Upcoming FAQ Rumors

Since I don't run obsessions I get the most milage out of the stratagems and the relics, so of course I go Black Heart. Were I not running that I'd probably have Flayed Skull for my Ravagers to shoot down anything that could even remotely injure me turn 1. In a shootout, the Flayed Skull army beats the Black Heart army. However the Black Heart army wins against Knights and when that's literally an entire THIRD of the meta then yeah you kinda gotta stack your deck.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

TeenageAngst wrote:

Your argument is that rerolling 1s is too strong. In a game about rerolling 1s, when we do it, it's unfair.

You people are hopeless.

Sigh. Thank you for carefully ignoring my argument. It always makes these debates so much more fun.  

The point was that, for our army, rerolling 1s to wound with Ravagers is not universal.

- If I play Flayed Skull, my Ravagers won't be rerolling 1s to wound and they won't have a 6+++ save.
- If I play Poison Tongue, my Ravagers won't be rerolling 1s to wound and they won't have a 6+++ save.
- If I play Obsidian Rose, my Ravagers won't be rerolling 1s to wound and they won't have a 6+++ save.

Nor in any of these cases will I have access to a CP regeneration warlord trait or a counter-stratagem.

My question was, if Ravagers are perceived as being too strong, do you think they would still be too strong if you stripped out the Black Heart stuff?

As in, are they overpowered in and of themselves or is it just that one specific Black Heart setup that makes them too good for their points?

Because, if it's just that Black Heart setup that causes issues, then nerfing the Ravager wouldn't really fix much - it will just help to cement the Black Heart detachment as being the only one worth taking. Hence, a better solution would be to tweak Black Heart, so that it's not outright better than the others at supporting a Ravager wing.

Of course, if you believe either that the Ravager is a problem in and of itself or that it isn't an issue at all, then obviously your answer will be different.

I was just trying to find out where people stood on the issue.

Disintegrators and dark lance should swap their cost.

If Dark Lances and Disintegrators had their points swapped I'd be happy as a clam. It'd give me a reason to choose weapons again.

Don't believe a word of these rumors.
25 points? really?

Ravagers aren't overpowered, but Disintegrators are under/mis-priced, and the result is that there is no thoughtful choice to make between Disintegrator and Dark Lance.

It's just a blip in design that's led to a lack of diversity and a lack of meaningful choice.

Points and rules tweaks don't have to happen only because something is utterly overpowered or meta changing/breaking.

Although I would not be surprised to see disintegrators brought even in price with dark lances, the real issue to my mind regarding "eldar" overpowered-ness is about allies.

Limiting Doom to Asuryani only (like so many other Eldar powers limited to their own faction) makes ravagers and haywire bikes alike a lot less scary.

In general, I think anything they can do to curb ally abuse would greatly improve their ability to balance across all of the armies in the game.

Woozl wrote:

Although I would not be surprised to see disintegrators brought even in price with dark lances, the real issue to my mind regarding "eldar" overpowered-ness is about allies.

Limiting Doom to Asuryani only (like so many other Eldar powers limited to their own faction) makes ravagers and haywire bikes alike a lot less scary.

In general, I think anything they can do to curb ally abuse would greatly improve their ability to balance across all of the armies in the game.

Agreed on all counts.

There really needs to be a reason to not bring allies. As it stands, you're free to cherry-pick the best units from multiple, different armies with no downside.

Well, if they decide to limit CP usage to the stratagems of the specific army of each detachment, which is something that is speculated to possibly happen, based on the 40k mini-dex rules in Kill Team Rogue Trader (apparently, bringing the Starstriders grants 3CP that can only be used for their stratagems, for example), then that might make soup a bit less attractive - For example, if I took a pure DE list with a battalion and spearhead, then I would have 9 CP to all spend on DE stratagems. If I souped my list up, then I'd have to divide up my available CPs based on what each army brought to the table.

Skulnbonz wrote:

Don't believe a word of these rumors.
25 points? really?

Whilst I don't necessarily think that these rumours have any base in reality it's not as if 'New GW' hasn't already earned a reputation of taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut when they see a problem so it would not surprise me in the slightest if their solution to this problem was something as draconian as this rumour.

The ubiquity of Prophets + black heart qould probably be helped of they were both forced to switch warlord traits woth someone else.
3 cp for agents hurts a lot more when you don't get cp recycling and d3-1 extra cp at the start.

If the option for max cps to use required you to not take those two, you'd see other options.

I'd be happy to have allied detachments not grant any CPs. Surely the whole CP thing is supposed to reward a cohesive army. A souped army shouldn't generate as many CPs as a single faction force. Allied forces shouldn't be as slick and effective working together as a single army, so less CPs would represent that better.
I'd also like to see a points cap on allies of maybe 25%. You can still add in some allies, but at a managed quantity and without CP benefits. Soup needs sorting - it's the single biggest breaker of balance in the game imo.

yellabelly wrote:

I'd be happy to have allied detachments not grant any CPs. Surely the whole CP thing is supposed to reward a cohesive army. A souped army shouldn't generate as many CPs as a single faction force. Allied forces shouldn't be as slick and effective working together as a single army, so less CPs would represent that better.
I'd also like to see a points cap on allies of maybe 25%. You can still add in some allies, but at a managed quantity and without CP benefits. Soup needs sorting - it's the single biggest breaker of balance in the game imo.

I like the option of taking *some* allies, but I agree that either limitations must be applied, or, perhaps, bonuses applied for taking a non-soup army. I like the idea of having bonus CPs for detachments only being usable for the armies that they are from - it would prevent a player from, for example, using 'rotate ion shields' on their auxiliary support Castellan every turn.

There is a reason why particular obsessions, chapter tactics, as well as relics and warlord traits get taken to the exclusion of most others: they are free!

If all of those things cost points (alongside appropriate base points reductions) then they could become a choice for players.

A Talos with a 4++ vs one with a 5++ is a very different thing for example, but points costs don't currently reflect that.

CP regen warlord traits and relics should cost more than pistol/cc weapon relics.

hekatrixxy wrote:

There is a reason why particular obsessions, chapter tactics, as well as relics and warlord traits get taken to the exclusion of most others: they are free!

If all of those things cost points (alongside appropriate base points reductions) then they could become a choice for players.

A Talos with a 4++ vs one with a 5++ is a very different thing for example, but points costs don't currently reflect that.

CP regen warlord traits and relics should cost more than pistol/cc weapon relics.

The problem I am seeing is that this further complicated balancing. I don't think GW did a terrible job at balancing so far, but I don't believe they would handle this properl/fairly across all factions.

Neither do I think that the problem lies in a 4++ Taloi being stronger than a 5++ one. The problem is that a 4++ Talos is hands down the better choice to a "Ld -1" Talos and a "AP-3" Talos. This is simply an issue with internal balancing.

Therer are some things that are really difficult to quantify, which makes assigning a fair price tag almost impossible.

On another note: If the extra-generated CP could only be spent on units within the same detachment a lot of problems would go away. The current ruling just isn't strict enough when it comes to confining faction specific special rules.

Being more strict with soup-synergies just might do the trick. Alternatively, I'd suggest that only one of your faction in your army can benefit from chapter tactics. For Dark Eldar we could take obsessions on Coven, Cults and Kabals but we couldn't take Attributes for an allied CWE detachment. Seeing how many factions don't have any allies this would only be fair.

To further the point, not all units benefit from these traits in equal measure. LD-1 indeed isn't much on a Talos that will rarely have another such unit nearby it to really make a difference, but it does a whole lot more on a couple of units of Wracks . Likewise, a AP-1 isn't all that much on a model that already has decent AP like Talos, but it makes a world of a difference on a regular unit of Wracks. 4++ is good on everyone, because who doesn't like better saves?

Prophets of Flesh have four things going for them: universal 4++, Urien Rakarth and, most importantly in my opinion, the Vexator Mask and Diabolical Soothsayer. That's what makes them the clear winner when competitive play is involved - you boost survivability via coven obsession, you provide extra damage output via Urien, and you have massive utility to boost BOTH survivability AND offensive strength further with the Vexator Mask, and you also get a free reroll at the worst case by using Alliance of Agony because Soothsayer pays for itself, or get two extra command points because you rolled 5 or 6. Prophets provide so much versatility that applies to virtually any playstyle.

Meanwhile, Dark Creed does have Esoteric Kill for those Talos unit or Tantalus shenanigans, the warlord trait is neat due to the coven bonus synergizing with it very well. The pistol is also rather nifty, but all this points towards a very finesse playstyle that goes for characters primarily and inflicts damage via the morale mechanic. It's not bad, but its effectiveness withers against Imperial Knights, for example. Still, Dark Creed can certainly be used to great effect.

Coven of Twelve is nifty, certainly, and it benefits a Wrack-heavy list the most as they receive the greatest benefit from the trait when the common invulnerable saves are taken into account. The stratagem synergyzes with this wrack-heavy playstyle, allowing to bog down melee-centric armies and still be able to dispatch them with ranged fire from a squad of Talos, a Reaper or a Tantalus. The warlord trait, however, is worse ability than Urien has and is terribly situational. Lastly, the Flensing Blade is alright as far as weapons go, but nothing too spectacular. This is also a very finesse oriented obsession.

So when you have one generalist choice that offers a great toolbox of options that will do work in any situation and two finesse choices, in a competitive setting you will go with the toolbox, every time (unless you're an absolute madlad that has mastered the finesse play and can successfully pull it off). It's really not a contest why Prophets of Flesh are the most popular, and changing their obsession bonus of 4++ would do little to change that.

And I didn't even mention the Prophets' great stratagem that can steal some objectives late game and offer extra resilience to the humble (but deadly from turn 3+) Wracks. Prophets are just that far ahead of the other two covens.

I do agree that limiting the farmed CP to the specific detachment that creates those excess resources would be a good change for matched play and would solve a LOT of problems.

+25 points for Talos seems pretty good for me. For sure, the best way to nerf them should be changing Prophet Rules....but for the sake of balancemente, 25 points are good for PROPHETS Taloi.
Even if that means killing the other 2 obsessions (sadly).
And they will be played again...now with HW+Chain are 98 poins, for a model that:
-Fly
-Has 7 wounds, T6(7), 4++ and 6+++
-5 Attacks S7 AP-2 D2 OR 10 Attacks S6 AP0 D1 (ten..)
-Shoot 2D3 haywire shots

Even without Stratagems, 98 points for this beast is a joke. I will definitely pay 123 points for this thing with joy!

Dissy and Lances shouldn't swap themselves, or you will pay 15 for a Darklance and 17 for a Blaster lol
They should be at the same cost (20-20).


Grots seriously need a point increase. 35 points are too cheap for them (yes, there's always the PotF issue, they should nerf the Obsession rule itself insteand of pumping the points).







OR....


....they need to boost all the PowerArmours. If they will boost heavely any "ADEPTUS ASTARTES" keyword unit, there will be no need to nerfs Drukhari at all.

My problem is, right now people are more willing to take them as something other than PoF, but if they get a 25pts increase NO one will take them as anything else.

amishprn86 wrote:

My problem is, right now people are more willing to take them as something other than PoF, but if they get a 25pts increase NO one will take them as anything else.

Indeed. They should make an Errata on PoF like the Commissar one, if they want to push people to choose other Obsessions :-/ expecially if we consider that both Trait and Relic from PoF are amazing too.

So who thinks the FAQ will actually come out in October?

TeenageAngst wrote:

So who thinks the FAQ will actually come out in October?

Well, the March one got delayed to April. Not going to be a huge shock if the September one gets released a month late as well.