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Legion balance?


Zond

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Long time lurker first time poster. My gaming group is going to take the plunge into pure 30k as it reminds us of our old glory days of Adeptus Titanicus. We're not super competitive or going to tournaments, probably just going to run a few campaigns when Legions are settled upon. We've not played with GW rules in years, so we're wondering how balanced the Legion tactics are? We're trying to avoid any situation where players are either running ahead or lagging behind due to simply playing their favourite Legion.

 

Anything we should tone down or avoid, or is it all plain sailing? :)

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Overall, there's considerably more balance within the HH than some of the monstrosities running amok in 40 (Seer council anyone?) Some Legion tactics/wargear/units/RoW/ characters are inherently better than others but given the wide (and ever growing) variety of units available, the overall balance is superb I've found

As Balth said - the balance across the board is brilliant - there are a few stand-out units (but these are available for everyone) like the Spartan, Contemptor Mortis and Master of Signal - but there are counters to literally everything within the books, they've all been fully play-tested vs each other.

Yeah we were concerned than the first four legions were all tad underpowered but if it balances out should be fine. There's only four of us something far participating, and only two have picked a Legion which are Iron Hands/Mechanicum Allies and Sons of Horus respectively. It's also a bit of abandoned relief as I have a tendency to get a bit too competitive (not that I'm good at it) and I have a habit of seeking the latest and greatest thing. Now I can happily pick my favourite Legion... Whoever that is. :P

Personally I think it's less that the first 4 are underpowered and more than some of the later legions change things up rather more. Iron Hands/Mechanicum is going to need some thinking on your end because their forces can change the way you prosecute your war, Iron Hands marines are much tougher against your lower strength anti-infantry weapons, but can be more vulnerable to higher strength, lower ap firepower because they can't go to ground to improve their cover saves. Personally I don't think any are mathematically superior to the others, but tactically some of them require more thought and awareness of their rules to defeat.

I think another part of it comes from the first being the first four. IIRC, even Forgeworld has said that the response to their Heresy series has exceeded expectation. I think that's why the first four got extra units and their own ROWs in Massacre, but then none of the already written Legions got anything new in Extermination.

I think another part of it comes from the first being the first four. IIRC, even Forgeworld has said that the response to their Heresy series has exceeded expectation. I think that's why the first four got extra units and their own ROWs in Massacre, but then none of the already written Legions got anything new in Extermination.

Well the other legions didnt really need anything new, all legions for the most part have 2 special units and a RoW. So Massacre didnt change anything, it just caught the first four up to where everyone else was supposed to be. I think the real noticable difference is in the Legion Army books, which made various balancing changes.

True, very true. I haven't talked to any designers or anything, it just seemed to me that the catch up was necessary because the overwhelming reception motivated Forgeworld to try and push the envelope with Massacre. An then, as you pointed out, nothing new was needed in Extermination except the "new" Legions.

As others have inferred, the beauty of HH is that all the Legions are based on the same core - but with very subtle, yet characteristic differences.

Except for Alpha Legion who are OP of course *looks behind my shoulder nervously*. tongue.png

Anyhow, I still sometimes end up in very Rock-Paper-Scissors situations but its because of tactical or list choices that are not Legion specific.

Yeah we were concerned than the first four legions were all tad underpowered but if it balances out should be fine. There's only four of us something far participating, and only two have picked a Legion which are Iron Hands/Mechanicum Allies and Sons of Horus respectively. It's also a bit of abandoned relief as I have a tendency to get a bit too competitive (not that I'm good at it) and I have a habit of seeking the latest and greatest thing. Now I can happily pick my favourite Legion... Whoever that is. tongue.png

From my point of view the first four legions are underpowered compared to some of the later legions, but the margin isn’t really that wide since a lot of the special rules are situational. I find many of the ROWs to be pretty medicare as well.

That might sound negative, but overall things are pretty level. There are good units, but they don’t stand out enough to overshadow other good options. There are a handful of overcosted and uneconomical choices, but you can almost always make them work. Many of the shortcomings are the results of keeping things fluffy and FW being at the mercy of GWs core rules (melee armies in a shooting edition, for example).

Bottom line is that you have so many options in 30k that a lot of your performance will come down on how you use your army and how you design it to play.

I am currently playing in a group of 30k gamer's and we represent the Imperial Fists, Ultra Marines, Dark Angels, Iron Hands, Salamanders, Iron Warriors, Death Guard, Night Lords, Word Bearers, World Eaters and a Mechanicum force. I can tell you that each game I have played or watched played was a close run thing (minus the dice gods intervention). There are units that stand out but not in that death star manner. And all though you could spam some of the nastier units your group sounds like a close knit bunch that are there for the foe and fun, not math hammer gamers of you will. 

 

I have actually lost the the Ultras who have no rules and are using the Legion Astartes rules VS my LA - IF rules so i would say its a balanced system.

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