| Brood Brother |
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Joined: Fri Mar 03, 2006 1:25 am
Posts: 59
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Especially given the way SG seems to be going at the moment, it's highly unlikely that the Marine and Eldar lists will officially change much, if at all, in the forseable future. Our job is to balance new lists against what's already there, not second guess something that's not even likely to happen. |
So, essentially you're saying that even though Vampires and Thunderhawks would be more deserving of such a special rule, we can give it to the Manta and laugh at the Marine and Eldar players because we've one-upped them and they can't respond? (Caustic tone purely an attempt at humor)
This is "codex creep", plain and simple. It's like seeing the Eldar aircraft and giving the Tau better aircraft, saying that even though the Eldar are supposed to have the best aircraft, the Tau flyers somehow 'need' this and it's the Eldar players' problem that their rules don't reflect the fluff. This is extreme, but it's like giving Kroot 4+ RA and an invulnerable save and then claiming that Termies aren't as durable as they should be. Rule changes should only be introduced with the understanding that other official rules are out there - even if something suits an experimental unit, it should not have the ability if there's another more deserving unit that goes without.
To my mind, the Manta in its current incarnation is a result of a desire for a Warlord-equivalent. I don't mean that it's something that fills in for a Warlord, but that it's the big 850 pointer of the list. You've come up with something that many of you already think 'feels' like a Manta - why mess with the way it plays? If it's not worth 850 points, bring it down a bit. If ya'll think it ought to have 1+ initiative, go for it - just be sure you're not giving it 1+ only to make it worth 850 points.
In short, we should first be asking what the Manta ought to be. We should then approximate this with the rules as closely as possible, keeping in mind that other rules create some restrictions (Imperial Titans being the best in a straight slugfest, Eldar being the fastest, etc). Once we've got that, we give it an appropriate points value instead of the current arbitrary 850. I think that what we've got currently works really well (excepting minor disagreements over the TK value of a Railcannon). Does self-Planetfall really seem like something a massive near-starship should be able to do, especially when other, much more capable craft aren't allowed it, and especially when it requires the addition of another special rule? If you're just trying to throw this in as a balancing mechanism, why not simply lower the cost of the thing?
To my mind, it doesn't matter whether or not this proposal makes it worth 850 points. I could playtest it (if I was able to play at the moment - home for the summer and no one's around) and find it to be perfectly balanced, and it would still strike me as a bad idea. It just wouldn't feel like a Manta, a craft whose primary purpose is to transport Cadres and provide them with support fire. It would feel like a 100x scale Deathwind pod. I imagine the things hovering ominously over the battlefield, or coming down from orbit while laying down a blistering barrage of fire. I just can't picture them plummeting so quickly that weapons can't target them, only to stop on a dime and start disembarking troops. Teleport makes sense, and I'd fully support that as a step towards a fluffier Manta. Planetfall does not.
There's also the issue of respect for the players of other races. Even if GW long ago abandoned this sort of attitude towards players of non-Marine 40k races, it's important to keep in mind that people play the race they do for a reason - sometimes that reason involves an in-game attribute of the race. The Guard have great artillery - that's a selling point. If the Orks were suddenly to get wonderful artillery, a great many Guard players would be mighty upset - that's their 'thing' and the Orks stole it. In this case, Marines are known for air assaults and for being able to deliver a massive strike via planetfall. Such a Manta goes a long way towards stealing Marine thunder. As far as the Eldar go, the thought that this clumsy behemoth is capable of a maneuver unavailable to their much quicker Vampire Raider is a slap in the face. This list doesn't just affect Tau players - when made official (or when treated as official) it will force comparisons between its rules and those of other races, and we should try to avoid putting people out as much as possible.
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We're not trying to re-define a core rule concept that would affect all armies, merely try out an idea that would grant one specific unit in one army list a minor exception. There is an unnofficial cap on the number of special rules any one list can have and the Tau are pushing that limit right now so we're basically at the one in, one out stage so we have to think these things through and work out if there's a better way of doing something before we resort to a special rule.
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