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| A wonderful balancing act. |
A guest editorial by Edwin on balance. -ed
Howdy everyone. Edwin here and I want to talk about something I try for in every game I play. Without this key element, games suck. They are really bad no matter what game you are playing. I am talking about balance. People often don’t want to play a game more than once if there isn’t some semblance of balance. Great games have been ruined by lack of balance. Players have to have a balance too or often people will not want to play them. Remember that balance is subjective. Today, I will talk about how I try to achieve balance and how I have utterly failed at it when it comes to trying to balance things out. For the record, I am trying to achieve a balanced list with Necrons. I settled on a list with a few flyers (no more than 3) and armor 13 wall.
Where I failed: I tried to balance things for all player types and not try to balance for groups of players. My list may not have been tough for a tournament, but it was a tough as nails list for any beer and pretzels style player.
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| Binding the hands. |
So in my first attempt to try and balance the army list I have been using, I have tried to bind what really makes the army nasty. All the combos that really pack a serious punch with the list are out. That means to try and avoid Stormlord with Eternity Cryptek, Spyders with Particle Casters and tons of Scarabs, or anything where allies can be abused. I ended up using one powerful combo.
I am using death marks in a Night Scythe with a Harbinger of Despair. After picking this unit, I decided I needed to have a few restrictions to use it. Max the unit size was a good start so the combo at least costs a good amount and no more than one Despair Cryptek. Other than that one unit, the rest of the army consists of solid choices, but nothing on the cheese levels that the codex can really do. Gotta try to keep out the gimmicks because while strong combinations are really powerful, nothing sucks more than losing because your opponent pulls am unforeseen trick out of their backside. I used to like such tricks and after I saw how bad they were for people, I steadily grew to dislike them. It soon began to cheapen wins and make ties infuriating for other players.
Where I failed: It wasn’t the powerful combo units that were cheese, it was how people were playing them. The other units I fielded were usually play more in a dickish manner than compared to my Combo unit.
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| Playing the Odds |
I wanted to build an army that played roughly the same no matter what happened. I wanted the odds to be in my favor for surviving against most weapons in the game. If your weapons worked against one half of the army, they wouldn’t be very effective against the rest of the army. Flyers are hard to hit, but once hit go down easy. The Ark vehicles were there to be easy to hit, but hard to take down. Everything infantry was protected by their mechanized counter parts. This leads to an army that was statistically accurate a lot of the time. Things generally worked out how they should. The army generally tried to balance itself inside a vacuum. Everything seemed to work with itself.
Where I failed: The concept worked a little too well. Most things needed six’s to hit the flyers and six’s to damage the Ark vehicles. Throw in cover saves and other factors and you could have an entire turn of shooting that does nothing which often makes people angry.
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| What to do? |
With the homage to Harry Houdini complete, I want to discuss the conclusion. Having realized that the list has tons of problems, I have decided to do something out of the box for me. I am trying to tweak the original list for play against people who only want to fight a tough as nails list. I am also going to build a list that is both themed and ready for play against most people who don’t want to play against a really tough list.It will be at the end of the article. The list is softer, easier to play against and hopefully won’t be that bad. It is a Footdar list without some of the things that make them awesome. Hopefully, with these two drastically different lists, I will be able to play a wide range of opponents in a fun and friendly manner.
Why I failed: I really hope I haven’t cause I really want to be a better person to play against.
1500 points
HQ
Farseer-doom, guide, fortune, warding/witness/spirit stones, singing spear
Troops
10 dire avengers-exarch with blade storm, defend, dire sword shurikan pistol
10 dire avengers-exarch with blade storm, defend, dire sword shurikan pistol
10 dire avengers-exarch with blade storm, defend, dire sword shurikan pistol
10 dire avengers-exarch with blade storm, defend, dire sword shurikan pistol
Fast attack
2 vypers- double shurikan cannons
2 vypers- double shurikan cannons
2 vypers- double shurikan cannons
Heavy support
Wraithlord-Wraithblade, bright lance
Wraithlord-Wraithblade, bright lance
What do you guys think about Edwin’s decision to switch great entirely? Do you like the new list? -ed