The Defence of Ryza

[blackbabyjesus]

New cerastus look awesome, so glad I'm not gonna have to spend $1.62 on a castigator STL to 3d print my own guns 

 

As for the book, Metalica and Ignatum have got to be shoo ins at this point, along with perhaps corrupted titans to balance off the psy-titan.  I expect new rules for mechanicum knight households too, perhaps deviating from the lance/banner construct that regular knight households use.  

 

+++ Warning, pessimism follows +++

 

Custom legio rules I'm less pleased about, all of the set legios have had some useful stuff and some less useful stuff (don't get me wrong, it's not 'balanced' in that some of the legios have way better traits/wargear/stratagems than others) but no one has useful/good everything.  With custom legios I can see a lot of people min/maxing their stuff for 'fluff' reasons ("my fluff is that my titans always win so I picked the best rules") and just picking the most savage combinations of stuff.  GW aren't great at playtesting specialist games (acastus, WD legio rules, basically all the stratagems from Doom of Molech...) and so I expect it won't be long before someone finds the 'best' combination which makes all the pre specified legios look a bit rubbish in comparison. 

 

+++ Pessimism ends, continue looking at cool new models +++

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Thing is I think custom Legio will be limited to 4 traits etc like the WD rules.

[blackbabyjesus]

Thing is I think custom Legio will be limited to 4 traits etc like the WD rules.

 

Some of those traits will be better than others though, along with some of the wargear being better etc... there'll be a bunch of dirty combos possible and they'll be put to immediate use by 'that guy'. 

[Brother Captain Arkley]

Well lets face it there is always 'that guy'

 

Here was the traits I picked..

 

Legio Trait: Splinter Legio (Legio Vulcanum) Two-faced God
Legio Trait: Fury of the Fallen
Legio Specific Stratagem: (Legio Vulcanum) Symbiotic Command
Legio Specifc Wargear: Chasmata Pattern Laser Destructors

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Wolf Guard Einar

[Marshal Loss]

To be honest I don't have a problem with the "pick a Legio trait" system being potentially bust. As has been said, there is always "that guy". He isn't going anywhere. So just don't play against him? Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, the Legio rules aren't exactly impeccably balanced in their current state anyway. Some are far more powerful than others - my newly beloved Mordaxis don't feel anywhere near the top of the pack, to put it mildly, and even my "unique" stratagem is actually just an inferior version of an existing generic loyalist one (c'mon SG...*). My Fureans, by contrast, feel far better than my regular gaming partner's Solaria. Hasn't impacted our gaming experience so far, the core of the game is strong enough, tactical enough, to sustain a little bit of peripheral imbalance.

 

That being said, the community has been pretty vocal in their dislike of the White Dwarf system's strength. There's a very good chance that SG have taken this into account. Fingers crossed.

 

*if you read this, Specialist Games, I'll accept my "special" stratagem being a crappier loyalist one if you give me a Mordaxis transfer sheet

[1ncarnadine]

There probably will be some gross combos, let's be honest. But keep in mind that the WD build-your-own rules were banned in a reasonable amount of organized play, too, and there's no reason a new set couldn't be if it does present extreme swings.

 

Anyway, still excited for Mechanicum Knights. Speculation mode on: do we think they'll be 3 per sprue like the Questoris? If so and the sprue has all the options, then wouldn't that mean 3 Styrix heads, claws, volkite chi...chieoro...vile, and graviton guns vs 3 Magaera heads, claws, lightning guns and plasma fusils? That's a lot! And I'm not sure the layered shoulder armor can be cast as a single piece with the carapace on these.

 

Lightning Cannons gonna be 1-2 shots with S5 rending or something, but the Volkite chlorovinegar I'm less sure of. Maybe 3-4 shots at S4 with Rapid to simulate Deflagrate.

[Fajita Fan]

I'm really interested to see what they do for legio rules this time around since some of them aren't really worth taking.  I kinda think that the original game should have come with a small menu of pick-your-own options (say, pick 3) and then the official legios should get an extra option on top to reward painting an official scheme.  As it is some of the legio rules are suuuuuuuuuper situational with Astorum and Vulpa being the only ones that really blow my skirt up.

 

Things like extra repair rolls are so valuable as to be auto-includes.  I sorta think those things should be avoided and that legio rules should reflect the character or nature of a legio rather than provide such a solid in game bonus.  Those are so much harder to balance.  

[blackbabyjesus]

I'm really interested to see what they do for legio rules this time around since some of them aren't really worth taking.  I kinda think that the original game should have come with a small menu of pick-your-own options (say, pick 3) and then the official legios should get an extra option on top to reward painting an official scheme.  As it is some of the legio rules are suuuuuuuuuper situational with Astorum and Vulpa being the only ones that really blow my skirt up.

 

Things like extra repair rolls are so valuable as to be auto-includes.  I sorta think those things should be avoided and that legio rules should reflect the character or nature of a legio rather than provide such a solid in game bonus.  Those are so much harder to balance.  

 

100% agree, all of the legio traits and things so far have been based in fluff, which works great (yeah, some are better than others but you're stuck with what you got!).  Allowing people to just min/max the best options devoid of fluff kinda leads into gaming the game, which is not what I personally am about. 

 

That said, they may end up writing a perfectly balanced set of rules for DIY legios with bonuses/rules that aren't ridiculously abuse-able... but I doubt it. 

[ForceCommander]

I'm kinda hoping we see the 'pick one benefit and one drawback' system they've used in some of their other games.... in the end it won't matter much, since my playgroup won't min/max, but I'm hoping for some drawbacks if there are 'auto-includes' like Elite Magos etc.

[Fajita Fan]

I'm kinda hoping we see the 'pick one benefit and one drawback' system they've used in some of their other games.... in the end it won't matter much, since my playgroup won't min/max, but I'm hoping for some drawbacks if there are 'auto-includes' like Elite Magos etc.

This was the 4th edition SM codex and I loved that matrix. 

[Iron Hands Fanatic]

I think another viable approach is specifically disallowing certain Trait combos as has been done with other similar systems - if one pairing is going to be obviously overpowered, explicitly preventing that choice is an easy way of avoiding abuse. While I like the idea of having drawbacks selected alongside the benefits, unless there's a significant power differential between the two, custom Legios will just be significantly worse than the cannon Legios, as you're still giving your opponent extra stratagem points, but their Legio traits don't (typically) come with any drawbacks, they're just a flat bonus (although the extent of that bonus varies as discussed above).

 

It might be interesting to have more powerful individual traits include an internal drawback though, especially if it makes certain tactics less viable - when I wrote my own Legios' custom rules (before the WD system was released), I paired their re-rolls of 1s to hit at long range with a flat -1 to hit for all melee attacks, because it meant that they had an obvious tactical weakness despite the benefit.

[Fajita Fan]

Well whatever they do it needs to be balanced. I’m glad they sold a bunch of WDs last year with that WAAC chart last time but this is going to be in a book they expect people to buy. You can’t keep publishing stuff that’s all over the map and expect people to keep shelling out money for it. Well I guess that’s not actually true. 

[*glares at 40k Chapter Approved*]

[RedFurioso]

I hope we'll get at least 2-4 new Legions. There are not many Traitor Legions left, just Magna, Argentum and Vulturum. These were mentioned in the new AT edition books.

[Burni]

Part of me still thinks we won't see Ignatum until some kind of 'War on Mars' book. Still, got my transfers now, so can't complain too much!

[noigrim]

To be fair some astartes legions are far worse than others

[schoon]

Very excited about Mechanicum Knights - as these are more specialized than Questoris, I'm going to guess two to a "Banner" (I'm sure they'll have a new term for the Mechanicum version).

 

Also thrilled that the "Make your own Legio" rules are getting another look. I look at the White Dwarf rules as the Mark I of the concept. Now they've had a chance to see the intended and unintended consequences, adjust, and come out with Mark II official rules.

 

Making my own Legio is a huge part of the fun for me: fluff, rules, and hobbying, so for me this is great!

[Beren]

Most likely nothing, but Titandeath lists a Red/Silver heraldry House Klaze allied to Gryphonicus and a Red/White heraldry House Hyperion allied to the Legios Solaria and Venator.

[Fajita Fan]

Had a thought about the new knights, aren't those Mechanicum only? Like the Imperial-allied knight houses wouldn't get them?  IIRC the Atropos was designed by the Mechanicum specifically to hunt rogue engines.

[Dark Bjoern]

Had a thought about the new knights, aren't those Mechanicum only? Like the Imperial-allied knight houses wouldn't get them?  IIRC the Atropos was designed by the Mechanicum specifically to hunt rogue engines.

No, the Atrapos is the Mechanicum Cerastus

[Beren]

 

Had a thought about the new knights, aren't those Mechanicum only? Like the Imperial-allied knight houses wouldn't get them?  IIRC the Atropos was designed by the Mechanicum specifically to hunt rogue engines.

No, the Atrapos is the Mechanicum Cerastus

 

 

Those aren't mutually exclusive. The exact text states that it was made with the goal of "the destruction of heretek engines and xenos war machines whose very exsistence was an affront to the Omnissiah." However, the text then goes on to say that it was " rare, but not unkown for a Knight-Atropos to be gifted into the charge of a Knight House outside the direct influence of a Forge World".

[Mandragola]

I imagine that they realised it would be better not to rule out selling the things to half if their customers - hence letting everyone use them.

[Fajita Fan]

 

 

Had a thought about the new knights, aren't those Mechanicum only? Like the Imperial-allied knight houses wouldn't get them?  IIRC the Atropos was designed by the Mechanicum specifically to hunt rogue engines.

No, the Atrapos is the Mechanicum Cerastus

 

 

Those aren't mutually exclusive. The exact text states that it was made with the goal of "the destruction of heretek engines and xenos war machines whose very exsistence was an affront to the Omnissiah." However, the text then goes on to say that it was " rare, but not unkown for a Knight-Atropos to be gifted into the charge of a Knight House outside the direct influence of a Forge World".

 

Ah, okay cool.  Because I can never actually finish projects I'm of half a mind to scrap my household's king and build my own Atropos conversion because...it has to be better than the Cerastus lancer?  Maybe I'll cut up his left arm shield and magnetize it!

 

Also can we take a second an appreciate how cool that bolded word is? Heretek?  Heretechracy?  That's neat.

Edited March 20, 2020 by Fajita Fan

[optio16]

Hey guys just a quick fluff query as I've only just recently got into AT.

Are those upcoming knights built for anti-armor/infantry scenarios or are they just used against other knights? 

Thanks

[Beren]

Fluffwise I believe the Styrix is anti-infantry, while the Magaera is shock assault/siege?

[Mandragola]

There's also a very broad issue with the horus heresy in that nothing is really designed to fight other Imperial stuff - at least at first. In games terms you'll be able to field them against whatever you want, I'm sure. There'd be no point GW bringing out models that couldn't be used in all games.