Balance among the Legions

[simison]

Right, I have a purely crunch question today. In our Brotherhood of the Lost project, we've been hammering out rules and trying to keep everything balanced, which has involved a lot of researching and learning on my part.

One of the things I'm trying to figure out is how many unique units, pieces of wargear, and characters should each legion be allowed to have. Long story short, I counted up the canon legion, and there were difference amounts between the legions (shocking, I know).

What I learned is that the Salamanders, the Alpha Legion, and the Word Bearers have more than the others with Word Bearers having the most. Meanwhile the World Eaters, the Iron Warriors, the Iron Hands, and the Death Guard had the least among the legions.

So, I ask the gaming veterans, is there a notable power imbalance between the first group and the second group? Or is everything still mostly balanced to the point where it's barely noticeable?

[Slips]

The amount of stuff a Legion has doesn't really play a big part into how their legion performs.

 

As of now, all legions are in a relatively balanced spot with none being head and shoulders above the rest.

 

The amount of stuff a legion has doesn't actually do much in terms of their performance. For Example, the Word Bearers only really make use of Lorgar, Zardu and Gal Vorbak. Everything else is either too expensive, subpar or both since the former three are the best of the bunch.

 

That coupled with the fact that 80-90% of a Legion List will be using Generic Legion Units alongside the cost of Legion Specific Stuff and how restricted their access is (Usually fighting for slots in Elites and Heavy Support or being Restricted to Characters), means that you don't see as much of it as you think outside of RoWs necessitating their inclusion or making them better due to rules interactions.

[Terminus]

Yes, as Slipstreams said, there isn't much difference between the Legions power-wise.  I would say Sons of Horus are first among equals among the traitors, with I guess Imperial Fists being the loyalist equivalent (appropriate with one being the Warmaster and the other the Praetorian of Terra).  The newest Legion book swung the power balance towards generic units over any unique not in terminator or artificer armor, and some unique Rites and equipment are better than others, but no Legion I would say are in dire straights or underpowered compared to the rest of the field.  Even half-baked Legions like the Angels and Scars are in a pretty decent place.

[simison]

Good to hear. I'm surprised to hear how everything is well-balanced despite the differences. It'll be a challenge to mirror that success for BotL. Thanks for the responses!

[Terminus]

Really? Should keep your job a lot simpler when the balancing is already done for you. :P

 

But yeah, looking at the amount of "stuff" doesn't really do the reality justice. You mention Alpha Legion as one of those having the most "stuff", but banestrike rounds are garbage, Lernean terminators are more rule of cool than anything, headhunters are the worst unique unit in the game, and the Rite attached to that unit is also effectively wasted.  Meanwhile, the World Eaters, who you mention as having the least, have probably the most powerful single Legion perk in army-wide free chainaxes, that I would gladly trade all of the above for.

[simison]

Really? Should keep your job a lot simpler when the balancing is already done for you.

Ha! It'd be easy if we didn't have 18 new legion rule sets to compare and to balanced between them and the game at large. Of course, we'd always be happy to have another critical eye for that sort of thing.

[AfroCampbell]

Really? Should keep your job a lot simpler when the balancing is already done for you.

But yeah, looking at the amount of "stuff" doesn't really do the reality justice. You mention Alpha Legion as one of those having the most "stuff", but banestrike rounds are garbage, Lernean terminators are more rule of cool than anything, headhunters are the worst unique unit in the game, and the Rite attached to that unit is also effectively wasted. Meanwhile, the World Eaters, who you mention as having the least, have probably the most powerful single Legion perk in army-wide free chainaxes, that I would gladly trade all of the above for.

I was progressively more and more disappointed with the AL to the point that I transferred to IF.

[Terminus]

Alpha Legion still top 5 overall, top 3 for traitors.

[Charlo]

Aye - the game is shockingly well balanced since the new books. If anything some legions are slightly overpowered now because of how GOOD veterans became and that some Legions can just make better use of them!

 

The legion specifics are indeed a little pewp now, with some obvious exceptions.

 

Personally still holding out for simply Veterans with Jump packs as one of the BA options (oh Artificer armour too? You couldn't have! though at that point they will be SG...)