That is a great list you've compiled @Scalenex and some great additions/comments @Pinktaco I would also add/change the following... All units of Saurus have to option to take a 25pts magic banner Kroxigor units should have the option to purchase a musician Troglodon needs far more than a 20pts decrease. With it's current abilities I'd say a 30-40pt reduction would be fair.
Is it too much to ask for, to give some kind of bonus to temple guards, when it comes to miscast damage. Or should this just be an unfortunate casualty when chosen to field a slightly more protected Slann?
If the miscast table is changed like suggested previously it'll be much better. There should be some sort of penalty for 6 dicing when in an expensive unit, but getting IF on 2 dice shouldn't result in blowing up our most expensive units -.-
Was there ever such a model? I guess a squad of skinks on a 40mm base could count-as 1 Krox. (Three guys trying to swing a great weapon and one skink beating a drum..?)
I'm thinking a little skink beating a drum at the feet of a kroxigor. Now that GW is out of the picture, we don't have to adhere rigidly to the models they had released. A little conversion is nice... like the one you suggested One other thing I'd like to add to Temple Guard would be a rule that protects a Slann from challenges. Perhaps each temple guard could accept challenges as long as a Slann is present in the unit.
I would love to see more use for temple guards; they are already pretty good, it would just be nice not to see them die from friendly fire all the time. Any add on that prevents this, @Pinktaco, would be more then welcome. I'm just thinking is this too much? Are temple guards meant to be this good, but ultimately doomed band of warriors? Is this what other players are thinking is only fair? There is always a trade off, for decent units and temple guards might be their doom, from the one they are bound to protect.... It does not need to be so, but are we alone in this assumption; I wonder.
Strongly disagree. Skirmishers are good, but why not decrease blowpipes by 1pts instead? To be fair I think we would need to cut the cost of most armies skirmishing archers if we did this. It's also tempting to throw in short bows as an option. Add "if joined by kroxigors opponents have -1 To Hit when hitting the kroxigors" I don't think this would fly well with non-Lizardmen, though I toyed with the idea of making Skroxigor and Kroxigor 45 points. I erred on the side of not giving away the store to the Lizardmen. I also figured since Kroxigor have a similar niche to cannons (killing big things) that Kroxigors can advance just by standing still since cannons are taking a hit. Change back to core This opens the possibility of an army that's 25% Swarms by points. I consider that altering 8th edition too much. And people would expect other armies to get this. I disagree. The solardon isn't a must have and increasing points will make it less attractive and do nothing to increase the need to use the ark. I'd be all for having the ark as standard on the solardon at 130pts and switch it with the solar beam for +20pts. Either that or add +1S if you want to increase the cost. I understand what you are saying. Another option would be to lower the base cost of the Bastiladon to compensate. I think there needs to be a points incentive to take the Ark of Sotek, since it is clearly weaker than the Solar Engine. To be honest I'd rather change Engine of The Gods back to how it used to be OR at the very least let us chose one special rule and buff the ward to 5+. I disagree. Tinkering with the EOTG will probably not fly well with non-LM players. Also, I vastly prefer the "new" version of the EOTG. In the old book, there was often a problem of forgetting to declare what the EOTG is doing. Many players were not okay with retroactively declaring something. Also, it bites to end up going second and have the EOTG Steggy shot at before the ward save is activated on your first turn. I realize that you want to go forward slow and safe, but a reduction of 20pts will make no difference at all. The troglodon seriously needs an overhaul way more than anything else. IT DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. Personally I'd give the Oracle skink a better purpose (like having 1 beast and 1 heaven spells, but not the super powerful spells, just decent spells). I would amenable to reducing the points cost more than 20 if the community fell behind it. I don't think tinkering with their abilities would be well-received. If they did get an ability tinker, the most obvious change seems to be to make the primal roar occur every round though I don't know how to balance that with it's points cost. Even with an "always on" buff I think the Troglodon is a bit overcosted, but I don't think most non-LM would see it that way. The one unit limitation for Core banners is to mirror what other armies already have in 8th edition. Giving Kroxigor's musicians would open the floodgates to a bunch of other Monstrous Infantry getting musicians. That could be a good or a bad thing. Also why musicians but not standards? You are probably right on Troglodons. That would be adorable. We could also convert a variation of the Ogre "look out Gnoblar" One solution would be to let Magic Resistance apply to miscast damage. Note if we made this rule change it should apply to everyone, not just Temple Guard.
Magic resistant counting towards miscast, was an idea I believe you have suggested before @Scalenex . I liked it then and I like it now. The fact that it isn't an "only us" kind of change makes it seems so much better.
So these would be the tentative global changes: -Magic Resistance also applies against miscast damage. -Line based template damage on a monster with a rider is randomized between them 1-4 monster, 5-6 character Maybe apply this to the center hole hit of a stone thrower. So one of the two beings takes the heavy hit, the other one gets the lighter hit. -Ward saves apply to all magic spells (or just Purple Sun). I was pondering whether to go with the End Times character percentage or not. That seems to be polarizing with people. So 8.1 (or whatever we call it) should probably have End Times and regular scenarios.
Serves me right for using my warriors of chaos as a template. Each unit of chaos warriors can take a magic standard of 25pts or less. Sometimes I forget that we the followers of the dark gods are privy to special privileges and exemptions not enjoyed by the "lesser" factions. To be honest I think Kroxigors need a small boost or a drop in price. I'd really love to see them with a 3+ armour save (via 3+ scaly skin or light armour), but I figured that this falls into that risky practice of tinkering with the rules that you eluded to. I think that a musician would be a small enough change to make them more useable without drawing disapproval from other players. As to why a musician instead of a standard; I just imagine a small skink using the beat of the drums to organize and communicate to a unit of krox. Plus a musician would help with their mobility. Are Swarms really that potent? I doubt many people would fill up their core with nothing but Swarms. Brilliant!
In the old book swarms were core, but couldn't be counted towards the 25% min. I think that is what was being suggested.
A change for all armies: Mounts, monsters, monstroues beasts, etc. (basically all animals) get +1 WS when frenzied
If they don't count towards core then I doubt many people would ever field them. With 50% special allotment, I don't think exceeding one's special choice allowance is the critical issue with Swarms being left at home.
Well, given how the BRB explains WS: "This defines how accomplished or skilled a warrior is with his weapons, or how determined and vicious a monster is."
Strongly disagree. Skirmishers are good, but why not decrease blowpipes by 1pts instead? To be fair I think we would need to cut the cost of most armies skirmishing archers if we did this. It's also tempting to throw in short bows as an option. I just think that 8pts skinks are expensive. They already lost a pip of Ld in the last update and "nerfing" them more doesn't quite seem fair. The issue isn't necessarily how good the skirmishers are, but how good the rest of our core is. Add "if joined by kroxigors opponents have -1 To Hit when hitting the kroxigors" I don't think this would fly well with non-Lizardmen, though I toyed with the idea of making Skroxigor and Kroxigor 45 points. I erred on the side of not giving away the store to the Lizardmen. I also figured since Kroxigor have a similar niche to cannons (killing big things) that Kroxigors can advance just by standing still since cannons are taking a hit. I'm not entirely sure what to think here. In a saurus vs skink skirmisher vs skrox unit discussion skrox are generally considered the worse of the three. I think we should change it in one way. Giving magic banners to SW and upping the price of skirmishers doesn't change that. The issue is generally speaking that kroxigors tend to die so a unit with 3 kroxigors is usually not worth it because you'll very quickly see yourself with just 2 kroxigors. With that said it's true that we have to be careful with what others think. We can no longer pull the "because GW said so" card so what we propose is something that needs to fly with the other communities. Currently all I can say is that skrox units are too hard a core unit to fully utilize. Change back to core This opens the possibility of an army that's 25% Swarms by points. I consider that altering 8th edition too much. And people would expect other armies to get this. Most people don't even use swarms. I consider our core units to be good (skirmisher/saurus) and so I'd never see myself with many jungle swarms nor do I think many others will. By changing them back to core we can create some synergy with the ark of sotek. I disagree. The solardon isn't a must have and increasing points will make it less attractive and do nothing to increase the need to use the ark. I'd be all for having the ark as standard on the solardon at 130pts and switch it with the solar beam for +20pts. Either that or add +1S if you want to increase the cost. I understand what you are saying. Another option would be to lower the base cost of the Bastiladon to compensate. I think there needs to be a points incentive to take the Ark of Sotek, since it is clearly weaker than the Solar Engine. 120pts ark of sotek + core snakes 150pts solardon I think that's a reasonable solution. To be honest I'd rather change Engine of The Gods back to how it used to be OR at the very least let us chose one special rule and buff the ward to 5+. I disagree. Tinkering with the EOTG will probably not fly well with non-LM players. Also, I vastly prefer the "new" version of the EOTG. In the old book, there was often a problem of forgetting to declare what the EOTG is doing. Many players were not okay with retroactively declaring something. Also, it bites to end up going second and have the EOTG Steggy shot at before the ward save is activated on your first turn. My biggest issue here is that we're paying 280pts for an engine stegadon and likely 20pts on top of that for the multiple wound impact hits. It's a very very expensive monster. Obviously changing the way cannons work could see a change to how we think of monsters, but currently I'd say 300pts for what we get is way too much. For me it's mostly just a waste. Maybe consider a point decrease? 30pts for engine upgrade would make it more attractive because at that point we could have it at 250pts which is decent. I realize that you want to go forward slow and safe, but a reduction of 20pts will make no difference at all. The troglodon seriously needs an overhaul way more than anything else. IT DOES NOT WORK AT ALL. Personally I'd give the Oracle skink a better purpose (like having 1 beast and 1 heaven spells, but not the super powerful spells, just decent spells). I would amenable to reducing the points cost more than 20 if the community fell behind it. I don't think tinkering with their abilities would be well-received. If they did get an ability tinker, the most obvious change seems to be to make the primal roar occur every round though I don't know how to balance that with it's points cost. Even with an "always on" buff I think the Troglodon is a bit overcosted, but I don't think most non-LM would see it that way. Again it's true that we need to be careful concerning other communities. There are two issues with the trogolodon: 1) The oracle have no use. Why have an *oracle* when all he can do is to channel and be used as an arcane vassel? It's just dumb. 2) The overall troglodon is a mess of features. I can propose many (small template that scatter D6 spit for instance), but the biggest issue is the point cost. In it's current state I'd go as far as to say 150pts. Why? Because at 150pts the solardon (despite the S4 attacks) bring more - the +1I is GOOD and the solar beam can be very good against regen/flaming units. The troglodon is currently 200pts worth of nothing. At 150pts one can bring it without the feeling of having spend too many points on something you know will not be an essential part of the game. But maybe 150pts is a bit extreme in one go, but without any further changes I'd say it's to be considered. The biggest thing though is how will cannons be changed? This will impact all monsters and thus we have to be extra careful as a monster army. If we propose changes on knowledge of how the current book works we might propose something too extreme, so in that regard maybe a middleground of 30pts? And throw in the channel upgrade for free :3
I'm happy that we as a community can discuss this in a good manner. With little knowledge of the other communities I have a feeling that we're quite reasonable here and can produce something very good in this thread.
Also changing miscast table (dice dependant) + magic resistance to work with miscasts would be huge game changers. I'd love for it to happen, however, we need to fix uber spells in that case. It shouldn't be an even bigger incentive to throw 6 dice at something..