Lord Inquisitor wrote:
Fine, it’ll require some renaming to make the lists match but that’s not a big deal to me. I note, however, that the Palatine does not have Inspiring. I presume this is intentional? If the Palatine had Inspiring then it would match my version of the Canoness and I’d just rename my Canoness as Palentine and then the lists would be in sync.
It is indeed intentional, to provide a difference between priests and sisters characters. However, as I'm going to discuss below, I'm perfectly happy to shift priests to redeptionists, militia and repentia only and give inspiring (and MW to the CC EA ) of the palatine, so it matches your canoness, which you can then rename.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
Fine on the non-random shots, probably for the best. 45cm isn’t rubbish on a 30cm move tank, I’m not sure about the move to a longer range. For someone that’s such a stickler for 40K mechanics, this seems out-of-character for you, zombocom
I'd rather it stuck with 45cm for playtesting, only moving to 60cm if absolutely unavoidably necessary.
I'll happily drop it back to 45cm for now, though I'm pretty convinced it needs a range boost. BTW I'm not really a stickler on 40k mechanics, I'm a stickler on matching the background. I think the exorcist is under-ranged in 40k compared to its background as a balistically firing artillery piece.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
The rationale for the Banisher is that it differentiates the sisters from the space marines – apart from the ubiquitous rhino, sisters actually don’t share ANY vehicles with the astartes. It seems unlikely they’d have hunters. Plus I was thinking of the old-style exorcists with the rotating missile turret – doesn’t that just scream anti-aircraft to you?
I can only repeat that I'm not in favour of making things up when it's not absolutely neccesary; I think the banisher sticks out a lot more than the hunter. TBH though the hunter sticks out in the marine list too as something that doesn't exist in 40k either. The Whirlwind Hyperios is the 40k rhino hulled AA vehicle.
I'd rather wait and get other people's opinions on this one.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
Well, as I’m sure you know, I’ve had endless problems with this unit, so I’m open to any changes. The “Dangerous to Know” rule is just a 40K mechanic to prevent characters from joining them for game balance reasons, there’s no fluff justification for that. Arcos were first introduced in Inquisitor, and they are usually described as being brought along as bodyguards or assassin/living weapons. Similarly, in the Eisenhorn series they’re brought along by an Inquisitor and spend most of the time – until activated! – as cloaked followers. Hence the teleport rule. Which is fiddly and perhaps overcomplicated, and they could be used as a simple extra unit as you have done. Still, it’d be nice to have SOME kind of special rule to represent them being activated. Perhaps they could replace a unit upon activation? What you thought were more basic infantry were cloaked arcos? Meh, maybe not.
Yeah, they're a nightmare to try to represent properly at this scale. Some kind of special rule is probably called for. Maybe give them two profiles, but once activated they take a dangerous terrain test every turn? Or is that just too much micromanagement?
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
While I agree about making exorcists and the like a fixed number of shots, I would have thought that +D3 attacks for arcos wouldn’t be too much hassle and shows the unpredictability of these units. As for MW I firmly believe that Banshees should have MW status, so I don’t much like that logic, but if it makes you feel better, arcos in Inquisitor when activated and stimmed up can easily match the damage output of a powerfist with their electroflails. Arcos are sadly rather underpowered in 40K, at least strengthwise.
EA +D3 and
infiltrators could be the bonus for activating them if we do go with such a special rule?
On the MW issue I'm inclined to leave the MW off for now, firstly because I'm not in agreement with you about banshees, but more importantly because it makes them notably different in role to repentia. With MW they are literally just Repentia but better, and that given that there is (at the very least) uncertainty over the strength of their weapons, we should go with the choice that has a niche role in the list.
I don't set much store by Inquisitor's strength and damage rules; space marines throwing their bolters to do more damage than firing them, for example.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
Okay with the move change and heavy flamer. Prefer to keep the D3 in this case – if nothing else it makes them more dangerous in combat than a Dreadnought, which is as it should be. Invulnerable save is there for two reasons – to match the arcos, and to represent the Rampage rule, which is mechanically identical to Daemonic Possession. All Daemon Engines have an Invulnerable save, so it matches nicely.
I could bring back the D3 I guess, though note that I went for CC3+ instead to represent them being nastier than dreadnoughts. I'm not sold on the
invulnerable save; Land Raiders have a similar rule to Daemonic Possession and don't get an invulnerable save. Daemon inv saves is one of those areas that isn't a direct transfer from the 40k rules, it's effectively a flavour thing.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
The Inv is their drugged-up/pious unrelenting frenzy and lack of any kind of fear!
Thats the rationale for their
fearlessness, not why they can somehow survive a deathstike missile in the face.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
What I’m saying is that they ARE in my list, I just call them Retributors. The 2x Heavy Bolter unit is the new unit, which I’m okay with. But mechanically, dominions with meltaguns are functionally identical in 40K to fire dragons, so I think we should adopt the fusion gun stats. Put another way, heavy flamers should be a pure-FF weapon, yet they’re a 15cm range weapon and they’re shorter ranged than meltaguns! (Incidentally, I think heavy flamers should have been an extra FF attack not a 15cm AP attack, but we’re stuck with that now.)
Frankly I agree with you on heavy flamers; not sure why they were ever made a shooting attack.
I could compromise on fusion gun stats, but I'd still rather just rename my Retributors to solve the problem. Bear in mind that every single fire dragon carries a fusion gun; only 2-4 dominions in a squad do. They don't deserve the same level of power.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
You offer me a compromise and now you’re taking it away when I agree? Methinks you've had evil whisperings in your ear. I’d rather we fudged things to give them the pre-existing multi-melta profile since it’s mechanically identical and to my mind it really doesn’t matter at an Epic scale whether they’re toting big meltaguns or little ones, they’re both fire-fight range anti-tank weapons.
The compromise is still potentially on the table, but it's not my favoured option. I'd rather rename my retributors.
It matters a lot to me that the constantly mobile dominions don't use the cumbersome multimeltas. That's the retributors job, and I'm not in favour of fudging while there are other options available.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
Absolutely fine, good idea even. If you can agree to give faithful back to all sororitas units, I’m willing to accept the other changes – I think the regroup is good.
Ok, agreed.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
Not sure about affecting vehicles, but I guess I can try it out. I don’t understand your earlier objection (Faithful effectively is mainly used for bunkering down and holding objectives. As such, it's about surviving, but the bonuses were often made useless in your version because the vehicles in the formation were not protected, so the formation would still take a bunch of kills and break) that without Fearless across the board the formation breaks easier though – Fearless makes no difference to whether a formation breaks or not. Faith giving their TANKS thick rear armour feels wonky to me, but if you think it’s necessary then I can go with it.
It's not the fearless that helps them from breaking, it's the Thick Rear Armour and Invulnerable Save.
Remember that the vehicles are driven by Sisters. Space Marine vehicles get ATSKNF because they're crewed by Marines; Sisters vehicles should get
faithful for the same reason.
Probably the best option is to reword the rule back to how it was in your version (with the addition of regrouping), and to give
faithful to the Sisters' vehicles.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
Sure. Perhaps Inspiring to the Palantine and (more importantly) remove Priests from the sororitas upgrade options. Priests should be off leading the redemptionists, looking after the flagellants or the frateris milita! What’re the sisters doing with a priest tagging along with just a robe anyway? He’d be shredded by the first frag grenade.
Reluctantly agreed, though I'll keep priests on Repentia as well, since they fit well there and they can't take Heroines anyway.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
[list][*]I need to make the characters match up with my list – my “canoness” can’t have Supreme Commander in my list, obviously, but I wanted an inspiring leader type, so either that needs to match up with the palentine (i.e. inspiring) and I change my list to palentine, or we need a new name (perhaps, as your canoness is a supreme commander, should could be a Canoness Superior? There’s also the intermediate rank Canoness Preceptor or simply Preceptor?)
I'd rather keep with Palatine and Canoness; why not restructure your list to include both? I've never liked that you take the Inquisitor Lord upgrade on a Canonness to get supreme commander.
Lord Inquisitor wrote:
[*]I’m undecided about Arcos and Penitents stats. I think both should belong incorporated into other formations as they require handlers rather than their own formation.
Agreed in your list, but in an Ecclesiarchy list they deserve their own formations; they're pretty much the key two ecclesiarchal units.
Quote:
Oh and incidentally, one other change I was thinking of – the Immolator should probably be FF3+ to match the ork and IG flame-tanks.
Happy to make that change, they're a little weak compared to Repressors in my list currently I think anyway.