9th Age Possible Solutions to 9th Age SA Problems

So I am starting to compile things that I feel would be solutions to our army, as I have been taught not to complain without already having a solution to the problem. So here is my attempt at adding some items that I do not feel would be OP while still providing a much more varied and fluff filled army, updates to come.


1) How do you feel about the core rule book changes in regards to your army?
Just an idea to make challenges more exciting, as they should be quite the focus in any combat, also benefits direct confrontation.

For challenges add a buff/debuff element, if you refuse a challenge then the unit receives -1WS (lord to lord) or -2I (hero to hero) or both (lord refuses a hero) and no penalty if a hero refuses a lord, if you won a challenge then the unit gains +1WS (lord kills lord) or +2I (hero kills hero) and both for hero killing a lord for the next turn.

2) How do you feel about the common magic item changes in regards to your army?
Think about adding in an army general only magic item section, 50pts or less but provides more of an army effect with small effect larger area buffs, or one use only powers. This would provide a layer of tactics and promote army focus rather than just a super killing character build.

3) How do you feel about changes to the magic paths in regards to your army?
Add in the ability for a wizard to voluntarily lose a wound with no saves of any kind (including white magic attribute) allowed to add a single dice to cast or dispel. Basically powering a spell with their life force, this would balance poor winds of magic a bit while still providing a significant risk for later in the game. Limit it to a number of times equal to wizard level.

4) Special Army Rules
a) How do you feel about the special rules for army after the update?

• Cold Blooded – Remove this rule from everything except characters, and possibly a few chosen units. That would bring cost down a lot on units and add in tactics of characters inside units, it would also promote more characters but with less fully tooled out builds. Cuatl Lord would provide cold blooded rule in his inspiring presence bubble, with a discipline that could expand his inspiring presence range, this would give him a unique ability and set him apart.
• Born Predator – Bring back natural 6 adds an attack, no one thought it was OP and it allows for less abuse. It can also be combined with other unit options to increase to natural 5+ with warlord’s totem option etc.
• Telepathic Link – Keep the range but add a -1 modifier to cast, with Cuatl options to get +4 to cast (Like taurosaur bonus) it would balance out the debuff with certain builds back to the max +3. With this balancing it shouldn’t effect cost of the unit very much at all.

5) Units
a) How do you feel about our units after the update?

• Saurian Warlord – Add the following totems (Max 50pts):
  • Piranha = AP1 (20pts)
  • Jaguar = +2 M (20pts)
  • Crocodile = innate defense +1 (On foot only) (25pts)
  • Viper = Lightning reflexes (30pts)
  • Bred to Lead = Unit gains BP, if it already has BP then it triggers on a 5+ (on average this will be less effective than WotDG Inspire Greatness, but it will be fun and fluffy and still effective) (25pts)
  • Eternal Guardian = No model on a palanquin in his unit may be attacked while this model still remains (all attacks that could target a palanquin model can instead target this model) (25pts)
  • Huanchi’s Champion = A single Raptor Rider unit may be chosen as core (30pts)
  • Apex Predator = +2WS (30pts)
• Skink High Priest – No change
• Cuatl Lord – Add some unique rules to this model to justify cost and fluff, possibly the following:
  • Meditation – If this model does not cast/dispel during a magic phase it may add 1 dice to his pool in the next phase.
  • World Shaper – Bound spell one use only, target a single terrain feature, you may move that terrain 2d6 inches in any direction or remove it from the board.
  • Telepathic Control = All SA units within this models inspiring presence range gain the cold blooded rule.
• Saurian Veteran – Add the following totems (Max 30pts):
  • Piranha = AP1 (15pts)
  • Jaguar = +2 M (15pts)
  • Crocodile = innate defense +1 (On foot only) (20pts)
  • Viper = Lightning reflexes (20pts)
  • Eternal Guardian = No model on a palanquin in his unit may be attacked while this model still remains (all attacks that could target a palanquin model can instead target this model) (20pts)
  • Apex Predator = +2WS (25pts)
• Skink Captain – Increase leadership to 7, along with cold blooded this will help to include him more into other units and with lighter builds. Give different spawnings such as the following:
  • Red Crested – Increase stats as such 5WS, 4T, 4A (sky rider and raptor mount options)
  • Jungle Born – May take a single skink hunter unit as core (no mount options)
  • Chameleon – Increase stats as such 6BS, 2A, 8LD (no taurosaur mount option)
• Skink Priest – If taken with a Cuatl they may exchange a single spell known for the signature spell of whatever lore the Cuatl takes.
• Caiman Ancient – Add BSB option, increase stats to the same as Ogre Khan, add the following upgrades (choose one):
  • Weathered Scales - +1 innate defense
  • Pyramid Builder - +1S
  • Pack Leader – Caiman unit receives +1M
  • Massive Jaws – gains MW2
  • Veteran Fighter – A single skink braves unit may take a caiman for every 6 skinks up to a maximum of 6 caiman. This hero must be deployed with that unit and may never leave it.

 

This seems interesting, but what about wizards? Even a lord level wizard will get pasted easily by a combat hero. It might be too much of a detriment to the unit bunkering the wizard.

Sounds like fun! I think the Caiman Ancient is one of the biggest missed opportunities thus far.

 

The Caiman hero could really use an overhaul! Your proposals are quite a decent ideas, for such change to the model; the one problem I see, seems to be that the people accepting such proposals, dislikes the caiman hero, as a concept in general. I fear that is its main enemy, and it has been so ever since it was first made a model for the army, back then it had its struggle as well. I know Pinktaco fought long and hard just to give it something to make it Work, for the army.

Poor caiman hero, just isen't given enough love

 

Why remove cold-blooded from all units?

How about removing stupidity from Cold Ones? They are supposed to be this savage and rapacious jungle predator, but every now and then they suddenly act like placid bovines.. ..how did that ever make sense?

 

Don't know if there's a specific bias towards us, but I could be wrong the general idea was, that large sized hero was a thing for only a small selection of army books and that a caiman hero, would be little different from the scar veteran.

 

There is a clear bias against SA. That poor Caiman ancient is always under constant assault. However, Dwarven Holds are gifted T5 monstrous infantry with multiple woulds (d3) and it's no problem.

• Why can Dwarves get a brand new unit (with no historical precedence) and we have so much difficulty getting a decent new character (with historical precedence)?
• Why can Dwarves have T5 monstrous infantry but Caimans could not keep their T5 upgrade?

Let's be honest, this isn't exactly a new issue. I've heard many stories that the pre-cursor, Swedish comp, unjustly over-comped certain armies and were overly lenient with others. I've never played comp, so this is based on what I've merely heard, but I've heard these rumblings from many sources. I wasn't sure if I should take them at face value, but after seeing these 9th Age shenanigans I suspect they were true.

 

The biggest issue I am finding with 9th Age right now is the fact that behind all of the Army supports, Army Book Committee etc there is still only 1 group of 7 players that decide everything (this being the RT).

The RT ultimately decides everything and can easily choose to disregard feedback. I am not saying that they will disregard feedback, but in the end it is their choice and their choice only.

I am doing my best to try and convince the RT that there are more issues that can be solved with their usual method. Their normal plan would be to apply only point reductions/increases and a single redesign in the April release. But because of the large amount of changes and nerfs, both needed an illogical ones, their normal plan is simply not enough. One allowed redesign is far too little to fix what he have now.

 

I agree with your assumption Haemoglobin, I dont reckon they'll disregard feedback completely. However they are a small group of people and with this follows both good and bad thing: They'll have a better idea of what and where they want the game to move to, but as mentioned they then also run the risk of seeing only their own visions of the game.

Perhaps we suffer a bit from the fact that we had quit a change in ABC, during the games development. A common team of people during the whole project would or could (perhaps) have given the army a better general design.

I reckon that we have lost a lot of flair with this new update, the suggestion that people are making are however compelling. The fear is that the final project won't be able to support the expectation, following a disappointing release, such as the recent one.

 

We lost quite a lot of flair with update, the 0.99 version has implemented changes that were waaay too harsh on the internal balance of the army.

Externally we might be okay, but internally it is a mess.

 

Very true. It's not like balance, army vs army, is my main concern, either ...

 

I hope that the RT team sees this and will take action.

Pretty sure they are getting annoyed by my constant asking of questions and linking to the feedback thread

 

Hopefully they do take it seriously, because otherwise they are likely to turn away a large percentage of the player base. Maybe they will end with just the 7 of them (rules team) playing in their basements .

 

Alternatively we could make our rules and find a Lustria-Online-Basment, to met and play our rule set

 

I'm likely to play straight up 8th Edition or take a few of the good things from 9th Age (such as being able to bypass a character wall and attack rank and file, toning down of cannons, toning down of 6 dicing uber spells) and add them to 8th. Barring a miracle, I don't think 9th Age will be my choice of games. There are just too many things that bother me about it.

 

Such is the nature of life. In the end they have to follow their vision. Although it is looking like their vision does not line up to my personal taste, that is absolutely okay (though much like a Dwarf I will probably grumble about it ).

As with anything in life...

• You can't please all of the people all of the time
• You can't please some of the people all of the time
• The best you can hope for is to please some of the people some of the time!