I was referring to the 50 point Rad Bomb car. I've not had a chance to consider the other suggestions in detail or compare them against similar units in other armies yet; that one was just the outstanding version


From a general design point of view, restricting a player to one of each car would make the train able to do lots of things but not do any of them very well.

Raising the cost of the Rad bomb through the roof could make it externally balanced (damage capability per point spent) against other armies, but having a small amount of very expensive static formations isn't as much fun and can lead to a list being rock-paper-scissors where it would demolish slow distant enemies but die horribly to thunderhawk assaults etc.

I'd generally suggest picking a unit that already exists and has been approved in the game and using that for a starting point for power and cost.

You might find that the land train is an extremely good concept but it is simply extremely difficult to balance a very hard to kill War Engine that can fire 9BP MW 120cm, and that it would be much easier with the more conventional weapon load-outs.

From a 'theme' point of view, you might also find that if a player has the option to fire that sort of thing Indirect, the Land Train never moves during the entire game. Why ever leave the station?


Well that was longer than expected but you did say you wanted discussion Moscovian

One solution is to limit the number of duplicate cars per train. This would solve the problem of having five of the same type and probably easier to balance. Also, model availability would be less of an issue. How many people, besides Primarch and maybe L4, own five of each car? I have only three engines and three of each car.

On the flip slide, would a car limit lead to the Land Train not being worth its point cost?

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"I don't believe in destiny or the guiding hand of fate." N. Peart

noticed in the Stubborn special rule there is no longer any mention of the +1 to rally - now its just a restricted withdrawal move and hack down kills take effect froms 5cm not 15cm. Intentional?

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May your tankard never be dry and the Dice Gods look favourably upon your endeavours!

It was causing a few people to get confused, so I simply moved it to the Army List. You'll notice it says there all formations rally on a 1+. In many respects its easier to look it up there as that is where most players will refer anyway.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

ok thanks

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May your tankard never be dry and the Dice Gods look favourably upon your endeavours!

Some food for thought. I've got plenty more on some of the stats but this is what stood out to me the most.

Stubborn "may only take a single maximum withdrawal move of 15cm when breaking". My Thunderfire can withdraw 15cm, same goes for my bikes.

I think the army list needs a bit more flexibility in formation sizes to account for what people have laying around. For base numbers, something like (upgrades are in parentheses):



This does a couple of things:
1) the core units are based on what you got in a box set (5 sprues) or in a blister pack
2) you now have some added flexibility in unit size to account for some odd eBay lots you've picked up along the way
3) you have a bit of flexibility on how to upgrade your formations (somewhere between marines and orks)
4) the formations sizes are a better match for the SM/TL formations cards (aka what people are likely to have laying around in models)
5) you don't have the mandatory "rare as hen's teeth" Hearthguard

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Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

Interesting suggestions, but what you are talking about is essentially scrapping the list and starting all over.

Anyone have any thoughts on the land train? Anyone?

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Adding two new formations and some formation size flexibility is starting all over? How so?

Nearly all of the current formations builds that have been tested are represented above, that count's for something. I'm just looking for you to loosen up the restrictions a bit. The Ork list is one of if not the most balanced list in the game. If we can take anything from it it's that the al-a-carte upgrades (as above) aren't huge balance considerations.

_________________
Dave

Blog

NetEA Tournament Pack Website

Squats 2019-10-17

I can't even get my a-la-carte train balanced or commented on and you want me to do it to eight different formations?
It's an interesting idea, but where was it six months ago?

What I will do though is try to build the Trade Consortium list with your recommendations. It's going to be done from scratch and it would make sense for them to be more flexible in their builds. Better yet, the War Engine list would benefit from more flexible builds.

To answer your questions though, I made the Thunderers upgrades, so they are in there. Once again, I don't mind making them an independent formation for a different Stronghold or for the Trade Consortium, but it is quite something to backtrack on it now.

I need to clarify the withdrawal move as units with less than 15cm would be held to their movement (5cm move would withdraw 5cm, etc.).

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Stubborn
Regarding the confusing stubborn phrasing, you might run with the suggested text in my post here?

You noted on that thread that the intention was to restrict squats (regardless of the individual unit's movement) to not moving more than 15cm during their withdrawal. What's the game reasoning behind that?

Land Train
Regarding the Land Train, I'd be inclined to offer a single iconic version – one of each car, perhaps – for a set amount of points. You might allow some limited option, in the style of the Eldar titans/Ork gargants. This follows the precedent of the rest of the game, and leaves space for the a la carte train in a future specialised War Engine list.

Rules/naming consistency

Like the flyer reference in the autonom rule, I think this is confusing, personally. I'd like to see more consistency of terms and phrasing with the rest of the game.
Planning ahead, 'Large/small/etc Pithead' would be a simple approach for all units that have the pithead rule.
Similarly, the weapon naming/layout is sometimes confusing (listed some in my earlier post).

Real world considerations vs. army list writing
I don't like model availability considerations to be weighted unfairly when writing army lists, particularly when the official models are long out of print. I'd rather Moscovian had the freedom to write a good, balanced list that fits into the game than struggles to adhere to awkward arrangements of models.

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Industrious, red-robe wearing member of the PCRC

Apologist, I didn't go with your phrasing because by changing the language the way you suggested it changes the rule by giving large withdrawal moves of 35cm to the Iron Eagles and 30cm to the bikes and trikes.

I didn't ignore your comments, honestly. If you look I did take some of your suggestions and incorporated the wording as suggested. But this and other suggestions like changing the autonom wording actually changed the rule in a manner that I did not want.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

Ah, don't worry – apologies if my last post came off as a bit curt; difficult to get the tone right over text!


Okey-dokey – on that basis, I'm assuming there's a gameplay or background reason for all the units to be restricted to a 15cm move. Is that right? If you could explain it, it'd help with comments.

I'm intending to get a playtest game in at some point. Apologies I can't be any less vague than that, but it'd be lovely to head off the few queries I do have about the list beforehand

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Industrious, red-robe wearing member of the PCRC

I'm a firm believer that all lists should come with their own set of FAQs and the Squats are not exempt. I will endeavor to do so this week while I am cleaning up the 1.4 list. No apologies needed (although perhaps that is in your nature, aka your pseudonym ).

Thanks for your continued interest.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

FYI the flyer autonom rule section is there because we're going to add autonom flyers to the Trade Consortium list and we want the rule to be consistent across the lists. It's there by design.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

It's a dog-eat-dog world, and I've got my Milkbone underwear on.

I'd be happy to have another look. What is the latest version, just to be sure I don't comment on a previous iteration.