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PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/09 17:32:57


Post by: Attilla


Greetings,

Welcome to a grand project to create balance to Age of Sigmar through points cost and composition rules (as few rules as possible though!).

On our blog, you can find army lists with points costs for all units, including upgrades and additional models. Our aim for this project is nothing less than the perfect balanced rules set for both competetive and casual Age of Sigmar games.

It's not too late to help out with this huge project. In fact there has never been a better time than now! Just download a few lists from our blog, and start gaming. Should anything feel off points-wise, let us know and we will strive to correct it. You will of course be credited where due!

Check us out at http://ageofwargamers.blogspot.com

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/09 18:11:49


Post by: Redbad


Out of curiosity, what formula did you use?

Thanks
Austin


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/10 08:39:56


Post by: Attilla


Hi Redbad!

The algorithm is a bit long to explain, but basically it does what most of the other around the web do - using wounds, attacks, and damage as multipliers for the rest of the stats.

In my opinion it's the abilities that takes the longest to figure out how to apply a points cost. We do this according to what the ability does; i.e. if it improves a stat like "To Hit", it's more or less a simple percentage calculation, and if it does something else we tie it to the actual effect in the game - either by trying it out some times, or looking at similar effects from models that we have tried.


On another note - Dwarfs PPC list is up now too!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/11 00:32:06


Post by: Dr. Cheesesteak


interesting. must remember to reference this later!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/12 18:07:45


Post by: Attilla


Vampire Counts and Wood Elves are up now!

For Vampire Counts, each summoning spell is a purchaseable upgrade an applies to one wizard of your choice. But pick your summoning spells wisely - they cost accordingly


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 01:27:19


Post by: mrfantastical


Attilla wrote:
Vampire Counts and Wood Elves are up now!

For Vampire Counts, each summoning spell is a purchaseable upgrade an applies to one wizard of your choice. But pick your summoning spells wisely - they cost accordingly


This is awesome, and fixes a lot of issues. If you take feedback, I have a gaming group that can give you info on any issues we find.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 02:36:28


Post by: 21stPrimarch


I like the effort you have put in, everything looks great....except the over the top summoning costs! They should cost something, but wizards are so easy to kill, I can't see the point of that high of a cost for summoning. I would suggest something in the 25 points for elite type units, 15 for core ewuquivalent. I have about 20 age of sigmar games under my belt now, and undead summoning isnt all its cracked up to be unless you take 7 necromancer and lose your friends anyway


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 07:39:57


Post by: Attilla


Mrfantastical, that is one of the main reasons we are doing this - to let anyone in on the project. More feedback, better points accuracy! If you and your mates provide feedback, you will of course be credited for it too.

21stPrimarch, Our reasoning for the cost is that you should be able to get somewhere between 1-3 casts off in a game, which is why the cost is set to unit cost times two. But with your feedback, maybe time to revise the cost! Thanks for the input!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 10:25:33


Post by: DaftPunk


Hey really like the work you've done so far, I've went through all the army's and they seem really well costed. Me and a friend just played a small 280 point game today of beastmen vs goblins and we felt like it was really balanced!

I'll get a battle report up when we have more points to work with as our battles right now are blob A vs blob B hahaha. We ordered a battalion box of beastmen and lizardmen (or whatever the hell GW is calling them these days) so it shouldn't take too long.

I've only got a couple of questions though if you don't mind.
1. What point level do you think will constitute a ''normal'' game under this system? Like how 40k has 1850 and old fantasy had 2000 to 2500?
2. Are you guys comping units and models? Like ''no duplicate heroes'' or ''0-2 monstrous creatures/warmachines'' or do you feel that you don't have to restrict models because a points system only allows you to fit so much cheese?

I disagree with reducing summoning upgrades for wizard's. Magic in this game has never been stronger as it's hard to stop a wizard from just spamming units from a corner of the table if you can't get within 18 inches of them, but that's just my two cent's.

Either way keep up the great work my Swedish friend


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 10:52:59


Post by: Attilla


Thanks for the feedback, DaftPunk!

Yeah, so far our games have been mostly very balanced and close as well. Some units do stand out, but since we're only at v0.1 there's plenty of time to rebalance before hitting v1.0

Your questions:
1. For a full size battlemat (6x4 feet) we're thinking about the same as old fantasy. We will probably play around 1500 pts for the near future, but eventually probably go up to around 2000-2400.

2. We aim at a system where comp is not needed, because we really enjoy the freedom of selecting just what we want to play with. But of course, it's too early to tell what cheese can be brought even with points set. One comp we will play with ourselves, is to bring at least one hero and three units.

Again, thanks for taking the time to let us know how it works for you!

EDIT: About the batallion boxes, that's one of the things I really like with AoS. With points costs it's never been this easy to start a new army...and we all want more armies, don't we!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 14:35:06


Post by: Allot


Jumping on the test train. Got Dwarves, Skaven and Sigmarites. Need anything specifically tested just tell.
Also where in Sweden are you from?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 17:10:36


Post by: Attilla


Good stuff, Allot! I can see in your sig you have plenty of test material, too

Skaven is an army none i my group play anymore, so any feedback on that army would be greatly appreciated! Also, later tonight or tomorrow, there will be points for the released Sigmarites and new Chaos force so that would also be nice to have tested. We will try those forces out in the coming days, but the more the merrier.

Two of us live in Gothenburg, as you seem to do!

Ah yes, on the topic ... Skaven points cost has been released now!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 18:51:33


Post by: mrfantastical


Attilla wrote:
Mrfantastical, that is one of the main reasons we are doing this - to let anyone in on the project. More feedback, better points accuracy! If you and your mates provide feedback, you will of course be credited for it too.


Attilla, how would you like feedback submitted? Here on this thread, or some otherway?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 19:24:24


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Thank you for doing what GW should've done in the first place! I will absolutely be trying this out once you get around to daemons.

Looking at Skaven, Rat Swarms might need to be altered somehow, since they essentially 'summon' new models without explicitly summoning them. Maybe add a minimum unit size?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/13 19:46:44


Post by: Attilla


Cheers and thanks for the input, NinthMusketeer. I did scratch my head on that one, but what I did was to price the first swarm very high, and also additional ones are priced higher than their worth. That way even after summoning a few swarms, they should be pretty appropriately costed. But let me know if you find out in game that doesn't work and I will change it.

mrfantastical - Here or on the blog is perfecly fine either way


EDIT: The AoS Starter Set has been pointified. Very pleased to see that the end result is very close in points for both sides! Now, time to get busy with Daemons for release tomorrow!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/14 01:23:24


Post by: Haldir


Great work being done here! Can't wait to see more!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/14 10:30:38


Post by: Attilla


Thanks very much, Haldir! Don't hesitate to let us know anything odd with the points costs as you find it.

Also, the Daemons of Chaos list is now available at
http://ageofwargamers.blogspot.com


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Tomb Kings army list up, only one more to go before all drafts are done!

Once that is done I will convert some Warmachine forces into Age of Sigmar, for those with friends playing that system but are curious about AoS


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/14 15:36:01


Post by: mrfantastical


Attilla wrote:
!

Once that is done I will convert some Warmachine forces into Age of Sigmar, for those with friends playing that system but are curious about AoS


I find this very interesting. I feel that AoS has more in common with Warmachine now than Warhammer even 40k.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/14 17:49:17


Post by: Haldir


I looked at some of the war scrolls. They seem pretty good and a lot of fun to play. My LGS wants to do an event in September. It would be great to have a point system that people could use.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/14 19:44:23


Post by: lobbywatson


This is the best I've seen for point systems yet. I know it needs some tweeks but I played my Beastmen last night vs VC and the game was split by 17 measly victory points. I am a fan of what you have done here. Keep up the rocking good work.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/15 04:36:18


Post by: Haldir


I can't wait until it's complete and my starter set comes in!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/15 13:46:33


Post by: Attilla


lobbywatson - thanks for the kind words, and pleased to hear about the close game! If you did encounter anything in those lists that seemed off points-wise, please let us know!

Haldir - Later this evening we're building our starter set pieces together and will be trying the scenarios out. Gonna be fun!

Also, the LIZARDMEN list is up! And that concludes the draft stage of this project. Hooray!

Now on to the next ongoing stage of fixing stuff in the lists, according to game reports.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/15 15:12:45


Post by: Haldir


Thanks Attila for the good work. I'm really hoping to be able to use this in the events I TO at my LGS.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/15 17:15:33


Post by: Attilla


Haldir wrote:
Thanks Attila for the good work. I'm really hoping to be able to use this in the events I TO at my LGS.


That would be so awesome! By september we should surely have found some nice balance with enough playtesting.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/15 18:24:15


Post by: Haldir


Attila will you also be doing some form of FOC as well? I spent some time comparing the war scrolls to the points. They seem pretty balanced . To be honest there is a lot of good stuff in the war scrolls. I think all it needed was a balanced point system. Which you seem to be on track for doing!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/15 19:35:44


Post by: Attilla


Hm we have been discussing FOC or not, but unless the larger community wants it its not coming soon as we all enjoy freedom in our army building too much. So far it works good at least!

We do play with minimum 1 hero and 3 units, and only 1 of each named hero though.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/16 12:40:21


Post by: Allot


PM sent


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/16 15:56:46


Post by: HawaiiMatt


Large numbers of netters seem to be a serious problem.
5 pts each for the first 19, 6 points each for the rest.
Each has 3 attacks, 2" melee range, and 4+/5+ to hit/wound, but in large numbers they gain +2 to wound.
On top of the massive damage out put (unit of 50 went into the front of 15 black guard, 33 got into range, threw 99 attacks. Killed them all before they swung). Enemy moved up to charge in, and fanatics popped out and intercepted.
Night goblin netter then hit two units, pounded on one, and had bubbled the -1 to hit over several fights.

I'd limit the number of netters, (1 per 4 night goblins would work).

Also, if you play with the no shooting into combat, it really gimps units with very short ranged shooting. Trolls pretty much never get to vomit.
Maybe only let units in combat shoot into their own combat, and give the target +1 save for cover.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/16 16:35:51


Post by: lobbywatson


We've been playing no shooting or magic missiles of any type into combat.

Atilla I'll keep you posted. The only ones that stick out at the moment are bestigors might be a little over coated and minotaurs a little under. That after 4 games. I'll let you know when I hit the dozen mark. Honestly to soon to tell though.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/16 19:19:34


Post by: mrfantastical


My 2 cents ironguts seem a little undercosted. A minimum unit of 3 can kill any other unit I put them up against at the same points. While at most they loose is 1 Model when I switch sides in CC. Potential 9 wounds of damage per model is brutal.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/16 20:29:29


Post by: Haldir


Hi Attilla , my boxed set came in. WOW it's awesome. 2 weeks from today I will be using the Sigmars from the starter plus the high elves from the last starter. Against my friends goblins. This should give you great feedback. As my friend was a war master national champion as well as winning numerous. GT's . He has a plethora of experience so we'll hopefully be able to help and contribute some good feedback. Now it's time to build!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/17 10:02:02


Post by: Attilla


Lots of good feedback here! I'll dive straight into it:

-HawaiiMatt
Excellent on the netters - we're changing it to 1/5 netters and +3 pts. Would that be enough, you think?

While I agree the trolls have a short distance and will not be using their vomit often, I'm picturing it as a kind of powerful charge bonus. You move up, vomit, and then charge. I think we (the online community) will have to make a rules set together that governs stuff like summoning and shooting in close combat, but that'll have to wait a few more weeks until we have a firmer grasp of the game and its issues.

-lobbywatson
It seems alot of the "ogre-sized" monsters without flashy ranged attacks or special abilities have come out alittle on the cheap side. They have been set to 39pts/model instead now. The Bestigors are now 10 pts/model, to come in line with many other changes to elite infantry in other army lists. Thanks alot for aiding in this!

-mrfantastical
I believe you are right - both regular ogres and ironguts are too low at the moment. Both will be increased in v0.2. The Ironguts will be at 48pts and regular ogres at 38pts. Let's see if that feels more appropriate. Thanks for pointing out the relative power of the Ironguts!

-Haldir
Yeah it's a really good starter set for sure! And I'm very much looking forward to the result of you and your friends test!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 03:52:25


Post by: lobbywatson


Thanks man. I got another game in with my Beasts today. At 32 points the Minos were to cheap. 5 of them blitzkrieged a high elf army.
I'll try them at 39. That maybe enough. Thanks so much for listening and adjusting you rock man!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 06:55:28


Post by: DaftPunk


Sorry Attilla my Beastman battalion got put off another week due to order mishaps! Otherwise I would have that battle report up! Next week!

I'm actually against messing with ranged units in close combat at all, my approach is the less altered the game is by comp the better as its hard enough introducing new players to a new game let alone 10 pages of 3rd party comp. Besides I feel like most units with ranged weapons are appropriately priced points wise, like if you changed interactions with ranged in melee combat why would I ever take ungor raiders? There 9 points which is more than double there melee counterparts and they hit pretty poorly in melee combat. I know people are really worried about ranged units replacing melee units but I think with appropriate prices everything will be fine without having to add a whole page of FAQ to ranged combat. That's just my constructive criticism and Ill play test it to death to see if its really that bad, but initial play testing tells me its not overpowered under a points system.

Speaking of FAQ it might be worth doing a small page of it, like things talking about what constitutes unit and single model. Like for instance under current wording "Curse of Da Bad Moon" targets a model but affects a unit, so maybe a short army FAQ just to clarify things like that for people so they don't get into arguments. Another good one is like how if a rule says you get an extra attack for each weapon then you get two extra attacks if you have two weapons but only one if you have one, but you would only get one extra attack if it says you get an extra attack with the weapons name, like gor blades.

Sorry the FAQ part may seem a little bit like rambling but Ive just had some time to think about it, I can try to come up with a FAQ if you want but it may take a while so as always the community helping would help a lot. Its up to you though Attilla.

Anyways good job on all the lists Attilla! Looking forward to pushing this system in my local shop, I'm thinking of using this points system and using the BRB scenarios for a local AoS tournament if any of the big books scenarios are any good. Competitive AoS! It'll stop the Internets heart just hearing about it.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 10:02:21


Post by: Attilla


THE v0.2 LISTS ARE UP!
http://ageofwargamers.blogspot.com


- lobbywatson: I decided to raise all the monstrous infantry even further today, as they seem to perform very well almost every game. Please let me know how they perform after this raise.

- DaftPunk: Ah, the angst of recieving our toys later than expected, a well known public health issue I'll be looking forward to seeing the rep next week then!

We do want to alter the game as little as possible, and maybe its just our old habit that screams not to fire into melee. I will soon make a post with a few house-rules/guidelines, and it would be great to have those discussed by the community in order to get the best flowing, easiest to learn, but still fair game.

------------

By the way, if anyone should have thanks, its you guys (and gals?) - I do this mainly for the fun of it but without anyone playtesting and commenting it can only go so far.

------------


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 12:16:51


Post by: Haldir


From my 40K experiences as a TO...... As 40K has devolved into a race to finding the most abusive mid maxed cheese to win , I had to find other ways to make it enjoyable for everyone. One of the ways was to tweak the missions in such a way that semi nerfed death stars and gave players different ways to score points each round (it`s not fun for anyone to come away with zero points , so this was important). This format has worked well both in play testing and our events.
This brings me to AOS. I`ve watched about a dozen or so bat reps. The games seem be to a mosh pit in the center of the table , won by attrition . A very simple solution to this is to make the game centered around objectives. That will bring maneuver and more tactical choices into the game. Again I believe that what GW gives us should be a loose framework for us (people like Attila) to build upon.
A few very simple suggestions that might improve the game for everyone.
1: Measuring should be from the models torso , not weapons or appendages
2: The missions should be objective driven with different objectives worth different points. I.E. -- Objectives captured in your opponents deployment zone are worth 2 pts. and no man`s land worth 1 pt.
3: Missions should be 6 turns and a 4 up for a turn 7 (works great for BA)
4: No shooting of any kind into close combat
5: Moving or charging through anything declared as area terrain reduces your movement by 2"
6: Some type of FOC , maybe 1 hero and 2 troops , perhaps even objective secured for troops
Again these aren't major revisions rather a few tweaks to make the game a little more in depth. I actually think they`ve done a lot of good things with the rules. I like the game mechanisms for casting/binding much better than 40K. Not having to move in trays and blocks allow players to make more use of terrain (terrain is a big part of our games). Hope these suggestions help!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 13:58:09


Post by: Attilla


For those interested, rules and PPC costs for Warmachine Prime Cygnar units can be found at the blog now


- Haldir: It's funny, most or all of your suggestions are things we play with right now in our group. The small exceptions being that we measure base-base, and terrain only effects the movement of mounted models (unless its special terrain), and we play with minimum of 1 hero and 3 units (not monsters/warmachines).

We are, however, starting to think that the limitations to Shooting into combat might not be neccessary after all, since you only get to do so in your own turn and the shooters are generally worse in the combat phase. We might end up tweaking the costs to allow it instead of banning it, in the name of how the game seems to be made to play.
We should all discuss this, as tomorrow I will post a seperate thread with "houserules" or comp rules if you will for playing with the PPC. The closer to regular AoS, the better is our motto.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 14:35:40


Post by: Haldir


I agree as to the closer the better. I think a few minor tweaks with the points system you`ve come up with should make for a lot of fun. Also I`ve been in touch with the other TO from our group. Once the system you`re working on here gets some legs under it we will host an event at our LGS . One thing though I think I will bar from our events is formations , not a fan of them at all. I`ve seen in our 40K events how a player without a lot of experience or tactics can become a world beater with a copied net list using a formation. Not a lot of fun for a tourney , maybe okay for weekly gaming.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Attila also is your group using "look out sirs" or allowing characters to join other units?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 16:53:48


Post by: Allot


Got a battlereport up using this system.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/656842.page#7991843

Large blocks or quarrelers and Hellpit are reeaally strong. Haven't tested enough to see if point adjustment is justified. 25 Quarrelers cost a lot but dealing 13 wounds average in range each turn is quite strong. Also while they can kite.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 18:27:09


Post by: DaftPunk


I use measurements from weapons but I do horizontal measurements, what I mean by that is like let's say you have a Pegasus knight modeled on top of a pillar vs my little gor. Instead of measuring my gors weapon up at the model (where he can't hit him because of it being one inch) I instead measure it horizontally from my weapon to the model and if the ruler is under the enemy models body, I hit it and vice versa for the Pegasus knight measuring over my gor. Think of it how you would look over a blast template in 40k, only with rulers.

The big reason for why I do this is I don't want basing for advantage and I feel spears would be useless otherwise. :/

I actually like formations a lot as I feel they reward you for playing fluffily (Is that a word?) but I can see how maybe some of them could be cheesey if spammed. While we'll be allowing them at my shop I encourage the player base to make there own local comp based on what there community likes and feels comfortable with. The one thing that we should have in common is the PPC though, that way no matter what the local rules are we'll all be united on how to build army's. I'm basically using this system as an ITC of sorts for AoS, sorry Reece, your ability to save competitive 40k has inspired me to salvage AoS!

While It may seem like I disagree with haldir a lot on his preferences I do find his approach to missions a sound thought. Perhaps we can make 3 to 5 different missions for multiple rounds at tournaments, ranging from smashmouth dawn of war deployment to controlling enemy zones to capturing objective markers and the sort to discourage just auto building straight attrition lists?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 19:47:57


Post by: Haldir


I don`t mind formations for friendly gaming. But for tournaments I feel it`s a little ripe for abuse. The idea of using the points for this system as a type of ITC is a good one. That way people traveling to different events would have some idea what to expect. The measurement thing is a little odd that I`m still not sure on. I recently ran a small BA event using the same missions used for the historicon tournament. A little tweaking and I think they could really work for AOS.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/18 21:43:51


Post by: DaftPunk


Haldir wrote:
I don`t mind formations for friendly gaming. But for tournaments I feel it`s a little ripe for abuse. The idea of using the points for this system as a type of ITC is a good one. That way people traveling to different events would have some idea what to expect. The measurement thing is a little odd that I`m still not sure on. I recently ran a small BA event using the same missions used for the historicon tournament. A little tweaking and I think they could really work for AOS.


Im unfamiliar with the missions they used at historicon this year but if you could tweak them into a couple of solid missions we would greatly appreciate it. (or at least I would!)

I would really have to show you how the measurements work that I use, if I could ever get off of my lazy ass I could take some picture's for you guys showing you how its done. I just worry about basing advantages and keeping the game close to how it was designed, but I'm an open minded man and I'm always ready to embrace a more smoother and effective way of gaming if you guys have any ideas.

While I like giving most of the power of decision to the local shops, I feel like we should come to some agreement as a community on how we handle measurements in this game. That way were not getting tangled up from shop to shop, battle report to battle report. Just my opinion though as always.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/19 00:35:55


Post by: Haldir


I completely agree, with some form of at least a semi standardized format it would encourage people to attend. I've been a TO and event organizer for FOW, 40K and BA now. Lot of experience between the three of them. The key has always been what format will appeal to the most people and encourage them to attend. Part of the reason for toning down 40K so much was that the average guy felt like he had absolutely NO CHANCE. Nobody wants to pay and get steamrolled for all three rounds. By tweaking the game we got so many casual gamers to come out and play , guys that would never normally play in an event. The other key is feedback and flexibility . After events we always took feedback from the people attending on how to improve what could use a change ect.
I think what Attilla is doing has us set as far as points wise. The question now is missions and tweaking a few rules to add a little depth while maintaining as close to the actual rules as possible. The guys at Bolt Action .net did the exact same thing . A few minor tweaks while staying extremely close to the original rules.
What to do , well for one we need missions. The mosh pit in the middle will lose appeal fast . I see nothing wrong with the three types of deployment in the rules, so we are fine there. Shooting into combat , it just doesn't feel right to me. Attaching heroes/characters to units not sure how to handle that.
Just a few thoughts....


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/20 09:45:04


Post by: Attilla


Allot wrote:Got a battlereport up using this system.

Nice one, Allot!

Haldir wrote:Attila also is your group using "look out sirs" or allowing characters to join other units?


We have not been using look outs, or allowing characters to join so far. The only thing we've added is that you get a cover save from being screened. I'm adding Look Out to the list we need to discuss here.

DaftPunk wrote:While I like giving most of the power of decision to the local shops, I feel like we should come to some agreement as a community on how we handle measurements in this game. That way were not getting tangled up from shop to shop, battle report to battle report. Just my opinion though as always.


I think we all agree on this - a few core things that clarifies and improves the game. Especially things that will affect the points costs, such as shooting into melee or not. Once that has been agreed on, some things are always best left to shop owners and TO:s as different areas will have different priorities.

Haldir wrote:What to do , well for one we need missions. The mosh pit in the middle will lose appeal fast .


A few basic scenarios are a must, I believe. That way TO:s can refer to them before a tournament for ease, or provide their own should they wish.


I'll be making a thread where we can discuss these things, so we can use this to more general feedback about points costs.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/20 12:42:44


Post by: Araknir


For points, I spotted a potential mistake in the DoChaos document. The Nurgle Drones are 65pts for 3 then 65pts for one more. I believe it should be 185pts for 3 and 65pts for one more as otherwise they would be entirely on the cheap side.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/20 19:15:46


Post by: Attilla


Araknir wrote:
For points, I spotted a potential mistake in the DoChaos document. The Nurgle Drones are 65pts for 3 then 65pts for one more. I believe it should be 185pts for 3 and 65pts for one more as otherwise they would be entirely on the cheap side.


Indeed a mistake, thanks for pointing it out - wll be fixed in v0.3!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/21 11:58:00


Post by: Haldir


I've been thinking about a tournament type packet. 3 rounds using the 3 standard deployments in the rule book. Each scenario has 12 points of objectives with a bonus point for killing the enemy general and another bonus point for a fully painted army.
I.E. first deployment (which is like dawn of war) -- 1 obj. In table center and 1 18" to the left and 1 18" to the right. -- each worth 2 pt.
2 more obj. Each one 12" behind the obj. In the center of the table. These would be worth 3 pts. each.

So everyone has a decent chance to at least accrue a few points each round , hopefully! This should make list building and maneuver pertinent to the overall game. Hopefully tactical decisions as well. Suggestions?

Forgot to mention deployment would be up to 12" on your table side.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/21 12:37:18


Post by: Attilla


The v0.3 are up! Click to download.



----------

Haldir wrote:Scenario idea


I like the sound of that, although I think we should continue that discussion on the comp pack thread (I've made my reply there instead):
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/657049.page#7998073

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/21 13:00:09


Post by: Haldir


Wow I never saw that thread? Good stuff!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/23 04:51:03


Post by: Andreas 2.0


Great job so far. Alot of balancing is needed, but I guess thats what we're here for right?! Anyways, ive been thinking about summoning, and I have a few points, that are discussion worthy. First of, I'm not sure if it makes it more balanced or fun if you need to have a certain unit on the table to be able to summon more of its kind. I'm not quite sure what purpose it serves, but I can tell you, it's going to be played out in a very boring way. I would for example keep a minimum sized unit of that type hidden away behind some terrain, as to not lose my expensive investment in that particular spell. Should I then play against a shooting heavy army, it would probably be too good a target to not shoot at. On the other hand, a melee heavy army would probably be able to do nothing against my minimum unit, and that seems a little cheap.

Second point is this - why should I ever buy a second summoning spell for a necromancer that already bought a 300 point one. He can only summon one unit each turn anyways, so why not give away the cheaper ones for free, when they wouldn't be used anyways save for lack of models of the more expensive kind.

I have talked to some friends about a solution, and this could be used for all summoning spells, not just death wizards. Make 3 tiers of summoning. One that is 6+ to cast which summons 40-50 points worth of models no matter the type. That spell could cost a flat rate of 150 points, and be castable only once per turn. A second spell could summon 75 points worth of models and cost 225 points with a casting of 7+, and so on. That would make lvl 2 or 3 death wizards think twice about buying them, but it wouldn't be limiting the game the way the current system is. The points are of course only placeholder, but the idea seems pretty solid.

Please keep up the good work! You have the system with the most potential so far.

I blame all spelling mistakes on the phone on which I'm typing.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/23 11:11:58


Post by: Haldir


For me I have never been a fan of summoning . It is a horrible game mechanism thinly veiled to encourage you to purchase more models. But it is a part of the game so must be addressed. I like the concept that Attila used by upping the points value for the spells. I`m not sure if there is a right way to fix summoning , but at least the points increase for the spells helps mitigate it.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/23 12:16:03


Post by: Andreas 2.0


I think we can all agree that summoning is incredibly unbalanced at its core. That is why I propose to cut down the spells so that you are only able to summon a certain amount of points and make them pretty expensive still. Summoning should be a more of a gamble rather than an autoinclude


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/24 07:45:02


Post by: ezec


First, thanks for your work Attila, this points system seems to be working quite well. I tested with my skryre skav army and vampire counts and found no obvious problem (I posted the reply about Jezzails on one of the blog threads last week before I saw your subject here.)


About summoning, we are testing another approach to balance it.

This approach is quite simple, we treat the summons as sort of channeled spells that have to be maintained.

- A wizard can maintain only a limited number of summoned units, depending on his number of casts per turn (Ex : A necro with 1spell/turn can maintain only one summoned unit at a time, a slann with 3 spells/turn can maintain three).

- If he has already reached his maximum and wants to summon another unit, he has to release one of the former units BEFORE casting the new summon (Ex : our necro summoned ghouls the previous turn, but right now he needs to summon black knights elsewhere, so he releases the ghouls unit, which is removed from game, before summoning the black knights)

- If the wizard dies, his maintained units are released and removed

- Maintaining units does not prevent the wizard from casting other non-summon spells

We find this system quite fun, it brings some strategy in the summoning business (do I keep this unit? can I spare it to summon another unit where it is more needed? At the risk of releasing it and failing to cast the new summon?) and keeps it from becoming too overpowered. And I personnaly find it completely logical fluff-wise.


With this system we think it is not necessary to pay for the summoning spells (just a points cost for the ability to summon, depending on the spells/turn), and we are still undecided about already having the unit in the army to make the spell available.

We didn't test it extensively yet, but many people around us like the idea and are willing to give it a try.

(I saw your rules thread, but as the summoning discussion is here I posted this here)


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/24 14:03:43


Post by: Haldir


I think the way Attilla addressed it with the added points might be the simplest and most balanced way to go. But for the record summoning is just such a horrible game mechanic to begin with I don't know if there is a right way.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/25 14:13:58


Post by: Maxmaino


the balance of the points looks good .
the thing that you should try to change are the evocations .
we use evocations as aip in 40k .
take the units to their cost base and keep in reserve .
already place them on the field and be able to charge or fire in The turn when arrive is a great advantage.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/25 15:33:38


Post by: Haldir


Attila , will you be updating the new liberator sets with the different weapon options? I'm waiting for you to put out a points update before I decide how to arm them. I'm not sure if just the upgrade to prime covers it.Thanks again and keep up the great work!

War Scrolls are out for the new Judicators as well. I'm pretty happy with the work they are doing on the war scrolls.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/26 15:29:34


Post by: Sigvatr


Those numbers look really, really good. I've already scheduled 6 test games for the rest of today, looking forward to getting 20 by tomorrow. Will let you know of the results / player feedback!

One thing about the shooting while in melee part:

It currently reads:

If you shoot ranged weapons into melee, or are in melee range when you shoot them, you recieve a ­1 penalty ​to your dice rolls.


Does that mean that you check for each model whether it's in melee range or not? That's important because some models have different melee ranges, e.g. 1'' vs. 2'' and some might be out of range completely. I, personally, would rule it to:

If a unit shoots ranged weapons into melee, or is in melee range when you shoot them, you recieve a ­1 penalty to your dice rolls.


...in order to clarify that even if one model from a unit currently is into melee, the entire unit gets the penalty. The main reason is fluent play - if you have to check and even measure for each individual model in question, you will waste a lot of time over the course of a few games and by making it unit-wise, you drastically speed the process up as you only have to check for the closest model.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/26 16:15:02


Post by: Attilla


Cheers all,

After two days of wedding party (friend, not me phew!) outside of civilization and internet it's good to be back

Haldir - All the regular options of the Liberators cost the same and is included in the base cost. The Grandweapons are each a 5pt upgrade, I have probably missed that in the points list. The Judicators will be in the next version of the list as well. And as always, thanks!

Ezec - Good to see you around here, too! Hope those Jezzails are better valued now, but they might change again soon when counting the ability to shoot in melee as well.

Maxmaino - Thanks for the input on summoning! We 'll try the v0.4 version (coming sometime next week) of it for awhile, and then review if any changes are needed.

Sigvatr - Thanks for the support, that 's awesome! Please keep in mind that cost of ranged weapons and monsters are about to change in the next version. But more testing is always appreciated anyway! Also thanks for the input on melee range. I was not clear on that one, but I do mean what you suggested and will clarify for next version!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/26 16:28:40


Post by: Sigvatr


Always glad to be of help

Be careful with making ranged weapons too expensive though. I, for example, would never take Goblin Archers. They already hit at 5s, which is rather bad, and I wouldn't spend points to get those ranged attacks


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/26 16:33:03


Post by: Attilla


 Sigvatr wrote:
Always glad to be of help

Be careful with making ranged weapons too expensive though. I, for example, would never take Goblin Archers. They already hit at 5s, which is rather bad, and I wouldn't spend points to get those ranged attacks


Yeah, so far it doesn't look like units that hit badly will go up much. The Ungors and Bret Archers only went up 1pt/model. The Judicators on the other hand, will probably have to pay more for such superior shooting...I'll find out later tonight


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/26 16:34:57


Post by: Sigvatr


I'll stay excited


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/27 14:06:23


Post by: Andreas 2.0


The new update looks really great. I should probably go buy some more miniatures


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/28 07:07:25


Post by: Araknir


Looking at the Daemon estimation I have some issues and I think you may have made some error for the Soulgrinder (which, when marked, is valued at the same level than Malekith). It is powerful, but with less endurance, and shooting is subpar at best. Meanwhile, the damage potential of Malekith is on a whole other level, with casting and command potential as well.
Also the beast of nurgle did not change at all while all other "large" infantry took some increase. Is it normal ?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/28 07:29:20


Post by: HalfBlood


Really loving the comp so far. Definitely the most balanced I have seen and played with (Compared to Arzg).

Just a few things I have noticed when playing my woodies.

- I feel sisters of the thorn are a bit over costed. I see them as being around 150-160 points. What's your take on them?

-The issue I have the woodelf book compared to other factions i play (HE and Lizards) is woodies are highly reliant on cover. It seems that most units only gain benefits from being in cover. However the only access Woodies have to cover is through Duruthu (Main reason I pick him is for the command ability).

- I can't find anywhere in the rules that says Woodies get to start with a free Sylvaneth wood. Can we comp it in? Like one sylvaneth wood (as described in the rule book)? Or can Woodies have an option to purchase woods?

Other than that, keep up the good work. I'll be following

EDIT:

Few other things:
-Treeman Ancient seems a tad bit over costed.
- Waywatchers seem under costed. Compare 9 Waywatchers (118) to 10 Glade guard (110). Compare the stat differences between the units and it leads us to say that way watchers should probably have a base cost a bit higher. Maybe 80 points for 5 and then 13-14 points per model.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/28 09:52:18


Post by: Attilla


Andreas 2.0 wrote:The new update looks really great. I should probably go buy some more miniatures


Thanks! Yeah, I'm trying my best not to purchase anything until I've finished my Vampire Counts army, but it's impossible to resist!

Araknir wrote:Looking at the Daemon estimation I have some issues and I think you may have made some error for the Soulgrinder (which, when marked, is valued at the same level than Malekith). It is powerful, but with less endurance, and shooting is subpar at best. Meanwhile, the damage potential of Malekith is on a whole other level, with casting and command potential as well.
Also the beast of nurgle did not change at all while all other "large" infantry took some increase. Is it normal ?

You are right! The Soul Grinder was being calculated with both Warpmetal Blade and Daemonbone Talon included. Malekith was also too cheap for his damage output, especially when counting his ranged weapon. Both will be changed in v0.5, thanks!
The Beasts of Nurgle didn't warrant a raise when using the fixed formula, as it seemed their dmg output compared to their toughness was pretty balanced as it was. Have you tried them and found this wrong? None in my group owns DoC, so we can only rely on you guys testing them out and providing feedback, it is most appreciated

HalfBlood wrote:Really loving the comp so far. Definitely the most balanced I have seen and played with (Compared to Arzg).

Thanks mate, it's always nice to hear something you labour on finds use out there!

Halfblood wrote:I feel sisters of the thorn are a bit over costed. I see them as being around 150-160 points. What's your take on them?

For the sisters, we calculated the worth of the unit to around 150pts, and added the rest for their ability to cast spells, which essentially makes the unit a 10 wound, 12" fast wizard with plenty of attacks both ranged and in melee. As with Daemons, my group don't own WE (anymore) so we rely solely on others testing the list out. As you've found them overcosted, I have listed them at 160 pts in v0.4, please let me know if that feels better in the game.

HalfBlood wrote:I can't find anywhere in the rules that says Woodies get to start with a free Sylvaneth wood. Can we comp it in? Like one sylvaneth wood (as described in the rule book)? Or can Woodies have an option to purchase woods?

I don't think they can start with a wood in AoS, and while I find the idea appealing, it would mean we have to make another change/addition to the rules. We try to keep things as true to the original as possible, but if more people find it's appropriate that we add an option to purchase woods for WE, I say let's do it!

HalfBlood wrote:Treeman Ancient seems a tad bit over costed.
- Waywatchers seem under costed. Compare 9 Waywatchers (118) to 10 Glade guard (110). Compare the stat differences between the units and it leads us to say that way watchers should probably have a base cost a bit higher. Maybe 80 points for 5 and then 13-14 points per model.

Both of them has gone up in points from v0.3 to v0.4 (as has almost all army lists' shooters and monster), but the Treeman Ancient's relative cost compared to the normal Treeman has gone down.

Thank you for the valuable input!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/28 10:08:28


Post by: Araknir


For the Beasts, I got them in relation to the Drones. Both are pretty similar on the offense (I experienced low volume shooting to be annecdotic most of the time). On the defense, the Beasts are more resilient (1HP more).

The difference lies in the utility from the Beast ability. Being able to disengage and charge or run and charge gives them a pretty impressive ability to slingshot into the backlines of my opponent : put them on a flank, run, charge a chaff unit... endure for a turn and grind it a bit, then disengage and charge into the backline. Going second, they can reliably do this by turn 2 or 3, while i find the drones to be a great tarpit


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/28 19:51:31


Post by: Attilla


All points lists have been updated to v0.4, and is therefor compatible with the PPC Comps document.
All of it can be found HERE

Araknir wrote:
For the Beasts, I got them in relation to the Drones. Both are pretty similar on the offense (I experienced low volume shooting to be annecdotic most of the time). On the defense, the Beasts are more resilient (1HP more).

The difference lies in the utility from the Beast ability. Being able to disengage and charge or run and charge gives them a pretty impressive ability to slingshot into the backlines of my opponent : put them on a flank, run, charge a chaff unit... endure for a turn and grind it a bit, then disengage and charge into the backline. Going second, they can reliably do this by turn 2 or 3, while i find the drones to be a great tarpit


Hm, while I agree that being able to run/retreat and charge is good, the drone actually is tougher due to its special ability (6,65 wounds), as well as higher damage capacity (1,66 vs 1,24 against armor 5+). The Drone can also fly, and has a 3" higher move. So I still think the Drones should cost more, but not 20 pts more.
I'm leaning towards decreasing the cost of Drone to 90 pts, rather than increasing the Beasts - how does that sound?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/28 22:36:35


Post by: HalfBlood


Here are my initial thoughts from the v .4 update. Please keep in mind I have not play tested yet, however I have been playing Warhammer for ~10 years and have a lot of competitive knowledge. So this is just theory hammer.

Durthu:
- He is by far my favorite unit in the book right now. I do feel that he is necessary in all lists because he is the only way Wood Elves have access to forests. For most WE units, they pay for abilities that they only get when they are in forests (look at dryads, waywatchers, banners, etc) So it would be a waste not to take this guy. 335 seems about right.

Treeman:
- I thought the original pricing you had them was a bit generous. I think it was around ~190. 260 may be a bit much though. Here is why:
o Compare his unit card to other monsters. Compare him to the Flamespyre phoenix, or the Hydra, and in my opinion I don’t see how they cost the same.
o Just by theory hammering I would put him around ~230, but who knows I need to play test.

Treeman Ancient:
- This guy should cost about the same as treeman. 300 points is a bit too much. Here is why:
o His melee combat his actually a bit worse than the treeman. Treeman get 5 attacks while Ancients get 4 attacks. The Treeman range attack is better against larger units of infantry while the Ancients range attack is better against heavy units. I would say that this is a wash in comparison. If you factor in range attacks into combat. The Treeman would have a total of 10 attacks a turn while the ancient would have 5 attacks a turn. The last thing to analyze is magic. Ancients have a spell that is only useful if you have a forest. This means you need to take Durthu to make it useful. He will probably be stuck using spells from the book.
o I would factor the Treeman Ancient at around ~240-250 points. The normal Treeman would be 230 points.

Sisters of thorn:
- Can’t wait to try these guys. At 160 I think they are just about right. Unfortunately, their high cost means me want to keep the units small.

Waywatchers vs Glade Guard:
- Here are my thoughts.
8 Waywatchers = 138. 10 Gladeguard = 140.

- I could go into detail about all the differences, but here are the ones that stand out. The following is the benefits that Waywatchers get over Glade Guard. Waywatchers get +1 to save, +1 to bravery, +1 to hit in shooting and combat, +1 attack with their bow, +1 attack in combat. While in cover, enemies receive a -1 penalty when shooting at waywatchers. The only bonus that glade guard get is they get a significant anti-armor attack once per game.
- Unlike the Treeman analysis above, this needs to be changed because while using your comp I would never take GG.
- I feel GG are over costed at the moment. Every turn they will do ~3 wounds a turn in shooting without factoring in save. This also doesn’t factor in your screen rule which will lower their damage output to about ~2 wounds a turn. They also die to anything that is a range attack (6+ saves mean nothing, trust me I play orks.)

- For starters I would make GG cost 120 base. (They cost 140 now). Decrease cost from 13->12.
- Bump Waywatchers to 90 points base. (They cost 80 now). Increase cost from 17->18.

Eternal Guard vs High Elf Spearmen:
- I was wondering if units from other books will have to pay for their shields aswell? Example: Eternal guard have to pay for their shield while HE spearmen don't. Same goes for Lizardmen troops. Just curious.

Keep up the good work. I love everything you have done so far to keep this game alive. I’ll give you more accurate and reliable advice once I get some games in. What are your thoughts?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/28 23:47:14


Post by: Haldir


It`s amazing all the people contributing good work to improve the game. Better to let GW just do what they do best -- awesome models and fluff (definitely not rules!). I can`t wait until they AOS 40K ! Ordered a box of Liberators and Judicators plus both special characters. Tonight we ride the storm !!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/29 00:33:24


Post by: Andreas 2.0


Man I'm getting more and more excited about this. The game is slowly finding itself, and with the help of this system, it might actually become an even more balanced game than we're used to from GW. I still have some doubts about characters and "look out sir'ish" abilities. 5 wound characters seem so weak against a shooting heavy army, and you might pay more than 200 points for one :/ I think the proposed coversave bonus when near a friendly unit of the same sized models seems like the best idea I've heard so far. Especially since some models already have the traditional look out sir built in. Keep up the good work!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/29 02:53:39


Post by: Haldir


I put in my comp suggestions the 50% obscured to balance hero/wizards from being too easily killed by shooting attacks and to prevent people from having Goblins provide cover to Ogres. Somebody will always try to find a way! But yes exciting work being done by the community and you are right I also see the potential for a great game shaping up.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/29 11:47:22


Post by: Attilla


HalfBlood wrote:Here are my initial thoughts from the v .4 update.


I'm actually buying everything you wrote - well put!
For v0.5: GG 12p, Waywatchers 18p, Treeman 230p, Ancient 250p.

About the shields, it depends on the unit description - sometimes shields are an option, and sometimes not.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/29 21:10:35


Post by: HalfBlood


Awesome. Glad I can help!

When I started Warhammer in 7th, I didn't know anything about the game. I picked Daemons and to my surprised they were very broken.

So yesterday I got in two games in against my buddy who used my Daemon army against my WE.

I'll update this with my findings later tonight. Out of curiosity, what armies are in your gaming group?

EDIT 1:

So just a little bit about my group. We designed two books for 8th edition (Blood Omens & Snowfall) and we designed a book for 40K (Rewrote Chaos Book to Chaos Legions). When balancing the book we found that there were two types of balance, Internal Balance and External Balance.

Internal Balance is the balance within the book. It is actually what creates “the competitive list”. What is most optimal. A book with internal balance issues results in a unit being spammed in large numbers, or is always chosen over its counterpart. This would be the Waywatcher vs Glade Guard argument I made above.

External Balance is the balance between the book and another book. Comparing the cost of one unit to another unit from different books. This would be me comparing Treeman costs to FirespyrePhoenix. External balance is what people claim about. “He only won because he used XX unit, it just costs so cheap”.

So when we designed our books we found the hardest thing was internal balance. Trying to make every unit in the book optimal relative to one another. So my group and I are going to do what we can to let you know what we think in regards to the WE, Daemons, WoC, Lizardmen, HE, DE, and Bret books. The reason I told you guys this was to explain how we think and why we think that.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
External Balance: Eternal Guard (WE) vs High Elf Spearman (HE) vs Dreadspears (DE):

Analysis: I believe all three of these types of spearmen are practically the same. Their stats are all the same, what changes is their abilities. They all have shields that give the unit a unique re-roll of 1, or 2 in a certain condition. Eternal Guard need to be in cover, HE need to be taking wounds from range, DE need to be taking wounds in combat. I would say this is a wash since Eternal guard receive +1 Bravery. They all have an ability that buffs to hit rolls if they don’t move. I would say this is a wash aswell. HE Spearmen and Dreadspears gain an additional buff for larger units Eternal guard don’t.

Conclusion: I would put them as all being equal. Make them all 70 points base, 7 points a model. Have the shield included in their cost (This is for Eternal guard), or make eternal guard 60 points base, 6 points a model, and then have them pay 1 point for the shield.



External Balance: Dryads (WE) vs Saurus Warriors (LZ)

Analysis: When I look at Dryads, I had trouble finding good comparisons between other Elf books. I think Saurus Warriors give the best comparison.

10 Saurus Warriors 120 points. (12 points a model)
10 Dryads 125 points (11 points a model)

Saurus Warriors have +4 Bravery, -2 Movement in comparison to Dryads, I think this is a wash maybe advantage to Saurus Wariors. Attack comparison is about equal between Dryads and Saurus Warriors. Ability to purchase Icon and Wardrum = advantage to Saurus Warriors. Impentrable Thicket (WE) vs Ordered Cohort (LZ) = Wash. Stardrake shields vs Enrapturing song and Blessing of the Forest (Situational) = wash. Seems like these units are calculated correctly maybe slight advantage to Saurus.

Conclusion: I would give a slight advantage to Saurus Warriors. Magic will give advantage to Saurus warriors because of Stardrake shields works very well with anything that boosts armor.


Internal Balance: Eternal Guard vs Dryads

Analysis: I really think you guys did a great job with balancing these guys. Let’s compare. Let’s assume:

10 Eternal Guard with shields (70 points, this is my cost from above 7 ppm)
5 Dryads (70 point, 11 ppm)

So number of attacks are equal, Eternal Guard get +1 Bravery, -1 Movement. Let’s assume there is no cover because cover grants abilities for both units. However cover will significantly buff Eternal Guard in comparison to Dryads. If Eternal Guard don’t move they will get significant buffs, +1 to hit, wound, and armor. While Dryads will get +1 to hit ONLY in their combat phase. I definitely see an advantage going to Eternal Guard. Now the question is, do Eternal Guard cost too little, or do Dryads cost too much? Well above we noted that EG, HE spearman, and Dreadspears are practically the same. Therefore we can conclude that Dryads cost too much.

If we need to do further comparison we can compare them to Wildwood Rangers, or Executioners, or Phoenix Guard. All of these units, you get 5 units for 70 points will varying ppm. However you see significant problems for Dryads.

Conclusion: Right now I would drop Dryad base cost from 70 ->; 55. 11 ppm -> 11 ppm for now.

That is all for now. I will post the results for my games later tonight. Thanks for Reading.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/29 23:19:34


Post by: Haldir


Yes halfblod that's some really good points about the stats. Good work! Anyone have any thoughts on limiting how many models in a unit? Say 20 or 30 max?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 00:21:37


Post by: HalfBlood


Well I would say 30-40 for infantry. Most units claim a bonus when their unit reaches 20 models. Some when they reach 30 models. For cav/heavy cav you could limit it to 10-15.





PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 00:41:20


Post by: Haldir


I think 30 should be plenty, any more after that might be too cumbersome .


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 01:02:20


Post by: HalfBlood


Yea, the only problem with 30, is some units only receive the bonus with 30 models. An enemy just has to kill 1, and that bonus is lost immediately. That's why I said 40.

I feel most armies will play with units of about 10-25. Armies like skaven, VC, etc will field larger units. We just want to prevent deathstars from happening. My group was already trying to break the game. We were thinking a large unit of temple guard (30) with a Slaan behind them. 4+ armor re-roll saves. Ignore rend of -1, -2. Can easily buff their armor to a 3+ with magic.

If we want to be more detailed we could comp a max unit size in? I am interested in seeing what tournaments will do with AoS. What will be their comp system?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 02:21:44


Post by: Andreas 2.0


Trying to break a system is always fun. It's something I enjoy immensly. One thing we have already thought of is summoning of course. That needed to be dealt with. The other obvious thing is the force multiplier you are discussing right now. Zombies would be my best pick for a potential problem. Dirt cheap and quite sturdy with their high bravery. On top of that you have all the ressurection shenanigans which probably makes it a horrible experience to run into. Imagine this - 100 zombies backed by a few corpse carts and some necromancers. They can surround these guys so you can't get to them with flying, and it won't even cost you that much. And to make matters worse, we can't fix the problem by just making maximum units, because zombies have the ability to merge two units. 100 zombies hitting on 2+ and wounding on 3+ for 3 points each. Ouch... I think there might be a need for a a maximum force multiplier of 1+ for both TH and TW. Just a thought. We could of course say that you can't merge beyond max unit size, butI'm not sure if it's enough.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 09:09:25


Post by: Attilla


Thank you again for well thought out and written input, HalfBlood!

I think that what we have now is a broad, general, balance from the formula - but as such it can never be perfect, neither for the internal or external balance. Now comes the next big step in the development, that of actually making sure each and every entry is valid within an army list, and well balanced against other lists. It's good to see you've started already, HalfBlood!
My group mainly plays (or will play in short order once our vacation is over) VC, Empire, WoC, HE, Lizardmen, Brets, Beastmen, O&G, and DE.

For maximum unit sizes, I'm still not convinced we need to make that limit. So far, we've found that beyond 25-30 models, it's extremely hard to get the models into close combat.
What I am thinking of, is going through each unit entry that gets a bonus after X models, and raising the whole unit cost when reaching the bonus. A unit that gets +1 to hit after 20 models will probably not cost any more, a unit that gets +2 as well after 30 models could cost +x pt/model in the unit more as they will get a good bonus and keep getting a bonus all the way down 19 models.
So, for Zombies, they can still be dirt cheap to begin with, but might cost double when reaching 30 models or more. That quickly adds upp, considering most of the unit will not get to fight.

That, and adding objectives to a game where a unit can only ever hold 1 objective at a time, could make sure we don't need to set a max unit size.

When it comes to stacking buffs, I would prefer if the same named ability could not stack more than once, if that stops some broken combos. But I think we should play test some more before adding any more limits to the comp.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 12:08:10


Post by: Andreas 2.0


Escalating point costs seems like a good counter to the cheap death stars. And it doesn't change up rules. I like that better


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 22:38:22


Post by: HalfBlood


@Attilla Like I said before this is by far the best ruleset I have found. Nothing has compared to it. The balance will come. It may take about 1-2 months, but it will be there. All I am trying to do is make it make sense in my head in terms of balance and competitiveness. I am a very competitive person, been playing this game for about 10 years, but very good at chess 2250 USCF, if you know what that means.

You have done a great job so far! Until school starts again at my university I have a bit of free time so here is what my group got so far:

READ FIRST: If you don’t want to read the unit analysis and just want my opinion about the cost changes, scroll to the underlined parts of the post.
In this post, I discuss Wildwood Rangers, Executioners, Swordmasters. I then discuss Spellweaver, Soceress, High Elf Mage.

External Balance: Wildwood Rangers (WE) vs Executioners (DE) vs Swordmasters (HE)

Analysis: Below, I show the only differences between unit profiles.

Wildwood Rangers: Save = 5+, 2” attack range,
Blackguard: Save = 4+, 2” attack range.
Swordmasters: Save = 4+, 1” attack range.

So after looking at these stats we notice that WW Rangers are more fragile. Advantage goes to Blackguard, then Swordmasters. Now let’s look at abilities.

Wildwood Rangers: Do D3 wounds when wounding a monster (Situational but gives them a role).
Blackguard: Re-roll failed to hit rolls of 1. Immune to battleshock tests when near Malekith (Unreliable).
Swordmasters: Re-roll failed to hit rolls of 1 Re-roll failed saves in the shooting phase.

Current Number Comparison:

Wildwood Rangers: 5 models for (70, 12ppm)
Blackguard: 5 models for (75, 14ppm)
Swordmasters: 5 models for (70, 12ppm)

Conclusion: So it’s pretty obvious that Swordmasters are much better in comparison to the other book’s counterparts. I don’t have numbers to base them off of. So let’s compare WW Rangers to Eternal Guard since we think Eternal Guard costs 7 points.

Internal Balance: WW Rangers vs Eternal Guard

Current Number Comparison:

Wildwood Rangers: 5 models for (70, 12ppm)
Eternal Guard: 10 models for (70, 7ppm)

Differences between profiles: So instead of me breaking down the stats of these units, I will just explain how many wounds they will do.

Wildwood Rangers: A unit of 5 models will do ~4.35 wounds with -1 Rend.
Eternal Guard: A unit of 10 models will do ~2.5 wounds. Eternal guard re-roll saves of 1. If they are in cover its 1, and 2 (Situational). It’s important to note, that if the Eternal Guard form a Fortress of Boughs, their damage output is the same as WW Rangers, however they cannot move, run, charge, or pile in. This makes it useful in defensive scenarios only.

Conclusion: So WW Rangers can pack a serious punch, but are way more fragile. I would make them cost more than Eternal Guard (10 for 70, 7ppm) and more than Dryads (In a previous post I had 5 for 55, 11ppm.

Wildwood Rangers: 5 models for (70 -> 60, 12ppm -> 12ppm)
Blackguard: 5 models for (75 -> 70, 14ppm -> 14ppm)
Swordmasters: 5 models for (70 -> 80, 12ppm -> 15ppm)


Comparing Basic Wizards:

External Balance: Spellweaver (WE) vs Sorceress (DE) vs High Elf Mage (HE)


Profiles: Are identical, except WE has a variety of weapons to choose from. HE gets shafted, with his melee weapon because it doesn’t do D3 wounds unlike the other two casters. Advantage WE and DE.

Abilities:

Spellweaver: Gets Dispel Scroll.
Sorceress: Blood Sacrifice allows her to get +2 to cast if she kills a model.
Mage: Gets +1 to cast, and +1 dispel.

Advantage WE:

PLEASE READ: Spells: I feel all the spells are pretty much equivalent. WE heal ability can be extremely powerful when targeting mounted units. It can be incredibly powerful when you bring back D3, Warhawk riders (4 W a model. Or Sisters of the thorn). Remember it only affects wanderer units so Treekin, and Drayds are unaffected. It is pretty lackluster on normal infantry though. In most cases you are better off giving +1 to armor. DE deals a mortal wound then makes them -1 when making to hit rolls in the shooting and combat phase. At first glance, this ability is average. However its ability to be stacked is what will make it very powerful. Imagine two DE Sorceress, that get +2 to cast, therefore the ability goes off on a 5+. This can turn units who on a 4+ hitting on a 6+. HE creates a large shield that gives all units a 6+ ignore the wound. If you factor in items, each one of these casters casts their standard spell on a 5+. This ability is decent because the bubble is huge. Like 18" and affects all units. I really don't know how to judge these abilities. It seems the DE and WE spell are a bit stronger. The DE spell becomes very powerful when massed. Thoughts? You could make future Sorceress cost an additional 20pts to help fix this. Just a thought.


Spellweaver: (95 -> 95)
Sorceress: (90 -> 95)
Sorceress on Cold One: (110 -> 110)
Mage: (80 -> 80) Adjust steed to be 15 points like Spellweavers Steed. He should start with Arcane power or make him cost 75 and the item cost 5.


In my next post I will discuss BSB differences, and I will offer advice on Monster costs. I bet I can convince you about how broken Phoenixes are and should cost 325+, you just wait . I know we talked about Treeman costs, and Ancient. You should definitely do the original reforms, however if I get time and finish a better analysis I will let you know with more reliable costs


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 23:32:43


Post by: Boggy Man


Would you slap me repeatedly if I just left this here?...
http://www.manticgames.com/free-rules.html


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/30 23:46:46


Post by: HalfBlood


 Boggy Man wrote:
Would you slap me repeatedly if I just left this here?...
http://www.manticgames.com/free-rules.html


Haha nice. I actually enjoy making things balanced. It gives us the control and it isn't hard. We can give a powerful unit a hevy cost. Unlike GW just makes new models stronger in game.

GW has always had a balance problem and I assume this game will have that same balance problem except they have a smaller community, and ugly models. I would much rather play GW.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/31 00:10:24


Post by: Haldir


I have to agree. I first bought AOS just because of how cool the models looked. The great work being done here is icing! We can now have a GW game with great models , fluff and now rules as well! Very excited as tomorrow will be my first game!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/31 00:10:30


Post by: Andreas 2.0


HalfBlood wrote:
 Boggy Man wrote:
Would you slap me repeatedly if I just left this here?...
http://www.manticgames.com/free-rules.html


Haha nice. I actually enjoy making things balanced. It gives us the control and it isn't hard. We can give a powerful unit a hevy cost. Unlike GW just makes new models stronger in game.

GW has always had a balance problem and I assume this game will have that same balance problem except they have a smaller community, and ugly models. I would much rather play GW.


This is actually a really important thing to note. The lack of point costs in aos is a blessing in disguise, and the game is rather enjoyable to boot.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/31 00:28:34


Post by: HalfBlood


Haldir wrote:
I have to agree. I first bought AOS just because of how cool the models looked. The great work being done here is icing! We can now have a GW game with great models , fluff and now rules as well! Very excited as tomorrow will be my first game!


I left fantasy because it became old. Always played against an enemy deathstar, obscene magic, etc. Games would be determined by "who can 6 dice Dwellers".

Also monsters were very weak in Fantasy. So many games I would watch my Bloodthirster get cannoned Turn 1-2 because my opponents all comer list had 2 cannons. This is the first time that I feel that monsters are the real deal and I am loving it.

Definitely looking forward to using models that I normally wouldn't use (Eternal Guard, Dryads, Treeman, the list goes on). I just feel that a few armies seem to be significantly stronger than others in terms of what they provide. I've read most of the books and it seems the HE, Daemons, and Lizards seem to be just very powerful. So many broken combos we need to balance.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/31 00:51:13


Post by: Haldir


That is very true. In the comp I made some suggestions regarding broken combos that I will be play testing . If you have time if you could check them out I would appreciate it . Thanks , broken combos are part of what has taken a lot of the fun out of 40K . It would be great to nip it here and play and develop a game that everyone (not just latest cheese)'has a chance.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/31 01:15:25


Post by: HalfBlood


Haldir wrote:
That is very true. In the comp I made some suggestions regarding broken combos that I will be play testing . If you have time if you could check them out I would appreciate it . Thanks , broken combos are part of what has taken a lot of the fun out of 40K . It would be great to nip it here and play and develop a game that everyone (not just latest cheese)'has a chance.


Yea definitely. Is it in this thread? or can you repost them?

Here are a few things that I thought of.

You can break Phoenixes pretty easily in this game. They have "Attuned to magic". If any spell is casted on them they gain +1 to their save roll. What makes this good is if you combo this with mystic shield. You essentially gain +2 armor making the phoenixes armor be a 3+. It gets even worst when you factor in Asyuron. So that's a 3+ re-rollable. It can get worst if you have any other wizard cast a spell. Now 2+ re-rollable this second spell doesn't even have to target the phoenix. So in theory if you have 2 Phoenixes + 2 Mages. You cast the spell twice, keep them relatively close, you are getting a 2+ armor on both of them. Obviously if you make it rerollable you will be around ~700 points but without it you are looking at 500 points which is VERY reasonable atm. This also doesn't factor in the 4+ rebirth for Flamespyre Phoenix LOL. If they are frostheart phoenix your enemies are affected by a -1 to wound bubble. This bubble stacks. Very powerful and I currently don't have a solution to it unless we increase the cost of them.

I'll have more to come.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/31 03:01:31


Post by: Haldir


I listed them in the comp thread Attilla put up. I think they at least partially address your points about broken combos. I wish you guys played 40 k so we could straighten that mess out!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/07/31 19:29:49


Post by: Allot


Played some more games. Things are going round nicely. All games are close. I am going to look futher into Stormvermin that deal a ton of damage and are still somewhat cheap. Will look futher into it. They still die easily.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 00:42:14


Post by: HalfBlood


Played two games against Daemons. Went 1-1. Shooting seems a bit over costed, but need more games to get a better opinion.


Let’s talk BSB balance:

External Balance: Glade Captain BSB (WE) vs Master BSB (DE)

Profiles differences: Weapons are the same.

Glade Captain: 5+, Bravery = 7
Master: 4+, Bravery = 8

Abilities: Both abilities are very unique, but shouldn’t make any noticeable impact on the game. Wash.

BSB effects:

Glade Captain: I am actually disappointed with the effects of this standard. It is unique, but right now practically useless. You gain a 4+ roll against wounds caused by SPELLS. It can be very noticeable against powerful casters (Nagash, Karios, etc). Also it only affects Wanderers, so that limits it even more. There could have been so much more done. Rant done.
Master: Standard is much more useful. Allows for the re-roll to wound rolls of 1 in combat.

Conclusion: Advantage = DE.

Glade Captain: (105 -> 70)
Master: (70 -> 90) Access to a Steed makes this guy even more useful. Make the Steed cost 20.






PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 01:06:34


Post by: Haldir


Played first game tonight ! I'll run through some quick thoughts sequentially for clarity.
1: in this game you throw a LOT of dice.
2: we played DOW deployment with 5 obj. , center worth 4 rest worth 2 , this made a big difference in strategy and deployment. Even Death Stars only claim 1 obj.
3: terrain heavy board and the minus 2" for area terrain definitely slowed some units down.
4: I played the stormcast Eternals and high elves from last 2 starter sets. I felt all the units I used were pointed properly and did not see anything over costed or OP in any way.
5: my buddy brought a goblin horde ,here's where we found some problems. He felt goblin artillery was over costed for,what it can do. He also ran a bunch of goblin cavalry which I felt worked properly.
6: the goblin horde..... Anything over 30 models makes the stacking bonuses from extra models too much . Also the Nets .... For an extra 3 pts. In a melle centric game you can cause everything a mimus 1 to hit in melee? He had 1 unit of maybe 40 goblins that were immune to battleshock (used generals ability) that held up Altharion on his Griffon and 5 reader cavalry. Killing both for the loss of maybe 20 Goblins....
7: wizards weren't overpowered and the magic flame seemed to offer some flavor but not dominate the game.

Overall it was a lot of fun but took a long time. The goblins would probably have gotten my by sheer numbers and the nets in melee. Again I never played a game of fantasy so, still on a biit of a learning curved. It felt like 40K fantasy and that is a GREAT thing.. I had a blast ! We will rematch in 2 weeks. Also multiple units can help to throw your enemy off in deployment. Not,deploying your key units until the last is a lot of,fun.

We played 1600 pts. I could see 2000-2250 being about right. Goblin tar pits were pretty brutal. I'm hooked , my buddy will take a day to review to see if he likes it. He was expecting a new version of fantasy and had to adjust that this is a totally different game. This caused him mixed feelings as he has beautifully painted armies made for a game he enjoyed.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 01:58:24


Post by: Andreas 2.0


2000 points! I think it's super interesting that in my local club, we are looking at something closer to a 1000 points for regular games. 2000 points seems like a long game, but I'm super intrigued. Anyways - about shooting. I was looking at a few of the not-so-good ranged units, and they seemed really pricey for what they do. A skeleton and a bretonnian longbowman both output 1/6 of a wound, and that is if they have clear LOS to their target. A they go down to 1/12 of a wound if there are intervening models (brets have rerolls that help, but it's still pretty bad. And that's for 10 points both. I'm not quite sure that is worth it yet. This will need to be tested. Orc arrer boys have a similar damage output and cost, and I'm sure there are more units like them. I'll try to get a few games in next week to see if archers stand a chance of being worth their points in a battle.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 02:01:08


Post by: Haldir


My buddy thought it was too melee centric. However I think the 5 obj. help with strategy and maneuver.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 03:53:25


Post by: HalfBlood


Andreas 2.0 wrote:
2000 points! I think it's super interesting that in my local club, we are looking at something closer to a 1000 points for regular games. 2000 points seems like a long game, but I'm super intrigued. Anyways - about shooting. I was looking at a few of the not-so-good ranged units, and they seemed really pricey for what they do. A skeleton and a bretonnian longbowman both output 1/6 of a wound, and that is if they have clear LOS to their target. A they go down to 1/12 of a wound if there are intervening models (brets have rerolls that help, but it's still pretty bad. And that's for 10 points both. I'm not quite sure that is worth it yet. This will need to be tested. Orc arrer boys have a similar damage output and cost, and I'm sure there are more units like them. I'll try to get a few games in next week to see if archers stand a chance of being worth their points in a battle.


I remember Attilla and I discussed recosting shooting units. Probably dropping them significantly.

As for points, I think 2000 will be a good 1.5-2.5 hr game. If we cost most monsters at around 300. That allows for about 1-2 monsters per faction.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 14:16:28


Post by: Andreas 2.0


I honestly think the system scales very well. I can imagine playing anything from 750 to 3000. And that is a good feeling. The good thing about playing around 1000 points is that you really have to pick and choose. Can't just bring some of everything.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 15:34:36


Post by: Haldir


I agree I think the game scales well to different points values. Our club always plays terrain heavy and I think this works well for the game with the plus 1 to cover for some units. Can't wait to get in another game!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/01 16:16:19


Post by: Attilla


Argh, spent some time replying to each of the above - went to do some shopping (the boring kind heh) and when I came back my computer had updated and reset...so, I'll keep it short this time...

@HalfBlood After your critical eyes have scoured the WE army list, I believe we can use it to get other armies in balance.
I have gone through most elite units now in other lists and adjusted points, in the context that rangers cost 12p. Next up would be the common infantry. I have noted your opinions on the bsb & wiz as well, but will have to save that for a later version, so I can work through the balance of bsb/wizards/monsters/cavalry in each army list at the same time.

@Allot Nice to hear you've played some more! I think that we get closer to some really nice balance each version. I've been taking a closer look at the Stormvermin, but I think they are quite properly costed...maybe up the first 10 to 105 or 110 pts. How does the Hell Pit Abom feel now, still undercosted?

@Haldir Nice to hear you did get your game in and that you enjoyed it! Your mate might be correct about the warmachines - those have a "supposed" cost applied to them that need to be tried and tested more. What warmachines did he use, and why didn't they perform?
The Goblin horde is one of the reasons I'm going to go through each infantry entry and make the whole unit more expensive if they get good bonuses from their numbers alone. So a small unit of Gobbos will still be dirt cheap, but a horde will cost more / model (same for Zombies and similar units). That should solve that problem. And nets must obviously be raised even more, since you can pick them to die last they will effectively give the whole unit a massive buff.

@Andreas 2.0 We've been playing 500-1500p games so far, and they've all felt good. Once the lists become alittle more balanced, we will head up to 2000p as well. We've also felt that many ranged units really aren't that good, and should drop their cost. Some more playtesting will be needed before we are entirely sure however. And remember, even if a lowly bretonnian bowmen can hardly kill anything, 20 of them can pretty much game kill a monster once / game if they are near a Paladin...pretty scary


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 00:00:13


Post by: HalfBlood


I started taking apart the elf books because they are similar. I believe it will be pretty easy to balance.

From there I have my eyes set on the Daemon and Lizardman books. Both of these armies are in the meta that I play in (I play Daemons my buddy players LZ). Just by glancing at the Daemon book I found a few price imbalances that I will address later (Flesh Hounds seem extremely underpriced) Blood letters seem underpriced aswell same with their icons.

Once we finish up the elf books I will move to those books.

Like I said earlier, this comp is pretty accurate. Obviously there will be some things stronger than others especially since the rule book hasn't even been out for more than a month yet. In time we can fine tune costs.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 00:10:30


Post by: Haldir


It was the Goblin Rock Launcher and Doom Catapult. Each only has 1 attack , we might consider lowering the points or adding an attack. He felt that heavy artillery should play out like fantasy where it can knock out a blob of infantry.

Half blood what is your opinion of wound allocation? Different schools of thought here .


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 01:44:19


Post by: HalfBlood


Haldir wrote:
It was the Goblin Rock Launcher and Doom Catapult. Each only has 1 attack , we might consider lowering the points or adding an attack. He felt that heavy artillery should play out like fantasy where it can knock out a blob of infantry.

Half blood what is your opinion of wound allocation? Different schools of thought here .


Do you mean the current system compared to the old way? Or ideas to make the new way better?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 01:56:45


Post by: Haldir


People are interpreting wound allocation different ways.

I.E. -- 3 attacks -- 3 to hit -- 3 to wound -- 2 damage per wound
I hit with 3 and wound with 2 , so 4 wounds worth
I`m attacking a unit of 1 wound models who fail both saves
They are all 1 wound models
Does the player lose 2 models for 2 wounds or 4 models because each wound was worth 2 damage




PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 02:02:41


Post by: HalfBlood


I actually posted a thread the other day, confused by this very thing.

So far every battle report I have seen and it seems like the general consensus online is that you would lose 4 models in this case.

Logically, it just doesn't make sense. So If I hit with an Ogre attack, then successfully wound with it. If a single model fails the save, I end up killing him + his buddies?

Unfortunately, this is how the rule works, and it is what makes monsters pretty powerful.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 02:11:48


Post by: Haldir


I checked the bat reps at mini wargaming. They play it as you would lose 4 models.

I guess in some ways monsters , heavy weapons and hero`s should be able to dish out more damage. As long as it is reflected in the points costs for those units I don`t see a real problem with it.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 02:18:43


Post by: HalfBlood


Haldir wrote:
I checked the bat reps at mini wargaming. They play it as you would lose 4 models.

I guess in some ways monsters , heavy weapons and hero`s should be able to dish out more damage. As long as it is reflected in the points costs for those units I don`t see a real problem with it.


Agreed, however what I find is GW limits the amount of attacks to balance this out.

If you look at Durthum he only gets 3 attacks even though his weapon does 6 damage (becomes D6 once he takes 3 wounds). Because you limit the amount of attacks, in theory every combat he will do 1 wound (No counting saves.) If save is made he does nothing, if save is failed he does 6 or D6 wounds. The monsters that have high Damage and high number attacks are what worry me. Frostheart phoenix has 8 attacks at 2 damage per? Or Flamespyre Phoenix has 6 attacks 2 damage per and causes D6 mortal wounds a turn.

It should be interesting how we cost the ogre book, since most units cause 2-3 wounds per attack.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 02:28:49


Post by: Haldir


I imagine we might have to up the points. They can dish out a boat load of damage. I`ve seen a lot of people discussing them on the forums.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 02:37:30


Post by: HalfBlood


Haldir wrote:
I imagine we might have to up the points. They can dish out a boat load of damage. I`ve seen a lot of people discussing them on the forums.


Unfortunately, I don't play against any ogre players so the only thing I could do is "theory hammer" the comparisons.

What worries me more is units with high defense capabilities. What is more devastating, a monster with a 2+ re-rollable, or a unit of ogres that puts out 15 attacks that hit on a 4+, wound 3+, rend -1 cause 3 Damage per. I would say the 2+ rerollable, and it's not hard to get (phoenixes).

What about the Sphinx that halves wounds dealt, and can be healed each turn lol?

Once Attilla updates the books again, I will take a better look at monster comparisons. Some monsters seem very powerful, while others are lackluster.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 02:49:59


Post by: Haldir


Those are good points , I suppose best idea would be to review the points. As well as take in feedback.

Couple of other thoughts from our game. The minus 2" for area terrain definitely impacted the game , a charge going from a 3" to 5" in terrain cause some deliberation. It also made the use of terrain even more important. The no stacking of spells/special abilities worked well. I really like this rule I`ve seen how stacking physic powers can ruin a game of 40K. The +1 to armor save for being 50% obscured by a friendly unit also worked well. We didn't roll for terrain as I feel that might slow the game down even more. It`s fine for weekly gaming but for a tournament there is only so much time. We didn`t roll for initiative either , the tried and true IGYG worked fine.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 03:02:47


Post by: HalfBlood


As a wood elf player, charging debuffs through terrain pleases me haha, however more play testing should be done.

As for the no stacking spells / abilities. For spells I can see a reason to deny this, to prevent units from getting unnecessarily high saving throws. The other idea could be to limit spellcasters, and reduce their points. Or we could do both.

Unfortunately, I like the fact that abilities stack because it is factored into the cost. Like I think phoenixes should cost around 300 points or more because of their abilities. I also think that tournaments will let abilities stack because most of them are written to do so. I think they will comp spells to not affecting the same unit twice, if the spell is a buff spell.

Here is a question for you, and it is a bit confusing.

Can to hit, to wound, or to save rolls go above 6? So lets say I get +1 to hit and roll a 6. Does that 6 count as a 7 and 5's count as a 6?

The reason I ask this, is several abilities in this game give abilities if you roll "a 6 or more". Example would be Waywatchers and their ability to gain another dice if a 6 or more is rolled. If this unit gets +1 to hit, would their ability be on the roll of a 5, or a 6?

Their are many units in the game that have things like this.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 03:44:45


Post by: Haldir


I`ve been seeing that a lot in the rules with the Stormcast Eternals. I`m assuming it counts as combining the rolls. This is again another ambiguous rule that leaves much to interpretation. Another example of how we are better off making the game we want to play. Forge your own narrative has never been more true! One rule I do like is the hero phase starting off the turn. For our game it helped balance magic/command abilities.






PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 04:09:03


Post by: HalfBlood


Hopefully they can come up with an FAQ and address these questions.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 07:59:44


Post by: Haldir


Also for the 40K events I TO one of the rules I list beforehand. Any game mechanism that causes a 2 up reroll will instead be a 2 up -- 4 up . There should never be a 2 up reroll.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 13:36:20


Post by: Attilla


I've updated the PPC with Dark Elves v0.5 now. Let me know what you think
Next up is Skaven, as I've noticed a few odd things in there that needs to be fixed a.s.a.p.

Haldir wrote:
Does the player lose 2 models for 2 wounds or 4 models because each wound was worth 2 damage

He would lose 4 models if following the RAW - my guess is that they're imagining it like the Sauron attack in the opening scenes of Lotr - he hits once with his mace but does alot of damage. And the rules do state:

GW wrote:
...some [hits] can inflict 2 or more wounds, allowing them to cause grievous injuries to even the mighties of foes, or to cleave through more than one opponent with but a single blow!


So that means large monsters, or war machines, will kill many infantry models as long as they hit with their often precious few attacks.


HalfBlood wrote:
Can to hit, to wound, or to save rolls go above 6? So lets say I get +1 to hit and roll a 6. Does that 6 count as a 7 and 5's count as a 6?


It works the way you write. If you add 1 to hit rolls and roll a 6, it actually counts as a 7. So the Waywatchers would double their chances of an extra attack with a single +1 to hit buff, pretty scary!

Haldir wrote:
Also for the 40K events I TO one of the rules I list beforehand. Any game mechanism that causes a 2 up reroll will instead be a 2 up -- 4 up . There should never be a 2 up reroll.


Yes, this seems to be a standard tournament comp for 40k, and probably one we should use in AoS as well. I would prefer limiting spells and/or buffs to not duplicate first, though.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 18:43:09


Post by: HalfBlood


Attilla wrote:
I've updated the PPC with Dark Elves v0.5 now. Let me know what you think

HalfBlood wrote:
Can to hit, to wound, or to save rolls go above 6? So lets say I get +1 to hit and roll a 6. Does that 6 count as a 7 and 5's count as a 6?


It works the way you write. If you add 1 to hit rolls and roll a 6, it actually counts as a 7. So the Waywatchers would double their chances of an extra attack with a single +1 to hit buff, pretty scary!

.


Unfortunately, Waywatchers don't have access to anything that gives them +1 to hit. But like if you look at Dryads in a unit of 12, gain +1 to their save. Combo that with shield of thorns and you cause mortal wounds on a 5, or 6. Would rend counteract this, since you have to give -1 to enemy saves? Interesting stuff.

As for the book, I glanced a little bit at it, definitely need more books to look through external balance, but it seems pretty good so far. BSB may be off based on BSB costs from other books, but we will have to wait and see.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 19:43:27


Post by: Attilla


@HalfBlood
Rend would indeed counteract it, it gives a layer of unexpected tactic to small stuff like this that's easy to miss.

@Haldir
Please tell your mate that his warmachines are going down in points big time. I ran their numbers now and their points have been dropped to 50 pts for Rock Lobbers and Doom Divers. That might cheer him up abit


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/02 21:11:17


Post by: Haldir


Thanks I told him! I think that the game is a bit of a shock for former fantasy players. Once they get over the shock that it`s a completely different game I think more will come around.

Also from the play testing my friend got back to me with the following. Now that we lowered the cost for the generic unit on the war scroll could the Rock Lobba be changed to a D6 mortal wounds with the Doom Diver a D3 mortal wounds as a points upgrade? His thought was to have the unit play out as it`s described.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/03 18:24:54


Post by: Attilla


The Skaven army list v0.5 is up at the blog now!


Haldir wrote:

Also from the play testing my friend got back to me with the following. Now that we lowered the cost for the generic unit on the war scroll could the Rock Lobba be changed to a D6 mortal wounds with the Doom Diver a D3 mortal wounds as a points upgrade? His thought was to have the unit play out as it`s described.


While I think it's a cool option, I must say I am somewhat hesitant about changing the actual unit rules, even as optional upgrades. If we start doing that, we might end up changing alot of units in the end. Maybe we will in fact do such things later on to make better balance, but I think it'll have to wait until we have a stable core of the base units. On the bright side, now that the units are cheaper, he can include two of them



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/03 21:12:23


Post by: HalfBlood


Attilla wrote:
The Skaven army list v0.5 is up at the blog now!

While I think it's a cool option, I must say I am somewhat hesitant about changing the actual unit rules, even as optional upgrades. If we start doing that, we might end up changing alot of units in the end. Maybe we will in fact do such things later on to make better balance, but I think it'll have to wait until we have a stable core of the base units. On the bright side, now that the units are cheaper, he can include two of them



I definitely agree with this because we want this comp system to translate over to other comp systems for tournaments. What I mean by this, is I can see several tournaments creating their own comp systems. Costing units differently based on their abilities. I can't see point costs being exact, but I can see point costs being similar. Example: XX Monster costs more than XX Monster.

If we add more abilities / take away more abilities, it really will mess with our costs and evaluation of units if we switch over to another ruleset for tournaments.

As for skaven, I really like how models and units cost differently based on their unit size. It will be interesting to test this.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/04 03:46:46


Post by: Haldir


Those are good points , we might need some time before those kind of tweaks. But yes a more uniformed comp that more TO's are using would be better to encourage more players to participate in an event.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 07:22:20


Post by: Araknir


I'm checking the skaven v0.5 and the price for the clan rat seems off.

10 Clanrats for 40 pts
20 Clanrats for 50 pts
30 Clanrats for 60 pts

Shouldn't it be
10 Clanrats for 40 pts
20 Clanrats for 100 pts
30 Clanrats for 180 pts
?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 07:57:30


Post by: Attilla


Thanks Araknir, your assumption is correct! I wrote the wrong numbers for 20 and 30

That leads me to a something we should discuss here before I continue the work:

As it is now for clanrats in the Skaven list, every model in the unit goes up 1p if you buy 20-30 models, and then every model goes up 2p for 30+ models.
This means that you pay very much for the 20th and 30th model, compared to the 19th and 29th. I have had suggestions that its better we do it like the early drafts where you only pay extra for the models that actually provides the bonus, i.e. the models above 20 and 30 models, and not for the first 19 models.

Example:
You buy 19 clanrats, for 19*4= 76p
You then decide you want another clanrat...suddenly you have to pay 24p for that model, since your unit becomes 20 models strong and therefor costs 100p. But as soon as the 20th model dies, you lose the benefit of +1 to hit. You will probably never buy 20 models for that reason, but always go abit higher like 25 models.

My question is, would it be better that we went back and just made each model above 20 cost 5p, and each model above 30 cost 6p since the bonus goes away when those extra models are killed - or do we keep it as is now and make you pay extra for all models in the unit once you hit 20/30 models, since you do get the benefits for the whole unit?

Since I must change my typo for the Skaven list, I will change it to whatever we decide on this topic. And keep it that way for the other army lists as well.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 08:51:32


Post by: Araknir


Regarding that, the question is not paying for the model providing the bonus, but paying for the model benefiting from the bonus. It should be the same as with monster, when you pay for the peak performance (without any wound inflicted)

The first 19 models may not provide the bonus, but they get the full benefit of it.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 14:56:18


Post by: Andreas 2.0


They do get the bonus, but only for a single wound. If the other person has any shooting or magic, it would be the most obvious target ever. For that reason, you would never and should never buy only 20 or 30 models for that price. What could be done however would be to increase the point cost more from nr 20 and 30. So 1-19 clan rats cost 5 each and 20-29 cost 7 each and so on. Thats a thought at least.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 18:54:34


Post by: Attilla


How about a compromise - They will not go up for the entire unit, but will be more expensive / model above 20 and 30. So instead of paying 5p / model above 20, you pay 6p (or even 7p?). That way, if you only want 20 models you don't have to pay 24p for that last one, but if you want to go extreme, like 50 models, you will end up paying the same points anyway (300p for 50 models either system). I think we want to make people think twice about extreme numbers, and this might be a better apporach.

We can discuss this more for v0.6 - I'll go with the compromise until we have decided something.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 19:19:24


Post by: Haldir


As experiencing the Skaven blob first hand . My thoughts are that for game mechanics no unit should go over 30. I think it becomes cumbersome and messy. I like the idea of paying more per model if you go over 20. I think we should keep an eye to limit any type of stacking for the game itself as that will lead to someone finding a way to break the game. After all should clan rats be whacking out monstrous creatures and special characters by wounding on a 2 ? Just doesn't feel right.

Also too that netting is making a minus 1 to hit in a melee centric game too. Another reason to up the costs and limit the size of the unit. Does it make sense to have 30 something or 40 clan rats wounding on 2's and making the opponent a minus 1 to hit? Add in a command ability exempting them from battleshock and it can get wonky.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 20:49:06


Post by: HalfBlood


I do agree that wounding on a 2+ is pretty powerful, but you have to remember that if this unit loses one model that gets changed to a 3+. Also chances are you wont be able to get that many to hit.

If you give them all 1" attack weapons then I would guess only 10-15 will be able to get into the combat. If you give them 2" attack weapon probably around 20-25. But 5+ really lowers the amount of actual attacks going at you without rend.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/05 22:15:16


Post by: Haldir


Good points , that`s why I think we should limit the units to 30 models. Otherwise the game mechanics could become cumbersome and clunky.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/06 01:14:38


Post by: HalfBlood


I agree. Limit units to 30 models. If we find this to be underwhelming we could up it to 35.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/06 09:33:32


Post by: Araknir


Honestly I do not agree there : why put a limitation. If it is too cluncky people will stop playing with large units.
As I said before, the less house rules there is, the more the point system can be used in a general environement. Putting an artificial limit on the unit size makes some units rules less relevent.

As for the price of "big" units, I'll stay with the same opinion.

The units should be priced at their peak performance, because there are a lot of way to make sure they keep performing at this level for a significant time.

Otherwise, monster should be priced accordingly to their full profile and variable (star) stats, should take into account the decreased stats when wounded.

Here we are in exactely the same situation : the "unit" loose efficiency when suffering wounds. Why should the two be handled differently ?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/06 11:43:54


Post by: Attilla


I too am hesitant about adding another limitation unless we see it being truly abused after v0.5. I think we can handle this by increasing points cost instead, it can be tweaked until we find a good balance without putting a max size limit in the general comp.

For example, a unit of 50 night goblins with netters for around 175p is a no brainer, as they can soak up dmg with the General nearby and put out hurt on 2+ until they take 21 casualties.
The same unit for 500p might not be that attractive. We need to find out the magic number in points to make people actively think before including something in their list.

This, coupled with scenario limitations, will be enough for now I believe. In Capture, I forgot to add that one unit can only claim one objective. There is no use for a large unit spreading out to claim more than one. Will update that later today!

In Kill Points, it can become a problem, but the unit will be worth more on the other hand, and taking out the general will make it so much easier to battleshock the goblins or similar to death.

In the final scenario, not published yet, you must have your entire unit within the objective zone, which means severe limits to a large unit's ability to score.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/06 16:09:29


Post by: Haldir


A couple thoughts , anyone finding a way to get a mass of goblins to wound on a 2+ will always do so. No matter how messy it makes the game to play. But I do get the reasoning behind trying not to put too many limitations into the game.

Perhaps Attila had a good idea with changing the points for the more you get. Maybe 1-19 is 3 ppm . 20-29 is 6 ppm . 30-39 9 ppm. This is just an example not meant to be binding for the comp. Also say nets could be 15 ppm regardless of unit size? Again another example.

I do think that the only way too limit abuse will be to up the points for a larger unit. Remember we are trying to make a system that will work for tournaments , which means people will try to mid max and break the system to their advantage . So we need to be mindful of limiting abuse while not making the game overly restrictive and staying as close to the original rules as possible.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/06 20:45:11


Post by: Attilla


Yeah, I believe that since we make the points, we really have the power to make or break any unit in the game without placing a hard limit on it. I will make each 0.5 army lists this way and we can take it from there...the cost will likely not be perfect this first try, but we'll get a feeling for the system at least.

I'll make Orcs & Goblins my next list to update to 0.5, going to be interesting to check them gobbos out again

Also, Vampire Counts has been updated to 0.5 today and can be found on the blog as usual


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/07 11:00:27


Post by: Allot


HalfBlood wrote:
Hopefully they can come up with an FAQ and address these questions.


It is clearly stated in the rules. "to cleave through more than one opponent in a single blow."
So a 2dmg attack would kill 2 models. This is that the attacks are powerfull enough to kill several in a blow. Like one sweep of the hammer of a retributor slams 2 clanrats to paste.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/07 12:28:16


Post by: Hettar


Grave-guard at 65 for 5 and storm-vermin at 100 for 10! what plane of existence are you living on?, your interpretation would of been valid under 8th edition but in AoS the vermin are vastly superior...i suggest you look again.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/07 14:23:51


Post by: Andreas 2.0


How very rude of you. And not very constructive to boot. How about you yourself go look at their respective bravery stats and get back to us with that i formation. One single casualty can be catastrophic for stormvermin. Grave guard need to lose 6 for the same effect to occur. When you have a criticism of any kind, please remember to bring some kind of alternative solution instead of just yelling at the internet for not doing the work for you


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/07 15:54:50


Post by: Attilla


Hettar wrote:
Grave-guard at 65 for 5 and storm-vermin at 100 for 10! what plane of existence are you living on?, your interpretation would of been valid under 8th edition but in AoS the vermin are vastly superior...i suggest you look again.


Let's test that "Vermin vastly superior" with numbers:

STATS:
Vermin moves 2" further.
Same save.
GG has 5 higher bravery!
Same amount of wounds.
Vermin weapons have +1" range.

Now let's test the damage output:
First, the Vermin does not outnumber their opponent. They will do:
Against 6+ armour: 0,67 damage
Against 5+ armour: 0,55 damage
Against 4+ armour: 0,45 damage

If they outnumber their enemy:
Against 6+ armour: 0,90 damage
Against 5+ armour: 0,75 damage
Against 4+ armour: 0,60 damage

Now, let's check the Grave Guard:
Against 6+ armour: 1,12 damage
Against 5+ armour: 0,93 damage
Against 4+ armour: 0,75 damage

Even when they are at their best advantage, against lesser number foe, the Vermin STILL underperforms vs a unit of Grave Guard.

So, if you consider 2" better move and 1" better range of Vermin vastly superior to 5 more bravery and approximately 43% more damage, you are right. But I don't agree, and I'm not sure many will

However, that said - we don't know for sure if anything has the perfect points to them before we do plenty of playtesting.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/08 17:40:00


Post by: coruptcopy


Hi, All!
New guy to this thread. I was making my own spreadsheet when I found your numbers and they seem to match mine pretty closely, so I've abandoned my project to jump on board here and hopefully help with ideas and playtesting.

My group largely plays 40k and Malifaux, but have been on the verge of starting Fantasy for some time. To this end, we have the AoS starter set, some High Elves, tons of Daemons, some WoC, some O&G, plus some Ogres and Skaven. Hope to start play testing your points this week.

So far, I like everything you've done. I am particularly concerned about summoning and have posted my thoughts about it on the other rules thread.

For this thread, I've just read through everything. Great ideas! Great work! As to external vs internal balance, as long as your algorithm for base points includes both percentage to damage in melee and range and percentage to save compared to models wounds, then external balance should be pretty spot on as long as abilities can be correctly accounted for, which was the key issue I was having in my own spreadsheet. As you've explained, as long as the abilities have something to do with a dice roll, you can adjust them based upon the percentage effected. That's what I was doing, but it's a lot of work, so kudos to you all for doing it! And again, well done.

Internal balance is more on GW's terms, since they are putting out the WarScrolls. We are just giving them points costs. While I agree that Internal balance is important, I also agree with those of you who think we shouldn't modify the actual rules/WarScrolls more than absolutely necessary. With that in mind, Internal balance, other than shifting our points values some, is going to be "harder" to accomplish, but not something we shouldn't discuss, obviously.

Speaking of the clan rat issue, I think Attilla's solution of upping points cost per model above the threshold (i.e. 20-29 costs more than 1-19) is a great idea and will balance out most of the horde issues, especially if we play with objectives and the scenarios that you've proposed. I don't think we should limit unit size if we don't have to. Seeing as the higher the models in the unit, the more costs the unit will be at an exponential rate, if we use Attilla's proposed fix, which I support, this should balance itself out. As soon as that general buffing that horde to make them immune to battleshock dies, then that horde starts taking massive causalities. I saw a thirty rat unit lose 15 models to battleshock just yesterday, when 10 High Elve Swordsmasters stomped them. So, in theory, I think you've got most horde armies under control using this method, though more playtesting, as always, will show for certain.

The issue then becomes Zombies, which were brought up earlier. Since they can merge units, we might have to adjust them separately. So whereas the rats cost more once we reach a certain number, perhaps Zombies should be treated more as Monsters, as in we should always assume they are getting the maximum benefit even if they are a small unit, since your opponent could start with a bunch of small (under-costed under the rat point method) units and then merge them all turn one to make a massive awesome unit for the cheap. Does that make sense?

Thanks again for all you guys are doing. I think this is the best balancing I've seen so far. Also, the website and downloads and presentation is all really solid and easy to use. The discussion here is great. I hope it keeps up. I'll try to add anything I can to it when possible, and once my group starts play testing, I'll try to add in my thoughts from games too.

If you need any help on the algorithm front also, I'd be interested in having a look. I had a spreadsheet myself and had some ideas about bravery similar to your own also. Great great work! Glad that we can now start playing AoS in at least some sort of balanced form instead of the ridiculous proposals that we balance games based upon wounds or model count or just using scenarios. Love the models. Love that the rules are free. Now we just need the points, which you all are giving us, also, for free. Thanks for all the work and time you've all put in.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/09 01:18:22


Post by: HalfBlood


@Attilla

Definitely liking the rules 2.0v. It's more eye appealing.

I am getting in a game with my Daemons tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes. Going to randomize a scenario.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/09 08:10:39


Post by: Snapshot


Attilla wrote:
Hettar wrote:
Grave-guard at 65 for 5 and storm-vermin at 100 for 10! what plane of existence are you living on?, your interpretation would of been valid under 8th edition but in AoS the vermin are vastly superior...i suggest you look again.


Let's test that "Vermin vastly superior" with numbers:

STATS:
Vermin moves 2" further.
Same save.
GG has 5 higher bravery!
Same amount of wounds.
Vermin weapons have +1" range.

Now let's test the damage output:
First, the Vermin does not outnumber their opponent. They will do:
Against 6+ armour: 0,67 damage
Against 5+ armour: 0,55 damage
Against 4+ armour: 0,45 damage

If they outnumber their enemy:
Against 6+ armour: 0,90 damage
Against 5+ armour: 0,75 damage
Against 4+ armour: 0,60 damage

Now, let's check the Grave Guard:
Against 6+ armour: 1,12 damage
Against 5+ armour: 0,93 damage
Against 4+ armour: 0,75 damage

Even when they are at their best advantage, against lesser number foe, the Vermin STILL underperforms vs a unit of Grave Guard.

So, if you consider 2" better move and 1" better range of Vermin vastly superior to 5 more bravery and approximately 43% more damage, you are right. But I don't agree, and I'm not sure many will

However, that said - we don't know for sure if anything has the perfect points to them before we do plenty of playtesting.



I took a look at the Grave Guard and Stormvermin in my system too. Absolute numbers don't mean much, but mine has GG at 18pts for a basic model with Wight Blade/Crypt Shield, and 15pts for Stormvermin (16 with clanshields). I "penalise" the slower movement of the GG (maybe not enough!), but even so I can't see how stormvermin are castly superior.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/09 09:26:43


Post by: Attilla



Snapshot wrote:I took a look at the Grave Guard and Stormvermin in my system too. Absolute numbers don't mean much, but mine has GG at 18pts for a basic model with Wight Blade/Crypt Shield, and 15pts for Stormvermin (16 with clanshields). I "penalise" the slower movement of the GG (maybe not enough!), but even so I can't see how stormvermin are castly superior.

Thank you for doing the check and replying on it!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
coruptcopy wrote:The issue then becomes Zombies, which were brought up earlier. Since they can merge units, we might have to adjust them separately. So whereas the rats cost more once we reach a certain number, perhaps Zombies should be treated more as Monsters, as in we should always assume they are getting the maximum benefit even if they are a small unit, since your opponent could start with a bunch of small (under-costed under the rat point method) units and then merge them all turn one to make a massive awesome unit for the cheap. Does that make sense?

This is one way, but it does penalise people who own and want to play with just a small or a few small zombie units. For this one I actually took the easy way out and disabled the Zombie ability to merge units. If people think that was a bad idea, I will of course listen and we'll find another way such as the one you propose. For monsters, I actually use their middle values, but that's another story

coruptcopy wrote:
Thanks again for all you guys are doing. I think this is the best balancing I've seen so far. Also, the website and downloads and presentation is all really solid and easy to use. The discussion here is great. I hope it keeps up. I'll try to add anything I can to it when possible, and once my group starts play testing, I'll try to add in my thoughts from games too.

Comments like this makes it all worth the hours spent And having fine people like the ones we have here on dakkadakka and elsewhere makes the project a fun one!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
HalfBlood wrote:
@Attilla

Definitely liking the rules 2.0v. It's more eye appealing.

I am getting in a game with my Daemons tomorrow. I will let you know how it goes. Going to randomize a scenario.


Aye, I couldn't help myself but photoshop alittle to make it more pleasing to the eye, even though it's only 0.2

Great - let me know anything you find odd with the scenarios. It's important we think of them as still in the "draft" stage.

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/09 15:19:07


Post by: saithor


Just wanted to thank you for this, the points values seem balanced and very well-thought ought. I'll get some play test results up when I can.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/09 17:30:24


Post by: Haldir


I agree , I think we are forming the basis for a AOS version of the ITC. But with a lot more balance!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/10 04:14:57


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Alright, finally got some games in with PPC. First off I want to thank Attilla and others who have worked on this; all of my games with PPC were balanced and far, far more enjoyable than previous AoS games. As for comments I don't have a whole lot to provide given my limited unit range (Daemons of Nurgle) but here's what I got:

-Great Unclean One looks pretty good where it is, but I'm going to have to try it out some more. I have noticed that it can go down relatively easy against a dedicated effort to kill it, but other than that it tends to stay up and at full/near full wounds.

-Epidemius seems well costed, despite vast variability in his effectiveness due to the tally being off models killed rather than wounds caused.

-Herald of Nurgle also seems pretty spot on.

-I think Nurglings need a slight points increase on the basic unit and a slight points decrease on additional models. Because of how their healing ability works, I want to spread wounds out as much as I can, which means as many minimum units as possible. I feel like a min-unit of three is a bit too good for 80 points while I am also unmotivated to take anything beyond that.

-Plaguebearers seem a bit 'meh' in smaller unit sizes and a bit too strong in huge blobs. This comes down almost entirely to enemies getting -1 to hit them in melee at 20+ models. As-is, putting as many as I can into a single unit seems to be the best option. I would recommend lowering the ppm to 8 (leaving the initial unit price at 90), while raising ppm to 10 for each model above 20.

-As a player, I would like to see the 3rd scenario use objective markers with a radius for controlling them rather than zones as this is easier to set up. However this is a minor quibble since its easy enough to put down a 'center' marker for the zone instead of an actual area piece.

Overall I feel like the balance PPC has going is really great (both for my own models and the ones I played against). It takes a game I had mixed feelings about (at best) and makes it very fun, so thank you for that.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/10 08:15:48


Post by: Araknir


Cool a nurgle addict too.
We had a first tournament (no PPM, but gave us some insight on the points).
1- Great Unclean One : it's just a pain to take down without multiple units going at it. It's damage output is not that impressive, but it's resilience is something worthy of Nurgle himself. Price is pretty spot on I think.

2- Nurglings : they can be pestering, with their self healing, but I find them underwhelming at best. Very frail without any save, and with a non-existent offensive output. They are nice speed bumps, but I would not pay them more than what they are now.

3- Plague bearers : I pretty much agree. I will not take them below 20-25 but once there, they are pretty much grinding down any unit you throw at them.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/10 17:27:04


Post by: Attilla


@ Araknir and NinthMusketeer
Thank you both for the input on the daemons! I'll be sure to have that in mind when it's their turn to come around to v0.5!
Also, I'm awaiting my nurgle army to arrive by mail any day now...mortal though, not daemon


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Almost forgot - Beastmen is now v0.5 and can be found on the blog (where else...)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 saithor wrote:
Just wanted to thank you for this, the points values seem balanced and very well-thought ought. I'll get some play test results up when I can.


Thanks very much, looking forward to any test results you may have - all to improve the points accuracy!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/10 18:28:47


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Araknir wrote:
2- Nurglings : they can be pestering, with their self healing, but I find them underwhelming at best. Very frail without any save, and with a non-existent offensive output. They are nice speed bumps, but I would not pay them more than what they are now.
As speed bumps they get rolled over, but what I have noticed is that sending them around flanks to hit smaller enemy units often means they will tarpit excessively. The thing is that if an enemy doesn't put 4+ wounds on them in a single turn, then the effort is worth absolutely nothing. It doesn't seem that hard but figure at 4+ hit 4+ wound you need an average of 16 attacks to do it (and even then, about half the time you get nothing, and if you do more than 4 the excess means nothing unless you get to 8). With shooting units getting -1 to hit in melee from PPC's comp, this means that a unit of nurglings can tie up a small to decently sized ranged unit for the entire game. Sure they will likely kill a base or two, but the nurglings will whittle down the enemy as well (particularly with a 1/3 chance of d3 mortal wounds if they do at least 1 wound with their attacks).

My best example of this is a unit of 3 nurglings (80 points) rolling into a unit of 5 judicators w/champ (130 points). After 3 rounds of shooting and 6 rounds of combat the judicators were down to 4.5 wounds (out of 10) and the nurglings were sitting happy at their starting value. Then a unit of melee sigmarites came through and helped mop them up, but the way it was going I would have controlled that zone of the board (playing cleanse scenario) while my opponent had nothing to show for it. While this is certainly an ideal matchup for the nurglings, I think having the initial unit of 3 at ~90 points with additional models at ~18 would be more appropriate. Big blobs of nurglings still won't be ideal because, as you said, they die very quickly to anything that can fight decently, but at the same time it makes taking 4-6ish a balanced option with taking the minimum. As-is, I would never take a single unit of 6 nurglings at 155 points over two units of 3 at 160; if the choice were a single unit of 6 at 144 vs two units of 3 at 180 then its something I would think about. Though ultimately its a minor change, since the value is very close to what it should be (imo).


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/10 20:56:11


Post by: Haldir


Attilla , we might consider our slogan as AOS , Forge Your Own Narrative. Might be kind of corny but I think its catchy and definitely relevant. Just a thought!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/11 02:21:49


Post by: Harley Quinn


Just commenting so I can come back to this. Seems pretty good.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/11 18:23:45


Post by: Haldir


Hi guys just got in another game for play test using the comp rules verbatim . I'll list by numbers to make it easier
1: we played the kill point mission with a dawn of war deployment . It worked perfect , game was a blast. Doing the kill points mission and the way to allocate victory points worked great as well. No complaints lots of fun.
2: rolling for initiative , I was very on the fence about it but we did it and it worked out fine.
3: 1500 pts. Of Nurgle vs. Eternals , plenty of balance and the points seemed to work fine.
4: we did play the -2" for terrain , that put maneuver into the game . It also helped slow things down and keep it from denigrating to melee in the middle.
5: my opponent didn't play summoning but mentioned his previous game of AOS (not our comp) and said the summoning is kind of broke.

Nothing else to report as the comp worked super and so did the mission. A blast!!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/11 18:32:12


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Something I should mention is all my games ignore the rolling for initiative part, we just alternate turns. Rolling for initiative just makes the game too random; I can easily win or loose just because me or my opponent got a double-turn at the right time.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/11 19:37:30


Post by: Haldir


I thought the same , but this game it didn't make a difference. But it's a good discussion for a decision on the final comp.

Also guys my buddy wanted to mention that the great unclean one is 310 pt. -- 75 pt. more than the cheapest bloodthirster. He's not really sure if he punches his weight. So that might be a unit to review.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/12 05:23:03


Post by: NinthMusketeer


GUO is 310, but the Bloodthirsters are 270, 330, and 400 respectively. From my use of the fat one I'd say he is totally worth his points, though he doesn't dish out a ton of damage in melee he also has a solid shooting attack and a really good spell. But the real reason he is worth it is resilience, the guy takes quite a bit to put down (and I don't know of another unit in the game with better passive healing).

[edit] Forge World has released warscrolls for their Warhammer products, just a heads up since I assume they will be included.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/17 18:52:24


Post by: Solaris


Hi all!

I just registered to be able to provide feedback on this project. Began playing AoS a few weeks ago with a couple of friends, and we have gone through a number of comp systems without being satisfied. We discovered this one just the other day, and are going to try it out as soon as we can. After an initial look, we all thought this one looked the most promising out of the bunch, and being community driven we figured it would be more open to feedback.

Since we mainly play HE and Daemons my feedback will be regarding those factions. Most things in this model seem reasonable enough, but the price for the Soul Grinder seems insanely high. What is the reasoning behind this?

I'll post some statistics for comparison. Keep in mind that all these numbers come from the unwounded profiles of the warscrolls, and that the damage is calculated as the average number of wounds dealt before saves. Numbers in brackets indicate the rend stat of the attacks. The total in the end of each entry is how much damage it does under ideal conditions (i.e. vs characters for the Soul Grinder for example).

Soul Grinder armed with Daemonbone Talon - 515 points
16 wounds, 4+ save

Shooting: 1.17 (-1) wounds + 1 (-2) wounds
Melee: 5.56 (-1) wounds + 1.17 (-2) wounds
Melee vs characters and monsters: 5.56 (-1) wounds + 1.47 (-2) wounds

Total damage per turn: 6.73 (-1) wounds + 2.47 (-2) wounds

Bloodthirster of Unfettered Fury - 330 points
14 wounds, 4+ save

Shooting: 2.67 (-1) wounds
Melee: 6.67 (-2) wounds

Total damage per turn: 2.67 (-1) wounds + 6.67 (-2) wounds

High Elf Prince on Griffon - 235 points
10 wounds, 4+ save

Melee: 1.33 (0) wounds + 4.89 (-1) wounds
Melee when charging: 1.33 (0) wounds + 6.23 (-1) wounds

Total damage per turn: 1.33 (0) wounds + 6.23 (-1) wounds

What these numbers show is that a charging HE Prince on a Griffon deals almost as much damage as Soul Grinder, and that a UF Bloodthirster actually deals both more and better damage than a Soul Grinder. Even so, the Soul Grinder costs almost 200 points more than the UF Bloodthirster, and more than twice as much as the Griffon Prince. While the Soul Grinder does have advantages compared to them (more wounds, longer range, shoot and run), they also have other advantages (ability to fly and command ability for both, predatory leap for the Prince and AoE mortal wounds for the Bloodthirster). Is the Soul Grinder really worth that much more?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/17 20:02:50


Post by: Attilla


You raise an excellent point, Solaris, and as a matter of fact I updated the DoC just today to v0.5, lowering the cost of the Soul Grinder

But I think points for monsters are off in many places (and I still think the Grinder cost too much even in v0.5 but I don't want to lower anything too may points at once).

Once v0.5 is done for every list (v0.5 focuses on infantry and cavalry) I will start to go through monsters in more detail for v0.6, and will keep your comments in mind when I do.

Thanks for sharing your results with us!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/17 20:28:08


Post by: Solaris


Cool, awesome to see that feedback is taken into account so fast!

That's a significant buff to the Grinder, it might even be too cheap now. Will have to play test before reaching any conclusions on that though!

Another thing that I noticed while doing some calculations is that the Ithilmar Bolts that HE Bolt Throwers can shoot are utterly useless. In every feasible scenario, the Repeating Bolts do more damage (they break even against 2+ rerollable saves, against anything worse than that the Repeating Bolts are better).

With that in mind, I think the HE Bolt Thrower should be slightly cheaper than the DE Bolt Thrower, seeing as the DE one has a better version of the Repeating Bolts. What is your thought on this?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/17 21:02:12


Post by: Attilla


Solaris wrote:
Cool, awesome to see that feedback is taken into account so fast!

That's a significant buff to the Grinder, it might even be too cheap now. Will have to play test before reaching any conclusions on that though!

Another thing that I noticed while doing some calculations is that the Ithilmar Bolts that HE Bolt Throwers can shoot are utterly useless. In every feasible scenario, the Repeating Bolts do more damage (they break even against 2+ rerollable saves, against anything worse than that the Repeating Bolts are better).

With that in mind, I think the HE Bolt Thrower should be slightly cheaper than the DE Bolt Thrower, seeing as the DE one has a better version of the Repeating Bolts. What is your thought on this?


The HE bolt thrower will cost less than the DE one once we come around to checking the balance between warmachines, true enough. As you say, there is literally no point in firing Ithilmar bolts...too bad, they should have made some more math before they wrote those rules. Could have been a nice bolt against monsters with just one special rule added...but alas.

Please let me know about the Grinder in your games, the more feedback the better when its time for monster balance version 0.6


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/17 21:27:21


Post by: Solaris


I see, so each 0.1 patch you go through a different set of units? That's a nice way of doing it =)

I ran the math with Ithilmar Bolts dealing d6 wounds instead of d3 our of curiosity, and then they actually did their job. Meaning they were more potent against targets with heavy armour, but less potent against targets with light armour. If only GW made the calculations before putting up the rules lol... Oh well.

I'm currently reading through the thread and have some thoughts on earlier posts and discussions.

First off, the HE mage doesn't get +1 on casting rolls, only on unbind (dispel) rolls. So the comparison between WE, DE and HE spellcasters made earlier is even heavier in favour of the others.

Secondly, I think changing the rules for units as suggested by Haldir is a very bad idea. Having different comp systems at different tournaments is one thing, but having different rules is another thing altogether and can only lead to confusion and a fragmented community. I think things should be left as written as much as humanly possible, and only be regulated through points costs - that would be the easiest way of achieving balance while letting people from different communities play against each other without problem. (Nvm, this point was made more eloquently by several people, including Haldir himself, on the next page - maybe I should finish reading before commenting =) )

Thirdly, there was some talk about attacks with multiple wounds on page 4, and some worry was expressed. I didn't quite get what the person was worried about, but I would just like to say that 1 attack that deals 2 damage has the exact same average damage output as 2 attacks that deal 1 damage each. The difference is that the single attack deals either 0 or 2 damage, while the double attacks are more likely to deal 1 damage. In terms of balance they are the same though.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/17 23:40:05


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Looking at the updated DoC document I like the changes. I look forward to trying them out, though right now I would comment that the 290 for 30 plaguebearers seems unnecessary. Just the 12 ppm after 20 models would put a 30-man unit at 280 anyway, and 30 has no particular benefits over 29 other than the 1 extra dude (unlike some other units with scaling benefits). I think it would be better if the 30-man entry was dropped entirely, and the extra 10 points moved over to the 20-man unit. The end result would be:

10 Plaguebearers - 80 Points
20 Plaguebearers - 170 Points
-Each additional model costs 8 points
-If you have 20 or more models, they instead cost 12 ppm
-[command options]

This streamlines the entry and prevents 29 from being an ideal unit size. 19 is still notably cheaper than 20, but the latter gets you the improved hit penalties so its still a viable choice.

[edit] Looking at the warscrolls, I feel this same idea applies to the other daemon 'basic troops' as well.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/18 06:35:28


Post by: Attilla


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looking at the updated DoC document I like the changes. I look forward to trying them out, though right now I would comment that the 290 for 30 plaguebearers seems unnecessary. Just the 12 ppm after 20 models would put a 30-man unit at 280 anyway, and 30 has no particular benefits over 29 other than the 1 extra dude (unlike some other units with scaling benefits). I think it would be better if the 30-man entry was dropped entirely, and the extra 10 points moved over to the 20-man unit. The end result would be:

10 Plaguebearers - 80 Points
20 Plaguebearers - 170 Points
-Each additional model costs 8 points
-If you have 20 or more models, they instead cost 12 ppm
-[command options]

This streamlines the entry and prevents 29 from being an ideal unit size. 19 is still notably cheaper than 20, but the latter gets you the improved hit penalties so its still a viable choice.

[edit] Looking at the warscrolls, I feel this same idea applies to the other daemon 'basic troops' as well.



Thanks 9thMusk, that's actually just a typo from me...it should read 30 Plague 280p Will fix as soon as I get hom from work, thanks for pointing out!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
@Solaris
The Ithilmar is one of those instances where changing the rules ourselves would make alot of sense

From the beginning we intended to tweak and change every unit needed in an update, but now that our dayjobs have kicked in again after vacation, its hard to do so without spending a month on each list, so now we try to go through one aspect more for each, and just tweak other unit costs in preparation for their turn. It works out better and is easier to keep the focus up this way.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/18 09:26:35


Post by: Solaris


Alright, in that case I'll run the math later today and compare HE bolt throwers to their contemporaries in other armies, as well as to other ranged options in the HE army. Depending on the result I'll suggest rule changes to the Ithilmar Bolts and/or the points costs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
So, a little comparison of the three different bolt throwers in the game. I'll first show the average number of wounds dealt by each machine before saves, and then compare their damage against different types of saves. As before, numbers in brackets indicate rend. My suggestion for the Ithilmar bolts is giving them d6 wounds instead of d3, so I'll include the damage profile for the d6 Ithilmar bolts as well in the comparison.

The following bolt throwers exist in the game: the Dwarf bolt thrower that fires Runic bolts and costs 90 pts, the Reaper bolt thrower for 110 pts and the HE Repeater bolt thrower for 110 pts.

Wounds dealt before saves:
Runic bolts: 0.89 (-3) + 1.33 (-1)
Runic bolts w/ engineer: 1.78 (-3) + 1.33 (-1)
Reaper bolts: 5 (-1)
Repeating bolts: 4 (-1)
Ithilmar bolts (d3): 1.78 (-2)
Ithilmar bolts (d6): 3.11 (-2)

Damage dealt vs 6+ save:
Runic bolts: 2.22
Runic bolts w/ engineer: 3.11
Reaper bolts: 5
Repeating bolts: 4
Ithilmar bolts (d3): 1.78
Ithilmar bolts (d6): 3.11

Damage dealt vs 5+ save:
Runic bolts: 2.00
Runic bolts w/ engineer: 2.89
Reaper bolts: 4.17
Repeating bolts: 3.33
Ithilmar bolts (d3): 1.78
Ithilmar bolts (d6): 3.11

Damage dealt vs 4+ save:
Runic bolts: 1.78
Runic bolts w/ engineer: 2.67
Reaper bolts: 3.33
Repeating bolts: 2.67
Ithilmar bolts (d3): 1.48
Ithilmar bolts (d6): 2.59

Damage dealt vs 4+ rerollable save:
Runic bolts: 1.48
Runic bolts w/ engineer: 2.37
Reaper bolts: 2.22
Repeating bolts: 1.78
Ithilmar bolts (d3): 1.24
Ithilmar bolts (d6): 2.15

Damage dealt vs 3+ save:
Runic bolts: 1.41
Runic bolts w/ engineer: 2.14
Reaper bolts: 2.5
Repeating bolts: 2
Ithilmar bolts (d3): 1.19
Ithilmar bolts (d6): 2.07


As shown by these numbers, the Ithilmar bolts are by far the worst out of the bunch in all feasible scenarios (as I mentioned before they break even with Repeating bolts at a 2+ rerollable save). Second worst in all scenarios are the Runic bolts without an engineer nearby. Since these two are clearly irrelevant compared to the other options, I’m going to exclude them from the comparison from now on.

Remaining then are the Runic bolts with engineer, Reaper bolts, Repeating bolts and Ithilmar d6 bolts. At low saves, the Runic and Ithilmar d6 bolts are the worst, while at medium saves they catch up to the Repeating bolts. At high saves, they both pass the Repeating bolts in damage, which then goes down to the bottom of the pack.

The ones that really stand out here are the Reaper bolts, that perform at the top in all scenarios except against 4+ rerollable saves, where the -3 rend of Runic bolts really does a number on the armour.

My conclusions from this is that both the Dwarven and the Repeater bolt throwers should be cheaper relative to the Reaper bolt thrower (though not necessarily relative to other things in the army lists). The Reaper is without a doubt the strongest out of all of them. The Dwarven bolt thrower really needs an engineer to be effective. Assuming an engineer can stand close enough to affect two warmachines at once, the price of the engineer should then be split between these two and the profile of the engineer itself. Hand-waving this a little, the cost is split equally between the engineer and the two warmachines, meaning that the Dwarven thrower costs 90+55/3=108.3 pts. This price is comparable to the 110 of the other two, but the performance is noticably worse. I suggest the price of the Dwarven one is lowered slightly to take this into account (maybe to 80 or even 70 or 60 points – by lowering the price of the bolt thrower that much, the price for the engineer can be increased to compensate. After all, the power boost gained by having an engineer nearby is very significant). I also suggest increasing the price of the Reaper by 25 points to 135 total, since it is about 25% more effective than the Repeating bolt thrower across the board.

Finally, I suggest changing the damage of the Ithilmar bolts to d6 instead of d3. As illustrated by my calculations, the Repeating bolts are still better in most scenarios, but the d6 Ithilmar then at least finds a niche against rerollable heavy armour and heavy armour in cover, rather than being complete garbage as it is now.

I’ll have a look at the internal balance of HE shooting units next. Also, sorry for the wall of text.

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/18 13:20:25


Post by: Attilla


@Solaris
Thanks Solaris, that's some good math I will refer to when it's time for balancing warmachines properly. I will lower the Repeating Bolt when I update HE, but the true changes will come later on.

But I think you misunderstood me alittle with the rules change, what I meant is that it does makes perfect sense for us to change some unit rules that GW clearly didn't think about long enough, but that would mean we open a gate where we need to go through too many rules and in the end will end up with something that was not intended to start with. So we will most likely not change the bolt thrower's dmg to d6, even though it makes perfect sense to do so. We will instead make the cost lower, since no HE player will ever use those bolts. Sorry for not being clear enough.

Looking forward to your math on the HE shooters, since when it's their turn for v0.5, those are units I will look into in detail.


----------------------------------------------------------------------
@All

We have made a tweak for Zombie's Shambling Horror ability, and corrected the Plaguebearer cost now, more info on the blog.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/18 13:58:54


Post by: Solaris


Alright, I completely agree with that, I simply misunderstood your previous comment. Rule changes should be kept to a minimum.

In that case I will say this instead. I don't know what the absolute prices of warmachines should be in comparison to other things in the armies, so I'm just going to compare how efficient they are relative to each other.

If the Reaper fires at 100% efficiency, the others fire at:
Runic: between 44% and 56% efficiency (67% against 4+ rerollable)
Runic w/ engineer: between 62% and 86% (107% against 4+ rerollable)
Repeater: ~80% efficiency across the board

Cheers!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An internal comparison of some ranged HE units with DE Darkshards:

10 Archers with Hawkeye & Standard Bearer @ 155 pts

5 Sister of Avelorn with High Sister @ 131 pts

10 Darkshards with Guardmaster & Standard Bearer @ 132 pts

Repeater Bolt Thrower @ 110 pts

Move, range and save, #wounds:
Archers: 6", 20", 6+, 10
Sisters: 6", 18", 5+, 5
Darkshards: 6", 16", 5+, 10
Repeater: 4", 36", 5+, 6 (crew included)

Damage:
Archers: 2.58 (0)
Sisters: 2.67 (0) (3.33 (0) vs Chaos)
Darkshards: 3.5 (0)
Repeater: 4 (-1)

Abilities:
Archers can deal twice the damage one turn per game.
Sisters can do this every turn they stand still, they can "stand and shoot" when charged and they get +1 on wound rolls against Chaos.

Based on this, I would say that Archers are severely overcosted compared to the other "pure" ranged options in the HE army. The 2" range they have over the Sisters is negligible, and their ability to shoot twice one turn is not nearly as strong as the Sisters ability to shoot twice every turn they stand still. On top of this, the sister can "stand and shoot" and get bonuses against Chaos units. The only real advantage the Archers have is the double body count, but this is offset by their save being half as good (this interaction becomes a bit more complex when rend is taken into account, but I'll ignore that for now). As it stands, I would never take a unit of Archers over a unit of Sisters.

Sisters may be slightly too cheap currently, however I would have to try them in a few games before reaching a definite conclusion (I have a box that should arrive in my mailbox very soon, I'll get to playtesting asap). They seem like a very solid ranged unit, with some good utility. When standing still, they deal more damage than the Repeater against lightly armoured targets (5+ and 6+ saves), while the repeater deals better with heavier armour. In a balanced army I would include both of them most of the time, and against Chaos I would bring some Sisters every single game.

Darkshards, added in as an afterthought, seem like a very solid unit. They price about the same as the sister, have twice the body count but slightly shorter range, lack the utility of the Sisters and perform solidly in-between the Sisters standing still and the Sisters shooting after moving. Assuming these are properly priced, since they're 0.5, I would say that Sisters should go up slightly and that Archers should go down significantly.

While looking into these, I came upon a rules question. The rules for the Sisters state that they may attack twice when standing still, and as they have 1 attack on their profile my initial interpretation was that they then get 2 attacks while standing still, and that the High Sister gets 3. However, when looking at the corresponding hero, the Handmaiden of the Everqueen, she has the same rule ("may attack twice") but already has 2 attacks on her profile! My interpretation then is that "attacking twice" means using the full profile twice, giving both the Handmaiden and the High Sister 4 attacks when standing still. What are your thoughts on this?

Next I will look at the hybrid units of the HE army, i.e. Lothern Sea Guard, Shadow Warriors and Ellyrian Reavers.

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/18 19:06:54


Post by: Attilla


Good stuff, Solaris!

As you have noted, the regular HE archers are very expensive - this was an error with older lists when we began to allow shooting in melee. We priced the units high so they wouldn't be overpowered, but the more we played, the more we realised it wasn't such a big deal after all. That's why most ordinary ranged attackers go down in cost in v0.5, and I bet the Archers will too

About the attacks - I have to say you double your attacks when attacking twice. There are many units that gains 1 attack, and that's not the same as attacking twice. So the High Sister should shoot 4 times...a proper Legolas

Keep up the good math!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh yeah, forgot why I came to Dakka this time...

Tomb Kings and Ogre Kingdoms have been updated to v0.5!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/19 08:13:55


Post by: Araknir


Just checking the Daemon v0.5b and I found some oddity in the Soulgrinder. Out of the box, it comes with both the harverster canon and the phlegm bombardment. So i don't see why you put the bombardment as an upgrade.

"A Soul Grinder is a single model. It is armed with a fearsome Harverster Cannon, Piston-driven Legs and a Hellforged Claw, and can spit a horrific Phlegm Bombardment. Some Soul Grinders also wield a Warpmetal Blade, while some other have a Demonbone Talon"


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/19 08:25:32


Post by: Attilla


It was mostly a matter of making the Soul Grinder cheaper with the bombardment optional...let's just say I on purpose interpreted the word "can" as optional.

But if that's not how you (you as in daemon player) would prefer it, I can switch it back and add the cost to the base.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/19 23:08:47


Post by: NinthMusketeer


I think that IS the best way to do it as it offers more choice to players. Plus, that is how it worked in the 8th Ed daemons army book.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/20 12:28:50


Post by: Solaris


So, I had a look at some different infantry options, specifically comparing HE Spearmen and Lothern Sea Guard to Empire State Troops armed with spears and DE Dreadspears. Since Empire and DE are at v0.5 I'm going to assume those units are correctly priced.

I'm comparing all four warscrolls at tiers of 10, 20 and 30 models, including full command at each stage and shields for the State Troops. I'll include the price at each tier, the move, save and bravery, any special rules and the number of wounds they cause per round at each tier. The damage is calculated from ideal conditions (i.e. HE and DE spears not moving in the same turn).

Empire spears
73 pts, 133 pts, 213 pts
5", 5+, 5
+1 to hit if 20 or more models
+2 to hit if 30 or more models
+3 to hit if 40 or more models (not relevant since rolls of 1 always fail)
2.75 (0), 7 (0), 12.92 (0)

DE spears
93 pts, 163 pts, 233 pts
6", 5+, 6
+1 to hit when standing still
+1 to hit when 20 or more models
3.67 (0), 8.75 (0), 12.92 (0)

HE spears
91 pts, 161 pts, 231 pts
6", 5+, 6
reroll hit rolls of 1 when standing still
+1 attack when 20 or more models
3.21 (0), 11.96 (0), 17.79 (0)

Lothern sea guard
186 pts, 346 pts, 506 pts
6", 5+, 6
Reroll hit rolls of 1 when 20 or more models
2.75 (0), 6.13 (0), 9.04 (0)
Ranged: 2.5 (0), 5.83 (0), 8.75 (0)

In terms of efficiency, State Troops and Dreadspears seem to be priced about right for what they do. The Dreadspears cost more per model at low tiers, but also perform better per model at those tiers. As the performance evens out, so too does the relative cost. Awesome.

HE Spearmen cost about the same as Dreadspears at all tiers, but perform worse in low numbers and significantly better in high numbers (and extra attack per model is just insane). They should probably be lowered in price at 10-19 models, but increased in price in higher numbers. My suggestion would be something like 60 for 10 + 6 per extra model and 150 for 20 + 8 per extra model.

Now Sea Guard are an interesting unit. In small numbers they outperform anything else, assuming they get to both shoot and stab in the same turn. However, unlike the others they are not completely dependent on being in melee range to deal damage. In high numbers they deal identical damage to the Spearmen, only half their damage has a 16" range. Compared to Dreadspears, they deal about 40% more damage on all tiers, half of which is ranged which gives them a utility the others don't have. I would put them at 90 for 10 + 9 per extra model, a 30% price increase compared to Dreadspears to reflect the damage and utility they bring to the table.

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/20 21:29:49


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Something else I noticed is that Bloodletters don't have scaling points costs despite having a similar 20+ rule to other daemonic troops. I assume this is an error...?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/21 14:14:07


Post by: Attilla


Solaris wrote:So, I had a look at some different infantry options

I'll run the HE list next, so your input is excellent Solaris!


NinthMusketeer wrote:I assume this is an error...

It's not an error per se, but might be an error of my mind.
I was thinking that the Bloodletters come on 25mm square bases, which in my mind equals 32mm round bases. That means that even in greater numbers, they will struggle to get plenty of attacks in and with only a +1 to hit didn't have to pay extra.
The Plaguebearers gain a very nice protective bonus, and the Pink Horrors gets +1 to hit with an 18" range. The Daemonettes become truly brutal with extra attacks on 5+. Compared to that the Bloodletters entry didn't feel like it needed any extra complexity by upping the cost for 20+ models. The same goes for the Dark Elves Dreadspears, they are capped at +1 to hit for 20+ models, so I didn't bother making them more expensive either.

As always this is up for discussion!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/21 17:04:12


Post by: Solaris


Just noticed that there are two entries for the Elven War Horn that a HE Prince on Dragon can get. I assume this is an error?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/21 17:52:27


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Attilla wrote:
NinthMusketeer wrote:I assume this is an error...

It's not an error per se, but might be an error of my mind.
I was thinking that the Bloodletters come on 25mm square bases, which in my mind equals 32mm round bases. That means that even in greater numbers, they will struggle to get plenty of attacks in and with only a +1 to hit didn't have to pay extra.
The Plaguebearers gain a very nice protective bonus, and the Pink Horrors gets +1 to hit with an 18" range. The Daemonettes become truly brutal with extra attacks on 5+. Compared to that the Bloodletters entry didn't feel like it needed any extra complexity by upping the cost for 20+ models. The same goes for the Dark Elves Dreadspears, they are capped at +1 to hit for 20+ models, so I didn't bother making them more expensive either.

As always this is up for discussion!
I see what you mean, though Daemonettes also rely on being in melee to get the benefit. All four options come on 25mm square, but since they have been packaged with 25mm round bases for quite a while (and still are for now) I wouldn't use 32mm base size as a factor. That said, it might be good to have the Bloodletter&Daemonette point cost increase by 3 at 20+ instead of the 4 that Plaguebearers&Horrors get. In my games large units haven't had much of a problem getting the majority of models into melee but there are definitely still a notable fraction left out in a given round.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/24 15:50:31


Post by: Attilla


I have updated the High Elves list to v0.5 now, at the blog!


NinthMusketeer, I think you're right. I should add cost by numbers to Bloodletters, and maybe also to Dark Elf Dreadspears, who gain a +1 bonus to hit from 20+ models.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/24 21:28:11


Post by: Solaris


Cool, will be checking these out on the table and report back to you!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/26 04:30:24


Post by: pancakeonions


fantastic project, thanks for doing this


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/26 17:00:53


Post by: Attilla


It has become Bretonnias turn to recieve their v0.5 update! Find it here.

Solaris wrote:Cool, will be checking these out on the table and report back to you!

Looking forward to it!

pancakeonions wrote:
fantastic project, thanks for doing this

Thank you very much, and thank you for using the PPC!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/30 10:09:31


Post by: Attilla


Lizardmen has been updated to v0.5!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/30 19:48:00


Post by: Solaris


Played a couple of games today, HE vs Daemons. Both games seemed like they would be pretty balanced, even though they ended up being pretty onesided this was mostly due to RNG. Some units seemed quite strong, and others quite weak (my Griffon Prince is a perpetual disappointment), but two games are not enough to judge whether they were balanced or not. However, one unit stood out as being a whole lot of value for its points, and that was the HE Sea Helm.

As it stands, I currently see very little reason not to bring a Sea Helm with a Sea Drake Pennant, and I also see very little reason not to use him as my general (unless I had a Prince on Dragon, in which case I would use him as general in order to be able to use the Sea Helms command ability anyway). With the current prices, both his Command Ability and his Totem may be a tad too strong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and also, for 27 pts compared to 30, there's is basically no reason to take Silver Helms over Dragon Princes - they are just much worse but almost as expensive.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/31 17:41:16


Post by: Attilla


Solaris wrote:
Played a couple of games today, HE vs Daemons. Both games seemed like they would be pretty balanced, even though they ended up being pretty onesided this was mostly due to RNG. Some units seemed quite strong, and others quite weak (my Griffon Prince is a perpetual disappointment), but two games are not enough to judge whether they were balanced or not. However, one unit stood out as being a whole lot of value for its points, and that was the HE Sea Helm.

As it stands, I currently see very little reason not to bring a Sea Helm with a Sea Drake Pennant, and I also see very little reason not to use him as my general (unless I had a Prince on Dragon, in which case I would use him as general in order to be able to use the Sea Helms command ability anyway). With the current prices, both his Command Ability and his Totem may be a tad too strong.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh and also, for 27 pts compared to 30, there's is basically no reason to take Silver Helms over Dragon Princes - they are just much worse but almost as expensive.


Thanks Solaris! Will raise the cost for Sea Helm next update, and the Griffon Prince will have a look over as well since the next update focuses on monsters. As for the Dragon Princes....I think I missed them entirely in the update Will make sure to have the HE list as one of the earliest v0.6 updates to fix these things.

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/08/31 18:44:28


Post by: Solaris


Nice =) The problem with the Sea Helm is that he is strong as a support character with his Command Ability and his Totem, but not so much from his profile. So it's not as simple as just raising his basic cost.

Of course, look at the Griffon if monsters are the next thing on the list =) But I don't think the price is wrong, I've just mainly been very unlucky with my rolls when fielding him :p


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/01 18:58:24


Post by: Smellingsalts


Hey guys,
If anyone from PPC reads this, it would be super cool if the tamurkhan warscrolls got point costs, as well as the chaos dwarfs


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/01 20:04:39


Post by: Attilla


Smellingsalts wrote:
Hey guys,
If anyone from PPC reads this, it would be super cool if the tamurkhan warscrolls got point costs, as well as the chaos dwarfs


Hi Smellingsalts!

There was another request for this on the blog by Ultimate Gamers, so I've squeezed those two armies on the to-do list between finishing v0.5 and beginning v0.6. So once Warrors of Chaos and Wood Elves are updated to v0.5, the forgeworld lists will be created. This will probably be next week for both lists.

Cheers and thanks for the request, always nice to see new posts around



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/01 20:51:47


Post by: Andreas 2.0


A thing I learned from todays battle. Skeleton archers are nearly useless :p Well not really, but I would much rather have another sheleton with sword and shield than I would want one with a bow. They just don't do much for 9 points. And I'm still guessing that this goes for alot of other archer units. Just saying.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/02 15:17:47


Post by: Attilla


Andreas 2.0 wrote:
A thing I learned from todays battle. Skeleton archers are nearly useless :p Well not really, but I would much rather have another sheleton with sword and shield than I would want one with a bow. They just don't do much for 9 points. And I'm still guessing that this goes for alot of other archer units. Just saying.


With more and more games in, I too believe this to be true. Anyone else feel that regular ranged units doesn't really hold up compared to their high cost? If so, I can go through them again when I look into monsters for v0.6.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/02 18:18:02


Post by: NinthMusketeer


I can say the -1 to hit targets in melee (or when shooting out of melee) goes a long way into balancing them. Hybrid units (good at ranged and melee, or mainly melee with a little ranged) seem appropriately costed to me thus far, but with the comp rules bringing shooting to a more reasonable level I think he may be right. I only have a small amount of direct evidence to go on, however.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/02 21:12:49


Post by: Solaris


In the games I've played so far, my archers haven't been looking too hot. That being said, I've only really fielded them in a couple of games, and the scenarios weren't exactly favourable since they required me to move them forward across the map.

My Sisters and Sea Guard did, in the game I fielded them, perform really well, but on the other hand the scenario was favourable in that game. So it's hard to say.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/03 16:09:31


Post by: Attilla


I will check and tweak the cost of ranged units for v0.6 then.

Warriors of Chaos v0.5 is up now, and Wood Elves will be up this weekend. After that, expect a few days for each Forge World list, depending on how much work I have to bring home with me from my real life job


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/03 22:03:57


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Looks like Hellstriders of Slaanesh are missing a hornblower option in the WoC document.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/04 14:24:27


Post by: Attilla


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like Hellstriders of Slaanesh are missing a hornblower option in the WoC document.


Thanks, seems they've missed this options for some time now. Will be added!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/06 13:40:49


Post by: Attilla


Legions of Azgorh and Tamurkhan's Horde has been added, and Wood Elves updated to v0.5.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/07 02:25:13


Post by: NinthMusketeer


So played against O&G for the first time. After looking at the points I only have two comments; the spidershrine on the Arachnarok seems undercosted (casts 2 spells a turn!), and savage orcs need a variable costing to account for their 20+ unit size. Below 20 I think they need a reduction too. 5ppm below 20 and 8ppm above seems appropriate. As-is they die really easy (6+/6+ is ~70% chance of death against an attack without any rend) and their offensive power doesn't make up for that. However, this is all IMO, of course, and only has a little game experience to back it up.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/10 16:58:53


Post by: Attilla


Thanks for that, Ninth! I'll use this info when I review the O&G for 0.6. Please report anything else you come across, as the more info we have is better - I hope and think that v0.6 of the lists will be close to balanced for a longer period than just a few weeks and your reports always help!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/11 05:53:56


Post by: Smellingsalts


Thanks for the encouragement Attilla. Actually there are only 3 sections I don't use from the Comp. Full disclosure, I own a game store, so most of my issues are geared towards growing the community.The first is the Allies rule. Allowing allies grows the community. I remember when Apocalypse came out for 40K. Most of the entrenched community did not like that you could use any models in your collection, but the community grew. Then 6th edition 40K hit, and it allowed unbound armies. Again people grumbled, and again the community grew. AOS has an unfolding story in which Sigmar is actively seeking out allies. I think the only 2 sides that shouldn't be in the same army are Order and Chaos. The other two rules are Shooting into melee and Screening modifiers. This is purely a game balance decision. I used to play Dark Elves and Wood Elves in 8th Edition WFB. Shooting in AOS is nowhere near what it once was. I know that there are some exceptions, and I guess if you just set up across from one another and run at each other then the shooting army could be effective. But if you play the scenarios from the book, there are so many ways to get to a shooting line. Simply going through a Baleful Gate can get you there. Also, if you allow Allies, the traditional non-shooting armies can match arrow fire with opponents. I am currently playing a Chaos army. The current synergy that I can create lets me charge or run an extra 4 inches (Bloodstoker+musician), re-roll failed charges (General ability), and the Chaos Lord can Pile in 6 inches (mark of Khorne). So I can literally charge at the latest turn 2 most gun lines. Once missile troops are engaged, they really suck. In the old days, Dwarf gun lines would take you apart. now they can't stand and fire. In the old days, when I got to the dwarf gun line, they pulled out axe and shield or two handed weapons and went mano a mano. Now they try to hit me with the butts of their guns (needing 5+). I think if you add the modifiers you then have to decrease the cost of missile troops. At that point you are juggling game mechanics and really for little gain. Anyway, that's my opinion.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/11 06:43:57


Post by: Attilla


I will copypaste this into the Comp thread instead. Can not read and reply properly before tomorrow. Just so you know.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/17 19:34:27


Post by: Attilla


Heads up that Dwarfs, Empire, Bloodbound, Stormcast, Ogres, Beastmen and Bretonnia have been updated to v0.6.

I believe we are getting ever closer to being able to call this v1.0 soon. Still more testing needed though, and feedback of all kind greatly appreciated as usual


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/18 00:40:49


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Those are not armies that I play, so I find them to be grossly overpowered at those points costs. A 30-50% increase in ppm across the board should do the trick!

Joking aside, keep up the great work Attilla! A lot of people are having a lot of fun thanks to your efforts, myself included.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/18 05:49:42


Post by: Attilla


50% increase in Nurgle Daemons coming up . Thanks for the encouragement all of you!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/18 20:29:41


Post by: Hettar


Just had one of the best games of sigmar so far using ppc at 1500pts a side, it was Skaven vs Forest Goblins

The lists were so well balanced as it was 1 Warbringer Verminlord, 1 Verminous clawpack inc 40 clan + swords FC, 2x 10 clan + swords, 20 Storm-vermin FC & 3x plaguewind mortars, a Chieftain BSB and 4 Jezzails VS Goblin bigboss on gigantic spider, shaman on aracknorok + catcher web, 2x Night goblin shamans, 17-20(cant rememer) Forest goblin spider riders + bows FC, 35 Night goblin spear's with 4-5 netters FC, 6 Fanatics, 3 trolls and a rock lobber.

was incredible!!! in the end skaven won with the Verminlord, 18 Clan- rats and 2 jezzails left compared to 3 trolls & a shamen for the goblins.

Also how was the points for undead banners worked out? my experience of undead units so far with them is there either not needed because they have not been attacked or the unit has been wiped with battle shock for it to have worked.

And bring back the undeath lore attribute lol


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/19 12:00:16


Post by: Mymearan


Which scenario did you play?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/19 12:43:23


Post by: Hettar


no scenario unfortunately just a straight pick-up game on a 4x4 board, lots of terrain help alot!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/19 16:30:16


Post by: coelomate


Very minor comment: The Mark of Tzeentch costs 10 points on a Soul Grinder, but it doesn't do anything. There are no abilities in any list that confer any benefit (or target in any way) daemon units with the Tzeentch keyword.

Haven't checked carefully the other marks, although I believe at least Khorne and Nurgle do potentially have an impact.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/19 18:00:07


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Huh, never noticed that but you're right, Tzeentch keyword gives no benefit in a daemons army (or at all, for that matter, unless you are also a wizard). Slaanesh does have a benefit from the Keeper of Secrets command ability but I would say its worth less compared to Khorne or Nurgle. Maybe Attilla priced them in anticipation of future releases.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/19 19:43:02


Post by: HawaiiMatt


Any plans on trying to get this into army builder?

I see the need to have the cost per model in large units be higher (the 21st to 30th zombie is much better than the first 10), but it makes list building a bear.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/20 02:09:31


Post by: Smellingsalts


At Gencon I asked the guys from Army Builder if they were going to make AOS lists.The guy I was talking to just looked disgusted and said "why?." I think we can put them squarely in the "hater" column. Any Aos lists are going to have to be from some dedicated fan.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/21 03:26:01


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Some more games, some more commentary:

-Dwarf Thunderers seem overcosted, I would suggest a 1-2 ppm decrease. Or leave them the same if screening is removed.

-I feel like Stormcast Liberators need an adjustment; basic models seem just slightly overcosted (1-2 ppm decrease might be good) while the weapon upgrades seem undercosted (I would recommend 10 points to give it to a normal guy or 15 to give it to the unit leader).

-I feel similarly about Stormcast Paladins (all variants); I think knocking their ppm down by 2-3 points while increasing the starsoul mace upgrade to 10 points would be good. D3 automatic mortal wounds every single round of combat is extremely powerful.

-Mark of Slaanesh on a daemon prince is rather strong and easily worth 15 points. Certainly more than the 5 it costs now.

-Fiends of Slaanesh are overcosted. I'm still unsure how much, but I am pretty sure they are not worth 55ppm. -1 to hit in close combat is decent for keeping them alive, but their attack power is very inconsistent and not even that great overall. I would say a 10 ppm decrease would be good, but I was using them so I'm assuming a bias; I'll suggest a 5 ppm decrease instead.

-Hellstriders seem a bit off. I think their base cost is fine, but I also think they should be less ppm to add after the initial price (2 ppm less I think). For showing up they are a decent support/harass unit but they really need a lot of models for their soul hunter ability to be worthwhile. Also, the enrapturing banner should probably cost 5 points more; it's quite potent since enemies within 6" of any model in the unit take -1 to hit on shooting and melee.

-I think the Knight-Venator could use a slight points decrease (5-10) because of unreliability on his once-per-game ubershot.

-Knight-Azyros should probably get a slight increase on the grounds that he kinda does it all; a fast mover, resilient, decent melee power, a great synergy ability for ranged units, and an absolutely amazing once-per-game ability. I think an increase of about 10 would be appropriate.

Also, I am noticing a general trend that more elite an army is, the better it tends to do (to a point, obviously). Over all the games I have played, and many more which I have seen, elite armies seem to be getting more than their share of wins. I'm not sure if that is just local metal though so I'd like to hear from others on this.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/21 11:41:55


Post by: Deusvult


Hello, I'm Solaris buddy.

First I'd like to echo some of NinthMusketeers feedback. Thunderers, Liberators, Paladins are all slightly overcosted. Daemon Prince with Mark of Slaanesh is in many ways the best variant and the one I personally prefer over the others, I agree that it's cost should be bumped up. I haven't tried the new knights yet but will give feedback when I have.

I came to give feedback on Warriors of Chaos however. The regular warriors are almos certainly overcosted, compare them to liberators who have essentially the same profile yet are cheaper and have their keyword built in rather than having to pay for it. The Liberators are slightly overcosted so the warriors are even more so.

Secondly I realise you have yet to update warriors to 0.6 but I hope that you'll look at Chimera when you do since its very expensive at 300 pts yet it isn't 50% "better" than a giant and certainly not the equal of two dragon ogre shaggoths.

My thanks to everyone who has worked on the PPC, it's a huge step up over other comp systems we've tried.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/21 17:30:47


Post by: Smellingsalts


I played a few games this weekend and watched a few others. I have to agree with Ninth in that Dwarf Gunners aren't that good. I fought Skaven this week and can I just say that Skaven Jezzails are better than pretty much any other artillery unit they have. Hit on 4+, wound on 3+, Re-roll to hits of 1 if they didn't move, but can move 6" if they need to. Rolls of 6's to hit are 2 mortal, otherwise Rend-2 and 2 wounds. WAAY better than a Warp Lightining Cannon or a Doomwheel. 30" range is better than most. My friend ran them in a unit of 10 and annihilated units in one volley. I told him to get 10 more and ditch both his Warp Lightning Cannons! On average a Lighting cannon will roll 3-4 so with 6 shots he may hit with 3. and do 3 damage. 4 Jezzails that don't move hit with 3 (because of re-rolling ones) and do 6, with maybe 2 being Mortal. I don't think they are classified as Warmachines (so no 25% limit), so they can be ramped up to the point that you could have 20 and really wreck somebody.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/21 19:13:27


Post by: Attilla


Thanks everyone for all the input! I've read all of it but will respond to each one tomorrow after work, just typing this so you all know I'm still around!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/21 23:39:03


Post by: Hettar


What size games are people typically playing with PPC, i've done a couple of 1500's but is that a small or medium game?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 09:52:53


Post by: Deusvult


Hettar wrote:
What size games are people typically playing with PPC, i've done a couple of 1500's but is that a small or medium game?


I've been running 2000 pts. With 2000 pts you get 5-6 heroes a pair of monsters and about 60 regular dudes if you field a warriors of chaos list like I did last time.

1500 pts is also nice but it's harder to fit in the more expensive heroes and monsters.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 15:03:00


Post by: Attilla


LOOOONG POST INCOMING!

Hettar wrote:
Just had one of the best games of sigmar so far using ppc at 1500pts a side, it was Skaven vs Forest Goblins

Also how was the points for undead banners worked out? my experience of undead units so far with them is there either not needed because they have not been attacked or the unit has been wiped with battle shock for it to have worked.

And bring back the undeath lore attribute lol


That's really great to hear, Hettar! Thanks for sharing!

The points for undead banners have been calculated that it will summon new models for 2-3 turns. So if it summons a D6 skeletons for 2-3 turns it will make its worth (not quite worth at 2 turns, but more than worth if used 3 turns). Does the cost feel like too high? Is it more realistic to have it been used 1-2 turns?

The undead lore attribute would be really cool to add - that way necromancers would cast other spells to empower their summoning attempt. Something to think about when we're abit further with the regular unit cost balance indeed!


 coelomate wrote:
Very minor comment: The Mark of Tzeentch costs 10 points on a Soul Grinder, but it doesn't do anything. There are no abilities in any list that confer any benefit (or target in any way) daemon units with the Tzeentch keyword.

Haven't checked carefully the other marks, although I believe at least Khorne and Nurgle do potentially have an impact.


Indeed, it's for future additions that will most certainly come And welcome to the PPC thread too!


 HawaiiMatt wrote:
Any plans on trying to get this into army builder?

I see the need to have the cost per model in large units be higher (the 21st to 30th zombie is much better than the first 10), but it makes list building a bear.



Got me thinking that we could make one for Battlescribe perhaps. Would that be appreciated and used by the community?


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Some more games, some more commentary:

-Dwarf Thunderers seem overcosted, I would suggest a 1-2 ppm decrease. Or leave them the same if screening is removed.

-I feel like Stormcast Liberators need an adjustment; basic models seem just slightly overcosted (1-2 ppm decrease might be good) while the weapon upgrades seem undercosted (I would recommend 10 points to give it to a normal guy or 15 to give it to the unit leader).

-I feel similarly about Stormcast Paladins (all variants); I think knocking their ppm down by 2-3 points while increasing the starsoul mace upgrade to 10 points would be good. D3 automatic mortal wounds every single round of combat is extremely powerful.

-Mark of Slaanesh on a daemon prince is rather strong and easily worth 15 points. Certainly more than the 5 it costs now.

-Fiends of Slaanesh are overcosted. I'm still unsure how much, but I am pretty sure they are not worth 55ppm. -1 to hit in close combat is decent for keeping them alive, but their attack power is very inconsistent and not even that great overall. I would say a 10 ppm decrease would be good, but I was using them so I'm assuming a bias; I'll suggest a 5 ppm decrease instead.

-Hellstriders seem a bit off. I think their base cost is fine, but I also think they should be less ppm to add after the initial price (2 ppm less I think). For showing up they are a decent support/harass unit but they really need a lot of models for their soul hunter ability to be worthwhile. Also, the enrapturing banner should probably cost 5 points more; it's quite potent since enemies within 6" of any model in the unit take -1 to hit on shooting and melee.

-I think the Knight-Venator could use a slight points decrease (5-10) because of unreliability on his once-per-game ubershot.

-Knight-Azyros should probably get a slight increase on the grounds that he kinda does it all; a fast mover, resilient, decent melee power, a great synergy ability for ranged units, and an absolutely amazing once-per-game ability. I think an increase of about 10 would be appropriate.

Also, I am noticing a general trend that more elite an army is, the better it tends to do (to a point, obviously). Over all the games I have played, and many more which I have seen, elite armies seem to be getting more than their share of wins. I'm not sure if that is just local metal though so I'd like to hear from others on this.


Did you use the -1 for shooting into melee for the Thunderers? I don't think we'll remove Screening just yet, but lowering the cost of Thunderers could be done if it still feels like they are overcosted. Did you play any scenarios, or just kill the other?

Liberators are a tough one - they are pretty sturdy with 2W and pretty decent damage output (DO). If we pit them up against, say Empire Swordsmen, they come out pretty much the same (10 libs vs 26 swordsmen, in a vacuum). I'm not against lowering them 1 pt/model, but I think we need abit more testing first. I'll reply to Deusvult on the Chaos Warriors here as well (and a big welcome to you Deusvult!! ). The Liberator and Chaos Warrior is almost identical - the reason a Liberator cost a point (or two with mark on the warrior) is simply that is has a bigger base and therefor has a harder time bringing all their attacks to bear. But if we decide that Libs go down in points, Chaos Warriors will follow as well . I will wait with the Warriors of Chaos for awhile so we can get some more tests in before the decision, please report again if you try them out even more.

Haven't tried the Paladins since the latest increase in points, but looking at them again I agree and will lower them 2 pts / model. Will also adjust their special equipment accordingly.

Agreed on the Daemon Prince, and goos suggestion to raise to 15 pts to start with. Also raised the Nurgle one to 10 pts.

Have added the input on Hellstriders and Fiends of Slaanesh so I can review them further when I get around to updating the DoC and WoC to 0.6

The Venators special shot is hard to value, so it might be overcosted right now, but on the other hand it does have the potential to one-shot most heroes (especially less armoured ones) so I think we need some more feedback before we touch that one. The same goes for the Azyros. While very powerful in the right place, you need to move the Azyros up to the right position before unleashing it in your next turn, which might or might not happen depending on your opponents move. And his melee DO is not really very high when compared to other heroes that needs to be very close to enemy lines to maximize their effectiveness. Again, will of course change the cost if requested, but need abit more testing first.

About the elite armies, that sounds alarming, and well worth keeping an eye out on, especially why it might be that way and if its due to certain scenarios or points limits. Also, what constitutes an elite army - do you mean Chaos with lots of Warriors/Chosen/Monsters, and Ogre Kingdoms with Ironguts, or "non-elite" armies with elite units (like Empire armies using Greatswords/Knights or similar)?

Cheers for all the good input this time too!



Deusvult wrote:I realise you have yet to update warriors to 0.6 but I hope that you'll look at Chimera when you do since its very expensive at 300 pts yet it isn't 50% "better" than a giant and certainly not the equal of two dragon ogre shaggoths.


I will indeed look at it when I update! But right now I can see that the Shaggoth will probably have its cost increased. The Chimera does have slightly worse melee capabilities than a Giant (if we take the Stuff in Bag into account against 1-2W models) but on the other hand it has a longer movement (with fly!), much better charge, and can breath fire. It's going to be interesting taking a closer look at it for sure! But from a glance it is most likely going to drop in points.


Smellingsalts wrote:
I played a few games this weekend and watched a few others. I have to agree with Ninth in that Dwarf Gunners aren't that good. I fought Skaven this week and can I just say that Skaven Jezzails are better than pretty much any other artillery unit they have. Hit on 4+, wound on 3+, Re-roll to hits of 1 if they didn't move, but can move 6" if they need to. Rolls of 6's to hit are 2 mortal, otherwise Rend-2 and 2 wounds. WAAY better than a Warp Lightining Cannon or a Doomwheel. 30" range is better than most. My friend ran them in a unit of 10 and annihilated units in one volley. I told him to get 10 more and ditch both his Warp Lightning Cannons! On average a Lighting cannon will roll 3-4 so with 6 shots he may hit with 3. and do 3 damage. 4 Jezzails that don't move hit with 3 (because of re-rolling ones) and do 6, with maybe 2 being Mortal. I don't think they are classified as Warmachines (so no 25% limit), so they can be ramped up to the point that you could have 20 and really wreck somebody.


Hm, mathematically a Jezzail have a DO of about 0,8 over 30" if they are stationary, while a Lightning Cannon has an average DO of 3,33 over 24". This assumes that all rolls of 1 are failures, so even if a Cannon rolls a 1 on the first roll, you will still need 2+ to hit on the second rolls. Otherwise it would have a DO of 3,5 instead.
The Cannon costs the same as 4 Jezzails, which would equal 0,8*4=3,2 DO, so the Cannon have a very slight edge in the dmg department over the Jezzails, trading 6" of range for the 0,13 more damage. The Cannon has 2 less wounds than four Jezzails, but slightly better save. It moves 3" less.
Cannon vs 4 Jezzail
Damage: Cannon (+0,13 to 0,30). Cannon also have ever so slightly better melee DO.
Range: Jezzail (+6")
Save: Cannon (+1 better save in melee)
Move: Jezzail (+3")
Wounds: Jezzails (+2W), but will lower their damage with 0,8 for every two wounds taken!
Bravery: Same, although Jezzails are likely to flee if they take casualties while the Cannon does not flee!

With all this, I'm not yet convinced that Jezzails truly are better than Cannons points for points, purely mathematically that is But I will await more results and make adjustments if you play them more times and experience the same. I'll check the Doomwheel closer once I get down to updating the list to v0.6. But please keep reporting how it goes with the Skaven, my own group have sold our Skaven right before AoS so we have a hard time testing that list.


Hettar wrote:
What size games are people typically playing with PPC, i've done a couple of 1500's but is that a small or medium game?

We play different sizes, but has recently moved down to about 1000 pts and only play with rebased models that we are also painting up properly. Always fun to run escalation games and increase our points limits every few weeks We aim to move up to 1500 pts and stay there for some weeks before finally moving up to 2000-2500 pts!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 16:04:27


Post by: Deusvult


I actually tried out both warriors of chaos and the chimera yesterday. Both versus Dwarves. The battle reconfirmed my belief that chaos warriors and the chimera are overcosted. With a mere 5+ save the chimera is really squishy.

The warriors are decent enough but they lack the large "support network" that the liberators get with all the awesome battalion warscrolls that give them deepstrike and all sorts of special rules. Footslogging chaos warriors are quite vulnerable.

The thunderers once again did not perform at the expected level for their point cost.

The Dwarf lord and dragonslayer both proved their immense worth at 80 and 85 points they are really cheap for the damage they can dish out. The dragonslayer absolutely slaughterered the Chimera and his twin dwarf lords killed chaos warriors by the bucketful.

We played the spellbreaker scenario from Ghal Maraz, Chaos was the attacker and the Dwarves (with some stormcast) defended. The dwarves won a major victory.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 16:40:25


Post by: Smellingsalts


Hi all. So the Jezzails. You mentioned that rolls of 1 fail? But Jezzails that don't move re-roll ones, so the math on their damage output should go up. Also, here is something that math doesn't take into effect, range. The added range of Jezzails means they often don't have to move (so they get the re-roll), they will often get more shots off than a Cannon because of the longer range. And if both a Jezzail unit and a Cannon were poorly positioned (on a denied flank for instance) the Jezzails most likely will be able to re position and fire in one turn. The Cannon may take two or more. Also, you are right that killing a Jezzail takes down their efficiency, but adding more to a unit brings it up. This is something that a Cannon can't do, because Cannons are limited being Warmachines, so if you do take more Cannons, you are giving up other Warmachines, Abominations, etc. Also you can't take partial Cannons, so when list building if you find yourself with an extra 80 points you can't take a Cannon, but you can take another 2 Jezzails. If they had made Jezzails Warmachines it would have solved the problem, oh well.

As for Dwarf Gunners, we don't use screening in our league and they are still getting mopped up. I think People are thinking that missile troops are superior to melee troops because they can shoot and melee, but I have to disagree. Missile troops have been nerfed in that when they do get caught in melee they don't have effective attacks 4+ to hit/5+ to wound/no rend with gun butts, 5+ save. They just cannot stand against a melee army. And in the example I watched this weekend, the Dwarf player was playing a Nurgle player (who had clouds of flies making hard to hit, 6+!). His gunners were rolled up by Plague Drones. The Nurgle player also took allied Hellstriders that hit the gun lines on turn 1.

Stormcasts are doing just fine. My son uses them. He found a combo where the Knight that carries the Pennant uses it to teleport the Knight Azyeros into Lantern range. Chaos units in the area first get hit with d6 mortal wounds from the teleport effect and then d6 mortal wounds from the lantern. Since both abilities happen in the Hero Phase, you can decide who goes first, so teleport/lantern. That combo wiped out a Great Unclean One (had taken wounds from shooting previous turn), a Herald of Nurgle, and 2 chaos sorcerers in one round. Granted the Knight died next, but the trade was totally worth it!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Deusvult, what mark of chaos do you run? If you run Khorne, then all of the new heroes buff your Warriors of Chaos. A Bloodstoker would let them run and charge an extra 3"(4" if they have a horn), A Great Lord of Khorne could let them re-roll charges. The Slaughter Priest can make Gunlines run towards you in your turn. That should help with the slow Move!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 17:02:58


Post by: Deusvult


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Deusvult, what mark of chaos do you run? If you run Khorne, then all of the new heroes buff your Warriors of Chaos. A Bloodstoker would let them run and charge an extra 3"(4" if they have a horn), A Great Lord of Khorne could let them re-roll charges. The Slaughter Priest can make Gunlines run towards you in your turn. That should help with the slow Move!


I ran them with mark of khorne and a bloodsecrator. It didn't really work out since the spellbreaker scenario "forced" me to advance while he stood still making the bloodsecrator hard to use. I also ran a bloodstoker to speed them up but his twin dwarf lords smashed them to pieces when they hit his lines. A 6 for my bravery roll then finished them off.

I pulled off the charge too, that wasn't an issue

I will run them in a couple of more games (versus Solaris and his High Elves maybe) and report back


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 19:30:23


Post by: Attilla


@ Smellingsalts
However, in the DO of the Jezzails I did take the reroll of 1s into account I believe, so when moving they would actually do even less damage. But you are entirely right in the part where range and the added mobility of the Jezzails can be of great importance. The question is how great in points cost. And also completely agree about the Jezzails do not waste your warmachine slots, that should also be a factor when calculating their cost. I'll add the Jezzails to the list of stuff to take extra look at for v0.6. In the mean time, please report back if you play more Skaven.

@ Deus
I think the Warriors can be situational. I've really never been let down by mine yet, as they both dish out respectable dmg and can take plenty of it as well. Could be very dependant on scenario though, we usually play objectives-based that is the same for both sides. My group even argued they should go up in points, but that was in july before AoS had begun to mature.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 20:05:22


Post by: Smellingsalts


So does anyone think that adding points to some of the battalions might be a cool idea? the reason I can see this being a positive addition is that at my local store, there is some debate whether to allow battalions or to not due to the lack of any costing method for these. Just food for thought


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 20:15:20


Post by: Attilla


I have not dared venturing there yet, but in the best of worlds I would definately want the batallions to cost. They add bonuses and are not all equally good so should cost or not be allowed IMHO. Around here we play without batallions for the main part.

It might be hard to keep up with all batallions that GW will release if one intend to give them a cost though.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/22 23:22:17


Post by: Hettar


I would be in favor of attaching a points value to battalions, that way we can make any new recruits into the age of sigmar see the light of points without and negative cogitations affiliated with it.

maybe its just my play style against the undead that makes me think the undead banners are expencive, as i dont spread my attacks and i pick on a unit until i know for certain that battleshock will wipe it out before i move to another.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/23 00:42:02


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Certain battalions will probably need points costs, but I feel that is a lower priority now. The next category, I feel, should be hero command abilities. I'm in the camp now where I think having heroes come without them and the option to be upgraded is the best way to go.

On the thunderer discussion; I was playing with no screening and no melee hit penalty (was asked to try a scenario or an upcoming tournament in the store), and I felt they were about worth their cost in that match - leading to me thinking they are overcosted otherwise. Overall I think missile units are a it overcosted, but once the -1 to hit in melee is taken out I think they are about right with screening left in (played several games like this too). If screening gets removed as well, some of the weaker shooters now will probably be on-par, while many will need a points increase.
in the example I watched this weekend, the Dwarf player was playing a Nurgle player (who had clouds of flies making hard to hit, 6+!). His gunners were rolled up by Plague Drones. The Nurgle player also took allied Hellstriders that hit the gun lines on turn 1.
TBF you should never be shooting at plaguebearers, and without screening I doubt that the thunderers were at a lack for targets. They certainly tear up hellstriders very effectively.

On this:
The same goes for the Azyros. While very powerful in the right place, you need to move the Azyros up to the right position before unleashing it in your next turn, which might or might not happen depending on your opponents move. And his melee DO is not really very high when compared to other heroes that needs to be very close to enemy lines to maximize their effectiveness.
The Azyros would likely be costed appropriately if this didn't exist:
the Knight that carries the Pennant uses it to teleport the Knight Azyeros into Lantern range


On liberators: I think the cost of a unit as a whole is pretty good where it is, but I feel a larger portion of that cost should be in the weapon upgrade(s) rather than the basic models. Also, there kinda needs to be an increased cost for giving the weapon upgrade to the unit champion, since he gets an extra attack with it (which may not seem like much, but it is a 50% increase in the damage output of that weapon).

On elite armies doing better: I trend I have noticed is that the less models an army has at a given points value, the better it tends to do overall. That is to say ogres do extremely well, stormcast do well, elite chaos armies do well, while swarmy armies tend to do more poorly. I want to emphasize that this is something I am noticing across a large number of games and certainly isn't extremely pronounced (maybe like 60-40 percent win division). It may just be local meta/players or perception bias on my part, so I'm tossing it out there to see what input others may have.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/23 06:56:24


Post by: Deusvult


I have played about a dozen games at 1500 or 2000 pts and I've noticed that unless properly buffed and supported by synergistic abilities chaff-type troops are hardly ever worth their point cost.

With proper magical/general/totem support they can do good work but this is scenario/battleplan dependent.

Bringing them as a sort of "ablative shield" for your heroes to prevent them being surrounded and hit from all sides is also a good idea. Dwarf lords shielded by dwarf warriors is what lost me my last game.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/23 18:00:39


Post by: Solaris


What do you mean by "being worth their point cost" though? If you mean that they don't kill stuff worth their point cost, then that is sort of a moot point, because that's not the purpose of chaff. The purpose is soaking for and protecting your more important units, such as the Dwarf lord in your example.

I think that if they accomplish that to a satisfactory degree for their point cost, then they are worth bringing to the table. The challenge lies in designing the costs so that a balance between chaff and hard hitting units is optimal (good game design), rather than bringing excessive amounts of one and very little of the other (bad game design).


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/25 01:16:22


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Bit more commentary;

-Battalions will need to be addressed in some way, even if it is just to say that PPC assumes they aren't used. Some of the battalion options are downright broken in terms of what can be done with a given points value.

-Knight Azyros is going to be very tricky. On his own he is (barely) worth 100 points, but can easily be worth 200+ because of the most powerful synergies in the game. It might be a good idea to make his lantern-blast ability an upgrade rather than stock.

-Pink Horrors of Tzeentch are missing command options, and should probably cost 170-190 for a base unit, since they are a wizard regardless of size. That said, the cost for adding models should probably be reduced by a notable margin (2 or 3 ppm) because when wizard ability is put aside they simply aren't that good.

-Lord of Change should probably increase in price by a fair margin (like 20-40 points). He's simply better than what he costs right now. Kairos probably should too, though I don't have play experience with the latter.

-I want to mention again that Stormcast weapon upgrades need a points increase. Many base models are fine or even a bit overcosted imo, but their special weapons (starsoul maces in particular) are very powerful. My recommendation that stormcast ppm go down was contingent upon weapon upgrades going up; the total unit cost, in my eyes, should not be changing much at all.

-On the topic of Stormcast in general, I think the average cost of their heroes needs to go up to account for extremely high synergy value that is present after recent releases.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/25 17:17:42


Post by: Smellingsalts


I for one am against splitting command abilities from Heroes and making them an upgrade. I am also against charging separate for the lantern on the Knight Azyeros. Here I am being consistent with my stance on changing the rules. Point costing a unit as a whole is one thing, but allowing for lesser variants without all the bells and whistles is another. If we are truly trying to make the PPC universal, so that it becomes the accepted set of tournament rules (like E.T.C), then we must change only what is absolutely necessary. If the Stormcasts have a high point cost because of all their cool special abilities, or if a Hero has command abilities that make him cost more, then I think that is one of the agonizing choices one will have to make when designing a tournament list. The more that the PPC becomes a set of home brew rules that alter the rules based on what one faction prefers rather than rules as written, the less people will use it. As for Battalions, the more I look at them, the more I feel like this was an attempt by GW to give a framework for army building. I think they were meant to be used Battalion vs Battalion with no other models beyond what comes in the Battalion. If you point caost the Battalion, I have a bunch of other questions. If I enter a tournament in which the points I am given exceed the cost of the Battalion, are the extra models in my army also part of the Battalion? If not, why not? If I pay for a Battalion (for it's rules), will the cost for the Battalion take into account other models in the army (if Battalion rules are applied to the whole army, not just what is in the Battalion)? If we say that Battalion rules only apply to models listed in the Battalion, have we just made up a rule that didn't exist previously, as no more models than what's in the Battalion are assumed? This could be a sticky wicket.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/26 00:37:35


Post by: NinthMusketeer


[edit] Reposted my response to Smellingsalts in the other thread since it was off topic here.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/26 09:28:35


Post by: Solaris


Smellingsalts wrote:
I for one am against splitting command abilities from Heroes and making them an upgrade. I am also against charging separate for the lantern on the Knight Azyeros. Here I am being consistent with my stance on changing the rules. Point costing a unit as a whole is one thing, but allowing for lesser variants without all the bells and whistles is another. If we are truly trying to make the PPC universal, so that it becomes the accepted set of tournament rules (like E.T.C), then we must change only what is absolutely necessary. If the Stormcasts have a high point cost because of all their cool special abilities, or if a Hero has command abilities that make him cost more, then I think that is one of the agonizing choices one will have to make when designing a tournament list. The more that the PPC becomes a set of home brew rules that alter the rules based on what one faction prefers rather than rules as written, the less people will use it. As for Battalions, the more I look at them, the more I feel like this was an attempt by GW to give a framework for army building. I think they were meant to be used Battalion vs Battalion with no other models beyond what comes in the Battalion. If you point caost the Battalion, I have a bunch of other questions. If I enter a tournament in which the points I am given exceed the cost of the Battalion, are the extra models in my army also part of the Battalion? If not, why not? If I pay for a Battalion (for it's rules), will the cost for the Battalion take into account other models in the army (if Battalion rules are applied to the whole army, not just what is in the Battalion)? If we say that Battalion rules only apply to models listed in the Battalion, have we just made up a rule that didn't exist previously, as no more models than what's in the Battalion are assumed? This could be a sticky wicket.


This is not the right thread, so I'll respond to this in the other one. This one is for discussing unit costs.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/28 15:06:49


Post by: Smellingsalts


Could we get points done for Skarbrand? Thanks! Also, like 3 people told me that discussing whether or not to change point costs on Heroes for Command Abilities and point costs for Battalions was not a point cost issue and to go to the other thread. What was up with that?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/28 16:34:18


Post by: Attilla


Smellingsalts wrote:
Could we get points done for Skarbrand? Thanks! Also, like 3 people told me that discussing whether or not to change point costs on Heroes for Command Abilities and point costs for Battalions was not a point cost issue and to go to the other thread. What was up with that?


Yup, eating dinner now - and then its Skarbrand time
EDIT: Skarbrand = 850 pts

I'd say the command topic was probably moved to the Comp thread because it deals with be or not be of a rule in the pack, rather than actual point costs for balancing issues. A captain that costs 80pts with a cmd ability now would cost the same even after the split, as long as you buy the cmd ability.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/29 01:07:23


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Smellingsalts wrote:
Also, like 3 people told me that discussing whether or not to change point costs on Heroes for Command Abilities and point costs for Battalions was not a point cost issue and to go to the other thread. What was up with that?
It's easy to get sidetracked (did it myself and had to repost...) but this thread is supposed to be for discussing individual costs while the other is for the general comp. Regarding command abilities, if implemented then this would be the thread to discuss the exact value of, say, the command ability of an Orc Warboss while the other would be for discussing whether or not that split should be included in the PPC as a whole.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/30 13:01:39


Post by: Solaris


By the way, I'm still wondering about the costs of Silver Helms and Dragon Princes. The way I see it, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to use Silver Helms for 27 pts, when Dragon Princes cost a mere 3 pts extra. I don't know if Silver Helms should be cheaper, or if Dragon Princes should be more expensive, but I definately think that the two units need to be differentiated more.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/30 14:17:26


Post by: Attilla


Yeah i missed that for 0.5, but its on the list for 0.6, and High Elves is the next list to be updated
So Solaris, now is the time to voice everything HighElfish your group want us to consider for next update The things previously discussed in this thread (such as Dragon Princes) will be looked into as well, of course.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/09/30 16:57:48


Post by: Solaris


Alright =) I don't currently have a whole lot to say, have been too busy with work the last couple of weeks to be able to play. Will get some games in this weekend though, so after that I might have some feedback for you.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/01 17:54:11


Post by: Hettar


Is it intentional to allow units to buy multiple unit leaders? example any storm-vermin may be upgraded to fang leaders and so on


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/01 19:32:06


Post by: Attilla


Hettar wrote:
Is it intentional to allow units to buy multiple unit leaders? example any storm-vermin may be upgraded to fang leaders and so on


It is an intentionally diffuse wording on my part, simply because it seems like Aos RAW you can buy multiples of each. So I basically left it up to each group to decide this for their own. My own group would never allow more than one, though. How would you like it to be, Hettar?



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/01 23:30:45


Post by: Hettar


I really think that it should be only one per unit as it says "The leader of this unit is the Fangleader." it doesn't say some models in this unit are fangleaders

The leader of this unit is an Ironbeard.
The leader of this unit is the Old Guard
The leader of this unit is a Gouge-horn.
The leader of this unit is a Cavalier

i think definitely 1 per unit as even the war-scroll's describes it like so.



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/01 23:49:58


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Yeah it seems like one champion per unit, but multiples of music/banners.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/02 05:55:14


Post by: Attilla


Ah, yeah that does change it abit. I think a change of wording on leaders is in order. Will do that for v0.7 when we're taking closer look at unit cmds. Good catch!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/02 10:31:42


Post by: Hettar


So then hands up who made army's of veteran's? come on naming and shaming moment in the making lol


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I really think undead banners are far too expensive, i know the logic behind why you've made them the price that they are however along with the summoning spell changes it feels like the undead are being punished for being the undead, all banner's should be dropped by around half there points to make sure undead players are not discouraged from using the PPC system. The more people play the against undead the more this will become apparent as undead players just wont pay for the banner's and hence lose the flavor of there army's or they will pay for the expensive banners and then feel robbed every time a unit gets wiped out in battle shock before they used it. And i've just compared to the price and ability's of the other races banners/icon's some of which are really powerful at a 5th of the cost, this does not mean that i think that there banners/icons should be made more expensive.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/02 12:56:59


Post by: Attilla


Undead banners will be decreased in v0.6, as will summoning costs. After that we'll have about a month or so before their v0.7 update, during which we can fully evaluate the new banner costs and increase/decrease it along with the rest of the command options. I'll make the undead lists next on the update schedule to be made after the High Elves list is done!

Cheers!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/02 13:33:11


Post by: Hettar


That's an awesome response! sounds great! My next problem involves Dwarven engineers and ork bullys, the engineer has a penalty stating that he can only influence one war machine per turn but the ork bully has no such restriction is this intentional or some thing that has been overlooked?

In the future as well it would be nice if all units were catagorised back into core, special's and rares for defining a force organisation chart for army's.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/02 19:31:34


Post by: Attilla


The Orc bully is just not v0.6 yet

The Rares etc is something I would personally prefer too, but is not AoS RAW at all so probably will not be a PPC rule for that reason.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/02 22:21:23


Post by: Solaris


Yeah, I'm against bringing back the old force organization of Core, Special, and Rare. I think the keyword restrictions in place now are enough. Adding new categories would be entirely artificial.

Talking about the dwarven engineer and the orc bully, the same goes for the TK necrotect. He can currently boost an undefined amount of screaming skull catapults at the same time.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/04 14:42:25


Post by: Attilla


Solaris wrote:
Yeah, I'm against bringing back the old force organization of Core, Special, and Rare. I think the keyword restrictions in place now are enough. Adding new categories would be entirely artificial.

Talking about the dwarven engineer and the orc bully, the same goes for the TK necrotect. He can currently boost an undefined amount of screaming skull catapults at the same time.


Yeah, the Necro will also recieve the same treatment when it's TK:s time to be updated

Three lists updated today! High Elves, Lizardmen, and Vampire Counts v0.6 can all be found at the blog!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/04 17:29:53


Post by: Deusvult


Attila, you migh very well have crushed poor Solaris spirit. He was planning on getting himself a prince on dragon but at 700 points it seems a bit steep. Personally I thank you for making everything he likes more expensive

I ran Skaven vs Orcs&Goblins today. A few notes: The weapon teams are not very differentiated all costing 75 pts. But they have wildly different range and effectiveness. Both my ratling guns were slaughtered while the mortars fared much better both in kills and survival.

The goblin Rock Lobber and Doom Diver are both steals (A doom diver assassinated my 90 pt skaven chieftain the first turn :() A dwarven grudge thrower is more than twice the cost of the rock lobber and is not more than twice as strong. (I'd rather have 2 rock lobbers than 1 grudge thrower any day).

He fielded 8 regular trolls and we were abit confused about how to resolve their too stupid to die rule. The way we played it was we allocated wounds until they all died, then rolled for too stupid to die and then allocated any remaning wounds to those who were too stupid to die and rolled again. I don't know if this is correct but when played that way they are really lackluster at their current points cost. My much cheaper rat ogres made mincemeat out of them.

I have also tried the warriors of chaos again and found them well balanced (except for the poor chimera)

Good work with the updates


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/04 20:10:01


Post by: Attilla


Deusvult wrote:
Attila, you migh very well have crushed poor Solaris spirit. He was planning on getting himself a prince on dragon but at 700 points it seems a bit steep. Personally I thank you for making everything he likes more expensive

I ran Skaven vs Orcs&Goblins today. A few notes: The weapon teams are not very differentiated all costing 75 pts. But they have wildly different range and effectiveness. Both my ratling guns were slaughtered while the mortars fared much better both in kills and survival.

The goblin Rock Lobber and Doom Diver are both steals (A doom diver assassinated my 90 pt skaven chieftain the first turn :() A dwarven grudge thrower is more than twice the cost of the rock lobber and is not more than twice as strong. (I'd rather have 2 rock lobbers than 1 grudge thrower any day).

He fielded 8 regular trolls and we were abit confused about how to resolve their too stupid to die rule. The way we played it was we allocated wounds until they all died, then rolled for too stupid to die and then allocated any remaning wounds to those who were too stupid to die and rolled again. I don't know if this is correct but when played that way they are really lackluster at their current points cost. My much cheaper rat ogres made mincemeat out of them.

I have also tried the warriors of chaos again and found them well balanced (except for the poor chimera)

Good work with the updates


Haha yeah that was one big increase in points, but that dragon just hits through the roof with its damage output, and can take a ton of beating too. Could always lower the cost if it proves too high from gaming experience, though

Thanks for the input on the Weapon Teams, I'll take a closer look at it when Skaven goes v0.6! The same goes for the O&G warmachines - they'll get theirs for sure

The Rat Ogres are too cheap now though, and will get a slight raise in next update. They have about the same damage output as the trolls when counting the vomit as well, but don't get the troll regen and other special rules. On that topic, I would play the Too Dumb To Die like this:
1. Allocate wounds to the first troll.
2. Did it die? If yes, roll a dice.
3. If it stands back up, put the next damage on him and see if it still is too dumb to die.
4. Continue allocating and rolling for it until the roll is failed, and then continue to place damage on a new troll.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/04 21:51:34


Post by: Hettar


When it comes to the trolls for speed's sake i would just roll all the saves at once then do the too stupid to die for any that died other wise your'l be doing 4 save rolls followed a too stupid followed by one save rinse and repeat 30 odd times


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/04 22:49:55


Post by: Solaris


Uhm, I don't know about this. Some of the HE changes seem borderline insane to me o.O If you rely on playtesting for the Prince of Dragon, I think you'll be out of luck - at 700 points he will never see any play at all. He costs as much as two Greater Daemons. Does he really perform like two?

The Griffon I don't know about, he's never really done anything for me even at the previous price of 250, so I don't think he'll do any better at 275. Maybe other people have different experiences though?

Great job on the Silver Helms and Dragon Princes, I think they are now differentiated enough to serve different niches, without one clearly outperforming the other in every scenario. The Silver Helms still have an initial cost of 135 for 5, is this an error? Should be 125.

The price increases for the Prince and the Mage are probably fine, especially the Mage has really been a staple of mine in every list I've played.

The Bolt Thrower at 130 pts... I don't know, that's harsh. But it seems to be in line with other Warmachine costs in 0.6, so I guess that's fine. It does tend to perform fairly well after all.

Swordmaster and White Lions increases are probably fine. I don't have any experience with the Lions, but the Swordmasters tend to do well. Since they have identical stat lines, that means White Lions should do well too, so these are probably fine. Btw, I assume that the initial price of 60 for 5 White Lions is wrong, and should be 70 instead?

I assume the Sea Helm price is placeholder for when prices for Command Abilities are implemented (at least I hope so). This guy is now officially a General-only type of character I think, the price is just too high if you don't get to use the Command Ability.

All in all, a sad day for HE players


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/04 23:31:19


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Sunday commentary time!

-I think Hellstriders should have their ppm reduced by 2 points, the runeshiekd upgrade increased by 1 point, and the enrapturing banner increase by 5-7

-Marauder Horesmen are quite overcosted. Their cost should probably drop to 15ppm, though increasing the shield upgrade by 1 point.

-skeleton archers need a 1-2ppm reduction

-skeleton warriors should probably be only 9ppm above 30 to account for how many of them won't be attacking

-grave guard should drop 1ppm but then cost 1ppn to upgrade to great weapons

-both morgast units should have a 15-20 increase for the first model to account for their spell buffing.

-the new summoning spell is cool, though I'm noticing that it's worth more on wizards that can cast two+ spells a turn. Not sure how to address this.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/05 04:48:34


Post by: Smellingsalts


Hi all:
I used Skarbrand in league today vs Skaven. He died turn two after he killed a 20+ unit of Plague Monks. One unit of 5 Jezzails killed him. I still think Jezzails are too good and Skarbrand might need a small point reduction. He is scary on paper, but can he kill his pts. value before he gets put down?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/05 13:28:04


Post by: NinthMusketeer


TBF plague monks aren't an ideal measure of Skarbrand's effectiveness. They are 1-wound and have no save, rendering the -2 rend on his main attacks pointless and the effect of his single uber attack nearly so. I think its more a case of Jezzails needing an increase (which others have been saying as I recall) than Skarbrand needing a decrease. Against armies with significant ranged capacity its unlikely he will kill his points value anyways because he will be the target of first priority, but in that scenario he will enable other units to get into combat unharmed where they would otherwise have been shot up.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/05 16:19:18


Post by: Attilla


Solaris wrote:
Uhm, I don't know about this. Some of the HE changes seem borderline insane to me o.O If you rely on playtesting for the Prince of Dragon, I think you'll be out of luck - at 700 points he will never see any play at all. He costs as much as two Greater Daemons. Does he really perform like two?

The Griffon I don't know about, he's never really done anything for me even at the previous price of 250, so I don't think he'll do any better at 275. Maybe other people have different experiences though?

Great job on the Silver Helms and Dragon Princes, I think they are now differentiated enough to serve different niches, without one clearly outperforming the other in every scenario. The Silver Helms still have an initial cost of 135 for 5, is this an error? Should be 125.

The price increases for the Prince and the Mage are probably fine, especially the Mage has really been a staple of mine in every list I've played.

The Bolt Thrower at 130 pts... I don't know, that's harsh. But it seems to be in line with other Warmachine costs in 0.6, so I guess that's fine. It does tend to perform fairly well after all.

Swordmaster and White Lions increases are probably fine. I don't have any experience with the Lions, but the Swordmasters tend to do well. Since they have identical stat lines, that means White Lions should do well too, so these are probably fine. Btw, I assume that the initial price of 60 for 5 White Lions is wrong, and should be 70 instead?

I assume the Sea Helm price is placeholder for when prices for Command Abilities are implemented (at least I hope so). This guy is now officially a General-only type of character I think, the price is just too high if you don't get to use the Command Ability.

All in all, a sad day for HE players


Don't worry Solaris, there will be ups and downs before we hit 1.0 where the balance should feel good enough

Well, comparing the Dragon to a Bloodthirster, the Dragon has more than twice the killing power, but it doesn't have twice the staying power. It does have a really good CMD ability though, so as long as we don't do seperate CMD from base cost that has to be included in the total. All that said, this is pretty much just theoryhammering and formulamaking, so it's a great possibility for decreased costs if it is too high in reality.

The same is true for the poor Sea Helm - as long as we don't seperate the ability from the base cost, he is pretty much out of luck unless used in certain lists as the general.

The Silver Helms and White Lions should indeed cost what you write...sloppy of me!


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Sunday commentary time!

-I think Hellstriders should have their ppm reduced by 2 points, the runeshiekd upgrade increased by 1 point, and the enrapturing banner increase by 5-7

-Marauder Horesmen are quite overcosted. Their cost should probably drop to 15ppm, though increasing the shield upgrade by 1 point.

-skeleton archers need a 1-2ppm reduction

-skeleton warriors should probably be only 9ppm above 30 to account for how many of them won't be attacking

-grave guard should drop 1ppm but then cost 1ppn to upgrade to great weapons

-both morgast units should have a 15-20 increase for the first model to account for their spell buffing.

-the new summoning spell is cool, though I'm noticing that it's worth more on wizards that can cast two+ spells a turn. Not sure how to address this.


Thanks, I'll look into these things. The Morghasts used to cost more for the first one, but they are pretty easily killed after all so we decided to change that. In the beginning there were many things that cost more for the initial unit if they had a "unit based special rule" but that made the lists abit harder to use, and I think the PPC might already be hard enough with its scaling points costs for units.


Smellingsalts wrote:
Hi all:
I used Skarbrand in league today vs Skaven. He died turn two after he killed a 20+ unit of Plague Monks. One unit of 5 Jezzails killed him. I still think Jezzails are too good and Skarbrand might need a small point reduction. He is scary on paper, but can he kill his pts. value before he gets put down?


As Ninth says, maybe it would have been better with a different target - he can pretty much oneshoot lots of beasts out there But on the other hand, as Solaris pointed out, the most extreme damage dealers (dragon, skarbrand, etc) might well be overpriced right now, and will get decreased in that case! In any way, the Jezzail will go up in v0.6


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/05 16:31:06


Post by: Hettar


Ninthmustekteer, you can only cast the same spell once per phase per wizard so problem solved as wizards with 2 spells will only be able to summon once unless you paid for both spells and then ones a baby version,
I have a question tho about zombie shambling horde rule i get it that you cant merge several small units, but it does allow for reinforcing zombie units but with the not allowing the horde to go above starting numbers but what does that mean for the zombies left over? Or can i reinforce over the starting number as long as there not the from the original army?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/05 18:36:25


Post by: NinthMusketeer


On the summon spell, I meant that the wizard in question can cast the summon and something else, unlike one spell wizards which have to sacrifice their single spell out in favor of summoning. The versatility aspect is what I am referring to.

[Edit] In regards to morgasts, I still feel the initial model should cost a bit more, because quite frankly the initial model is better. If its a matter of the unit becoming overcosted (I doubt it since they are so powerful) then the additional models can cost less. It's not really adding complexity since other units are (rightly so) costed the same way, and its something which is present in 40k and other wargames anyway, so people are used to seeing it. I agree that the scaling unit costs are as complex as we should go but I disagree that it means we should avoid other units using less complex pricing schemes.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/06 08:22:49


Post by: Smellingsalts


Ninth, you have created a monster! Every time you win against Tristan he pulls out the Warscroll book and comes up with more heinous combos. I got home and Tristan had several more truly horrible things to throw at people.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/06 13:21:52


Post by: NinthMusketeer


When he goes overboard I just proxy something worse and remind him where the end point is to excessive optimization . To bring this on topic though, I tried out the pox riders from Tamurkhan and I think both them and the plague toads need a 10ppm increase. While their damage output is 'meh' at best, the 4+ extra save against regular or mortal wounds is quite potent.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/06 20:43:44


Post by: TheDanseMacabre


Hey guys,
So anyone have any thoughts about the mortis engine? its good, but im not quite sure that its worth 280+ pts.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/07 15:03:00


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Its very dependent on what you are playing it against. I think that vs daemons or undead it certainly isn't worth that much. But I also think that against almost everything else its easily worth that amount (or more). The reason here is it's main ability is wail of the dammed, which is entirely dependent on enemy bravery for how effective it is. Its going to be one of those units that's very difficult to price since context has such a huge effect on how well it will perform; aside from the bravery there is also how many units the enemy has (a few blobs vs msu), if the enemy is ranged or melee heavy, and if the enemy is running a lot of wizards or not. So all this leaves me asking what is the context that leads you to think it's over costed? Because at a glance it seems appropriate to me but I'm not very sure.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/08 03:54:27


Post by: TheDanseMacabre


The wail of the damned ability does D3 mortal which is decent but not anything extraordinary. besides that the mortis engine performs similar to an amped- up corpse cart, with the reliquary rule being it's main boon. since undead have singular wounds for most infantry (In the VC list) it leads me to think that a points reduction of 20 points should be made, since the blasphemous tome upgrade is the real potential in synergy, 280 points seems very appropriate (with the upgrade).


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/08 22:42:47


Post by: Screaming Echo


My issues from play testing my VC's are...

Mannfred and Neferata cost way too much. Arkhan getting his summoning nerfed should drop down a hundred points or so as well. These guys are decent but they're definitely not worth 700 freakin points. It's insane.

Nagash at 1200 points? Come on now... The only reason everyone cries about him is due to his insane summoning potential which is nerfed to the ground. At this point he's a waste of money. No one in their right mind is going to field him.

It just seems like everything is over costed with this comp.

I'm playing enough games to get a feel of it but I'm just no sold yet.

I'll keep my eye open and pop back to check for updates but right now it's not working out.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/09 01:02:15


Post by: Hettar


Probably best to clarify whether or not Nagash starts with the Will of Nagash spell or he has to pay for it like every other wizard that would bump his price to 1300pts, pretty interesting tho looking at his rules in correlation with pcc maybe it would be worth making it so his "death magic incarnate" abilty is changed to doubling the amount of points that he can summon so then he'd be the only one who could summon zombie dragons and terrorgheights.

Also @ screaming echo, if you compare all the factions prices together you see that they are very similar depending on what unit your looking at, the only way some thing could be over costed is if some thing some where was of the same power was under costed, with the players in control after time all the units will have reasonably fair points costs.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/09 04:38:59


Post by: NinthMusketeer


From my experience fighting Mannfred I would say he is worth every one of his 700 points, at least as general. The re-roll 1's to hit and wound on a huge aoe is amazing, and makes his attacks almost auto-hit (2's with re-roll 1's) with his wound rolls not far behind. He is resilient because of ignoring the first wound each turn and his healing ability, and can cast two spells a turn. I simply do not see how he is not worth his points. I haven't experienced Neferata on the table but she doesn't look like she is overcosted either. Arkan I have seen several times and can say that he really needs to be used right to be worth his points, and having the summon spell is part of that. All in all undead are a very synergy driven army, if you think something isn't worth its points try combining it with different units and combos before passing judgement. For example, mannfred+corpse cart+30 or more zombies = zombies that hit on 2's and wound on 3's, re-rolling 1's for both of those. These are zombies that cost an average of 5 points a model.

On a different note, I tried out some different units today. I'll have to try some of them a few more times but I have to say Be'Lakor is not a 300 point model. I would put him easily at 400 points or more. I really think he should be more like 450-500.

Also, after several games with the 0.6 daemons I have to say good work with the points balancing; all the units I've tried that had changes feel much better where they are at (even the ones that went up).


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/10 14:23:32


Post by: Hettar


i played against daemon's yesterday @ 1750 with my skaven, very balanced even tho my skaven lost :( , he chosse to endure and at the end of the 6th turn he had a wounded herald of nurgle left that robbed me of victory.......Curse you Mr Nurgle!!!!!!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/10 20:34:27


Post by: Deusvult


I've been pondering how to assemble my next box of paladins and I can't but help feeling like the retributors are superior to the others (especially the decimators) when priced at 40 pts each. The protectors have a nice niche but the decimators just feel weak. They have such massive bases that it will be difficult to get any real value vs a horde of clanrats or dwarf warriors, how often will you get more than 4 attacks each? I think they should probably be a bit cheaper than the others.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/10 21:30:51


Post by: NinthMusketeer


I find that its quite easy to get more than 4 attacks each against most infantry, use them against units that have a 1" melee range and then if your enemy keeps them back to reduce your attacks then at least your decimators won't be receiving many in return. They are a much more niche unit than the other paladins but are very powerful within that niche, a good example of a unit that may not quite be worth its points a lot of the time, but is worth much more than its points some of the time. If you want to give them more utility then you can add a starsoul mace as well. Their main problem is outside of the PPC's 'jurisdiction' so to speak; really the ideal size is a unit of 3. That said, I do think retributors have a slight edge on the other two because their basic weapons are better. It might be good to add an extra 2ppm to them.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/11 10:25:52


Post by: Sinister_Dexter


Morning, a question about the Grand Invocation summoning for the Daemons. Can a unit of Pink horrors take it as they have the Chaos and Wizard keywords?

a 2nd question on the Skaven Warplock the power accumulator cost of a potential 1 MW on a failed roll, is 95 points fair for a spell that dishes d6 MW with only that risk?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/11 15:14:46


Post by: NinthMusketeer


I would assume yes on the first question but Attilla is the one who makes the calls. As for the second, personally I think its a matter of utility that puts the cost back down; most wizards' signature spell brings something to the table that couldn't be done otherwise, while the warlock engineer's spell is identical to arcane bolt unless he uses the power accumulator. Either way he effectively only has 2 spells; Mystic Shield and Warp Lightning, to other wizards' three. Granted it isn't a huge difference, but he is priced similarly to many other level 1 wizards. In my opinion he's ok.

On the topic of wizards, Heinrich Kemmler seems undercosted to me at 150 points. In my eyes 2 spells a turn puts him at 150 without any other abilities, but he has an extra movement ability (that can pull him out of melee without needing to retreat), and the ability to look out sir on a 2+ instead of the necromancer's 4+.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/12 10:01:17


Post by: Hettar


I think with the warplock engineer you have to look at him in a certain light, compare him to a warp lighting cannon @160pts, the warplock has less range, less wounds and less Armour but can do the same amount of damage but its straight up harder and with the chance of taking dmg and not working at all. so all in all 95pts is about right in this man's humble opinion.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/12 14:47:54


Post by: Attilla


Thanks everyone for the points input you have provided. It has now come from different sources that the most expensive models are too expensive for what they do, so it'll be a priority to check that more closely for 0.7 alongside command options. I'll also take a closer look at all the other units mentioned here, from plague toads to Engines, Kemmlers, Warplock Engineers, paladins and more

Also, welcome Sinister_Dexter and Screaming Echo, and thanks for taking the time to voice your questions and concerns!

To answer some of the more direct questions:

@ Hettar
Nagash does not start with the summoning spell. Argh, another good idea (summoning more points) that unfortunately means changing a warscroll, so doubtfully will happen :/

@ Sinister_Dexter
Yes, the horrors can take summoning spells, for the reasons you mentioned



PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/17 17:04:11


Post by: Attilla


Heads up that Orcs & Goblins, Skaven, and Warriors of Chaos have been updated to v0.6.

Also Solaris, I have taken a really close look at the formula and it does indeed put the points cost too high for many monsters. So the High Elf Dragonrider among others will recieve a more proper cost soont


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/18 22:49:21


Post by: Hettar


Dwarf bolt thrower seems too cheap, should be the same a cannon or near about as it can quite easily do the same dmg


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/18 22:51:26


Post by: coldgaming


Sorry if I missed it, but do you have an army building tool like www.scrollbuilder.com? For lazy gamers like me, I'd definitely use PPC if I could click my way into an army and not have to read the document/add it up myself.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/19 13:43:19


Post by: Deusvult


Any chance of getting the option to take a chaos lord without the summon 10 marauders ability? I really like my chaos lord but when you price in that ability he becomes too expensive and I have little use for bringing in 10 marauders on 4+.

Also, why do you keep making all my favorites more expensive :(


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/19 15:38:12


Post by: Attilla


Hettar wrote:
Dwarf bolt thrower seems too cheap, should be the same a cannon or near about as it can quite easily do the same dmg


Not so sure about that, let's check some numbers:

Base stats:
Cannon 83% to hit and wound, -2 Rend, 3,5 damage
Bolt 89% to hit and wound, -1 Rend, 2 damage

DO vs 2+ armour
Cannon 1,5
Bolt 0,59

DO vs 3+ armour
Cannon 1,9
Bolt 0,89

DO vs 4+
Cannon 2,4
Bolt 1,2

DO vs 5+
Cannon 2,9
Bolt 1,5

DO vs 6+ and vs -
Cannon 2,9
Bolt 1,7

With an Engineer there is an even higher DO from the cannon since its hit/wound chance goes up to 125% and the Bolt Thrower goes up to 111%.


So the Cannon is definately better than the Bolt Thrower in the damage output, while the Bolt Thrower has 6" better range. Only if the Bolt Thrower rolls a 6 to wound will it reach slightly above Cannon damage.

Bottom line is that the Cannon should cost more, but maybe there is too large a gap right now?


coldgaming wrote:
Sorry if I missed it, but do you have an army building tool like www.scrollbuilder.com? For lazy gamers like me, I'd definitely use PPC if I could click my way into an army and not have to read the document/add it up myself.


It's perfectly fine not wanting to go through 9+ pages to look for a specific question Welcome to the thread, by the way!

There will be scrollbuilder files, but we need abit more stability in the costs first...which I am confident we are about to get very soon!



Deusvult wrote:
Any chance of getting the option to take a chaos lord without the summon 10 marauders ability? I really like my chaos lord but when you price in that ability he becomes too expensive and I have little use for bringing in 10 marauders on 4+.


Only if we do split the Command Abilities from heroes as some are for and some against. Otherwise unfortunenately no. But could you use him as one of the marked heroes instead?

Deusvult wrote:
Also, why do you keep making all my favorites more expensive :(


Haha that is entirely intentional, based on your opponents reports Out of curiosity, which ones do you mean?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/19 17:22:00


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Attilla wrote:

Deusvult wrote:
Any chance of getting the option to take a chaos lord without the summon 10 marauders ability? I really like my chaos lord but when you price in that ability he becomes too expensive and I have little use for bringing in 10 marauders on 4+.


Only if we do split the Command Abilities from heroes as some are for and some against. Otherwise unfortunenately no. But could you use him as one of the marked heroes instead?

Looks like we have one more in favor of splitting them...

Anyways, Deusvault, you could also bring in a chaos spawn or 8 warhounds. Maybe one of those could help your game needs better.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/19 21:44:47


Post by: Hettar


How ever with dwarf lord and a engineer the double dmg comes on a 4+ to wound rather than the 6 with a -3 rend which is higher than the cannon's -2


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/19 21:56:52


Post by: Attilla


Hettar wrote:
How ever with dwarf lord and a engineer the double dmg comes on a 4+ to wound rather than the 6 with a -3 rend which is higher than the cannon's -2


That would be a nasty combo, even if factoring in the Lord's cost would make the Bolt Thrower cost more than the cannon, but of course also have better bodyguard power when the enemy closes in. That's still a non-issue, however, since the Lord's cmd ability only works for dispossessed units, which the war machine isn't The crew are, but they would only benefit in melee though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Still, I didnt factor in the 5+ to get better rend and dmg from the Engineer above. Only the hit/wound ratio. Will check that tomorrow


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/19 22:31:48


Post by: Deusvult


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Attilla wrote:

Deusvult wrote:
Any chance of getting the option to take a chaos lord without the summon 10 marauders ability? I really like my chaos lord but when you price in that ability he becomes too expensive and I have little use for bringing in 10 marauders on 4+.

Only if we do split the Command Abilities from heroes as some are for and some against. Otherwise unfortunenately no. But could you use him as one of the marked heroes instead?

Looks like we have one more in favor of splitting them...

Anyways, Deusvault, you could also bring in a chaos spawn or 8 warhounds. Maybe one of those coul help your game needs better.


I just really really dislike summoning in any form, especially one as feeble and random as this one. Though it might be a nasty surprise for Solaris if I bring some warhounds up behind his many bolt throwers.

In regards to Attilas question about nerfing units. You increased the cost of all of my favorite skaven units like the plagueclaw, the verminlord and even bumped up my beloved stormfiends a bit. And I was having such marvellous success with them too!


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/19 23:13:34


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Deusvult wrote:
 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Attilla wrote:

Deusvult wrote:
Any chance of getting the option to take a chaos lord without the summon 10 marauders ability? I really like my chaos lord but when you price in that ability he becomes too expensive and I have little use for bringing in 10 marauders on 4+.

Only if we do split the Command Abilities from heroes as some are for and some against. Otherwise unfortunenately no. But could you use him as one of the marked heroes instead?

Looks like we have one more in favor of splitting them...

Anyways, Deusvault, you could also bring in a chaos spawn or 8 warhounds. Maybe one of those could help your game needs better.


I just really really dislike summoning in any form, especially one as feeble and random as this one. Though it might be a nasty surprise for Solaris if I bring some warhounds up behind his many bolt throwers.
Sounds like you need to use your Chaos Lord as a counts-as Wulfrik the Wanderer...


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/20 03:12:01


Post by: Hettar


I feel the skaven pain but i knew the increases were were needed, the warbringer is hands down one of the best vermin-lords, the storm-vermin got off lightly and i'm sure the stormfiends did too so lets count our blessing's lol.....also join me in boycotting nurgle units in your skaven army as the third skaven civil war is imminent as the great horned rat will tolerate no rivals when it comes to the worship of his children.........


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/20 07:42:33


Post by: Smellingsalts


For the record, I vote against splitting command abilities from heroes. As the game unfolds, I am confident that the various factions will get heroes with abilities that are not command abilities. This will give them the synergy that the Bloodbound and Stormcast have. By splitting abilities you are essentially creating new warscrolls. If that becomes cannon, then why not add all of the Cygnar and Khador lists from the Warmachine warscrolls you made. While we are at it, I have a bunch of heroes I would like to create from wish lists for the various armies I play. Or we could just stick with the official stuff and deal with the fact that old armies will take a while to be updated, This is not a new problem, Every time WFB went through a change some books were done first and their armies were perceived to be better and people with other armies would complain. I'm not saying that complaints were unjustified, just that the answer was not to go out and create units that don't exist. The community would not put up with it in a tournament setting. And just so I don't get flamed I understand how other people feel about not having heroes with abilities that are not command abilities. I am a super fan and I own 1 of each Fantasy army. I would love to have a bunch of heroes for my other armies. When GW was selling the idea of AOS to me (I own a store) one of the selling points was that the rules for each unit released for AOS would be included in the box, and this would allow GW to release new figures for armies without requiring a new army book. So they could keep people interested by not having to wait for their armies' turn in the 4-6 year army book cycle. Well, we can see how they have implemented that plan, as in not at all. They should have released 8-10 heroes from different armies to keep everyone interested. Instead we get this crap! Focus on just two factions and two army repacks. Not at all what I signed up for.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/20 15:27:43


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Smellingsalts wrote:
For the record, I vote against splitting command abilities from heroes. As the game unfolds, I am confident that the various factions will get heroes with abilities that are not command abilities. This will give them the synergy that the Bloodbound and Stormcast have. By splitting abilities you are essentially creating new warscrolls. If that becomes cannon, then why not add all of the Cygnar and Khador lists from the Warmachine warscrolls you made. While we are at it, I have a bunch of heroes I would like to create from wish lists for the various armies I play. Or we could just stick with the official stuff and deal with the fact that old armies will take a while to be updated, This is not a new problem, Every time WFB went through a change some books were done first and their armies were perceived to be better and people with other armies would complain. I'm not saying that complaints were unjustified, just that the answer was not to go out and create units that don't exist. The community would not put up with it in a tournament setting.

First off, I do not see how it is creating new warscrolls. In fact, it is really just balancing because many models are simply not worth as much when they are not the general. It is much more along the same lines as making a better weapon option cost more. Synergy doesn't come into play at all because it is not about synergy or relative power level between armies; it is about not limiting models to only see play as the general. The fact that you have every army works against you; you can always play the new up-to-date armies while most people cannot afford to do so. You raise eventual updates but this even applies to the newest releases; why should you pay the same points for a Mighty Lord of Khorne when he is not the general and thus does not get his command ability? I think it would fly very well in a tournament setting because models that weren't competitive outside of a general role could now be taken without paying for the command ability. The release argument also suffers from the fact that a new release is not inevitable (Brettonians say hi) or guaranteed to be timely (how many years have armies waited to be redone in the past?). And finally, what is the downside to splitting them? Players can easily say "no split command abilities" if they like and the system still works perfectly well. This is unlike screening or summoning where it affects points values and gameplay dynamic across the board.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/20 18:26:27


Post by: Attilla


Hettar wrote:
How ever with dwarf lord and a engineer the double dmg comes on a 4+ to wound rather than the 6 with a -3 rend which is higher than the cannon's -2


Checked this out today, and it seems they do fit slightly different roles:

From the numbers below I do believe the cannon and bolter are actually pretty good valued compared to each other right now. If you take them without an engineer, you have a better bang for your buck with the bolt thrower overall - but with an engineer you have about the same value from them both. If you fire at a larger unit (10+ models) the cannon becomes an absolute steal with an engineer, and also a better alternative to the bolter overall. So I'd say they fill slightly different roles - one is better against single targets and the other against larger units. for their current cost.

-----------------------
NUMBERS FOR THE INTERESTED
DO = the average damage from armour 2+ 3+ 4+ 5+ 6+ and armour - added together.

Cannon average DO: 2,43
Bolt Thrower average DO: 1,78

Cannon (Engineer): 3,13
Bolt Thrower (engineer): 2,59

Cannon Optimal DO (firing at 10+ models, with engineer): 4,69

Average Cannon = 137% better DO than Average Bolt Thrower but costs 144% more.
Engineer Cannon = 121% better DO than Engineer Bolt Thrower but costs 122% more.
Optimal Cannon = 181% better DO than Bolt Thrower but only costs 122% more.
-----------------------


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/20 19:18:45


Post by: Deusvult


Sounds like you need to use your Chaos Lord as a counts-as Wulfrik the Wanderer...


I already have a wulfrik the wanderer, but I don't like him or his lore.

Attila, could you kindly give me the pts costs for the chaos lords ability so I can take it off for my personal games?
As a favor one Swede to another?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/20 19:25:36


Post by: Attilla


Deusvult wrote:
Sounds like you need to use your Chaos Lord as a counts-as Wulfrik the Wanderer...


I already have a wulfrik the wanderer, but I don't like him or his lore.

Attila, could you kindly give me the pts costs for the chaos lords ability so I can take it off for my personal games?
As a favor one Swede to another?


Of course! I'll check and let you know tomorrow in a pm. If by chance I forget just send me a pm reminder


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/21 16:24:18


Post by: Smellingsalts


In reply to Ninth, hi Ninth! Ask yourself, "Does the warscroll exist without the command ability?" If the answer is no, then any warscroll we make using PPC that allows you to take the hero without the command ability is a new, never before existing warscroll. Remember, I am coming at this as someone who runs tournaments. I want to be able to use the PPC and for it to become one of the balancing systems that is most used. For that to happen though it needs to change as little as possible.You want to split command abilities because otherwise you have to choose whether or not to include the hero even though he may not get to use his ability. Well, I would like to have the option to run Blood Warriors without armor. They are the same situation. You want to remove something because you MAY not use it by choice. I want to remove something because I definitely never use it (can't make saves, terrible luck, I would rather just save points). While both of us want these things there is a sizable part of the gaming community that would see PPC as illegitimate because it changes warscrolls rather than just costing them. Further, I predict that any balancing system that does that will not be accepted by the community, and the minute that this one does I would have to start looking at Azyr Comp and other systems for my leagues and tournaments.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/21 17:30:52


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Yet the post right above yours is providing a split cost for someone who was requesting it. You say the wargames community won't like it but there are a number of people in the discussion who have already voiced opinions to the opposite. It's not the same as removing armor as there is no way to have blood warriors without armor in game. In other words, you ask if the warscrolls exists without the command ability, my point is that it does when that model is not the general.

And let's be realistic; PPC will never see majority use because AoS itself does not. The community has fractured and a large portion moved to other games. Just look to the poll about AoS dying or gaining steam to see evidence of that. I think the goal here is to create the most enjoyment for the most number of people, and personally I think more people like the idea of split command abilities than not.

[edit] Rephrased some stuff. Also, perhaps a decent compromise would be to include the command ability costs on a separate list for those players who want them. Then the core costs remain the same but those who wish to have the costs split up have a means to do so.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/21 19:07:22


Post by: Deusvult


PPC provides very good customer service with new warscrolls being invented and priced by their staff of experts.

Personally I'd say that the Chaos lords command ability is peculiar in that it is sort of a summon and as such is different from other command abilities. PPC has its own version of summoning separate from the regular game so it has already changed AoS somewhat, also PPC has separated some abilities from their warscrolls, for example the Soulgrinder can opt not to take the phlegm bombardment while the warscroll says it is automatically included...


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/22 03:51:06


Post by: Smellingsalts


Well,what someone does in a one-off game is fine with me. You can't use one or two people's anecdotal stories to justify a change like that though. Ninth knows what I am about to say, but to be clear, I have been involved with the biggest 40k/WFB tournament in San Diego for about four years now. As I am the sponsor, I do not make judge decisions, but I do hang out with them during the tournament and I hear them field all kinds of questions and decisions. I am also an active tournament player myself. Ninth, I know you are not a tournament player, so a change like this seems simple. But wait till you have to listen to the whining that will come when someone is beaten using rules that let you split command abilities. I know you don't want to listen to it, one of the reasons you don't play in tournaments. I don't want to listen to it either. And believe me, all you guys who want to play split lists don't want to hear the whining from people who you beat with a modified list. I did not know about the Daemon weapon that was given an optional attack when it should be mandatory. But I would argue that needs to change too. Yes, we have changed some rules, but the changes are based on the question "Can you play this game without the rule change?" We aren't trying to write AOS 2nd Edition. We are just trying to balance the existing warscrolls. Things like summoning were so broken the game was unplayable without the change. Things like measuring base to base are acceptable because players don't want to risk damage to their models or bases by piling them on top of each other. But you can play the game just fine without splitting command. So if you want to split command in your own personal games, and you have an opponent that will let you, then have fun. But coming from the background I do, I would never allow it, and for my own league I will have to add a line that if a thing is not optional on the warscroll itself, it's not optional. I am a firm believer in not changing the rules as written. That way, tournament players can be angry at GW and not the tournament organizer. It is better for the longevity of your tournament.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh, and it is the same as taking armor off Blood Warriors, in both cases you are creating something that is not an option on the original warscroll.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/24 21:39:55


Post by: Solaris


I'm answering this in the other thread, since this is still the wrong thread to discuss large-scale changes and game design. This thread is for comparing and discussing individual warscrolls and the prices.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/26 00:28:26


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Looks like the chaos warshrine lost its mark options somewhere in the recent update.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/26 16:19:38


Post by: Attilla


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like the chaos warshrine lost its mark options somewhere in the recent update.


Fixing that for the massive list release coming soon


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/30 10:33:51


Post by: Attilla


I'm about to make the massive update later today or tomorrow, where all lists and the comp pack turns 1.0.

Reading through some old posts I noticed a request to make Sylvaneth Wyldwoods purchaseable by Wood Elves, and I think I will add that before the list update.

I'm thinking 50-75p for a Wyldwood (basically two Citadel Woods that can kill non-sylvaneth models charging/running through it, and puts out mortal wounds if spells are cast nearby). Does it seem like a good value? Should there be a max amount of Wyldwoods that can be bought?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/30 13:17:44


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Honestly I think the rule that allows Wildwood benefits from normal woods combined with a point cost to the battalion that includes wildwoods -wood- be a fair way to balance that.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/30 18:11:38


Post by: Attilla


Made an announcement in the general discussion about the big update today, just linking it here.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/30 19:02:55


Post by: Deusvult


Any reason why I can't take mutalith vortexbeasts for my WoC anymore?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/30 19:18:07


Post by: Attilla


Deusvult wrote:
Any reason why I can't take mutalith vortexbeasts for my WoC anymore?


I've always found that model to be quite ugly, so I decided to remove it from the list

Dammit, been going through each list multiple times to make sure I didn't miss anything in the transition to the new format...but I bet more stuff like this will pop up in the coming days.
I'll make the correction quickly right now.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/10/30 21:40:00


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Looks like the box on the plague furnace is mis-sized.

Side note: the point increases on Nurgle units are ridiculous and totally unbalanced. The point decreases are fine.

[edit] Removed falsely identified typo.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/11/04 17:14:24


Post by: Attilla


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Looks like the box on the plague furnace is mis-sized.

Side note: the point increases on Nurgle units are ridiculous and totally unbalanced. The point decreases are fine.

[edit] Removed falsely identified typo.


I think your "false typo" is not false at all, but one that I have managed to type everywhere instead. I blame not speaking English as my main language for it Whenever the next release is, I will change "Troops" to "Troop" where appropriate.

The Plague Furnace is a victim of MS Word tables, since the cell to the right of it is a large one, so is the Furnace. Will see if I do something about it later on.

Side note: Pffffft


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/11/05 21:43:51


Post by: Deusvult


Hey Attila, I don't think that stormcall javelin prosecutors can take grandweapons, they can take tridents however if you would mind adding in that option?


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/11/06 00:58:12


Post by: NinthMusketeer


Attilla wrote:
The Plague Furnace is a victim of MS Word tables, since the cell to the right of it is a large one, so is the Furnace. Will see if I do something about it later on.
If it's a table you can probably get around that issue by merging cells to make the larger boxes, while the smaller ones remain split. Alternatively (and perhaps more easily) make separate left-side and right-side tables.


PPC - Points for ALL units, upgrades and battalions in Age of Sigmar @ 2015/11/08 13:10:26


Post by: Attilla


Deusvult wrote:
Hey Attila, I don't think that stormcall javelin prosecutors can take grandweapons, they can take tridents however if you would mind adding in that option?

Doh! Yeah, will add to next version. Luckily, the points cost for the upgrade is the same. Thanks!


 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Attilla wrote:
The Plague Furnace is a victim of MS Word tables, since the cell to the right of it is a large one, so is the Furnace. Will see if I do something about it later on.
If it's a table you can probably get around that issue by merging cells to make the larger boxes, while the smaller ones remain split. Alternatively (and perhaps more easily) make separate left-side and right-side tables.

Yeah I know, I meant that there are more pressing matters to attend to I might see to fixing them for next version though.