From my point of view and what i read the problem is that a mechanized Warband is too expensive (similar to Aspect Warriors that rarely take Wave Serpents) and brittle, more than the Battlewagons by themselves bad. Then the solution is to make the mechanized formation cheaper or the battlewagons/fortress cheaper.
Also, since there has been talks of 10-15 points Battlewagons, take their weapons out and keep only the transport part a better option in my opinion would be to add in the Trukk to the list which is very similar to what it is proposed and easy to add. There is no need to make complete changes to a long standing unit if there is already another with the desired stats and costs.
- For the first, making the formation cheaper, i think that the best option is to use the formula Tau Fire Cadre formations use for making on foot and mechanized with the same line while keeping the cost, which seems to have made mechanized formations popular:
With Trukks:
Warband - 200 350 500 - 2 Nobz 6 Boyz and 2 Grotz OR 2 Nobz 4 Boyz 2 Grotz and 8 TrukkOr just use what we have so ...
Warband - 200 350 500 - 2 Nobz 6 Boyz and 2 Grotz OR 2 of Nobz, Boyz, Grotz and Battlewagon they fit into the points and into the transports. The numbers are a bit lower (2 less) but the formation while still brittle is cheap enough to spam and not regret about its lost and could be used to swarm the player with infantry like in fluff, and more important, no stat has been changed and no new unit has been added, so the changes are kept to a minimum on the list, but not on its gameplay.
- For the second option, making the transports cheaper: While it is true that Battlewagons are a bit expensive, they are not more than Gunwagons. Looking at just their numbers don't seem to give the feeling that they are so bad neither when comparing them with other wagons or with their closest cousins the Chimeras (10 points less for one less passenger and one less AT6+) for example. Their main problem, as with the Battlefortress, seems to come more from the same issue as with Warbuggies, that the versatility isn't valued, making the unit not expensive by itself but expensive as just a transport. Battlewagons have a bit of everything and what most people ask here is to take out what isn't needed to transport and make a specialized transport same as how Skorchas are liked for being specialists at 15cm.
So if they were to get a decrease in points, i think that Battlefortress are OK with another small point decrease (110?) but with Battlewagons if they are deemed worse than Guns an Flaks i would prefer to make them better than worse to lower the points, But if their points were to be lowered to 25, i would go to switch the CC and FF values, lower their FF value to 6+ or even lower the armour. That would suffice and any other change would make the unit completely different, making adding Trukks to the list a better option.
Kyrt wrote:
Why do gunwagons and flakwagons have better CC than battlewagons by the way?
Probably because they focused on the balance of their stats more than the balnce in usefulness: compared with Gunwagons and Flakwagons, Battlewagons have better ground shooting and more transport capacity with the same armour, so they had to nerf them somewhere. Looking at the miniatures it is quite random, 1st and 4th edition Battlewagons are smaller in size and weapons, like Warhammer 40k 2nd Ed. Battlewagon, but many in 2nd and all in 3rd are humongous with big CC and FF weapons.
But given the popularity of each wagon, it should be Flaks the ones that should have worse assault stats, not Battlewagons.
