Topic: Army Book: Engineer

[kk14]

That's right. The Engineer thread is here.

This is what I am considering putting in the revised Army Book:

Engineer: 50 points, same as before.
-Add: Grenades special weapon (7 points)
When taking a Stand and shoot reaction, the Engineer may throw grenades instead of firing his weapon. He fires d6 shots, which are S4 AP. He still rolls to hit as normal. Note that the grenades are not a multi-shot weapon for the purposes of to hit rolls.
-Add: Telescopic Targeting Monocle (5 points)
The Engineer gets +1 to his to hit rolls with handheld blackpowder weapons.
-Add: Device of Magic Disruption (15 points) Enemy wizards within 15" of the Engineer, or casting spells whose effects are within 15" of the Engineer get -1 to their casting rolls, and -1 to their miscast rolls. They cannot be prevented from miscasting.
-Add: Special Rule: If there is an Engineer in your army, one mortar may be taken as a Core choice.
-Add: Special Rule: Minimize damage. War machines joined by the Engineer get +1 to their misfire rolls. If a 7 is rolled, it counts as a 6. If a 2 is rolled, then remove a crewmember from the war machine's crew

[Fandir Nightshade]

Still not very attractive.

If you look at other hero choices you pick them for

leadership,

close combat potential

magical potential

for 50 points you have a model that deals a single range attack each turn or improves a war machine. But sucks in every other department, no armour, no close combat potential and the -1 to casting also does little to prevent enemy magic. (except vampires would be fun to field three engineers against nehek spam). Also he isn´t allowed to take magical items that furter diminish his powers.

[kk14]

Hum. I think he is much more attractive. Perhaps overpowered.

What would make him attractive?

[Fandir Nightshade]

Either make him a support character

like all handguns get +1 to hit

make him better against magic

dispel dice and perhaps options to dispel scrolls

make him a close combat dude

mechanical horse and something like a primitive power suit

make him the only option to get a steam tank

Engineer can mount a stank for 250 points

[kk14]

Hmmm. I like the stank mount idea.
Keep in mind that the above keeps all the old engineer abilities and possibilities, including *grumble* the darn robo-horse.
I think a universal rule is OTT.  I was considering ALL warmachines get the re-roll arty dice, but that was just too much, IMO.

Perhaps add a Null Magic Device? (25 points, works like a dispel scroll).

[Fandir Nightshade]

Well not bad. But if you compare him to the mage choice you get +1 BS and the option to well nothing any core champion or outrider champion can take (outrider champ even the same bs) the mage costs 15 points more and adds a dispel dice, power dice and the option to magic items (so about the same stuff) with the steam tank mount there is some use for the engineer (he even looses the advantages of his engineer skills as he can´t join a warmachine crew any more....well unless the stank suddenly counts as ridden monster).

[der Hurenwiebel]

exactly my arguement for an independant "engineers gadget" magic items list.  Not actually magic but with magic item like game effects. 

Also I really like the idea of at least journeymen engineers as warmachine upgrades and unit buffing skills, besides the old standard regular master engineers.   The journeymen would fit in the army comp structure about the same way DE assasins do not really characters and not really troops and you can only take so many of them if at all.  Maybe tie them to the master engineers, you'd have to take at least one character engineer in order to take any journeymen and then a limit of how many per character engineer.

[kk14]

Journeymen I like.

Simply another crewmember, with all the same stats, but allows a reroll of arty or scatter die.  Cannot use this ability in two consecutive turns, and this ability cannot be used on Rare artillery.
Armed with a brace of pistols.

You cannot have more journeymen than engineers in the army.
+25 points for special slot warmachines.

For the Engineer: Would he become more attractive if he could allow re-rolls for rare artillery as well?

[der Hurenwiebel]

hmm I was thinking more along the lines of 2 journeymen to each engineer, and yeah I would agree giving the engineer the ability to re roll rare warmachines would make them much more useful.     

[Warlord]

Some great ideas in this thread already! Very good.

I need to mull over these new thoughts, as well as older and more established ones. I will be back next week with an opinion.

[kk14]

Journeymen do get awfully close to dwarves' engineers, however. We need to find a way to make them quintessentially different.

On: +1 to misfire rolls. Instead of 'lose a crewmember' it will be 'takes d3 wounds, distributed like shooting'

Stank Mount:
+300 points, uses a rare slot. Engineer can still take all equipment upgrades, and can move and shoot with any ranged weapon while not in combat. (While in combat, he hides in the machine). He nonetheless suffers the usual -1 penalty for moving and shooting.

[Dezzo]

Make engineers a unit upgrade for X points. (between 20 - 30).

The upgrade does certain things for various units.

1. For warmachines they reroll artillery dice
2. For shooting units +1 BS
3. For Steamtank, reroll steam points roll or cannon's artillery dice (only either not both per turn)

Why unit upgrade? Because Empire needs all the hero slots for things like the Warrior Priest, BSB, Wizards than the Engineer which does very little to the army...

[der Hurenwiebel]

I think That specific role dezzo could best be taken by the journeyman class of engineer.  this would free up the engineer char himself to do other things on the battlefield.  In the opinion of the Engineer, "I trained those journeymen to do the boring stuff so I can work on *____* "

[Noble Korhedron]

Well I really think the Engineer needs at least +1 BS!! I mean, he's only got the same BS as an Outrider for Sigmar's sake!!

[kk14]

A friend of mine feels that Engineers are actually too strong. He suggested that instead of a re-roll, they grant a +2 or -2 option to any artillery die roll once per turn.

Noble Korhedron: That's why I added the 'targeting monocle'. It gives the +1 to hit (essentially BS5) without making the engineer always BS 5.

[kk14]

The problem with the engineer is there is no way I can see to make him compete with our other heroes for the slot, without making him very strong. I am worried that too much bonus to the engineer, or a global bonus that he grants, make Empire gunlines too strong.

I playtested the engineer with his targeting monocle and the +1 on misfire rolls. I really like the +1 to misfire mechanic, it goes great on a Hellblaster, although he only got to shoot his Long rifle with BS 5 once.

The problem was, as Fandir pointed out, that he competes too much with our other heroes for important combat, Ld, and magic slots. Even in a Gunline, a mage is usually a better choice.

However, I found that with the simple inclusion of an Engineer and General of the Empire, our special slots were wonderfully free: I could take a unit of Greatswords and a Mortar, and still have space for 2 cannons and two more choices! It was, perhaps, a little too strong, and felt a little too much like High Elves. I think any special and rare choices that get moved to Core because of army structure will have to not count against the minimum number of core units.

[nub5]

<snip>
The problem was, as Fandir pointed out, that he competes too much with our other heroes for important combat, Ld, and magic slots. Even in a Gunline, a mage is usually a better choice.

True and maybe the fix to the engineer needs to be combine with another fix.  Such as making a common magic item that gives bonus to magic defense (that an non wizard can take) combine with the new propose engineer rules.

[Smythen]

The engineer should have the following in my oppinion:
Stay safe, doesnt die if warmachine blows up.
Gives defended obstacle option to all warmachines x points pr. warmachine.
bs 5.

More options for the artillery:
Ad engineer aprentice/journeyman, to warmachine as extra crewman +x points. with +1 bs. has lightarmor and a repeater pistol, and pistol.
A single artillery dice reroll pr. battle. (its simply too gamebreaking having your greatcannon blow up i turn 1)
Pistols to the crewmen.
(all other armies have awy better crewmen than we do so, dwarfs t 4 lightarmor ld 9, elves ws bs 4, asf, ld 8 lightarmor, orcs t4 etc. so these changes wont be unfair.)

Then we would see a lot of lesser engineers on the batlefield, and the master engineer in gunline armies (nuln, feel)

[Tiberius]

I have always thought it would be quite bitchin' to have a engineer be able to take 2 repeater pistols, and have him ride with pistoliers or something.  Granted he would die quite quickly, but he would go out guns ablazing.

And the monocle is cool, and I would say a better option than BS 5 if you want the Engineer to be able to man a Helbaster.

Also, how about giving the Engineers ld. 8?  Ld. 7 is just so awful.

[Johedl]

I like the idea of engineer and journeymen. If you field a master engineer then you may buy two journeymen upgrades á 25p. They act as unit champion and may have light armour, black powder weapons, BS 4 wich can be used for Hellblasters and can reroll artillery dice for mortars and cannons. If the engineer has Ld 8 then not much else have to change. The master and the two journeymen comes in at a higher price than a cannon so their ability to keep the artillery from blowing up is balanced against having more artillery.
I dont think the engineer should have more than BS 4, he´s an engineer not a soldier. But a higher leadership as a form of gunners pride might be a good upgrade.I also think engineers should have to take panic tests when a Stank is destroyed.

[der Hurenwiebel]

Until the 20th century all engineers were soldiers, West Point was and is an engineering school as well as military academy.  The JOB of engineers prior to the 20th cent was primarily blowing stuff up or otherwise running or disassembling the machinery of war.  An engineer is not a gnomish tinkerer academic, he is much more akin to the highly educated bloke who shows up to advise the noble toff on how best to use the men to annihilate the enemy from a position of safety, with some clever plan that actually would work.  Then the noble toff, waves off the plan and commands a frontal charge into a hailstorm of warplock jezzail bullets.   

[Johedl]

Until the 20th century all engineers were soldiers, West Point was and is an engineering school as well as military academy.  The JOB of engineers prior to the 20th cent was primarily blowing stuff up or otherwise running or disassembling the machinery of war.  An engineer is not a gnomish tinkerer academic, he is much more akin to the highly educated bloke who shows up to advise the noble toff on how best to use the men to annihilate the enemy from a position of safety, with some clever plan that actually would work.  Then the noble toff, waves off the plan and commands a frontal charge into a hailstorm of warplock jezzail bullets.   

I agree. A person with a masters degree in engineering is called a civilian engineer in Sweden due to the fact that the oldest school, the Royal College if Engineers, was form by the army after it was clear that the skills of military engineers could be put to good use in the civil society.
Having engineers as skirmishing musketeers doesn't fit the picture. They are better placed in the gunline making fences and fixing warmachines.

[der Hurenwiebel]

see this is where a bit of communication is lost in translation.  What you johedl are talking about is what we would call currently pioneers and yes that is a sub role of engineering, a role that a journeyman unit leader can take in the empire army.  The squad level skirmishing musketeers would fit in the special or rare category as an engineering special weapons unit (whatever we actually end up calling it) after all when the first of any new weapon comes out it doesn't come out in large numbers no matter how popular it may become later.  Look at the deployment of the wheel lock, flint lock, sharps rifle development, with each new advance older weapons were still deployed in large numbers beside the new fangled better ones.  Hech we can even look at the early stages of the mitrailleuse, gatling and machine guns while everybody else had bolt action weapons, except for a very few units or specialists who were deployed with the new goodies in the first WW.   What I see the Master Engineer properly changing role towards is the battle field prep unit buffer or run parallel to the wizards duplicating in some cases their role and doing other things than a wizard can in others.  Almost like a 9th school of magic with special abilities used much like how we consider spells or prayers vis a vis game mechanics.  Having an engineer with BS5 is not unfluffy, he presumably is a master of ballistic sciences parabolic arcs and all that rot as well he probably already comes with pretty good optics for whatever weapon he's going to use even before he buys extra good pin point add ons from a "magic item" engineering list.  So maybe >HE< himself might not be able to unassisted match an elven archer shot for shot his tools let him do so, very Empire indeed.   

[Von Falster]

What about...

Supervised Maintenance:
Reintroduces the First Volley rule if you have a Master Engineer (+d6" max range on the first shot with handguns)
or
+1 to hit the first time handguns fire
or
All Great Cannons and Mortars may reroll their first result on the misfire chart. <-- Personal favorite of the three.

Battery commander:
Great Cannons and Mortars within 3" of the Master Engineer may profit from Master of Ballistics. <-- Here's your desired battery system.

Master of Ballistics:
Add "Any unit of Handgunners the Master Engineer joins has +1 to hit". <-- Meh, just an idea.

[Warlord]

I think with the introduction of 8th edition and the Empire FAQ, the only changes he needs are:

Cost reduction. 50pts flat should do it IMO.

Equipment cost reduction. All equipment should be cheaper for him

BS increase - to BS5.
This should coincide with Helblaster and Helstorm warmachine crew having BS4 (as these guys are more skilled with the more complicated machine than those with cannon / mortar).

Engineering student unit.
Normally Rare, 1 unit of these as Core (to be discussed later on).