Bleeder Rule

[Raoul]

Just stumbled over something that was mentioned days before:

(03-19-2013 11:16 PM)Skylifter Wrote:  Did I mention he has MEL 8 and can give himself an additional +1 MEL and +1 POW on charges for a total of MEL 10, POW 7 with Bleeder? He can hit her on 6's with Levitate on and will kill her with a single blow on average dice. He then gains an action token and can move 4 inches to engage something else and kill again.

I take it with the 4 inches you mean a movement allowed by the Bleeder's weapon ability (and not just moving with the gained ACT), right?
In this case, this is a misunderstanding of what is meant by "friendly living model/unit within LEAD range of the bearer".

The Bleeder allows only other friendly models to make a movement, not the bearer itself!

Guess this can be confusing, as unit tactics work on other friendly models and on the bearer as well, but this is due to the special quality of unit tactics, RB, p. 54.


Actually, this does not belong in this thread, but being a reply to a post in this thread I just leave it like that.

[Khazrak]

(03-22-2013 03:57 PM)Raoul Wrote:  The Bleeder allows only other friendly models to make a movement, not the bearer itself!

Guess this can be confusing, as unit tactics work on other friendly models and on the bearer as well, but this is due to the special quality of unit tactics, RB, p. 54.

But then this should be mentioned separately in the rules, because otherwise the Gorelord fulfills all requirements mentioned in the Bleeder description for the model allowed to move after the kill.

[Skylifter]

Khazrak is right, that would indeed have to be mentioned specifically in the rules, since the Gorelord is a friendly model and is within his own LEAD range. The way the rule is written, he can be the model moved.

And to be honest, I would be disappointed if you errata'd that. It really doesn't hurt that much, and removing it would make the guy pretty useless, as he won't have enough models in his melee range at the outset to really work the way he seems to be meant to. If he has to spent tokens on movement, he'll max out at roughly 4 kills on really good rolls.

And I'm not saying this as a Banebrood player, I do not play them, but my most regular opponent does.

[André]

Ok, so I checked the whole issue pretty carefully and here´s how it turns out:

Currently it would be correct to assume that the Gorelord can benefit from that because he is indeed within his own LEAD range (in the rules we mention that each model is always within its own LEAD range) and he is a friendly model.

The issue with this is, that this was not intended, because the idea behind the Bleeder weapon is that other friendly models smell the blood of their enemies which draws themselves closer. Thus it would not make sense to allow the Gorelord extra movement. Besides that it was never tested like that because it was clear to all testplayers that it only affects other friendly models than the Gorelord himself.

So the final verdict on this: we need to write an errata saying that the Bleeder attack only allows ANOTHER living friendly model/unit to benefit from it.

@Skylifter: I do not think it will hurt at all because it will not at all make the Gorelord uselss. If so, he would always be useless except when taking the Bleeder weapon!

[Skylifter]

If you didn't playtest it that way, how can you know it would be overpowered to just keep it the way it is? In my experience to date, it is a very powerful option, but if you miss with a single attack, it stops working and isn't overpowered at all.

[daggins]

I don't think that it hurts as it is. We've played it like that a few times and it never felt broken.
Without the ability to move the Gorelord himself the Bleeder would cost to much points in my opinion. It would get very situation-dependent and therefore it wouldn't be competitive.

[André]

@skylifter & daggins: we have invested 3 years of playtesting in the game and in our experience small changes can cause lots of damage. so if we would change that rule to something that wasn´t playtested and something you feel would be fine to do, we cannot assure that it will be fine in future because it might cause additional problems or unforseen issues. if you think the bleeder weapon is too situational or too expensive, you are not forced to equip it! we will not spontaneously change a rule that was never playtested before.

[Skylifter]

Okay, the unforeseen future issues argument is something I can understand. So your current errata's changes (like removing the part about passive activations stopping you from charging) were not actually changes to the way you wrote the game, but corrections of things that were printed wrong in the first place?

[Raoul]

Indeed. Some wordings were just not as accurate as they should, or even a bit flawed (eg naming passive activations instead of just counterattacks).

The tunnel vision of the playtesting time - where everything was clear to the ones partaking - may have had a share in overlooking some of these things.

As far as I see, nothing "new" or un-tested was added or changed since the release.

[Till]

Well giving an Balescorch Cyclops or an Ursapine an additional 2 -3 movements so he can walk around a blocking unit and directly charge a character model with 3 Attacks does seem quite nice to me.