The Big One: Reworking the Power from Pain Mechanic

Tounguekutter wrote:: I would also love a similar mechanic, but I think that it would be tough to create a mechanic that would be even only roughly good against all armies. Allow me to elaborate:
1) Leadership shenanigans: Custodes, Grey Knights, Vehicles, and other low-model count armies are almost or in some cases actually immune
2) Killing things: Impossible to strike a balance between the above armies being unlikely to generate anything significant, but not completely unbeatable against horde armies. Even if it was based off of inflicting wounds rather than killing models, vehicles would still be immune (I shudder to think at the fluff-crime it would be for a Leman Russ to be taken prisoner. Not the occupants, but the tank itself)(But they're torturing the machine spirit! [weak laughter]), and models with strong saves would still make the game mechanic tilted in favor of fighting hordes.

The only options I see left are making it totally random, or based on the turn count as well.

These are also the same kinds of problems that hamstrings the Power from Pain rule, which is why in my Fandex I've brought back the old pain token system, only this time its based off of attacking units rather than actually killing them out-right, which rewards alpha-striking and aggression, something I think most Drukhari players can get behind.

Here is the latest version of my PfP ability re-write:

Power From Pain:

As a side note, <Coven> units with the PfP ability also have the Unnaturally Resilient abilty:
Unnaturally Resilient: Replace the “Move Like Quicksilver” bonus from the Power from Pain ability with “When this model suffers a wound from a multiple damage weapon, reduce the damage by 1 to a minimum of 1.” Additionally, replace the “Inured to Suffering” ability with “If the unit suffers a wound or Mortal wound roll a dice. On a 4+ the wound is ignored.”

The Unnaturally Resilient ability is meant to replace Coven units' Insensible to Pain rule, but I'm open to the idea of it just being a bonus. That would probably warrant a point increase though, something I would rather not do to keep All-Coven armies more viable with a cheapish Troop option.

Thoughts?

Hekatrix Posts : 1392 Join date : 2015-06-21

I was actually thinking we could more or less steal the Khorne Demonkin Bloodtithe mechanic.

It's cool. ~~Haters~~ GW will say it's too powerful. Love that Coven actually get their supposed resilience.

I'm not sure the bloodtithe mechanic is appropriate for us. I feel that, at least fluffwise, we're more about hurting than killing, which OP's suggestion reflects better. Also, I like the idea of individual units becoming stronger, and this probably scales a bit better with points.

Kabalite Warrior Posts : 188 Join date : 2014-01-21

In my opinion I would make the power from pain a more resilience based tool, as in the lore the pain and suffering rejuvenates us, whilst I can see the argument for making us faster etc our main issue is staying power. On that front we are little better than IG.

I would suggest increasing toughness or even a stacking increase to the Power for Pain ignoring wounds save. So as our forces dwindle the ones that remain become harder to kill, similar to a vampire that has just fed or the wraith from Stargate Atlantis, so our vehicles may crash and burn and many of us die but the ones that make will just be unbillable.

Vindicavi wrote:: In my opinion I would make the power from pain a more resilience based tool, as in the lore the pain and suffering rejuvenates us, whilst I can see the argument for making us faster etc our main issue is staying power. On that front we are little better than IG.

I would suggest increasing toughness or even a stacking increase to the Power for Pain ignoring wounds save. So as our forces dwindle the ones that remain become harder to kill, similar to a vampire that has just fed or the wraith from Stargate Atlantis, so our vehicles may crash and burn and many of us die but the ones that make will just be unbillable.

If the goal was for Power From Pain to be a strictly defensively buffing mechanic, than you could justify diversifying the types of buffs as some come from being able to shrug off wounds and others are speed related.

Personally, I like that the Dark Eldar are fragile in exchange for greater performance in other areas of the game, but I'd understand if that isn't the direction you'd like your own homebrew to take.

FuelDrop wrote:: I was actually thinking we could more or less steal the Khorne Demonkin Bloodtithe mechanic.

I thought about that but then I thought about how ineffective it would make us against low-model count armies and how broken we'd be against hordes. I wanted a mechanic that didn't depend on what your opponent was bringing to work.

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