The 1.3 updates were seemingly well received and the playtesting thus far has been productive and stable for the most part. There are some culprits that needed to be dealt with and unfortunately they are not likely to be the only ones. Still, I figured it would be better to deal with a 1.31 list and get it out ASAP.

Firstly, I have made the actual PDF smaller by removing all the descriptor holders and such and simply made it a reference sheet, special rules, and a cost sheet. Five pages. Yes, I should have done that months ago. Yes, I acknowledge I am a terrible person.

Living Ancestor: In my attempt to make him interesting I initially gave him an invulnerable save amongst other abilities. One of the players pointed out that this gave any War Engine he rode in an invulnerable save for each DC, which was not the intent. So I stripped away everything except his re-roll. Then he disappeared from the playtest games, so I have put 'leader' back in with the intent of making him more appealing.

All the errors written into the tunnelers should be gone now. I think... Hope? Oh well, I am sure I screwed something up.

Overlord Airship - I have removed the one-off bomb racks. I disagree that they are too much work to keep track of (as an Elysian player who has sometimes two dozen skimmer AVs to keep track of their one-shots, I don't find the book keeping annoying at all). What I do agree with is that the balance of the Overlord is extremely difficult to find, and having the option to drop 8BP all at once (even if within 15cm) is too much to variable for my little brain. And so I moved them to 2BP and left the price at 225. This will hopefully encourage some mixture of play with the Overlords (singles running primarily on their autocannons while doubles will try to take advantage of a 4BP bomb drop).

Land Train discrepancies have hopefully been cleaned up.

I am not foolish enough to believe that the 1.31 list is the final iteration, however the list feels considerably closer to done than it did six months ago. I do hope the feedback will continue to flow in as I wish to get to work on the next two Squat lists which will be included in the supplement.

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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 with Living Ancestor, but I had to go back to the previous version to check what it was.

Are the Cyclops and Colossus getting 3+ CC & FF? I'm happy with that as a change to help justify the cost.

Dropping of the bomb racks to only 2BP is fine with me, however in my area we'd only play 2 Overlords together if there was a discount as activations are key.

Ok cool with an update. Two things I noted.

The Warlord upgrade notes lack "plus transport".

The Living Ancestor notes include "ancient wisdom", but the rule is not included in the special rules section.


Other than that I think that the overlords still are underpriced. You get a lot of attacks (with good and medium range) compared to say a baneblade. I have just moved and changed city. Haven't got anyone to play yet so I will not be able to test in a while, but it would be interesting to see someone stress test them. Perhaps taking 3 or 4 overlords in a 3000p game.

Thanks
/B

I did that... Batrep is up somewhere... The Overlords were blasted from the sky. I am still on the fence for the price, but I think the 225-250 points is the right ballpark. With that said, I don't see 25-100 points per game (1-3% of total army value) making a vast difference, certainly nothing we can pinpoint in a single game. I will definitely keep the price change on the table.

I went in and changed the master document to fix my oversights. Thanks for the catches! I also found another mistake - Rapiers unable to be transported in the Leviathan. I fixed that too.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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

My experience with Overlords was different my first Squat battle report. But I'm still new to playing with them and want to try out all the options before commenting too much other than expressing feelings. I certainly can see how IG will love playing against Overlords, as will Necrons.

Just another quick question regarding the support options which is to have upto 3 Support per Brotherhood. This gives the option of taking a Berserker Brotherhood + Rhinos (175pts) & 3x Thunderfire Batteries (300pts) as a basic option. Multiplied up through to 3000pts and your opponent could be facing 24 activations. Admittedly only 6 of them can move, but it is still alot of potential activations that they have to work through.

My question is, is there a reason for 3 support or could we reduce it down to 2 without too much effect on existing armies?

I don't think it would screw things up too much. Although the Berserkers are so cheap I doubt you can avoid the spamming of formations regardless of a 1:2 or 1:3 ratio. At 1:2 you end up with 24 activations and with the 1:3 ratio you end up with 25 activations.

Of the 24 activations you would have 8 formations that could move that had no ranged attack whatsoever, 16 formations that couldn't move that would break with a single loss, no supreme commander, no specialty units... I've seen theoryhammer lists like this on many lists including the Necrons when spamming Monoliths was the big concern. The lists died terribly. Elysians are constantly accused of being able to spam activations and -having an Elysian list- I have not found the utility in spamming.

Changing the Berserkers is an option, but it really doesn't affect the outcome enough. The problem is really the Thunderfire Cannon Batteries at 100 points each. Any Squat spam list is going to include them because it is an easy way to make a point, but I don't see a way around them. They don't move! I can't attach them to any formation except the heavy artillery which actually can move (albeit slowly), and even that marriage makes little sense. I suppose I could make them formations strictly of 3 for 175 but then I'll get grief from 1) people who don't have the models and 2) the people who are getting 3 AA shots per formation plugging them.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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

I think just about every list can do something like spamming but the question would be why? Is there something you can do with what you're playing that can really use those extra activations?

The 3 support slots work for me so I can have some variety in the army. The large brotherhoods still make me feel like it's an infantry army with support. Besides there's not much that can be abused in the support section (except the overlords it seems).

PS: Got me a game last weekend vs SM and Biel-tan but being a game with a "reserves" rule the overlords arrived late and didn't do anything. Again, the game was won using a dense pack of infantry with the WE, thudd guns and mole mortars in support and guild bike and iron eagles for flank duty and limited counter-attacks.

I agree that there are lots of lists where you can spam activations. That was why I was asking. Suffered in tonight's game from lack of aircraft/not having any tunnellers. Will give brief report later.

Tim,

You aren't the first person to suggest a 1:2 ratio and I am open on the subject still. The only reason I am hesitant is it doesn't limit the spamming as suggested (the reason why those folk are asking for the 1:2 ratio in the first place).

I am quite interested in your game results. I played against Chaos with the Squats a couple weeks back and lost 2 to 1. If I wasn't so stubborn myself it would have been a 3 to 1 loss. The reasons for my loss weren't necessarily attributable to any one thing other than my lack of familiarity with the Chaos list I was playing against. On a side note I managed to use my Leviathan as a transport for Berserkers successfully. Moving them up along an open road, dumping them in the woods and prepping for an assault on turn 2. My opponent thought it was a dang good move. But then I got destroyed pretty much everywhere else.

_________________
author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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

I like having the 1:3 ratio to give flexibility and variety.

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

If you are concerned about spamming the Beserker brotherhood formations, you could tie them to the number of Warrior brotherhoods, eg "there may not be more Beserker brotherhood formations than Warrior brotherhood formations" etc

Sort of Battle Report here.

A question that did come up is that with the Stubborn rule you only have the upto 15cm move when you become broken. What happens in the end phase if you fail to rally, do you only have a 15cm move or can you do a normal double move?

On the support to core side, having slept on it, I'm more relaxed about the number this morning and am thinking about how I could put together a shooty army of support options.

One thing that did catch me out this weekend was that the Overload has lost its AA shot. Any particular reason for this?