Hopes for book 3

[Crablezworth]

18 hours ago, Deschenus Maximus said:

I think having a hard cap on how many models you're allowed to bring as part of your force (either as a gentleman's agreement or as part of a tournament pack) is a simple way to curb the OPness of infantry. If you can only bring say 60 models per 1000 pts, you'd be hard pressed to fill more than around half your points allocation if you only took infantry.

 

I think its more about capping activations than models, though possibly both having hard limits might not be a terrible idea. Currently the "meta" doesn't give much incentive to larger detachments, that isn't to say there aren't detachments one might fill out anyway if there are at least a point saving incentive or the unit is just very good/cheap but the 2nd book made msu like the only way to go as there are no benefits at all to going past minimum detachment sizes on any of the newer units introduced in book 2. It does indeed seem a bit nuts to see games with like hundreds of activations/detachments that never get past a turn one or two in hours of playing, people also need to be a bit more realistic about the games limitations, I don't get one giant board with a bazillion points when one has the space and tables to parse it off into more manageable engagements. It's not built for speed like apoc so its just a bad idea and the game needs a certain amount of negative space to parse out what you're looking at, entire boards filled end to end with units is overwhelming I find, sorta works against the best elements of the game. 

Edited July 10 by Crablezworth

[Crablezworth]

2 hours ago, DuskRaider said:

That may work, though it would also penalize those who want to play more fluffy and field an infantry-centric army. There has to be a change to infantry itself, and as mentioned previously the biggest problems are their ridiculous movement as well as their ability to basically just punch a tank to death. On the flipside, I think tanks and Dreadnoughts need a bit of a buff to make them as terrifying as they should be to infantry. I SHOULD be afraid of approaching a Contemptor because it SHOULD wipe out swaths of infantry, but in reality they’re a push over. I should NOT be able to walk a few bases of infantry into a Land Raider or Malcador and beat it to death with Chainswords or whatever. 

 

Yeah contemptor dreadnoughts being less scary to infantry than ogryns seems off. 

 

As for limits and fluff, right now fluff will invariably suffer without limits because anyone can show up with a warmaster and as many bases as they can buy/print/paint as swamping ones opponent in activations isn't just beneficial, it sadly also works to slow the game down to a crawl and ensure their lead will remain. Another thing worth changing/revisiting in addition to hard limits on models/activations would be also possibly limiting formations being taken in like duplicate or triplicate, in the same of some the buy in/tax can be quite low, biggest problem child being pioneer company as always. Just very inexpensive, everything infiltrates and u can bring ogryns along. 

[Crablezworth]

1 hour ago, Deschenus Maximus said:

 

Yeah I understand this sucks for people who enjoy fielding a lore-accurate RG army but that's an acceptable trade-off, imo. Absent an indepth FAQ making a bunch of changes to the core rules, mediated limits on what people can bring is about as good a solution as one can hope for.

 

If the people who would in theory be handling an LI FAQ should such a thing exist/materialize, they likely will just look at what players have been emailing about/complaining about the most and what others have done to mitigate/fix it, if some of the community fixes/faqs make pretty sound/reasonable changes there's always a chance someone at gw might take notice/copy what works, out of the sheer practicality that its easier than guess work. 

[DuskRaider]

36 minutes ago, Crablezworth said:

 

Yeah contemptor dreadnoughts being less scary to infantry than ogryns seems off. 

 

As for limits and fluff, right now fluff will invariably suffer without limits because anyone can show up with a warmaster and as many bases as they can buy/print/paint as swamping ones opponent in activations isn't just beneficial, it sadly also works to slow the game down to a crawl and ensure their lead will remain. Another thing worth changing/revisiting in addition to hard limits on models/activations would be also possibly limiting formations being taken in like duplicate or triplicate, in the same of some the buy in/tax can be quite low, biggest problem child being pioneer company as always. Just very inexpensive, everything infiltrates and u can bring ogryns along. 

There should 100% be limitations on what each Legion can or should bring to the table and give them strengths for that which they can, but at this point it’s probably too late for that considering a lot of people bought literally all of the models offered and it would create turmoil and some real feel bad moments if said units were now invalidated due to Legion rules. That being said, I think something can be done, such as putting a cap on specific units for specific Legions, limiting which Legions can ally with each other, etc. 

 

If GW isn’t going to fix the game and its issues, perhaps we as a community can and should. The bones are good, but the meat is spoiled. 

[Marshal Rohr]

Infantry ‘punching’ tanks to death is exactly what happens when tanks are engaged at close range by infantry in real life, so the only way around that is to make grenades cost something to represent the difference between infantry unprepared to engage armor and infantry equipped to engage armor OR to change the way infantry operates to make close engagement something you need to maneuver really well to do which would also reflect reality. Pacific and DuskRaiders suggestions for changing how infantry moves is ideal. 
 

I get why they wanted infantry to be more mobile, so there would be a point to taking them in a game with titans and big stuff, but they didn’t stick the landing. I guess they also wanted to span the gap of game boards being like three football fields in size and it doesn’t make sense why regular dudes can’t move that far very quickly. Legiones is a battalion/regiment level game, and masses of infantry should be an entire playstyle that can work, but they really don’t know how things happen at this scale. 

[DuskRaider]

I think the best way to do it is having to purchase Melta Bombs for a unit. Only one per unit or something like that, otherwise we just run into the same issue all over again. Tank shock definitely needs to be a thing and allowing vehicles to freely disengage from CC with Infantry would also be a good idea. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

I'm really against having to buy grenades, then have mark the unit somehow on an already full CC zone.

As far as my headcanon goes, Astartes and Solar have them as standard and that's why they can hurt moving tanks in CC at all, already.

 

The thing which kills tanks and Knights and Titans too easily is so many dice due to outnumbering. It's like super rend, and rend is already a problem balance wise. The example above between Ogryns and Contemptors shows that nicely. 

Each extra dice gives an average bonus to CAF of 3.5. Slowing that down is the fix.

For example: ATM a 10ish pt Aslt or TDA marine at CAF 3 vs. A 180pt Knight with CAF 8, the Knight will regularly start taking damage after 4 bases then die around 6-7 bases or 60ish pts. That's absolutely ridiculous. 

At max 3 dice (4 with rend), the Infantry have a swinging CAF of 4 to 9 vs. 8. They take much more time and more units to kill a 180 point unit which is designed as a CC beast.

Balance is better achieved. 

 

Now imho Contemptors and Terminators should have rend, but that's a unit change opposed to a core rule change.

 

I strongly recommend playing a game or two where outnumbering only gives one extra dice.  It's fantastic. 

Edited July 11 by Interrogator Stobz

[Marshal Rohr]

1 hour ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

I'm really against having to buy grenades, then have mark the unit somehow on an already full CC zone.

As far as my headcanon goes, Astartes and Solar have them as standard and that's why they can hurt moving tanks in CC at all, already.

 

The thing which kills tanks and Knights and Titans too easily is so many dice due to outnumbering. It's like super rend, and rend is already a problem balance wise. The example above between Ogryns and Contemptors shows that nicely. 

Each extra dice gives an average bonus to CAF of 3.5. Slowing that down is the fix.

For example: ATM a 10ish pt Aslt or TDA marine at CAF 3 vs. A 180pt Knight with CAF 8, the Knight will regularly start taking damage after 4 bases then die around 6-7 bases or 60ish pts. That's absolutely ridiculous. 

At max 3 dice, the Infantry have a swinging CAF of 4 to 9 vs. 8. They take much more time and more units to kill a 180 point unit which is designed as a CC beast.

Balance is better achieved. 

 

Now imho Contemptors and Terminators should have rend, but that's a unit change opposed to a core rule change.

 

I strongly recommend playing a game or two where outnumbering only gives one extra dice.  It's fantastic. 

Great breakdown, thanks for that 

 

All the local players have stopped playing until more unit types comes out, so I can’t play anything unless I’m playing with myself. Er… by myself. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

I'm usually only playing against my boy, occasionally a mate from out of town.

The rough maths on normal marines CAF 2 vs Questorus Knights using my way, is they win 1/4 of combats when outnumbering so need 120ish points to kill the Knight. Which allows for the shooty part of the Knights points. They'll kill 6 or so bases before they get swamped.

Titans become scary :cuss: to non rend Infantry, and tanks get to die slower, that maths isn't too bad there either.

[DuskRaider]

Anything to make Knights a viable faction would be much appreciated. I remember when they first announced LI and I was poopoo’d for saying how much I’d like to field a full House against Astartes / Auxilia. Everyone was saying that they would be OP and would stomp out anything that isn’t also Knights or Titans… look where we are now. Sad. 

[Marshal Rohr]

We had no way to know infantry bases would be flying around the board and wiping out big stuff like a horde of spider monkeys

[Lord Marshal]

A simple change would be to reduce Infantry given a March Order to x2 speed instead of x3. It's utterly bizarre to me that even Solar Auxilia infantry can just blitz across the board and keep pace with some vehicles. It's like the designers got cold feet that people would complain "omg why do I have to bring transports to make infantry viable?" like you sometimes see over in Team Yankee, so decided to prop it up.

 

 

Edited July 10 by Lord Marshal

[DuskRaider]

1 minute ago, Lord Marshal said:

A simple change would be to reduce Infantry given a March Order to x2 speed instead of x3. It's utterly bizarre to me that even Solar Auxilia can just blitz across the board faster than some vehicles. It's like the designers got cold feet that people would complain "omg why do I have to bring transports to make infantry viable?" like you sometimes see over in Team Yankee, so decided to prop it up.

 

 

You would think that vehicles SHOULD be mandatory to make Infantry viable in a “move fast up the board” type of way, especially in a game where you get what? 10 Rhinos to a box? 
 

Making Infantry so fast that they basically invalidate your other boxes and their role is kind of… counterintuitive.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep. 

4" move for foot Infantry.

No Triple Move, unless on roads.

Limit Infiltrate. Not sure how, we don't spam it.

Paying for transports makes sense again.

[DuskRaider]

32 minutes ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

Yep. 

4" move for foot Infantry.

No Triple Move, unless on roads.

Limit Infiltrate. Not sure how, we don't spam it.

Paying for transports makes sense again.

My buddy tried spamming it with a Pioneer Company but I leveled all of the buildings he was in and wiped half of his army off of the map turn one… or was it buried them in rubble? In any case, he lost everything but the HQ and one Veletarii. Kratos with Melta Cannons are nasty, as are Titans in general. Massed Predators can take down a building as well if you focus fire. 
 

I’m just happy that I don’t have to battle Alpha Legion or Raven Guard, that’s way worse. 
 

Those movement limitations would not only go a ways to fix things, but make transports more viable. Also, tank shock definitely needs to be a thing. If I ram a tank into a crowd of soldiers, they’re not just going to stop it in its tracks to beat it to death, they’re going to get run over. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

Yep, Tanks should get double CAF on the charge. Or rend, similar result.

The maths on that is sound too.

 

1 hour ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

Yep. 

4" move for foot Infantry.

No Triple Move, unless on roads.

Limit Infiltrate. Not sure how, we don't spam it.

Paying for transports makes sense again.

I forgot to add buildings and ruins  difficult Terrain for normal Infantry.

Just because we can't see the obstacles doesn't mean they're not there.

[SkimaskMohawk]

10 hours ago, DuskRaider said:

Massed Predators can take down a building as well if you focus fire. 

 

They can't. You need specific weapon traits to damage structures, like Demolisher, Bombs, Bunker Buster, Heavy Barrage, etc...None of the pred weapons have the right traits; only the melta Kratos, quad mortars and melta Leviathan can hurt structures with shooting on the marine side.

 

Titans definitely make up for it though lol.

[Pacific81]

14 hours ago, Lord Marshal said:

A simple change would be to reduce Infantry given a March Order to x2 speed instead of x3. It's utterly bizarre to me that even Solar Auxilia infantry can just blitz across the board and keep pace with some vehicles. It's like the designers got cold feet that people would complain "omg why do I have to bring transports to make infantry viable?" like you sometimes see over in Team Yankee, so decided to prop it up.

 

 

 

If you could permit me the role of Grandpa Simpson for a moment, this was what made marines stand out in 2nd edition SM. Although their stat-lines were nothing to write home about, their mobility (hop in a rhino and jump to an objective) really distanced them from the Ork and IG armies.

I guess with this game a different conflict is being represented (thousands of foot-slogging marine infantry Vs the tiny elite forces in 40k) and because it's marine on marine, you don't get that stand-out advantage.

Think also like you say, in that old boxset you got a bazillion Rhinos - to the point you can still get them for 50p each 30yrs later - and the new Rhino (while cheap by modern GW standards) - that would mount up the cost if you had one for every 2 bases of infantry.

 

Again, sounding like a stuck record, to me it's just a lack of playtesting. Otherwise stuff like the zerg rhino rush and infantry holding dominion would have been apparent early on. It pains me to say (as I really don't like the super-speed edition release cycle of GW these days, which does not mix well with my glacial painting speed) but I guess it's the kind of thing they could address in a V2.

[DuskRaider]

2 hours ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

 

They can't. You need specific weapon traits to damage structures, like Demolisher, Bombs, Bunker Buster, Heavy Barrage, etc...None of the pred weapons have the right traits; only the melta Kratos, quad mortars and melta Leviathan can hurt structures with shooting on the marine side.

 

Titans definitely make up for it though lol.

Ahh yes you’re right. I used the Reaver Melta to bring down some buildings and two squadrons or whatever of Melta Kratos. 
 

This was before the Support Box came out so that should tell you how long it’s been since I’ve played. 

[Crablezworth]

2 hours ago, Pacific81 said:

 

If you could permit me the role of Grandpa Simpson for a moment, this was what made marines stand out in 2nd edition SM. Although their stat-lines were nothing to write home about, their mobility (hop in a rhino and jump to an objective) really distanced them from the Ork and IG armies.

I guess with this game a different conflict is being represented (thousands of foot-slogging marine infantry Vs the tiny elite forces in 40k) and because it's marine on marine, you don't get that stand-out advantage.

Think also like you say, in that old boxset you got a bazillion Rhinos - to the point you can still get them for 50p each 30yrs later - and the new Rhino (while cheap by modern GW standards) - that would mount up the cost if you had one for every 2 bases of infantry.

 

Again, sounding like a stuck record, to me it's just a lack of playtesting. Otherwise stuff like the zerg rhino rush and infantry holding dominion would have been apparent early on. It pains me to say (as I really don't like the super-speed edition release cycle of GW these days, which does not mix well with my glacial painting speed) but I guess it's the kind of thing they could address in a V2.

 

A very strange incongruity is infiltrate allowing charges, like deepstrikers and outflankers can only pull that off if there's an hq model who can flip their order so its not terribly common, which again is why it feels so out of place for not just unlimited infiltrating detachments but a whole 4 inch distance AND ability to charge, really does speak to not play testing. 

 

I hope it doesn't take a 2nd edition of the game to fix some of the issues. Part of me wishes for infantry assaulting tanks that it wasn't just the minigame of charging vehicles that have already moved, but have to do so not just out of concern the detachment will simply drive out of combat, their concern should be the detachment of tanks running them over. Like infantry should be hard to root out of cover/structures but they really don't fear open terrain nearly as much as they should. As discussed, just slowing them down would do a lot to help make things feel a bit more cohesive. I still feel like tanks or honestly anything in combat should/could get a save, for infantry it often won't matter but as there isn't a running down mechanic, nor is there any connection to how well one side did in combat affecting the losing side's morale test so I'm sort of all for it at this point. 

 

I could see keeping the outnumbering dice IF it was all about a mad scramble to do as much damage as possible to large models before getting potentially stepped on. I would love if infantry fighting titans was also all about trying to keep in their rear arc, I feel like titans really should be a terror to anything getting too close. 

[DuskRaider]

Titans should be a terror to anything on the table in general. We’ve discussed it before and I understand that it has to do with balancing to a point (which is hilarious considering they couldn’t balance anything else), but a Warlord alone should be enough to wipe out 2K or more of Astartes and especially Auxilia off the board pretty quickly. These are world burners, they literally destroy entire cities. They can’t even properly convey the power they have compared to Titanicus let alone the lore. 
 

Maybe Book 3 will go a ways towards balancing things, but again I doubt it. I do have to wonder if we’ll see more Infantry types, however. There are hints to at the very least Heavy Weapons Marines with weaponry other than Missile Launchers in the BRB and even baked into the IF rules. I would assume we will see variants at some point in time. As I mentioned earlier, Assault Terminators would be quite welcome if they manage to give them stats that they should actually have. Breachers would be nice, as would Despoilers. Maybe we’ll see a secondary Infantry box with these options. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

Fluffwise I agree that a Warlord should kill about 2k pts, but as they're 600 in this game, they should be able to kill 600 pts back.

That's around 60 bases, or 300 Marines, which seems fair.

They would do most of that work in shooting, but aren't slouches in CC due to Adamantium feet and legs.

To balance them, calculate how many points they kill in one round of shooting, then the rest of the opponents' forces should be as close to draw in combat as possible. With luck and tactics being the decider.

 

Aha! Thanks Brother Crablezworth, the problem with Infiltrate is being able to charge, that's an easy fix.

Then everything gets at least one turn of shooting before CC begins.

That makes maths easy when it comes to balancing.

 

I'm against adding new rules, like saves, CAF goes a long way to allow for that,

I'd prefer a modification of the ones they have provided. Like Infantry not getting constantly better due to hording, each gets better, but not auto Titan killing better. 6 dice is stupid good.

That's an average bonus to CAF of 14, just nope. 

 

We should definitely get a Mod in here to move all this conversation to its own thread... where's that slacker Idaho 

Edited July 11 by Interrogator Stobz
Stuff

[LameBeard]

We already got this “balance problems with LI” going in about 5 threads - it seems it can’t be avoided!  After reading them all I can’t help thinking I won’t even try, I’ll defect to Epic Armageddon. I even have the rules which GW once released as a pdf, so I just need community heresy lists.

[DuskRaider]

I don’t mean to bring it up every thread, but I find it alarming that we’re now on a second Expansion in less than a year and they can’t even get the core rules balanced correctly. It’s a shame. 

[Interrogator Stobz]

@LameBeardwhen you find the Heresy stuff please PM me a link.

I also have the EA pdf, I even printed it out because dead trees are easier for me to read.

But my search-fu is weak when things get that circular internetty confusion, so any help is always appreciated.