but then you could get 3+ potentially init1+ units teleporting in a single turn. It's pretty unlikely they'd be without BMs, but even then you could do a triple 2+ assault in the opponent's back field on your 1st activation. I think more people would be squawking about that than they have about Wave Serpent mounted BG fms doing the same on turn 2.

We'd also need to think about how teleporting farseers would interact with the Avatar too - could you summon the Avatar with a farseer that's just teleported in? There's nothing in the rules that I can think of that would prevent that and that would be a scary combo to use.

Matt: teleport would replace init 1+

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

That is an interesting question and one that will need an FAQ. RAW don't seem to limit this and I think the ability to drop an Avatar on somebody's backdoor with a 5+ SR is well worth a Black Guardian formation getting vaporized the next turn.

Cost of guardians? 150 points
Cost of teleporting Black Guardians? 250 points
Watching your opponent writhing in anger as your Avatar eats up a 750 point Artillery formation supported by those same Black Guardians? Priceless.

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Two Teleports with an Avatar summoning and a triple retain? That needs tests.

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Definetly an interesting concept, but one that needs testing.

If teleport replaces 1+ init, remember to discount any upgrades (250 pts for 6 guardians, 2 farseers shouldn't pay more than 125 pts for four wave serpents).

The more I think about it, the more I think the idea of teleporting farseers to be a broken concept barely worthy of playtesting. This would be based on the Avatar movement alone. That one maneuver would far surpass any damage the auto-triple-retain could possibly do.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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So remove Farseers from the Black Guardian formation?

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Mmm, the idea of being able to effectively drop the avatar anywhere on the board would be really difficult to cost.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

I think that a note that BG can not call the Avatar on the turn they teleport should cover that problem.

i'm still not sure how we got from "black guardians are too good" to "lets give them teleport!"

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+1. It's not that I have a problem with teleport per se, but it doesn't seem an option that makes them any easier to balance.

Just limit them, preferably to 1 per 3000 points (e.g. divide the number of guardian formations by 3, rounding up). That lets you do:
1/1
2/1
3/1
4/2
5/2
6/2
7/3
etc

Normally I would not go for limits as a way of balancing an army, but Farsight creates a special case and a relative limit like this scales, whereas an absolute one (like the Avatar) does not.

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I agree some limiter makes more sense. If these are elite Guardians, it defies logic that they would outnumber regular Guardians. 2 (or 3) Guardian formations for every 1 BG formation will create a natural inhibitor to the auto-triple-retain maneuver. Sure, you can do it, but you are going to have to spam no-armor Guardian formations to do it. And the teleport idea will have to remain in the realm of fluff.

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author of Syncing Forward and other stories...

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Seems the best way through for it to me. Black Guardian formations should have farseers, but them immediately calling down an Avatar would be OTT.

Put me in the "unconvinced" camp on whether BG are too good.
NetEA lists :- While using an SR5 and Init +1 the costs have been increased and the armoured units have been removed (Wraithguard and WraithLord). "Spamming" these with Wave Serpents means that at most you can get 7x such formations with possibly an unmounted BG or some rangers 8-9x formations. If some ratio with Guardians is implemented that would drop the BG to ~4x formations which does not of itself seem 'game-breaking'.

Adding teleport is an intruiging idea that would potentially mimic the Elysians to some extent; teleporting essentially unarmoured troops near to the enemy. The point here is that, while the BG are indeed likely to initiate an assault, being unarmoured without inspiring characters are significant drawbacks.

Up to now, deploying the Avatar has always been considered simultaneously with other teleporters. Bringing the Avatar on with some BG formation(s) is the equivalent of BL teleporting a demon prince in with their terminators, but with significantly less formation resilience; if the Demon Prince is not considered a "problem" (except by me ) I do not see why this should be a problem.

ah, sorry, missed that