| Brood Brother |
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Joined: Sat Jul 09, 2005 12:12 am
Posts: 2241
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Just curious,
Is it the intent of the 'nid development to not have flying err... organisms in E:A?
The reason why I ask is I don't think their currently are any fliers in the list. In noticing this, I was wondering how the Harridon could be better represented since in 40K - it really is a flier. This seems like the first major descrepancy between core development and E:A representation and I'm not really sure why there's a desparity.
Also, my motivation around the Harridon best I can tell is because...
1) I like the look of the flying bug in 40K and it seems to act different in 40K (from what I can remember) than how I see it represented in E:A Note: Good friend has a beautiful 40K bug army where I've had the misfortune of trying to deal with an E:A gargoyle drop and Harridon drive by at that scale!.
2) I got mauled by a skimming Vituperator in E:A last weekend that didn't feel right if its a larger Harridon - based upon my preconceived notions/opinions of what I think a Harridon might look like in E:A... However, the Hydrophant rending my two warhounds did feel right, although terribly depressing. 
3) the input I've understood from what's written in IA:4 seems to conflict with what we see in E:A presently for the Flying bug.
4) in my opinion, the Flying bug rarities of the 'nid force shouldn't be in direct control of very ground based Ravenours, Termigants, Hormagaunts, etc... on the field of battle - nor should such an air based organism be taking "time outs" in flight during battle to land on the field and "spawn" creatures in my mind. Spawning or 'controlling' non-gargoyle creatures seems VERY out of character for the Harridon to me - in general as it doesn't seem to have any design basis backing this up.
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So, from what I remember in 40K... the Harridon can't land and fight traditional combat. It was relegated to gargoyle drops and 'fly by's' attacking enemy units as a strafe of claws, wings and teeth - but it wasn't really a typical combat nor was it really one where significant blows were struck. You might see a Harridon strip the armor off of a rhino and open it up like a can of sardines, but you didn't see a Harridon get dug in with a massive amount of infantry of any type where blows were exchanged and a winner declared.
So I'm thinking, how do you keep the big flier balanced, enjoyable, and make it align to the E:A design principles?
Well, if fliers were allowed - I was thinking it could be first and foremost an E:A WE, Bomber. This would represent its ability to fly high over the battlefield and as noted by others, remain slower than fighter based craft. It would also be subject to the flak/AA rules as a result, but would also get much harder to kill.
I think it would be a Transport for x Brood Creature units of Gargoyles. As this is its use/role, I would think the Gargoyle purchase would be mandatory part of the Harridon's purchase - but that of course could go either way.
I wouldn't allow it to land on the field of battle in E:A. This would keep it from playing 'objective grab' in E:A which is not its use as depicted in the text.
I would allow it to deploy troops from the air (its gargoyles).[/quote] This may take some language like the Tau Tigershark uses for its drone drops. This would of course mean gargoyles can be deployed, but not picked up and taken off of the field. The Gargoyle drop could be ugly from reinforcement perspective - especially if used for an upcoming assault by a synapse creature on the ground.
[color=orange] I would allow it to conduct FF engagements which is not normally allowed for fliers. This would be an E:A air assault in play, but the Harridon would not land. It could disgorge its goods as part of the play though and they could participate in the assault. Also, the Harridon could not be assaulted itself. The engage (or bug air assault) could only be something that could be initiated by the Harridon. Harridon would only have a FF value as it really would just be conducting strafes, not CC base to base attacks. It could also only be FF in return. I'm also thinking the Harridon would have 1 or 2 attacks itself and that's about it - the damage is really the fact that the bugs have a flier delivering a deadly cargo.
If needed, I may make a special kind of synapse. Depending on Jaldon's ultimate language about bug assaults and synapse... The Harridon *may* need to be a [color=orange]special kind of synapse, but only for his gargoyles that he has on board. Once deployed, they would be out of his control. [/quote] That way, he could conduct the air assault manouver and have his on board troops work with him but post deployment, they would need 'ground based' influence to maintain them.
Stats and whether or not this could be balanced or even fit into the bug list is another story all together.
From here, I could then imagine an even slower and larger flying bug (vituperator) that was religated to skimming the ground and pulling off engagements from that perspective, but the Harridon seems to be a different / faster / more manouvrable beast by comparison.
Anyway - just wanted to convey my thoughts. Don't know if there's anything here that can stick. I don't even know if it would be easy to impliment or is even desirable to you lot. However - from this non-bug player's perspective, that's 'generally speaking' the way I see the Harridon operating within E:A and hopefully aligning a bit more with the design philosophy of this thing.
Hopefully there's something there of value - LOL - or perhaps a suggestion that you know you'll absolutely never use, which - then you all can then scratch this one off of the list of possibilities. 
Cheers,
_________________
Rob
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