I am not sure it was intended as a replacement for +1, and I am not even sure this is necessary. 8x units teleporting will attract BMs automatically making this a 2+ initiative formation (unless it is dptdexys rolling his 'left-handed' dice )
.

Actually, I thought it was a replacement for the Wave Serpents option; they'd still be Init 1+ with teleport, effectively 2+ due to almost always getting Blast markers on the way in. Having them 2+, going to 3+, would make them nearly useless for those points.

And the easy fix for the Avatar "problem" is to assign a cost to the Avatar.

Sigh. The point of this thread is that with init 1+ they're too good, so you want to make them better?

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

8 guy's with no armor teleporting isn't as scary as 8 guy's with 4 RA5+ skimming shields. I'd have thought teleport would replace the wave serpent option.

But they'd still have 1+ initiative, so could still pull off the move that necessitated a change in the first place....

The problem is the initiative, not the wave serpents.

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Epic: Hive Development Thread

*twitch*


I think teleport would be ok to represent their increased use of the webway.

Other options:
- Maybe a larger webgate that allows AV's to enter play?
- Maybe make a new AV sized webgate unit that only allows infantry to enter play?
- Maybe allow them to buy two wraithgates to replace objectives, instead of the standard single one?
- Maybe allow them to buy extra wraithgates that can garrison?

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Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

No, the initiative value is a possible point of change, the bigger issue is a matter of synergy of various factors, and that's what we're looking at.

Making them 2+ init and then no one takes them is not a solution; point values, upgrades, ratios and all that would still have to be examined.

Ulthwé being set to "Developmental" means all this discussion is very good, but there's not "gotta get it done right now" to get it to "Approved" in the army book, so there's now lots of time to focus playtesting on these various issues.

hmm, this is all very interesting and stuff, but can we at least add that Black Guardian to normal Guardian limitation back in first please? Then we can test all the other stuff at our leisure.

BTW, the Avatar does have somewhat of a cost in Ulthwe - 50pts for the EA1+ MW attack that Biel Tan gets or free, but with lesser stats than Biel Tan. Besides the problem with assigning extra costs to the Avatar in the Ulthwe list to correct a problem caused by adding an ability elsewhere in the list, how would you accurately cost the Avatar to balance one particular playstyle with one formation type without precluding its use with every other valid playstyle? I mean, how much should an Avatar cost if you can "teleport" it in with 2 or more init1+ Black Guardian fms? 50pts? Way cheap. 100pts? perhaps. 200pts? Bit too much.

whatever the cost assigned to the avatar, who would then take one if they weren't teleporting BG fms in all over the shop? The guy verges on useless most of the time (although spectacularly useful sometimes), so I'm not going to blow an "onboard for 3 turns" activation in exchange for something that appears for one turn and may or may not do something useful. That would then lead to Ulthwe armies not taking an avatar, which doesn't seem particularly right either.

This all seems in the realm of fixing what's not broken.

Like a number of others, I remain to be convinced that BG with SR5+ and init 1+ actually is too good!

Equally teleporting 'naked' BG onto the table is unlikely to be game-breaking even if this occurs in turn #3, because the various advantages are offset by other disadvantages.

However, rather than spitballing the various pros and cons, we ought to record some results; preferably adopting Mosc's suggestion of capturing the alternative stats results as well. If problems are identified then we can address them in detail probably starting with applying some BG - Guardian ratio to limit the number of BG available.