Flying house rule

[Moldek]

So I feel that flying can be annoying, as it renders the terrain mostly meaningless. I don’t know if it is overpowered or not, but it is a bit flavorless; especially for armies like nighthaunt where everyone flies.

 

I’ve been thinking about making it an ability, something like this :

[DOUBLE] : for the rest of its activation, this model can move any distance vertically.

 

This makes it a tactical move rather than a blanket « ignore terrain », but maybe it’s too costly? To me it represents the ability of a model to leap / fly, but they still have to be close to the ground to fight, grab objectives and such.

 

What do you think?

[WarCrier]

One of the war bands I play (for fun) is Haunts, and I am not being biased at all here, but I think Flying is fine the way it is. There is already several war bands who have "fly" abilities that are doubles, so essentially making it another "Universal" takes away from the tactical advantages war bands need to function properly IMHO. 

Units that do fly as part of their innate ability is calculated in at a very fair price. Yes, "ignoring" terrain is very powerful in movement, but there are ways to tie them up and deal with it. They still have to disengage so you can pin them against terrain, and several other rules still affect their movement so it's not terrible enough to warrant making or changing the rule. 

Other models are able to climb any distance and can still affect other elevations without adding another rule as well. I say leave this one completely as is. 

[NinthMusketeer]

I also feel that the fly ability is currently undervalued in the points. The tactical advantages are so massive, especially on maps with a large piece of central terrain (which is most of them). I have also heard second-hand of a game group where they made all Nighthaunt models lose fly entirely because the faction was too strong. This change was suggested by the Nighthaunt player himself who agreed that the faction was better balanced when they did not have fly at all. Personally though, I would not go that far. I think that is an overcorrection for both theme and balance. Thematically these flyers are making leaping swoops or low glides to achieve this movement, not taking off into the air entirely, while having that exception within the game mechanics creates diversity for gameplay. Balance-wise, these models clearly do have some extra points tacked on, just not quite enough to compensate. There's no mystery as to why FEC and KO gravitate towards the flying models in their roster.

I think your idea, Moldek, is a good one. While it may seem extremely penalizing at first glance there are factors against that. First, a good portion of moves don't need any flying to go the maximum distance or only benefit for an extra inch or two. Second is that making a move without fly still allows normal vertical movement, which as WarCrier was touching on above is not crippling. A double is something a player can have every turn regardless of roll, and most of the time a player can get two doubles. Fly can still reliably be done whenever it is needed, but with a cost and a limit.