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IonHeads

CyberShadow

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 10:47 am

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Location: Singapore

This thread is split off from the SkyRay thread.

The point was made that the AA ability of the IonHead is a little strange. While I understand the reasoning (this should be a direct equivalent to the RailHead, and 40K dictates the target priority and range stats) I do feel that the AA ability sidesteps some tactical decisions on the part of the Tau player.

In an ideal world (well, my ideal world where I am rich, Adriana Lima keeps visiting and I have a huge Epic Tau force painted up...) I would like to drop the AA ability of the IonHead - putting the Skyray as the AA focus where it should be - and still leave the IonHead and RailHead as equivalent units at the same price, making it a tactical decision which selections are made for the unit.

I am open to suggestions on this!

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Moscovian

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 11:40 am

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Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2005 6:32 pm
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Location: Allentown, Pennsylvania USA

I support the move.

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Evil and Chaos

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 12:39 pm

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Location: Harrogate, Yorkshire

I support this.

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Honda

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 2:01 pm

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Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:44 pm
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Location: Katy, Republic of Texas

Although I am not married to the AA ability and can support either position, is anyone discovering that this is an unbalancing factor?

I freely admit that I usually take an AMHC with 6-8 x Ionheads as one of my basic staples, however, it has never been because of the AA. I take Ionheads for the AP+3.

So, I'll push back on the proposal a little and ask again, is this unit sweeping the skies in your games?

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orkybob

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 2:08 pm

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Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2005 4:32 pm
Posts: 78

Also would you suggest a points change for this? If we lose the AA ability then more resource will have to be placed into purchasing Skyrays and at 75pts a pop thats not insignificant....

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orkybob

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 2:13 pm

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Joined: Mon Nov 28, 2005 4:32 pm
Posts: 78

(CyberShadow @ Aug. 04 2006,10:47)

QUOTE

and still leave the IonHead and RailHead as equivalent units at the same price,

Ooopppss guess I should learn to read properly!!

I would have thought that seeing as the units haven't been shown to be unbalnced that we should have a drop in price to accomadate this removal of ability. Something like 50 points drop for cadre and 25 for contingent.. (probably too big a drop though so maybe just drop 25 points for cadre... and leave contingent??)

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Tactica

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 4:22 pm

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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241

CS,

In spirit, I support the change. Ion-head should not have AA from fluff.

In doing this though, you will open up a gap in the list.

Skyray will become relied upon more and it really is not an AA element of force.

I think Honda points out that in current Tau games, the AA umbrella hardly stops the enemy aircraft from having their way. It does cause them pause though and occasionally we take down a craft or two - again, in present sense.

The Aircraft assault can cripple the tau as an army if its to execute against the Tau.

The Tau player must have a facility to prevent that army breaking tactic lest it become the one trick pony to beating Tau.

So be mindful of the balance the ion-heads yield the Tau list in its current dual purpose role. Reducing the AA will make the units value diminish slightly, but create a larger hole in the list when it comes to AA cover - thus affecting the balance of certain tactics.

If you move forward with this, I have a couple questions:

1) If the ion-head was fairly pointed before, will the loss of some functionality now affect points?

2) Is there currently proof that AA cover is too strong in the current Tau list - thus needing reduction?

3) If the answer is what I think it is "no" to # 2) above, then after reduction of the ion-head AA, how do you propose to also increase other areas of AA to compensate for the reduction of AA to the army?

4) If you do increase the AA of some other unit(s) to compensate for the reduction effect of losing AA on the ion-heads, will said unit(s) go up in cost as a result?

5) If the answer to # 4) above is "yes", then will said increase of the new units be a proportional increase to the reduced cost of the average amount of ion-heads currently being taken?

Basically, if we are removing AA from ion-heads for fluff sake, not for balance - I'm all for it... however, we need to make sure that...

A) the currently balanced amount of AA in the list is relatively unchanged when all is said and done

B) AA reduction here means *proportional* AA increase there

C) points reduction here means *proportional* points increase there

D) A 3000 point army today capable of dealing with X amount of Aircraft threats today should be able to deal with the same X amount of aircraft threats post change.

I'll be interested in your thoughts and approach CS. Please be mindful that you are discussing tampering with an aircraft balance in the list, not just core design representation of ion-heads - which I'm in favor of fixing if it can be done without skewing or imbalancing the list's defenses as a whole in the process.

Cheers,

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Lion in the Stars

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:16 am

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Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 11:01 pm
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Removing the AA capability will require some tweaking to the Ion cannon's stats.

How about 2x AP4+/AT5+? That works out to slightly better than the current stats, and reflects the rate of fire the IC has in 40k (An Ion Cannon has 3 shots/turn in 40k, while a Railgun has 1).

Doing this will cause some interesting changes in the use of Skyrays. They are going to go from a Railhead analog, to an absolute requirement, probably in every formation that can take one. That's a really big change.

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Evil and Chaos

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:27 am

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Joined: Fri May 05, 2006 2:57 am
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Location: Harrogate, Yorkshire

Well, that's a good thing. The Skyray should be the Tau's main AA recourse.

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Ilushia

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 12:41 am

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Joined: Mon May 08, 2006 10:50 am
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Being the one who originally voiced the concern over the AA ability on Ionheads, I'd like to see them lose it. One reason is I think it's too good (They're essentially half the fire-power of an Ork Flakkwagon with MUCH better AP/AT/Mobility/Armor/Range, comparatively. They do cost more (They cost a bit under twice as much. 62.5 points each or so, compared to 35 points each), but their fire-power against vehicles is roughly 50% better, and against infantry is even better then that. They have twice the range, the same move speed, are skimmers and have 50% better armor-save rate. I don't think they're over-powered, but I do think that giving them AA is unneccessary and I keep seeing units which are not AA units with AA weapons... In the 3 core lists each list has one AA weapon... The Eldar have a LOT of AA on their stuff. (I don't think Fire Prisms should have AA either, but that seems to just be me). In any case, the AA capacity on Ionheads just doesn't feel right to me. And I don't think it'd drastically unbalance them compared to Railheads to lose it. They still have much better chances of hitting infantry and while somewhat shorter range I wouldn't consider it sufficiently shorter to stop them being effective. (Oh no? I'm inside range that the rhino-marines can reach shooting range on a double instead of a march?)

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Dobbsy

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Sun Aug 06, 2006 2:21 am

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Joined: Wed Oct 05, 2005 1:24 am
Posts: 4499
Location: Melbourne, Australia

CS- will the drop of AA be balanced for the Tau if/when Neal Hunt's Air power changes come into effect?

An aircraft formation only collects Blast markers if it is attacked by AA weapons. The formation receives one Blast marker for each hit it suffers, even if the hit is saved. No Blast markers are received for ?coming under fire?.

A 6 unit Ionhead AMHC will hit 1 out of 6 times. How is this unbalanced for these rules? How is it unbalanced for the present rules? It represents ONE BM for heaven's sake.

This means in the average Tau army you may end up with one, maybe 2, Skyrays given their high cost. Not much of an umbrella really - plus an extra expense of 150 points which I struggle to spend NOW given the fragile nature of the Tau army as a whole (this in relation to unit sizes and numbers of activations and what is needed to make it a viable fighting force)

Also, and more controversially, I would propose that if you push this change through to the Ion, that we drop all the extraneous weapons on the Skyray to bring down it's cost and make it a simple AA unit. I would rather have a better AA umbrella than a unit that is a jack of all trades at a high cost - which the Skyray seems to be.

I'm not saying I'm against doing this CS. I will deal with it if you decide to do it, but please be sure this isn't a negative aspect to the list that seems to already be working fine.

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Honda

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 5:57 pm

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Joined: Wed Aug 10, 2005 11:44 pm
Posts: 1891
Location: Katy, Republic of Texas

I'd have to agree with Dobbsy.

It seems that there's an awful lot of noise being generated over 1 BM (statistically speaking) on aircraft. Getting past the feelings and the fluff, where is the negative effect that's throwing off the game?

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Evil and Chaos

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 6:22 pm

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Joined: Fri May 05, 2006 2:57 am
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Location: Harrogate, Yorkshire

Because it's against the background, where the Skyray is supposed to be the only land-based AA platform?

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Tactica

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 6:26 pm

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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241

Those of us that have been through the development of Tau since inseption are quite aware of the protagonists whom which would like to see AA go away on the ion-cannon.

The issue just resurfaces from time to time.

The response really is always the same. We agree with you that it should not be there in fluff. That said, the Skyray does not produce enough AA defense for the Tau army as currently costed / stated in E:A.

The current Skyray is applied to E:A in concert with the amount of AA the army can take elsewhere.

If you eliminate the AA from the ionheads, you make them less valuable and you put more of a demand on the army to field Skyray's in the main force.

This requirement to take more Skyrays to have the same level of defence means you can't take as much of something else in the list that you used too.

That effect causes a chain effect of reduction in power on the list. That's a bad thing as its currently playing pretty balanced games despite the fluff anomoly with the ion-heads.

So in order to remove AA from the ion-head unit, you have to compensate ion-head unit enough to balance the offset of AA lost and now the required additional Skyray purchases that you are going to have to take to provide the list the same coverage.

As discussed every time this issue has come up in the past...

1) One way could be to reduce the Ion-head UNIT cost significantly which will free up the points to buy Skyray's and get the same coverage back to the army that it currently possesses and needs.

2) Another way could be to include a free skyray UNIT in all hammerhead FORMATIONS for free with no points change to the existing FORMATION.

3) Another way is to make the SkyRay significantly better in AA capability, but not change the points so we get significantly more AA bang for the buck out of the Skyray while eliminating it from the ion-heads, but it has to be enough bang to offset the reduction of power in the ion-head units AND has to compensate the additional 75 point requirement to purchase the Skyray.

So, if we are going to seriously entertain removal of AA from the ion-heads, OK... you just hypothetically reduced the AA potential of the list and reduced the value of the ion-head. We obviously cannot leave it there...

So, continuing down the hypothetical path... those in favor of the ion-head AA reduction now have a responsiblity in turn. Now lets here what you are proposing to give back to the Tau list today post AA reduction from the ion-head... you now need to...

1) account for the the reduction

2) account for the new requirment to purchase skyrays (which eat into the list you could have taken before)

3) bring the AA coverge back up to what it is now since you are removing the AA from the ion-heads.

In short, the proposal to remove the AA from the ion-heads can only seriously be entertained with the proposal to balance out the loss and chain effect it causes to the ion-head unit, to the additional requirement of skyray purchases, and the reduction of amount of other units currently being taken in today's army.

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Evil and Chaos

Post subject: IonHeads

Posted: Mon Aug 07, 2006 6:29 pm

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Joined: Fri May 05, 2006 2:57 am
Posts: 20887
Location: Harrogate, Yorkshire

3) Another way is to make the SkyRay significantly better in AA capability, but not change the points so we get significantly more AA bang for the buck out of the Skyray while eliminating it from the ion-heads, but it has to be enough bang to offset the reduction of power in the ion-head units AND has to compensate the additional 75 point requirement to purchase the Skyray.

This is most in-theme with the background no? IMHO this is what should be done.

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