Some Suggestions for Balance
Posted: Sun May 01, 2022 7:06 pm
Blood Angels
Lieutenant: lower point cost to 140
Librarian: Bring health back down to 200, and lower point cost to 150. Give the blood lance a range of 3.
Sanguinary Priest: Lower point cost to 110
Tech-priest: Lower point cost to 110
Librarian Dreadnaught: Point cost dropped to 240. Its quickening ability shouldn’t cost an action point. Increase storm bolter shots to 80 with ideal range of 3.
Hell-blasters: The normal plasma incinerator should fire 5 shots instead of 4 with 12 accuracy falloff instead of 15, and super charge should deal +50% damage with +2 armor piercing. Also, they should spread their shots such that they target 3 models in a 5-man unit at a time.
Assault Marines: bring their health back up to 60, make it so that krak grenades take evasion into account for their hit-chance.
Death Company: They should get a bonus +5% invulnerability along with their black rage stacks. This way they’ll be easier to hit, but tankier against small arms as they get stacks.
Furioso Dreadnaught: It has two arms, let it use them. Take off the ap cost for its grenades. The damage of its fist should go up to 75-95 damage, scale its splash proportionally. Storm bolter should have ideal range of 3, with 80 shots instead of 42. Maybe give a loadout option where you replace the grenade launcher with another fist and gun, can’t have two of the same guns and add on another action point with that load out. It should also get +25 hp.
Baal Predator: lower cost to 165, make its heavy flamer cost 40 points. lower its health to 325. Make its engine overdrive ability give +10 evasion. Triple the shots its storm bolter fires.
Inceptors: Give them hover keyword. Jump-pack should give them +2 movement instead of +1. Plasma pistols should cost +15.
Landspeeder: Lower cost to 80.
Landspeeder tornado: Lower cost to 110.
Intercessors: Up their base damage just a little. Auto bolt rifles shouldn't cost anything.
Aggressors: Lower their cost to 120, flamers should only cost +20
Sanguinary Guard: Up their evasion to 25
Terminators: Make it a general rule that no unit can teleport within 3 tiles of an enemy unit. This’ll make hq units way easier to screen and is an inherent nerf to terminators. In return for this, lower the base cost to 175, give lightning claws 8 armor piercing with increased damage to 18-24, and increase the damage on thunder hammers. to 65-81.
Note: Dreadnaught variants should get some kind of invulnerability bonus, I’m thinking +10 to +15%. Along with this, they should get -5 evasion. The idea is that they’d be tankier but easier to hit. The point cost reduction to hq units is based on the logic that they shouldn’t have an inflated amount of health just cause that’s what the game favors for hqs, meaning that the best way to buff them is make them more cost-effective.
Tyranids
Hive Tyrant: Lower the hp to 350, lower cost to 300. Its venom cannon should have a one turn cooldown such that it can only use it once per turn. Give it a 15% invulnerability for thick chitin. I’ve noticed that it can’t charge; it should probably be able to do that. lower the momentum it gives with its ability to a base of 10. Psychic scream should have a range of 6 with damage reduced to between 35-25 that ignores armor, only able to effect one unit. Both the bonuses it switches between can be improved. The one for melee should give +1 movement on top of the +1 melee armor piercing. It’s range boosting ability should also give +1 ranged armor piercing on top of the +10% aim.
Tervigon: its stinger salvo shouldn’t cost an ap. It’s spawn termigant ability should cost 1 ap in return for the spawned unit not to spawn with ap. Give it an ability to revive all termigants in a unit for 1 ap cooldown of 2 turns. And up its cost to 225.
Tyranid Prime: lower health to 240 and cost down to 140. Lower tyranid warriors natural 100% bonus momentum to 75% and have tyranid prime give a +75% momentum bonus specifically to warriors such that the maximum momentum boost warriors get will be +150%.
Broodlord: lower its health down to 260, and cost down to 180. Increase range of paroxysm to 6 tiles.
Trigon: Increase hp to 380. modify its bio-static rattle ability such that it isn’t used for an action point any more. Instead, have it activate as is whenever the trigon pops up after using the burrow ability, and lower the targets it hits to 5. Then, whenever the trigon attacks, have it trigger biostatic rattle directed only at the unit its attacking such that its damage stacks with the normal melee attack. This’ll make it less effective as a swarm killer in tyranid mirror and allow it to do more damage to 5-man units.
Termagants: Lower base cost to 25. Increase the shots fired by fleshborer to 3. This change would apply to gargoyles as well. Increase swarm tactic range damage bonus to 40% per stack.
Hormagaunts: Allow them to leap over small terrain as if they hover. Increase the range of their leap attack by 1.
Gargoyles: Besides the fleshborer change, lower their cost to 40.
Genestealers: Increase their base evasion to 15.
Warriors: Increase their armor to 5.
Venomthropes: Their ability that gives them extra evasion should instead count as extra cover. This way they’ll still be hard to deal with at range, but weaker to melee. Also give adjacent units that aren’t monstrous creatures +10 cover when it uses that ability.
Exocrine: Allow it to ignore cover if it doesn’t move. Increase the damage of its normal ranged attack and make it do splash damage against two other models in the unit being fired at. Up the cost to 180.
Hive Guard: Make the shock cannon do less damage to vehicles in return for more damage to normal stuff; this should be applied such that the shock cannon will be effectively worth +10 points instead of +15. Lower base cost to 140. (This may seem like a strange choice, but with the other changes I’ve mentioned, as well as the potential lookout sir/bodyguard rule to be mentioned later, I think it makes sense.)
Tyrannofex: Increase its hp to 450. Lower its evasion to -5. Increase cost to 180. And increase its melee damage.
Thornback: Increase hp to 300. Lower cost to 120. Increase coherency limit at 2000 pts to 4.
Note: Along with these changes, I’ve always thought that it doesn’t really make sense that synaptic bonuses can potentially give a tyrannofex 15 evasion; so I think monstrous creatures (including tyrannofex, trigon, carnifex, exocrine) should get +5% invulnerability instead of evasion for each synaptic stack.
Necrons: Note: A lot of the changes I’ve mentioned are based around buffing to be on par with the necrons, so I have less to say about them.
Lord: decrease hp to 250. lower base cost to 170 (this is the one with the hyperphase blade) Make the teleport free. Lower the cost of the war scythe to 30 and change armor piercing to 8.
Plasmancer: Decrease hp to 225, lower cost to 175. Lower the range of its orb of destruction to 3 tiles and lower the base damage such that it can’t one-shot tyranid warriors anymore.
Hexmark destroyer: lower the cost to 140.
Warriors: lower the cost of the gauss reaper to +5. Give them a bonus that makes their chances of getting back up 75% such that up to three of their models can revive.
Lychguard: Lower warscythe cost to +20
Flayed ones: Lower base movement to 3 and their teleport doesn’t cost an ap anymore. Then lower their cost to 60.
Annihilation Barge: Both tesla weapons need way more damage. It could also use a smaller increase in damage for its gauss weapon.
Heavy Destroyers: Lower base cost to 110 increase coherency limit at 2000 pts to 4.
Tomb blades: Lower base cost to 110. Increase the twin tesla carbine damage per shot to be equal to the normal tesla carbine. Give it more base evasion. nebuloscope should ignore cover entirely unless it’s full cover.
Skorpekh destroyers: Increase base cost to 135, increase movement to 4. Increase coherency limit at 2000 pts to 3.
Scarabs: increase their cost to 25.
Notes: Their cp abilities also need a nerf. The scarab ability should no longer deploy scarabs directly onto a unit. It should have to spawn them within line of sight 3 tiles away from any enemy unit. The other two just need a raw damage decrease.
Some other features that would be designed to work with these changes:
Look out sir!: Whenever a unit blocks line of sight to an hq unit, it provides twice the cover bonus it would currently provide if it is adjacent to it. This rule would still provide +15 cover against shots that normally ignore cover. Sniper units like deathmarks could ignore this rule if the unit blocking isn’t a bodyguard type that will be mentioned next.
Bodyguards: Certain units should be able to act as bodyguards such that an hq unit they are adjacent to can’t be charged if they stand adjacent to and facing the charge path while adjacent to the hq. This means that if a bodyguard is in front of an hq unit facing front, you wouldn’t be able to make a frontal charge with a jump-pack unit, but you could make it diagonally or from the sides or behind. Units like this could include lychguard, sanguinary guard, terminators, and hiveguard. Maybe add rules such that termigants can act as bodyguards for tervigons, warriors for tyranid prime.
Momentum: A change that I would make to the momentum system would involve making it so that a unit can surge to get a bonus action point only once per turn. This would prevent unit like baal predator and genestealers from drastically overperforming for their cost under certain conditions. There should also be a way to know how much momentum you’ll get from killing a certain model; this should probably be listed alongside the chance to hit. Also, make it so that you no longer lose momentum for not using ap.
Command point abilities: Make it so they can be cast as long as an hq unit is alive, but any one hq unit can’t cast more than one per turn. To keep the importance of the main hq relevant, make it so that you lose the 25% momentum bonus for coherency if it dies.
Death throes: This would be a trait among all monstrous creatures. Upon death in melee, if they’re facing the unit that killed them, they can make another reaction attack before they die. This wouldn’t trigger if they die by a charge or reaction attack.
Necron momentum: to make it a little stronger, give a permanent momentum bonus every time they do the endless march. +5% gained every time up to a maximum of +20%
Blood Angels momentum: I feel like there should be an even greater bonus to momentum for melee kills than killing something with a ranged weapon at point blank.
Lieutenant: lower point cost to 140
Librarian: Bring health back down to 200, and lower point cost to 150. Give the blood lance a range of 3.
Sanguinary Priest: Lower point cost to 110
Tech-priest: Lower point cost to 110
Librarian Dreadnaught: Point cost dropped to 240. Its quickening ability shouldn’t cost an action point. Increase storm bolter shots to 80 with ideal range of 3.
Hell-blasters: The normal plasma incinerator should fire 5 shots instead of 4 with 12 accuracy falloff instead of 15, and super charge should deal +50% damage with +2 armor piercing. Also, they should spread their shots such that they target 3 models in a 5-man unit at a time.
Assault Marines: bring their health back up to 60, make it so that krak grenades take evasion into account for their hit-chance.
Death Company: They should get a bonus +5% invulnerability along with their black rage stacks. This way they’ll be easier to hit, but tankier against small arms as they get stacks.
Furioso Dreadnaught: It has two arms, let it use them. Take off the ap cost for its grenades. The damage of its fist should go up to 75-95 damage, scale its splash proportionally. Storm bolter should have ideal range of 3, with 80 shots instead of 42. Maybe give a loadout option where you replace the grenade launcher with another fist and gun, can’t have two of the same guns and add on another action point with that load out. It should also get +25 hp.
Baal Predator: lower cost to 165, make its heavy flamer cost 40 points. lower its health to 325. Make its engine overdrive ability give +10 evasion. Triple the shots its storm bolter fires.
Inceptors: Give them hover keyword. Jump-pack should give them +2 movement instead of +1. Plasma pistols should cost +15.
Landspeeder: Lower cost to 80.
Landspeeder tornado: Lower cost to 110.
Intercessors: Up their base damage just a little. Auto bolt rifles shouldn't cost anything.
Aggressors: Lower their cost to 120, flamers should only cost +20
Sanguinary Guard: Up their evasion to 25
Terminators: Make it a general rule that no unit can teleport within 3 tiles of an enemy unit. This’ll make hq units way easier to screen and is an inherent nerf to terminators. In return for this, lower the base cost to 175, give lightning claws 8 armor piercing with increased damage to 18-24, and increase the damage on thunder hammers. to 65-81.
Note: Dreadnaught variants should get some kind of invulnerability bonus, I’m thinking +10 to +15%. Along with this, they should get -5 evasion. The idea is that they’d be tankier but easier to hit. The point cost reduction to hq units is based on the logic that they shouldn’t have an inflated amount of health just cause that’s what the game favors for hqs, meaning that the best way to buff them is make them more cost-effective.
Tyranids
Hive Tyrant: Lower the hp to 350, lower cost to 300. Its venom cannon should have a one turn cooldown such that it can only use it once per turn. Give it a 15% invulnerability for thick chitin. I’ve noticed that it can’t charge; it should probably be able to do that. lower the momentum it gives with its ability to a base of 10. Psychic scream should have a range of 6 with damage reduced to between 35-25 that ignores armor, only able to effect one unit. Both the bonuses it switches between can be improved. The one for melee should give +1 movement on top of the +1 melee armor piercing. It’s range boosting ability should also give +1 ranged armor piercing on top of the +10% aim.
Tervigon: its stinger salvo shouldn’t cost an ap. It’s spawn termigant ability should cost 1 ap in return for the spawned unit not to spawn with ap. Give it an ability to revive all termigants in a unit for 1 ap cooldown of 2 turns. And up its cost to 225.
Tyranid Prime: lower health to 240 and cost down to 140. Lower tyranid warriors natural 100% bonus momentum to 75% and have tyranid prime give a +75% momentum bonus specifically to warriors such that the maximum momentum boost warriors get will be +150%.
Broodlord: lower its health down to 260, and cost down to 180. Increase range of paroxysm to 6 tiles.
Trigon: Increase hp to 380. modify its bio-static rattle ability such that it isn’t used for an action point any more. Instead, have it activate as is whenever the trigon pops up after using the burrow ability, and lower the targets it hits to 5. Then, whenever the trigon attacks, have it trigger biostatic rattle directed only at the unit its attacking such that its damage stacks with the normal melee attack. This’ll make it less effective as a swarm killer in tyranid mirror and allow it to do more damage to 5-man units.
Termagants: Lower base cost to 25. Increase the shots fired by fleshborer to 3. This change would apply to gargoyles as well. Increase swarm tactic range damage bonus to 40% per stack.
Hormagaunts: Allow them to leap over small terrain as if they hover. Increase the range of their leap attack by 1.
Gargoyles: Besides the fleshborer change, lower their cost to 40.
Genestealers: Increase their base evasion to 15.
Warriors: Increase their armor to 5.
Venomthropes: Their ability that gives them extra evasion should instead count as extra cover. This way they’ll still be hard to deal with at range, but weaker to melee. Also give adjacent units that aren’t monstrous creatures +10 cover when it uses that ability.
Exocrine: Allow it to ignore cover if it doesn’t move. Increase the damage of its normal ranged attack and make it do splash damage against two other models in the unit being fired at. Up the cost to 180.
Hive Guard: Make the shock cannon do less damage to vehicles in return for more damage to normal stuff; this should be applied such that the shock cannon will be effectively worth +10 points instead of +15. Lower base cost to 140. (This may seem like a strange choice, but with the other changes I’ve mentioned, as well as the potential lookout sir/bodyguard rule to be mentioned later, I think it makes sense.)
Tyrannofex: Increase its hp to 450. Lower its evasion to -5. Increase cost to 180. And increase its melee damage.
Thornback: Increase hp to 300. Lower cost to 120. Increase coherency limit at 2000 pts to 4.
Note: Along with these changes, I’ve always thought that it doesn’t really make sense that synaptic bonuses can potentially give a tyrannofex 15 evasion; so I think monstrous creatures (including tyrannofex, trigon, carnifex, exocrine) should get +5% invulnerability instead of evasion for each synaptic stack.
Necrons: Note: A lot of the changes I’ve mentioned are based around buffing to be on par with the necrons, so I have less to say about them.
Lord: decrease hp to 250. lower base cost to 170 (this is the one with the hyperphase blade) Make the teleport free. Lower the cost of the war scythe to 30 and change armor piercing to 8.
Plasmancer: Decrease hp to 225, lower cost to 175. Lower the range of its orb of destruction to 3 tiles and lower the base damage such that it can’t one-shot tyranid warriors anymore.
Hexmark destroyer: lower the cost to 140.
Warriors: lower the cost of the gauss reaper to +5. Give them a bonus that makes their chances of getting back up 75% such that up to three of their models can revive.
Lychguard: Lower warscythe cost to +20
Flayed ones: Lower base movement to 3 and their teleport doesn’t cost an ap anymore. Then lower their cost to 60.
Annihilation Barge: Both tesla weapons need way more damage. It could also use a smaller increase in damage for its gauss weapon.
Heavy Destroyers: Lower base cost to 110 increase coherency limit at 2000 pts to 4.
Tomb blades: Lower base cost to 110. Increase the twin tesla carbine damage per shot to be equal to the normal tesla carbine. Give it more base evasion. nebuloscope should ignore cover entirely unless it’s full cover.
Skorpekh destroyers: Increase base cost to 135, increase movement to 4. Increase coherency limit at 2000 pts to 3.
Scarabs: increase their cost to 25.
Notes: Their cp abilities also need a nerf. The scarab ability should no longer deploy scarabs directly onto a unit. It should have to spawn them within line of sight 3 tiles away from any enemy unit. The other two just need a raw damage decrease.
Some other features that would be designed to work with these changes:
Look out sir!: Whenever a unit blocks line of sight to an hq unit, it provides twice the cover bonus it would currently provide if it is adjacent to it. This rule would still provide +15 cover against shots that normally ignore cover. Sniper units like deathmarks could ignore this rule if the unit blocking isn’t a bodyguard type that will be mentioned next.
Bodyguards: Certain units should be able to act as bodyguards such that an hq unit they are adjacent to can’t be charged if they stand adjacent to and facing the charge path while adjacent to the hq. This means that if a bodyguard is in front of an hq unit facing front, you wouldn’t be able to make a frontal charge with a jump-pack unit, but you could make it diagonally or from the sides or behind. Units like this could include lychguard, sanguinary guard, terminators, and hiveguard. Maybe add rules such that termigants can act as bodyguards for tervigons, warriors for tyranid prime.
Momentum: A change that I would make to the momentum system would involve making it so that a unit can surge to get a bonus action point only once per turn. This would prevent unit like baal predator and genestealers from drastically overperforming for their cost under certain conditions. There should also be a way to know how much momentum you’ll get from killing a certain model; this should probably be listed alongside the chance to hit. Also, make it so that you no longer lose momentum for not using ap.
Command point abilities: Make it so they can be cast as long as an hq unit is alive, but any one hq unit can’t cast more than one per turn. To keep the importance of the main hq relevant, make it so that you lose the 25% momentum bonus for coherency if it dies.
Death throes: This would be a trait among all monstrous creatures. Upon death in melee, if they’re facing the unit that killed them, they can make another reaction attack before they die. This wouldn’t trigger if they die by a charge or reaction attack.
Necron momentum: to make it a little stronger, give a permanent momentum bonus every time they do the endless march. +5% gained every time up to a maximum of +20%
Blood Angels momentum: I feel like there should be an even greater bonus to momentum for melee kills than killing something with a ranged weapon at point blank.