An Identity Crisis?

[Nargacuga]

After quite a few games under my belt and after studying, testing, making comparisons and combing through the forums, I've yet to put my finger on what legion 'is' now as a faction. This is a comparison to the primary themes that each of the factions has and how they have been affected in MKII.


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Circle MKI = High mobility & denial - Circle is a faction that will shut the front door on its enemies in many different ways while sneaking in through the window. It sets the rules of the game and knows how to break them.

Circle MKII = Little has changed in MKII for Circle Orboros. Added elemental resistance can almost shut down some faction's main attacks vs the affected troops. Circle's mobility has been further increased by skills like Ghostly and Phantom Seeker.

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Trolls MKI = Resilience and Teamwork - The Trolls support each other and survive despite all odds. They take the first hit and come back harder than ever. Their survivability is enhance by the synergy of the multiple buffs granted by such things as the Krielstone, Fell calls, Protective spells, granted abilties, and others..They suffer from not being able to run beasts too hot and often take the slow-and-steady route to victory.

Trolls MKII = A new theme of KD is making its way into the troll faction. Not only do trolls now do a great job at KD with many ways to do it, tools like Feign Death, Revile, Brace for Impact, stumbling drunk, etc.. make the Trolls highly resistant to KD themselves. They still have a problem with fury management, and the changes to frenzy rules make this worse.

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Skorne MKI - Relentless Assaulting, Sacrifice and Brutal Control - Skorne is a Grind faction that wields incredible dominion over its warbeasts as well as the souls of its own troops. The death of troops and pain of their warbeasts only fuels their power. Death is never final with Skorne and a warrior that has been defeated will contribute to victory in one way or another. Perhaps Skorne's low mobility is one of the few things that stop them from completely overwhelming their opponents.

Skorne MKII - Attrition has been improved in some aspects with the MKII Warlock spell lists. Skorne seems to have more ways to counter its mobility issues now. Overall Skorne's strengths have been enhanced and its weaknesses have been toned down a bit.

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Legion MKI- Fast, Deadly and Accurate. Legion plays by their own rules. Where every other faction is impeded by forests, clouds, obstacles, intervening models, and rough terrain, Legion laughs at such things. Wings and eyeless sight allow them to soar past defenses and deliver a surgical strike to the heart of the opposing army. Legion puts all their effort into a precision first-strike attack. If they fail in this, they are usually doomed to lose as they are fragile as glass and have little that can sustain them for the long haul. Legion also uses a specialized denial tactic by punishing those that carry high amounts of fury or focus on them.

Legion MKII - More than any other faction, Legion been fundamentally changed in MKII. The winged beasts that were a hallmark of the old strategies can no longer fly over even a single unit of troops without being cut to pieces. Improvements to the Shepherd Solo have given legion a great new tool to compensate for the low Fury/control area of several of our casters and several models have recieved a point of ARM, but by-and-large things haven't gotten much better. Legion troops have very limited functionality compared to the other factions and their warbeasts cost considerably more than comparable beasts from other factions. Even though legion has lost much of their ability to deliver a first strike, they retain most of the weaknesses that were made to compensate for it. These include higher costs, lower fury stats, weak armor, fewer hit boxes, and limited options in spells and abilities.

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With the end of the era of Angel fly-over assassinations, Seraph slams, Typhon's flinging, Rhyas' ping-pong feat, Popcorn shredder, and most of our other combos, we must come up with new avenues to victory. Unfortunately we really don't have many options compared to other factions.. Our abilities and spells were all geared towards the first-strike strategy and now we can hardly do it as effectively.

I guess I have 2 questions:

1) Was Legion really fundamentally broken? Did we clean up in tourneys consistently due to wings ignoring free strikes, pop-corn, blooded-warchief, Typhon teleport fling, etc..? Or did enough people complain about legion feeling cheesy without really looking at the win-loss record?

2) If things stay as-is with wings, frenzy, etc.. what should be done to compensate? It appears to me that fundamental changes to Legion's play-style require fundamental changes to spell lists, abilities, costs etc to allow us other avenues to victory.

I have spent some time trying to come up with some solutions and thus far I've come up with these ideas:

Boosting our mobility by having Blood Creation grant the innate ability of being able to double control area for forcing, healing and reaving. (this would require the Shepherd to be re-purposed)
boosting speed on all winged beasts by 2
Giving Legion a 'critical hit' theme by granting more critical hit effects to our troops, solos, casters and beasts.
Enhancing our anti-fury/focus aspect by Buffing spells/Animi/Abilities/feats that grant attack and damage bonuses on models that have fury/focus.


I think we need something. Overall we seem to be somewhat vanilla now as a faction, and MKII has seen many of our former unique strengths become the property of others.

Your thoughts?

[ricefrisbeetreats]

The Legion units have always been vanilla. Yeah, some had a bunch of abilities, but these were cleaned up and condensed.

Beast-wise, I think we just have a few, very limited choices.

I found our best tactic so far is the ability to hit and run. It's incredibly annoying. We also love to play a spread offense. I run raptors on the left, deathstalkers on the right, QB and beasts up the center, driving the enemy caster into the endzone.

Harriers, Shredders, Raptors, Deathstalkers, Shepherd all sit in the "they're good as-is, but not obnoxiously good" category.

Carnivean, Teraph, Seraph, etc sit in the "ok, we can't hit the broadside of a barn and you usually only want 1 of us if any".

I don't think we'll see a lot of spam lists anymore. 2 of each lesser (or 2 shredders and 1 harrier) will the the norm.

Look at it from the hit-and-run angle. We can really cause a lot of damage without ever getting into combat with bushwhack and so on.

We're the new Cygnar shooty.

[Garth]

In MK I Legion was highly mobile. That was the theme. Terrain was no problem, freestrikes were no problem and we could ignore a lot of LoS rules. We were the first strike faction, that died in return :-).

Then Meta came out and what did we get ? A lot of range buffs. Look at it, Strider UA, E-Lylith, Typhoon (3 Sprays), Deathstalkers., the nyss sorceress...


I clearly thought that we would become the range faction in MK II even before I knew the MK II rules. And I guess I was right.


Skorne became MUCH faster now. They have more pathfinder stuff and more ways to increase their movement. Circle got the immune to freestrikes and moves trough models and ignore LoS stuff (wolf ghostly with Argus and Gorax animus...an easy casterkill, easier than with the old MK I Angelius).
So what was left for us are ranged attacks.


Cygnar is the warmachine ranged faction. They have better shooters with more range, SNIPE and DEAD EYE What we have is more mibility

Look at this changes:

Raptors now have poison on the bows and more rat.
Archers now have pathfinder
Striders got hunter

What happened to the other good stuff we had ?

Angels lost 2" movement on their after-kill-movement, Rhyas Feat got nearly completly nerfed, we now get freestrikes...

So I fear we will become the high mobile shooting force. I don't want this, but this is what we are now in the field test MK II. And this is a problem I see:

E-Lylith is a bad warcaster. I think she is one of the weaker warcasters, but she would be the best for a shooting faction. But no snipe here, no deadeye...all she offers is a medium feat (that offers snipe to models in their control area) and gives beasts an other shot.
But what shooty beasts do we have ? The completly overnerfed Seraph ?



This is why I think: What are we now ? I am happy that I am not the only one asking this question...
I feel we lost everyting that made us special to Skorne and Circle (look at the examples above), all we got in return was that our ranged units were not completly nerfed. Even if I don't think that we aren't playable I feel something very important missing. The special "I can do something you can't".
Someone was complaining that circle could the same as his legion army but with cheaper and stronger models. I think he could be right, if he still was playing a "flying Circus" kind of army or just a "normal" MK I type of army...


I still like the game, but now I feel like circle became the army I wanted to play when I buyed the legion...

[Garth]

Look at it from the hit-and-run angle. We can really cause a lot of damage without ever getting into combat with bushwhack and so on.


Sorry for double post, but this post was not there when I posted:

With running away you don't win a scenario. You will loose if not half of your army stands in the mosh pit for example. So this taktik will not work long...

[garbon]

Enhancing our anti-fury/focus aspect by Buffing spells/Animi/Abilities/feats that grant attack and damage bonuses on models that have fury/focus.



I want mind ripper back

[SteakAndSpirits]

Intentional or not, I believe that Legion has the best Fury Management options available. The Forsaken combines fury management with unrivaled damage offensive output, and the Shepherd provides excellent flanking options to a mobile force - If Shepherds receive Pathfinder in Mark II, that would not merely be a nod, but a mandate for Legion to create hot-running, beast-heavy forces.

A Mandate that is offset by the current premium paid by Legion for Heavy Warbeasts of equal performance to other factions - This price increase is the balancing factor of this nod towards a beast-heavy faction.

And despite the relative poor accuracy of Legion's Heavies, each WL has received specific equipment to combat it.

Because WLs and Beasts lose effectiveness as attrition mounts, this reinforces that Legion's intention is to be an Alpha-Strike role. Some of the fine tuning of that role will require that threat-ranges are not eliminated, and credible initial attacks are not marginalized.

Evidence that supports a beast heavy faction can most plainly be seen in Vayl and eThagrosh abilities and Shredder/Harrier pricing, and are in no means isolated there.

Additionally, Legion has some of the most effective ranged infantry models available - Striders and Raptors. Pathfinder, Hunter, and the ability to generate multiple attacks in an environment when multi-attacks come at a premium is reinforces that Legion is intended to operate beast heavy, on multiple fronts, supported by centrally placed ranged units.

Further, when out-of-turn activations have been consistently removed, Legion has received two new Out-of-Turn options on eLylyth and the new Raek -- Both of which appear highly functional, and useful.

As currently written, understanding the above, I do not believe that Legion is as far from the mark as some of us may have believed - When we do direct comparisons to other factions in a vacuum we appear to have trouble.

On a macro-sense, however, it is clear that with some minor tweaks we have the ability to competively bid for beast-superiority.

-s&s

[Nargacuga]

I still like the game, but now I feel like circle became the army I wanted to play when I buyed the legion...

I totally agree with this sentiment. I had a game where a MKII pureblood warpwolf assassinated my caster in almost the same way a MKI Angelius would have.

I don't want legion to be a shooty faction.. I'm ok if shooting is a part of our overall toolbox, but Legion never was designed originally to be a heavy shooty army, it doesn't have the feats, spells, and other abilities it needs to make it work half as well as Cygnar. Not to mention that we have a slew of Low-MAT beatstick themed models that contribute nothing to that end.

I purchased Legion primarily for its surgical strike and assassination themes, I think most Legion players play for the Shock-and-Awe aspect of the faction..A simple ranged approach is not what Legion should be about in my opinion.

I really do like the anti-focus/fury theme, I wish we could build further on that and our high mobility. Bringing back free strike immunity on harriers and Angels (in some form) would do a lot to giving Legion back some of its character.

[Spleen Hammer]

I guess I got into the faction because it was another army based on "dragon" stuff. To see that we've become a "shooty" army has me filled with dread. If I wanted shooty, I'd play 40K. I want bad@ss dragons annihilating all that stand before them.

I plan to play a Blighted Ogrun list to mitigate some of the feelings of betrayal.
eThags
Typhon
C-Rex
Shredder
full Mongers
full Spears
2 Warchefs

add in whatever is left with Forsaken and Shepherd.
Boom. Killy list that has to be dealt with or die horribly.

[Aries37]

I'm really worried that Legion are getting the Khador treatment. The parallels are actually astounding and it's scared me off from buying into legion until the FT is over.

My prediction: LoE get nerfed a bit between Mk1 and the FT. Then once everyone's comfortable with that you'll get nerfed again in the finals.
ethag, Vayl, Legionnaires and raptors look like the proverbial silver lining, but I reckon they'll all get the hammer in the final rules just to make sure.

In return you get a wierd paradigm shift to ranged warfare- just like Khador are getting now. A real-jack-of-all-trades, master of none type faction.
@Spleen Hammer- Yes same here. I play 40k weekly and shooty is not why I picked Khador as my faction.

I hope I'm wrong, but until proven otherwise I'm holding off buying anything.

[Angelust]

I don't mind shooting if it were just one element to an army, such as Widowmakers for Khador or a couple Vanqs for Menoth.

With our high priced units and caster selection it seems that you need to either go range/mobility heavy, or have almost none at all. Our shooting options are just too easy to destroy, whereas widows/mortars/vanqs/mules/etc can all stick around to deal out some ranged death.

I predict that strider deathstalkers in pairs and/or raptors will be the ranged staple of our army, but unfortunately our primary ranged caster is better at buffing beasts to shoot, which is pretty sad when that basically includes some sprays, the teraph, and the much debated Seraph.

My only main problem with the mk2 legion is that it might funnel us into a Vayl/eThag/Saeryn meta, with casters like Rhyas/pThag/Abby/Lyly becoming the "casual-fun" casters like Zerkova and eGoreshade are now. My hopes for mk2 are that more casters become playable and functional with their armies, though it seems like it only gets economically viable when using those select couple of casters.

It doesn't help that eThags is a great looking model too. :-)

[Nargacuga]

A bit of a Sidenote:

Do you think that the overall low FURY stats of Legion warbeasts combined with the Forsaken's abilities has had the unintended side-effect of players sidelining troops in favor of more beasts?

A friend of mine that plays Trolls rarely brings more than one heavy.. 5 Fury on one beast is quite a bit to manage and he only needs one or two light beasts to keep his Fury filled every turn. When I build my lists, I am far more comfortable going well beyond my Warlock's Fury Stat in beasts. If more Legion beasts had a fury stat of 5 (and were balanced accordingly) I'm sure I would end up using more troops.

I think the new shepherd will combined with our rather dull one-note infantry will undoubtedly push our lists even further into beast-heavy territory in MKII, even for low fury casters like Lylith and Rhyas.

I wonder if the high point costs we see on our beasts are some sort of last-ditch effort make us choose more 'balanced' lists.

The whole process seems like it may have been a bit rushed. (The Circle forums have players that suspect this in regards to some of their changes as well.)

But I guess that's what the FT is for.

[Angelust]

It seems like we're being nudged into a more beast-oriented meta, but we're not really happy about many of our beast choices/costs/abilities. Shepherd and Forsaken are fantastic solos, but unfortunately they're amp-ing things like Seraphs, Carniveans, and Teraphs.

From what I can tell, the developers do their math holistically rather than unit by unit, so the shepherds being 1 point is paid for by increased prices in all of our fury-heavy beasts. An unfortunate effect of this is that it really makes taking a Carnivean/Angel/etc an overpriced option if you don't run them in large numbers with maximum sheps/forsaken. It seems to encourage the all-or-nothing kinds of lists that people lamented in mk1 and which got relieved in WM mk2 to a large degree.

I think if they balanced out some of the pricing and scaled back some of the auto-synnergies, our army would be much more versatile without having easy-combinations of win.

[Necra-Chi]

Way back when Hordes was first coming out I recall a Privateer Press person or a fluff blurb or something talking about how legion was a faction that flanked, harrasssed, annoyed, and then attacked with white hot unstoppable power in a final finishing move.

It followed the macro theme of the backgroun d to the army, hiding and making small gains and then BOOOM! Dead dragon.

Essentially a Dragon plays with its food and then eats it. Or rather, a sneaky dragon like Everblight first makes sure that victory is without doubt, and then strikes.

The whole philosophy is played out in the Legion fluff for Meta.

But on the table things didn't pan out that way. We just killed everyone in 2-3 turns or we lost. Simple.

So the motto became "A dragon doesn't play with his food".

Now I don't think that was Matt and Jason's vision for the faction. What I've found in play is that now we do play a bit of hit and run, maneuvre for position and then strike. The earliness of the strike depends on how beast heavy you go, with infantry armies being a more fast flanking but ultimately slower win condition.

Don't be fooled that we can't still put two angels up the middle and kill a caster. We can, we just have to work a little harder for it.

And be glad. From now on when we win, we get to say "See there how I pwned you with my awesome skillz" and the opponents won't have the old recourse of "Oh but legion ignores everything".

[Nargacuga]

Making slipstream effect enemy models would be a considerable boon to that style of play.

Absylonia's tendrils spell is a neat way to extract and kill models as well as open charge lanes. Building on that is a good idea..

Use legion like a pack of wolves that pick off anyone that strays from the group or alternatively can surgically cut a hole in the opponent's defenses and send in a missile to kill the caster.

We would need more mobility boosts for the first part, and more pushing/placing abilities for the second. (oddly enough, the MKI Typhon's 'fling' ability used to do this)

[Angelust]

I think there are too many brick armies out there though, like choir'ed menoth jack-lines, Khador MOW/IFP mobs, Cygnar gunlines, and some others. Basically the solos/units that can get eaten by our harasser/flankers are usually negligible in loss when the rest of their army can dismantle the rest of our army...

[Soulblighter]

What if Slipstream was changed to the Telekinesis spell? It would have to cost 2 but its applications would be significantly broadened.

[Garth]

Don't forget scenario play. If my opponent tries to flank me and then run away after he did some damage, then I will just take the scenario and win.

[Loveless]

Some things feel like knee-jerk reactions (Seraph, Striders, Lylyth2). Other things just feel weird (Carnivean, Absylonia). Other things are great (Vayl, Legionnaires, Saeryn, even Lylyth1 to some extent).

Thing is, Legion players have an uphill battle with the Field Test. Everyone has been trained to hate us. This means that if we're playing someone and get lucky, it's likely because "Legion is broken" and their feedback is bound to reflect that - it's the way things seem to go.

Meanwhile, we have to try and get through all the crap to let them know things like
"The Seraph needs work," "The Carnivean may be too expensive," "Lylyth2's feat feels weak," "Absylonia needs to not spend fury for her mutations" etc. etc.

I just get the feeling that for every pro-Legion piece of feedback that goes in, there will be six pieces of anti-Legion feedback. Might just be me worrying for no reason, but there's a lot of people posting that "Legion model X is fine, you just need to do A, B, and C to it with your warlock and other models."

When you have to add several external influences to make a model work, something is wrong with that model.

Legion is a glass hammer. If Legion gets put in a corner, it has a good chance of dying. But hey - nobody puts Legion in a corner. Remember that ;)

You attack when you know you'll win. You confuse the hell out of your opponent, then drop an Angelius on his Warlock when he's not looking.

Everblight is a sneaky, pompous bastard with daddy issues. He knows he's going to win, you just don't know when or how - be it a ninja-delivered Angelius or Carnivean, a hail of arrows fired from nowhere that blot out the sun, a crushing group of Ogryn, or a massive horde of beasts with the Messiah in control.

The fluff shows coordination, surgical strikes, and grand battles with horrifying abominations and chilling ambivalent elves.

Is this still present in the Field Test?

[SteakAndSpirits]

The fluff shows coordination, surgical strikes, and grand battles with horrifying abominations and chilling ambivalent elves.

This. That right there. We should focus on ensuring that is translated into gameplay.

-s&s

[Soulblighter]

Im not sure how were supposed to "surgically strike" when we cant ignore freestrikes or shoot through intervening models.

[Arkady]

I'm still hoping there will be a new beast in the final book that has an animus that grants immunity to free strikes.

[Soulblighter]

If the Teraph was immune to freestrikes and had an animus that cost 2 and made a model immune to freestrikes for one round that would be awesome. Id definitely use the Teraph then.

[Necra-Chi]

Im not sure how were supposed to "surgically strike" when we cant ignore freestrikes or shoot through intervening models.

Go read the following again.

Leap
Dash
Foreboding and Flight
Evasive
Slipstream
Cat and Mouse
Massacre and Overtake
Tide of Blood
Strafe
Elevation
Sprays
Scourge
Acrobatics
Arcing fire

[Soulblighter]

Go read the following again.

Leap
Dash
Foreboding and Flight
Evasive
Slipstream
Cat and Mouse
Massacre and Overtake
Tide of Blood
Strafe
Elevation
Sprays
Scourge
Acrobatics
Arcing fire

How many models/units with abilities on that list are actually worth using? Rhyas certainly isnt. And she herself accounts for like half the things on that list. The Seraph is also questionable.

[diehard]

I feel like circle became the army I wanted to play when I buyed the legion...

I started Legion for the models alone, i just thought they looked cool, but as i liked a lot of the Circle models too they became a second faction for demos and introducing new players. I did come to enjoy the Legion's unorthodox play style but always played different and balanced lists for fun. A lot of T&C and I always enjoyed using a lot of beasts, I often felt that Hordes was the game that WM could have been and benefited from the WM learning curve. I definitely felt it was a superior system.

And now even though I still like the models it's not the same experience, and after playing a bit of games with Legion and Circle I had to chuckle when I read this as I'd had this same thought myself. Oh I'll fieldtest and give my feedback and see how it all turns out, but without some big changes (and I'm not just talking about the Legion but the game itself) I don't see myself as enthused as I was. It might turn out to be a good game, but I was enjoying what I thought to be a great game.

So until I see how this all plays out, my unpainted stuff will be waiting on the shelf while I paint up Nazi zombies.

[nachtnebel]

Don't forget scenario play. If my opponent tries to flank me and then run away after he did some damage, then I will just take the scenario and win.
That's it. I would have lost almost every match I had against brick armies during the field test up to now if we had played a scenario.

I am no longer able to set a free strike ignoring Angelius in position that threatens the enemy warlock -> no way to prevent the brick form marching towards me -> I have to back off

Sometimes it feels like we are still a assassinatione-themed faction, but we lost most of our tricks to finish this job. We still are able to flank the enemy, but we can't overpower even a middle-rated defence line. We neither have the option to simple move through the enemy lines nor we can dish out enough damage to blow a breach in them without loosing the models we would need to later on.
At the moment we need a loot of time cutting the enemy into peaces, and this allows him to win by taking the scenario.

[Necra-Chi]

I've had the exact opposite experience in my games. Playing Steamroller scenarios made it infinitely easier for my legion because the Protectorate cheesewedge had to advance, which equals at least one less turn of getting shot up, easier flanking with my striders to take down their warjack support, easier engagement of their infantry screen to enable me to look for angles for an assassination. We can pathetically easily save most scenarios with a well placed deathstalker or two, or feralgeist or gobbers, and then get to the business of fighting the battle. conversely the enemmy's favourite options for cheap scenario denial typically die to eyeless sight beasts. The angel is great for this now, while its waiting for it opening.

[hairsolo]

From what I see. Everblight was a assassin themed army in a game that is trying to scale down assassinations.

We could ignore your models fly over your heavies and kill our opponents in the middle of their army..... Cool right?

Not for your opponent. What good is flight without free strikes? A wall of heavies is as impenetrable against models with flight as it is against models without flight.

Flight is a glorified pathfinder and in my opinion is only still in the game because of all the models out with fricking wings on their back.

[Necra-Chi]

Flight allows you to move over your own models and obstructions, an ability that I've found immensely useful so far. Its almost like having ghostly for free.

[Loveless]

Flight allows you to move over your own models and obstructions, an ability that I've found immensely useful so far. Its almost like having ghostly for free.

This. I think people are severely underestimating flight.


---

As for surgical strikes - we just have to be able to hit where we want, when we want - high precision and accuracy.

Honestly, a fair few of our beasts don't fit that.

Our warlocks, however...
- Lylyth1 has Field of Slaughter
- Lylyth2 has Death Sentence
- Thagrosh1 has nothing, though Death Shroud helps to keep his army alive longer, giving them more chances to attack
- Thagrosh2 has Manifest Destiny <3
- Vayl has Incite <3
- Rhyas has Rapport
- Saeryn has Breath Stealer (and any enemy upkeep she feels like stealing)
- Absylonia has nothing :(

Couple this with the fact that most of our beasts can't hit the broadside of a Light and you notice something strange:
We can hit when we want, but if and only if we want to. Otherwise...well, we don't do well if we don't get the first attack. Unfortunately, we currently pay the same price as if we had the MAT/RAT boosts all the time...

Legion is very much - in my mind at least - the faction that points at an opponent's unit/'jack/'beast/character and says "See that? It's dead this turn."

We could do that in Mk. I, too - and we still can, it just takes a bit more work/planning.

Our shooting units can pretty much hide in terrain or behind cover. Our melee units are either cheap (Legionnaires) or hit like a ton of bricks (Swordsmen, Ogrun), our cavalry is quality, and our solos are horrifying (well, Mk II's version of horrifying :p ).

Enough of our stuff is still good enough that it makes the things that are, well, not good, really stand out. Most things just need a little tweaking to keep on feeling like Legion (for beasts, a lot of this is going to be point drops or stat buffs).

I think what makes some of this Field Test frustrating is that some of it feels so close to being just right. I dunno, it's hard to describe.

Also, sorry - I seem to make long posts today >_>

[Soulblighter]

I dont think anyone is underestimating flight. Its more that fact were trying to figure out why warpwolves are teleporting around all ghostly and such, ignoring freestrikes, with an animus that gives them eyeless sight and pathfinder. Why is it okay for circle but not okay for us? A Warpwolf is a hell of a lot scarier than an Angelius.

[Loveless]

I dont think anyone is underestimating flight. Its more that fact were trying to figure out why warpwolves are teleporting around all ghostly and such, ignoring freestrikes, with an animus that gives them eyeless sight and pathfinder. Why is it okay for circle but not okay for us? A Warpwolf is a hell of a lot scarier than an Angelius.

I vote to feedback that, but to word it...erhm...differently. Don't say "If Circle gets this, why doesn't Legion?" Just argue that it's overpowered and explain why.

Consequently, is there a thread to discuss the Warpwolf problem in the general Field Test forum? Probably a good thing to do - after all, if every faction is struggling with it, it probably needs toned down.

[Nargacuga]

I would rather the Warpwolves keep ghostly and Legion regains its ability to ignore freestrikes for winged beasts in a similar way.

Crippling both factions just makes everyone miserable.

Now I understand that ignoring free strikes with flight is a bit more powerful than ghostly as you can pass over bases so we have to find a good balance.

Consider this for the Angelius Animus:

Cost: 1, Range: 6, "Target model with flight gains +3 DEF if it advances during its activation this turn."

Simple and elegant

[Garth]

I think the easiest solution would be to change aerial coordination on our sorceress.

All flying beasts in her control area (8") ignore fresstrikes and can charge without beeing forced.
Then remove the anti-range spell and perhaps even make her 5 points (yeah, that's expensive).

This would give us the option to ignore freestrike, but it would come with a price and it wouldn't be as easy. Your opponent can just shoot down the sorceress and the problem is solved, but we could still attack things in the second line with our beasts, what would make us happy.

Oh have I already mentioned, that I really think that the soreceress model looks great and that I wish for a useful ability on her, that let's me field here more often ? ;-).

Garth

[Top]

I for one am immensly enjoying Legion Mk II. (Maybe because I don't own more than 1 Seraph model? :D)

I have read on the Forums that several Legion players are frustrated that their "Hey diddle-diddle, right up the middle!" tactics don't work anymore with the change of Wings to Flight. You can still do that (Rhyas went right through a line of Skorne and took down Xerxes! Dash gave me that one extra inch I needed---:cool:) just not the way it was often done before.

Letting my Carni blow a threshhold roll in the middle of an enemy line isn't as nice as it used to be but I'll take that trade to be rid of Lockjaw. (I'd rather he not cost me 11 points. He is a bruiser no doubt, and there are buffs and whatnot to improve his MAT, so I'll keep playing him and see what I think later).

My Shredders no longer gang up but I'll take that trade to be rid of Adelphophagy.

Overall I love the Legion movement capabilities. I pulled a ride by attack with the Hellion, that was fun.

-Top

[Hjelmen0]

Dash gave me that one extra inch I needed
Rhyas herself does not benefit from Dash. It affects models beginning their activations in her control area, and when she casts it, she's already begun her activation, and as such does not benefit.

EDIT: And I've run into the same problem ... I owe my buddy a rematch :s

[Top]

Rhyas herself does not benefit from Dash. It affects models beginning their activations in her control area, and when she casts it, she's already begun her activation, and as such does not benefit.

EDIT: And I've run into the same problem ... I owe my buddy a rematch :s

LOL well its over now, but I don't feel too bad. The fellow playing Xerxes was a press ganger and he missed it too. :o

-Top

[RoyalAssassin]

Forget this one. The other things sound like good ideas, but this would not only affect the carnivean, but a lot of other stuff, too. E-Thag with +3 armor ? Typhoon with +3 armor ?

This is not going to happen and I even don't want it, because we aren't the armor faction.

(Excessive quote for context).

I think that's what's getting me. We're not the armor faction; that's Khador. We're not the ranged-attack faction, that's Cygnar. We're not the debuff faction, that's Cryx. We're not the buff faction, that's Menoth. We're no longer the rules-ignoring faction, that's now more Circle's domain than anyone else's.

What faction are we now? We've got some board control with Vayl, but I don't think there's enough board-management to call Legion the board-control faction. I think Necra's on to something with hit-and-fade, but I can't seem to make it work without getting chewed up on free strikes, unless I resort to feats.

That said, it's certainly possible (likely, even) that I'm just not good enough at the game to work out hit-and-fade - I'm not blaming the models or the faction for my inability to make them work correctly. I just don't see any strong, unifying theme to tie an army around.

[Soulblighter]

Ive always thought of Legion as the rules-ignoring faction. Thats the ONLY thing we have going for us in MK2. Circle certainly got more rules-ignoring abilities than they should have. Its definitely something we need to bring up in feedback especially for the Argus, Pureblood, and Feral Warpwolves.

[Neutralyze]

what in our faction has arcing fire?

[Necra-Chi]

The scather

[Garth]

Nothing important.

What we are ? I still think we are the mobile ranged faction.
Which other faction has this:

2 Units with pathfinder, CRA, 12" range weapons and 6 / 7" movement ?

Yeah Circle has his great wolfriders with weapon masters spears, but the raptors are also good ranged attackers.
Look at our beasts, the Carnivean, the Seraph, the Angelius and the Typhoon (all "heavys") have a ranged attack.

We are the mix between Circle and Cryx. We have Cryx defense and speed, but no Arc Nodes or cool weapon master units. Instead we have some good shooting stuff but without all the cool stuff a ranged army should have. Instead of Snipe we have a higher spead, instead of dead eye we have pathfinder, instead of arcing fire we have eyeless sight.


Are we too weak or clearly underpowered ? No, I think not. At least I don't see a real big problem around the whole faction. I just think that I don't like the faction Legion became...

[Jice_]

And the template from covering fire.

[Soulblighter]

2 Units with pathfinder, CRA, 12" range weapons and 6 / 7" movement ?

Retribution of Scyrah :)

Were somewhere in between Retribution of Scyrah and Circle right now.

[Malkav13]

Scather for the win! Legion has changed a bit, but I think that I'm starting to get a feel for it, at least for myself. I don't think that we are going shooty. We were definetly doing that in MKI with the Strider Legion.
Legion still hits hard, and is still fast. Our wings don't ignore free strikes, but they do allow us to ignore intervening models when declaring a charge.
The seraph is a bit expensive for what he is, but is still a good beast with A nice animus, and decent melee and ranged capabilities.

[SteakAndSpirits]

We're also the 'Non-Spike-Damage' faction.

I say that because generating fury creates 'spike' damage. Damage above and beyond what would have been generated otherwise. Because fury does not take care of itself, this damage is not infinitely sustainable.

Hence, a 'spike'.

Because Legion (in my opinion) has superior Fury Management, Legion does not output damage in 'spikes'. In that regard, spike damage is our norm - It is fury that is constantly being generated, and constantly being mitigated.

Other factions have means of fury mitigation, but not in ways as battlefield flexible as ours.

Thus, our damage output should always be high.

(And subsequently, this is why I'd like to see our Shepherd gain pathfinder.)

-s&s

[Primus]

Only the Scather.

[Soulblighter]

Because fury does not take care of itself, this damage is not infinitely sustainable.

Unless your name is Kaya.

[SteakAndSpirits]

Unless your name is Kaya.

I hope we all plan on feedbacking as much. But in either case, she's an exception not a rule.

-s&s

[Jice_]

I think legion has made the shift from rules ignoring faction to the 'supprise!' faction. We've got alot of stuff that can just appear out of nowhere.

Harriers are a good example of this as you can litterally have 4 - 5 of them behind lines of Swordsmen and Legionares and with flight have them swoop in, kill something and then retreat back behind the unit to safety.

Incubi Spawning from the dead.

Raptors moving 9, shooting 12 with 3 dice damage on most things, then disapearing again.

Striders almost becoming a unit of solo's that can CRA from impposible angles since they can cover a 24" area.

Legionares attacking multiple times in a turn thanks to vengance.

Raek's leap getting him into imposible positions at rediculously long lengths.

Caniveans Assaulting through forests to spray something from 19" away. (would work alot better if he had the rat to go with it :( )

There's alot of little combo's I can see working that would make the opponent go 'oh crap, I didn't see that coming' but it's spiced with some things that seem out of place.

The Armor theme being one of them. Shredders, Thags, Carniveans, Protectors, Legionares, Archers (order), and others seem to want to play opposite to the standard legion 'seek and destroy' mentality, but at the same time, putting all thoes models together could make a list that completely prevents most (stupid Kreoss) assassination armies.

Same goes for ranged. While we're not Cygnar/Retribution to any degree, we've certainly got alot of mobile/forest friendly guns. Seraphs, Teraphs, Striders (the solo too), Archers (with UA), Raptors, Angelus (to an extent) and a wide array of sprays from the Typhon, Carnivean, Abby (not the best example but she does), and Sorceress. So while we may have weaker ranged, it's certainly more open to where it's all going to be placed.

While I think we've still got alot of tricks, it just seems they've shifted location in the army. And while there are theme's I think the best legion armies will be the ones that don't stick to a mould. I love using Striders with Rhyas for example, while I don't really see it in other people's lists.

Before legion was about spam: Seraph spam, Shredder spam, Strider spam, Angel spam (thats alot of 'S's' by the way). And now I'm having trouble including more than one of anything just cause there's always something else I want to get in as well. I like that.

[Jice_]

Retribution of Scyrah :)

Actaully they don't, its a common misconception that Magehunters have CRA when actaully they have CMA. Nowhere is Retribution will you find all thoes abilities together.

[OldOneEye]

I don't think we've got an identity crisis, just a new identity. Board control and hit-and-run is our M.O. now; jumping the entire enemy army for the assassination run is old hat.

[Soulblighter]

Actaully they don't, its a common misconception that Magehunters have CRA when actaully they have CMA. Nowhere is Retribution will you find all thoes abilities together.

Nyss Hunters do though right? Besides id still rather have Magehunters than any Legion unit regardless of whether they have CRA or not.

[Necra-Chi]

Nyss Hunters do though right? Besides id still rather have Magehunters than any Legion unit regardless of whether they have CRA or not.

From most of the posts I see from you, it seems you should try a different faction.

[ricefrisbeetreats]

We friggin shoot THROUGH forests! We ignore them! That's pretty scary when they are relatively common on the battlefields here. There always seems to be one that they get just a little too close to and that's where they end up getting jacked up.

Think Jurassic park 2, running through the grass and the raptors getting the fleeing people.

[hairsolo]

Except in the grass there are cheaper and more powerful beasts getting our raptors........

Still I love Legion its the Godzilla faction!!!!

[Lazlo]

I think legion has made the shift from rules ignoring faction to the 'supprise!' faction. We've got alot of stuff that can just appear out of nowhere.

I don't disagree with you on your points, but the problem with being the 'surprise!' faction is that once the newness of the Mk II rules fades and people have seen those 'surprise!' moves (and it usually just takes once) then we are no longer the 'surprise!' faction.

[Necra-Chi]

I'd like to propose an "Identity" for the faction.

We're the "Tempo" faction.

This is a term used in Magic The Gathering. In MTG very broadly you have 4 types of decks:
1. Beatdown or aggro, this could be likened to an Attrition faction. The emphasis is on doing damage as fast as possible or at least faster than the opponent.
2. Control, this could be likened to a denial faction. You decide what the opponent gets to do.
3. Combo, this could be likened to assassination. You put some crazy combo together and it wins you the game.
4. Tempo. This is a wierd hybrid of the three, whose phisophy is that it doesn't matter how quickly things are happening, as long as they're happening faster to the opponent. A bit like attrition, except the emphasis is on both sides losing stuff, just at differential rates, and can still pull out a combo and create a bit of denial. Tempo decks usually have some way of putting the opponent on a "clock", that is reducing his life steadily so that he must react, and it usually has a way to ramp up the speed of the game or punish the opponent for its actions, or slow the game down if its getting behind. You always want the advantage in cards, life total, creatures on the board etc.

How might that translate to a Hordes faction? Well in my games so far I have found that we aren't just a combo or assassination faction, and we certainly arent beatdown or attrition and we have a little denial. I have found that the tempo of the game when we're playing well is dictated by us, and very much by how many beasts we take. The more beasts the faster we have to win and the faster we do win if we do. We also have a strong hit and run theme, with the ability to suddenly put all our resources into a penetrating strike to make up the difference or end the game. We also have some abilities that punish the opponent according to how much effort he puts into fighting us, for example opening up gaps for an assassiantion,a nd vengeance and incubi.

I'm going to illustrate with an example 50pt list that I think is pretty badass.

Saeryn
2 Angels
Nephilim soldier
Shepherd
Bone grinders
10 Incubi
10 Legionnaires
Striders and Unit Attachment
2 Deathstalkers

How this list fits the Tempo definition.
Firstly this list puts the opponent on a clock in two ways. The first way is that the strider contingent flank the enemy, threatening the rear ranks. I find that this forces armies like protectorate to engage, because otherwsie they'll lose their support models and then will have to fight later anyway and without their support. Also as this army advances eventually the opponent runs out of board to get away from the assassination combo.
What you're trying to force the opponent to do is try to make headway against the army and then capitalise on weaknesses and deliver the high value to cost ratio incubi. You make sure the opponent has to go through the legionnaires or striders to get to you, and then vengeance and incubi make them pay. Its my experience that incubi make the opponent pay a heavy price. Their aggression results in more aggression from us.

If the opponent doesn't oblige, we close the noose. Angels snipe solos that threaten to ruin our plans.

If they react too aggressively and things look grim, Saeryn can exert the bit of denial she brings to the table, copying spells, slowing down the pace with breathstealer, shifting fury onto the opponent. Maybe gets an angel back with respawn.

Then when you're in range and have successfully defended at least one angel, you feat, massacre on an angel (even if your nephilim dies thanks to bonegrinders), maybe do some transfer denial with deathspurs or equilibrium, and send in the no free strikes, intervening model ignoring angel for the kill.

[Primus]

I like where you're going with this. A lot. It also codifies in my head some stuff that's been swirling around since last weekend's games.

In a particular game with Lylyth1, I decided to do something a little different and went absolutely crazy cutting myself for Fury in order to overwhelm my opponent. By turn 4 I had 2 HP left (all self-inflicted), but between a Legionnaire/Incubi rush, a Strider+UA+Deathstalker blocked flank, and a sacrificial Carni, I'd nearly destroyed all his infantry and killed his caster.

I was able to keep my opponent off-balance by just throwing crazy stuff at him from all sides, not caring how much I lost provided he lost more. And in the end it paid off in spades. Now I've got a name to call it and a framework to pin things to.

[Necra-Chi]

Tempo. It does a number on Aggro and really hates Control, so watch out! If you meet a Combo, just go faster and watch your caster.

See there's a rhyme for you too :D

[SteakAndSpirits]

I like that write up, too, Necra. Well done.

Having a sense of direction to accompany our expectations does a number on figuring out where we stand. :)

-s&s

[Necra-Chi]

I have noticed that other warlocks support this theme well too, if with slightly different lists.

Vayl and E-Thag have feats that can either be dedicated to hit and retreat or go on the offensive depending on how fast the tempo of the game is trotting along.
E-Lylyth has serious ranged denial, forcing the opponent's hand, and can start the "clock" with a twist of the hour hand with her feat, getting a head start on any army. Very shifty.

I haven't thought much about Rhyas and this theme, except that she supports the key models within it really well, getting striders out of melee with dash and making legionnaires and incubi more brutal with the feat.

[blitzmonkey]

I like that write up, too, Necra. Well done.

Having a sense of direction to accompany our expectations does a number on figuring out where we stand. :)

-s&s


Totally agree. I was looking for a sense of this when I was trying to figure out where certain models fit in. Now the question is: How does the Teraph and Seraph contribute to our tempo?

[SteakAndSpirits]

Totally agree. I was looking for a sense of this when I was trying to figure out where certain models fit in. Now the question is: How does the Teraph and Seraph contribute to our tempo?

That's a great question with an important answer!

It might deserve it's own thread?

-s&s

[Necra-Chi]

Teraph has Tempo themed into it too, or at the very least supports the tactics that come with it. When I've used it it has been with E-Lylyth. It gets stealth but often digs in anyway, although not as important. It assists in jumping the clock ahead on the feat turn because two long range accurate AOEs stuffs things up. The animus fits the "if the opponent does something we push back harder" part of Tempo. On first turn I advance, dig in, animus. After that I might fire off a blast with aiming bonus and put animus up again. If the opponent comes forward they get a blast, maybe. If they don't, no loss but the fury. Tempo.

But mainly the teraph fits these armies because I find you often want to flank, but leaves an opposite flank exposed, and the teraph is a cheap effective flank protector.

The seraph? A few things. With Vayl and Thagrosh they can shoot and scoot thanks to the feat. Also I find their reliability and output increases when the opponent comes to you, because they can get the aiming bonus. They're also usually involved in a finishing move.

[Loveless]

Well, I think Necra figured it out.

Which means it's time for Necra's faction symbol to go back to Legion :p

[blitzmonkey]

Teraph has Tempo themed into it too, or at the very least supports the tactics that come with it. When I've used it it has been with E-Lylyth. It gets stealth but often digs in anyway, although not as important. It assists in jumping the clock ahead on the feat turn because two long range accurate AOEs stuffs things up. The animus fits the "if the opponent does something we push back harder" part of Tempo. On first turn I advance, dig in, animus. After that I might fire off a blast with aiming bonus and put animus up again. If the opponent comes forward they get a blast, maybe. If they don't, no loss but the fury. Tempo.

But mainly the teraph fits these armies because I find you often want to flank, but leaves an opposite flank exposed, and the teraph is a cheap effective flank protector.

The seraph? A few things. With Vayl and Thagrosh they can shoot and scoot thanks to the feat. Also I find their reliability and output increases when the opponent comes to you, because they can get the aiming bonus. They're also usually involved in a finishing move.

Are there things we have that do it better? That is, for 5 and 8 points, can I get something better for tempo setting?

[Necra-Chi]

Other models that fit the theme (you've got me going now):

Archers. Get them in position quickly with pathfinder, put down suppressive fire. This makes it difficult or damaging for the opponent to go aggressive on you. Then if they go aggressive with something more resilient, but slower, stand still an ddual shot with highly accurate tailor made CRAs.

The scather supports it because you can run into position now, and it has good range. You can mirror what the archers are doing because you can lob AOEs in the general direction of the enemy and leave little templates to hamper their advance, and if something heavier comes through, you've got the RAT and POW to hit it and hurt it.

Raptors look fantastic for this. Although I haven't played them. they flank, they hit and run, they have dependable effective ranged attacks and when the going gets hot they can up the ante with a charge.

I just wish the spawning vessel was a little faster and then it would be able to support this theme very well indeed.

[SteakAndSpirits]

This is all so enlightening - So. Part of tempo in conjunction with Archers and Incubi and dual shot would be: I dual shot. I'm counterattacked. Incubi counter-counterattack.

It's okay because while I've lost my Archers, they've lost whatever my Archers tagged, plus what my Incubi are about the shred up.

And thus their momentum is working against them, and I'm controlling the engagement tempo.

Yes? :)

-s&s

[blitzmonkey]

Other models that fit the theme (you've got me going now):

Archers. Get them in position quickly with pathfinder, put down suppressive fire. This makes it difficult or damaging for the opponent to go aggressive on you. Then if they go aggressive with something more resilient, but slower, stand still an ddual shot with highly accurate tailor made CRAs.

The scather supports it because you can run into position now, and it has good range. You can mirror what the archers are doing because you can lob AOEs in the general direction of the enemy and leave little templates to hamper their advance, and if something heavier comes through, you've got the RAT and POW to hit it and hurt it.

Raptors look fantastic for this. Although I haven't played them. they flank, they hit and run, they have dependable effective ranged attacks and when the going gets hot they can up the ante with a charge.

I just wish the spawning vessel was a little faster and then it would be able to support this theme very well indeed.

I don't mean to keep you going, but you have a lot of insight to offer.

So.... I ask.....

You said control gives us trouble. What can we do to counter control? What are good examples of control? Skorne has some elements, but I am torn if Circle is more of a control faction or an aggro.

[Necra-Chi]

Before I address control.

Fury load is the antithesis of Tempo. If Fury were in Magic the Gathering it would be the equivalent of one of the resources like life total, cards in hand, creatures on table, mana etc. You want to be in a better fury load positioin than your opponent at all times. You DO NOT want to be running too hot. That is negative returns, and the opposite of the tempo we are looking for.

Shepherds and Forsaken are immensely important for this. You can run beast light like my example list, or you can take as many of these heat sinks as possible. Running beast heavy and then just not forcing a lot is NOT the Tempo way. You will not be getting the returns you need.

With the shepherd she basically just bleeds the fury so it isn't a problem. She can also heal which saves the warlock fury. Either way she helps keep the upper hand in fury load, a "new" and important resource in Hordes.

The forsaken is more complicated. She doesn't actually get rid of the fury, it stays in the army and you'll have a turn eventually when you aren't pulling fury off beasts. BUT.
She can turn that fury into beatdown AND make the opponent pay for his fury load. This is fantastic. This is the epitome of Tempo. This is like recycling cards from your graveyard. Something Tempo is known for. And you can usually do it around about the time that your beasts have started dying and your warlock can handle the fury herself.

Saeryn's equilibrium and Abby's parasitic reaving are excellent for this too. Equilibrium is stupidly good now.

Control. The nemesis of Tempo.
Control is likened to denial in Hordes and Warmachine. Protectorate is Denial. And to make matters worse they have a bit of Tempo too, because they've got one of the best "clocks" for warlocks and warbeasts out there : Fire. Protectorate decide whether you can shoot or spell their warjacks. They decide whether you can have your animi or upkeeps. They decide whether you can keep beating on that warjack, and they can even mess with your fury supply.

This is why its been very interesting to play against Protectorate so much.

@ steakandspirits; Incubi are so pivotal to infantry tempo. This is because they so easily get more than their cost in payback. 5 point worth kill 8 points worth of warmongers or 3 points worth kill 11 points worth of carnivean, or 6 points worth kill 16pts worth of seraph. I've seen these all. The catch is to get these awesome returns we have to lose dudes, preferably cheap dudes, and so they practically ARE Tempo. When nothing is happeneing, they aren't doing anything but they're also safe, they're in your hand so to speak, and when the action starts they pop out and make the opponent pay. They're the blazing shoals and sickening shoals of hordes.

[Mezzanine]

I just wish the spawning vessel was a little faster and then it would be able to support this theme very well indeed.
The Spawning Vessel is the ultimate Johnny unit. Its like a wickedly complication solar-powered Rube Goldberg machine that turns on your nightlight. Reminds me of my Mask of the Mimic deck I built back in the day.

I still think we're every bit of an aggro faction. We dictate the matchups with our superior speed and threat ranges. Maybe Aggro is a bad word. We're closer to RTSD characters from fighting games. RTSD doesn't mean "I blindy charge in with my head down like a bull". It means create an opening by using your speed to catch them off guard and punish them with big damage. Attacking like a boxer. You have to make some body blows before going for the knockout punches. Granted, in mk1 all you needed was knockout punches but I dont think thats the case anymore. Tempo factors in big time there but i think tempo is a big deal for the other Hordes factions as well.

I don't think there is an identity crisis. We're faster than the opponent. We're more mobile than the opponent. We've have specialist models with high rates of attack, a couple of heavy warbeasts that hit like a mack trucks and two melee oriented warlocks with spells that mitigate distance between them and their victims very quickly. We're still getting to their warlock or warcaster but its just going to take another turn softening up your opponent first.

[Soulblighter]

Legion is definitely an aggro faction. We want to put pressure on the opponent as soon as we can and win as quickly as possible before we run out of gas. Mezzanine's RTSD analogy is perfect.Thats exactly how Legion plays.

[Necra-Chi]

That's where we fundamentally differ and its probably clouding your asessment of mk2 legion models. That used to be true of Mk1 legion, and can still be true to some extent if we go warbeast heavy, but IMO warbeast heavy isn't as efficient as it used to be. That's why we're struggling with the point values on our warbeasts.

[Soulblighter]

That's where we fundamentally differ and its probably clouding your asessment of mk2 legion models. That used to be true of Mk1 legion, and can still be true to some extent if we go warbeast heavy, but IMO warbeast heavy isn't as efficient as it used to be. That's why we're struggling with the point values on our warbeasts.

I dont agree that Legion is a "Tempo" faction. The whole idea behind Tempo is to play the game more efficiently than your opponent until you win. In Hordes terms that translates into stretching the value of your own resources while devaluing your opponent's resources. Thats not what Legion does. Its what Skorne does.

Of all the magic deck archetypes the one Legion resembles the most is Aggro. We make aggressive plays from the start that dictate the momentum of the game and force the opponent on the defensive. And we have to win quickly before we get whittled down. Like you said: Legion isnt an attrition faction, and every turn we havent won yet, is a turn were closer to losing.

[Necra-Chi]

That is not my experience of Mk 2. That is what Mk 1 was like. Now if we go aggro we just get pwned but more numerous tougher armies with better denial.

I know this because I've tested an infantry heavy tempo army against an aggressive legion warbeast army and its not an even matchup. Even when both sides take damage at similar rates, the warbeast army has less to lose. For one thing you don't get any payback for the points you've put into mobility, because wherever you strike, the incubi get you.

[Soulblighter]

That is not my experience of Mk 2. That is what Mk 1 was like. Now if we go aggro we just get pwned but more numerous tougher armies with better denial.

I attribute that more to the fact the field test isnt balanced. Give us a Seraph that isnt overcosted we'll be spamming Air Hyper Viper Beams ftw :)

[Necra-Chi]

It is balanced if you play it right. That's my point. What you're experiencing is a change in how Legion operates to what Jason and Matt envisioned them to play. Legion is being brought back in line with the original design intent.

[Jaster]

Jumping in a few posts late, but whatever;
Yes, the Angel down the throat is gone, and as a Legion player I say; "So what?" How hard was it to ride an Angel over a front line and kill? So you need to run a line of Legionnaires in front of your angel and engage on a front to tie up forces THEN go past an opening you carve for the kill, this seems like .. . Game play planning? I don't see how this is a bad thing . . . If they dedicate too much to stop the angel, then your core force will just punch through and they'll have some Ogrun, a warlock and probably a C-Rex (or perhaps, a second Angel on the OTHER flank) to kill them instead.

[Necra-Chi]

Jaster, Who are you arguing with?

[Soulblighter]

It is balanced if you play it right. That's my point. What you're experiencing is a change in how Legion operates to what Jason and Matt envisioned them to play. Legion is being brought back in line with the original design intent.

Actually its not balanced at all. 8 point Seraphs? 11 point Carniveans? Its really no surprise you find our warbeasts inefficient given that theyre ludicrously overcosted! Legion players really need to get out of this complacent slump and start submitting productive feedback to get our warbeasts' balls reattached. Were entitled to powerful warbeasts the same as every other faction.

[Necra-Chi]

We have plenty of time to feedback. I'd rather get more games in to further strengthen or refute any conclusions I'm drawing.

And when I feedback, it will be unbiassed and fair *****sment of my game results. Not some preconcieved notions of what my faction should be like.

[Garth]

We still have time for test games, before we provide feedback, so why should we hurry ?

I like the idea of the "tempo"-army and yes it sounds possible.

A lot of our stuff seems to fit in this theme, just like some of our warcasters. We are fast, don't have problems with terrain, can hit hard and then remove the fury and we have something, that makes our opponent think twice, if he wants to kill our infantry.

But two short question on this:

1. How should this tactic work without incubi ?`Ok, other armies have some auto-includes, too. But I fear then incbui would be an autoinclude ? Yes, spiny grwoth and perhaps even exscessive healing work in a similar way, but incubi seem to be strongest punishment...and the only real punishment we have

2. Don't you think this tactic became only a solution, because our warbeasts seem unbalanced ? If our warbeasts were in line with those of the other factions (so if a carnivean could kill a warpwolf...), do you really think that this tactic would be the way to go ?



Oh and something different I realised. First I tought Circle would have got, what we have lost. This is not true. A ghostly warpwolf ignoring freestrikes or LoS for shooting is cool. But it still different from what we were before with wings. It is much less frustrating, because they can't walk over bases. So what we lost no one else really gained, so perhaps it just wasn't wanted that in MK II models can fly over bases and kill the other warcaster, without him being able to do someting against it :-). I mean who didn't know the MK II moment, when you realised that did win ? You charged your angels with saeryns Feat and shredder animus, they survived and the opposing caster was in range with help from slipstream and wings...game over. Perhaps this is something the game designers didn't want for MK II ;-).

[Necra-Chi]

Indeed, except that one warlock can still do that, and better now.

To answer your questions.

1. I've already discussed other units that fit the Tempo theme, but I do think that incubi make it much easier IF you choose to go with mixed arms or infantry heavy list. I think you can still do a hit and run style with raptors, striders, or with beast heavy lists with Vayl or E-Thagrosh. The idea being that you kite so that the opponnet is taking damage and you are not.

2. I don't think our beasts are unbalanced. I think some might need a few tweaks to be a bit more reliable or better fit a new role, but only in the context of the larger army. I don't subscribe to the more is better mentality. I want versatile beasts that fit the way legion plays and do their job well. I needn't compare with other faction beasts, just whether my beasts do what I expect of them, when I'm playing them properly.

So for example when I see my carnivean bounce off another warjack or warbeast at first I get mad, but then I read and think a bit more and realise that I didn't use it properly. Why did I send it against the opposition's strongest model? Its a bully, not a line breaker. Why didn't I buff the ARM and go for a slower approach?

[Garth]

And how are you going to win Mosh pit with such an army ?

This is the most played Scneario here...and I don't think that this playstyle will such a scenario.

Garth

[katadder]

we either didnt have very good players at tournaments or we were never as good as people thought as due to tourney standings we are what the 3rd faction book of 4 to be released for hordes?

[ricefrisbeetreats]

Raptors look fantastic for this. Although I haven't played them. they flank, they hit and run, they have dependable effective ranged attacks and when the going gets hot they can up the ante with a charge.

I just wish the spawning vessel was a little faster and then it would be able to support this theme very well indeed.

Dude, you're missing out if you haven't tried the Raptors. They're so vanilla is silly. But who cares? They can hit enemies at a pretty long range.

They almost always "make back their points".

So pretty much you're saying we're all about them losing more than we are each turn?

Sounds good. I'll have to play with that mindset.

[Nargacuga]

we either didnt have very good players at tournaments or we were never as good as people thought as due to tourney standings we are what the 3rd faction book of 4 to be released for hordes?

^This is a very important fact.

MKI Legion was never really 'broken'. If it was, it would have dominated the tournament scene. The problem with Legion is that its flight, eyeless sight and high speed made it seem broken. Players whined about how MKI Legion was overpowered or broken not because it won all the time, but rather because Legion never played by the other factions' rules and forced them to radically alter their strategies.

It was the triumph of perception over reality.

Granted, what's done is done, MKII is here and we have to put our heads together to figure out what our expectations should be for the new Legion.

Necra-Chi has put forward some interesting and well thought-out concepts with the whole "tempo" strategy. Other entries in this thread have been very enlightening as well as we all seem to be trying to wrap our heads around this.

Has anyone read anything by Jason or Matt that re-enforces or contradicts what is being theorized here?

MKII has clearly altered our faction more than any other and Legion players need to understand the designers' underlying vision for it in order to give more constructive and worthwhile feedback.

[Hjelmen0]

I think a lot of the disparity in the book-release-league was because a lot of people wanted to play their new shiny warmachine factions, leaving hordes factions some what out to dry...


Legion players need to understand the designers' underlying vision for it

Definitely. And while Necra's ideas of "tempo" (that I'm not quite sure I understand in the context of Hordes) are interesting, I really hope that it becomes more implicitly clear what Legion are supposed to be in the big whole, instead of having to sit down and think long and hard thoughts about how really to play our faction.

I'm aware that some tactics and factions are more straightforward than others, and I certainly don't demand a huge write-up in the faction book describing "play like this", but it a bit of a conundrum to me at the moment what the intent and philosophy actually is.

[Necra-Chi]

Dude, you're missing out if you haven't tried the Raptors. They're so vanilla is silly. But who cares? They can hit enemies at a pretty long range.

They almost always "make back their points".

So pretty much you're saying we're all about them losing more than we are each turn?

Sounds good. I'll have to play with that mindset.

And you control or rapidly react to the pace of the attrition too. That's important.

The way i see it is that we still have the potential to have the best of all the other styles form the MTG analogy. We can still do some denial and slow down the pace if needed but we can also ramp up the aggro, and go for the kill or the scenario win, dependent on army design. But we don't play other peoples game.

[Soulblighter]

The goal of every warmachine army is to make the opponent lose more models than you in any given turn. Thats not quite what Tempo is.

Tempo is more the idea of making more efficient plays than the opponent in EVERY aspect of the game. When the opponent kills one model, we kill two models. When the opponent spends two fury for an effect, we spend one fury for the same effect. Thats Tempo. The Neph Soldier's Massacre animus is a good example of a Tempo ability. Legion has a few Tempo abilities like this but certainly not as many as other factions like Skorne.

I suppose it would be possible for Legion to play Tempo but I dont feel its really the intended strength of our faction. To put it in MTG terms, I feel Legion is meant to be more of an Aggro-Combo faction. We play aggressively to gain an advantageous board position which allows us to set up our game-winning assassination combo. To me thats how Legion is meant to be played. Thats what appealed to me about the faction. I really hope Legion's playstyle isnt heading in a different direction from that.

[SteakAndSpirits]

We play aggressively to gain an advantageous board position which allows us to set up our game-winning assassination combo.

Sounds like a recent Garryth/Magister list I was toying around with while anxiously waiting for my faction's field test to arrive. :)

-s&s

[blitzmonkey]

Legion kinda feels like jeet kun do to me know.

[Necra-Chi]

Thanks for that. I just read up on it and found it very informative. I don't think Bruce would think that turning legionnaires into incubi for profit was "efficient" though ;)

[blitzmonkey]

Thanks for that. I just read up on it and found it very informative. I don't think Bruce would think that turning legionnaires into incubi for profit was "efficient" though ;)


LOL! No, I don't either, but it is the closest thing I could find that suited.

Edit: Decided just to post it:

JKD practitioners believe that techniques should contain the following properties:


Efficiency - An attack that reaches its mark.
Directness - Doing what comes naturally in a learned way.
Simplicity - Thinking in an uncomplicated manner; without ornamentation.
Quickness - Act fast, before the opponent can even think.

[Necra-Chi]

And the famous:

"be like water"
"absorb what is useful"

I agree in many ways, now that I've read about it.

[RoyalAssassin]

I just put the tempo control idea out on the table - I skipped some of models I've been using as crutches (Carn and Typhon), and went for a Rhyas list:

Rhyas
Angelius
Raek
Shredder
Harrier
Striders/UA
Deathstalker x 2
Incubi
Shepherd
Totem Hunter
Swamp Gobbers

Totem Hunter deployed to the right, Deathstalkers/Striders to the left in cover, Rhyas and her battlegroup centerish and pointed at the enemy warlock (Baldur). Opponent ran Circle (Baldur and constructs, with Tharn Ravagers and Druids).

My basic plan was to force a lot of uncomfortable decisions - spray unit leaders with Shadow Stalk to present the choice of either forfeiting move (and letting me cruise forward) or charging (and letting me cruise forward). Divert force to the right to manage the Totem Hunter and expose them to back strikes from an angry Angel, or let the guy alone and let him hunt down your warlock. Let the Striders CRA/Bushwhack, or charge them and spawn incubi.

It was glorious. I lost, ultimately - Rhyas was about .25" short of a charge on Baldur (who was out of transfer targets), we had our FLGS telling us to get out, and my opponent is a way better player than I am. It was glorious anyway - my opponent had to think all the way through all the possible repercussions of twitching any single model more than an inch. I had the initiative the whole game, right up until the failed charge, and I didn't even get to go first.

I obviously need some refinement (and more Raeks), but it played very, very smoothly. My choices were pretty intuitive, once the engine started - who to Stalk, where to put Deathstalker arrows, etc. I didn't take the massive casualties I'd gotten used to from running fast attack in Mk II.

I'd like to submit Bog Trogs for consideration as a tempo control unit - they threaten a sickening amount of table space, until their deployment gets clarified, and launching them at the top of a critical turn seems to fit right into the theme.

[Garth]

I just put the tempo control idea out on the table - I skipped some of models I've been using as crutches (Carn and Typhon), and went for a Rhyas list:

Rhyas
Angelius
Raek
Shredder
Harrier
Striders/UA
Deathstalker x 2
Incubi
Shepherd
Totem Hunter
Swamp Gobbers

Totem Hunter deployed to the right, Deathstalkers/Striders to the left in cover, Rhyas and her battlegroup centerish and pointed at the enemy warlock (Baldur). Opponent ran Circle (Baldur and constructs, with Tharn Ravagers and Druids).

My basic plan was to force a lot of uncomfortable decisions - spray unit leaders with Shadow Stalk to present the choice of either forfeiting move (and letting me cruise forward) or charging (and letting me cruise forward). Divert force to the right to manage the Totem Hunter and expose them to back strikes from an angry Angel, or let the guy alone and let him hunt down your warlock. Let the Striders CRA/Bushwhack, or charge them and spawn incubi.

It was glorious. I lost, ultimately - Rhyas was about .25" short of a charge on Baldur (who was out of transfer targets), we had our FLGS telling us to get out, and my opponent is a way better player than I am. It was glorious anyway - my opponent had to think all the way through all the possible repercussions of twitching any single model more than an inch. I had the initiative the whole game, right up until the failed charge, and I didn't even get to go first.

I obviously need some refinement (and more Raeks), but it played very, very smoothly. My choices were pretty intuitive, once the engine started - who to Stalk, where to put Deathstalker arrows, etc. I didn't take the massive casualties I'd gotten used to from running fast attack in Mk II.

I'd like to submit Bog Trogs for consideration as a tempo control unit - they threaten a sickening amount of table space, until their deployment gets clarified, and launching them at the top of a critical turn seems to fit right into the theme.

Have you played a mission ?

[RoyalAssassin]

I haven't, not yet - I wanted to try and get a feel for how the parts needed to fit together and how the playstyle worked before I added complications like control points or a mosh pit. I'm going to try and get some mission games in this weekend.

[Necra-Chi]

I like the bog trogs idea but caution that it is even more models you play without being on the table, and they can't spawn incubi. If I used them they would replace some striders. Worth a look see.