Pre the latest changes the BL, rightly or wrongly, was felt to be overpowered or at least to have some overpowering units. These were addressed as were the number of 0-1 and 1 per limts in the list via a core/elite/support structure. Largely these changes have worked, however IMO they have also produced some problems.

The structure of having to select 3 275pt+ retinues plus the the downgrading of Obliterators AA to a level where fighters must be taken as air cover has exarcebated the activation issues which have always affected BL (plus they may have been more covered up by the crutches of oblits+ferals). Due to these activation issues BL are now, In my and others opinions they are now one of the weaker.

To address this I'd like to suggest the following

Armoured Company moves to Core
- a cheaper core activation to help with activation numbers
- a different core formation to allow different builds

Decimators move to WE section
- reduces number of fearless WEs available
- reduces choice in elites

Add Havoc formation to Support section 225pts 4 Havocs, Lord, 2 rhinos upgrades Prince, Land Raiders
- provides another troop choice without having to take retinues

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That does allow the possibility of an entirely AV/WE army... not really sure about that.

Perhaps other infantry based core... Or price drops for support?

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If you only went AV then a can't see a horde of predators+LR with no air cover being very effective. Also added further structure suggestion to post

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Definitely agree with the Havoks.

How about some Elite Cult formations?

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One issue that came up a long, long time ago when we were discussing the Obliterators was that the main problem with them was in Terminator formations where they were able to withstand a lot of firepower and still stick around.

IIRC the split between people who thought they were overpowered and people who thought they were too expensive was caused by one group seeing them as a boon in Terminator formations and the other trying to fit them into Retinues.

My suggestion at the time was to remove them from Terminator formations and actually leave them the same and possibly make them slightly cheaper.

I think Obliterators are absolutely fine right now.

Their AA is slightly worse than a Hydra (1/2 a hit per Oblit rather than 2/3rds of a hit), but they're also super in other ways.

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Some spit balling:

Retinues of 6-8 CSM and a lord for 225 for 6, +25 each for each?
Havoc/Cult Marine upgrades split to 2 for 75, or 4 for 150
Havoc/Cult Marine upgrades that replace CSMs

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Dave

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Squats 2019-10-17

Mech. Armies seem very rare; perhaps a core formation that comes with Rhinos pre-bought, for a modest discount over the current Upgrade cost (25pts more instead of 40pts more?)?

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Maybe we should reduce the cost of Rhinos in the list in general. I always though that they were expensive as heck and having a fully mobile formation was always too expensive.

AC as Core seems strange mostly because I never got the impression the BL were that big into tanks (or had that many to spare).

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Armoured Core more suits Iron Warriors than Black Legion IMO.

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Its meant to be a generic Chaos list though. If it gives people another Core choice without unbalancing the list then it might be worth testing to see if it makes the list more flexible.

"Generic" should be a curse word.

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Why?

Because it tends to create bland unfocused lists that are very difficult to balance. One of the core principles of Epic list development as laid down by JJ was that lists should be specific and limited in scope, in general, to avoid this problem.

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