I am trying real hard to figure out the game plan here from Forgeworld. Their previous releases for the Chaos Dwarves are quite good in terms of models and rules. Very competative, but not overpowering by any means. The problem I am having now is this:
1) Why would you release a VERY expensive DM and make the rules for it terrible? The objective is to generate sales, and NOT to turn off your consumers.
2) I have no problem paying alot of money for the artillery on a carriage (magma cannon, deathshrieker rocket etc.) but what advantage is there to being mounted on a carriage? I know it gives you the ability to be pulled by an engine, but how about maybe having a crew survive longer or more wounds on the actual warmachine.
I have embraced the fact the the FW Chaos Dwarves have land trains, but there needs to be something else given as an advantage to being mounted on a carriage.
Instead of trusting “Mid-Life Crisis” gamers like me to buy their CD artillery because I just HAVE to have it, I believe that Forge World needs to do a little something extra to the rules that makes an artillery crew on a damn railroad flatbed just a little stronger than 3 goblins manning a ramshackle bolt thrower.
I think, as I said elsewhere, that the original idea was for the land train to be just one super-powerful Rare choice for the variant Warriors of Chaos list in the first Throne of Chaos book. So you’d buy your locomotive, then have a choice of carriages to go behind it. If it sold well, we’d have seen more Chaos Dwarfs later.
But, with the change of plans in the number of books being made, and the positive response to the new models, I think they’re rushing out a full Chaos Dwarf army, and the train models are being awkwardly retro-fitted into a conceptually different set of rules.
I absolutely agree with the awkward retrofitting of the Chaos Dwarves. But I think that most people on this forum could come up with some rules for being mounted on a railroad flatbed car with about an hour of thought and discussion.
After all this time, I just want Forge World to get it right.
The rules are not what I’d hoped for such a big, expensive model (points and $), but I think it looks excellent and already ordered one. I just hope that the rules get tweaked a bit before it’s official release in the Tamurkhan book. -S
The small template is used as a large template for this weapon would be too powerful.
Then charge more points. Or nerf the Quake effect. Having the biggest artillery piece in the game fire the small template is just stupid. I don't see why the Hellstrom gets a Str 5 pie plate and that's fine, but not this. The Hellstrom doesn't explode on a 1-3 misfire either.
Perhaps the finished article in tamurkhan will sort out the Dreadquake, I fully expect to have it improved and the magma cannon toned down or recosted slightly.
The small template is used as a large template for this weapon would be too powerful.
Then charge more points. Or nerf the Quake effect. Having the biggest artillery piece in the game fire the small template is just stupid. I don't see why the Hellstrom gets a Str 5 pie plate and that's fine, but not this. The Hellstrom doesn't explode on a 1-3 misfire either.
Baggronor
Agreed, its a monster, the effect and points cost should reflect that!
I had planned on buying 2 of these DMs, but the rules were soooo God awful, that I’m having a hard time convincing myself that I need them. If there’s going to be a letter writing/email campaign to convince FW to change the rules, consider me part of it.
I know the rules are experimental, but I don’t think horrendous rules are going to become great rules unless some input is given.
Given the size of the model and the price I’m in complete agreement that some of the rules are rather ho-hum. I had been hoping this would give the ½-movement type of effect that the Earthshaker gave, which I quite enjoyed, but was also quite unique. The new effect is nice as well, but the previous Earthshake at least affected a 2D6 radius after the small template went down for damage. This just seems like so much less.
The downside for the misfire is so severe I wouldn’t even consider taking it without the Ogre slave.
The new effect is nice as well, but the previous Earthshake at least affected a 2D6 radius after the small template went down for damage. This just seems like so much less.
Nicodemus
In fairness, that's absurdly powerful in 8th Edition - because you no longer have to guess ranges, the Earthshaker is too reliable a weapon, especially for its points. So something had to give, but these rules cut a little too deep.
I can’t be bothered to work out what it would cost, but IMO something like this would have been better:
5" template. 3 (9) D3 wounds perhaps(?)
Armour piercing
Quake!
As described, but also causes a -1 for all To Hit rolls until the next friendly shooting phase.
Sounds a bit more like shellshock, and better than ‘the ground is now uneven so a few enemies tripped over and died’.
Edit.
Another idea is that they keep the rules as they are, but describe them as Dreadquake Shells and have a second option for different shells that have rules similar to the above. They then produce a small pack of 4 shells etc as an option to replace those on the kit.
So I did clarify at Games Day that there are intended to be 3 different versions of each warmachine.
Mark Bedford said there should be a steam carriageless version, a steam carriage version, and the possessed version (not clear if that would be on a steam carriage or not).
So if we don’t want to play the extra 25 points, I suppose we need to convert those things to not look like they are on train cars? I guess Im still not sure what the benefit of the steam carriage is.