@Vaaish Your random pool pick is not a terrible idea, but I feel like you are not grasping the implications of why people don't like random things.
@Brethren Yeah, me & Vaaish & horizon & afterimagedan are making this pretty freaking hard to follow. Reminds me of the nid thread...Not a bad idea either, but I doubt it will gain much traction since AdMech fleets are so small, you are basically saying that no Gift can be taken twice. Concept is great, but it's the execution everybody here (including me!) is having a hard time with.
Everybody want's AdMech to be:
1) Balanced: The fleet is of equal power level with all the others.
2) Fun: The fleet brings something new to the table, basically a combination of unique aesthetics, playstyle and ship design
3) Flexible: Every fleet should have vessels that fulfill different roles and have different strengths to allow for many different lists and combination. What we don't want is fleets with only one "effective" list.
4) Streamlined: Part of BFG:R consists of getting rid of clunky "one of" rules and designs to make the game both easier to play and consistent throughout the entire game system. A good example of this is horizon and Sig's MMS 1.9b, which streamlines eldar rules to better fit with existing gameplay and mechanics.
5) Competitive: Similar to balanced, everyone wants the AdMech to see more play a tournaments as an army that stands a chance of winning. It can still have unfavorable matchups, but it should be just as good in its niche as any other fleet.
Since we all want these things, it's fairly easy to see where our mechanic should fit in.
1) A cheap random gift of properly priced selected gift both appeal to a sense of balance. If the gifts are weaker and the player only pays 5pts for it, it becomes more like an exciting little goody than a true upgrade. On the flipside properly priced and chosen gifts becomes the true distinction between vessels of a certain class. In both cases they achieve a balance the current fleet is lacking.
2) AdMech already has different aesthetics, and it's playstyle is distinct from IN, mostly due to significantly enhanced ranged firepower and and a weakness to boarding/H&R. The small random gifts are definitely fun, like opening a christmas present. Purchasable and balanced gifts are also fun, same as normal upgrades are. Options equal player satisfaction, as long as all the options are interesting.
3) The AdMech fleet has good selection of vessels with distinct roles, so this is not too much of a problem.
4) Any kind of random rolling for abilities is unfortunately not a widely used mechanic (outside of orks, obviously) and so keeping it seems oddly outdated, like wearing platform shoes and bright pink fedoras to a formal evening.
5) Being competitive is a combination of a fleet being balanced in general but having and advantage against whatever is expected to be most popular. If this were 40k and Daemons were the big in thing (
), Grey Knights would be a good example. Good in general, and strong against the most common opponent. This is more of a question, but is there any fleet that AdMech currently does better against than IN? Enough to count as having at least a slight upper hand.
