How does everyone feel about the Archon?

The Strange Dark One wrote:

URIEN wrote:

Thankyou! Bring back the uber grotesques, or at least the buff from the grotesquerie formation.

The Grotesquerie is pretty much incorporated into the Haemonculus' buff. We used to get T6 Grotesques only with a Grotesquerie, now we can get it reliably. Too bad T6 doesn't mean that much anymore.

Aye I can see that one, but it was all the other benefits we could've had that was great. Rage was the best in my opinion with a maximum output of 27 attacks between three (including an Aberration in the squad).

Yes, i miss rage a lot on them, that is IMO what made them and it is heavily missed on them as of now.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

The Grotesquerie is pretty much incorporated into the Haemonculus' buff. We used to get T6 Grotesques only with a Grotesquerie, now we can get it reliably. Too bad T6 doesn't mean that much anymore.

That's the thing though - I think Urien should do something extra on top of the basic Haemonculus buff.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Regarding Urien, I think he should have some really powerful abilities. An unlimited Casket of Flensing would be a good start, but the ability to heal surrounding units (prefferably by the means of sucking off the life force of enmies) or mass-leadership manipulation would make him such a rich tactical choice.

Amusingly, I suggested a life-stealing ability a while back, but for a Mandrake Lord HQ.

Urien healing surrounding units could be interesting. Some possibilities:
- It could be a straight aura, with nearby units recovering 1 wound or even d3 wounds.
- It could use the Casket of Flensing - with each wound cased healing a nearby unit (distributed however you choose).
- You could choose a couple of units to be augmented, and they gain regeneration for the duration of the game (regardless of their proximity to Urien).

The Shredder wrote:

The Strange Dark One wrote:

The Grotesquerie is pretty much incorporated into the Haemonculus' buff. We used to get T6 Grotesques only with a Grotesquerie, now we can get it reliably. Too bad T6 doesn't mean that much anymore.

That's the thing though - I think Urien should do something extra on top of the basic Haemonculus buff.

The Strange Dark One wrote:

Regarding Urien, I think he should have some really powerful abilities. An unlimited Casket of Flensing would be a good start, but the ability to heal surrounding units (prefferably by the means of sucking off the life force of enmies) or mass-leadership manipulation would make him such a rich tactical choice.

Amusingly, I suggested a life-stealing ability a while back, but for a Mandrake Lord HQ.  

Urien healing surrounding units could be interesting. Some possibilities:
- It could be a straight aura, with nearby units recovering 1 wound or even d3 wounds.
- It could use the Casket of Flensing - with each wound cased healing a nearby unit (distributed however you choose).
- You could choose a couple of units to be augmented, and they gain regeneration for the duration of the game (regardless of their proximity to Urien).

How does this sound: Every turn pick a unit within 18 inches and roll a dice. if you roll over their toughness (6 always fails) then the unit takes d3 mortal wounds. if you roll a success the unit regains 1d3 wounds and gets +1 S for the remainder of the game, and the strength boost does not stack with itself. Does not work on vehicles

Call it "Urien's experiments" or something similar.

Note that this is not "Coven only" but since non-coven stuff tends to be T 3 and not get the T buff aura...

Quote :

How does this sound: Every turn pick a unit within 18 inches and roll a dice. if you roll over their toughness (6 always fails) then the unit takes d3 mortal wounds. if you roll a success the unit regains 1d3 wounds and gets +1 S for the remainder of the game, and the strength boost does not stack with itself. Does not work on vehicles

An interesting idea, but there's too much risk involved for my taste for what really amounts to a situational reward. It would be very useful on a pain engine, but S7 really only helps on T6, and let's face it, most T6 models will shred the Talos to bits. On Wracks, it wouldn't matter at all, as they have poisoned weapons. On Grots it could have some utility, it would make them shred GEQ easier than a cat shreds a shower curtain, which would give them a certain amount of utility. Still, a 17-33% chance to kill the model you're trying to heal is somewhat mediocre.

But lastly, consider that Apothecaries and Engineseers heal d3 wounds on their target automatically, with no risk whatsoever. D6 wounds would be my initial thought to make it worth the risk, but for a Grot with one wound left, healing it an average of 2 and healing it an average of 3.5 makes no difference at all.

What would make this risk worth it to me, is the ability to 1 - grant a choice of bonuses, similar to the old formation table/some old rules (Rampage, rage, shred, etc.), and 2 - Make it so he can heal d3 wounds that may exceed the models original wounds characteristic. Suddenly, you have a character that I don't mind taking a risk with, because a 10 Wound Talos would be terrifying.
With those changes, I feel it would be fun, fluffy, and give Urien a very useful niche in our army.

TheBaconPope wrote:

Quote :

How does this sound: Every turn pick a unit within 18 inches and roll a dice. if you roll over their toughness (6 always fails) then the unit takes d3 mortal wounds. if you roll a success the unit regains 1d3 wounds and gets +1 S for the remainder of the game, and the strength boost does not stack with itself. Does not work on vehicles

An interesting idea, but there's too much risk involved for my taste for what really amounts to a situational reward. It would be very useful on a pain engine, but S7 really only helps on T6, and let's face it, most T6 models will shred the Talos to bits. On Wracks, it wouldn't matter at all, as they have poisoned weapons. On Grots it could have some utility, it would make them shred GEQ easier than a cat shreds a shower curtain, which would give them a certain amount of utility. Still, a 17-33% chance to kill the model you're trying to heal is somewhat mediocre.

But lastly, consider that Apothecaries and Engineseers heal d3 wounds on their target automatically, with no risk whatsoever. D6 wounds would be my initial thought to make it worth the risk, but for a Grot with one wound left, healing it an average of 2 and healing it an average of 3.5 makes no difference at all.

What would make this risk worth it to me, is the ability to 1 - grant a choice of bonuses, similar to the old formation table/some old rules (Rampage, rage, shred, etc.), and 2 - Make it so he can heal d3 wounds that may exceed the models original wounds characteristic. Suddenly, you have a character that I don't mind taking a risk with, because a 10 Wound Talos would be terrifying.
With those changes, I feel it would be fun, fluffy, and give Urien a very useful niche in our army.

I can roll with that. I think that having the option to bring back dead models in the unit also works, making sense with the fluff and making it clear that Urien is out of the league of lesser healers.

Sort of related: What would you think of a Talos ability: "Torture Engine. Every time a model with this rule inflicts an unsaved wound, roll a dice. on a 4+ it regains a wound lost earlier in the battle."?

About the Archon and Stratagems, i find strange that GW hasn't come up with a stratagem to force a reroll on the enemy dices. And i would love to see such a simple, yet awesome stratagem to represent the tactical edge of our Archon.

The problem with that is it could just as easily help the enemy as hinder them ... I mean yes using it at the right time such as making them rerolling a long distance charge that they made or a high damage roll ... but that could result in higher damage or honestly since most people don't roll charge unless they are close enough that failure is highly unlikely or they have a reroll already (in which case we can't force them to reroll again) so it would be incredibly situational and the one time I would see it being worth it (to make the opponent reroll the "no escape" roll) isn't really worth it to me ... I'm not gonna claim to be a tactical genius and I am more then likely missing some glaringly obvious use for this that would make it amazing, but that's my two cents on why that kinda stratagem doesn't exist. I also mentioned a while ago that haemies should have a healing aura ... And it was met with general dislike saying it wasn't fluffy to the haemunculous or to the army :/ ... But I still think it's something our army needs.

What we need is our zany and wacky contraptions. Such as the anti-photon engine and such, cool stuff like that.

Although it can be argued any way for any army. "We need this, we need that". To me it's what makes us play how we should and be able to have fun whilst doing it. Lightning fast, hard hitting, hard to catch and most of all terrifying.

Combined double post -Jimsolo