MKII Thoughts - Warbeasts

[Styvis]

The title says it all. (Idea stolen from the Trollblood forum).

[Raven Abaddon]

Carnivean losing LockJaw on its Bite is gonna be a good time.

[Top]

Angelius still looking good. Flame Jet got stronger and picked up Critical Fire. Finally a dragon-ish critter with crit fire.;)

-Top

[Necra-Chi]

Did not notice that. Yay!

[frozenwastes]

P+S 14 armor piercing?! Awesome!

[ArtificialDecaySynthesis]

welcome to mk1 frozenwastes

[mongre36]

Ahh but now you can add parasite to the target. :)

[OldOneEye]

I balk at the 11 pt. cost for the Carnivean, but it may yet be worth it. Shake Effects keeps it off its butt now, its spray goes up to 10" (in addition to all the other buffs that sprays in general got), and it lost Lock Jaw. Now you can dump all your fury into additional POW 18s.

I don't know that I'll take it with every warlock I use, but the Carnivean will do well with Lylyth1 at least.

Angelius is basically unchanged once you get past the loss of Wings. It can still ruin the big stuff like nobody's business.

Still not sure about the Seraph. I figured that Serpentine was coming, but the switch to a Heavy caught me off-guard. Seems a bit pricey for what it does, but I really think I'm just basing that on what it could do in MKI. The low Fury (compared to other heavies) looks like the biggest problem to me.

Raek has Stealth and Pathfinder now. Way to go, little guy! For 4 points, I might look at it now.

Teraph gets what we always wanted it to have (AD), but the push back on that relegates the Teraph back to Kinda Crappy.

[Meatshield]

Carni seems good at this point range so far though later games may show his low accuracy to be more of a problem, one thing that could be done is a Mat, Rat bump or just a Mat bump.

[Cervantes690]

That is the thing I feel that the Carni would be worth 11 points if it had a mat and rat boast. Right now I feel that it should be 10 points

[blitzmonkey]

That is the thing I feel that the Carni would be worth 11 points if it had a mat and rat boast. Right now I feel that it should be 10 points

EXACTLY!!! I think it needs just a slight mat/rat bump and it'd be 11 points.

[Defenstrator]

My initial impressions so much theorymachine here.

Carnivean- 11 points for MAT 5/ RAT4 seems off. Yes he is kill crazy, but that is way too many points for the attack stats of a 6 point heavy.

Seraph- Strafe sucks, and Serpantine only works if it's balancing points to make the beast cheaper, which it isn't. An 8 point heavy that can't do any power attacks except head butt is being ripped off, not to mention only being 3 fury. Drop Serpantine and make him fury 4 or drop him to 6 points.

Typhon- Is ok. He isn't setting my world on fire but I can see where the 12 points is being spent. He is suffering from the gimped Reach/Gunfighter interaction though, and that needs to be fixed.

Angelius- Would be fine except that his animus is still bad. He is also suffering from Serpantine but has the POW 14 AP to make up for it.

Raek- Does the stealth job but I'm not confident about his ability to do much when he gets there. But he could be alright because he's cheap enough.

Teraph- Is now what he should have been, except like the Raek he suffers from the lack of ability to actualy hurt things in the same points range. I mean what's he going to use against a Cyclops Brute, harsh language?

Neph Soldier- Can hurt things with his higher MAT and POW 14 reach, and has a better animus. I won't be spamming them but I don't feel bad paying 5 points.

Neph Protector- I rate him our most improved warbeast. Shield guard gives him a defined role and at ARM 18 he's decent at it. Plus he's not bad on the offence either due to reach and Powerful Charge. The POW 12 weapon hurts a bit, but he does have a decent animus.

Harrier- Improved I think. Sprint is cooler than flyby.

Shredder- Is relatively more expensive and not quite as good. But the core of greatness is still there I think.

[blitzmonkey]

My initial impressions so much theorymachine here.

Carnivean- 11 points for MAT 5/ RAT4 seems off. Yes he is kill crazy, but that is way too many points for the attack stats of a 6 point heavy.

Seraph- Strafe sucks, and Serpantine only works if it's balancing points to make the beast cheaper, which it isn't. An 8 point heavy that can't do any power attacks except head butt is being ripped off, not to mention only being 3 fury. Drop Serpantine and make him fury 4 or drop him to 6 points.

Typhon- Is ok. He isn't setting my world on fire but I can see where the 12 points is being spent. He is suffering from the gimped Reach/Gunfighter interaction though, and that needs to be fixed.

Angelius- Would be fine except that his animus is still bad. He is also suffering from Serpantine but has the POW 14 AP to make up for it.

Raek- Does the stealth job but I'm not confident about his ability to do much when he gets there. But he could be alright because he's cheap enough.

Teraph- Is now what he should have been, except like the Raek he suffers from the lack of ability to actualy hurt things in the same points range. I mean what's he going to use against a Cyclops Brute, harsh language?

Neph Soldier- Can hurt things with his higher MAT and POW 14 reach, and has a better animus. I won't be spamming them but I don't feel bad paying 5 points.

Neph Protector- I rate him our most improved warbeast. Shield guard gives him a defined role and at ARM 18 he's decent at it. Plus he's not bad on the offence either due to reach and Powerful Charge. The POW 12 weapon hurts a bit, but he does have a decent animus.

Harrier- Improved I think. Sprint is cooler than flyby.

Shredder- Is relatively more expensive and not quite as good. But the core of greatness is still there I think.

For the most part, your descriptions are very similar to my initial thoughts. The Crex needs a bump BADLY to mat at the least. Just a +1 would make all the difference.

[ShockwaveIIC]

Shake Effects keeps it off its butt now, its spray goes up to 10"

@ Everyone

Be careful of that as forcing to shake will mean come checking for Frenzy it will have fury on him.

[Grimgo]

I'm confused by the Harrier, It says "Damage: 14 (Mind 4, Body 4, Spirit 5)"

4+4+5 = 13, not 14

Also on the damage circle there is only 13 dots.

[Neutralyze]

the reasons nothing got really got mat or rat increases is due to the focus/fury difference. we have more fury to use than a caster can allocate to his entire army.

thats why everything is still low. IMO they are trying to over compensate too much for the difference between games. lower thresholds as well.

[chrsjxn]

The problem with boosting the Carniveans stats is that he then becomes basically too good with Incite or Manifest Destiny.

Even with a base Mat 5, he'll paste the Behemoth in a single round with Incite. Same with Manifest Destiny.

I fear that those two buffs will make balancing our faction very hard.

[Defenstrator]

I'm confused by the Harrier, It says "Damage: 14 (Mind 4, Body 4, Spirit 5)"
It's a typo. It should read Damage: 13.

[Necra-Chi]

the reasons nothing got really got mat or rat increases is due to the focus/fury difference. we have more fury to use than a caster can allocate to his entire army.

thats why everything is still low. IMO they are trying to over compensate too much for the difference between games. lower thresholds as well.

This is what I don't get.

You can't have better stats because you can force so much!
Aargh they can force too much! lower thresholds and make frenzy crap.

Why double nerf?

Also I thought that was all already balanced by beasts all being much squishier for their cost. Now they're expensive, and still squishy.
Triple nerf?

Warmachine Mk2 has brought warjacks back with a vengeance. Hordes didn't need any incentive to do that. But Hordes still needs something to compete with the buffs to warjacks used to get that new balance.

But theory like this can only go so far. Fact remains that my two test games so far have gone legions way against really mean protectorate.

I think the biggest factor is that warmachine infantry isn't all that anymore, and so PP have to make sure that beasts and warjacks are very well balanced against each other because that is where the battles are going to be won or lost most of the time.

[Neutralyze]

This is what I don't get.

You can't have better stats because you can force so much!
Aargh they can force too much! lower thresholds and make frenzy crap.

Why double nerf?

Also I thought that was all already balanced by beasts all being much squishier for their cost. Now they're expensive, and still squishy.
Triple nerf?

Warmachine Mk2 has brought warjacks back with a vengeance. Hordes didn't need any incentive to do that. But Hordes still needs something to compete with the buffs to warjacks used to get that new balance.

But theory like this can only go so far. Fact remains that my two test games so far have gone legions way against really mean protectorate.

I think the biggest factor is that warmachine infantry isn't all that anymore, and so PP have to make sure that beasts and warjacks are very well balanced against each other because that is where the battles are going to be won or lost most of the time.

do you agree with my statement?

[Bearded Dragon]

While the Carnivean is 11 points, it is 11 points of nasty. The animus got better and 10" sprays should not be underestimated. Also, it can assault without losing the initial jaw attack.

I agree that it needs some help to hit. A lot of our warlocks do that though. Chiller/Incite, Breath Stealer, Manifest Destiny, Rhyas' 'here take my mat and rat' upkeep. I think the angelius will be the go to warbeast for warlocks without some way of helping it hit, but the Carnivean is well worth the points with the aforementioned ones. Chiller and incite with it...*shudder*.

[Necra-Chi]

I'll have to test more before I decide whether there's an overcompensation. I'm concerned by the need to take two or three of our heavies to even have a hope of taking down jackspam armies, with our heavies being all questionably priced at best at the moment, and taking up a large amount of any list. I don't think it should matter that an 11 point carnivean can kill the behemoth if it gets a buff. That applies to the avatar, and we desperately need some reliable anti-tank. We look like we're still really good at slaughtering infantry, hunting solos and assassinating, but we appear to be lacking in cost efficient anti-tank.

Angels still have to go 2 to 1 against a heavy and then die.
Carnivean still has to get there and has his cost inflated by having a big scary spray.
Typhon has decent pow on his many attacks and reach so looks really solid, but I don't have him to test, and you can only have 1 of him, and he costs one deathjack.

That's gets me thinking, if you're at a loss for how to compare our warbeasts with warjacks fairly with the difference in fury/focus, try comparing them with warjacks that get focus for free, or free charge/run etc. Avatar, Seether, Deathjack, maybe stormclad. That's an eye opener.

Maybe the seraph is priced so so that its too expensive to spam AND simultaneously to acknowlege the increased relative power of a 2" place effect in a game where threat ranges have all gone down and getting the first charge is probably game winning.

[Philodox]

I've played a couple of games with the carnivean and my general impression is that his effectiveness on the table doesn't correlate with how nasty he should be on paper. An 11 pt model that needs spell support from a warlock to do his job isn't worth it.

Yes he has a 10" spray, but it's RAT 4 so he'll be boosting to hit on just about everything.

Yes he hits like a freight train in melee, but at def 11 he's so easy to lock down that he probably won't make it into combat. Also MAT 5 needs a little bit of love to hit anything but Khador reliably.

I'd love to see one of the following happen.


Important models tend to have DEF+ARM = 30, give the carny a +1 arm bonus.
+1 MAT/RAT bump
Give him open fists.

[Ghyrrshyld]

Seraph- Strafe sucks, and Serpantine only works if it's balancing points to make the beast cheaper, which it isn't. An 8 point heavy that can't do any power attacks except head butt is being ripped off, not to mention only being 3 fury. Drop Serpantine and make him fury 4 or drop him to 6 points.
Sorry. I do not understand. What sucks about Strafe? It seems the same to me.

[chrsjxn]

Hmm. I've only played Hordes v. Hordes since the FT rules came out. And we currently seem well balanced against the costs and power of heavies in other Hordes factions.

But I have started to be concerned about the costs of Hordes heavies in general, versus the costs of heavy warjacks. Mortenebra Slayer spam would be very tough to deal with for Legion.

[Defenstrator]

Sorry. I do not understand. What sucks about Strafe? It seems the same to me.

As someone who has been all over Strafe in the Cygnar forums I'll give you the rundown.

Inconsistent- First of all you only get 1d6 attacks. I don't know why but in play this really is a big difference. Moving up your 8 point beast and rolling a 1 for a single POW 12 is terrible. You almost certainly didn't hurt or even cripple what you were shooting at and are now going to die to retaliation. And 2-7 shots is much more likely to finish the deal than 1-6. The bottom line is that it just is not dependable anymore.

Short Range- The second problem is that strafe is now range 10. Now it always was officially, but before you could target and models within 2" of the target, even if they were beyond the 10". In this way the Strafe attack could have up to a 12" effective range keeping the attacking model that much further away and able to threaten that many more models. But now the range has been ruled to be firm and you can't attack people beyond it even if they are within the 2".

Cohesion Metagame- Before trooper models had to always be at least 3" away from each other, and often less if they wanted to do things like CRA. With the new unit cohesion rules it is easier than ever before to spread your models out but still remain relatively effective. This hasn't just affected Strafe. The typical 3" AOE is now just icing unless you get the drop on a group that has been clumped up due to terrain or battle. The point is that often an experianced opponent will spread his models out effectively nerfing Strafe. A 4 point jack being able to shoot one trooper is pretty freaking lame. Now imagine an 8 point beast being screwed that way.

In conclusion, Strafe only worked with the Seraph in the last edition, and now just doesn't work at all.

Apparently alot of people missed Cygnar's Sentinel woes.

[Bakemono]

But I have started to be concerned about the costs of Hordes heavies in general, versus the costs of heavy warjacks. Mortenebra Slayer spam would be very tough to deal with for Legion.

I've been playing against both Hordes and Warmachine and the cost differences are a problem. Since Heavy Warjacks and Heavy Warbeasts all remain "glass cannons" numbers mean more than powerful stats. Any properly set Heavy will kill any other Heavy. Feral Warpwolves cost us (9) each. That means a Cryx opponent can field three Slayers (cost 6 each) for the same price I can get two Warpwolves out. Since they will kill my guys just as dead as mine will kill theirs... it comes down purely to manuever.

Three can maneuver better than two. They will always get the last charge so to speak and be left with one Slayer standing if they have half a brain. Hell, a Cygnar Ironclad only costs (8). This view that the Fury mechanic is somehow better than Focus is a myth. If that were true, Hordes lists would have dominated all the tournaments. That didn't happen. These cost differences combined with boosts in the Warjack arsenals (and mostly reductions for us) is going to be very hard on us.

*We need to be sure to hit the price difference and back it up with real playtesting in the feedback so the scales get more in tune with one another.

[alchahest]

Bakemono's correct - we need as much playing as possible. luckily most of my local group is WM, so I will get to see alot of jack combat. I have to admit on paper, I'm alot less cynical than most (except in the case of the seraph). On paper, I feel fairly confident, but I am open minded to the fact that there may need to be numbers changing.

remember not to go into play testing with the mindset that everything is broken. go into it assuming everything works, and when it doesn't, then examine where the breaks are occuring. playing in a negative mindset won't help anything! just go out there, kick some *** (especially menoth) and enjoy yourself. if you lose, or even if you win, look back at the various pluses and minuses and determine how much of it was your decisions, how much was luck, and how much is from stats/point costs that need to be changed. the game won't be perfect by shouting theorymachine and math. it can get close with enough openminded playtesting, though.

so go on, stop whining and you know, page five, and all that.


*remember that losing is not an indicator of a broken game - simply that you lost. the more games you play, and the more detailed your reflection on those games, the better we'll see where the breaks are.