May 4, 2024
Hi everyone,
Today we're launching our first quarterly update of the year, with v3.2.0!
This patch is not a huge game overhaul, but rather a ton of tweaking for better balance and more interesting gameplay. There are many tiny changes that you can read about later, but first I want to focus on explaining a few of the most important things that come with this patch.
This is a topic we touched upon when releasing 3rd edition, and finally balance validation has been fully implemented in Army Forge.
What is Balance Validation (also referred to as BalVal)?
In order to make sure that individual units are not too overpowered, we use a simple system of comparing how many potential wounds a unit can deal vs how many wounds the unit can take. By tweaking the ratio between those, we can set a limit to how much damage each unit can cause per game, which helps keep things fair.
We're not going to get into too many details here, but if you want to know more, there is a dedicated section in Army Forge Studio explaining this ratio.
Anyways, when designing the army lists for 3rd edition, we already tried to make as many units as possible follow those guidelines, but without an automated system to validate that, there are some units we missed. Today all those units are being updated to fit Balance Validation, and the system is being rolled out to all custom books too.
This means that from now on, when you look through community armies on Army Forge, you will see a little "balanced" and "not balanced" symbol, helping you understand which armies are truly compatible with each other. Don't feel limited though, armies marked as "not balanced" are still great fun to play with, but OPR simply can't guarantee that they won't have wildly unbalanced units.
If you're a creator who has custom armies on Army Forge, we strongly encourage you to check if your armies pass Balance Validation, and if not adapt them as needed in order to make them valid. This will ensure that more players feel safe in giving your army a try.
There are a few general rules updates that we want to touch on specifically, to give you a better idea to why things are changing.
First, we've added a new page to the terrain section to the Beginner's Guide, giving guidelines on how to select terrain and prepare your table. We noticed that many players seem to be a bit insecure about setting the table up correctly for their first games, so we wanted to offer some help.
Then for skirmish games, we have changed the Routing rules a little. Stunned units auto-rout as usual, but units that are still standing and fail a morale test are not going to flee anymore, but will only be Stunned instead. This will make sure that they will be on the table a bit longer, hopefully holding their objective. We know that for some players the Routing rules seem quite unforgiving, so we toned them down a little.
We also updated a couple of special rules that were a bit unclear. We changed how Impact is worded to be more explicit about its intended effect, and we added a new special rule called Limited, which is used for weapons that can only be fired once per game. Poison and Rending were updated to ignore regeneration completely (instead of giving just -1 to regeneration), making them a little more useful. Stealth and Entrenched were also modified, giving them a better protection range of 9" now.
Finally, we updated all Debuff spells by giving them +6" range, making them a little more useful.
Whilst many factions have received some minor tweaks, with the new Balance Validation process and some of the special rule changes mentioned above, we decided to re-visit a couple of factions in particular.
Armies where all models have Regeneration have been a huge point of debate for a long time. Today we're going to try something new with them, slightly changing how they work. Generally speaking, all factions where all models had Regeneration (ignore wounds on 5+) now have a custom army rule that ignores wounds on 6+ (but isn't Regeneration, and so can't be ignored by Poison and Rending). This means that those armies are now a little easier to take down, but have an unignorable save.
Here we re-visited 2 armies in particular.
Robot Legions have the Self-Repair rule now, which ignores wounds on 6+. To keep some of that robotic restoration feel, rules that used to give +1 to Regeneration now simply give Regeneration instead. Vehicles now also come with the Self-Repair rule, instead of having to be upgraded with Repair Bots. We also wanted to address the lack of variety in unit profiles, so a few units now have Quality 4+ instead of 3+, and some have Defense 4+ instead of 3+.
Ghostly Undead have had similar changes. Ethereal now ignores wounds on 6+, and Spell Eater ignores wounds on 2+. Considering that the whole army had Defense 6+, these new changes made them very vulnerable, so now a few units have Defense 5+, or can upgrade to have Defense 5+, a few units can upgrade with Spell Eater, and vehicles now all have Defense 4+.
Besides those, we did some minor changes based on our minis releases. Vampiric Undead heroes have now been separated into different profiles, to better reflect the difference between Skeleton heroes and Drained heroes. High Elf Fleets also received a major re-naming change, with most units and many weapons having new names that fit better into the OPR lore. Shadow Stalkers have also received some name changes, and a few new units.
Alright, enough waffling about, here's the full patch notes for you:
- General fixes to grammar, typos, etc.
- Added a new page to the rulebooks explaining terrain placement
- In skirmish games, non-Stunned units that fail a Rout test are Stunned (instead of Routing)
- Clarified that Casters can only pick spells from their own faction
- Added new special rule: Limited (weapon may only be used once)
- Impact was clarified to not be an attack, and not be usable when fatigued
- Poison/Rending wounds can't be regenerated anymore (instead of -1 to regeneration)
- Rending cost error corrected (now correctly scales with unit quality)
- Entrenched/Stealth have a better protection range of 9" now
- All Debuff spells now have +6" range to make them more useful
- For Regiments, Counter now only provides -1 Impact in the front facing
- For Campaign Rules, Bitter Rivalry now gives +1 to hit against enemy Heroes
- Balance Validation Updates: Veteran Warrior, Carnivo-Rex, Psycho-Rex, Mortar Beast, Hive Tyrant
- Venom Floaters can now be upgraded with Shrouding Mist or Poison Mist
- Balance Validation: Heavy Exo-Suit
- Attack Speeder now has Impact(3)
- Balance Validation: Dark Brother Bikers, Light Dark Gunship
- Balance Validation: Deathstar Gunship
- Balance Validation: Organ Tank, Blessed Titan
- Assault Walker now has Scout
- Support Walker now has Protected
- Sacred Altar can now be upgraded with an Angelic High Sister
- Balance Validation: Tide Titan
- Hover Attack Bike now has Impact(3)
- Balance Validation: Hoverboard Riders, Jetbike Riders, Leech Engine
- Heavy Jetbike now has Impact(3)
- Balance Validation: Powersuit Champion, Powersuit Guard
- Added Pioneer Bike option for heroes
- Berserker Lord Dual Axes now have AP(1)
- Elites now have options for Axes and Hammers and re-worked weapon stats
- Magma now deals additional wounds for each unmodified defense of 1
- Balance Validation: Jetbikes, Heavy Jetbike
- Heavy Jetbike now has Impact(3)
- Balance Validation: Dragon Bike
- Fixed missing Pistol + Hook Sword option for heroes
- Dragon Bike now has Impact(3)
- Dynasty APC lost its incorrect Heavy Flamer
- Ninja Walker now has Tough(9)
- All units now have Putrid (ignore wounds on 6+) instead of Regeneration
- Blessing of Plague now gives Regeneration
- Balance Validation: Protectors, Heavy Jetbike
- Re-named most units and weapons
- Balance Validation: Anti-Gravity APC
- Re-worded Seer Council to be clearer
- Scorpion weapons have been re-named, now have Poison, and the Stinger Sword has Blast(3) + Reliable
- Heavy Jetbike now has Impact(3)
- Balance Validation: OGRE Squad, Light APC, Armored Truck, Attack Vehicle, Battle Tank, Light Walker
- Infantry can now take two options from Radio/Banner/Medic
- Balance Validation: Light APC
- Balance Validation: Infected Vultures
- Balance Validation: High Priest, Destroyer Cyborgs, Combat Robot
- P-Machineguns now have A2
- Crawler Tank lost Fast
- Balance Validation: Orc Bikers, Orc Mini-Copters, Goblin Artillery, Brutal & Cunning Titan
- Increased transport capacity of Brutal & Cunning Titan
- Balance Validation: Aggro Squad
- Reduced melee attacks of Eradication Squad, Heavy Prime Brothers, Jetpack Squad
- Assault Squads can now take Jetpacks (Ambush + Flying)
- Balance Validation: Terror Beast
- Balance Validation: Assault Vehicle
- Sniper now have Hunter instead of just Ambush
- All units now have Self-Repair (ignore wounds on 6+) instead of Regeneration
- Vehicle now come with Self-Repair instead of having to upgrade with Repair Bots
- Special rules that used to give +1 to Regeneration now give Regeneration instead
- Reduced Warriors, Snipers, Robot Snakes, Forge Spider, and Hover Bikes to Quality 4+
- Reduced Flesh-Eaters, Snipers, and Hover Bikes to Defense 4+
- Increased range of Toxin Guns to 18"
- Deinonychus now have Bounding instead of Fast, have Impact(1), and weapons were re-worked
- Reduced melee attacks of Gecko Snipers to A1
- Spiked Lizard now has Heavy Shield and Defense 3+
- Balance Validation: Light APC, Battle Tank
- Re-worked stats for most melee weapons to be more interesting
- All units now have Putrid (ignore wounds on 6+) instead of Regeneration
- Blessing of Plague now gives Regeneration
- Balance Validation: Vita Aerea
- Berserker Lord Dual Axes now have AP(1)
- Balance Validation: Paladins, Drake-Lion Paladins
- Added new hero upgrade Warden (unit gets Regeneration)
- Ethereal now ignores wounds on 6+
- Spell eater now ignores wounds from spells on 2+
- Some units now have the option to take Heavy Armor (Defense +1)
- More units now have the option to take Spell Eater
- Mourner Banshees now have Spell Eater by default
- Ghost Reapers + Ghost Revenants now have Defense 5+
- Funeral Coach + Ghost Chariot now have Defense 4+
- Ghost Chariot now has Spell Eater instead of Regeneration
- Assassins now have Poison + Stealth + Nasty, but must pick either Surprise Attack or Takedown
- Fanatics don't have Tough(3) anymore, and Destructive hits on 4+
- Balance Validation: Harbinger of Havoc
- All units now have Putrid (ignore wounds on 6+) instead of Regeneration
- Blessing of Plague now gives Regeneration
- Re-worded Mage Council to be clearer
- All units now have Angelic Ward (ignore wounds on 6+) instead of Regeneration
- Balance Validation: Devourers
- Balance Validation: Wild Orcs
- Added new unit and hero mount: Giant Boar
- Brute Orcs can now take Wrecking Flails
- All units now have Putrid (ignore wounds on 6+) instead of Regeneration
- Blessing of Plague now gives Regeneration
- Cerberus and Hounds Spiked Collars now have Pierce (intead of Impact)
- Re-named Undead to Shadowborn
- Re-named Scarecrows to Scourges
- Ethereal now ignores wounds on 6+
- Added new units: Butcher Champion, Tormentors, Great Scorpion Fiend
- Added new weapon options for Butchers
- Deinonychus now have Bounding instead of Fast
- Balance Validation: Balloon Master, Sky-Gunboat, Sky-Frigate, Sky-Ironclad
- Added new hero: Werewolf Champion
- Re-worked Skeleton Champion and Drained Leader separating upgrades
- Corpse Master now has Fear(2) instead of Caster(1)
- Ghoul Champion now has Magic Attuned (Caster(1)) instead of Necromancer
- Skeleton Champion now has Army Standard Bearer (instead of Vampire Master)
- Ghoul units now have Strider
That's it for today. If you want to give feedback please join our Discord, and leave your comments in the "balance-feedback" section. Thank you all for your support, I hope this patch is a great start into your 2024 journey with OPR games!
Happy Wargaming!
– OPR Team
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