If the placement rules of the RSE was changed to after sides were picked (which was the entire point of the conversation), you would always have access to the RSE turn 1, so your point is moot. Sure, your opponent can just not stand near terrain, but that effectively denies your opponent arcane terrain, all kinds of faction terrain etc. Beasts of Chaos rely on their stone to summon things, FEC gets to summon for free on their altar instead of using CPs (very important for them) etc. Saying no to all of that is very strong. That is why I said I would rather have a lesser version of the RSE, but instead knowing that I can always rely on it being on my side of the board (or wherever I want it to be). In general it is kinda meaingless to compare the RSE to the OBR faction terrain or any other piece. Faction terrain isnt created and balanced 1:1. Entire armies - A combination of warscrolls, alligiance abilities, batallions, spells, artefacts etc.- Is balanced (somewhat at least) 1:1. The faction terrain plays a bigger part of the army's overall strength for one faction, where as it is less important for another faction.
Strong yes, but with the exception of beast of chaos, who need 2 units to be near their stone on top of being a fairly squishy army and thus will risk a lot if they try to use it, most armies should be able to work around it without too many problems. Or well, let me put it this way; random terrain like arcane is unreliable to begin with (may not be in the right position, may not even be on the table) so being denied that should simply mean you play "as normal" and shouldn't be an excuse for why you lost. Then there are factions who have sturdy enough support heroes to eat a D3 or two and could risk it (to stick with your FEC example, the models that need to go near the throne outheal the RSE...) Most faction terrain has at least some effects with a larger range than the 3" our RSE hits anyway, reducing it to a minor inconvenience. And lastly, we can only target 1 terrain piece at a time, and rarely do people have a reason to stick multiple units near it, let alone stay near terrain indefinitly as the terrain might not be in a particularly relevant part of the battleground (e.g. far away from an objective). All of which reduces this to essentially "you might get a 3-4 D3 damage over the course of an good game" and that's without the opponent trying to deny us the terrain (or kick us out), or taking into account that we need to actually get into the damn thing first. Which isn't exactly gamebreaking. Taking into account those additional limitiations we're probably going to be lucky if we 1-2 hits with it in an average game. I wouldn't be surprised if the average damage, ignoring potential wardsaves, would be something like 0.5-1 per game... This at least I agree with I think I've told you something similar before (at least I've told someone on this site) but no, the fact that X & Y aren't balanced in a vacuum but within the context of their faction as a whole doesn't mean you can't compare them. And this goes doubly for things like faction terrain which are "free" for a given faction and thus part of their core. And thus should provide similar-ish value or be counterbalanced by some incredible flaw in their core design. In which case our RSE gets the worst of the deal, having limitations that no other faction terrain has & being the only terrain that can potentially be advantageous to the opponent while not really giving us much in return unless it's used in (near) optimal circumstances. On top of that, (near) optimal circumstances require a fairly dumb opponent (e.g. nice enough to go stand next to terrain with multiple models, nice enough to not contest it) or a load of luck (win the roll-off, somehow, with our 8907439857 drop armies)
Looks like the one that sits on the shoulder of the treeman ancient. So new Sylvaneth/ Kournothi hunters?
Since spells are free too, they should all be somewhat identical then? Thats crazy talk man. Factions are different to each other. It is a package deal, you cant just pick a single thing out of package X and compare it to one thing from package Y. It is the same as people argued that Seraphon summoning was bad because it wasnt as strong as Slaanesh - Summoning in Slaanesh plays a completely different role in that faction compared to our summoning. Im sorry but it is just nonsense and not how things are made.
not identical but of simeler strength it's why people get bent out of shap about serten spells being to good or in our case most of our spells being bad and slanesh summoning was bent as hell every one said it should change
I know a lot more has been debated about the RSE after this comment. @Grotpunter I just want to say that I hear you, but I don't totally agree. I'm not nearly as insightful as many on here, but I think being able to garrison the RSE and have enemy units be able to garrison the RSE, is a much bigger pain than it's actual ability. Putting a slann/Kroak in the RSE, with some saurus guard hidden behind it, is a VERY difficult problem for our opponents. Likewise, if an enemy caster or a decent enemy ranged model got into the RSE, it would be difficult for us (depending on our build). The RSE ability affects just one piece of terrain with enemies nearby, each Seraphon hero phase. Then it's a 50/50 roll to cause damage, which could be better or worse depending on the distance of the terrain. This seems pretty much in line with other damaging faction terrain. Like many others, I'm not crazy that it's placed before deciding sides and that it requires a Serphon Wizard to garrison it. If the RSE just worked, or maybe worked so long as there is a Seraphon Wizard on the board, it seems to me it would not be unlike the Bonetithe Nexus. Opponents would just need to decide if they want to be near it to start, and get away quickly, or manage it as they move across the board. EDIT: Honestly, after thinking just a bit more (after I posted this) I realized that, if the RSE just worked no matter where it was, it would probably need to be adjusted because the Seraphon player could just place it close to the center of the board for maximum effect.
I would quite like all faction terrain to have a points cost. My thoughts are: if adding x to an army makes it better it should cost points, and that includes terrain. Two identical armies, one with faction terrain and one without, are currently not equal. It would be tricky as heck to cost, but even a nominal cost makes sense. It does also mean some terrain could be free if it had downsides (ie RSE). Terrain like the RSE could also be used in tourneys, its equally useful to both sides if neither is seraphon as they could both try to garrison it. Hmm, rambled on a bit there but extra options for games like terrain can really help set a great game and narrative.
You do realize the vast majority of the spells are some variant of "Do D3 damage and have some minor bonus effect with a casting value of 5-8" right? They are quite similar... And yes, you can compare X & Y from different packages. You can't necesarly say it's unbalanced, but you can definitly say X is far too weak compared to Y and unless Y is counterbalanced by some grave flaw somewhere else X is too weak. Similarly you can fairly easily say "great that we have X as a 'bonus' that we don't rely on, but in this form it is too weak even as a bonus as it requires a massive investment to get a meaningfull return". Which is the case with our summoning where anything less than a dedicated summoning build isn't really going to be all that usefull.
adeptus titanicus or possibly a knight. Maybe another armiger variant. Imho anything smaller than that seems weird given what we're seeing here. Alternativly it could be a piece of terrain.
Yeah that's what i think too, i thought it may be a ork powerclaw to begin with but then i saw the pustulent boil that Nurgle marines have on the top of the fist.
Why is this Nurgle? Chaos Space Marine I guess is right, but it could also be Korne-ish(Blood dripping down), or am I missing something Grrr, Imrahil