Changing Toughness to Defence and Strength to Accuracy is a very good idea! It really opens op the narrative for a game designer and makes it possible to change a lot of the problematic things in the game.
I like the idea of the elves being "glass cannons". High speed (5) with low W(8 and T(3). But their dmg output have to be improved. I think that would make for some neat game play. Having these delicate fighters that die easy, but on the other hand are really killy.. Maybe by making them hard hitting with: attacks (3), dmg (2/4) and str (4 or 5). Alternatively with a lot of low hitting attacks (5), dmg (1/4) and str (3).
The first Warcry I got was the Centuarion Marshall. It really annoys me whenever I talk about adding it to my list of Chaos Legionnaires (the most thematic ally), I get funny looks. I really like this homebrewed version, doesn't feel like a "I made rules for my favorite model and he's awesome" itch someone scratched. The climb as a triple is just great, because visually, you have some chaffs taking cover behind a piece of rock and the centaurion marshall, a unit you have to do a quest to get in narrative play, just does a freaking jump over it and lands between the chaffs while spearing one through the chest. It can just shift the frontline, something I'm willing to pay ~300 points for. Also it looks cool.
Ghosts should walk through terrain and other units, including vertically. Imagine moving under the bridge and then flying on top of it. It would give them the mobility of flying creatures. At the same time, it wouldn't make them so mobile as to require a huge stat nerf.
I think they should have better/easier debuff abilities. "Aura of dread" not being an aura is a bit ridiculous. Granted, it would make them less fun to play against, but if you ditched the Rez, you've got some real estate to work with.
I think the video is a bit hyperbolic on the state of fighters in Warcry. Elves weren't too terrible in 1.0, I just feel they overcorrected and all the speedy boys in that archetype got hurt badly (Elves, Skaven, Corvus Cabal, etc). Also while I get where you are coming from, Elves in Warhammer have a long stat tradition of high attacks, low strength, high movement, low toughness. In Warcry I feel they should have high damage as well. Although to counter my own point, Askurgan Trueblades also feel very elfy? Like they are what a group of High Elf Swordmasters would play as? Changing the 'Warhammer Elf' archetype just in Warcry would be kind of strange, although I see where you are coming from that Strenght as a characteristic is perhaps mislabeled since it's carrying a lot of stuff being an amalgation of Weapon Skill and Strenght. So perhaps it should be renamed 'Fight' and toughness should become 'Defense'. 4.0 AoS shows they are not above renaming low-standing traditional stats. Also, dude, you missed the most obvious 'dissapointing fighter profile', the Chameleon Skink from Hunters of Huanchi! Arguably the single worst warband for a new/casual players since it's so unsatisfying out of the box.
I love these changes! I like the changes to the profiles and the points of the 'rasps. I think I would go a different way with the abilities. First, I think aura of dread should actually be an aura or at least it should affect more than one enemy fighter. Secondly, copying the cypher lords yoink almost word for word would be really solid I think. You could also invert it so that the minions can use it to blink to a hero instead of the hero yoinking a minion. Alternatively, you could make it a quad and yoink a number of minions (with NH runemark) up to the value (or half?) of the abiltity and place them wholly within 3".
Great video. I love thinking about how to make the profiles fit the thematic characters better. This was very helpful for me trying to figure out how to come up with a profile for the hollow king and the.Ven dentz witch hunters. I also 100% agree that the Marshall is so disappointing. It’s such a great model and such a crap profile. I think I’m gonna use the one from the video for home rules.
I hope it turns out fun. I think you could do some really cool rules for the VDs based on the Order of azyr stuff and adding a twist or two for a few extra points.
@@thesaltyseagames exactly! for the VDs just as you say. For the hollow king, I was considering using a vampire Lord and trade the fly runemark for the extra wild dice ability from the darkoath crone to represent his familiars but I have no idea how to cost abilities like that. I’d rather use an ability from death, but I don’t know anything that matches…
I think monsta killaz got some important stuff completely right, that I'd like to see more of in the future. Slightly overpriced mid range fighters, with great abilities. So, you want to take at least one of each and don't feel the need to spam them. A profile with good stats, which you don't want to spam either, because it's not cheap enough and it's an animal. Bad chaff, which you don't want to spam, because it's not efficient enough, but you can use it to boost your numbers.
Agreed. Each piece of the puzzle fits together perfectly in that faction. Even figuring out what to cut for Brewgit + Ally for competitive play is legitimately difficult.
So i think faction passive abilities would fix alot, like your nighthaunt had me thinking, what if you had a passive that if a critical miss occurs against a ghost it incurs a hit to become a miss, wouldnt have to change anything else and you could remove the rez
'allegiance abilities', or faction passives, could also reign in the usage of allies. You'd have to think twice before you include something in your warband, that doesnt get the free benefit, your other fighters get.
@@Dreadnob it would get rid of useless doubles and maybe give weaker warbands a chance to shine, in working on experimental rules for it since they have nerfed one of my buddies warbands into the ground while another buddy has had the issue of his faction never being a thing and another plays ghosts and well ya, i started with splinterfang and theyve felt off since the grand order factions entered, one of my buddies has had the unfortune that every faction hes played has been nerf into the ground, hes gone through 4 factions
GREAT video. My group is unlikely to house rule such changes but the insight into the game’s design here is fantastic. Personally I think mid-range fighters should have great reactions. Narratively this would represent how they survived being chaff by learning how to adapt to the battlefield and are leaning on that skill set that chaff don’t have while bigger pieces have to take the role of being more proactive and force the issue. Dying to a counter from a 100-120 point piece feels way less bad than from a 55-65 point piece. I think this would be better than improving their abilities bc how often do you have doubles lying around to spend on a 110 point piece?
As a game designer, I can speak firsthand to the experience of trying to create an elegant, compact system, wherein stats represent combined functions, that winds up with one profile getting boned, or at least coming out half-baked. At that point, you have to go back and tweak the system, or adjust the capacities of the profile, so that it doesn't wind up suffering for the style of the system. Or I guess you could just ship it with broken elves. What do I know? I'm not the one making millions. It's irksome because someone on the design team just has a bug about elves and is adamant that they have to be fragile, even though, despite disparaging comments from humans and dwarfs, that has never been the profile in Warhammer. Warhammer elves are fast, skilled, and otherwise average at everything -- same Strength, Toughness, Wounds as an average human -- and low in number, so you need to use their speed and abilities to pick your fights. Every system, every time, from Fantasy to 40k to the original Warhammer Quest to Mordheim to Blood Bowl, that's the package. (Idoneth, DoK, Elven Union and Wood Elves might run a little squishier and stabbier than High Elves, Lumineth, and Dark Elves, but they aren't far from the middle. They aren't Skaven.) In the mass combat games, they tend to have a low number of high-quality attacks, which works to produce consistent, mid-range damage when you're rolling twenty dice, but not when you're rolling three. By this point, I'm fully on-board with renaming Strength and Toughness to something more reflective of skill and defense. The terms are iconic, but they don't match the theme, and you already have Damage and Wounds to reflect them. If you want to keep your system simple, that's the way to go. Another thing about simple, tight game systems is that they're easy to break with big numbers. Frankly, everyone -- Cypher Lords and Corvus Cabal and Idoneth and all -- could be playable in any mode without trouble if there weren't Tyrants, Megabosses, Crushers, Varanguard, and so forth running around. They ruin the scale. When the scariest thing in the game is the Ogor Breacher, then T3 is viable. When 4 4 2|4 is relatively elite, rather than the baseline, 8 Wounds isn't death. Warlords, like monsters, don't belong in a skirmish game; the population should comprise the sort of fighters you'd send on a desperate mission, not demi-gods.
I am a NH player, and clearly a masochist for sticking with them for so long, and I absolutely agree with the suggestion to just delete rizzy rez from boo-bois. 1) The ability frankly sucks. It doesnt help the perceived mobile anvil, because SBGL being so good with it destroyed it resembling anything remotely reasonable for ghosts anyways, so why have it? I find it to be a waste of an action honestly, outside of Keldrak doing his self heal for being a mega-chad OG boo-boi from before the end times. 2) in V1 boo-bois were a default T5. Now while that may seem extreme, they still weren't good at being anvils, but it forced people to just crit fish against us. I say bring that back (t5 is much less rare now anyways), and keep the points the same, with minor exceptions. But the T5 suggestion is for the ideal of removing rez completely, and not just nerfed rez or whatever. T5 also makes thematic sense since you are trying to send a spirit back across the veil by wielding what is effectively a crusty spoon you stole from yo mommas kitchen. T5 made sense then and it should again. If anything should be hard to hit, it is a thing that is incorporeal. T5 may not be the best way to do it, but it is definitely better than where they are sitting now, being pathetic with abilities that SBGL abuse and now are worse because of the necessity to nerf. Honestly, the entire faction needs a complete sit down meeting to fundamentally redesign the entire thing from whole clothe. Because even through Pyregheists had great ideas, they overcorrected too cautiously instead of giving the static and other abilities a solid attempt to be novel.
I agree with all this. One thing I'll say is that now that I've seen Pyregheists in action, I think I slightly underestimated the quality of the Soulblaze ability. It's no Coordinated Strike, but it's quite strong and builds that lean into it are ok. Still not good, but fine and decent.
Yeah, the blow pipes are so disappointing. Lore is that these guys have these powerful poison that they shoot from the shadows but in reality they’re completely useless.
Lot of the bigger flesh eater courts models have the same issue that the Centaurean Marshal has except that they have less toughness. Hahahaha. Less. Less! Oh on your elf profile, T5 makes no sense when they have armor bikinis, or just robes and leather.
I think they should be T4 for sure, and maybe a reaction to increase their toughness by 1? Or reduce a Crit to a hit or 2 hits to misses. Then lots of abilities to buff their stats based on their elemental affinity (air - movement/attacks, earth - strength/toughness)
@@EuenMcMurry balancing against Salt’s Chaos Warrior statline points adjustment, I think for 85pts, the T5 Salty Elf profile is too cheap. Maybe at 95pts, but not 85.
Warcry is a real unbalanced pile of slop, if youre actively aware of the meta and your playgroups tend to "play fair" or if you enjoy the upper tier of comp, but for casuals this game is next to unplayable, the glaring issues with the stat lines give newcomers a miserable experience. Realizing your warband sucks or just playing with underwhelming models is enough for most people to drop the game, especially now with everyone saying the game is getting scalped of all its models.
Wtf are you even talking about. Stats don't matter for casual players, because they play with the unbalanced missions from the big boxes, where the winner is determined when you decide attacker and defender.
My guy this game is AMAZING for casuals - that's literally all I play Warcry as - a casual game. With unbalanced scenarios, deployments, terrain placements and EVERYTHING how on earth is it NOT great for casual play? It's random and chaotic, that's essentially the definition of casual. Take the sodium chloride elsewhere.
I agree. In my LGS ppl playing are the ultra competitive meta-aware ppl. The casuals who bought their cool warband because of looks (elves, zypher lords, etc) got tired of being destroyed and already moved on....
