Too many weaponsmiths spoil the...pot?

[Bean]

So, quite a few of us have seen the new Grey Knight codex, and quite a few of us have been struck by the potential efficacy of the Inquisitorial Henchmen unit--specifically, the Jokaero Weaponsmith. In addition to toting a lascannon, a multi-melta, and a heavy flamer, the Jokaero gives its fellow henchmen an amusing random buff when it is deployed. As you add more Jokaero (and let's face it, you probably want as many lascannons coming out the top of that Chimaera as you can get, which means five) you get a bonus on the roll to determine which upgrade the squad gets--and at the top of the chart is a 'roll twice more, get both results' option. Sounds great, right? With five Jokaero and a +4 to your roll, you're practically guaranteed to get that six and get double results.

Unfortunately, it doesn't really work out this way. Once you're at five Jokaero, you only have a 42% chance of getting any upgrade at all, and the only upgrade you can possibly get is the 5+ invulnerable save--which is nice, but not the one you want.

The rule states, "Each time you roll, add +1 to the result for each Jokaero in the unit beyond the first."

So, when you roll with a +4, you have a 5/6 chance of getting a 6 and a 1/6 chance of getting a five. If you get the five, congratulations--that's the best you're going to get out of this ability. If you get a six, the rules say:

"Roll twice more on the table and apply both results. Each upgrade can be applied only once - ignore duplicate rolls (including duplicate rolls results of 6)."

So, you roll twice more. As per the earlier rule, each roll receives the bonus. So, again, each roll has a 1/6 chance of producing a total of 5 (and a result of a 5+ invulnerable save) and a 5/6 chance of producing a roll of 6, which is ignored as per the rules for the sixth result. No other result is possible.

If you play five Jokaero in a squad, you end up with three chances of to roll a 1 on a d6. If you get at least one 1, you get the 5+ invulnerable save. If you don't get any 1s, you get nothing. You can't get the upgraded armor, the range boost, or the rending.

So, if you hear someone talking about that henchman squad with five-foot, rending lascannons, don't worry: it's actually impossible for that squad to occur.

[Dominic]

The GW manager at our local store was under the impression that you didn't add any +1s for the roll of a 6, and the wording of the rules seemed to indicate that.

However, I'm on the fence atm, I don't plan to use this, so I'm not all for the cheese, however, I have a nasty little all termi list planned, so if I'm met with cheese, fair does :D

[Drew da Destroya]

It's actually a bit of a nice balancing factor that they threw in there... it looks a lot like an awesome buff... but then you realize that if you overuse the one ability (weapon-rings), you lose out on the other cool ability (free upgrades!). So you can go for one or the other, but can't effectively get both.

[Bean]

Dominic:

I can kinda see where you're coming from, but I think that the word "Each" in the phrase "Each time you roll, add +1..." means that the bonus applies to the "6" rolls.

[LittleBird]

I talked to the playtesters when I saw this in the codex. They said that Matt Ward told them it was intentionally added to balance the squad. Run too many Jokaeros and they don't get their special bonuses anymore.

[Bean]

Interesting. It seems an odd way to do it, but it definitely does have that effect.

[DarkLink]

I talked to the playtesters when I saw this in the codex. They said that Matt Ward told them it was intentionally added to balance the squad. Run too many Jokaeros and they don't get their special bonuses anymore.

Yeah, because IG Heavy Weapon teams are soooo broken:rolleyes:

[Bean]

Ig Lascannon teams can't buy chimaeras or 15 point buffer wounds with 3+ invulnerable saves and power weapons. (Crusaders, by the way, are a pretty solid buy).

Anyway, I'm not all that concerned with whether they're fair, I just figured I'd point out a funny consequence of the way the rule's written.

[Lemt]

IG Heavy weapons can't choose what weapon they fire either.

[thecactusman17]

I'vd been thinking that this is probably how it was supposed to work. If you look, there is really only one augmentation that is really lost here--the rending bonus, which would have been downright ridiculous on a flamer. So even afterwards, you will have 5 heavy flamers firing out of a single hatch (woohoo! 50 3+ wounds on marines!), or 5 lascannons and 6 S5/6 shots coming from each chimera, each turn.

You know what? It is probably the ONLY balancing part of that squad design, after the WS1 and 5+ save. But nobody expected these to survive a turn of CC anyway.

[DarkLink]

5 BS3 lascannon shots for ~200pts really isn't all that scary. It's nice, but not scary. Jokaero are useful and kinda flexible, but that is far from making them broken.

[Bean]

5 BS3 lascannon shots for ~200pts really isn't all that scary. It's nice, but not scary. Jokaero are useful and kinda flexible, but that is far from making them broken.

True. None-the-less...

[weeble1000]

I talked to the playtesters when I saw this in the codex. They said that Matt Ward told them it was intentionally added to balance the squad. Run too many Jokaeros and they don't get their special bonuses anymore.

That is a really weird, awkward, and frustrating way to "balance" the squad. It's just poor/sloppy rule design. Not surprising coming from Ward though.

[Lemt]

That is a really weird, awkward, and frustrating way to "balance" the squad. It's just poor/sloppy rule design. Not surprising coming from Ward though.

Well I think it's good design.:p

[Bean]

I think that if they'd really wanted to tone down the Jokaero, they could have done it better. I mean, putting a cap on the number you could bring would have been better, I think.

[weeble1000]

If you have to "discover" what limits the unit based on a mathematical quirk involving chart roll bonuses, the rule isn't very good.

At the very least it isn't clean or precise. A bonus is good, right? That's what we're usually led to believe. Multiple models gives a bonus to the roll and if you roll a 6 you get two special abilities! So we want a higher bonus...but no...you don't want a higher bonus because it actually makes it impossible to get more than one special rule even though you got a 6 and can roll more than once.

You're left thinking, "Is that right?" It's sloppy because it doesn't seem deliberate, thus causing confusion. It's frustrating because the unit gives you a random chart roll, but taking more models eliminates an ability that you are ostensibly paying for with each model. It's weird because there's plenty of other ways to write a rule that achieves the same result and plenty of other ways to balance the unit.

This is the kind of thing that shouldn't have made it through editing and play testing. The book isn't even out yet and folks are scratching their heads about it. At the very least it'll require a FAQ from Games Workshop.

[Bean]

Agreed, though I don't really think it needs an FAQ. It's poorly written, but there isn't really any question about how it ends up working.

[Tynskel]

wait, I do not believe it is poorly written at all.

The fact that you there's a limit and you have to calculate it is no different than anything else in 40k. There are diminishing returns from every unit in the game.