How to fix LI

[Mandragola]

This is a thread on how we’d improve legions imperialis. This feels like a game with real promise but also some pretty glaring flaws. 
 

I can’t say that everything we say here will be printed or anything, but maybe at least it’ll be cathartic.

 

These are what seem to be some problems at the moment, in no particular order:

 

Activations. There are far too many, often hitting 30+ at a full-sized game.

 

Points are just wrong and all over the place. Infantry is generally far more efficient than vehicles. There are silly costs like having malcadors cost more than Kratos and all leman russ variants costing the same. 
 

That’s not a full list of course but hopefully you get the idea. If you have any ideas, post them here please. 

[DuskRaider]

Nerf infantry, strengthen tanks. Only allow charges in a straight line. Make Titans and Knights not only scary but better prices for their individual formations. Utilize templates. I dunno, there’s a billion things and I know we had a thread on this before but I can’t be bothered to look for it right now lol. The game does have potential and the models are great, but it just takes too much work to get a game in that isn’t awful and setting parameters for a pickup game is just ridiculous. 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

I haven´t had many games of LI so far but the first thing which rubbed me the wrong way was the high speed of the infantry. So this was addressed before even a single game was played:

 

Infantry: Move reduced from 5´´ to 4´´. Infantry also does not receive triple move during March orders.

 

Terminators also have a too low CAF.

Either bump it up to CAF+6 like it was in Space Marine or give the unit the USR Rend.

 

There are instances where a twin-linked lascannon tank turret has different weapon profiles, if I remember correctly. The issue was that the Predator and Malcador tanks thus had different capabilities despite having the same gun mounted to their hull.

 

Infantry hauled across the battlefield inside transports have a too high threat range. Again take a look to Space Marine where it was handled like this:

1. Transport moves 100% of it´s move allowance. Passengers may only disembark and not move at all in the same turn.

2. Transport moves 50% of it´s move allowance. Passengers may only move up to 50% of their move allowance in the same turn.

3. Transport moves 0% of it´s move allowance. Passengers may use their full move allowance in the same turn.

Edited October 31 by Deus_Ex_Machina

[Interrogator Stobz]

We always play the Infantry movement restrictions, TDA improvement (rend), disembarking changes mentioned by Deus. They work well at slowing the nonsense which is Infantry movement. 

 

Also outnumbering max dice 3 unless you have rend, then 4 max. Greatly reduces the nonsense which is CC.

 

Also, Questorus remain same, Cerastus and other Knights +1 W.

All Titans +2W

All Titans repair lost W on 5+, the number if dice is the same as servitor rolls in AT.

They work well at lifting the survival rate of the biggies.

Oh, Super heavy tanks get +1W too.

 

The one further thing we want to add is adding templates as per AT weapons, but they require a bit more thinking.

They need to be far more killy at range. Infantry should Dread them, unlike the current nonsense. 

 

We Don't want to muck with points unless something is crazy wrong. That's GWs usual lazy fix, it's only appropriate for specific units, as mentioned above.

 

There are a few weapon consistency issues like with some sponsons; but they don't break the game...yet. 

[vadersson]

I think there are two different issues.  The first is core mechanics issues and the second is unit issues.  I don’t think a lot can be done with the units until the core issues are addressed.

 

that said some core issue fixes:

• Infantry can’t triple move
• overwatch on first fire or point defense weapons only
• some limit on Melee somehow. Maybe you can only hurt units one scale larger?
• there should potentially be more fire arcs given the heavy use of sponsons
• I am sure there are others, but I am not focused on this right now.

as for units, there are a ton of issues. Most things need repoint costed.  Off hand I know titans and knight need fixed, the Medusa siege mortar seems useless, guns need some sort of logical rework, and formations and detachments need rework.

 

ill type of more when I get home from vacations 

[Interrogator Stobz]

Ah yep, the overwatch issue. We also apply only on 1st Fire. Haven't gone as far as only Pt Def, we don't use it that much.

Edited November 1 by Interrogator Stobz

[Black Cohort]

I have only played a few games of LI, but I do have a reasonable amount of experience helping develop and playtest wargames.

 

I think the issues with LI start at a very fundamental level; I don't think anyone established a design philosophy for the game and no one person seems to be in charge of development of the game.  If someone is in charge of the development of the game, they aren't doing their job very well.  What is the game supposed to be?  Why do the rules treat a stand of SA as literally being 5 dudes instead of representing a SA squad?

 

Some things I think have to be addressed to make it a better game:

- clear out weapon profiles, there should be one lascannon profile, one autocannon profile, and the entry for a unit should simply say how many you have and if it has an arc or the point defense trait

- the game takes too long, like it is just very clunky to play

- range vs movement speed make no sense; which feeds into my feel that none of the developers know what scale they are trying to model.  In the real world even a basic military rifle is effective to 300 meters, double that if a whole squad is shooting.  Any non-suppressed defenders can fire multiple mags of ammo in the time it takes to close that distance.  Heavy bolters and autocannons should probably have ranges of if you can see it, you can shoot it; the problem is finding the enemy not the range of your weapon.

 

I wonder if the game would be both faster and better if you activated a unit and did everything with it, move, shoot the whole bit.

[Interrogator Stobz]

Kill Team works well with that range concept on most weapons. 

Having a bit of a differential is important on the tabletop though, Titan weapons for example pay points to outrange other guns. 

 

I agree that weapons should be standardized, but that would require a to hit Stat to differentiate between Astartes and Solar. Not hard to do, but necessary. 

[Black Cohort]

4 minutes ago, Interrogator Stobz said:

Kill Team works well with that range concept on most weapons. 

Having a bit of a differential is important on the tabletop though, Titan weapons for example pay points to outrange other guns. 

 

I agree that weapons should be standardized, but that would require a to hit Stat to differentiate between Astartes and Solar. Not hard to do, but necessary. 

 

I didn't mean that at LI scale a heavy bolter or autocannon should literally have unlimited range, more making the point that the range should be more than a guy on foot, or even with a jump pack can cross before you have a chance to respond.  Assuming they were coming over open ground of course.

[Crablezworth]

A clean fix for ranges without having to do much specifically would be first fire also giving some kind of range bump. It still feels insane to me that almost no weapons buff shooting by not moving, and worse the few weapon traits that give a benefit to ff/not moving are yet to appear, siege weapon and power capacitor. One doubles range if not moving, the other doubles shots. That'd also be a way to fix the titans, give them more benefits/abilities when on certain orders. 

 

 

[Crablezworth]

22 hours ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

I haven´t had many games of LI so far but the first thing which rubbed me the wrong way was the high speed of the infantry. So this was addressed before even a single game was played:

 

Infantry: Move reduced from 5´´ to 4´´. Infantry also does not receive triple move during March orders.

 

Terminators also have a too low CAF.

Either bump it up to CAF+6 like it was in Space Marine or give the unit the USR Rend.

 

There are instances where a twin-linked lascannon tank turret has different weapon profiles, if I remember correctly. The issue was that the Predator and Malcador tanks thus had different capabilities despite having the same gun mounted to their hull.

 

Infantry hauled across the battlefield inside transports have a too high threat range. Again take a look to Space Marine where it was handled like this:

1. Transport moves 100% of it´s move allowance. Passengers may only disembark and not move at all in the same turn.

2. Transport moves 50% of it´s move allowance. Passengers may only move up to 50% of their move allowance in the same turn.

3. Transport moves 0% of it´s move allowance. Passengers may use their full move allowance in the same turn.

 

 

Agreed on the transport stuff. 

 

 

I think the biggest problem with combat is, whether or not they fix the caf of termies or fix rend or ountmumber dice, the whole thing is unpleasant to resolve and reduces very complex encounters to a single number. 

 

Immediate rebalance at a core level would be allowing all units their saves in combat. That would at least make the resilience we all pay a lot of points for actually a worthwhile investment. 

 

I think the goal though would be to reduce close combat as the obvious choice it has become all to often to something perhaps seen less often but in a more calculating way. 

 

The games that have been more shooting than combat are far less clunky, but part of that has also been us like others only allowing overwatch on firest fire or from point defense. Even shooting can get super bogged down by endless overwatching. 

 

I think infantry charges should only be their movement stat. And if I'm honest I'd want them to have to pass morale check before charging anything scale 2 or higher. 

 

 

[Crablezworth]

17 hours ago, vadersson said:

I think there are two different issues.  The first is core mechanics issues and the second is unit issues.  I don’t think a lot can be done with the units until the core issues are addressed.

 

I think that's the key thing, we can only do so much with core mechanics, but dealing with unit costs and weapon stats is a lot more work and much harder to find consensus on. 

 

 

The beauty of focusing on the core is its actually not too hard, the difficult part is still consensus but if the changes are very specific, targeted to problem and explain  their intent I think it has a good shot. 

 

Another angle is not to call it a faq but write it as an expansions or mission with extra special rules meant to address the current meta. 

 

Could see addressing infanty at a core level with like one paragraph rule.

 

 

"High Gravity Environmet"

 

All infantry are subject to the following on account of the planet having much higher than normal gravity

 

Infantry when on march order only move twice their movement stat. When infantry are given the charge order, they may only charge their movement stat, instead of double. 

 

Infantry wishing to charge a detachment that is scale 2 or higher must pass a morale test. If failed they may move their movement stat but not enter engagement range. (within 1 inch)

 

 

 

 

 

 

so could still try and get close or consolidate their position into cover but not more absurd 10-14 inch charges around corners. 

 

I'd also just flat up change combat so saves are allowed for all. I'd also try and roll the changes to how infantry operate when getting out of transports to be more in line with sm2's way. 

 

 

 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

I have played Space Marine during the 90s a lot. LI is very close to that ruleset and thus having a simple melee resolution via CAF is the heart and soul of the game. Furthermore infantry being squishy is also a trademark of the game. So you don´t get the 30K/40K experience of terminators killing everything they touch while being pretty impervious to most threats because the focus is on tank squadrons, artillery batteries and titans.

[Crablezworth]

1 hour ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

I have played Space Marine during the 90s a lot. LI is very close to that ruleset and thus having a simple melee resolution via CAF is the heart and soul of the game. 

 

That's the problem though, its one of the slowest aspects of the game to resolve and it doesn't scale well, like resolving a few individual fights isn't too bad, but the more models, the more fights. That and combat can be overly contextual and lacks any sort of run down mechanic. Reducing it to one stat while also making it like half the game or more is also the problem, infanry charging largely farther or the same distance they shoot leads to them rarely ever shooting and almost always charging. Add to there's no equivalent to the light trait for combat and there really really should be. Solar aux lasgunners taking down titans just goes way too far imo. 

1 hour ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

Furthermore infantry being squishy is also a trademark of the game. So you don´t get the 30K/40K experience of terminators killing everything they touch while being pretty impervious to most threats because the focus is on tank squadrons, artillery batteries and titans.

 

Yeah and sadly they should be squishier, right down to being able to be stomped on by at least titans. The problem currently is the focus can fall too much to infantry and away froma tanks and titans etc. Also feels weird marines still having no artillery. 

[DuskRaider]

I can’t help but feel that the rules design team has changed dramatically from a few years ago. I thought that once GW more or less absorbed FW under their main umbrella, they would be the ones creating the rule sets for games like Imperialis as they had for HHv1 and AT (I believe even the most recent Aeronautica as well), but it has become painfully obvious that both LI and HHv2 have been created by a different team and it shows. 
 

The utter lack of care for the rules is astounding and it shows with the reluctance to release even a simple FAQ or Errata to fix the myriad of issues and poor quality of the current rule system. For that matter, the way they pick and choose rules from Epic Space Marine and 28mm as well as just making new convoluted decisions shows no forethought with regards to reintroducing Epic.
 

There was obviously some thought put into the idea at some point with the shared 8mm scale between Titanicus and Aeronautica, but a shift happened internally at GW and it seems everything was thrown out and this was the direction they decided to move in. 
 

How do you really fix this game? Bring it back 10 years ago and hand it over to the FW team and have them start from scratch. 

[Nagashsnee]

6 hours ago, DuskRaider said:

them start from scratch. 

This, first ed has structural flaws both core rules and army wise that cannot be patched or faqed away, Put out the rest of the minis for 1ed and LISTEN to the feedback. Fix the issues, playtest the points and guns allot more, and drop a 2 edition that is not tied down by minis wave releases and gives a complete game with internal balance factored in the totality of existing units. Then just make sure you dont mess it up with new things.

 

Its a 3-5 faction game, army balance should not be so hard. 

[Pacific81]

I won't repeat any of the stuff above which I think most of which is pretty well accepted now, but will just say imagine, as a design & presentation decision for this game, having this sort of artwork in your stable and choosing to go with photoshopped photos of miniatures instead

 

 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

2 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

This, first ed has structural flaws both core rules and army wise that cannot be patched or faqed away, Put out the rest of the minis for 1ed and LISTEN to the feedback. Fix the issues, playtest the points and guns allot more, and drop a 2 edition that is not tied down by minis wave releases and gives a complete game with internal balance factored in the totality of existing units. Then just make sure you dont mess it up with new things.

 

Its a 3-5 faction game, army balance should not be so hard. 

Even if they would release a new ruleset in 2025 some current major flaws won´t be addressed because it has become a trademark of all GW games of today. I am speaking of the mantra that "melee has to be viable" in all games. Rogue Trader has emphasized that the game you are playing revolves around ranged combat with melee being an option. This was also clear during 2nd 40K with infantry having 4´´ of movement. How swift are infantry moving in HH 2.0 nowadays? 7´´! Movement allowance has almost doubled while the board size has remained the same or do you all play now on a gym hall floor? 

 

So it´s no wonder why your LI experience does not match with what games you had in the 90s. Don´t trust in the devs to fix it but implement a few house rules instead. I am not eager to purchase a new rulebook which handles the issues in a half-assed way. There are definitely better ways of spending your money.

[DuskRaider]

7 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

This, first ed has structural flaws both core rules and army wise that cannot be patched or faqed away, Put out the rest of the minis for 1ed and LISTEN to the feedback. Fix the issues, playtest the points and guns allot more, and drop a 2 edition that is not tied down by minis wave releases and gives a complete game with internal balance factored in the totality of existing units. Then just make sure you dont mess it up with new things.

 

Its a 3-5 faction game, army balance should not be so hard. 

It’s true, any new edition would most likely be a derivative of this one, which is a derivative of a much older game and completely skips over a much better iteration of Epic (Armageddon). They should have used that as the baseline rules and built upon it include Legions and their own flavor. I still wouldn’t trust them with new factions, however. 
 

It sucks because there are very simple fixes in this thread alone that would remedy a lot of the problems we are currently facing with this game, but it’s ridiculous to expect the scenario of walking into a pickup or casual game and plop down a page or two of house rules to fix something that was supposedly in development for years.
 

I refuse to believe that it took them that long to cook up these rules, there are so many glaring and obvious flaws that either the current design team are a bunch of literal monkeys being drip fed caffeine and are chained to a typewriter or there was never any thought, care or attempt put into making this a balanced, enjoyable experience and it’s all just for selling models. Both are pretty likely, to be fair. 

Edited November 2 by DuskRaider

[Crablezworth]

5 hours ago, Deus_Ex_Machina said:

Even if they would release a new ruleset in 2025 some current major flaws won´t be addressed because it has become a trademark of all GW games of today. I am speaking of the mantra that "melee has to be viable" in all games.

 

Completely agree on that mantra of melee always being viable being half of li's problem. The thing is combat is just not very fun to resolve. I think it should definitely be an option or the primary use of certain units/detachments but they've made it waayyyy to lasgun killing landraider level dumb. They figured out how to make a rule like "light" for range weapons, why they couldn't or didn't make its equiveillance for combat is beyond me. Like not every model needs to charge. Rhinos and arvuses just make no sense. They have a scale stat that is barely used either, could have easily implemented that some way in combat. I still think giving everything their save would at least reduce some charges. 

[tychobi]

Is there a way to fix the activation issue? It's a tough spot for mass battle game to keep track of the activations as you scale up.  Big melee feels a bit rough keeping track of everything as well. I want the game to feel great at scale but it seems to work way better small.

 

The raw quality issue is probably the mundane sad normality of well meaning underpaid under resourced new staffs attempt at writing a game with a brutal deadline. Play testers? Naw they break NDAs. So here it is. Ta da. Corporate reality is harsh on employees, customers and product quality. The age of the share holders might be an indicator of how long term their thinking is. Feels like GW has been "cashing out" for a while now, focused on short term profit over long term growth. 

[Crablezworth]

2 hours ago, tychobi said:

Is there a way to fix the activation issue? It's a tough spot for mass battle game to keep track of the activations as you scale up.  Big melee feels a bit rough keeping track of everything as well. I want the game to feel great at scale but it seems to work way better small.

 

 

I think that's very true, when playing like 1k or 1250 it can run pretty well, might take running it on like a 4x4 with perhaps 1 less objective but the sad part is, even the idea of seeing gw embrace the small end seems impossible given marketing would scoff at it as they tried to sell the game as like 3k to start, where sm2 was 1500, and honestly 1500 seems like a more realistic starting point to try and pitch now that there's 3 boxed armies. 

 

2 hours ago, tychobi said:

The raw quality issue is probably the mundane sad normality of well meaning underpaid under resourced new staffs attempt at writing a game with a brutal deadline. Play testers? Naw they break NDAs. So here it is. Ta da. Corporate reality is harsh on employees, customers and product quality. The age of the share holders might be an indicator of how long term their thinking is. Feels like GW has been "cashing out" for a while now, focused on short term profit over long term growth. 

 

Agreed, which is why the best approach for some mistakes is open mockery/having fun with the absurdity in hopes gw can at least feel shame. The other end is putting out the best solutions and hoping someone or group who have been handed off or tasked with LI can at least copy our work. That may only be possible to a certain degree but, there are things I think most people would agree there are rough consensus on, infantry needing a nerf in general, infiltrate allowing charge order, infantry's movement speed for running and I'd argue even charging seems questionable. A tangent but the current structure rules also conspire a bit too much to help infantry, certainly didn't need to let them melt through structures like necron wraiths AND move triple speed on march. But even without a single point cost charging, a few kits changes at the core could do a lot for good will and quality of the game. 

 

[Mandragola]

Lots of complaints about infantry being too fast. What would happen if we had a look at the movement stats of infantry and perhaps other things? Dropping their speed to something like 3” would make a big difference, crucially making almost all weapons reach further than charge range.

 

i think you would then also want to reform overwatch to only work on first fire (and perhaps point defence), as suggested. That would also help speed the game up a bit.  
 

I think you’d still want things like bikes and assault marine to be quite fast. 
 

im not sure what to do about walkers if we slowed infantry. Things like dreadnoughts would be a bit rubbish with only a 3” move. 4” might be ok. 

I’m also interested in tackling activations. I’d be curious to see what happened if we activated Formations rather than Detachments. Things might get pretty messy though. Actually it would help here if only first fire detachments could overwatch. By definition they wouldn’t be moving, making it easier to track what was going on. 

[DuskRaider]

Movement should be treated as it is in the 28mm scale. Infantry can move double their movement value if they march. If they move their full movement only, they can advance and fire. If they are embarked in a transport, they can either move the transport’s full movement and disembark and fire or assault, double the transport’s movement they’re stuck in it. 
 

Speaking of Dreadnoughts, at the very least the Kheres has to be given better rules. God, it’s so bad. So bad to the point that it’s useless. I’d argue the same with Autocannons. 
 

I would also say that infantry should not have the ability to assault anything larger than other infantry (or as others have suggested one scale above their own). Maybe give them the ability to purchase Melta Bombs and give them the opportunity to attack detachments two scales above their own. 
 

 

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

6 hours ago, Mandragola said:

Lots of complaints about infantry being too fast. What would happen if we had a look at the movement stats of infantry and perhaps other things? Dropping their speed to something like 3” would make a big difference, crucially making almost all weapons reach further than charge range.

 

i think you would then also want to reform overwatch to only work on first fire (and perhaps point defence), as suggested. That would also help speed the game up a bit.  
 

I think you’d still want things like bikes and assault marine to be quite fast. 
 

im not sure what to do about walkers if we slowed infantry. Things like dreadnoughts would be a bit rubbish with only a 3” move. 4” might be ok. 

I’m also interested in tackling activations. I’d be curious to see what happened if we activated Formations rather than Detachments. Things might get pretty messy though. Actually it would help here if only first fire detachments could overwatch. By definition they wouldn’t be moving, making it easier to track what was going on. 

Infantry:

I have seen years ago battle reports of Dropzone Commander. Infantry without transports are moving like snails across the battlefield which makes sense considering they are supposed to be fighting in a city and not a village like it is done in 30K/40K.

 

Walkers:

Movement should be taken into account depending on it´s type. Siege and artillery dreadnoughts are slow by nature. A contemptor however should have still a move of 4´´. Same logic should apply to SA & Mechanicum walkers. Is it of a more cumbersome design? Then give it a low move stat. Otherwise keep it at 4´´.

 

First Fire & Overwatch:

Only allowing Overwatch on First Fire will turn games into static affairs. Tanks should be rolling forward and shooting their point defence weapons as protection against the likes of swift bikers who may have been lurking nearby to suckerpunch them. Otherwise you will never have "Blitzkrieg" moment and be forced to play trench warfare which means the player who moves first into no man´s land loses instantly.

 

Legion Traits:

We haven´t talked about those at all yet but the overall sentiment is that some are good and others are garbage. I know that it is impossible to balance 18 traits fairly but you can at least erase those which only apply in very specific situations. The best way to do it is to give each Legion a passive perk which is active all the time.

I am playing Iron Hands (big surprise!) and even their perk which doesn´t sound too bad on paper evaporates into thin air when you take into account that in order for it too work (tanks on first fire orders are harder to destroy) you have to close the gap to the opposition first in order to activate your weapons. Problem is your tanks die very fast to the opposing vanquisher tank turrets of the SA WHILE on the move. So nice try from the dev team here but it just doesn´t work. The IH perk also includes infantry making them tougher to ranged attacks but only when a medic is in the general area. Again another fine example of making a trait useless when dumping a prerequisite into the mix.