I have fielded Khorne Daemon Engines, and they are okay if you can get them into base contact. That's the big problem though, because if you can't do that they are very brittle, especially against infantry with good FF, and they really ought to be able to crush most basic, or small sized, infantry formations in close combat in my view.

I'm opposed to any removal of the reinforced armour, as they're supposed to be small in number, hard to destroy, but vulnerable to mass fire power, so RA is in keeping with that brief.

My recommendation is to keep them as small elite formations which can be destroyed through mass fire power, but are very hard to stop in close combat, because that's how they've worked in previous editions, and it fits with the preferences of Khorne.

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hangon -since when have formations had to have identical point costs across lists?

units having the same stats- YES
Formations being the same cost- NOT ALWAYS
Formations being the same size - since when?

As long as the stat's line up the Khorne engines can be rebalanced at a new formation size and cost.

Which admittedly does generate a lot of extra work for frogbear, so I can see why he's a bit miffed.

Since I cloned his stats for the Stygian list, that'll put me in a bind too, but at least I've not playtested them yet.

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My shifting projects

Yeah, agree with maddoct0r. If Frogbear feels 300 points is wrong in the World Eaters list, he can and should change it.

I believe Frogbear's argument is that there is no real justification for the current price oif the Daemon engines in LATD, less so even the WEs.

If the WE list was to depart significantly from the current pricing in LATD it would raise eyebrows because it would not sincerely be all that justified. More importantly, if the reasoning behind the current LATD engines is that they are adeqautely costed because of their stats, and that a stat might change be implemented, then lets downgrade them a little and get their cost down. It would be a better starting point to work for WEs.

I am personally very much in favour of trying to keep crosslist coherency both in stats and unit costs as it really helps in bringing people into the game and familiarising them with the different lists.

On the Speicifc case of the Khorne engines, I would reduce their saves as I have said earlier to diminish their cost. I also really think that there should be two variants, this would allow more flexibility in Khorne designs.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

If you want balance and flexibility in a chaos list, should you not have to mix deities ( and suffer the inevitable internal management challenges)?

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Nitpicks Knapsack (Scratchbuilding and 3D designing and printing and painting)

hmmm. I disagree with this bit, but I think our list writing philosophies may also differ.

Ignoring the contained units for now, the formation fufills two completely different roles in the different lists.

In LatD, they have access to tons of different formations, War Engines and mass formations that can hold ground effectively. The Khornate Engines are an optional extra in a line breaking role. Almost like a big red angry missile.

In Frogbear's WE, the Khornate engines are not quite core, but they are a lot more common. They fufill the role of close support formations, supporting the WE's on the 2nd turn sets of assualts (i think). You don't throw them at the biggest thing you want dead, they work WITH other formations in the list to wolf pack the opposing army into shreds.

If identical formations with such different roles in such different lists are both internally balanced at the same price, I'd call it a coincidence.

Can they be balanced in the LatD list just by changing the point cost?
Then they should, to avoid tripping up other in-progress lists.

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My shifting projects

Ok, so got a game in with the LatD yesterday against Iron warriors. I was continuing my rule if not using IG units and went with two chaos altars, two formations of Daemonic Assault Engines as well as cultists and hellfire cannons.

Basically things didn't go well with one of the Altars failing a difficult terraine test and blowing up. The Engines didn't do much but it didn't help that in one combat I rolled four ones for MW saves

Did the assault engines get into CC by themselves or were they charged?

Also how many of the 4 made it in?

Just good to know these things while they r in discussion.

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Frogbear is responsible for...
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Three of the four were charged by the Defilers. Each got 2 extra attacks. The other formation was forced to run interference due to the poor performance of the rest of the army.

I was thinking about the Khorne Daemon engines, and thought that a good way to keep the current balance, but making them more dangerous in FF was simply to have two armament options, like dreadnoughts, and simply have the +1d3 attacks in either CC or FF.

That way the gunny DEs would have their statline, and the formation would be more flexible, with still a very strong bent on CC.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

The problem is that in that case the CC configuration would never be taken. The result of your proposal is effectively a switch from CC to FF.


As I see it, Assault Daemon Engines need something after the Defiler change from well-armed artillery to well-armed assaulters. Defilers do the job for less points. What should the USP (unique selling proposition) of Assault Daemon Engines be? When that is decided, stats should be easier to hammer out.

If the USP is "scary in close combat", then they should be more of a threat.

Has anyone considered giving them Rough Rider movement? 20 cm + Infiltrator. Fits the "khorne" element of them in my opinion.

/Fredmans

I gave the CC favouring Soulgrinders 15cm move so they could garrison.

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My shifting projects

@fredmans: I don't believe so. The stats would still be CC 3+ and FF 5+.

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"War is not about who is right, but about who is left". - B. Russell

Don't Khorne assault engines have 4+ RA wheras Defilers don't?

Dont get too carried away with the save. The defiler has a 75cm shooting range and has infiltrate. It is so much better for the points.

The save is a distraction at this point

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