Balancing the Grimdark Future (and the Age of Fantasy) - Pt. 2 (Patreon)

Hi everyone,

Last week we introduced you to the main concepts behind the new balance update, so today we can start going a little more in depth as to what exactly is changing.

Spells & Spellcasters

Psychics and Wizards are a really fun element in the game, adding a lot of flavor to armies whilst taking up little space on the page, which is why it's a little sad that they are not always very useful or consistent across the armies.

Right now there is not a lot of consistency in terms of spell lists between armies, there is not always a lot of variety within spell lists, but also not all armies have access to spell casters which can put them at a disadvantage.

The biggest problem to me however is that whilst other unit types have a very specific role on the battlefield, spell casters don't, behaving very differently across armies and ranging from useless to overpowered.

So to improve how spell casters behave in our games we've decided to re-think their role in the game, so from now on they're going to behave a sort of swiss army knife in the game.

If usually units have a single specific role in the rock-paper-scissor system, spell casters are able to cover multiple roles instead, ensuring that as long as you have them in your army you are going to be at least somewhat effective against most unit types.

Every spell caster will now come with 3 attack spells, 2 effect spells and 1 action spell, giving you a lot of alternatives to choose from. Whilst attack spells and effect spells are already in the game, stuff like "enemy takes X hits" or "friendly gets +X to hit", action spells are a new type of spells that gives you an instant boost, stuff like "friendly may immediately shoot" or "restore X lost wounds/models".

Another thing that you'll see is that we've also changed all "until the end of the round" abilities to use different triggers that make sense for them. In the current rules spell casting can be outright useless if not done at the beginning of the round, so you'll start seeing things like "unit get +1 to hit next time it shoots" or "unit gets defense +1 next time it takes hits".

In order to ensure that nobody gets left behind all armies are going to have some form or other of spell caster, even if they aren't necessarily Psychics or Wizards. The important thing is that if players want they always have the option to bring a spell caster! :)

Shred Rifles & Beast Pikes

As we briefly mentioned in the previous post we're going to be giving each army access to new weapon upgrades to make sure that they're not left behind in the big rock-paper-scissor game.

For most armies this means that their basic line troops are going to be getting access to weapons that help them deal with different threats, whilst for some armies we're also going to be looking at also giving their heavy troops or monsters/vehicles access to new weapons.

The weapons upgrades that they will be getting are going to be aimed at dealing with Infantry units, Heavy units, Tanks and Heroes. To put this in terms that may be easier to understand, you can expect basic troops to get access to some form of Flamethrower, Plasma Rifle, Rocket Launcher and Sniper Rifle.

To give players more choice in how to deal with Heavy units we're going to give the options of one weapon with AP(2) and one with Rending, where the first deals more consistent damage whilst the second requires luck to have double AP power and ignore Regeneration.

Whilst some armies already come with a weapon of each of the above types, most armies don't have access to a weapon with Rending... until now!

We're going to be introducing a new type of ranged weapon called the Shred Rifle, which is a 12", A2, Rending weapon that also comes with Pistol and Cannon variants for more or less range.

To make things easier to model you can simply take a common special weapon such as a Plasma Rifle and paint its coils a different color, or if you want you can go all-out and kitbash completely new weapons for it.

What about melee troops you ask?

For melee troops you can expect the same sort of upgrades, but in melee form. So instead of a Flamethrower the models can be armed with 2x Hand Weapons, or instead of a Plasma Rifle they get a "Heavy" version of their standard CCWs.

We're also reviewing all melee weapons across all armies to make upgrades between them feel more like alternatives than straight up improvements. This way for example an Energy Sword is better than an Energy Fist in some situations and vice-versa.

Since melee weapons are much more important in Age of Fantasy we're also going to be introducing a new melee weapon called the Beast Pike. This melee weapon basically acts as a portable anti-monster weapon, having AP(4) and Deadly(3).

Same thing as with the Shred Rifle here, you can simply use a Spear with a different colored tip as a Beast Pike, or you can convert it by making it longer or kitbashing a different blade top to look special.

As you can see with these changes basic troops can be equipped to deal with specific targets a little better, which isn't the total freedom that spell casters have, but at least gives them a greater chance at winning combat.

Stomps & Bikes

Last but not least for today, some small changes to Bikes/Cavalry as well as Monsters/Walkers.

Whilst reviewing our special rules and unit types we noticed that currently some units don't behave the way we want them to, with standard setups that don't accentuate what they should be good at.

First we noticed that that there's a lot of units in the game that have the Impact rule, but that are not units that should actually be all that good at charging.

Second we noticed that there's a lot of units in the game that should be good at charging, but don't have the Impact rule to give them that edge over the enemy.

Finally we noticed that there's units which have Impact hits to show that they're really good at melee, but those units should not only be good at melee when charging.

So, how are we going to fix this?

First we're going to be removing the Impact rule from all units that aren't supposed to be good at charging. So all of those large infantry models that have Impact are going to lose it, as well as any other odd units that have Impact.

Second we're going to be re-working all Bikes/Cavalry in the game to ensure that they always have the Impact rule, as well as lower the amount of standard attacks they have (where applicable), making them really good at charging but not so good at sustained melee... make those charges count!

Finally we're going to be removing Impact hits from all Monster/Walker/Titan units and give them a new Stomp attack instead. This way they are going to be better at melee across the board, whilst we also avoid situations where a Titan could replace all of its weapons for powerful cannons and suddenly have no melee attacks anymore.

Wave 1 - Grimdark Future Update

Are you excited about the new balance update?

Well then head on over to the forum, where I created a thread to collect all of the Wave 1 armies that have been completed: http://onepagerules.proboards.com/thread/1379/wave-grimdark-future-layout-previews

As always please note that none of this is final and is subject to change, so all of your feedback is greatly appreciated. :)

***********

Thanks for listening, tune in next week for more info on the balance update!

Cheers,

Gaetano