The Shugengan Problem - An Editorial Error?
Alright, I suppose this has been discussed to death already, but I still wanted to make a post since I was sitting here doodling and had a sudden thought, which seemed to carry when I did the math, and I wanted the collectives thoughts on it.
I play Cathay, at a "high" level (if there is such a thing in warhammer), and I have been struck by how insanely under costed the Shugengan (both general and lord) feel when squaring up against other characters from other armies. I play Empire, Chaos Dwarfs, High Elves, Chaos and Renegade Crowns as well, and across all those (granted, not highest performing by any means...) factions I think we can all agree no character comes close to the Shugengans bang-for-buck (Punch-Per-Point?).
So, I sat down and tried to find comparisons, like equivalent profiles and "rules" other armies follow, and this is what I found:
The Shugengan General with Celestial Blade and Heavy Armor (we'll use him as a baseline here) is for all intents and purposes a Chaos Aspiring Champion, wielding a Sword of Might combined with a Sword of Swiftness, who comes with a wizardry level. This is a package which would be costed like this:
Aspiring Champion: 70
Wizard Level 1: 30
Sword of Might: 25
Sword of Swiftness: 25
= 150 points.
The Shugengan General is indeed 155 points when equipped as above, so this seems actually very fair and reasonable.
Now, for some reason, he comes with a Spirit Long Ma. If we assume his profile is as the Aspiring Champions, which I believe is reasonable given costs and position in the roster and so on, the LongMa gives him almost exactly the same buffs and bonuses as a Griffon from The Empire:
Griffon: 4 Attacks at S5, D3 stomps, +1T. +3W and Fly 9.
Longma: 3 Attacks at S5, D3+1 Impact hits, +1T, +4W and Fly 9.
The Griffon comes with Terror, but the Longma provides an extra wound, the Griffon has 4 attacks but the Longma has an extra Impact Hit. The Griffon does have stomps instead of Impacts, but since the Longma has Counter Charge And now with the changes to how challenges work, the Impact Hits are far superior I'd say, but lets call them equal.
This should mean, if I'm not drunk, that the LongMa would be priced at around 120 points if it was available as a mount. However, the Shugengans get these for free.
So, in conclusion, my theory and tin foil hat moment, is that they priced the Shugengans absolutely correctly and really did wheight their strenghts properly, they then wrote a "cathay themed griffon" for them to ride, and then when it was decided they HAVE to have that mount since the only model they were releasing was sitting on one, they forgot/was told not to add its cost, either because the change was last minute or because someone higher up said they shouldn't "charge extra for something which is not optional, that might affect sales perceptions".
If the LongMa was costed, the Shugengan General would be 275 points, instead of 155. Which seems in line with the output and value of the model compared to all equivalent characters in other armies.
Agree? Disagree? Am I dumb? Have I missed something glaringly obvious?