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Crystal Fortress

 Post subject: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Fri Jan 20, 2017 11:55 pm 
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Hi guys i normally haunt the NetEpic forums but have popped in here on occasion. i have been asked by Infinity Engine to put some rules together fro their Crystal Warp Fortress model.
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Infinity-Engine

I am looking for people to playtest the rules to see if it is balanced as much as possible and is costed right, is it effective to use.

PM me and i'll send what i've got


Thanks in advance.

Squiggle


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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sat Jan 21, 2017 12:30 am 
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Just post the stats, mate. Nothing to be secret about. Also it's probably a model already covered with considering Space Egyptians have a strong presence in EA so you might want to sanity check with it. 2cents

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Last edited by jimmyzimms on Sat Jan 21, 2017 5:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 1:20 am 
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As requested. Pleas give feedback if able,


Thanks


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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:31 am 
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Some constructive criticism (please don't take this as me knocking it). Great model and presentation but the rules have some problems.
1. The stats on this thing are extremely powerful! An 8DC war engine skimmer with 4+RA iNV and thick rear armour and void shields.
The weapons are incredibly powerful even discounting the special rules. I think that says 6x AA4+ at 50cm!? This is unheard of! These stats with no special rules you would be looking at closer to 1000 points.
2. Too many special rules, more than most lists have combined. The special rules themselves are very over the top. Twisted being the most broken.
Twisted: 3+MW that if it causes a casualty/damage one of three random things happens.

1-2 not that out there should be reworded though, D6 more attacks hitting on a 5+, normal armor saves apply.

3-4 making the formation roll it's next orders randomly.... that would cause all kinds of situational problems, formations that aren't in assault range, or formations that can't march.

5-6 this is just nutz! This cannot be a rule. Do a DC to a titan and then it obliterates a friendly formation!?

Warp fire - just doesn't work... you can't passover formations unless the palace has infiltration, you can barge but that's not really passing over. This is worded very poorly and leaves a lot to interpretation. If you gave it infiltrate then this would be incredibly over powered because it would prep the formation it's assaulting with BMs.

Warp tide - another assault BM prep rule once again very over the top with extra attacks.

With these special rules this thing would win assaults against anything (with the exception of an emperor titan or great/mega gargant) hands down.

3. Even properly costed it will be very hard to balance (special rules taken out) as an add on to any chaos force. Since you have to balance a list as a whole and shoe honing in a new powerful WarEngine will unbalance already approved lists. Getting this put in would require re-play testing all the lists.

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 7:44 am 
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Ok how to move forward. You'll have to get in touch with Ole as this is tzeentch and he moderates the Thousand Sons list. The war engines in that list suffer from poor armour so likely you'll have to drastically come down in fortitude. Move to a 5+RA no INV or thick rear armour. Ditch all the special rules. Drop the 6 AA shots then you might get it included at 750 points. Best bet though this might just be good as a model to use as the warp palace that's already in the list.
viewtopic.php?f=82&t=30250

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 10:04 am 
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Thanks buddy great stuff. I was given some fluff on the capabilities of the model and tried to represent that as best as possible, hence the special rules. The model itself is on par with an imperator titan so I wanted to scale it down from that. The crystal fortress is a vanguard war engine sent in to soften the opposition rolling over the land warping and changing the population. I take your points on twisted gaze, special rules and the durability of the model. I'll make some changes. I wouldn't say the AA is unheard of (the imperator has AA4+ at 90cm) but I agree with you on the quantity.

Thanks again for your time really appreciate the effort.


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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 3:46 pm 
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Hey nice to see that this veil of secrecy was lifted! :)

Ok so first up is to be absolutely clear that regardless of anything rule related created for this model and hashed out here the designer/sculptor/merchant will really not have any impact on sales nor will what we do here likely get used much in actual play with EA. The simple fact is that this thing is going to get purchased and painted and deployed as Thousand Sons Warp Palace in EA irrespective of the designer's head-cannon. This is especially true with the greater trends towards heroic and true scale representations of large centerpiece war engines in the EA scene. That doesn't mean that we cannot have fun with this and that there's nothing to be gained or enjoyed via this exercise

cool? Ok let's start.

First up is this set of rules posted above are clear that they were probably thought up from someone or someones that probably play 2nd Edition and/or NetEpic. That's not a knock or a ding on the attempt and those games; They are fantastic to play and collect for. However the core ethos of the EA game and 2nd/NetEpic are widely divergent in philosophy. I could write entire pages about this but in short, EA tries to lean towards streamlined rules and quick play using a series of common keywords as much as possible to evoke a theme and feel within the EA ruleset over the use of lots of low level details, tables, special rules, etc. As Atension pointed out, this thing has more special rules for the unit than most entire LISTS HAVE in EA. It doesn't mean those things are bad, just that they are not really fitting in with the rest of the game. I'll address individual items in detail with changes to a reasonable level that someone in a friendly game may actually play. As they are now, no EA player would probably touch these outside of simple curiosity for how OTT this appears.

Second we need to look at the base costs on this thing. You mention in the post above the Emperor class titans and some head-cannon for the unit and I think that's a good place to start with. So, the Emperor titans have a base cost of 1250 points and that's on a list specifically designed with the inbuilt weakness of low activations and high individual unit costs. It's hard to have a point design conversation outside of context of list but lets run with it regardless.
-The Crystal Palace starts with a base cost of 750 to the above mentioned Emperor's 1250. To put that in perspective, that's 75 points LESS than a Warlord titan in most lists.
-The Emperor titans have a speed of 15cm, this thing has a 20cm boost.
-Both have equal armour or 4+ (which I think is fine for the big guys an pretty standard) and with Crystal Palace having a FF of 4+ which falls in between the two configurations of Emperor. I'm not going to bother with the CC discussion as it's too situational to the rest of the army built as to efficacy. This is why costing units outside of list is problematic.
-DC of 8 vs 12 to the Emperor (Warlords are at 8 as well so there's give)
-Void Shields of 2 vs 8 (again, Warlords at 6 so more good tone down from battle titans)
-Battle titans have Walker, Fearless, Reinforced Armor, Thick Rear Armor to this Fearless, Reinforced Armor, Thick Rear Armor, Transport(10), Skimmer, Invulnerable Save. Fair to say this is a bit extreme, mate. Especially OTT when you add in that this thing can negate intervening terrain using pop ups which is the primary defense against huge war engines. EA stresses movement and concealment, combined arms and crossfires as core part of strategy and this all basically amounts to negating it.

Looking at weapons I'm going to note the closest titan class weapon to the palace here.
-The Twisting Gaze
--The closest existing weapon analog would be the Volcano cannon. The Gaze being 100cm vs 90cm. Also most units equipped with a Volcano also have limited fire arcs to the forward arc while the palace has this puppy firing all around. (As a note, the 360 arc actually fits the chaotic theme of the Tzeentch so it's actually good imho). The gaze is MW3+ to the Volcano MW2+, TK(D3). You've created a table and special rules for effects of this weapon which, again, Atension has already pointed out major EA breaking issues with. Honestly all those concrete effects of the table really are what happens "in real life" to the unit targeted and would in EA be elegantly modeled with the use of Disrupt. It's fully addequate to represent all the warpy confusion and effects that the weapon would have.
-Interceptor batteries
--You've got 6x AA attacks at 4+ out to 50cm to an Imperator single AA4+ attack at 90cm. The Warmonger config is 4x AA5+ at 45cm.
--The Carapace Multilaser upgrade puts out 2+ AA5+ at 30cm and you can't take it twice
-Warp Flux
--Honestly there's nothing like this anywhere and frankly it's massively verbose and overwrought for EA and I'm not going to deconstruct it. It's also impossible to model the Warp Fire effect in EA as previously mentioned. The First Strike ability with this weapon would probably suffice on this Assault Weapon. EA(4) is probably fine though would be super expensive as you need to understand that WE CC/FF attacks are one PER starting DC. That means this thing puts out 12 CC dice-I get the impression you perhaps might not know that about EA rules. if there's anything somewhat resembling this it's probably the lasburner but that's not even MW.
-Grief of Marra-whatever ;)
--Cool name. I dig it
--3+D3BP at 50cm with ignore cover. Ummm.. probably this thing is closes to being equipped with dual Apoc Missile Pods which would have a fixed 6BP though with disrupt. I think the variability of the BP fits thematically to the whims of chaos and IC vs Disrupt is a functional wash to me.

So if I was to say take the closest titan to this, remove restrictions about where things an go, remove restrictions on the number of weapons, and not even take into consideration that some weapons/components are free as they eat up a weapon slot you'd get something resembling this as a starting point:

UBER-WARLORD 750
-Volcano Cannon 50
-Las Burner 0
-AML 25
-AML 25
-Corvus 0
-CML 50
-CML 50
-CML 50

Totaling 975 points. Even with the lower shields this is more than made up for with weapon ranges, Invulnerable, Save, and Skimmer abilities. Adding in the extra speed and that this thing basically shuts down the entire air game for most of the table through buckets of AA dice covering 7850ish cm2 (roughly) on a table area of around 22kish cm2cm this thing is at best 1200-1500 points minimum depending on the list it is attached to (honestly spamming chosen and this would make for a completely bonkers BL force unfun in the extreme)

ok next post let's discuss how to put this into something workable in EA.

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Last edited by jimmyzimms on Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:20 pm 
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Horrifically lovely model !!!!! :spin >:D

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:38 pm 
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Thrilling input on rules, there L4. A wee bit totally off topic, mate. [sarcasm] :P hugs? :D :spin :spin

Ok now how to make this thing fit into EA and usable.

First we should note that crazy one off specialty units like this generally benefit with a custom scenario to highlight the unique nature of the unit and rare situation where it is leveraged. Something like the EA Grand Tournament Scenario is spectacularly ill suited to these one off units. Something you should consider is digging around in the scenarios from the EA supplements and other documents here for inspiration for building something that suits this wonderful beast. Some type of crazy Warp incursion of the most horrifying level could easy be built up using special scenario rules, deployment, etc befitting this. If I was you, I woudn't put out rules by themselves but as part of a scenario about a named event where this thing showed up with the TSons themselves in force. Something really evocative.

[as an editorial note, this entire discussion revolves around an assumption of the fielding player using the TSons Traitor Legion list]
OK so let's get real here. This thing is basically a named character version of a Thousand Sons Warp Palace unit (like how Star Wars Armada has named ships available). My suggestion it to start there and uppower to provide some boosts with associated costs. Also, points aside, this is absolutely a singleton unit not matter the size of the battle. I'm pretty sure that's a fair assumption.
For reference the Warp Palace is
Quote:
Warp Palace of Tzeentch 550points
WE 20cm
A:4+ C:4+ F:3+
4x Arcane Cannons 45cm AP4+/AT4+
2x Beam of greater Power 60cm MW4+
Warp Fire of Tzeentch 30cm 3BP, TK(d3), IC

Skimmer, Reinforced Armour, Thick Rear Armour, Invulnerable Save,
Fearless, Daemonic Focus. DC 6. Critical Hit Effect: One of the Silver
Runes that channel the power of the warp is shattered, releasing a storm of
warp energy. It takes an extra point of damage; each unit within 5cm takes a
MW hit on a roll of 6


So if we were to give a really special ooper-dooper version of the above without resorting to cumbersome verbose rules and bookkeeping with is antithetical to EA i'd have something like:
Quote:
The Crystal Palace of Tzeentch 850points
WE 20cm
A:4+ C:4+ F:3+

The Twisting Gaze 90cm MW3+, Disrupt, TK(D3)
Warp Batteries 30cm 2x AP5+ / AT6+ / AA5+
Warp Flux Assault Weapon MW, EA(+2), First Strike
Grief of Marrabon 60cm 3+D3 BP, FxF, IC

DC8, Void Shields 2. Support Craft, Reinforced Armour, Thick Rear Armour, Invulnerable Save,
Fearless, Daemonic Focus. DC 8. Critical Hit Effect: The Warp Distorts around the tower returning parts of it to the Aether. +1 point of damage and kill D3 passengers (no save). the owning player can decide what units are killed. Unit moves 5CM in a random direction out of control. Any units moved over automatically take a hit.


This makes this thing a really special beast while keeping to the EA design philosophy and massively reduced bookkeeping. Also done while retaining much of the WARP crazed flavor of the unit (lots of disrupt, random damage/DP on attack, 360 angles etc). Also I took the liberty of renaming "Interceptor Batteries" to something more Tzeentchy like the rest of the weapons but it's a rose by any other name. Also by converting Skimmer to Support Craft it not only keep the flavor of this thing being even more vast than the "normal warp palace", if normal is a word one can use in relation to chaos, it helps drop the price as befitting it's enormous size, can't really drop to the ground and hide so can always be targeted.

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Last edited by jimmyzimms on Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:59 pm, edited 5 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:43 pm 
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Decent mini, I'd agree it's better as a warp palace proxy. In any case id remove all of the unit-unique special rules as a start … at present it dosen't really match EA design philosophy.

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:59 pm 
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Got it guys, the special rules are gone after atension's post,
@Jimmy you got me :) I am a 2nd ed guy that is why i came here for assistance,

To answer your first point the manufacturer of the model just wanted some rules for those that had bought it, yes it will primarily be used as a Warp Palace proxy but the designer wanted some rules people can play with it in local groups, we aren't looking for any seal of approval and inclusion into this communities lists this would be a occasional between friends model.

As i said the rules are gone: they are as the below currently:

WE 20cm
A:4+ C:4+ F:4+
Int Batteries 30cm 2 x AP4+/AT6+/AA5+
Twisted Gaze Power 100cm MW3+ Disrupt
Warp Crystals Assault Weapon - First Strike, Extra Attacks (+2)
Grief - 50cm D3BP Fixed Forward Arc, Ignore Cover

2 Void Shields, Reinforced Armour, Fearless, Skimmer, Invulnerable Save, Fearless, Daemonic Focus. DC 6.

Sorry just trying to keep up with the edits :)


Last edited by SquiggleAmp on Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:20 pm 
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Just to confirm I am not being paid for this other than the experience so am not trying to cream off your collective talents and understanding, i am a hobbyist not a designer :) Thanks for the feedback i'll be having another look shortly post Jimmy's suggestions.

Thanks again.

Squiggle


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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:43 pm 
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Nope you're doing something solid for a buddy. It's a great model and having story befitting it is in order. Cool beans. ETA on availability?

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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:46 pm 
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I'll see if I can get something down tonight, I'm just popping on and off in between providing food and entertainment for three kids :)

Thanks again buddy


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 Post subject: Re: Crystal Fortress
PostPosted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:48 pm 
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I strongly encourage support craft vs skimmer for stated reasons above :)

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