Agreed.

Upgrades in general are 90% of the time not worth taking; if they can be made to work as support formations, then that's the way to go.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

I'm a bit cautious about this. colossus still have pretty good firepower and I don't mind them be a bit of glass hammers so long as they aren't prone to shattering before they hit. I'd like to see more results than this to make the decision.


Practically any piece of advanced tech could deemed custom built by individual tech priests. I read this to mean their mounts and armaments. I can see them looking somewhat different from forgeworld to forgeworld (there is precedence in BFG cruisers) but if you are making a class called Ordinatus Minorus that we know gets handed out like candy, there has to be criteria that is met. If that criteria is anything goes, then you really don't have a class of vehicles. I see the difference in the minorus as more likely the difference of the Chimera to the Chimedon or the Rhino to the Razorback and Predator. It's the way the Imperium rolls with variants on a theme and I see no reason it would be different here.

On upgrades vs. support units. I moved them to see if they'd get more use as an upgrade since everything I've seen points to the Rapier and MM rarely, if ever being used. If there are ideas for making them useful, I'm game.

_________________
-Vaaish

Ordinatii are described as being unique, custom built, and often of completely different look.

Think of "Ordinatus" as being more akin to "Super Heavy Tank" (which covers everything from baneblades to macharius tanks) or "battleship" than something as specific as "chimera apc".

Heck, one named Ordinatus from 2nd ed was described as being a massive tunneler like a hellbore which could carry an entire regiment. Rather obviously completely different to Ordinatus Armageddon etc.

Ordinatus is a class of war engine, not a specific named class of vehicle.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

OK; I'll be sure to bring some for my next game, then. But frankly, I think the robots are dull without something that captures their robotic nature. The castellans in particular look like really slow predator annihilators to me...

I'll also bring some Mole Mortars, to see how that works. I don't have any Rapiers, so I'll have to pass on those.

I don't disagree when it comes to the Majoris. It seems that every one of these is different. I don't see this as following through to the minorus. It wouldn't seem practical with the widespread use that is described. I need to sleep now, but following through with your thoughts that the minorus can't be 15cm, why can they custom build one that runs at 30cm speed yet can't eek more than 10 cm out of the "standard" custom built ones?

I think that it fits much better that the large, named ordinatus majoris are the customized purpose built ones while the minorus would be more standardized to allow for the widespread distribution. This would seem to fit with both aspects of the fluff that is available especially since the minorus seems rather close to a superheavy with a shield generator slapped on in place of some of the extra sponson, pintle, and coaxial weapons you find on a superheavy like the baneblade.

_________________
-Vaaish

i suspect minorii might be standardized across the forgeworld, while different worlds might use completely different designs.

bit like people's collections

_________________
My shifting projects

This more or less mirros my own thoughts.

Ok. Time to start puttering around again.

Praetorians
These seemed alright and basically performed as they have in the past. Slightly softer with 4+ save, but still nice for the AA shot. no change.

Sagitarii, Rapiers, Mole Mortars
Sagitarii performe alright if you can get them somewhere where an assault is imminent but that leave them fairly limited. Since mortars don't seem to fit well with the infantry companies as upgrades, I'm thinking about restructuring them into the Sagitarii formations to incorporate the Mole Mortar and the Rapier as well as the option for a minorus. This should solidify them as an effective support choice. I'm thinking that the mortars should be an all or nothing upgrade with the rapiers as a per stand choice or as extra stands.

Forge Knights.
The 3 knight option continues to do little and there are now several other options at the point gap they were filling. I'm thinking they should be removed leaving only the more solid 6 knight formation.

Crusaders.
These seem mostly fine as is. No changes for now. May toy with giving them AV6+ or an invulnerable save. Might also look at giving them first strike for character

Colossus.
These seem prone to the same problem as the knights. Will have armor changed to 3+ to match marine dreads.May get fearless. depends on how the armor change affects them.

Minorus.
I'd like to give this a test at 15cm and see how it affects their usage. I'm also going to reduce the minorus with a Corvus pod to 25cm.


I'd still like to see more data on sagitarii and secutors as well as rapiers. Thoughts?

_________________
-Vaaish

Because it's a totally different vehicle. some kind of supercharged Gorgon most likely.

That's even close to how they're described in the fiction. They're described in extremely similar terms to the Marjoris vehicles.

If they're not working, drop their points.

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Giving the Rapiers/Mole Mortar to your Sagitarii will still be a significant problem, as your ~150 points of antitank or artillery is saddled with ~250 points of incompatible baggage. The rapiers wouldn't be too terrible since the Sagitarii have an AT shot, but it's still a 400 point formation that becomes very confused about its goal. Mole Mortars really should be their own formation since they don't synergize with anything else. Rapiers might be practical as a 2-for-50 upgrade to the Demicentury, but I feel they should also be their own formation.

I was a bit confused by the wording in the list - exactly how am I allowed to mix the Infantry Support options?


Could be interesting. As long as they have a fast transport option to let them set up near a planned engagement the same turn as the engagement is planned...


How about changing the price to 3 for 150pts with + 0-3 more for 75pts/each? Same price for 6, a discount for the weak 3-strong formation, and added flexibility for people with odd numbers of knights in their collections?


Yay!

Sounds good.


I'll see if I can fit either or both in my next test list. I'll have to do some proxying, though, I have absolutely no idea what would be good models for these... Do you have any particular minis in mind for either?

Signal, I think you are misunderstanding what would happen.

In an extremely rough state, this is what the Sagitarii options would be:
Sagitarii maniple 225 points (4x Sagitarii +1x Tech Priest)
All sagitarii stands may upgrade to mole mortars for X points
A sagitarii maniple may add 0-x additional Rapier units for X points per unit.
A sagitarii maniple may take a minorus for X points.

Basically you can swap out the plasma cannons for sagitarii with mole mortars kind of like how the dreadnought option is for marines. This way you could end up with an entire sagitarii detachment armed with mole mortars (excluding the tech priest) That should fix the issue with the baggage. It'll also allow rapiers to be taken in smaller numbers and hopefully make them a useful option combined with the minorus and regular plasma sagitarii. Also, note that the rapier does have an AP shot as well so taking them wouldn't mess up the "purity". With them getting access to a minorus, you'd even be able to transport the rapiers.

So you'd end up with 4x mole mortar armed sagitarii and 1x tech priest, not 4 regular sagitarii and an additional number of mole moratars. The idea is to turn sagitarii into a single option for a heavy weapons support detachment rather than have sagitarii, mole mortars, and Rapiers as separate things to give more flexibility and again perhaps entice people to try out rapiers and mole mortars.




Stat wise they are as I described. Fluff wise, no, but the point is why is it so much harder for you to accept that the minorus runs at the speed of dismounted infantry standard because the tech priest can make a vehicle that's similar to the majoris, but smaller, move slightly faster due to less weight and more available power yet you have no issue rationalizing that the corvus pod means the same vehicle taking a pod is an entirely different custom built vehicle that supercharges a completely different existing superheavy to give it 1/3 more speed and suddenly calls it a ordinatus? E&C, you did an awesome job with the lists and I respect your opinion highly, but this is one point that I find your point of view just doesn't make sense on.

The simplest explanation is to just make the critter 15 cm. They aren't as large as the majoris by any stretch and dropping points won't fix the issue with them slowing down an army that's already fairly slow.

_________________
-Vaaish

You can always take secutors, but you have to choose between praetorians, mortars, and rapiers.

So a demicentury with 2x secutors and 2x Praetorians (4 stands) is valid but a demicentury with 2x praetorians and rapiers is not valid. This is a bit immaterial though with the rapiers and mortars moving a bit.



This sounds interesting, but I don't like having the knights that cheap it seems grounds for some abuse since you get better firepower with knights than with crusaders. As it stands right now, you are getting a bit of a discount per knight taking the full 6. It's much simpler to just eliminate the 3 strong formation. (I know, I was for it, but I've just never seen them perform enough to justify taking knights.)


Secutors can be converted terminators with weapons strapped on or different painted infantry stands. Rapiers, there are official models, but they aren't very common. It might be partly why these never get taken. I'd just use a square base to proxy.

_________________
-Vaaish

Because a unit (and a list) is defined as much by what it lacks as what it has. If you give it 15cm move, you have taken away one of the few drawbacks of the Minoris unit.

IMO the slow speed matches the background well (they are described as "crawlers" repeatedly and often - that does not imply the speed of even a slow tank like a SHT).

ALL Ordinati are custom built. ALL of them. No exceptions.


I think you may find that you'll be taking a fairly balanced unit, and breaking it, akin to what happened when I gave up the Minervan list (The 10cm Stormhammer got upgraded to 15cm, and instantly became abusively overpowered).

I still have nightmares about that, and don't want to see it happen again. :-)

_________________
Currently doing a plastic scenery kickstarter

Out of historical interest (and to rekindle your nightmares, because I'm a bad person) - what exactly were those abuses?

In my opinion, a speed 10cm Ordinatus company is only useful as an artillery platform - none of the other weird and wonderful titan weapons seem viable, if they can't get to a useful position in time. Giving the Minori 15cm increases the power of the direct-fire versions enough that they may actually get fielded, and does absolutely nothing to boost the artillery version (since it never moves anyway).

I have to say that IMO 10cm move on a vehicle is almost never justified. A tactical vehicle that can be outrun by an infantryman has no uses except as arty. I have not found the Stormhammer overpowered; it's great in engage as a complement to BBs, but I would NEVER take it if it were 10cm move. If any SHT is pushing the envelope, it's the Stormsword - but that's another topic.

I really like the Minorii, but at 10cm Move they are so limited in their utility. Not limited in the sense of "I can't do everything I want", but limited in the sense of "I can't do anything I want". At 15cm Move they'll be good complements to the Demicenturies, mobile enough to get where they need to go, but not so fast they are able to go too far. Like the Guard Superheavies, they'll be best in defensive stances in most cases.

_________________
SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.