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Post by mrscotty on Jan 27, 2021 14:26:37 GMT
Hey y'all, I tried out GDF with a friend of mine over tabletop simulator and we wound up a little curious about the overall points balance, and honestly wondering if we actually played the rules correctly.
I used the rules for Soul Stealer Cults and my buddy played Prime Brothers, and the Brothers basically just walked through the Cultists taking next to no casualties from anything.
If we're understanding the Prime Brothers' rules correctly, they put out 15 shots for a 5-man squad (as their weapons are A3), they are defense 2+, Fearless, and Regeneration for an extra 5+ roll if they fail their defense tests, and they cost 225pts.
A squad of 5 soul-stealer neophytes costs approximately half that much upgraded with weapons for killing elite units, and just didn't seem capable of dealing any kind of appreciable damage at all to the Brothers, thanks to all attacks hitting on 5s and the defense stat of 2+ combined with Regeneration. The Primes also had units like the Prime ATV, which cost 175pts and could just roll a 3+ to instantly kill any of the 200+ point vehicles the Cultists had.
Is there a rule that we were missing that impacts elite infantry units? This was the first time we'd tried the game out as a potential alternative to 40k 9th, and honestly we were a bit disappointed that it seemed to be if anything an even deadlier game in terms of how quickly the action was resolved. In the first round, an entire unit was destroyed every time the Prime Brothers took a shooting action except for once.
Just to confirm we played things correctly:
-If a unit of Prime Brothers is in Cover terrain, a Cults unit would go from hitting on a 5+ to a 6+ - cutting their firepower by 50%, while a Prime Brothers unit shooting at a Cults unit in Cover terrain would go from hitting on 3+ to 4+, cutting their firepower by 33%
-If a unit of Prime Brothers takes a shooting action, it takes 15 Quality tests, and a unit of Cults must make an average of 10 defense tests on 5+ to stay alive?
-If a Prime ATV equipped with a heavy fusion rifle attacks a target Mining Truck 24" away, it makes a single quality check of 3+, AP[4] causes the defense test to drop to a 6+, and if failed the Deadly[6] rule causes the truck to be instantly destroyed and all models being transported take morale tests?
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Post by Wyloch on Jan 27, 2021 14:48:12 GMT
What kind of terrain did you use? Plenty of LOS-blocking?
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Post by mrscotty on Jan 27, 2021 15:33:05 GMT
What kind of terrain did you use? Plenty of LOS-blocking? We had some terrain near the middle of the board we agreed would be impassable and block line of sight, and a good amount of "Cover" terrain. Approximately the density you'd see on a table for 40k 9th ed, so quite a lot. The entire Soul-Stealer cult has the "Scout" rule, allowing them to move pregame, which appears to be the replacement for their "Cult Ambush" in 40k. I used this to move units such that most of my army was claiming either Cover terrain or hiding behind impassable terrain if they were melee-oriented units. Didn't really seem to make much of a difference at all, the amount of firepower that the basic prime brothers laid down was such that against any non-vehicle unit pretty much one attack = one dead squad. on turn 2 I was even able to get a squad of Soul Snatchers into combat with a squad of prime brothers, and we learned that the only difference between the Soul Snatchers' (200pts) melee capabilities and the Prime Brothers was that the Snatchers basically deal an instant kill on a 6 - but the Snatchers were Defense 4+ vs the Primes Defense 2+, so the Primes killed just as many Snatchers with their return attacks as the Snatchers had managed to kill on the charge. Mostly, I was just checking up to see if the general consensus on the "Prime Brothers" was that they were experimental rules, or just added or something. Going and comparing their abilities to the basic "Battle Brothers" seemed to be just utterly bizarre, notwithstanding the one sided matchup against the Soul-Snatchers. Triple the firepower, double the melee damage, and +33% defense with a +75pt point cost makes them a pretty extreme upgrade. |
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Post by gorkam on Jan 27, 2021 20:10:55 GMT
Hello,
If you are a patreon and therefore have access to the calculator, do not hesitate to modify the entries that you find too lethal.
In our group of players the prime brother we were put at 2 shots instead of 3.
As for the deadly 6 shots, we do them in 2 deadly 3 shots to reduce the all or nothing. You can review weapon stats by lowering AP.
Gorkam
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egge
Member
Posts: 86 
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Post by egge on Feb 3, 2021 22:13:10 GMT
Would help with some lists.
A major thing is the amount of activations. You should have lots of more activations. And that really helps. You can take some vehicles for the important 4+ to hit.
For the rules keep in mind that a squad can take several morale tests during a turn. They can also only fight once in cc and after that they strike on 6s only.
Basically you can take lots of smaller units to build amount of activations. And then add a few larger vehicles to make some better damage. You have a pretty nice psychic as well. Also all your weak units will be deployed first and so that he has some anti tank is not so problematic in the beginning as you can just wait and see where he places them before you place your vehicles.
Point by point the primes do feel strong. The main issue for them comes in when they have all activated and you have a half army left. Most likely your elite units as well.
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Post by justpassingby on Feb 4, 2021 3:38:26 GMT
Those Prime Brothers are broken, pulling this rule set in the direction of its parent game. To me they take the fun - and the generally very good no-frills, no-power-gaming direction of this rule set - out of the game: - The Double Regeneration on top of 2+ Def is a right pain. No fun at all. And yes, it can be countered with Rending. But there are not that many Rending weapons around, and since this is for the basic infantry unit, and not some specialized and rare support thingy, the opponent basically need to tailor a very special army to counter this abomination. Neither my orks, my Battle Brothers nor my Human Defence Force has such options.
- The triple shots is a lot of firepower, compared to other infantry. Why would their guns shoot faster?
- Yes. I have terrain on the table. Plenty. (And since crafting is my thing, and lockdown just continues, I have so much terrain for varying tables, that storage is soon to become a problem
 ) - With the main rule set it is possible to add several Captains to the unit, giving them an awful lot of options from list C, relatively cheap. And yes, this is not possible with the competitive rules, but those are optional and has to be agreed upon.
- I am sure that these things can be overwhelmed by numbers. But the test of a balanced game is whether this can be done in a smaller setting of, say, 1000 points. And it cannot.
GW runs a strategy of scale-creep (so that other miniatures look small on the table). They are under constant pressure from the competitives to overpower and special rule every corner of the game to the extent that the basic rules are sometimes hardly in effect (which some confuse with tactical depth). They even try to invent their own language (Orruks, troggoths) to distance themselves in the market, which borders the embarrassing.
I have seen this game as an opposition to that business model. It retains the fun and the lightheartedness with which one should approach fielding orcs in car wrecks against mindless insectoids in some distant future. But those Prime Brothers ... just no ...
IMHO
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Post by onepageanon on Feb 4, 2021 11:01:48 GMT
It's very interesting how some players see Regeneration based armies (Prime Brothers, Plague Brothers, Robot Legions) to be overpowered, whilst others see them as completely over costed and thus underpowered. There are those that for example say that Orc Marauders are underpowered, whilst others create seemingly overpowered lists with them, and I've seen endless discussion on this topic.
I'm not saying that the Prime Brothers are perfect, or that they shouldn't be re-worked in the future, but I also don't think that they are as overpowered as is being claimed here. Using the right list with the right strategy is going to get them beat, but I do understand that having to tailor your list to fight them specifically is not as fun. That can be said for any highly specialized list however, and the only way we've found to partly mitigate it is with the reinforcement rules from the competitive rulebook.
As always I would recommend the usual tricks against the Prime Brothers, use weapons with AP and Rending, as well as Psychic Spells. Bring lists that have more activations than them and stay out of sight/range until you're ready to strike. Create lists that have gimmicks of their own so that your opponent is the one that needs to start tailoring against what you bring, etc.
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egge
Member
Posts: 86
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Post by egge on Feb 4, 2021 17:05:54 GMT
I think that double regen is a bit much but perhaps the regen standard could be +1 to the roll. Thus it is completely removed from rending and slightly less powerful than double regen. Double regen protects 55% where as +1 on a regen 50%. But the rending would mean a lot as there would be no regeneration at all from rending 6s.
I think the frustration comes from the sensation of being powerless against them. And sure. A single normal shot from quality 3+ has a 5% chance to kill a prime. Where as a normal brother dies around 11%. With simple calculation.
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Post by gobbothegreen on Feb 4, 2021 21:27:23 GMT
I think that double regen is a bit much but perhaps the regen standard could be +1 to the roll. Thus it is completely removed from rending and slightly less powerful than double regen. Double regen protects 55% where as +1 on a regen 50%. But the rending would mean a lot as there would be no regeneration at all from rending 6s. I think the frustration comes from the sensation of being powerless against them. And sure. A single normal shot from quality 3+ has a 5% chance to kill a prime. Where as a normal brother dies around 11%. With simple calculation. You have to remember that to get the double regen they need to spend an additional 45 points per unit. While prime brothers are definetly strong like all battle brothers they are pretty fairly costed for the cost of the doube regened primes you get 10 havoc brothers. You also have to remember to build your armies around your strenghts, soul snatcher are one of the worst armies in the game at shooting outside of their vehicles with qual 5+ on their shooting troops with no buffs basically making shooting unviable. The cilt army is more about overwhelming with numbers combined with some of the hardest hitting melee in the game combined with the scout rules leading to the ability to start overwhelming the enemy with melee hard hitters from the first turn on.
To OPA i wouldnt call regen armies overcosted i think they are mostly in the fair and balanced corner compared to stuff like change brothers and other stealth based armies, stealth is pretty much the strongest defensive buff in the game right now and being able to have it on everything is extremely powerfull especially if you can stack it for cheap like the change brothers.
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Post by Wyloch on Feb 5, 2021 12:55:16 GMT
It's very interesting how some players see Regeneration based armies (Prime Brothers, Plague Brothers, Robot Legions) to be overpowered, whilst others see them as completely over costed and thus underpowered. Usually correlates with whatever game they just lost. * raises hand and lowers head * |
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