No matter how many gaunts you bring, they'd be butchered on a 16'x12' board. Eldar, w/ their 120cm artillery would also get bombed out of existence by the proper IG artillery. Heck, bring 2x as many points and you'd still get blasted.

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Most of the time, the balance of particular units or formations isn't really an issue (e.g. "I get to field more titans") because although the way the game is played can certainly change, both armies have the same options and access to counters as the points costs increase. For me the major imbalances are therefore in the core rules with absolute numbers attached, and the effects of increasing the size of games on them are more subtle and very difficult to account for.

For example, the number of times you can retain the initiative doesn't scale up. Whilst this applies to both players, it does make some formation types that depend on this tactic (e.g. small formations of assault specialists) decrease in value because stringing together activations is most effective at the beginning of the turn (amongst other reasons). The relative value of formations within a list isn't a problem per se - you just get a different type of list - but some armies depend on these tactics and formations more than others. Eldar and Marines in particular. In the same vein, Eldar special rules (retain twice and consolidate full move) are consequently less effective, relatively speaking, and that is exacerbated by the fact that retaining twice can only be done once per turn.

0-1 limits can be in the same bracket, but only on the assumption that you would take more if you could (e.g. avatars you obviously would because they are free, maybe deathstrikes less so for you).

Consider also objectives. Some might scale fine, most won't. BTS on the face of it seems a problem because the proportion of the army a BTS target represents is reduced, which changes how the game plays for sure. But in reality the change probably effects all armies roughly equally - it makes BTS equally easy to achieve for all armies - so isn't an issue of balance per se. Take and Hold on the other hand means that, despite the increased table size, operations are now constrained over a smaller area (relative to army size). That could have untold consequences on how the game operates overall and be a help or hindrance to different armies respectively. For example maybe assaults become less decisive, and artillery becomes more effective. That'd be fine if armies didn't differ in their focus, but they do.

Deployment zones, same story. Units with unlimited ranges (or more accurately with ranges exceeding what is meaningful for a 6x4 board), likewise.

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Both armies don't necessarily have access to comparable options and counters.

On a huge board Eldar mobility is their equalizer and storm serpents RULE! We increased the deployment area to 45cm deep. Even still it is 135cm to the center of the board. Garrisons are unsupported for quite awhile while marches are in order for the first couple turns as Leman's arrive. Airpower is a serious threat too as 45cm is not all that big anymore. Hydras become tied to the stationary artillery units and even Manticores cannot reach the entire board. Grand batteries abound, but with so much space to maneuver in, often one MAYBE two units are hit by 3-pie plate barrages. BTS can be nearly impossible to even reach if you wish to protect them with distance and forget about achieving the normal blitzkrieg objective (we are looking to change this to be deployed outside your own deployment zone rather than on your edge). We extended the game to check for winners after turn 4 instead of 3.

I do not feel that the size of our game unbalances the units. Making references to 26k games that are all artillery are mental exercises for theoretical critics. You still continue to have mixed arms and coordinating their moves across all that space dramatically adds to the intrigue and challenge of the game. What we see are every unit you own gets played and in so doing are presented with situations that they would not encounter on a 4x6 table with lots of nearby support. To this end it obvious to us that Rough Riders have far too many extra abilities for a paltry 25 pt per stand cost.

Some pics attached.

BTW, Eldar won on Turn 4

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~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...

Basically speaking, the army lists have been well tested in the 2000 - 5000 points range and have been found to be more or less balanced. Outside of that range they've not been tested much and can't be considered balanced.

The responses from a 26,000 point game are interesting, but have little bearing on that balance of the list in the 2000-5000 point range, which is the stated objective.

They still cannot blast us all. Not even close. In time the blast markers do pile up, but Marshall actions make sense on big tables.

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~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...

Quite right. Lsrwolf and I aren't debatingthe balance of the army lists at the 2-5,000pts range. What we have been saying is that even at the 26,000 pt range it would appear that the army lists are still roughly balanced. We have played games (per side) somewhere around the 15,000pt level, at the 18,000pt level, and now we have just concluded a game at the 27,000pt level. Of these games the following happened:

At 15,000pts (victory evluation starting at Turn 5, following the normal rules: Turn 2 nobody would have won, Turn 3 nobody would have one, Turn 4 Eldar would have won, Turn 5 (start checking) Eldar won on goals.

At 18,000pts (victory evaluation starting on Turn 5): Turn 3 nobody would have one, Turn 4 Eldar would have won, Turn 5 (start checking) Nobody won, Turn 6 Imperial Guard won on tie breaker points by a massive margin.

At 27,000pts (victory evaluation starting at Turn 4): Turn 2 Eldar would have won, Turn 3 Eldar would have won, Turn 4 Eldar won on goals only because of a stupid move/oversight on my part otherwise the game would have continued into Turn 5 where it would have been a furball as to who won.

Granted this is only three games at the epic Epic scale, but the 18,000pt and 27,000pt game have been very, very close. At this level of table size and army size you really have to think about how you allocate your forces. IG artillery can't hit everywhere on the table. Distances involved really force you to consider where your thrusts will be and how likely one front can reinforce the other. And you definetely have "fronts" at this level. The "metagame" dramatically increases.

But to address the original post (lol), Yes, roughriders are an incredibly good formation for 150pts. Very fragile, but very useful.

Lsrwolf - it sounds like a fantastic game, a rolling battle on a grand scale.



You're welcome to your opinion, but most of the players posting here disagree (and believe it to be a factor in why you found RRs overpowered for their points cost), the designers of the army lists themselves disagree, and if that isn't enough then the Epic Armageddon rules themselves disagree:



Diplomatically speaking, that doesn't necessarily mean you're wrong, but it does mean that you're going to find yourself lonely in requesting a change to a unit's points cost based on its performance in a game more than 8 times larger than a standard tournament game.

I don't want this to turn from a debate into an argument, so as a final thought in a game of 26,000 points I'd probably be happy to pay double the normal costs for any scout unit and still consider it value for money. That doesn't mean they should cost more in standard games.

These games do sound awesome, I can easily imagine the strategy element being even more prominent as the effects of chance are averaged out. I could never play one though, at the rate we play it'd take the whole year.

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Kyrt's trade list

It did take us about 12 hrs per turn and about 80 activations each.

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~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...

Thing is it's not just Lsrwolf with his big games that reckons them to be overpowered though. I think they are too good and there have been inconclusive discussions of changing them in the past. E&C believes them to be overpowered and when he wrote the Krieg list he statted the Death Riders (which are RRs, that are just slightly tougher) and Mossinian RRs with only a single CC4+ First Strike attack. I certainly still take and use the Krieg RR a lot (I've not played Mossinians so I can't comment on them) and they have been tested and used at those more reasonable stats.

I reckon dropping them to a single CC4+ attack would be more balanced and commensurate to overall power/effectiveness of the W40k unit. Alternatively CC5+ but still with the extra attack could be a compromise, but I prefer the first option. They'd still be useful scouts, with a long charge range and infiltrate, just not as killy on top.

Good on you for the big games Lsrwolf. I'd love to play such really epic battles!

I think this is the point. It's a mixed opinion overall, with no consensus that they need changed.


That's been the most popular proposal historically.

Personally, the most annoying thing I've found about Rough Riders is when they are down to the ubiquitous Commissar running around with a Fearless ZoC while broken, doing stuff like covering a Gargant under its ZoC.

Hear hear! I am still trying to get my head around
1) How broken units still even HAVE a Zoc
2) How we cannot charge between two broken rough riders 20cm apart
3) How Titans have ONLY a 5cm zoc, those bad boys exert far more control than a single scout.
4) How IG get so freakin many free commissars in the first place.

As far as others objectively examining units for overpowered, there is clearly not enough Rough Riders out there annoying other players to motivate them for examination. Unlike the spirit stones that non-Eldar players hated, or 75cm AA Fire Prisms, or pop-up, then all non-eldar players readily support the change and so BAM goes the nerf bat. Take the 4+ jet bike save nerf; folks seriously believed jet bikes were overpowered at 33 pts per stand when they had a 4+ save? add scout, infiltrate, +1EA and first strike to them then to pull them down to Rough Rider level instead. Now granted they increased Banshees to a 2+ CC. They are still not on par and if you look at their cost they are MORE expensive than Rough Riders for fewer abilities. Why not give them EA+1 and unit level first strike? That would be a little closer to the Rough Rider power level and would still be 1.5x more expensive. Frankly I am surprised that there isn't a petition going on to somehow cripple our holofields.

Now I was not around to follow whether and how much debate there was prior to the Eldar nerf bat, but given human nature in a democratic environment, they tend to vote themselves the keys to the treasury and give themselves raises. I'd like to believe that any unit is eligible for objective examination when tabletop experiences indicate an examination may be in order.

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~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...

Giving them a single-use first strike macroweapon and nothing but foul language in every assault from then on would actually be a more accurate reflection of the power/effectiveness of the W40k unit.

And could you imagine what sort of punishment was being brought down on the commissar that was "assigned" to lead a RR unit? Maybe it was a promotion up from the Ogryn unit...

On Nov 6, 2010 Evil and Chaos said:
"Keeping an over-powered formation under-priced simply because people will stop taking an under-powered formation if the over-powered formation becomes properly priced only speaks to the problem being that the under-powered formation is too expensive."

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~Laserwolf

Yes, we know, the game was intended to be played in the 2000-5000 points range...