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Made in gb
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Anyone else where sick of 8th edition percentage force org?

I am, while percentages free up play more and were designed to stop 'abuse' by taking x number of expensive units in one section and y numbers of cheap units in another. Yet the4 monekys who reverted to this rule forgot the work tuomas Pirinen did with 6th, moving away from percentages to prevent even greater abuse.

With a percentage gobbos become the true heroes as while elf heroes are expensive and thus rarer, goblins and the like can afford plenty of them and fill the front ranks with heroes. This turns heroic fantasy on its head in many ways. Meanwhile underpriced artillery units becaome a serious problem as there is nothing except a sense of fair play (often sadly lacking) against taking six plus underpriced and very effective artillery pieces with points to spare for a large army. For example Elf repeater bolthowers moved from 50pts to 100pts because of this, and could have move to a more reasonable 75pts on 6th edition but did not. Empire Mortars also remains 75pts on 6th because at the time it was felt that the special and rare limits prevented abuse.
In Ravening Hordes (2000) the last attempt to fully 'balance' the game a lot of corrections were unnecessary because of the improved force org. Indeed some units should be artificially cheap if they are mainstays for the army concerned and a greater balance desired with the list as a whole. However changing the composition rules without a detailed look at the armies, which would require another Ravening Hordes, is compounding error upon error. A new Ravening Hordes is not possible because GW's business model is against it.

Consequently heavy mismatches are here to stay.

Your opinions.

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Cosmic Joe





Bulgaria

Well sure it's allways fair when the same amount of goblin characters face off against the same amount of WoC characters, i'm all for it./sarcasm


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Percentages are a ton better than slots. The combination of no spam (max 3 specials) and percentages (cant entirely overload one section) works a lot better than the alternative.

A goblin hero filled front rank? And? You can still slaughter them easily.
   
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I think people lose sight of the big picture when they look at how cheap goblin heroes are. If they were an entire unit in a different section (say special or whatever) they'd be way too expensive to be taken.

The advantage of being able to put their combat power in front of a full set of steadfast/ranks is pretty rapidly offset by the fact that you can get their points without having to kill the whole unit. I personally love getting to chop down the cream of the goblin crop with my core infantry.

I don't think it was at all fair before, when a single goblin hero took up the same slot as a Black Orc.

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Red_Zeke wrote:
I don't think it was at all fair before, when a single goblin hero took up the same slot as a Black Orc.


... Or a Daemonic Herald, or a saurus scar-vet, or a dwarf thane.

As for lord-level characters it's even worse... Empire Generals or Skaven Warlords are obviously just as good as Bloodthirsters and Ogre Tyrants, right?

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Auburn CA

I hated slot abuse as it made core worthless, percentages make the game far more balanced,

Having problem with Wall-O-Goblins just take sword of snti heros

 
   
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Cosmic Joe





Bulgaria

It also bropught about the true lizardmen stampede, which as fun as it was to collect was quite unfriendly.


Nosebiter wrote:
Codex Space Marine is renamed as Codex Counts As Because I Dont Like To Loose And Gw Hates My Army.
 
   
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I concur, percentages are far superior to force org slots. It's funny, as an Empire player I started at 3 mortars and 3 cannons. After a few games I find two of each is actually more optimal as the army gets a little thin otherwise.

The High Elves could take 3 Heroes in 7th - you still see about the same in 8th, so no less rare.

Bolt Throwers are understood to be overcosted. However, 4 Great Eagles are amazing for 200pts!
   
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Goblin Heroes had their own advantages / disadvantages in 6th and 7th Edition.

Advantages: One free Big Boss per 1000pts. It didn't mean "Big Bosses everywhere!", but did mean you'd get 2-3 extra Hero choices over other armies, and had a more even Magic-Combat spread than other lists.

Furthermore, it was a non-percentage system and they were cheap: Those 2-400 points you saved in Heroes went straight to Rare / Special filling, meaning more heroes AND more other stuff at the price of Hero quality.

Disadvantages: You only gained the extra heroes in the 6th Edition book, and you had to have only Goblin characters for this to work. This meant, outside all-Goblin armies, you'd rarely see any Goblin Warbosses or Big Bosses (since they were competing with the more effective Orc Warbosses / Big Bosses).

They're still WS4, T4, 5+ save models (with vanilla gear). A single Chaos Warrior with AHW has decent odds of killing them before they can strike, and is half the price. Two Chaos Warriors with AHW, statistically, would kill him before he could strike (which, considering he probably had a very vital GW, is a bad thing for the unit now stuck in with a brick of Chaos guys and no steadfast in sight).

~ ~ ~

In general, I can see what you're getting at Orlanth, but each system has its flaws. In the 6th / 7th Edition books, you rarely saw things such as Skink Chiefs or Goblin Big Bosses outside of themed lists. You want to play an OnG army with OnG units with OnG characters? Have fun handicapping yourself. Additionally, breaking away from heroes / lords, anyone else remember the fun, fun times of fighting Slann + Ancient Stegadon Chief + Engine of the Gods + Ancient Stegadon + Ancient Stegadon? With the rest of the points filled with cheapo skinks?

8th Edition has lead to a bit of excessive Hero work, but 6th & 7th Edition lead to some horrible unit combinations with "three min-size min-price core, min-price general, SHOW ME DA WAAAGH!"
   
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Orlanth wrote:With a percentage gobbos become the true heroes as while elf heroes are expensive and thus rarer, goblins and the like can afford plenty of them and fill the front ranks with heroes. This turns heroic fantasy on its head in many ways.


Wouldn't a race that's more numerous, but less effective individually, produce heroes that are more numerous, but less effective individually?

Meanwhile underpriced artillery units becaome a serious problem as there is nothing except a sense of fair play (often sadly lacking) against taking six plus underpriced and very effective artillery pieces with points to spare for a large army.


Underpriced artillery are a problem because they're underpriced, not because of the move from a slot system to a percentage system. There is nothing in the world saying mortars have to be 75 points, and if their price was cut you would see less of them. Simple as.

Empire Mortars also remains 75pts on 6th because at the time it was felt that the special and rare limits prevented abuse.


Which is simply terrible game design. You don't put something in at less than the points it is worth, and figure that's okay because there's a maximum number people can take. Instead, you charge what the unit is worth, or something very close to it, and rely on diminishing marginal returns to get people to only take a limited number of that unit.

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In defense of the mortar, it really only became the hotness with the changes to 8th edition war machines and templates. It wasn't necessarily terrible design at the time it was... designed.

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I like it how it is now, however I think for some armies the changes from a slot based system to a % system caused havok on their book.

High Elves were designed to have Dragons as a Focal point. Hence the Dragon MAge, with the changes to slots vs % it has nutered that feel. I would like to see the costs for monsterous mounts and chariots being shifted to the rare % section of allocation.

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Red_Zeke wrote:In defense of the mortar, it really only became the hotness with the changes to 8th edition war machines and templates. It wasn't necessarily terrible design at the time it was... designed.


Nor are mortars terrible design now, they're just too cheap for the damage they do. A simple change to making them 100 points would fix them up quite nicely.

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Amsterdam

I would like to see the systems combined. A mixture of percentages (could be something else than 25%) with minimum and maximum slots.

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MakeH wrote:I would like to see the systems combined. A mixture of percentages (could be something else than 25%) with minimum and maximum slots.


You mean like what we have right now?

 
   
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Amsterdam

No, if meant that I would have said something on the lines of "I like the current system"

Perhaps you can give me some examples on the slot requirements and limits in the rulebook, since I cant find many in mine. The only limits shown in the book I have are for duplicates for special and rare choices.

But maybe I wasnt as clear as I could have been. Currently, in my theoretical perfect system there would be some %-limits involved and more slot limits and requirements, such as minimum core requirements, in addition to duplicate limits. Obviously this is just from the top of my head and not after extensive testing.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/02/22 17:03:30


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MakeH wrote:No, if meant that I would have said something on the lines of "I like the current system"

Perhaps you can give me some examples on the slot requirements and limits in the rulebook, since I cant find many in mine. The only limits shown in the book I have are for duplicates for special and rare choices.

But maybe I wasnt as clear as I could have been. Currently, in my theoretical perfect system there would be some %-limits involved and more slot limits and requirements, such as minimum core requirements, in addition to duplicate limits. Obviously this is just from the top of my head and not after extensive testing.


No more than two of the same rare. So you cannot have 4 doomwheels, 4 steam tanks, 4 abombs Etc. Not specifically a slot system, but does help prevent spam of the crazy rares ans specials.

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%s are the only way to go, the 7th ed system was completly stupid and idiotic.

You should be able to take tons of Goblin heroes, but be unable to take the same number of stronger characters.

The % system also forces you to take a decent amount of Core. If you didn't like your Core then you could take your minimum number of units and keep them really small and cheap. This made no sense at all, especially with High Elves spamming their OP special choices.

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Grey Templar wrote:%s are the only way to go, the 7th ed system was completly stupid and idiotic.

You should be able to take tons of Goblin heroes, but be unable to take the same number of stronger characters.

The % system also forces you to take a decent amount of Core. If you didn't like your Core then you could take your minimum number of units and keep them really small and cheap. This made no sense at all, especially with High Elves spamming their OP special choices.


That said, anytime the only reason to take core is to meet force org requirements you've got some bad unit design going on.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
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Amsterdam

sebster wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:%s are the only way to go, the 7th ed system was completly stupid and idiotic.

You should be able to take tons of Goblin heroes, but be unable to take the same number of stronger characters.

The % system also forces you to take a decent amount of Core. If you didn't like your Core then you could take your minimum number of units and keep them really small and cheap. This made no sense at all, especially with High Elves spamming their OP special choices.


That said, anytime the only reason to take core is to meet force org requirements you've got some bad unit design going on.


Well put

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sebster wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:%s are the only way to go, the 7th ed system was completly stupid and idiotic.

You should be able to take tons of Goblin heroes, but be unable to take the same number of stronger characters.

The % system also forces you to take a decent amount of Core. If you didn't like your Core then you could take your minimum number of units and keep them really small and cheap. This made no sense at all, especially with High Elves spamming their OP special choices.


That said, anytime the only reason to take core is to meet force org requirements you've got some bad unit design going on.


Like with the current High Elves core?
   
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Completely unrelated issue.

The HE book does lack internal balance something fierce.

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Jeep wrote:Like with the current High Elves core?


That might have been the example I was thinking of, yeah


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar wrote:Completely unrelated issue.

The HE book does lack internal balance something fierce.


It is related, in that force composition is a crutch for weakly written army books, to stop people only taking the stronger stuff in the book. And more than that, the existance of that crutch influences army design, so you often see units in core that are simply weaker in every way than stuff appearing in other sections of the book, and that's only been allowed to happen because the designer has let himself think that people have to take that core stuff.

Design should be centred around giving every unit a purpose, a valuable role to fill. High Elf spearmen should be desired because the player wants a decent anvil unit that can spam low strength attacks, capable of taking down horde enemies. It shouldn't be because 'you have to fill up core somehow'.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/02/24 07:03:30


“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
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Grey Templar wrote:%s are the only way to go, the 7th ed system was completly stupid and idiotic.
To be fair, both editions rules work rather well for force organization. The issue is that at the end of 6th edition going into 7th the army books went from "Special Lists Back-of-the-Book Armies Variety" to "Here's your codex, you want special rules buy a special character". Goblin and Skink characters / armies would have been a much more viable choice in 7th Edition not by completely changing the way 7th Edition's Force Org works, but by giving them back the 6th Edition "An army with nothing but Goblin / Skink characters can buy some extras". War Machine or Monster Spam was possible, yes, but this was almost as much an Army Book issue as it was a Rulebook one, and it's not like Two- / Four-Hydra or 10 War Machine armies vanished between 7th and 8th.

The system itself wasn't the problem, it was the army books. Especially true with beginning-of-7th books compared to end-of-7th (which also is starting to apply with 8th Edition, though is much less severe ATM).

Grey Templar wrote:The % system also forces you to take a decent amount of Core.
25%. The only lists I've seen significantly impacted are the ones that did stuff like "Four stegadons 2K points", and they ran into problems long before running into the minimum Core requirement.

Grey Templar wrote:If you didn't like your Core then you could take your minimum number of units and keep them really small and cheap.
Again, not a problem with the system so much as the army books. Some armies had amazingly solid Core choices, whereas others were just there to pad points (just like they are now).

Grey Templar wrote:This made no sense at all, especially with High Elves spamming their OP special choices.
Because the practice of HElves taking the minimal core choices has completely vanished with 8th Edition?
   
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At the very least it requires more of a points investment. Required slots simply means you'd see a couple minimum sized units of archers (or whatever choice is cheapest) while now you're still seeing at least 25% of points in Core.

It'd be similar to Beastmen spending 30 points per Ungor Raider unit required to fill core, then spending the rest on Minos and Bestigors.

Granted, I never played 7th edition, but it's the same problem I see now in 40k.
   
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yeah, there is a huge difference between a HE player taking 25% of their points in Archers and a HE player taking 3 ten man units and calling it a day.


The HE do need a new army book, thats the main issue that they have.

Spearmen and Archers simply need to get cheaper and Seaguard need to be competitive. Not sure how that would happen, but thats not my problem

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Minsc wrote:Again, not a problem with the system so much as the army books. Some armies had amazingly solid Core choices, whereas others were just there to pad points (just like they are now).


Except that now almost every army has valuable core troops, because there is a place for core troops thanks to new 8th ed rules (steadfast and step up).

It's only really a problem with High Elves now, because their Core troops are so expensive for what you get that even those rules changes weren't enough to make them good.

Because the practice of HElves taking the minimal core choices has completely vanished with 8th Edition?


No, but there is a basic difference in scale, as now you've got to take at least 500 points worth of Core troops in a 2,000 point game.

“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”

Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something. 
   
 
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