The playtest Myrmidons

[AJ the Ronin]

Yeah, the warjacks of yesterday Insider are fake but I'm surprised no one has started a thread discussing them.

Rahn's Chimera looks way too good. Telemetry is godless with Rahn (effective magic attack 10 if within 5" of the 'jack).

Ravyn's Manticore seem to have some Skornegy going with Strafe and Swift Hunter.


Thoughts?

[Mastershake]

Yeah, the warjacks of yesterday Insider are fake but I'm surprised no one has started a thread discussing them.

Rahn's Chimera looks way too good. Telemetry is godless with Rahn (effective magic attack 10 if within 5" of the 'jack).

Ravyn's Manticore seem to have some Skornegy going with Strafe and Swift Hunter.


Thoughts?

RAT 6 and a D3+1 strafe instead of ROF 3 is pretty solid even if it loses covering fire.

Also that Chimera has Parry just in case Apparition and being with a TK caster wasn't enough.

[Kaiser]

Yeah, the warjacks of yesterday Insider are fake but I'm surprised no one has started a thread discussing them.

Rahn's Chimera looks way too good. Telemetry is godless with Rahn (effective magic attack 10 if within 5" of the 'jack).

But its only when a model is within 5" of it that it grants Telemetry. It seems like Arc Node would be somewhat wasted on that myrmidon. I realize that even 5" is helpful sometime and other times you could use another arc node such as a Phoenix, but it seems like this wants to move out farther, but needs to stay close.

[CyrDraconis]

It just struck me with the Rahnmera - what, generally, do you need additional to-hit on? High-defense stuff that has Stealth...so you'll be within 5" anyway. And between TK, Apparition, and Parry, this baby would be skipping through the opponent's line anywhere it's base could fit.

[Houston]

Think a little outside of the box. Just because they're character jacks doesn't mean that one should look at the chimera with only Rahn.

Garryth + the character chimera? Gallows with an effective magic attack of 8 and an arc node to channel it through... there's more to these jacks than meets the eye.

[Axelle]

I actually want that Rahnmera even outside Rahn's list. Makes the battlemages hit easier

[DesertsPower]

Rahnmera + Sphynx = Magic Ability 10 battle mages. Please excuse me, I seem to have drooled onto my keyboard.

[Axelle]

Its one of my main inhibitions on fielding the Sphinx. Since the sphinx only affects one model. I kinda like the Cygnar-Ranger -like effect the Rahnmera has for our magic ability.

After much thought, that'd be overkill already~ Imagine Rahn on feat turn, that's 3D6 against Def-10 already, pretty insane

[ErBaZ]

I saw them and first thing that struck out was the Parry on chimera... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much (Arcanist pumps 1 focus on chimera (rahn camps all) chimera runs to caster (parryyyyyy) and then rahn jams 2 boosted forcehammers down casters throat). And he telemetry... woulndt it be quite wasted if you gave the bonus to rahn? On the other hand, you could buff the Battlemages with it, making them Kick *** entire game, and not just the feat turn. That model truly is broken, but take away the parry and make telemetry imprint (like 3" or so) you could have a viable Chimera...

The manticore...uhh...instanly what came in mind was ossyan using this manticore... Solid on other turns, absolute murder on feat turn...With ravyn? no.

[PG_Sobek]

Ravyn's Manticore seem to have some Skornegy going with Strafe and Swift Hunter.

Unfortunately, I don't think the two work together at all. Swift Hunter triggers off a normal ranged attack. It's Strafe is a *Attack. At the very least, it would need to be changed to Auto-Fire or Rapid-Fire. However, there are other implications of doing so in the interaction with Swift Hunter.

It's only gotten a little bit of game time in with them, so far.

[AJ the Ronin]

Yeah that's why I said skornegy. For one to work you can't use the other.

[bouncymischa]

Yeah that's why I said skornegy. For one to work you can't use the other.

Admittedly, my perspective has been more "Hey, it has two firing modes! It either fires one shot with Swift Hunter, or 1d3+1 shots without it..." I'm not sure how balanced it'd be if it could make Swift Hunter moves on all of its shots. Maybe if it only got it as an Affinity or needed a focus to activate the ability?

[PG_Sobek]

Admittedly, my perspective has been more "Hey, it has two firing modes! It either fires one shot with Swift Hunter, or 1d3+1 shots without it..." I'm not sure how balanced it'd be if it could make Swift Hunter moves on all of its shots. Maybe if it only got it as an Affinity or needed a focus to activate the ability?

Well, under Auto-Fire (Hyperion has it; not sure what else does), it says that the model is considered to have only fired once for ROF pruposes. In this vein, it would be conceivable that it would only get a single Swift Hunter move as a result. Probably something that would have to be listed in a tool tip, most likely.

[CyrDraconis]

Think a little outside of the box. Just because they're character jacks doesn't mean that one should look at the chimera with only Rahn.

Garryth + the character chimera? Gallows with an effective magic attack of 8 and an arc node to channel it through... there's more to these jacks than meets the eye.

Fair point, and bar the mention of TK, everything still applies. Got it into my head that Telemetry was an Affinity for some reason.

[PG_Sobek]

Honestly, I wish that we'd actually see more Affinities with the character jacks and the casters they're supposed to belong to.

[FranzGrenstein]

Dude the fact it has rat 6, a range 12 gun that doesn't have to use focus for multiple shots. I am happy. if I was going to tweek it make it P+S 16 that way with arcanist it gets up to par melee wise with a defender.

[Xeurian]

Dude the fact it has rat 6, a range 12 gun that doesn't have to use focus for multiple shots. I am happy. if I was going to tweek it make it P+S 16 that way with arcanist it gets up to par melee wise with a defender.

Those pow 21s would be pretty sweet... Rolling a lot of straight/positive damage mods...

I think the thing that really shines the most is that rat 6... It makes a pretty big difference for something that's shooting multiple shots.

[FranzGrenstein]

Those pow 21s would be pretty sweet... Rolling a lot of straight/positive damage mods...

I think the thing that really shines the most is that rat 6... It makes a pretty big difference for something that's shooting multiple shots.

Whoops, I thought they removed the 1 for 3 option of the field.

[bouncymischa]

Well, under Auto-Fire (Hyperion has it; not sure what else does), it says that the model is considered to have only fired once for ROF pruposes. In this vein, it would be conceivable that it would only get a single Swift Hunter move as a result. Probably something that would have to be listed in a tool tip, most likely.

I thought Swift Hunter specified it only triggered off of "normal attacks"? I wouldn't think any special attack would trigger it...

[Vicomte Athos]

I thought Swift Hunter specified it only triggered off of "normal attacks"? I wouldn't think any special attack would trigger it...

Auto Fire is not a special attack.

[Nafael]

There is no ability called autofire, we have rapid fire and strafe.

The Manticore has strafe, a star action

Rapidfire on hyperion and our gun cricket are not special actions.

Sadly our ghost snipers also have this problem, their 3 damage shot is also a star action, which means it doesn't trigger their swift hunter, which means... I really should yell at privateerpress a bit.

[Lanz]

There is no ability called autofire, we have rapid fire and strafe.

The Manticore has strafe, a star action

Rapidfire on hyperion and our gun cricket are not special actions.

Sadly our ghost snipers also have this problem, their 3 damage shot is also a star action, which means it doesn't trigger their swift hunter, which means... I really should yell at privateerpress a bit.

Not correct. Hyperion has Auto Fire. Stormwall, Cyclone, and Galleon have Rapid Fire. The difference between the rules is that Rapid Fire just generates a random number of inital shots, where as Auto Fire is like Strafe and requires clustering the shots within 2" of a primary target. Another difference is that auto fire applies to any shots made with that weapon, whereas Rapid Fire only applies to initial attacks. So Broadsides on the Galleon won't generate D3 shots, but if you had a way to grant extra shots to a Hyperion, it would get d3 shots.

[DesertSpiral]

Personally i feel that the Chimera is underbalanced and the MAnticore is slightly over balanced. Going by what exists for current power levels etc and the way the design seems to be taking things.

I think as far as the Chimera is concerned if you look at it alongside a normal chimera and then look at the diference between say a lancer and thorn as well as a revenger and fires (or is it blessing - sevs revenger).
Telemetry is basically a mini wold wraith animus as it triggers off of enemy within five so that in itself is incredible for a jack that has apparition and parry and can run twelve.
The higher base def as well as keeping phantasm field also makes it a lot harder to take down. Phanatasm field normally seems like a waste of time, but with higher bases numbers it is possibly a little more worth it.

I think i'd be more comfortable with it at 8 points because the faction has a lot of magic and that floating +2 buff is incredibly powerful for Ret, also if its too cheap its going to negatively impact future releases - so either telemetry needs to go, or it needs to be 8 points, and i'd rather see telemetry as it adds some interesting offensive options for ret.

[DesertSpiral]

As far as the MAnticore is concerned its kind of in that awkward spot where one more point gets you the AFG, and one less gets you covering fire. OR for the same you can have a Daemon.
Rat 6 is pretty incredible, and strafe is really hot too, but swift hunter has no place on that model. If the ability was D3 auto fire, or rapid fire then i'd say that is a pretty cool synergy, but with strafe it makes no sense.

For what you get nine points seems about right as the gun is worse than a regular manticore (rof three and covering fire > d3+1 strafe imo) but the pump in RAT makes up for that minor shift with a huge one.

-eidt-

Something needs to be done about swift hunter though, otherwise its just a waste of time.

[FearLord]

rof three and covering fire > d3+1 strafe imo

Not massively sure I agree with that, but I'm someone who doesn't really rate Covering fire unless you can put down more than a single template... In terms of straight up ROF 3 vs d3+1 Strafe, I'd take the strafe I think pretty much every time - having to buy 2 additional shots for jack is a big problem and severely limits what you can spend focus to boost hit and damage rolls on...

I agree that Swift hunter is waste of time. Ultimately, 9 points seems probably about right for this - as a shooter it actually compares badly to a Cyclone (2 covering fires or 2d3 shots at the same POW), but its vastly superior in melee due to the normal Manticore strength boost...

[Mastershake]

Not massively sure I agree with that, but I'm someone who doesn't really rate Covering fire unless you can put down more than a single template... In terms of straight up ROF 3 vs d3+1 Strafe, I'd take the strafe I think pretty much every time - having to buy 2 additional shots for jack is a big problem and severely limits what you can spend focus to boost hit and damage rolls on...

I agree that Swift hunter is waste of time. Ultimately, 9 points seems probably about right for this - as a shooter it actually compares badly to a Cyclone (2 covering fires or 2d3 shots at the same POW), but its vastly superior in melee due to the normal Manticore strength boost...

I'd agree about the gun, a minimum of 2 shots and max of four with RAT 6 is pretty solid even with the strafe limitations and much better than ROF 3 in the majority of cases. Also kind of agree on covering fire, very limited unless you have 2 of them.

[Bloodshovel]

it averages 3 shots too. Honestly, the reason it's better in my opinion is that you don't have to spend the focus for the additional shots. Having only ever have used strafe/multiple shots off beasts, the allocation didn't impact it much. Having shifted back to Warmachine recently, I've started notice how painful it is to allocate focus, even as Rhan.

Seriously strafe is like 100% better than having to buy 2 more shots. that's 2 more focus to boost to hit/damage. that's between 1/3rd and 1/4th of your focus for a turn. Sure, whatever you shoot has to be grouped up or a single model that will take multiple shots for the strafe to be worth it, but most often threats come as a group, or 1 big model.

[Lanz]

I'd agree about the gun, a minimum of 2 shots and max of four with RAT 6 is pretty solid even with the strafe limitations and much better than ROF 3 in the majority of cases. Also kind of agree on covering fire, very limited unless you have 2 of them.

Strafe is as much of an enabler as is it a restriction. 1d3+1 is what a Seraph gets, and I get all sorts of good out of a Seraph. Many people forget that Strafe's rules let you place shots on models through intervening models, and on many occations I've gotten the full allotment of 4 shots, put two on a primary target, then 2 on a secondary target hiding behind it (like a warcaster/warlock) and just boosted the shots on the caster/lock, using the primary target just as a relay to get at what was behind it.

[DesertSpiral]

If you need to shoot models that are 3+ inches apart Rof 3 is better. Covering fire is pretty useful, and doesn't need to be duplicated to have effect.

Strafe D3+1 is good too, but its good for different things.

Rat 6 is the big thing really. That's where the point comes in - i personally feel that rof 3 and overing fire is more flexable than d3+1 strafe. I know it's not everyone's cup of tea and i'm not trying to make it that way - merely pointing out what I think.