Getting rid of 70k TRRCs

[mattgslater]

OK,

I hate the impact that 70k TRRs have on game balance, so I want to balance CDs and the various Undead rosters out at 60k TRRs. I'm using my Options rules, where one or two players are replaced with "options" that could the the removed players or others as an alternative.

So here's my plan:

Necro: Using the 5.0 with 110k FGs, knocking 10k off the TRR price does about the same thing as the price cut on FGs: it makes FGs affordable. To me this is the easy one.

Undead, Khemri: 40k Skels without Thick Skull allows 10k TRRs. This is a little good for Undead and a little bad for Khemri, which makes me less uneasy about 4 Mummies (I won't go to TGs: I have a conceptual problem with ST5 and no damage skills).

Chaos Dwarfs: This one is harder. I'm considering dropping the BCs to 0-1, and making both a BC and a Mino available as options. What kind of effect would this have?

[TeamTræls]

What about Ogres, Vampires and (most importantly ) Nurgle?

[Smeborg]

Well, it seems that TRR costs are converging anyway in 6th Ed., since we no longer have TRRs below 50,000 or above 70,000. So maybe the game designers' opinion and yours are not a million miles apart.

I feel that the impact of TRR cost is more obvious in tournaments, although it is still there in leagues, especially for starting teams.

The Chaos Dwarfs are a good example. When the TRR cost was increased from 50,000 to 70,000 (some time ago) this had a drastic impact on tournaments (3 re-rolls now cost more than 4 used to).

If you say that a team needs a 3 or 4 re-rolls to be effective (such is my rule of thumb) this means that an increased cost of 20,000 per re-roll equates to an increase in TV of 6 or 8.

CD re-roll cost increase = +6TV or +8TV
Amazon re-roll cost increase = +3TV or +4TV
Dwarf re-roll cost increase = +3TV or +4TV

Compare this with:

Mummies go up by 10,000 = +2TV
Flesh Golems go down by 20,000 = -2TV
Rat Ogre goes up by 10,000 = +1TV

Personally, I think the CD re-roll cost increase was overdone (I freely admit to bias - I play CDs). But I suggest the overcooking of the change is borne out by the above numbers. A TRR cost of 60,000 would have been enough.

Hope this helps.

[DoubleSkulls]

Having been involved in those changes, IIRC, we weren't conciously trying to make TRRs consistently priced - its just pricing TRRs is a simple balancing mechanism.

With regard to CDs I think the 70k TRR had exactly the desired impact. They went from the top team, to solid tier 1.

Undead - 10k per TRR? I'd look at upping the cost of the wights and mummies by 10k to compensate. These are pretty much mandatory for the team so would have a similar impact. Also undead could probably afford the slight downward push anyway.

Khemri - without knowing which roster you are basing this off I can't say.

CDs - make the bulls 10k more.

Vamps - up vampire cost 10k

Ogres - make ogres 10k more

Nurge - 10k on pestigors?

[mattgslater]

We've never had a Nurgle coach, and our house rules take Vamps out of the picture. I'm not worried about Ogres.

CDs: I can't see how to increase the price of the Bull credibly, and besides, that still wouldn't be sufficient. Is going to 0-1 BC and making the other one a trade-off for the Mino too much? Not enough? Otherwise, I'll just keep them at 70k.

For Undead, I think the 30k boost they get is the same one that LRB5 gives them with 30k Skels instead of 40k. I like the little boost to Necro: it's essentially 30k on a team that feels like 97% of a credible BB roster.

Using LRB5 Khemri (Mummies), so I'm betting that the extra 10k on skels is more bad than the 10k off TRRs is good. I'm trying to play off of the fact that Khemri are a lino-intensive roster, as their positionals are generally expensive and the cheaper ones are overpriced. Khemri also get no mileage in my Options rules, as the Option would replace 1-2 Mummies so that nobody would bother.

Am I right in my objective with the undeady teams? From 5.0, Undead should stay the same, Necro should get a little boost, Khemri should get a little nerf? Does this plan (60k RR/40k Skel) solve all three?

[DoubleSkulls]

The problem I have with that approach is that we've already put a similar nerf on undead without dropping the RR price to keep them balanced. So I'd want to go further in terms of price hikes than the 2008 experimental rules do. So you are balancing against something I don't think is balanced in the first place!

[Jural]

I think if I were messing with re-rolls, I'd always allow the first two or three to be purchased at list cost, no matter when. This allows teams to try life without many re-rolls without being decimated.

[mattgslater]

If you did that, you'd have to nerf the Wardancer. But yeah, I could see it. That would be very good for Orcs and Norse, too.