CAV 2 Closed Beta v1.1

[Spartan6 21]

Nice to know where we fall in the grand scheme huh?

[Akela 3]

LOL the "other issues" deal with CAV - The 3d printing and the "metal" and the production of the data cards that are going to be included in the blisters.

 

[Erion 4]

I figured it had something to do with CAV. You guys have said it enough times over the last few days -- CAV 2 is getting done this summer. That's a pretty tight fit right now.

 

Keep at it.

[Saint of Sinners 2]

Is there any Jump infantry yet? I want Batlle armor with jet pack!

[Erion 4]

-- I suggested a way to do jump infantry a while ago. It gave them a one-use jump pack that doubled their move stat and gave them Movement Type:Air for a single activation, but they could only perform Movement and Run-N-Gun actions during that activation. Giving jump packs to infantry also gave them the Bulky special ability until the jump packs were used, after which they were discarded.

 

It didn't make it into the 1.1 Beta Document, though.

 

-- I tested changing the Scan to Fire and Range modifiers for indirect fire to modify drift instead of RAV. It still allows an indirect attack to hit at full strength pretty much anywhere on the board as long as you succeed at a drift roll, which is pretty scary. That first range band on a lot of indirect attacks is pretty long, and scan to fire allowed most of the models we used to use indirect fire accurately across a 6' board length.

 

After spending some time focusing on indirect attacks I've come to the conclusion that many of them are too powerful as written, particularly on models like the '70 Dictator which is a superiority CAV, but has an indirect attack that is RAV 5 with a 38" range band (the same as a Mastodon ).

 

Perhaps what is needed is something that will tone down the indirect attacks of most models while allowing the dedicated fire support models to continue to shine in their intended role. The first thought that comes to mind is something akin to the range band bonus that applies to all indirect attacks, that for all indirect attacks a -2 modifier applies to RAV from the get-go, and then have a special ability for models which are supposed to be good at indirect fire which negates this -2 RAV for indirect.

 

I mean, if you think about the way it works now, an IA gives you Increased Range, and area-effect attack and the ability to fire over intervening terrain. There has to be some sort of penalty or no one will use anything else.

 

I don't like the +2 RAV for shooting at a stationary target, primarily because it adds something else to keep track of. Toning down indirect fire overall, and allowing certain models to excel at it seems like the way to go.

[Erion 4]

RAV on the Warlord seems a bit Low. Should it also have hunter?

[Stubbdog 79]

Erion,

Did you get a chance to test any of the suggestions that I made related to Indirect fire and/or Scan to Fire?

 

Also, I noticed that Matt pointed out that one of the RAVs was wrong at a 5 it was suppose to be a 3 with hunter, but he didnt say which one.

[Erion 4]

The RAV 5 = 3 + Hunter applies to both versions of the Dictator, based on a side conversation I had with Patrick earlier today. I suspect that, like the Warlord I mentioned above, there are some models with Low RAV's that should also have hunter as well.

 

After that conversation, I want to do a somewhat in-depth analysis of datacards to see how bad the ridiculously strong Indirect Attack epidemic really is. My concerns about the Dictators have been laid to rest, but there are some others that I suspect may still be overpowered.

 

The Mastodon I'm OK with. It's supposed to be stupidly powerful for both direct and indirect attacks for the one shot it gets.

[Erion 4]

The perfect example of the disparity I'm Talking about is the Emperor. In CAV1 it's Direct attacks were equivalent to the Rhino, and it had a pretty hefty anti-soft targets Indirect attack, but that attack was next to worthless for Hard targets. We've already decided that the Rhino should be something like RAV 5+Hunter+Wrecker to make it the killing machine it should be, but to Give the Emperor an Indirect Attack at RAV 5 makes that Indirect attack way too powerful. The emperor is almost as good sitting back and firing over the trees as it is marching slowly ahead and blazing away with those massive rotary Gauss Cannons. It it can catch two targets in the AOE, it's worth giving up hunter not to use the direct attacks because you can stay out of sight, and the range band is almost 25% longer than the direct attacks, taking away the former weakness of the shorter range on the RGC's.

 

The Knight is another good example of this. It has RAV 4 and 1 direct attack, but that makes its lone indirect attack more tempting to use, because it can hide behind cover and lob an attack that is just as effective at longer range without exposing itself to return fire. It totally undercuts the Knight's role as flamer-armed suppression CAV, because attacking with the next-to-worthless flamer/1 opens it up to return fire from every model in that area of effect that survives, and there will be a LOT of them that survive with only a 30% chance to roll something that will actually damage most infantry models, and 50% of the survivors will be unshaken.

 

I understand that the driving force behind linking both Direct and Indirect Attacks to the same RAV was to keep things simple, but there are lots of examples where linking the two values make the indirect attack too powerful by comparison to the model in question's "main" weaponry.

 

Suggestions: Either Have two separate stats for direct and indirect attack values, or place a limiting factor on all indirect attacks that is eliminated by changing Barrage to Barrage/2, Barrage/4 etc, but allowing it to work the same way as it does now by improving the RAV of indirect attacks.

[Akela 3]

When the Dictators were looked at so were all the others (IF versus RAV versus Hunter, etc.) and we're happy with where they are. The updated information will be with the next publish of the data cards (which we're not releasing until the alpha points are done).

 

EDIT: Some of them were edited up, some down, some got range boosts, etc. etc.

[Erion 4]

Well I'm glad to hear that my testing and number crunching is at least following what you guys are doing in-house.

 

*leaves the obvious question unasked*

[papabees 487]

*leaves the obvious question unasked*

Soon my young Padawan, soon.

[Erion 4]

Yeah, I know.

[Chrome 1752]

About the new Datacards.... shouldn't the 70 Dictator have Overdrive?

[Erion 4]

I didn't get a chance to check my email after work until this morning. I'm VERY tempted to be sick today. . .*cough cough*.