens from points spent is one thing. I agree there, if its kept as a theme benefit. But making it a baseline rule? That really opens up non-theme considerations. Its a big change, and I doubt its even on the table. Non-theme is not a consideration. You’re really going to forgo 15+ free points of models, plus (hopefully) useful theme benefits in order to access a few out of theme synergies? I mean, you’re welcome to try, but the lack of non-theme lists anywhere in major tournaments in the last year tells me you’re fighting an uphill battle. And even if you were to do this, I can think of many models that would be higher on the list of ‘potentially game-breaking out of theme synergies’ than male tharn. Overall, playing out of theme is a red herring that scarcely warrants the consideration. If you think out of theme is the way to go, I encourage you to win a major tournament with such a list. Until that happens, I’m not inclined to treat suggestions that out of theme synergies are game-breaking (absent an actual game-breaking interaction, a la top of one shooting, broken trigger loops) as a serious balance consideration. You’re also not contradicting anything I’m saying about Death Wolves. They’re utter crap without hearts (neutered offensive output, easy to remove) and they’re pretty darn good with hearts. IE, hearts are a patch that are needed to make them, as you say, a ‘strong contender’ for lists (though I suspect they will be less so once CID brings up the other options in theme). Personally, I do not think that theme benefits should ever be a patch for an otherwise poor unit design (not least because Death Wolves are available – and not taken – in another theme where they do not get hearts). Non-theme is ALWAYS a consideration, and I do have non-theme lists I like very much, or theme lists that get just 5pts free because maxing free points ends up in a stagnant build or adding garbage for free garbage. So yes, I would give up free points. In a heart beat.  Besides, most tourney lists Ive seen in ~15 years of WMH are largely follow-the-leader deals. Most innovative list start where consensus is “x is garbage.” Its ALWAYS worth exploring out of theme when major changes drop. Besides, by definition, at least half the competitive scene are players who lose more than win, by definition. There’s also the false dichotomy here that nothing is good until someone wins with it. I dont make major cons for real life reasons. Can I just have Chuck Elswick win with a list instead? Or does he not count? DW are not crap without hearts, just alot more vulnerable. As to themes patching poor units, welcome to MKIII? |
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Besides, most tourney lists Ive seen in ~15 years of WMH are largely follow-the-leader deals. Most innovative list start where consensus is “x is garbage.” Its ALWAYS worth exploring out of theme when major changes drop. Besides, by definition, at least half the competitive scene are players who lose more than win, by definition.