BFG:R Tau Empire

[Talos]

I see where you two stand on that; however, 2-hit escorts can't be that controversial because the vote passed by a landslide IIRC ...

We shall see what are spiritual liege (hehe) afterimagedan has to say on the subject.

[afterimagedan]

Honestly, I am just facilitating because no one else was. I had been working with Plaxor helping him out for a while and then he stopped working on BFG:R so I picked it back up. There was the general view that some of the changes to BFG:R that were not voted on were not a good idea.  I decided that I would bring things back to a vote and rewind back to the original BFG:R vote list (which you can see on the Finishing BFG:R thread). I am not entirely in the same place as Sig as far as how much I am hoping to fix/change things but it doesn't matter what I want, it matters what the community wants.  BFG:R seems to have a different purpose now and it is basically the BFG community on these forums are making the changes that they want. It may end up being hugely changed or not very changed.  My top priority, personally, is not that it would be the best received by BFG conservatives but that the community would make the changes they wanted to see in the game. I have already told Sig that I am happy to that the 2010 documents and make the small changes that he/BFG conservatives would like to see and produce those documents for them. I am not hoping to be a leader here, just facilitating votes. 

[Khar]

We've done some playtesting of 2 hit escorts over here. Good thing is - they don't do anything terrible with game mechanics. They're simple to use, and as well might've been in official rules. No problem here.

Bad thing - they're something radically new. Some more conservative players may have problem with it.

But, honestly, those are the same people who'd have problems with BFG R in general. Some of those won't even accept 2010 compendium. So, well, if they passed the vote here, I guess there's nothing to worry about, is it? BFG has left official/unofficial stage years ago, when specialist games site was taken down. Now it belongs to the community. If community wants 2 hit escorts, let there be 2 hit escorts.

[afterimagedan]

BFG has left official/unofficial stage years ago, when specialist games site was taken down. Now it belongs to the community. If community wants 2 hit escorts, let there be 2 hit escorts.

Yes.

[afterimagedan]

So, it looks like we have finalized IN, SM, Eldars, and Necrons and have a lot done on Tau. What other changes need to be addressed before we work on Chaos  ?

[afterimagedan]

So, we voted on the Protector, Defender, and the Castellan.

Stuff to talk through: Hero, Emissary, Messenger, Mesme, Demiurg.

[Talos]

Hero lance drop by 2 should be voted on.

If we keep our voted pricing along with 2 hit escorts, castellan is quite crappy compared to the defender.

Emissary seems fine, although there was some interesting variants proposed. Will wait for community input.

Mesme is way too good for his paltry 110pts or whatever. He is bascially just a regular ld 9 ld (80pts) with an extra rerolls (25pts), so basically you are paying 5pts for a refit which seems really good. If we correct tau leadership to match imperial/potentially chaos, then we can adjust his cost upwards by a tiny bit and call it that.

In a campaign, that refit would cost 20-35pts depending on whether he was in a custodian or explorer (to be fair, he is described as being in kor'or'vesh vessel so custodian sounds more likely), so adjusting that to 25pts (enforced discount perhaps?) would make him 125 points, plus his optional upgrade. Still not too expensive to run, but a little more balanced at least.

[ThaneAquilon]

You want to make the hero have NO lances? That is ridiculous, and I wholeheartedly disagree.

I'm not able to check the stats on the castellan, so I can't comment.

I like the emissary, I think the deflector should stay optional.

I would have Mesme at 5 to 10 points higher. I think 15 is too much.

[Bessemer]

@Thane- I think he means the drop it already has in BFGR. I've already said my piece on this so won't repeat.

Still, would making it's frontal RG fpwr 6 be that bad? It makes the Hero a bit more competitive while still keeping in with fluff. Tested this recently and it didn't unbalance the Hero Over the Protector in any way IMO.

[Talos]

@Thane A little bit of an over reaction, much? I just mean't the drop to 2 lances instead of four. I can't remember if it was voted upon or not.

@Bessemer I never understood why the frontal battery was dropped in the first place. The lance drop was all that was necessary.

Maybe we could vote on the battery? And the lances if we have not already.

[Bessemer]

@Talos The frontal battery was't dropped, it was always 4, believe it or not!

[Talos]

Huh, well what do you know...I checked it up and your right!

As it stands,

Hero: +1 Torpedo, +1 LB, +2 hits
Protector: +6 Battery, Better Maneuverability

Both are currently at 180pts I believe. Upon reflection, this is not so bad. Smotherman Hero advantages at being worth 27pts (3.5 + 13.5 +10) whereas the protectors advantages add up to 18+pts (18 + however much the 90 degree trurn is worth).

I might actually be okay with leaving the hero as is. Thoughts?

[Khar]

We've done some testing here, protector vs. hero look fairly balanced.
In terms of firepower they're more or less equall [slight advantage for protector] and it boils down to your preferences: 90 turn or 8 hits. Protector's advantage in firepower is balanced by the fact it only takes 3 hits to cripple him, while hero needs 4.
If hero had 1-2 more strength in batteries, or 1 torpedo more, I'd say they're perfectly balanced. If not, I still won't complain.

[horizon]

This is still my fave Emissary:

Emissary 130pts
prow deflector 6+ / 5+ armour

speed 25cm
turns 90*

shields 1
hits 4
turrets 2

prow railguns @ 45cm - str 2 - F
prow railguns @ 45cm - str 2 - F
prow railguns @ 45cm - str 2 - F
dorsal launch bay (barracuda)
prow gravitic missiles 20-40cm - str3

may replace port/starboard railguns with grav hooks
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B-aXA8fc5AQ8aTlYYWtnNkpEazg

Hero as is in BFG:R is fine.
Mesme is fine imo.

[Talos]

@horizon I do like that emissary profile myself, but IIRC there was some resistance to that profile, so we should definitely vote on it.

Vote for Mesme too. I don't think 125pts is such a huge cost for a character, particularly one that makes his ship so nasty. Heck, with him on board tau AC makes eldar AC look shitty, which is something to say the least. Resilient bombers that re-roll their bombing dice are powerful, and any player looking for a powerboost for his tau fleet would snatch him up in a heartbeat. 25pts? That would get an escort, provided you had the grav hooks. Which is more dangerous, an extra one escort or 50% more efficiency from your primary carrier? Warden's/Orca's damage and harass things, but custodian's kill them