MagnusIlluminus wrote:
Good points there. I don't disagree with anything, but a few thoughts.
1. Do recall that the Powers may also freely choose any Support or Special formations from the Chaos Renegades list, so they do have access to cheap troops with which to counter other factions' cheap troop options. Cultists are almost criminally inexpensive.
2. True, the Greater Daemons themselves have all gone up, some more than others. For example, Fulgrim and Mortarion have only gone up a bit. However, each Power does have options that have reduced in cost. The various Centuries have all dropped in price, and one of the newer options (the Altar of Slaanesh) actually reduced in cost. Thus each Power does have options.
3. Very good points there. With him, and other examples that have come up recently, I'm thinking that the recent revision to the CAF system is producing numbers that are just too high, especially for high end CAF values. I'll have to think about how to fix that. There are also likely a few Weapon Modifiers that could use tweaking. Also adding Chaos Cards to your force. Currently the last is worth 15 per Card, perhaps that is too high?
_ Also, Primarch Magnus is a lot like a Squat Praetorian. One should choose him when facing worthwhile targets (IE, other Titans, Praetorians, and Greater Daemons) and not when facing forces without them. Under 2nd edition, EVERY Chaos Powers force would include him because he was far, far too good for his cost. Thus he needs to be expensive to make a Powers player think twice (or more) before including him in their army. Not perhaps as expensive as he currently is, but expensive.
4. Not currently. That is an interesting idea though. Currently, the Special Ability costs for the Daemon Engine ability vary by Power and are:
Khorne: 6
Nurgle: 0 and a *2 modifier to CAF value
Slaanesh: 30
Tzeentch: 0 and 15 per added Chaos Reward Card
_ I'm not certain how I came up with the values for Khorne and Slaanesh. There may be formulas or they may just be arbitrary, I'll have to poke around a bit more later.
How would people feel about a modifier being added to the costs for weapons where the model cannot use First Fire orders? While this would mostly apply to the Khorne Daemon Engines (that are not also Greater Daemons), it could also apply to some Flyers and other models that players create later. Would a value of *0.5 be about right? (IE, halving the weapon cost.) Perhaps *0.75?
Thanks Magnus, glad you didn't think I was trying to be irritating; it was all meant constructively.
1. I had forgotten that Khorne had access to the Renegades list. I thought there was some 25% rule but I think I'm getting confused between them and the Century (which I had noticed was cheaper). Topping up with Renegades will make a difference.
2. As above, the cheaper Century is good, I was pleased to see that. Bizarrely the Altar is a unit I'd rather see increased! I was on the receiving end of it when I took Orks and it decimated an entire mob!
3. I'm useless with the maths as you know - I can comment better when I see revised costings, sorry! Yourself and Primarch seem to have good ideas about how to revise the points! I'm willing to accept that Magnus should be much more expensive. My personal feeling is about 800 points but I haven't played Magnus very often so I'm not best placed to comment. Wouldn't I be right in saying that his Beam of Power is pretty much similar to the Squat Cyclops main cannon? Wouldn't that be a reasonable unit to compare him to maybe?
4. Again, not sure about the weighting but absolutely agree that some points reduction should be applied for the lack of FF, and it's an interesting point about the fliers which myself and Craig M999 believe to be a little on the high side.
Still on about the fliers, I know if the alternative flier system is adopted the flier costs will all have to be looked at again. I'd be really grateful if the formula held on to points valuations under the current system as we will be sticking with that one.
Thanks for considering my feedback! Cheers!