Which were those?


Well, only for the heavy robots. The Crusader's 6+ save makes very little difference for this rule.



That is acceptable, I think. I don't see them as attack troops (unless accompanied by tech-priests - and the list allows for that), but they do make fine screens and garrisons, and with increased speed (and timely marshalling) the Crusaders are also useful as objective grabbers - "The Crusader is a fast machine; useful for capturing distant objectives."

I'll be using my own rule a few more games, I thinkk; I rather liked how they worked in the last game. Is there any record of feedback on games using the Automaton rule, especially in AdMech armies? I'd be interested in hearing peoples opinion on that.

Fearless, in a defensive list can easily be explained by the robots just not being programmed to retreat. poor activations too can be explained by the robots being hastily programmed prior to the battle. less sophisticated software means to they don't perform as well.

I'm mainly concerned with the base rule interactions especially if we are trying to keep the special rules unified across similar units. There really hasn't been anyone whose posted about the more current AdMech revisions. The list was downloaded a number of times, but I think that the events of the last month or so have put people off actively playing it. I have my own test results with the rule if you are interested.

_________________
-Vaaish

I am indeed.

I'll do the cliff notes summary against marines and crons.

Marines:
Colossus: performed well with regard to firepower knocking down land speeders and provided some good supporting fire to assaults. This was before adding the AA to them so they ended up taking quite a few BM from circling thunderbolts and thunderhawks. They lost one of their number to a battle cannon, but the BM reductions meant that two robots were still unsupressed and the formation was still two bm from breaking rather than being one bm from breaking and most of the formation supressed. The improved rally chances meant that you actually had to kill models to put a dent in their capabilities.

Crusader: didn't do much more than provide a screen against teleports. for all intents and purposes they acted like sentinels, but the BM rules kept them from breaking as easily and once broken they didn't just evaporate to anything coming in.

Necrons:
This was a bizarre game, I turtled, he held off until turn 3 to pull stuff in by which time I had difficulty getting anything out to him. The main reason was I'd taken mostly sagitarii and robots to test them out and had left all air units out of the list so I couldn't harass him. We eventually moved to replay the game and he attacked rather than hung back.

Colossus: provided good overwatch against the assaulting phalanxes. Also provided good support fire for assaults, they cam under attack a bit but not really much substantial since they were behind a sagitarii formation that was the primary target of the crons. The BMs were easily shed.

Crusader: These guys ended up being used for more than just a screen. One formation got partly toasted from the monoliths and obelisks, but even with three they were able to catch and assault the monolith formation. that resulted in two dead monoliths for no loss in return. Crusaders promptly got their CC value bumped up after assaulting a second monolith formation with similar results.

_________________
-Vaaish

Battle report with the current (v.0.6) list:

http://sdahl.net/~sdahl/whepic/20120917/



The most important change is the separate pricing table for Minorus weapons, to allow separate prices from identical weapons mounted on Titans. It allows making QC+CLP Minori a good choice in competition with other good choices, instead of just a cheap autoinclude.

The installations worked well, mechanically. They were, unsurprisingly, vulnerable to titan-grade flamers...

Didn't use robots this game, but I still think they work better with the Robots rule here. As to formations, I like that I can now field an old-school Cybernetica Cohort (5x 4 robots plus Tech-Priests in a Rhino).

The enemy had no Aircraft, so the fairly strong ground AA from installations and Minori did not come into play.

Hmm. Interesting. It looks like you've dropped the price on the minorus formation and minorus upgrade too. How did you come about the point values for the various weapons? With your other changes it appears that the quake+clp option is only somewhere around 25 points more than under the current system and some of your other options like TLD and the support missiles seem a bit randomly priced. I don't really see this as effectively reducing the demand for the quake + CLP. I've been thinking a more dramatic rework of the minrous formation is probably in order to bring it into line with the quake and with the majoris.

I'm starting to test out a two minorus formation at 300 points with the upgrade dropping to 150 from 175. Combined with some adjustment to weapons prices should help make the quake a riskier and less capable proposition. The reduced firepower should also make the majoris a bit more attractive.

How do you find that the Demi-century fares at 250?

I'm also curious at your boost of the crusader to 200 points. Your stats seem to still be analogous to the Skitarii list and my own tests haven't warranted a 50 point boost. Was there a reason for that?

_________________
-Vaaish

The intent was to bring the cost of the hull down, and then price the weapons relative to each other. In the original scheme, a lot of the value of the hull is due to the capability to mount a cheap titan weapon; I'm trying to move that cost back to the weapon.

Well, I always thought the QC+CLP as being only slightly undercosted; It was an auto-include because all the other Minori options were grossly overpriced.
The TLD is obviously superior to the PB, which is in turn obviously superior to the rest of the scout titan weapons; This is even more true on a 15cm speed hull than on a 30cm speed Warhound, and the prices should reflect that.
The support missile is cheaper, since it was rather overpriced before. It is closer in line with deathstrike batteries now.

Well, is is still good, yes. However, there is now effective competition for the loadout - I rather liked the 3x AML+CLP, for instance, bringing guard-like arty cpy barrages with a distinct mechanicum flavour.

Reasonably well. I'd be keeping them at that price for now, at least.

It is speed 25cm now! It is insanely fast! The list needed mobile objective grabbers apart from Warhounds, and Crusaders fit the bill perfectly. At speed 25, they are easily worth as much as the other robots.

I'm looking to move a bit the other way. The hull priced a bit higher should hopefully result in fewer weapons needing to be priced significantly different from the titan list and combined with fewer units in the formation should give the majoris a bit of a boost in desirability since part of the problem seems to be the 3x titan weapons on the minorus tend to outperform the majoris and in most cases ends up a bit cheaper or similarly priced to boot.




I don't think that the rest of the options were really overpriced. I think the main issue is that the quake+clp fills a hole in the list and does it exceptionally well especially when placed in a position to cover the board that nothing else really was capable of competing. I'd also note that the main list doesn't let the minorus take scout weapons which helps reduce some of the issues there.



Faster, yes, but it's still paper with the 6+ armor and only 4 units in the formation. That's not a really effective objective grabber unless you're given a clear window. I always find that they can hit hard but go down pretty fast and without AA of their own are pretty vulnerable to strafing runs unless you keep them with the slower units and negate the speed advantage. 200 points seems a bit excessive for what you get. At 20cm and 150 they were a little overpriced IMO.

_________________
-Vaaish

on a 15cm move, relatively fragile WE with innate AA, I'd have to be looking at a significant point discount to use themfor anything but artillery. Quake +CLP is the best artillery combination by a long margin.

_________________
My shifting projects

I'm not sure that that is possible - for example, 2xAML+CLP at 450 points is vastly inferior to the 2xQC+CLP at 550 points, to the extent that no sane player would field it. The difference needs to be significantly higher.

Likewise, all direct fire weapons are badly hampered by the sluggish speed of the Minori, and are consequently worth less than if they were mounted on a fast Warhound (or resilient Reaver). Since they are priced at "free", and are not worth it, it seems a fairly clear indication that it is in fact the base hull that is overpriced.

Anyway, that's my take on "fixing the minori"; I did a small sample list of interesting formations and their prices, comparing their prices in the original list with the new price using my price list:

3x Minori, 2x QC, CLP: Was 550, now 575
3x Minori, 2x AML, CLP: Was 450, now 425
4x Minori, 3x AML, CLP: Was 650, now 550
3x Minori, 3x Plasma Cannon: Was 475, now 500
3x Minori, 3x Gatling Blaster: Was 475, now 425

It's a small step in the right direction, I think.

It also allows lighter formations to be viable, for example:

3x Minori, 2x TLD, 1x VMB: 400 (at speed 20cm)
3x Minori, 2x Twin Battlecannon, 1x VMB: 350 (speed 20)
3x Minori, 2x Twin Battlecannon, 1x Twin Vanquisher: 375 (speed 20)

The last two should be recognizable as re-branded Macharii.


Here I'm moving in the opposite direction, giving the minorus hulls access to even lighter weapons (like twin battlecannons and vanquishers). I think this fits the background as I see it (they are civilian vehicles with shields and ad hoc guns clamped on), and it also gives a unit that can be represented by the many DC2-3 size models available. I'd like to provide a home for Macaroni tanks, Old-School Gorgons and Stormblades etc. If it works out, I'll be removing the Macharius entry entirely from the list.



They may be overpriced at 200, true. I thought I'd bump them generously at first, when I added the extra speed. If they don't work, they can get a discount again.

On a more general note, I think that many Mechanicus units and formations pay a premium for being multi-role - eg, Minori are shooty and resilient to shooting, Skitarii are middling good in CC, FF as well as resilience, heavy robots are shooty and tough, light robots are fast scouts and good in CC. It's a theme, and I think it suits the army well.

I think that it might be more correct to say, not worth it compared to the quake+clp. If you take that entirely out of the equation, for instance, there are a lot more options that suddenly become "better". Not amazing, but still effective and useful.



Where are you getting speed 20? No direct fire minorus should ever be faster than infantry on foot.



Where are you getting that background from, I've not seen anything to say they are civilian vehicles. Going back to the prime bit, they are deployed with each skitarii company which seems a rather opposite direction for ad hoc civilian technicals.



I'm looking at dropping the base Minorus formation by one unit. You'd only be able to take one quake and a clp which is a riskier and less capable unit by far than the current due to the single template and greater difficulty hitting much of a formation with it. By the same token, the direct fire units aren't hurt as much by the lost shots since spreading out doesn't matter. It also has the benefit of making the majoris more attractive for the heavier hitting weapons.

Under that system,

2x Minorus Quake +CLP would be 375.
2x Minorus AML + CLP would be 325
2x Minorus 2x Plasma Cannons would be 350
2x Minorus 2x Laser Blaster would be 400.
2x Minorus 2x Gatling Blasters would be 350

Obviously there are other combinations, but those are the ones I think are the most interesting. At 15cm, I think you're looking at a formation that's not as durable but packs more firepower for a little less cost than an IG superheavy coy. Personally I think I'd find the laser blasters or plasma cannons a bit more attractive than the CLP+quake under this.

_________________
-Vaaish

I'd beg to differ, frankly. Minori are resilient, but only to shooting. They must be far away from their targets, or must be priced to make their inevitable sacrifice acceptable.


Why not?


I'm making it up as I go along; It's a variant list, after all, for a specific theater and time. On Stenberg, there were no real armoured forces at the time of conflict - The PDF is basically home guard, the warfighting is left to the Titan Legion. There were plenty of heavy machinery trundling about the countryside (some of it moving faster
than pedestrians!), and it is this machinery that the tech-priests have turned into war engines.

To be honest, I don't think there is all that much "official" background either to contradict this view. Fortunately, it is something we don't have to agree on.



It's an alternative approach, certainly. I'd be leery to take something as fragile as a Minorus in a 4DC formation, though, but I'll be interested in seeing how it works out.

Vaaish's idea will hit the Quake+CLP formation the hardest, which is good.

It might also make the shorter range options MORE attractive relatively - they are very likely to die performing their role, but a 4DC formation is a lot less points to risk then the 6DC, which would die almost as quickly in assault.

I still think some price tweaks might be neccesary, but there's a chance of balance here

_________________
My shifting projects

Well, what official fluff we have does portray them as a slower moving vehicle and 20cm is starting to hit the range of medium speed units. I really don't think really shooty minorus are zipping all over the battlefield, it just doesn't feel right with the rest of the list.



Ah ok, I was just curious if there was something new I'd missed especially something so far removed from the fluff I'd seen in the past. I'm always on the lookout for new mechanicus fluff to use as a base.



It's definitely more fragile, but you do have the two VS helping out with that which effectively makes it 8 hits total and I'm trying to avoid minorus running too far on their own. They are weak to assaults and fairly easy to break, but they provide AA and heavy weapons not available to the base demi-century.



I would agree that some point tweaks will be necessary as we go, but it does make the artillery a bit less attractive. In some other discussions on the concept there were some reservations that it could make the arty BETTER by making it possible to have an extra activation of quake arty in opposite corners. I'm of the opinion that 750 points for two formations both with reduced arty capacity are beyond what I'd be willing to pay just to hit anywhere board with two separated MW templates if you can activate.

_________________
-Vaaish