Zagman's Balance Errata

Hello Denizens of the deep. I know I'm not really supposed to post other forum links here as if you have internet service you are more than capable of finding it on your own but I just want to put this out there and hear what you guys think. Zagman on Dakkadakka has been attempting to balance the codexes more than they are currently and is asking for feedback from players.

So without further ado: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/648754.page

what do you think? What questions do you have if any? Would you play with these changes?

I don't like the idea of players changing the rules.

I agree with CptMetal.
I'm of the opinion that the moment you start changing the rtules of the game, you might as well be playing a different game.


Archon - 7 and 12pts. Really annoyingly non-rounded numbers.

Warriors - why the hell is the starting size 7? Thats a really odd number.
Have you actually made Warriors more expensive?

Wyches - n o improvement.S till no reason to ever take them as a unit.

Talos and Chronos - no. Monstrous Creatures should never have Fleet. Even if it would be funny, its just not a good idea.

Ravager - a squadron of two? That seems pointless if its only two.


With respect, most of this erratta seems to be about making things cheaper (with the exception of Warriors) without actually improving anything. It doesn't address any balance issues or fix borken/useless units, which is what I would want from an erratta.

Ok other than your discontent with a player changing the rules, do you think GW should make any of these changes? have you read his posts on page 2 detailing why he made the changes that he did and do you want me to post the link for his explanation on why he started the whole thing (he's doing every codex at some point)

@Squidmaster. He's not trying to do a complete overhaul of the entire system he's merely attempting a couple of tweaks here and there. Also I find rounding numbers to be ridiculous. If you have to make the decision between an 8pt and 12pt weapon and they're both rounded to 10pts guess which one I'm taking.

His revised point values don't seem unreasonable. I have doubts about giving both Raiders and Venoms both night shields and flickerfields stock. Changing the squad sizes and transport capacities seems unnecessary. I wasn't sure about Talos and Cronos with Fleet, but the more I think about it the more I like it.

But then he says this:

Quote :

The DE Codex had very few good things in it, and those that were good had to be spammed. If the DE player couldn't field Venoms or Blaster Trueborn, what of use would they be putting on the table? Almost nothing. If DE couldn't spam Blasters or Venoms the book was terrible.

I not only think he's wrong about that, I think he's so wrong that I think he fundamentally misunderstands Dark Eldar. My current army contains neither blasters nor Trueborn and I've won most of my games with it. I'd be sad to give up my Scalpel Squadron, but I think I'd be fine using gunboat Raiders instead of Venoms as well.

In the end, I think it's kind of moot. The published rules provide us with a shared structure to play games with, whatever its (many, many) faults. And I know I'd be uncomfortable if my opponents wanted to start using random house rules from the internet.

If I were to use a player-written version of our codex, it would be this one, because there's a lot of stuff in there that looks awesome.

Is it legit? The massive volume of technical errors led me to avoid it. Is it worth a look?

The one Grim posted? I haven't gone through it thoroughly enough to have a critical opinion of it, mostly because, again, I don't think I'll ever be in a position to play a game with it. But it's got stuff like:

Quote :

Clone Field: Upon deployment of the a model equipped with a Clone Field, place 3 shadow counters near the model. Until the model is out of Shadow Counters, any hits allocated against the equipped model may be instead allocated to the Shadow Counters (Even if a special rule would normally not allow allocation to other models). Shadow Counters are Toughness 1(But do not count towards the unit’s toughness) have 6+ armor and 1 wound. When the Shadow Counter suffers a wound, remove the shadow counter. At the beginning of the controlling player’s turn where the equipped model has fewer than 3 shadow counters, roll a d3, gain that many shadow counters.

I have no idea how balanced it is, but it seems to have a lot of cool, flavorfull things in it.

Yeah he's not trying to add too much to it. Thanks for the input though! I'll pass it along.

I'd try to avoid such annoying values for wargear (7s, 12s etc.) - especially for wargear on characters.

The other thing I'd say is that the DE codex is in need of some more inspired rules - not just messing around with point costs.

Calyptra wrote:

My current army contains neither blasters nor Trueborn and I've won most of my games with it. I'd be sad to give up my Scalpel Squadron, but I think I'd be fine using gunboat Raiders instead of Venoms as well.

tournament or casual games?

The Shredder wrote:

I'd try to avoid such annoying values for wargear (7s, 12s etc.) - especially for wargear on characters.

I still fail to see the problem with numbers like 7 or 12, they're literally just numbers. If you like the number 1 better then fine, add 7 1's instead of the number 7. It's just basic algebra and I fail to see why you find it so annoying.

Here's another way to look at it, if you choose to use a weapon that costs a rounded 10 points instead of the balanced 8 that it should cost and you choose to spam it, lets say 10 times. You've just lost out on 20 points. And that's not the only weapon like that so you're losing out on even more points. Suddenly you're fighting a 2k army with 1850 points. That's what? an entire splinter rack raider with warriors in it?

The Shredder wrote:

The other thing I'd say is that the DE codex is in need of some more inspired rules - not just messing around with point costs.

Zagman is trying to attempting to balance the game without bias. By creating his own rules and/or special abilities it further detracts from his credibility.

Barrywise wrote:

I still fail to see the problem with numbers like 7 or 12, they're literally just numbers. If you like the number 1 better then fine, add 7 1's instead of the number 7. It's just basic algebra and I fail to see why you find it so annoying.

Eh?

I don't even know what you're talking about.

Numbers like 12 and 7 make it a massive pain to build an army to an exact figure like 1500pts. Simple as that.

It's not too bad if it's something an entire unit can take (since you can then have 5 or 10 of them to round it off). However, when only a character or sergeant can take said item, you end up with awkward numbers like 1497 or somesuch. It's irritating more than anything else - especially for the OCD among us...

Barrywise wrote:

Zagman is trying to attempting to balance the game without bias. By creating his own rules and/or special abilities it further detracts from his credibility.  

Eh? That makes literally no sense.

The only thing that would possibly detract from his credibility would be changing something the wrong way, if you see what I mean. Like if he decided to increase the cost of wyches by 50%, even though they're already an awful unit.

It's possible that making his own rules would make the changes harder to accept for some, though this seems like a very small minority. I believe the biggest hurdle will always be convincing people to let you alter the rules at all.

The Shredder wrote:

It's irritating more than anything else - especially for the OCD among us...    

Ok, that I can understand. But if we work to move past our OCD then maybe?

The Shredder wrote:

The only thing that would possibly detract from his credibility would be changing something the wrong way, if you see what I mean. Like if he decided to increase the cost of wyches by 50%, even though they're already an awful unit.

It's possible that making his own rules would make the changes harder to accept for some, though this seems like a very small minority. I believe the biggest hurdle will always be convincing people to let you alter the rules at all.

I feel like it helps though to explain that all the rules being used are originally from GW themselves and you made minor point shifts here or there and that their codex also has some minor point shifts in favor of the weaker units. Also credibility might not have been the best choice of words on my part...

I'm not sure the guy who wrote the home brew has ever played Dark Eldar before, current edition or not. Props to him for knowing what a blaster is, though. But seriously, recommending that we put dark lances on warriors? In surprised he even kept that as a frak option let alone push towards it, talk about a fundamental misunderstanding of the army

Yeah I don't think he's ever play as DE, only against.

Ispa that's beautiful, I'm just gonna slink back to my rejuvenation pod to fix this charred flesh real quick.

This just...no. No....just no......he has completely missed the other strategies. Numbers ofbstartong doesn't bother me, unless they made them more expensive. Venom spam is not the only way to go. My list has done well.

I sometimes fantasize about our codex being "better" and making more sense but then I snap back into reality. There is that whole obsticle that EVERYONE plays by what the rules say. Now granted some tournies adjust some general rules here and there and sometimes games with friends can have some rule bending. I regularly think about what it would be like if my wyches were WS 5, or my incubi had grenades, or my archon had an Ap 2 weapon with drugs. (like times of old) There are some many things that would make our codex better, but its still a good codex and still fun to play. I tried to get my buddy I play with often to play a game without overwatch (he's Tyranids) and a few other rules just to mix it up. (I want to filed wyches so badly but they are just not good and die horribly to overwatch) He said fine. But after a couple turns and a few comments, he wasn't really too happy with how things were going. I've just learned to stick with what the rules in the codex say, it's the most fair way to play

Barrywise wrote:

Calyptra wrote:

My current army contains neither blasters nor Trueborn and I've won most of my games with it. I'd be sad to give up my Scalpel Squadron, but I think I'd be fine using gunboat Raiders instead of Venoms as well.

tournament or casual games?

I recently took second place in my local store's league, comprised of around 18 players, with a Covenite/Harlequin freakshow list. So somewhere in between?

Squidmaster wrote:

Talos and Chronos - no. Monstrous Creatures should never have Fleet. Even if it would be funny, its just not a good idea.

<ahem> Wraithknight...

Barrywise wrote:

Zagman is trying to attempting to balance the game without bias. By creating his own rules and/or special abilities it further detracts from his credibility.

He seems to feel that DE have too much anti-vehicle weaponry. I think someone had their Land Raider broken and didn't like it...

Barking Agatha wrote:

Squidmaster wrote:

Talos and Chronos - no. Monstrous Creatures should never have Fleet. Even if it would be funny, its just not a good idea.

<ahem> Wraithknight...

What about them? They're not Fleet either. I don't have a problem with some MC's having Fleet, although I don't think Talos and/or Cronos should.

I agree with those that think he hates our anti-vehicle. These changes heavily reduce our ability to field DL weapons while forcing us to increase the number of infantry with their low armor saves. The increase in cost for Raiders and base line Kabalite warriors means we can field less Raider Dark Lances. The reduction in vehicles means the added protection is being used against more focused fire do to fewer vehicles on the field.

Trueborn are more expensive to field and have the number of special and heavy weapons they can carry cut in half. Scourges also lose half of their special/heavy weapons further reducing the number of anti-vehicle weapons.

Giving us the ability to field 2 ravagers in a unit might seem like he is try to help us make up for the loss so that we aren't taking up 2 heavy slots but it also means Ravagers are easier to nullify their shooting on by forcing a jink on a unit instead of doing it to two different targets.

The point value shifting seems, to me, to be a smoke screen to conceal his desire to limit the number of targets we can field while inceasing the unit sizes and reduction of the number of anti-vehicle weapons we can take or use effectively during the game.

Reducing the amount of vehicles a Dark Eldar army can field is a nonstarter, just no. What's more is that the humble raider is already twice the cost of its more heavily armored marine equivalent. The reason Dark Eldar players field so many vehicles is because we're forced to make do, not because they're so much better than anyone else's vehicles. A lascannon spam list where every squad takes a transport would function similarly to a dark lance spam list. You don't typically see lascannon spam because they're simply not that good. I don't see how revisions that nerf one of the weaker books and attack the inherent design of the faction could be a good idea.

Lascannon spam......I shutter. Raiders are good cause we can twin link our shots, but still....for a nicely decorated raider that is 90 points. With a splinter cannon and blaster on board with 10. Warriors, that is 110. Total unit cost. 90

I am unconvinced that the series of balancing changes will actually have any effect. Yes it is nice to have cheaper troops, but the vehicles are more expensive so that units are working out about the same cost. There are reductions so it is likely that in an army you will get one more unit. However access to anti-tank firepower has become more spread out on the infantry so less effective; or compacted with the ravages so less efficient with jinx.

It just seams that with army wide points reductions the size of the game gets bigger, rather than becoming more balanced. especially with all armies getting similar treatment

There is also issues with the huskblade & djin blade becoming comparatively more expensive for no real reason.

The increase in transport capacity seems like it is probably a death trap too, as we are still using the same vehicles

I read it over and not a thing addressed any of our current problems, i dont expect a fix of everything, but thats just some things being cheaper.