**LONG POST**
frogbear wrote:
Am I missing something?
I think you are.
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1. The Excruciator and the Hellstrike Cannon could be argued to cancel each other out
2. The Tormentor could be comparrable to the Doomfist Shooting + Tail Weapon shot
Fair enough.
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3. The Energy Whip loses out to the Doomfist Assault
Since the CC weapons are primarily defensive, this is a minor consideration. However, I think your assessment is wrong. The Doomfist is a little bit better than the Energy whip against RA opponents and a lot better against WEs. Against other targets the Energy Whip is better, even accounting for lower CC. With the higher speed the Painlord has a marginally better chance to use it offensively if that's beneficial. These are pretty balanced.
Obviously, the Banelord's extra DC and better CC makes the chassis better in CC overall.
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4. At a guess, the Psi-Pulse loses out to the Havoc Missile Rack (Psi Pulse needs WE targets to be effective)
Overall, I agree.
These are both specialty weapons, so it's hard to do any sort of direct comparison. The Havoc rack doesn't look like a specialty at first, but they are. It has a couple substantial drawbacks. It's the only weapon that can fire Indirect, so using that ability negates the rest of the unit's firepower and movement for the turn. If you fire it with the Hellstrike, you lose the Hellstrike's MW. This makes it basically a "stand and guard" weapon. There's going to be some 'wasted' ability regardless of what you do. Still, though, I think it's notably better than the Psi-Pulse.
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This still leave the Banelord with +2A FF from the Battlehead, +1DC (and therefore CC or FF attack)
Despite the extra attacks and higher DC, the Painlord's FF is still ~15% better due to Painlord's much superior FF value (2+ v 4+). I think the FF makes up for most of the lack of firepower in the Psi-Pulse v Havoc comparison.
On overall firepower, I'd put the Banelord only modestly head of the Painlord. Probably 10% or less.
As far as durability...
The Banelord has 8 DC v 7. However, both have the same shields and that reduces the discrepancy somewhat.
The Banelord CC gives it better defense against CC assaults. The exception would be a suicide run where the enemy plans to lose the assault and just wants to inflict damage.
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and better Critical.
Like the CC weapons, I think this is relatively minor and the discrepancy isn't very much, assuming you're planning to stick with the "extra BM" critical.
Ballpark, I'd put the durability difference at 10% or a bit more.
The Painlord is 33% faster, which is a substantial difference. Speed is not as important as raw toughness or firepower, but it goes a long way towards maximizing both. Generally, I judge a speed differential at 1/3 to 1/2 the value when I am comparing, so that would be roughly a 15% benefit to the Painlord.
Just raw number crunching with the square root rule would show that they are within a few % difference: SQRT(1.1*1.1/1.15) - 1.026, or 2.6%. You're only looking at 25 points or so, which is definitely more error than is in this rough comparison.
Thinking about the titans in the game in general terms....
The Banelord is a very good defensive piece. It's tough and its special resistance to CC assaults makes it very difficult to shift. It has the option of firing indirect and doing some decent damage for 2 turns. This makes it an ideal for an objective guard and it is often used as a Blitz guard.
The Painlord is not as tough and is a bit outgunned. However, it's speed and the lack of the Havoc "anchor" if it wants to use its maximum firepower means that it is a lot more strategically flexible than the Banelord. It's more of a "team player." For example, +10cm move and better FF makes its double/shoot/support maneuver vastly more utilitarian than the Banelord's.
So with a more abstract view as a sanity check, that still looks pretty close.
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Since the Painlord is lighter and faster, you could go on to compare it to Reaver-class titans. I realize that the Ravager is sometimes considered underpowered, but compared to the Ravager, the Painlord still looks quite strong.
Same speed.
For durability:
Same armor. Higher DC, more shields, TRA, better CC and better crit.
~15% better
On the weapons:
PsiPulse = Doomburner
Tormentor = 1 Deathstorm + tail
Excruciator is vastly better than the other Death Storm, about 50%
FF is almost 50% better.
~25% better
Applying the square root rule to it... SQRT(1.15*1.25) = ~1.2x as good as the Ravager = ~780.
So, again, you're looking at something in the range of a 25 point difference from its current value.
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I'm willing to bet that if you compared it to comparable chassis-up builds in AMTL that you'd continue to come out in that same range.
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If you want to drop the Painlord to 775 that's not out of line but for a playtesting start I think you could leave it as-is at 800. I definitely would not drop it below 775 unless and until there is a substantial body of playtest evidence that shows it is substantially underperforming.
