AoS Realmshaper Engine - Let's Crack It!

I mean it depends on how you play. If you play according to GHB2019 where you can bring a piece of Arcane Ruins terrain, I can totally see it being viable since you get a win/win. If you roll randomly for 6 pieces of terrain or play tournaments, I dont see the value in it and might just leave it at home. I dont want to risk a 50/50 on either me or the opponent getting an advantage (regardless of how big it may impact the game).

 

The primary issue I have with it is, say vs DoK. They charge up the board with their immortal WE blobs, and their amazing buffing heroes just garrison it to make them even more durable.

I think placing it in the middle of the board is not a good option. You will want to pick a side. And if your opponent gets the side, then too bad.

 

its officially not useable in competitions.

 

You could use it against some armies to screw with their deployment I guess.

My problem with deploying the Realmshaper anywhere but in your deployment zone for instant garrision turn 1, is that the effect of the Realmshaper is simply not strong enough.

Imagine the following scenario - You place the Realmshaper somewhat in the middle or near an objective:
- Turn 1: You run your units up near it
- Turn 2: Your opponent has done the same and you are gonna fight at the terrain piece. Best case scenario you wipe his units by now.
- Turn 3: Since you didnt want your Priest or whatever to die in melee he stayed a little bit away, so he has run up next to the terrain by now.
- Turn 4: In your movement phase, you garrison it with your Priest.

Now, even if you manage to get to it 1 turn earlier, keep in mind you can't start zapping terrain with it until your NEXT hero phase. So even if you garrison it in turn 3, you will only have turn 4 and turn 5 to shoot with it.

 

Excellent job putting it in perspective, the biggest thing I'm seeing is that our terrain piece does not have an all use case strategy.

Spitballing for VS close combat heavy armies,

A) put in the farthest point from the center of the board in a deployment zone if you have long range ability. Either they waste some time hiding people in it far from their own troops, or we add a couple of extra MW to our initial long-range bombardment.

B) put it as close to the middle in the deployment zone as we can, allowing us to auto garrison it, or do it turn 2. This is if we have a more skirmisher army in which we can help keep our support heroes alive and dish out some MW as we move the rest of our army. The largest downside is your opponent can get similar things, so we need to look closely and know the meta as to whether that kind of effect would actually be advantageous to them (me not knowing most armies, I suspect this a common case with all armies, and why most people are afraid of the terrain feature backfiring).

C) Place it as a focal point on an objective. This will most likely force a fight at the spot you desire, allowing you to control where the action is happening, and hopefully, be able to use it for your advantage in securing other positions. This one will probably take the most brainpower to use effectively as you have to know a lot about your opponent, their list, and strategies.

For more experienced players what do you think?

(edit for a bit better formating/readability.

 

If you put it miles away from anything else, you are likely looking at having to roll a 6+ for a D3 MW output to units around a single piece of terrain. Keep in mind you have to throw a Priest or Oracle inside to zap stuff - This means not only are you likely doing no MW output, you will also have an important support hero with an important buff miles away from anywhere else. Certainly not worth it IMO. The opponent can also simply choose to go attack it with a flanking unit - A Skink Priest wont survive much even if he get +1 save and -1 to be hit.

The piece has to be wholly within your territory to garrision it upon deploying your unit. Otherwise your unit must be within 6" and use your movement to garrison it. I dont think you can put it square in the middle and still be within 6" at the start of your 2nd movement phase.

Keep in mind the units inside suddenly got a 6x6" hitbox too, so the surface area is suddenly huge - Your support guy is now much easier to surround and kill despite getting +1 save and -1 to be hit. Unless you plan to throw Bastiladons inside. Also keep in mind that if your opponent runs up and is within 3" of the terrain piece, he has denied you from garrisoning it.

The whole purpose of the terrain piece for me was to zap support heroes etc. near terrain. That couple with Comet's Call from my Kroak could put some damage into the opponent's support heroes. Now if you have to put the terrain piece almost dead center, you simply risk your dudes getting killed. As mentioned before, the terrain is like 6x6", so it is very easy for the opponent to charge and surround the terrain and kill whatever is inside. +1 save and -1 to be hit is good, but it doesnt make whatever is inside immortal. I would much rather have my Skink Priest sat behind a screen or two, than get charged while inside the terrain piece.

 

I will still use it. Even as just a terrain piece. Ahh well.

 

@RandomTsar Im thinking hard trying to come up with a way how the Realmshaper Engine can be beneficial for us. You cant even move units ontop of the actual terrain. Otherwise you could have put it somewhere and turn 1 deployed Chameleon Skinks ontop to get cover, just not the -1 to be hit.

 

Its going on my display board as an eye catching scenery piece until they fix it. I really regret buying one.

 

Trying out multi quoting so bear with me...

Fair enough, tbh it's hard to speculate distances though. It might be better in this situation instead of placing it in the far corner of deployment place it in the middle of a deployment zone? Keep us in range for things like bastiladons near enough to get a benefit from a skink star priest, while still giving them, and the terrain piece range. Remember that in this scenario we are facing an army that wants to move towards us, so the ranges get even smaller than just measuring the board.

As far as the opponent getting it in this situation, they still would need to hold back a unit, all be it to a lesser extent. If they completely ignore it, and we're star borne maybe this gives us a better reason for oracle on trogladon with LoST? If not then we potentially lose out on anything for the piece. Worst case, we cant shoot a high priority target for a turn, maybe two. Medium case, we cant use it all. Best case the oppoent choose to play and position in a poor manner, hoping to get their 'buff'.

Note this option was still assuming it was in our deployment zone, either fully or partially. To guarantee we can get in auto, or turn 1 movement. The idea is that we would send our front line troops up creating a screen for our temple and wizard. Also granting look out sir. Thus eliminating the fear of being surrounded and killed.

The position should eliminate any enemy unit nearby denial.

Note if the enemy picks it, this could also potentially limit thier front line advance, either limit some units to a 6" move (if the had more) or forcing them to deploy around it and circle it ( at least a bit ) to get closer to us.

I think this more an issue of adapting to a different strategy. For its obvious use of zapping people with MW, this strategy is useless I agree, In this option, it is being used more as a fieldable LOS and movement impediment. The idea would not be to garrison it with our units, merely bait an interaction at an objective. If the opponent comes in we'll hopefully have set ourselves in a more advantageous position then them.

If they don't then maybe we garrison it to hold the object more secure.

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Again these were just off the cuff spitball, for someone who hasn't played any 2k games, and only a hand full of 1k ones.

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Just to be clear I really appreciate your input, you definitely have valid points and made me push my brain for some responses. Thanks for the excellent constructive criticism!

 

Any rule that gives the opponent an opportunity to use your own models(which you spent money and time working on) against you is a bad rule. Its badly thought out, badly designed, and bad feels all around. Why would anyone pay 60 dollars for a terrain feature that you may not be able to use, let alone that could be used by your opponent against you? Its just a dumb ruling on GW and a sad state for the engine.

 

Honestly I refused to believe they would let the rules be as-is, hence I put it together and started painting it. If it was still in box, I would 100% return it.

 

To be honest, if you are trying to make something work, it is already probably not worth it. Even if you can make RSE useful through series of sophisticated combinations, why even bother? Other faction terrain - just place it and it works, you lose nothig and gain something good. Ours is... "oh, let's hope it won't help my enemy and probably I will have something from it by turn 3". At this point, I'd better pay 100 points for Penumbral engine. It is pretty random too, but at list it isn't breaking me the game.

 

I don't disagree that it is a bad ruling, I don't disagree that it is not fair compared to other terrain features. I appreciate your input, agree and sympathize with your points.

I can certainly understand your unwillingness to pay for and spend time testing something that makes the game less fun for you.

Part of the fun for me is solving the puzzle, as I am sure it is for other people.

So please let's leave the "just don't use it" responses on some other thread.

 

Agreed. This topic is about finding out how to make it useful. It may not be the most useful, but testing it and finding out how best to perform with it is the aim here.

 

Can you bring more than one? Just buy two and put one in each deployment zone!

 

no i was exited about that but the book says only one

 

Sons of bitches.... it would have been a sure fire way to make double the profit....

 

I was already disappointed with the garrisoning part of the rules. Just because the terrain piece doesn't look garrisonable at all!

How is someone supposed to get inside!? That for me was already a big let down. If the terrain piece visually goes against it's own fluff is discouraging me to buy it or play with it.

Even more if it gives you as player almost the same amount of disadvantages than advantages.
It could just be activated by nearby Seraphon wizards, without garrisoning at all, even with random placement as now... and it would be just ok! both gamewise and fluffwise.

Not going to buy it anytime soon, probably never. I would reconsider it if they rewrite the warscroll and drop the garrisoning. Garrisoning is already an annoying mechanic that needs to be agreed with the other player in advance, I don't understand why they make it the whole thing about this piece. Plus is problematic in tournament play.