Indrid wrote:I wasn't specifically talking about KCSM, but more to shake up that part of Chaos T2 which seems a little over-crowded. I know BL are "jump" troops and KCSM are not but that just seems to make them even more attractive over KCSM rather than differentiate their roles.
"But Indrid! Use KCSM to counter initiate and use BL to be aggressive. Use KCSM to cut off unit's movement and use BL to force units off."
Truth is BL perform very well at all these things atm. KCSM have the advantages of course, and I think they're a really fun unit to use because of their movement speed (very refreshing for a PC to have something suddenly moving around quickly!) they also don't add to your existing pop so you can get out some havocs/PMs and not be stuck in T2 forever, but with the upcoming population changes that'll be less of an issue.
Indeed it's true that both units have similar capabilities in melee and counter the same sort of thing, however the various differences of the squad do make them better suited for different things. This is because they have different ways of getting into combat. KCSM are obviously better suited for sustained chasing since they have speed 6 instead of 5 and they they're more durable than bloodletters, add in the fact that KCSM have very juicy ranged damage and a clearly distinct role is given. KCSM are further benefited by having reduced sunk costs since you will already have a CSM squad out come T2 (and often 2, especially with the PC).
Indrid wrote:I think a glass-cannon-ish HM squad is an interesting composition and risk/reward choice for any army.
I am coming mainly from team games though (Torpid groans), where it's very risky to use a melee unit that doesn't have some kind of inherent way of getting into combat more easily due to some of the map designs. 3v3 play shouldn't be discounted just because you don't like it though. I don't buy this "Only balance for 1v1!" stuff.
Well that comes into it a lot here. I mean, in 3v3 half the time you're just charging blindly at your opponent due to the linear nature of the maps. That really doesn't, as you say, lend itself very much to non-jumping melee squads. The speed bonus is pretty redundant since the area you travel without combat is pretty small and the area your army has to cover is generally way smaller. This applies to the ranged damage of KCSM too as it means in general you experience less kiting.
Nobody ever really said we can't make any balance decisions based on 3v3. What was said is that balance decisions can't be made with only 3v3 in mind. I think this should also apply to 1v1. All game modes should be took into consideration, however the nub is as follows: 1v1 and 3v3 are mutually exclusive game modes that can't easily have seperate balance changes. This means any change to 1v1 affects 3v3 and vice versa. From this it seems most prudent to focus on balancing 1v1 because if a race cannot do well in a 1v1 scenario where there are far less potential combinations of bullshit then how could balance be hoped to achieve in 3v3? Ultimately 3v3 is much harder to balance because of these extra factors too. The game modes are fundamentally different to the point where you can't realistically say we should try and balance both. That's meaningless. We need to focus on improving overall balance in one game mode hile ensuring this doesn't completely cripple the balance of the others. However because of all the previous things if a severely OP unit in 1v1 is fine in 3v3 it deserves to be nerfed and if a unit is UP in 3v3 but fine in 1v1 then it should stay the same. Case in point KCSM, ogryns and the like.
