NOVA Top Lists

How would static CP bonuses work? And with the archon, I can fully see and believe that they would charge head long into the enemy once their plan has been put into motion, remember they plan everything well ahead of time, so much so that (fluff wise) they win the battle before a shot is fired, so they don't exactly need to lead from the back as their army knows what to do and how to do it well before hand. Plus archon, while being incredibly clever and such, are also incalculably arrogant and much like succubus, could never even imagine a situation outside of the very extreme where anyone of the lesser races could challenge their skills, while no matter how for a succubus they are more hand to hand combat efficient and capable than their kabalite followers, they have to be as they face the possibility of assassination on a daily basis, and it wouldn't surprise me if the kabals had forms of martial arts styles, somewhere between the brutal precision of the incubi and the gladatorial combat of the wyches. Plus any archon that lead from the back could be seen as a weak and fearful leader, one easily taken advantage of.

Then, how about "A plan behind a plan: This lesser archon had it's own agenda during this raid and it's no coincidence he is part of it. At the beginning of the game select an ennemy character. This character possess a hidden asset he isn't aware himself. If the archon kill this model in CC, gain a victory point."

dumpeal wrote:

Then, how about "A plan behind a plan: This lesser archon had it's own agenda during this raid and it's no coincidence he is part of it. At the beginning of the game select an ennemy character. This character possess a hidden asset he isn't aware himself. If the archon kill this model in CC, gain a victory point."

If I'm going to be brutally honest, that seems like a rule that would be useless in 90% of games. I guess it's a perfect fit for out HQs.

Put simply, I think there are far too many HQs around that will either be nigh impossible to reach (buried deep within bubble wrap) or which completely outclass the Archon. It also doesnt work if the Archon damages the HQ in question but his Lhamaean performs the killing blow.

And when the reward is a single Command Point, it just doesn't seem worth bothering about.


If anything, it seems like it would be better to reward the DE player with a CP whenever one of his own HQs dies (so long as he has at least one surviving Archon). Call it 'Just As Planned' or 'He Was Going To Betray Me Anyway'.

This would give the DE player a legitimate reason to his his HQs aggressively and give them a function even in death (which is pretty likely, given their stats).

Archon_91 wrote:

How would static CP bonuses work?

By 'static' I mean the number of CP awarded is unchanging. Before the battle even begins you know exactly how much extra CP you can or will gain.

Examples:

"At the start of each battle round, gain 1CP"

"Before the game begins, gain 2CP"

"Once an enemy unit has been completely destroyed in the Morale phase, gain 1CP"

"Each time your Warlord slays an enemy character, gain 2CP"

I'm just throwing these out there as examples, but basically I think you can fine tune balance in the CP game by just hard coding the bonuses rather than running the risk of imbalance when CP (re)generation just snowballs on itself...

As it applies to Drukhari.... if Labyrinthine Cunning is the Warlord Trait chosen by 90% of Drukhari generals, then our Warlord traits are not well balanced, and the CP game is probably not as balanced as it could be.

A rules designer could address the imbalance by removing the variable factor.

Warlord traits that grant CP are definitely too powerful currently, as that's part of why the Guard CP battery detachment is so powerful and why Black Heart warlords are so common. I'm not certain of this but I'd also suspect that the only time Alliance of Agony is used in competitive lists is so that a Haemonculus can give some free CP.

Command Points and their generation pretty clearly need a rework of some kind.

Burnage wrote:

Warlord traits that grant CP are definitely too powerful currently, as that's part of why the Guard CP battery detachment is so powerful and why Black Heart warlords are so common. I'm not certain of this but I'd also suspect that the only time Alliance of Agony is used in competitive lists is so that a Haemonculus can give some free CP.

Command Points and their generation pretty clearly need a rework of some kind.

Agreed.


As I see it, there are a few problems that need addressing:

1) The way in which CP are initially generated (via detachments) doesn't seem quite right. It's basically just a reward for having good/cheap troops.

If GW want to reward players for taking more troops, would it not make more sense to give CPs based on the number (or percentage )of points you spend on troops? e.g. you could start with 1CP for every 100pts you spend on troops.

This way, a full unit of 20 Necron Warriors (240pts) is worth 6 minimum IG Infantry Squads (40pts each).

It might even encourage people to take upgrades on their troops, in order to reach certain thresholds.

2) Allies. As it stands, there seems to be a vague trend of armies which can easily generate CP having worse stratagems than armies which tend to have much more limited CP.

However, allies allow every Imperium faction to circumvent that by just taking a cheap IG detachment to both greatly increase their starting CPs and also give them a ton of CP regeneration.

I know this will probably be unpopular, but I think when you use allies, you should have to choose one faction to be your primary one. Your warlord has to come from this faction and your other factions can't generate CP by any means or use any stratagems other than rulebook ones. Because, let's be honest here, there needs to be a legitimate reason to *not* take allies. I'm not even sure it would be enough, but I think it would at least be a start.

3) CP regeneration abilities should not be predicated on the number of CP you or your opponent spend. They should either just generate a single CP each turn or else give you one under some sort of condition (e.g. whenever you kill a character in melee). The key point is that they should never be triggered by spending CPs.

The issue at the moment is one of 'the rich get richer'. Armies that start with lots of CPs have lots to spend and thus many, many chances to activate all their regeneration abilities. In contrast, armies with few CPs will have very few chances to activate their own regeneration abilities and so (unless they have an ability that regenerates CP whenever opponents spend them) the lead between them is only going to widen.

4) You've already mentioned this but CP generation from warlord traits and artefacts really needs to die. It just makes those traits/artefacts auto-include and puts them in a completely different league to all the other options.

I'm all for only allowing one main detachment for use of stratagems. In my mind allies should only be taken to shore up weaknesses in the main army, so I think allies should be taken because you need their units, not to get easy cp/stratagems, and choosing a main faction helps this

There is a really solid system already in place, for the most part. I think what needs tweaking is just the input/output of the CP system...how much CP gets generated by detachments or items/abilities, and how much value can be milked from it.

There's nothing innately offensive about anything CPs allow players to do - there's nothing innately offensive about STRONG abilities, stats, units, etc. The design team just need to find the sweet spot by balancing the costs appropriately, we've already seen them do it with detachment CP bonuses and I'm sure we'll see it again.

9th Edition system should be pretty tight I'm hoping.

Soulless Samurai wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

Then, how about "A plan behind a plan: This lesser archon had it's own agenda during this raid and it's no coincidence he is part of it. At the beginning of the game select an ennemy character. This character possess a hidden asset he isn't aware himself. If the archon kill this model in CC, gain a victory point."

If I'm going to be brutally honest, that seems like a rule that would be useless in 90% of games. I guess it's a perfect fit for out HQs.

Put simply, I think there are far too many HQs around that will either be nigh impossible to reach (buried deep within bubble wrap) or which completely outclass the Archon. It also doesnt work if the Archon damages the HQ in question but his Lhamaean performs the killing blow.

And when the reward is a single Command Point, it just doesn't seem worth bothering about.


If anything, it seems like it would be better to reward the DE player with a CP whenever one of his own HQs dies (so long as he has at least one surviving Archon). Call it 'Just As Planned' or 'He Was Going To Betray Me Anyway'.

This would give the DE player a legitimate reason to his his HQs aggressively and give them a function even in death (which is pretty likely, given their stats).

I wasn't suggesting gaining Command Point. I was suggesting gaining VICTORY Points

dumpeal wrote:

Soulless Samurai wrote:

dumpeal wrote:

Then, how about "A plan behind a plan: This lesser archon had it's own agenda during this raid and it's no coincidence he is part of it. At the beginning of the game select an ennemy character. This character possess a hidden asset he isn't aware himself. If the archon kill this model in CC, gain a victory point."

If I'm going to be brutally honest, that seems like a rule that would be useless in 90% of games. I guess it's a perfect fit for out HQs.

Put simply, I think there are far too many HQs around that will either be nigh impossible to reach (buried deep within bubble wrap) or which completely outclass the Archon. It also doesnt work if the Archon damages the HQ in question but his Lhamaean performs the killing blow.

And when the reward is a single Command Point, it just doesn't seem worth bothering about.


If anything, it seems like it would be better to reward the DE player with a CP whenever one of his own HQs dies (so long as he has at least one surviving Archon). Call it 'Just As Planned' or 'He Was Going To Betray Me Anyway'.

This would give the DE player a legitimate reason to his his HQs aggressively and give them a function even in death (which is pretty likely, given their stats).

I wasn't suggesting gaining Command Point. I was suggesting gaining VICTORY Points

So you did.

I think what I said still largely applies, though I appreciate that a Victory Point would be a little more valuable.

Regardless, I apologise for my misreading your earlier post.