9th Age Discussion of OpenHammer (ETC) and Ninth Age (Swedish Comp)

[skink chief]

I share your opinion that the game should be balanced out as much as possible, but I do feel that it must be done very carefully. The situation you describe is very different from the one we find ourselves in now...

• the Swedish Comp & ETC guys are not an authority like GW is. If GW came out with something someone didn't like, they pretty much had to accept it if they wished to play Warhammer. That is not the case now, where players can simply choose to play regular 8th edition which is more "official" than 9th age

I indeed wanted to note this as well but felt like my post would be to long.

As for the WoC players: I did not mean all WoC players etc. (but I think you know what I mean), all ppl love to win. But the ppl that really just buy an army because it is the strongest and will stop playing the game because their OP units have been nerfed... Yeah those are the guys I'm talking about. They rather throw all their mini's in the bin then play with a non OP army.
I personally started with warhammer playing warriors of chaos, about 15years back. Even then they were OP, but I have allways been kinda the dark minded type of guy and fell in love with Archaon fluff xD. It wasn't about *I will win*, it was about *I got coooool looking dark god mini's!

 

[Mr Phat]

Are we making a document with a collection of our gathered wishes of change and balancing for the committee?

I am thinking that even though it is not certain that they will include it all, it will at least hint them in the direction of our thought process.

I propose that the admins will have the final word in what goes in and out of that document, to prevent too many cooks syndrome.

@Scalenex @The Red Devil @Qupakoco @Arli

Is this something you would agree to put time in to?

 

[Pinktaco]

Uh.. Already happened several weeks ago, but nice of you to show up xD

 

[Mr Phat]

Uh.. Already happened several weeks ago, but nice of you to show up xD

Hah, what page? was wondering if I was mister late to the party. Better late than never right?
Ive been spending time trying to get AoS to work. So far with some luck! but must admit I am drawn back here

 

[Mr Phat]

anyway...here are the things I would like to see happen (on top of the very fair changes already made by them)


MAGIC
l Acces to Lore of Light outside of the slann / Chances of boosting “Banishment”

Suggestion 1: Bastiladon with Solar Engine count as a “Wizard with light magic” regarding Banishments Strenght

(- the +1 initiative buff improves for each light spell cast? - )


Suggestion 2: Skink can take “Spawning of Chotec” for 10pts which gives them acces to lore of light.
Other lores connected with a Spawning of an old one (Huanchi = Shadow, Quetzl = Life) would be a “cool” factor, but is not as needed in my opinion.



UNIT CHANGE

l Command Group for KROXIGOR (or at least Musician)

l Troglodon automatically has Divining Staff, +1 Attack, +1 Initiative costs 180pts (-20)

l Tetto-Eko costs 215pts (+30).

l Skink Cohort costs 6pts per skink (+1)

l Saurus Warriors costs 10pts per Saurus (-1)

l Templeguard costs 13pts per model (-1), OR 1 unit of Templeguard may be taken as Core if there is a Slann in the Army List (still costs 14pts).

l Razordons is a Special choice and costs 70pts (+5)



WISHLISTING

l Give us back our Sacred Spawnings, BIG please.

l Cavalry in core.

Suggestion: 1 unit of Cold One Cavalry can be taken as Core if there is a Saurus Hero mounted on a cold One in the army.

l Solo Carnosaurs in rare

 

[ASSASSIN_NR_1]

Give us back our Sacred Spawnings, BIG please.

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSS! Please, that would more or less do it for me.

On the infamous youtube channels like MR Malorian and such, most of them were like: they got nerfed (maybe not hardcore nerfed, but overall a nerf). Were you angry (if you did feel the same way). Did you not want to play 8th with this new book? Now think about the change from 7th ed. to 8th and repeat the questions. You play 8th don't you? And you probably hated 8th at the start didn't you?

Was the new book that bad? I mean I did not own a Slann at that time, so I pretty much only used Saurus and Monsters, so I felt like we got an overall buff. I can clearly see that the Slann was better, but he is not exactly weak now.

 

[Agrem]

Just a thought that came up to my mind when writing stuff to the internal balance and skink cavalry threads...

How about instead of buffing kroxigors we keep them as they are but we would make them a CORE UNIT? (well ok, you could give them the option for musician)

The idea behind this is that you rarely see these fielded in special as there are so many better options in there because the stats are nothing special (pun intended ) But in core their stats would be about on the same power level as saurus warriors. This way we would even have a 4th core unit at our disposal.

BR
Agrem

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

l Razordons is a Special choice and costs 70pts (+5)

I can't think of a justification that warrants increasing the points cost of Razordons... even if they are moved to special. Even at their current points cost they are rarely fielded.

 

[skink chief]

If they have a max unit size and max 1 in army looking at pts the army can be. Then it looks good

 

[Pinktaco]

Hah, what page? was wondering if I was mister late to the party. Better late than never right?
Ive been spending time trying to get AoS to work. So far with some luck! but must admit I am drawn back here

I'll find them later =]

 

[Mr Phat]

But in core their stats would be about on the same power level as saurus warriors.

Please tell me you are kidding
They are S7 on attacks (Which makes their PF WAY better than Saurus')
Have S5 stomp
Causes Fear
Have 2+ movement speed

Saurus have a Parry save ^^

I can't think of a justification that warrants increasing the points cost of Razordons... even if they are moved to special. Even at their current points cost they are rarely fielded.

Even if you see in perspective of the other changes I am proposing?
If you get TG and/or a unit of Cold Ones in core, wouldn't you re-evaluate Razordons if you had plenty room in Special?

A couple of ETC lists used Razordons this year, to great succes as far I have heard.
I myself find them pretty good as well.

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

Even if you see in perspective of the other changes I am proposing?
If you get TG and/or a unit of Cold Ones in core, wouldn't you re-evaluate Razordons if you had plenty room in Special?

A couple of ETC lists used Razordons this year, to great succes as far I have heard.
I myself find them pretty good as well.

As it stands, most lists do not include Razordons. With a points increase (even if they are moved to special), they will be used even less. I'm not saying that they are a terrible choice, but they definitely do not warrant an increase in points cost.

 

[Pinktaco]

Are we making a document with a collection of our gathered wishes of change and balancing for the committee?

List as of August 4th 2015.

Predatory Fighter applies to supporting attacks.
Comment: PF is a mess. Allow it not becuase it'll boost our saurus units, but because it's annoying to throw seperate rolls and confusing for our opponents. A Cold Oone Rider unit will at minimum make 4 different rolls (front, second rank, additional PF attacks and mount). If you get off a reroll augment you can do the entire thing twice.
Allow PF in second because we want to streamline our rolls and not make them draw out and confuse out opponent.
New suggestion to completely remove PF. Add sacred spawnings and we won't care at all.

Magic Items
Reduce cost of Horn of Kygor by 10 points.
Reduce the cost of the Jaguar Standard by 15 points
Make it clear that the Sacred Stegadon Helm of Itza and Piranha Blade dont stack.


Characters:
Slann Mage Priests

Add
Focused Ferocity: Predatory Fighter units joined by a Slann may always test to restrain pursuit as if the Slann were a Skink character. This does not apply to other units within six inches of the Slann. If a Slann gains Fear orTerror, the Slanns unit is considered to possess Fear or Terror. (Slann special characters get this too.)

Note this will make Harrowing Scrutiny reasonable

Raise cost of Becalming Cognition by 5 points
Reduce Cost of Transcendent Healing by 5 points

Saurus Oldblood/Saurus Scar Veteran
Reduce cost of Carnosaur by 10 points
(Add the price increase on mounts already in the Alpha)

Skink Chief
Add
Beast Kinship: A Skink Chief mounted on a Terradon may join a unit of Terradon riders. A Skink Chief mounted on a Ripperdactyl may join a unit of Ripperdactyl riders. Mounted Skink Chiefs may not join any other unit.
Allow skink Chiefs to mount the bolt thrower on the (special) stegadon.
Comment: At first glance a BS5 bolt thrower seem overpowered, but once you add penalties and consider the price it's hardly true. It'll instead allow for more usage of both the baby stegadon and skink chief without being a super competitive choice. However both might be viewed negatively amont other players and neither are priority changes.

Skink Priest
Unchanged

Core
Saurus Warriors
one unit of Saurus Warriors per army may take a magic standard worth up to 25 points).

Skink Cohort
Unchanged
Comment: while skink cohort could see some sort of change it's hardly a priority as of now. They still serve a function. One user did, however, comment a point decrease of 1pts.

Skink Skirmishers
Suggestion to make blowpipes more attractive:
# +1 To Hit against large targets.
# BS4 with an appropriate point increase.
# Quick To Fire.
# A seperate unit entry.
Comment: With a 5+ parry for the javelin guys the blowpipe guys need a decent change.

Jungle Swarms
Reduce cost by 5 points per model
Move to Core

Special
Temple Guard
Unchanged

Cold One Riders
Reduce costs of Spear upgrade by 2 points per model
May take a magic banner worth up to 50 points
Allow one unit to be Core
Comment: 2pts lances might be too cheap though, The 2pts price was suggested before the change on spears.
Core CoRs could be a Kroq Gar special rule, like he used to have in the 7th edition army book.

Kroxigor
Add Standard and Musician options

Terradon Riders
Make optional swap to Fireleech bolas free

Stegadon
Chief can use his BS to mount the giant bolt thrower
Price decrease 20-30pts.
Comment The baby steg isn't actually bad-bad, it's just that for the price you might as well pick the ancient stegadon and have S6 impact hits.

Bastiladon
reduce base cost by 15-20 points
Solar Engine costs 15-20 points. Ark of Sotek remains free
Comment: With core swarms along with price reduction it *might* make the ark of sotek more interesting/attractive

Rare
Ancient Stegadon
Unchanged

Salamander Hunting Pack
Unchanged

Razordon
Add armour piercing
Add small price increase (5-10pts)

Troglodon
Reduce cost by 40 points

Special/named Characters
Mazdamundi
Raise Leadership score to 10

Add to rules
Greatest living caster: Mazdamundi is treated as a 5th level caster

Lord Kroak
Add 10 points to the base cost

Kroq-Gar
Reduce base cost by 30 points
As mentioned previously allow for Cold One Riders to be core or just a single unit.

Chakax
Reduce base cost by 15 points

Gor-rok
Unchanged

Tettoeko
Raise Ld by one point
Raise base cost by 30-40 points

Tiktakto
Reduce base cost by 15 points
Change name to something less stupid. Teploq means death from the skies and sounds close enough to the original name
Allow Tiktakto to join units Terradons and possibly Ripperdactyls. He have a special rule that grants his weapon skill (4) to the unit he join - which he currently can't.

Oxyotl
Add Hates Daemons

 

[Pinktaco]

Alright analyzing kroxigors how can we easily deal with these so they will see more action?

At 50pts/model they're actually appropriately costed and yet they have major drawbacks. They each have 50% chance to pop another attack at S7, however their high strenght is also their biggest downfall - they all strike at ASL initiative. This mean that a unit will have to handle incoming ranged shooting and magic and once they reach CC they strike after most opponents. This can be a major deal because there are unit that can just flat out wreck them before they swing or at least make them useless.

Comparably the new minotaur now have the following:

WS4, S5/T4, 3A/3W, I3 and Ld7
Light armour
Frenzy + bloodgreed
Forest strider
Mark of Chaos (4pts)
Impact Hit (1)
Full command + magic banner (50pts)

You can give these guys Mark of Khorne and have them hit at S6 on the charge - I'm going to go ahead and assume the impact hit will hit at S6 as well. At WS4/4A each and 5A on the champ these guys will murder everything they touch, except great weapon elfs.

At that point they're 49pts/model.

So their major issue is the almost complete lack of armour save (6+). They can buy a shield, but not benefit from the parry due to frenzy. In fact you might as well give them a second hand weapon for added giggles because that'll make them cost 53pts with 5 attacks each hitting at S6 with MoK. Just think about that for a second.
I know one shouldn't compare unit type vs unit type, but should a unit of these hit a kroxigor unit they'll pulverize them immediately. And they're barely even more expensive.

A unit of 8 minotaurs with that setup will do 18 wounds against T4 with a 4+ save on the charge. Against 1+ knights you can just halve that amount.
Against 1+ knights kroxigors will do close to the same, counting PF and with same amount of models. Not counting any lost models .________.

I think giving kroxigors full command is a decent "buff", but it won't change sh1t, unfortunately. I think their biggest issue is their lack of flexibility. I mean a minotaur unit with the above can take on almost all targets and with a flaming banner they can wreck chimeras before they swing.. And trolls.

Kroxigors want to either flank charge anything or charge (not take a charge) a unit of knights. Getting off a charge will mean they can usually win because at that point knights have lost a lot of their hitting power. They can also hunt monsters, but they still do it while suffering casualties.

Personally I think that if we want to make kroxigors more viable we have to make them more flexible. I'm not asking to make them able to take on white lions head on, but at least make them decent in all match-ups and not just some, and when I say decent it's as in actually able to take something down something without being some sort of wizard. The reason is that when we look at our strongest units - the cowboys - we take them because they are so extremely effective against a very large amount of units. In fact an oldblood can take on basically all units except those that completley ignore armour for whatever reason or force initiative tests (treemen and hell pit abominations). They can tank a unit, take on powerful melee lords, take on monster, monstrous cavalry, unit of normal cavalry .. anything. They are obviously on the extreme end of flexibility, but we take them because of that. And their ridiculous price.

So how do we solve kroxigors?

We could mimic BM and allow magic banners (M7, flaming?).
We could allow halbards, but at I1 it won't do THAT much.
We could ramp up the attack stat by 1, which (if we keep PF) would allow for 66% chance to pop a new attack.
Maybe do something weird and allow one kroxigor to automatically hit all infantry models B2B contact as S5.
We could drop the points, but to what? 5pts won't do much so we're likely talking what? 10pts?
We could come up with a kroxigor hero at a reasonable price that buffs the entire unit?
Up their Armour Save with +1 for a bit of added protection from ranged fire?
Add all of the above and laugh like maniacs?
Something completely different?

Also I'm not looking to completely overhaul Kroxigors - just look at minotaurs, they got very slight buffs (mark and frenzy from the get go along with a price reduction) so I was hoping we could do the same. I don't want them to become must have, just units you'd be able to pick and actually have fun with without having to suffer through 10-20 games of harsh learning only to not care by then.

 

[Agrem]

Please tell me you are kidding
They are S7 on attacks (Which makes their PF WAY better than Saurus')
Have S5 stomp
Causes Fear
Have 2+ movement speed

Saurus have a Parry save ^^

Yes, well I think I could have phrased that a bit better than what I did. But I still think dropping Kroxigors to Core unit could work as a way to make them more useful. Although after thinking this through with a bit more though atleast some max unit size should be introduced (6?) and perhaps some other minor changes.... S4 again?

BR
Agrem

 

[TinGodzilla]

For Kroxigors I think +1 toughness would help alot and fits better with the models in my view. You could easily adapt their points if they become too good. I thought one of the benefits of 9th was meant to be playtesting.

As for Razordons, maybe they could get the rule where they can stand and shoot against anyone charging within X of them? I always thought that was an interesting rule. Failing that they could go back to rolling two dice in stand and shoot?

Also I was thinking that 9th age should concentrate on minor buffs to all the units in every army that do not see much use. There is nothing wrong that certain units are strong, that is part of Warhammer and it would be boring if every unit was perfectly balanced. Once they have improved those units they can eventually move to nerfing what they consider to be overtly strong units. I feel like they are trying to do too many things at once and it will further fracture the player base, who I think in the main are just looking for a tidied up version of 8th to start with.

Giving everyones underused units buffs also encourages people to be excited to go back into playing, trying the new stuff and supporting the project. I think they have done a reasonable job with the Beastmen and hopefully that will be encouraging Beastmen players to get out there and try it out.

 

[Mr Phat]

If Kroxigors got T5 we would look at something close to 60 or een 70 points.

Every krox would basicly be a faster moving Scar veteran with slightly less weapon skill and an AUTO hitting S5 attack instead of one on the profile.

 

[TinGodzilla]

60-70 points it is then, I am not pretending that I know any better! Otherwise I think a simple points decrease would at least help a little bit.

 

[Pinktaco]

BTW I think they're redoing always strike last. I believe it's changed so you have initiative 0. So this mean that you can in theory buff them. A Bastiladon would bump them to I1.

 

[skink chief]

Alright analyzing kroxigors how can we easily deal with these so they will see more action?

Personally I think that if we want to make kroxigors more viable we have to make them more flexible. I'm not asking to make them able to take on white lions head on, but at least make them decent in all match-ups and not just some, and when I say decent it's as in actually able to take something down something without being some sort of wizard. The reason is that when we look at our strongest units - the cowboys - we take them because they are so extremely effective against a very large amount of units. In fact an oldblood can take on basically all units except those that completley ignore armour for whatever reason or force initiative tests (treemen and hell pit abominations). They can tank a unit, take on powerful melee lords, take on monster, monstrous cavalry, unit of normal cavalry .. anything. They are obviously on the extreme end of flexibility, but we take them because of that. And their ridiculous price.

That is what I wanted to say with my first posts of the Krox. And why I also feel like TinGodzilla:

For Kroxigors I think +1 toughness would help alot and fits better with the models in my view. You could easily adapt their points if they become too good. I thought one of the benefits of 9th was meant to be playtesting.

T5 would give them much more diversety of who they can fight IMO (flexibility). The main problem they have is as you say, they can get shot at in shooting phase, MagicPhase, they ASL because of the GW so if you are up against a bigger unit or strong unit, you'll have lots of death Krox before being able to hit back with their Strength. Giving them T5 would mean they don't suffer so much if you play them right. Do you put these guys in White Lions at T5? Hell no. That's up to generalship. I wouldn't mind if they got more expensive because of this.

In general they need a bit more survivability or they will not be effective IMO.
Also what 9th is seemingly doing: maximum unit size and max units of 1 kind. It's really good I feel, and for Krox that is something that would be great if they get a buff of some sort. I don't want to see a unit of 16Krox like we see Trolls. So that would mean the unit is strong but can be dodged by opponents if they don't have the means to fight them because the unit is not THAT many points.

I've never played with the sacred spawnings, but I guess that is something like Mark of Chaos, maybe that can help of some sort?

TBH and this is waaaaaay up high in space and wouldn't be do-able, but;;; if their base size was 4SW and you would be able to put them in a unit of SW... I think they would be nice and strong .