I thought 1-2 snipers for 25pts had been introduced years ago?

My suggestions:

- russ company 600pts
- arty company to 600pts


- hellhounds for 100pts
- russ upgrade for 150pts
- lunar cruiser for 100pts
- emperor battleship for 150pts maybe even 100pts

- Reaver Titan for 625pts
- Warlord Titan for 800pts

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Some good points Rug. I never really thought of it like that.

_________________
Frogbear is responsible for...
Previous World Eaters
Previous Emperor's Children
Previous Death Guard
Previous Imperial Fists
Previous Chaos Squats

Yes. Chroma made a mistake and Chris wasn't around to correct it.


Why?
Points costs are restricted to individual lists.

I'd actually regard the Emperor Initiative 1+ change as a bigger change as you're changing a basic stat.


Mounted Ogryns are probably mildly overpriced IMO.
Infantry platoons are also probably slightly overpriced (In my experience they are very rarely selected in favour of the Fire Support Units upgrade) and I've never seen anyone consider the mounted version worthwhile.


Anyone who takes two 600+pt formations in a Guard army is going to lose.

Anyone who takes a 650pt Reaver, or a 650pt Leman Russ company, in a SR2 Guard army, is very probably going to lose (The tournament records undoubtedly bear this out). Two Warhounds, or a Baneblade Company, are about as useful in games but are also significantly cheaper. So there's a clear points problem there.

The obvious inference is that Reavers (In SL armies**) and especially Russ Companies aren't worth taking at their current points level.


Then drop the cost of Arty Co's down further still, 25pts below wherever the Russ Company ends up at.
I know you have personal experience of using Arty Co's in tournaments, which is a rare thing!


650pts spent on a single Arty formation of 5+ / 6+ armour vehicles is just untenable IMO.

I can't see the addition of a Chimera, or even a Salamander (Granting the ability to conduct combined engagements seems rather useless for an artillery formation) as making up the shortfall.


The list as a whole (External balance) is fine, but as regards internal balance I consider most of the upgrades to be effectively worthless.

For example would you genuinely take 3 Hellhounds for 125pts, or would you take two Hydras and a Sniper unit?
The answer's obvious.
Until you make upgrades actually attractive choices they're never going to compete.

Same with the Russ Co. a 50pt price drop might seem like a big move, but really, what's that 50pts going to buy for the army?
One extra Hydra. That's it. Hardly game breaking.

25pts off a Reaver is going to buy one Sniper unit, or compensate for the 25pts extra that Warhound Titans got. Again, it's a tiny move on the scale of a 3000pt army list (Less than a 1% shift).


=======================================

Of the 7 Core Company Choices (Counting the SHT co. as 1 choice) , I think 2 are overpriced (Russ, Arty).

Of the 12 Upgrade Choices, I think 5 are overpriced (Mounted Inf, Russ, Hellhounds, Griffons, Mounted Ogryns).

Of the 14 Support Formation choices, I think 2 are overpriced (Cruiser, Battleship) and 1 has a possible issue (Bombards are slightly inferior to the other two arty choices due to an inability to hit deployment zones. They can hit garrisons though so they're not useless, they'll just never be your first arty choice).

Of the 6 Allied Formation choices, I think 2 are overpriced (Warlord, Reaver).

The rest of the list is able to pick up the slack for those overpriced units if you don't select them, but it does lead to a quarter of the list's choices never being selected, or only being selected for a laugh or because they have pretty models.

========================================

**They're actually pretty good at SR5 in Marine armies though as they bring good ranged AT Firepower to the Marine list.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

i totally support all the initially proposed changes. especially the stormtroopers in chimeras.

_________________
~Every Tool Is A Weapon, If You Hold It Right~

'
Good! It wasn't just me!


As amusing as I would find Tank Companies at 575 personally, I really do not consider them much overcosted. 625 would be a minimum cost, IMO. I could alsosee a drop on Arty, but neither is critical, again IMO.



I'd not go below a 25 pt drop on either of these, and am not sure the Russes are justified at all. Your changes end up with 12 Leman Russes and a Vanquisher possibly costing as little as 725pt. Do you really consider Russes to be underpowered by 20%?

The mechanics of the activation system dictate that upgrades be uncommon, usually adding something specific like AA or reducing the number of BTS targets. Upgrades that add weaknesses (AV in an Infantry formation, things that are slower than a formation's base speed) will tend to be overlooked regardless. Russ Squads are really only useful in a tank company for that reason; they take too much away or are a bad fit for just about any of the other Companies. It's also important to remember that a choice being unpopular does not neccessarily make it overcosted or underpowered.

_________________
SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

The tournament stats bear it out, IG armies bringing Russ companies lose a great deal more than they win.
Their wins are generally smaller scale than the wins achieved by other SL army styles, too.

And upgraded Russ Companies, other than with a Hydra, are rarer than hen's teeth.
The inference is obvious that yes, Russ companies upgraded with extra Russes are nigh-useless and need a significant price drop.


Except that nobody takes them in Russ Companies either, because you might as well buy 4 Hydras for that cost as they're a damn sight better. 150pts is probably about right. Remember that Upgrades really should be notably cheaper than the cost for an independent formation, wheras Russ upgrades are currently *more expensive* than the option of buying them in companies.
Especially when you consider that Companies get a free Vanquisher.
That's completely backwards and needs a significant change (50pts each instead of 66.6pts each).


It's a good indicator, though.






They also commonly come at the very bottom of the win/loss records, showing how very notably they under-perform.


I don't see shifting a points values by a few percentage points (Across a 3k army list) as being a "re-write".

Especially as most of my issues are with Upgrades that aren't being taken at all anyway.

Warhound Titans went up in cost 10% because they were being taken by most people and those armies notably over-performed.

Russ companies should go down in cost by 7.7% (50pts) because they're notably under-performing.

Same with Warlord Titans. They can come down in cost by 5.8% (50pts) because people who take Warlord Titans tend to lose all their games.

Some things, such as Russ Upgrades, should come down in price by 25%, because they're notably daftly priced (More expensive than the separate formation choice!).



I'm not suggesting that you make the good stuff better, I'm suggesting that you make the crap stuff not completely crap.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Leman Russes and Titans are perfectly fluffy to use in a Steel Legion army.

I don't see why it's cool to have SHT companies or Warhound Titans in a SL army (Which are balanced) but it's not cool to balance the Russ Company or Warlord Titan.

Mech Inf. aren't suddenly going to become worthless if you make the Russ Company (A very iconic formation! "Drive me closer!" Commissar is a Steel Legion Commissar after all!) balanced. They're still going to be the cheapest "very good" Core Company choice, and Reg HQ's are still going to be Mech Inf. and a must-have.


I'm suggesting an 7.7% points shift for the Leman Russ Company (And Arty Co. I guess) a 5.8% points shift for the Warlord Titan, and a 4% points shift for the Reaver Titan. All of those are less impactful than the 10% points shift Warhound Titans got.

For the upgrades, I'm mostly just suggesting points drops that will still leave them at a level where they're not actually all that attractive (And they would remain unattractive regardless of what army list you put them in at that cost... that's why wherever possible lately I've been shifting Upgrades into being Support Formations, or very considerably cheaper Upgrades, in the lists I've been involved in development of, because I've come to believe that the drawbacks of spending points on Upgrades are a lot greater than has been accounted for in the past).

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I believe you’re completely free to change them as you wish, the points for them can be different in different lists and this is not unreasonable - a battle titan in a Marine list is worth more than a Guard one with the higher strategy rating and unit synergies.

I like the sound of some of the more radical pricing changes suggest by E&C. I would leave the Russ Company at 625 (that way the BTS parity between it and the also cheaper Reaver would be the same as now) but the tank upgrade for 150 sounds better. As has been pointed out the only formation it is a good idea to add it to would be the tank company and 775 or 825 with a Hydra is still a huge sink of points.



I think we should aim to make the many really poor choices in the list only slightly poor. The best units in the list would still be the best and often taken but there would be more variety of competitive choices in the list. It makes the army potentially more interesting to play with and against, rather than just seeing the same cookie cutter formations. At last several formations in the Net-EA or Epic-UK SM list have been tweaked and/or re-costed, but similar treatment has been long overdue for the IG list, which has only has a few small changes so far.


It's a 25% reduction for an upgrade virtually never used (not by anyone who know what they're doing and playing competitively) and seems fine to me. Epic-UK recently just reduced the Typhoon upgrade from 25 points to 10 points, which is a much larger % decrease.



The infantry upgrade should go down to 75 points also. 6 regular infantry stands compared to 4 fire support is no contest. They would likely only ever be used with the foot infantry company anyway, which isn’t that great a choice.

Ogryns would still be a good choice unmounted and I personally consider using them mounted occasionally. Ogryns are claustrophobic anyway and hate going in Chimeras (they have a special rule in W40k requiring them to have a character to force them in or they won’t embark).

I think the 1+ Initiative is needed for the Emperor Battleship to make it ever usable. A possible drop to 250 or so could be warranted too. 100-150 is considerably too low IMO.

On the other hand I think the cost of the Req HQ should be slightly raised by 25 points (it’d still be nearly always taken anyway) – the supreme commander re-roll is worth more to IG than SM. Possibly the hydra upgrade could go to 65-75 points too.

Just a thought, but that's a LOT of improvements to the list with no downsides. I know it's supposed to be to achieve internal balance, but this may well improve the power of the list overall.