Monsters are quite viable, not in all situations but they are certainly useful. This is about making the option to mount a character on a monster viable (as in at least as viable as taking them each separately).Originally Posted by Duke Ramulots
Monsters are quite viable, not in all situations but they are certainly useful. This is about making the option to mount a character on a monster viable (as in at least as viable as taking them each separately).
There aint nowt a cannon can do that a determined dwarf with a hammer can´t achive.-Old Redmane
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I meant t write "to make monsterous mounts viable", but oh well.
I agree with this. Allow all attacks for overkill in a challenge, and thunderstomp. The current mechanic is silly.
Also, templates hit a single part of the model as in 7th.
With those adjustments, I think mounted monsters become a real option.
Yes with overkill coming from the monsters attacks and thunder stomp, just challenging out the carnosaur wouldn't work because he would overkill your champion by like 6 wounds. Also a small little cannon ball killing a giant dragon and a little elf in one shot is just dumb. It could maybe make sense with a stone thrower because it is a huge rock not a 10 pound lead ball.
Have you not seen what a cannon shot does in real life? It's not a 10 pound lead ball that some guy throws at you...
NOTE: my use of the word "powergamer" is not meant as a derrogatory or inflammatory word used in a negative context. It is used to describe a type of player that uses power builds
The monster won't get it's attacks if the rider goes first and kills a unit champion.
Combat is over, the thunderstomp doesn't happen, etc etc. Leastwise as I understand it.
It might be somewhat excessive, but perhaps a toned down version of the Collosal Beast rule that the Toad Dragon has would be an idea to improve monsters? Or perhaps something like -1 to wound (6 still wounds) or multiple wounds cause 1 less wound to a minimum of 1.
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On the subject of Champions and Challenges...unless I am mistaken, whilst a Champion can indeed receive a challenge, they cannot in fact issue one?
The problem is with the base rules. You can keep your monster behind your lines and it can still die to cannon fire. The fact that "cover" only lowers BS is.....wells its bs. I like the way 40K gives you a cover save. I don't know that it would translate over well, but it would be nice if there was some way to protect your dragon mount other than pure luck.
Without going into balancing issues, imo there just should not be a way to 1 shot a dragon. Its a dragon. You think you can 1 shot a dragon? Plus I would be mighty upset if my 300 point mount died in 1 turn.
Ohh, plus in the way of 40K, give the dragon a save if it moved the previous turn. After all, how likely are you to hit a moving target with a cannon. (the answer is not likely)
naa, it specifically says they can challenge in the say way as characters.
That's what cavalry units are for. Charge with a cavalry unit AND a monster to the same unit. If their champion issues a challenge, the cavalry champion accepts it. And 5 knights are enough to cover a good portion of the enemy front's unit without a big investment of points. A musician and a standard bearer helps too: the musician balances the fight in case it becomes a draw, and the standard bearer gives a point of CR, wich is good.
Put your Dragon behind an obstacle, which stops the cannonball. You can also fly behind a building to take cover, preferably keeping the thing you want to charge in line of sight.
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Yes this exactly. My flying creatures take shelter behind buildings and walls. This helps them survive and do what they need to do. If you are in the open, you are going to eat one.
NOTE: my use of the word "powergamer" is not meant as a derrogatory or inflammatory word used in a negative context. It is used to describe a type of player that uses power builds
It's still a 10 pound lead ball, it is not going to cream a 20 foot tall giant as well as the little guy on top, it has to hit one or the other. What ever it hits is going to die but it should only hit one of the targets not both.
Also I find it hard to believe that you have seen what a cannon shot hitting a dragon does in, "Real life."
I really would like to, but the fact that the new monster bases are 100x150 mm (almost 6" long) really makes it hard. The obstacle will stop the bounce, but if you aim about 10" from the back of a zombie dragon base, you will miss the base on "missfire and 2" on the non bounce dice, all other rolls will hit.. and if they bring 2-3 cannons, that wall might as well not be there, because you will eat 1 or 2 cannon balls after the first 1 eats the wall...
Right. It is definitely easier with my Varghulf...
Hankering for new Zombie models.
For Those About to Rot We Salute You!
Hell fricking yes to the unridden carnosaurs. I mean, they'd chew through skinks faster than my salamanders do, but anything that allows me to put more T-reces (on steroids) onto the field is a large yes in my book. Baby rex would also count! (Oh, please, please let there be elite saurus riding baby carnosaurs in the next book as monstrous cav, please!).
*Cough* Now I've got that out my system...
Zabousta is entirely correct. Cannons with a carriage basically cannot be 'aimed', in the meaningful sense, very quickly at all. You have to wheel the whole damn carriage around, which is rather heavy when it has a (boiling hot! To the 'flesh sizzlingly' hot stage when it's fired several times) cannon on top of it, and even altering the elevation is rather slow. The idea you're hitting a dragon flying at full speed, weaving as it goes, is ludicrous.Ohh, plus in the way of 40K, give the dragon a save if it moved the previous turn. After all, how likely are you to hit a moving target with a cannon. (the answer is not likely)
Saying that, everything that's moving at less than, say, 14", should get that save if we go by realism. It's a cannon - a whole barrage of cannons might hit cavalry at the gallop, but a single one would not be picking out models any time soon.
If you made cannons not template weapons (stone throwers are fine, as they only hit one part with the S9, unless I'm much mistaken. Hitting the other part with S3 is fine!), added in some cover save system (or simply made the damn things scatter) or made war machines subject to BS modifiers, you'd be a lot closer to monsters not caring so much about cannons.
As a side note: To make carnosaurs, currently, viable, you'd have to be giving them Large Target rule (was great not having it in 7th, but now it's a pain), 3+ scaly skin, Ws5 (at the very least), A5 (again, at least) and maybe up their Initiative to 3 (or W to 6). And probably still lower their price. I like to think of them as direct equivalents to dragons in terms of size and ferociousness. GW really needs to drop the 'Is it a dragon? No? Make it much worse then!' attitude towards scaly monsters.
I love my beastie, but he's just so inefficient. When I consider I could be most of the way to buying another oldblood with gear by dropping him... It's not really a contest is it?
No it isn't. I aggree Gaargod cannons did not have the best accuracy, even on a still target they had to fire orienting shots. You can't tell me that anyone could hit a little man all on his own at the distances that are possible in warhammer. Unless they are magically guided cannon balls.
Monster mounts have a range of problems that keep them from being used.
Army list % limits
With most ridden monsters coming out of the Lord allowance, it really puts pressure on getting all the toys you want in your army. Points are tight as it is to fit both a fighty lord and a level 4 into the Lord cap for most armies, putting in a dragon or other mount just pushes out one of these. Many armies forgo a fighty lord altogether - monstrous mounts for wizards are more limited.
Possible solutions: don't count mounts towards the % limit for Lords, or come from special/rare, or have an actual monster allowance.
Mount for general
Putting your general on a monstrous mount has a number of issues. He is worth an additional 100 vps when killed, so a risky position is not often a good one. While a large target boost the Ld bubble, it is at odds with a flying, fighty monster, which ought to be flanking the enemy and getting stuck in and not staying central, holding the battleline together. If your general is a wizard, being in combat is typically a risky position and having your mount killed out from under you is often very bad.
Possible solutions: this kind of comes with the territory, but possibly some kind of mechanic that allows a rider to not have to engage in combat if it doesn't want to and just allow the monster to do all the fighting. Making it less vulnerable to shooting would be a start. More options for heroes to take mounts would also help.
Cannons (and other war machines)
Cannons are very bad for ridden monsters. They hit very reliably (especially since base size for monsters has been increasing) and with a high strength and D6 wounds is pretty lethal to monsters and characters. TLOS means that a big monster can rarely hide anywhere on the board let alone in their deployment zone and cannons have an effectively unlimited range and can be fired through the eye of a needle. Cover does absolutely nothing, unless it is a large impassable piece (most typically buildings) or a wall, but even then with the huge base sizes, a cannon can be reasonably reliably lobbed over the top and it does nothing to protect from rock lobbers. The absolute kicker for ridden monsters, however, is of course that cannons hit both rider and mount and quite possibly kill or maim both.
Possible solutions: making cannons less pin-point accurate, ideally involving BS and cover in some fashion. Possibly lower multiple wounds (but this is not ideal, a cannon should be able to kill a monster) but certainly only hitting rider or mount.
Challenges
Frankly the challenge rules are borked and need a full re-write. It's one aspect of 7th that really needed an overhaul but didn't get it in 8th. Challenge rules should be to allow mighty heroes to engage in epic battles, not prevent powerful monsters or heroes from attacking or allow powerful heroes to avoid fighting other heroes. However, for the purposes of looking at ridden monsters, the major issue is allowing a champion to challenge a hero on a stonking great dragon and the hero apparently has to fight fair and take up the challenge without, say, jumping over the impudent champion and laying waste to his unit. Another issue is a hero will often kill the champion, depriving the monster of overkill.
Possible solutions: aside from a complete rewrite of the challenge rules, allowing heroes, at least Large Target ones, the option to ignore champions and lay into the unit is one. Allowing a model to continue hitting a dead model for overkill is an obvious one!
... and then I won.
I want this rule just so it can be named 'The Monster Mash'
In an seriousness it makes sense, what's worse, watching a guy lean over his dragon a spike your hero with a lance or watching a guy lean over his dragon a spike your hero with a lance, then have the dragon roast the corpse and jump up and down on it!?
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