I mentioned this in the other thread but I'm really sorry about that. I've been getting crushed at work but things are starting to lighten up. Lightened enough to get the supplements out anyway. That's done. I've passed the Lugganath list off to somebody else in the hopes that they can do it more justice than I have. That leaves the Xenos Project on my plate...
Spoke with ePilgrim for an hour yesterday and shared some correspondence with Jaldon via email. I'll do everything I can do get all four lists up to specs, and that includes Ordos Xenos.

My big gripes (reiterated for newcomers) are as follows:

The synergy of the list makes it very powerful. I think this can be balanced with some point increases or other limiters, but to be honest I need to get my head back inside the army before I post any specifics.

VTOL should not ever be an Inquisitor rule. Make them skimmers or aircraft and be done with it. An idea I had was to simply make it an optional rule, or remove it from the list and publish the rule separate from the list like Support Craft is separated from the Dark Eldar list. Either of these options would make VTOL palatable for new players, optional for stubborn ones, and obvious enough to be discussed in the 5 minute warm-up.

Don't apologise... I'm certainly not going to gripe about you not keeping up with projects! I'm just saying I've not abandoned it, it's just on the shelf waiting for the next prod.

VTOL as an optional rule is a nice idea.

One thing to think about with regard to the Xenos is that FFG have just released the Deathwatch RPG with a whole heap of new background information on them. I'm going to try and pick up the book if I can (expensive!!) and see if there's anything interesting in there.

Is the Obsidian Fortress main weapon supposed to be able to shoot all around? There are no fire arcs mentioned on the list but every other giant war engine out there (with the exception of the Eldar) have fixed forward arcs or forward arcs at a minimum. Just a wonderin' because I happen to have a resin Capitol Imperialis proxy that looks remarkably like Warmaster Nice's from years ago. I was thinking it would make an excellent Obsidian Fortress.

Eldar and the Steam Gargant... It's highly maneuverable.

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Those zany Feral Orks! Always throwing a wrench into things...
Also I have another question: The Deathwatch Landing Craft does not have Land Raiders listed as allowed and only carries 4 vehicles, as opposed to 6 regular or 4 land raiders for the standard Landing Craft. Yet the next sentence is that it "counts as a landing craft for transport purposes." Some clarification would be appreciated.

This was a suggested change in line with the removal of Fearless. It was not meant to be a change in and of itself. I have not reviewed the formations to give an opinion on the costings - I trust they are correct after all this time.


It is unnecessary and I am not the only one saying it. Playtesting this will not demonstrate the fact that it is a 'niggly' special rule. Keep the rule, just remove the 45cm detail as I suggested in the first post. That is the suggestion for this - nothing else.


This was discussed ages ago and I believe you finally agreed to appease the feedback given. If land Raiders are lost due to extra casualties from an assault, then so be it. No other list retains the Fearless vehicles - this is the only list that appears to have retained this rule. It should go - which will in turn bring the price down for these vehicles and allow them to actually be taken in line with other formartions/upgrades that would not normally be available at the current points.

These are just small changes and I feel it will help with the playability for the list. Remember, we have the same goals for the list, just different paths to achieve it

Good to see you back into the thick of things

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Moscovian:
Yeah, I was thinking all around (it's meant to be a giant psionic amplifier rather than a conventional gun, sort of had the image of the eye of sauron when making it ) but if there's any real balance issues with it being all-round it can be switched to forward arc or something?

Bear in mind that we were talking at some point about making the Ob Fortress just for Ordo Malleus, the Black Citadel just for Ordo Xenos and the Basilica just for Ordo H.

Frogbear:
The points values for some of the units might be a smidge high but I think they're reasonable. It's hard to point them because they're small and very vulnerable, but super-killy. Glass hammers, even moreso than regular astartes. But actually I think your changes would really make them better, not worse (the problem with broken GKs is that they tend to not rally!)

The shrouding protects them from long range fire, artillery and aircraft, which really are an issue unless they're mech'd up in LRs. It however, gives an incentive to use cover against short ranged enemies (if it's just cover all the time, why use cover?), and doesn't make GKs in cover unkillable (-2 to hit is pretty brutal). It's a perk, not a crutch. That said, I would consider moving it to 30cm (i.e. assault distance!).

I'll look back again at the Fearless vehicle issue. However, I don't see any need to make them non-Fearless, either balance wise or from fluff perspective. I also didn't like that some armies got Fearless removed from their vehicles (I still think the EC should be Fearless, for example ). Grey Knights are Fearless and I haven't found any major issues with this, I think making their vehicles non-Fearless will leave a major weakness to mechanised knight. But then, I tend to run mine teleporting or thunderhawking (got some LRs but never painted them). At the risk of sounding like a broken record, lets try out the formation and see if the usual "Fearless" issues apply (again, TSKNF makes it less of a problem).

You should take another look at the list sometime. Although there are not Fearless Land Raiders etc. many of the points you made I took into account, and therefore re-wrote the list to a new version. You may actually like what I did - afterall they were based on your feedback

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I've not been able to understand your reasoning on this. Being as it (Shrouding) acts as cover, and you're only going to have your infantry outside of cover if it's absolutely unavoidable (Because the shrouding becomes useless when the enemy are at standard 45-30cm shooting ranges), the rule is pretty much never going to come into play, unless the GK player doesn't know how to play Epic properly.

The two elements of the rule ("Acts as cover" and "only at 45cm+") would seem to combine to make it functionally useless.

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Frogbear ... I'll have another look at the EC list, it is true that I've not looked at it since last time I talked to you about it.

Evil ... well, it tends to really come into play when the GKs engage in an assault somewhere where they can't get into cover afterwards, or if you're left with no option than to slug it across open terrain (taking objectives, that sort of thing). But that was sort of the point - it wasn't meant to be game-dominating and just a little perk (but I can assure you it does come into play, unless that's just my own incompetence ). As I said, 30cm is a possibility.

You could at least wait for me to leave before talking about me...

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Hey gents!

I'm going to move this thread to the EA Other Forces section as it's definitely becoming a development thread.

Keep up the good efforts!

I was looking back over this and still think that there is discussion to be had:



Why not just simplify it to state that the GK always count as in cover for shooting purposes? As they gain no benefits for armour, all they get is the -1 to be shot at. I still see no reason for the ranges.

Nemesis Force Weapons & Rites of Exorcism: Rather than a -1 save, why not just ignore Invulnerable Saves for daemons and that's it? It is much simpler. The 'Ignore Inv Saves' can be placed on the end of the weapon stat and the Nemesis force weapon special rule can stay as is with the slight addition.

After all the discussions and agreements, these are really the only suggestions I would have for the list. I know you have stated playtests are what is needed, however the suggested changes should have zero impact on playtests up to this point.

Thoughts?

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Just so everyone doesn't assume I've gone AWOL again, I'm currently looking at updating the lists, but rather than doing all three simultaneously, I'm going to work on them one at a time. I've got my hands on a copy of the Deathwatch RPG, so I'm going to digest that before I redo the Ordo Xenos list, which will be first.

Ordo Malleus will be next, but given they're going to get a new 40K codex in the near future, that's pretty much on hold until then. The fact that they're almost certainly going to get Stormravens and possibly other units means a big revamp is coming. In the meantime the Ordo Malleus list is certainly playable, even if you don't like certain mechanics.