Paladins, Terminators and Strike Squad

[Crewfinity]

The thing I thought up as a melee upgrade would be the splash for their halberds. I can't really see that as OP since something like that would obviously be in either T2 or T3, where they'd have to compete against true melee units like MoK CSM. Since they use only normal melee damage, and of course the splash would be the same, they'd only be truly dangerous to IA since SS are a hybrid unit, not a dedicated melee unit. That reinforces their role of a good ranged unit that can not only steamroll other ranged units in melee, but also their role of a light melee counter. Since you mentioned a charge and increased speed, I'd just put that in the same upgrade as the splash and the melee damage buff and treat it like a mark, whereas you can't upgrade any further and are stuck with a melee-oriented SS. Though not outstanding, their ranged damage is really good when you consider the damage other melee squads have, so this should at least make them more useful in T2 and drop off in T3. It'd also make them great at chasing because of that, their ranged damage on retreat isn't like 1, especially with WATH, so there's that aspect as well.

The problem with all of this is that any upgrade that adds a trait or two to give them better melee performance only accentuates the problem of them being too generalist, as all their other upgrades are ranged oriented, but an exclusive sidegrade like MoK wouldnt work because purifiers already fill that role in T2. they're a light melee counter in T1 yes, but you really dont ever want them fighting melee units past the early game.

As a short intermission, I only noticed at the end of my post that I practically doubled the damage increase for psybolts. I didn't mean to, but it just came out like that. Though I still stand by keeping it at least in the 30% range, for melee or ranged. 25% doesn't change it enough to warrant it because of the initial numbers being too small. The price difference between it and EW is too close, and psybolts are the more expensive one. And while I can see that as something to be concerned about for the psycannon, I'll once again bring up TCSM. Even if that's not acceptable, you could always just make an exception to where the psycannon gets a lower percentage increase. Shouldn't be hard to add an if-then statement in the code.

agreed on this point. its only one psycannon, it cant fire on the move, and it costs 80/25 compared to purgation psycannons which are 100/30 for three of them. even a 30% ranged damage increase would probably be fine. I would argue that its even less efficient than eternal war because CSM are so specialized>eternal war increase is almost always going to be acting to increase their damage against the units they're most effective against. SS wastes a lot of their damage increase because they have so many different types.

Back to the upgrades, I was about to suggest a flamer for them, but realized that they already had one. I guess since they can't switch their weapons once they get one, people rarely if at all get them. I'm half inclined to suggest allowing them to switch between their flamer and psycannon if only to see some use out of it. Maybe have it as a one-way trade where you can get the flamer, then get the psycannon, but can't go back? Or have it as you'll get both weapons as a trade-off; get a good anti-all weapon even though you got a flamer for gen bashing, but pretty much take out one model from fighting due to the smaller range a flamer has and make SS even weaker in melee.

i'm like 95 percent sure you can switch back and forth at will freely. i do think that the cost of their flamer could come down a bit, maybe to SM flamer cost. it weakens their counter melee abilities in T1 so its not a straightforward upgrade, and while it is good at bashing gens, its really not as useful to GK as it is to SM since all GK T1 units are good at genbashing

honestly I wouldnt mind seeing both weapon upgrades removed and the squad reworked a bit.

[Forestradio]

ss incinerator is 80/20 with a 15 s build time, tac flamer is 65/20 with a 25 s build time

[xXKageAsashinXx]

The problem with all of this is that any upgrade that adds a trait or two to give them better melee performance only accentuates the problem of them being too generalist, as all their other upgrades are ranged oriented, but an exclusive sidegrade like MoK wouldnt work because purifiers already fill that role in T2. they're a light melee counter in T1 yes, but you really dont ever want them fighting melee units past the early game.

The reason why I went with all this was because of their generalist quality. Thanks to the justicar, the SS have a plasma weapon, albeit slightly wtf worthy, a wonderful infantry snare, and with the buffs to melee they can be a nice all-around clean-up unit. Purifiers are more of a line-breaker and melee superiority as well as a pre-T3 non-vehicle tank. In this way, one sits back and shoots stormbolters while the other charges in and gets shot up. In case the purifiers fail, just before they fall back you throw in your SS to clean up what's either almost dead, or just on the verge of retreating. Between the two, surely you can see how they aren't fulfilling each other's roles same as terminators and paladins aren't fulfilling the same role, or stormtroopers and kasrkins, or MoK and BL.

agreed on this point. its only one psycannon, it cant fire on the move, and it costs 80/25 compared to purgation psycannons which are 100/30 for three of them. even a 30% ranged damage increase would probably be fine. I would argue that its even less efficient than eternal war because CSM are so specialized>eternal war increase is almost always going to be acting to increase their damage against the units they're most effective against. SS wastes a lot of their damage increase because they have so many different types.

I don't even need to say anything XD

i'm like 95 percent sure you can switch back and forth at will freely. i do think that the cost of their flamer could come down a bit, maybe to SM flamer cost. it weakens their counter melee abilities in T1 so its not a straightforward upgrade, and while it is good at bashing gens, its really not as useful to GK as it is to SM since all GK T1 units are good at genbashing

honestly I wouldnt mind seeing both weapon upgrades removed and the squad reworked a bit.

I doubt it, but with how expensive the upgrades are, it doesn't even matter.

ss incinerator is 80/20 with a 15 s build time, tac flamer is 65/20 with a 25 s build time

Basically, SS trade build time for req, though they are already a req-heavy faction T1 wise. Have you two, or anyone else for that matter, ever used the SS incinerator, or seen someone else use it? There was no point to it when purgation was in T1, but even now though they're in T2, like crew said practically everything's good at gen bashing for gk so there's still no point to that thing.

[531st]

As of right now, double ops play in response to melee spam is so outrageously powerful, I think there is plenty of room to bring them back in line. Remember (and this is a general theme) that the change would not happen in a vacuum, I listed a bunch of changes that I think would need to happen in tandem. For example, introducing Warrior Acolyte Squad would give more counter melee options and buffs to Rhino in T1 would make it much better suited as a melee counter. The magnitude of the ops nerf is relevant of course, since if it were as big as last time (maybe 50 more req cost) it would have a small impact.

We have extremely tough melee squads like commanders, extremely fast melee squads like banshees and extremely jumpy melee squads like ASM that can hurt a hell of a lot and need to be countered before they made too much damage (also there are extremely tough, fast and jumpy squads like warlock and FC). As of now some microed well melee can rek GK even with operatives, I've been bullied a lot that way by SM, orks and eldar AFAIR and I've been bullying other GK that way as SM. All the other factions have a t1 crowd control in set-up teams, doomblasts, shotgun blasts, crippling poisons, very dangerous grenades under their feet, stuns, fleshhooks etc etc. GK have only one stun that is a not cancelable, not too big radius grenade that stuns for 7 seconds, worth 45 power and does not scales in late game too well, while all the other counter melee do, including tics, noise marines, set-up teams, sentinels, catachans, previously purgations, heroes, shootas, termagaunts, warriors, scouts etc. I'd prefer having a leveled useful squads when i come to t2 and not replace stuff that i have with useful stuff that costs even more resourses instead of making some high impact purchases. Also that overpriced useless IST sergeant with weak grenade and GLs
BTW rhino in tabletop can repair itself *wink*

Termies/pallies are brokenly strong in 3v3. I'd like to see changes to them to make them worthwhile in 1v1 and more manageable in 3v3.

As i've said b4, in a game where ppl dont know how to counter GK, they can roflstomp entire armies but when it comes to a high lvl game where ppl know what to do in case of GK hitting t3 and prepare to it since t2, all the terminators and paladins get countered pretty fast. I dont play 1v1s so cant say anything about it. I only heard forest running around and shouting that u dont need GK t3 in 1v1s

Buggy how so? I haven't noticed anything personally.
As for changes, I think they are one of the squads that over preforms, making the roster too small. Giving out a bunch of buffs to under preforming units needs to be paired with nerfs to over preforming ones. I'd specifically like to see the burst duration of the psy-cannons reduced to 1s and get a cooldown of .1s. This would make suppression effect them, and reduce the damage to vehicles that make it out of the firing arc, while keeping the dps almost exactly the same. Heck, the damage could go up by 9% (since the .1s cooldown would kindda cover this).

They are allergic to attack commands. Sometimes only 1 psycannon is faced the way it should be firing, sometimes they can fire at their extended range with clear sight but cant accept commands to fire at the same range and are redeploying range they'd had if ability wasnt active. As of now they are very expensive squad that costs 500/30 with psycannons, is t2 so is not leveled, have set-up time, low range that can do a few bursts at medium range, no burst damage squad that is outclassed by interceptors in t3 that can teleport, spew grenades and tie ppl in melee (im definetly not saying that they can fight in melee in t3). With all of their disadvantages they should be very damaging to compensate for that. Also lascannons, brightlances and plague marines fire at same rate under suppression. Why should purgations not? That will make them inferior anti-vehicle squad. They are good area-denial tool atm cuz GK could struggle with campfest and ranged blobs.

Buffs to SS scaling would need to coincide with some T1 changes, but I think it's very doable. I like the idea of making SS a 1.5 unit (costs power). In that would, the power cost alone would be enough of a nerf for T1, heck it could even get some damage increases (or start with purification). As for scaling, Cael has even spoke on this - move weapon upgrades to T3 and buff them maybe, or psy-ammo to T3 and buff it. Replace psy-cannon with something that is more focused on fighting a specific type of enemy and move incinerator to T2 and make similar changes. Lots of different possibilities.

SS get evaporated in t3 and u want to save for those terminators and interceptors. I imagine how good those psy-bolts should be to make players think "do i want terminators? Or screw that and go for psy-bolts?" Like +40% melee and ranged damage, plasma damage to all for like 20 power? Still wouldnt be useful since IG, orks and Eldar could be around with their LI armor also their health is too weak. Moving their upgreades to t3 will be even worse since I already sometimes think that I'll need to kill my SS somewhere in t2 to free some upkeep and dont micro that barely useful bleeding squad. Maybe make upgreades get better with tier? Like shoota nobs do? Make sergeant power-free in t3 like sternguard one since GK usualy want to save power for useful squads and not rebuying mediocre squad leader with very situational abilities for mediocre squad, increase psybolt damage from +20% to +40% or give other damage types to squad or maybe range increase. Maybe giving grenades to squad in t2, that gonna be fun
Different weapons for strike squad? Well, judging by TT codex, they could have one incenerator, psycannon or psilencer that is same as bolter but with much more fire rate, same range and is a force weapon so could instakill but since all the force weapons in DoW2 dont have additional abilites, i guess we dont want to use that. Also each strike squad member can have any GK melee weapon which is halberd that replaces their standart swords and adds strength which is basicaly damage, pair of falchions which are baicaly the 2nd sword like the standart and give 1 more attack so even more damage but i dont think SS would look as manly with banshee animations since they are the only one with two sword animations , warding stave that give psy protection and +2 to strength so even more damage than halberd and daemon hammer that is beefy anti-daemon powerfist.

Warrior Acolytes or Crusaders. And no way should a new unit use ops as a balance target, they are borderline (if not outright) OP, but do allow GK to function in 1v1. No unit should preform that well for so little cost

They should be gods of crowd control then cuz GK dont have any good one. Every faction have like 3 solid melee counters. Scouts, Devs, ASM; Tics, Havocs, Noise marines; Spore mines, Termagaunts, Barbed strangler warriors; Sentinel, catachans, HVTs; Banshees, Shurikens, Rangers;
Ops besides having tremedous damage are not best melee counter in the world. If suppose that tremendous damage is not there, uncancelable stun grenading slightly faster squad that gives 90% ranged damage resist to approaching enemy melee if it retreats and can stop retreating once in a while is not what i'd call a melee counter. If we remove tremendous damage, we have ist with no grenade, no barrage, slightly more speed and almost ASM worth of power

Leaving them alone might be fine, but my goal for them would be to make them less situational and more broadly usable in more compositions. I agree that right now, they are a "win more" unit, and that's about it.

I'd actually liked upgreade tiers like in DoW1 where u upgreade sword to halberd and after that halberd to warding stave while melee gets upgreades like stormbolters -> masterctafted for more damages ->psybolt for even more damages and damage types. Maybe with melee upgreades make ranged one unavailable and backwards to make them nice scaling like CSM. Or give them both upgreades so they will be glasscannon expensive squads like terminators but cheaper i dunno

Do you really think my goal is to make BC "not good at everything"? I listed a bunch of things on him to both nerf and buff. Half his wargear is situational to the point of worthlessness, and the rest is real cheap. I can barely remember the last game I played where I didn't end up with halberd, agies and teleporter! Nothing else is as efficient in cost and as impactful in play.

He is the slowest and definitely not the tankiest commander in game that gets really dangerous with a halberd, ofc he would be useless leading a charge without teleporter. Even with WATH he gonna get evaporated b4 he can get to combat. I'd agree with removing the teleporter if he'll get passive +1 speed.
If not aegis, then what? Solid armor vs 2 extremely situational expensive ones one of which is t2? Also halberd is the cheapest one of t2 wargear with hammer super being super expensive crap and stave super situational and super expensive
P.S. I never use teleporter myself lol

I'll turn the question to you then. I agree that GK have the most limited number of build options of any faction, and are incredibly predictable. I find that despite that, they are viable in 1v1 and downright goofy in 3v3. My proposal is to generaly nerf some of the units that are auto-buys, while buffing up the junk I never touch. What direction do you think would help them be more varied in builds without being OP?

As a guy that luvs rushing termie FC I usualy go for double SS for stacking damage in t1. I could also go either ops or 2nd ist which would definitely get acolyte. Depending on how much u need crowd control, u could also add fall back plan and GLs. In t2 i'd rush for a dread and instantly upgreade inferno cannon cuz that is so not-mainstream. Purifiers are situational if u have some ASM problem or some tac spam without suppression or FC. Vindicare or purgations with insta psycannons cuz they are good. U need smth good. Also instantly upgreade SS cuz that is not mainstream and could be nice to have. In t3 interceptors with grenades.
For BC i usualy go for halberd cuz this seems the only reasonable weapon if i dont want to micro BC entire game, psy lash vs some paper commanders like LA, Farseer, Commissar, Apo, Techmarine, WSE, Sorc, Inq etc that should be focused or purified blades vs hordes. I'd rush for armor of titan cuz u can than spam psy lash on commanders and sergeants. Also in t3 after armor of titan i could change halberd with sword for improved wath with less cooldowns. Also note that everything that is not standart is much, much harder to play since those options are weaker and more micro intensive yet with enough tryharding u can make everything work (or almost everything)
I also like vindicare+rhino in t2 to make it extra annoying to deal with. Vindicare is a magnet of hate and u can always ride him away in his private ride Multiple purgations no longer as effective as when they were t1 and i see no reason in t1 rhino since u split ur army even more than when BC does it plus u dont need any transporting with all ur units pretty mobile

[hiveminion]

I think it's pretty clear that Operatives, Terminators/Paladins and the Brocap are too strong right now.

Operatives I think are too much rolled into one, and their dps is too high. That isn't justifiable by arguing GK need it as a melee deterrent, that damage combined with infiltrate works on set-up teams and other stuff as well (generators!). Then you've got your stun bomb to block ranged retaliation or incoming melee stuff. Then you can retreat out of a sticky situation (like stunning yourself with the stun bomb), and when you're at a safe distance you just cancel retreat and get back into the fight with a quick +3 speed boost.

Terminators/Paladins again are units with lots of pros going for them and little cons to balance it out. Not only are they superior melee squads but their side-arms give them a ranged advantage over most other units as well and prevent kiting. The extended cooldown of 5 minutes for their retreat means they can only casually base-rape/overextend once every five minutes now, when that should never be possible without serious risk.

Brocap in itself isn't overperforming but his halberd/aegis/teleport combo is, not only is he super-tanky and threatening to all infantry, there's no avoiding him with that teleport. The Force Commander at least is relatively squishy(!) compared to the Brocap, and can be suppressed. There's a reason why the Chaos Lord and the Hive Tyrant can't teleport. Even a Charge ability like the Hive Tyrant's gives you a chance to put on some serious ranged damage as he approaches, and can be blocked with terrain or intervening units.

To balance Operatives, I would reduce their damage in exchange for more health, and take away the option to cancel retreat. The smokebomb they drop when retreating would make more sense as an active ability. To help GK out with counter-initiating melee, I'd make the Warrior Acolytes a squad of their own (they look really out of place as an upgrade of IST). I'm pretty sure most people would love to have these guys as a melee squad anyway, I know I would.

Terminators/Palas I think should lose their Teleport and be able to retreat normally. Maybe they could have the Brocap's WaTH so they can always buff their speed a bit. Brocap should lose his Teleport as well.

I'm really excited to see GK become more unique compared to SM and I think the design team is doing a great job transitioning them to something new.

He is the slowest and definitely not the tankiest commander in game that gets really dangerous with a halberd, ofc he would be useless leading a charge without teleporter.

Who would you argue is the tankiest commander in the game then? Brocap with Blessed Aegis has 1200 health and 4hp/sec health regeneration at level 1. Compare that with Hive Tyrant with Extended Carapace, who gets 1280 health but only 0.5hp/sec health regen. Not only that, the Brocap is size Small while the Tyrant is size Medium, meaning heavy weapons have a significantly better chance of hitting the Tyrant than the Brocap. I'd say if the Brocap hasn't got the advantage here than at least it's equal.

[Cyris]

I agree with most of your points hiveminion, 2 notes (all from 1v1 perspective):

Ops in their current state are nearly mandatory in T1 against melee builds (especially if your enemy transitions into heavier melee in T2), which will run riot over you if you don't respond properly. Any nerfs to Ops need to coincidence with something to re-fill the anti-melee hole - perhaps the Warrior Acolytes! I agree that Ops are too strong in T1 for cost, but if nerfed without other changes, GK's 1v1 viability will be back in the basement. Interestingly enough, I still often avoid builg fallback plan most games - the stun nade dealing friendly fire makes it real hard to use against charging melee, kiting reduces the need for the retreat break, and I'd rather save the power for other upgrades.

Who would you argue is the tankiest commander in the game then? Brocap with Blessed Aegis has 1200 health and 4hp/sec health regeneration at level 1. Compare that with Hive Tyrant with Extended Carapace, who gets 1280 health but only 0.5hp/sec health regen. Not only that, the Brocap is size Small while the Tyrant is size Medium, meaning heavy weapons have a significantly better chance of hitting the Tyrant than the Brocap. I'd say if the Brocap hasn't got the advantage here than at least it's equal.

HT is tankier, as is WB and CL. In straight tanky commander vs tanky commander, BC does actually lose out against them. This isn't a problem though, cause the BC is generally better at terrorizing infantry or protecting your troops from melee then hunting enemy melee commanders - AND his best wargears are surprisingly cheap.

In any case, I think the Agies is fine. Compare Agies to the HT's Warp Field instead. For basically the same price, Warp gives functionally 500 health, and 5 health bonus regen per second while the shield is down. This compares pretty favorably to the Agies. The Teleporter is where I think things go over the top, and the Halberd I could see nerfing. But he's also got a lot of wargears that could badly use buffs. He reminds me of TM when artificers was 5 hp/s and Bionics was none. Yes, in theory Bionics was decent in a couple of situations, but it was artificers or bust 95% of the time. BC (like the GK roster as a whole) needs some of his over-preforming things nerfed, and his under preforming options brought into relevancy.

[saltychipmunk]

well they did remove two units from the gk line up and replace them with one unit (in t1). you could have predicted as soon as the ops were mentioned way back when that they would either be hilariously op or a total flop. No way anyone would get the balance of such a unit right on the first try. not with so many shoes to fill anyway.

i never quite understood why retreat was added to the terminators , yes they were very easy to trap but the same can be said of any terminator squad. the problem was never the lack of retreat , but (to me anyway) the fact that was barely a choice in the matter when it came to unit selection.

gk t3 was basically: buy a terminator , buy a terminator or wait and buy a land raider. a t3 line up so unbelievably one dimensional that of-course gk would be seeing problems. the other team pretty much knew from the word go what the gk t3 game would look like and could build for it.

[Cyris]

well they did remove two units from the gk line up and replace them with one unit (in t1).

TBH, it feels more like they lost 2.5 to 3 units; Rhino is nearly worthless in T1. The only decent way I've found to use it is to buy it right before going T2 for a transitional attack. But it's not a T1 unit in the sense that I field it and use it to control the map in T1. The one time I've found it to be good in T1 was against a nid who went full melee (tripple horma into Warriors) since there was literally no ranged fire to force it off. With it's large size (increased incomming ranged damage), low health pool, rear armor hits, worse pathing/speed/turn radius then sent, low damage and lack of repair bonuses it is high risk low reward to use against any army with more then 1 ranged squad. And it costs 30 power.

[531st]

Operatives I think are too much rolled into one, and their dps is too high. That isn't justifiable by arguing GK need it as a melee deterrent, that damage combined with infiltrate works on set-up teams and other stuff as well (generators!). Then you've got your stun bomb to block ranged retaliation or incoming melee stuff. Then you can retreat out of a sticky situation (like stunning yourself with the stun bomb), and when you're at a safe distance you just cancel retreat and get back into the fight with a quick +3 speed boost.

U were the one using triple ops all teh time Spamming them really seems for me like an abuse tactics and yea, too much rolled into one.

Terminators/Paladins again are units with lots of pros going for them and little cons to balance it out. Not only are they superior melee squads but their side-arms give them a ranged advantage over most other units as well and prevent kiting. The extended cooldown of 5 minutes for their retreat means they can only casually base-rape/overextend once every five minutes now, when that should never be possible without serious risk.

But it kinda is. Wraithguard, nobz, vehicle rushers can roll into base and run away, also nuking bases etc. Thats why bases have damage resist aura

Brocap in itself isn't overperforming but his halberd/aegis/teleport combo is, not only is he super-tanky and threatening to all infantry, there's no avoiding him with that teleport. The Force Commander at least is relatively squishy(!) compared to the Brocap, and can be suppressed. There's a reason why the Chaos Lord and the Hive Tyrant can't teleport. Even a Charge ability like the Hive Tyrant's gives you a chance to put on some serious ranged damage as he approaches, and can be blocked with terrain or intervening units.

Yea, there is a perfectly good reason. Only obliterators can teleport for chaos and no teleporting for nids lorewise. Actually even terminators have a teleporter beacons, not personal teleporters. Teleporters are kinda GK feature (and warp spiders' i guess) since they have tons of troops with teleporters

To balance Operatives, I would reduce their damage in exchange for more health, and take away the option to cancel retreat. The smokebomb they drop when retreating would make more sense as an active ability. To help GK out with counter-initiating melee, I'd make the Warrior Acolytes a squad of their own (they look really out of place as an upgrade of IST). I'm pretty sure most people would love to have these guys as a melee squad anyway, I know I would.

Could be nice, I'd also say that no1 needs extra squad that doesnt perform too good in t2 onwards and why not make them an upgreade for IST that gives shotguns+HP+speed+flashbang (though, i'd say shotgun blast would've been more useful . And i dunno about infiltrate. Do they really need it?) and allow to switch weapons. They are the agents of one of the most well supplied organisations of the imperium after all.

Terminators/Palas I think should lose their Teleport and be able to retreat normally. Maybe they could have the Brocap's WaTH so they can always buff their speed a bit. Brocap should lose his Teleport as well.

I like that idea. Though GK are the only ones who could have terminators with personal teleporters AFAIR but at least it would make them different from SM/CSM termies. But i'd leave the teleport for paladins since they are GK's "superunit" and the only ones who can take a full squad of personal teleporters. Also make BC also with speed 5

Who would you argue is the tankiest commander in the game then? Brocap with Blessed Aegis has 1200 health and 4hp/sec health regeneration at level 1. Compare that with Hive Tyrant with Extended Carapace, who gets 1280 health but only 0.5hp/sec health regen. Not only that, the Brocap is size Small while the Tyrant is size Medium, meaning heavy weapons have a significantly better chance of hitting the Tyrant than the Brocap. I'd say if the Brocap hasn't got the advantage here than at least it's equal.

4hp/sec is a single guardsman worth of DPS, not really relevant, so i'd say 1280hp tyrant is tankier. Yet unlike BC tyrant can protect himself by disruption from charge, scything talons etc while BC if gets swarmed better retreat or dies slow and painful death with his 4 speed. And every single force field commander is tankier i'd say since its like extra 500hp at lvl 1 with 5hp per second for energy regen. No1 wants to fly around and get shot cuz he attacked FC, Tyrant, CL, WB, PC and got crowd controlled to death while BC have no self protection except super unreliable not massive purified blades and super expensive and not so useful t2 daemonhammer. So BC is the least tankiest of tanky commanders i'd say. Even worse than horrible TFC cuz he still has his battlecry with meh powerfist specials.
Who is THE tankiest commander? CL. Claws with energy regen armor and Dark Halo are extremely tanky. If he gets attacked by low model squads like asm or smth, he just eats them with field up. If he gets swarmed by squishy stuff like shees or sluggas, he has cheap destructive strike and kill the weak, which will deal massive damage to swarming squads twice and heal CL once after that he can just put field back up and slaughter everything else. If combined with his awesome khorne worship that gives more speed than improved WaTH, he is just godlike tank

[hiveminion]

Interestingly enough, I still often avoid builg fallback plan most games - the stun nade dealing friendly fire makes it real hard to use against charging melee, kiting reduces the need for the retreat break, and I'd rather save the power for other upgrades.

But with the fallback plan, you can drop the stun grenade at your feet, retreat out of it, then cancel retreat to shoot up the stunned squad. But I agree the dps of the squad alone is enough to make them viable, and I also agree as long as there is no alternative squad like Warrior Acolytes Operatives have to be ridiculously good at what they do.

HT is tankier, as is WB and CL. In straight tanky commander vs tanky commander, BC does actually lose out against them.

WB isn't tankier, he has higher dps. I'm not sure how the Chaos Lord wins with equal hp and lower dps. Don't forget the Brocap can use WaTH for 15% damage reduction, that might tip the balance in some of these fights.
Then T2 onwards the size classes are really starting to matter with melta, missile and other heavy weapon classes getting greatly improved accuracy versus HT, WB and CL. That is a really big deal considering how much damage they can do in even a single hit.


The problem with shields is obviously that energy is also used for abilities so that mitigates their added 'health'. You can't discount additional health regen as tanky melee commanders spend a lot of time tying up ranged squads (receiving melee resistance as they do so) and chasing kiters. Of course going up against dedicated melee squads disruption becomes more important, so that is one thing the HT, WB and CL actually do much better than the Brocap (in T1, T2 comes the Halberd so you don't have to care about disruption anymore).

There are all kinds of reasoning that can go to defining how tanky a commander is, and I won't argue the Brocap is always the most tanky (as it's not true). But not even considering him as a top contender I think is equally mistaken.

[saltychipmunk]

well it is not just tankness that should be what we look at , but how well each does at being a thorn in side of a ranged army.

the hive tyrant is technically a wall of meat, but he has no ranged component so one can kite him to the end of time and he is particularly vulnerable to set up traps wit his size.

the cl can get that ridiculous combi which in t1 can be far more dangerous than his melee damage

and the warboss gets angry bits .. nuff said.

as for the bro cap the big thing that makes him so annoying is that he gets a wall of meat AND he gets that damage reduction / movement speed
which can enable him to effectively walk through a setup team or ranged blob and tie things up for a good period of time.


the other heros on the list can do that too, but they have many more caveats that can be exploited

[MaxPower]

HT not having ranged component, what about the venom cannon?

[saltychipmunk]

has a minimum range on it doesn't it? ... plus it is a venom cannon , i usually melee venom hts at that point in the game

[Odysseus]

Well, I didn't expect my topic to actually ''blow-up'' like this, especially since it was my first ''official'' post haha. Anyway, just thought I'd say that. Keep at it lads.

[DarthMoose]

GK is just a hornets nest when it come to balance, but hey, look at all that feedback. Hell, even I learned a lot, and my teachers swore I was impossible to teach. So thank you.