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A gentleman called Spinner on this thread (http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/667577.page) asked me to put a quick post together on how we 'balance' armies for Age of Sigmar. For this, I'll use the campaign games we have been playing as an example - these are games being drawn from the Battleplans that tell of the Stormcasts' attack on the Brimstone Peninsula.

We started off with the scenarios in the starter set - these are pretty balanced games, and tell the story of the initial strike to boot. Note: I have seen some people complain that the Stormcasts have an advantage out of the box set, but we have not seen that at all. However, there are two wild cards, Vandus and Lord Khul. Vandus gets a lot of nasty attacks on the charge, while Lord Khul has a Reality-splitting Axe that has a one third chance of killing anything outright if he scores a wound. This can have an affect on the final scenario where the generals must kill each other to win, but if you go into the game knowing this, you can reduce its effects. It does make any direct confrontation between the two far from a foregone conclusion though!

The last battle suggests you can throw more models in besides those of the starter set, and we went ahead with this. However, the key is to keep it simple, and perhaps just add one unit per side to shake things up - either a unit of Bloodreavers, Blood Warriors or, we have tried, three Bloodcrushers on the Chaos side, and a unit of Judicators (perhaps) on the Stormcasts side.

Once you have gone through this, you will already have a pretty good feel of what works and what doesn't for both Bloodbound and Stormcast.

Then we came to Hold or Die, the first Battleplan in the first hardback. Bunch of Stormcasts have got a bit too aggressive and are being ambushed. The Bloodbound must finish them off before overwhelming reinforcements arrive.

Now, it is important to realise that there is a lot of leeway here. However, player actions and dice rolls will flatten a great deal out, so don't agonise over whether a single unit will push things over the edge. It won't.

For this (and subsequent Battleplans) we have used total Wounds as a starting point - but only as a starting point.

The normal procedure is to pick one force that we want to see on the table, then choose an opposing force of similar Wounds. However, if the opposing force is Stormcast, reduce their total Wounds by about a third. If the scenario mentions something happening if one force has a third more models than the other, increase their Wound count by a third (the Battleplan has already made their lives difficult in some way!).

For example, Hold or Die...

We picked the Bloodbound force first. Lord Khul is heading back to his stronghold (to summon a bunch of daemons as it happens, but I digress), so we figured the core Bloodbound leadership will not be in this battle. So, we choose an Exalted Deathbringer as the Khorne general (it helps that we have the new model and want to try it out!). There is an argument to add the Bloodstoker here as well, but we didn't - it would not shake the balance if you did though.

The fiction behind this battle suggests a lot of 'ordinary' Bloodbound were in this attack, so we load up on Bloodreavers (two units of 20), and Blood Warriors (two units of 10, and one of 5). The fiction also mentions Khorgoraths. We only had one at the time, so he went in.

That is a good, solid ambushing force and it gives us a baseline to work from - 103 Wounds, at a quick count.

Now, normally I would be looking to set them against 60-70-odd Wounds worth of Stormcasts but as the Stormcasts are at a disadvantage in this battle, the 'third' rule is mentioned in the forces section. So, I expect them to get bumped up to 90-100-odd. However, the guiding factor here is that the Battleplan states that the Stormcasts can only set up a maximum of a third of their models on the table at the start, and this greatly restricts what can be placed down within the Wounds guideline we have set.

In the end, the fiction stated that Gardus (a Lord-Celestant) and his Lord-Castellant with his Gryph-hound were present, so they get placed on the table, along with two units of 5 Liberators.

Note, we could cheese this out and put Paladins down alongside Prosecutors. The victory conditions mean the Bloodbound have to kill all starting models to win, so put something really hard to hold them up, while the Prosecutors fly away, never to be caught. In a points-based competitive game, this is exactly what you will do - however in this, what would be the point? Why set yourself up for an auto win? The campaign is long, there are plenty more battles coming up, and plenty of time to try out the much harder combinations for forces.

This puts 13 models on the table for the Stormcasts, so the Battleplan says we must have at least 26 more off table as a reserve. Now, here we can be a bit nastier, as this force can and should wipe out the Chaos forces (remember their victory condition is to wipe out all the Stormcasts' starting models). Vandus led the charge in the fiction, so he goes in. We also figure it fluffy that the fast-moving Prosecutors would appear on the scene quickly, so we take three units of 3, and back them up with the two flying characters (the Knights-Azyros and -Venator). To round things off, we put in a unit of 5 Judicators.

That makes a total of 40 models, fulfiling the requirements of the Battleplan, and a total of 103 Wounds, the same as the Bloodbound - if we have made the assumption that the Stormcasts have a thid of the total Wounds knocked off for, well, being Stormcast, and then replaced by being at a disadvantage in the scenario, then that seems about right!

And lo and behold, when we play the game out (can give a link to the battle report if you like!), it was very close fought and extremely enjoyable. The Bloodbound managed to kill about two thirds of the starting Stormcasts, but were held up by a single Liberator-Prime for a turn longer than they could spare (lone guy bravely fighting off Blood Warriors and a Khorgorath!), and then Vandus and his crew smashed into them, ending the ambush.

Very fluffy, very exciting, true to the fiction, and a damn good game!

Now, all that calculation I went through may seem a bit of a chore, but it really took far less time than it did for me to type all that out!

I'll do another quick one, this for a battle planned for this Friday afternoon - the Watchtower Battleplan, again from the book.

The fiction mentions a bunch of Bloodreavers are holed up in a tower, led by a Bloodsecrator.

* Should point out that, in our campaign, the Bloodsecrator had led an army to retrieve Lord Khul after he fell to Vandus, but failed. Lord Khul survived but had to traipse his way back to his stronghold, where he got very, very angry. The Bloodsecrator was too old and too wise to go back tot he stronghold, which is why he is holed up in this lone tower! Anyway, just wanted to illustrate how your own games can affect even the 'official' storyline - it really is about the narrative! *

The Battleplan calls for one unit and a Hero to start in the tower, so we make this a unit of 20 Bloodreavers and the Bloodsecrator. There is also, of course, the Skull Keep itself, for which we will be using the appropriate Warscroll (the Battleplan does not call for this, but it makes sense to use it).

This is also the battle where Lord Khul's rage results in a whole bunch of daemons appearing, and for this we go with a unit of 6 Bloodcrushers, three units of 10 Bloodletters, and a Herald of Khorne. If I had the Blood Throne done, the Herald would be appearing on that, but we can live without it. In fact, if I had more Bloodcrushers, they would go in as well and I would adjust the Stormcasts to match, but there are limits to common sense!

So, for the Bloodbound we have, what, 84-odd Wounds? The scenario suggests (by the third rule) that the Stormcasts have a disadvantage, so I would expect the Wound totals to be within spitting distance of one another (remember, we impose a penalty to the Stormcasts for being, well, Stormcast!). I also know from experience that while the Bloodcrushers are not absolutely awesome on the attack (they are by no means bad!), they can be right sods to kill, so turning up the dial on what we take for the Stormcasts will not do much harm. Which means we can take a more exciting unit!

In the fiction, the Lord-Relictor was present, so he goes in, and we back him up with the Lord-Castellant and his Gryph-hound, principally because I like the little dog! We put two units of 5 Liberators in because unless something unusual is happening, Liberators should always be the core of a Stormcast force. For the 'specials' we have one unit of 3 Prosecutors, 5 Judicators and 8 Paladins (one unit of 3 from the starter, and one unit of 5). This works out at just under 80 Wounds, again pretty much on the nail of what we expected.

I'll post on my blog a report of how it goes!

As anyone who has played AoS knows, Wounds are not a solid way of setting up competitive games. However, they can serve as a baseline and give you a rough target to aim for when putting a force together. You will find after a few games (and the starter set scenarios are sufficient for the Stormcasts and Bloodbound) that you get a sense of what works and what doesn't, hence our 'third' rule for Stormcasts. And there are other bits and pieces you will discover - for example, a unit of 5 Decimators will simply end a unity of Bloodreavers - so, you take that into account and only field them in a major battle if you are expecting a lot of Bloodreavers. If you turn up to a game with them and see your opponent putting down Bloodreaver units, swap them out for Protectors (say).

If you do come across a unit that seems to outweigh itself against a particular force, you will spot that in a single game, Readjust for the next and carry on - it really is that quick and simple.

Above all, don't sweat it. Use Wounds as a (very rough) guideline, accept that there is a great deal of leeway possible within the 'having a great game' range, and if you step too far in one direction, dial it back a bit and continue.

It is a different approach to games, if you are used to WHFB and 40k, but it can work and the flexibility it gives you far outweighs the downsides, we have found.

Anyway, hope that helps!

Thanks very much for putting this together! I was kind of hoping for something other than Stormcast vs. Khorne, but if that's what you guys play, then hey, that's what you guys play. The big issue for me is everyone's focus on wounds as pseudo-points and how that combines with Sudden Death to absolutely wreck any kind of horde army. Yes, fighting from a disadvantage can be fun sometimes, but...

Seems like a fun way to play the game if you want to re-enact the battles mentioned in the books. Again, not quite my cup of tea, but if you have fun with it, I'm glad!

That was a great write up.
Wounds can be very harsh for the hordes, unless you are summoning :-P My local Gw had a big game with players only being able to use 3 warscrolls with a limit of 1 monster and 1 hero, and no summoning. Apparently played very well, very close and rather quick for an 8 player game (pretty sure it was 8)
I think restrictions like that are going to make for more fun games than wounds alone. I like the idea of maybe no summoning more than twice the wounds you start with on the field.

 Spinner wrote:
I was kind of hoping for something other than Stormcast vs. Khorne,

We are gearing up for the Realm of Life campaign, involving Nurgle, Pestilens and the Sylvaneth - would be happy to do the same for one or two of those if you are interested...

 Spinner wrote:

The big issue for me is everyone's focus on wounds as pseudo-points and how that combines with Sudden Death to absolutely wreck any kind of horde army.

The key to this... use the Battleplans I don't think any of them use Sudden Death and, frankly, you'll have a better game too!

Matt, pretty brave of you to try and cover this!
In our group we've paid absolutely zero attention to balancing in any kind of ongoing way.
Even in games where I've known the opposition and scenario in advance, any 'plan' I try to come up with generally goes out the window as soon as I've seen the terrain setup and the first few units my opponent has deployed.

The closest I've come is for units in my army I've got a mental checklist of 'if the scenario is this kind of thing' - E.g. attack/defend/destroy - or 'if my opponent deploys unit X' then I have must-haves, helpful and if-I still need them'.
I know this is the area where most people have their biggest issue with AoS, but I've found this deploying on the fly quite exciting. It also goes a long way to fixing one of the things I now see as something I disliked about army lists but never really thought about;
You have a 2K all-comers list in your case, but your opponent has brought a skewed hard counter list, and you find yourself thinking "If only I'd known, I'd have taken B instead of A".

Good post. This works if you have a group of people that understand the concept of trying to create a good game overall.

The problem is outside of that, it falls apart and quickly.

I do agree with you strongly on the point of using battleplans. The sudden death mechanic is in my opinion largely garbage and easy to game.

What we have happen in our group is that when we attempted what you did, the fact of something being 'cheese' or not does not enter into the equation.

If you don't care about balance then yes you can have some great games, but if you care just a little about balance, what happens is that people realize that not all items with the same wounds are equal or even near equal.

They do some quick math and realize that if they take the elite guys that have the same wounds as the not-elite guys, then they should have an exponential chance of winning the game.

This leads to scenarios that are largely one-sided unless both sides take only their elite stuff - which is a phenomenon here with pretty much every game that lets you freely choose.

We have stormcast players that will drop what they consider balanced against someone using the eyeball method, and if you do any amount of math you can tell before the game begins who is going to win based on the weapons being used, wounds, etc.

When plugging into a point system, the stormcast player is usually up by like 50 points to 35 or so, even though to him it seems balance just by looking (and he's happy because he wins a pretty easy game as the points would indicate) When you have them use points, the stormcast players get cranky because their model count drops and even though the games are typically a lot closer, they feel it is unfair because by their eyeball method they are now at a gross disadvantage.

I think for point-less scenarios to really thrive, a form of example lists should be included. ie - in this scenario we used 40 models and 25 were blood reavers. Your core warriors should outnumber your elite warriors - or something similar. It gives a good basis of where the author wants the scenario to go. Unless of course the author doesn't care about what you choose - in which case you are gonig to have the below happen depending on your group (in my group, the optimal choice will nearly always be taken)

Note, we could cheese this out and put Paladins down alongside Prosecutors. The victory conditions mean the Bloodbound have to kill all starting models to win, so put something really hard to hold them up, while the Prosecutors fly away, never to be caught. In a points-based competitive game, this is exactly what you will do

The thing I have seen is that it doesn't take point-based games to cause this behavior. The scenarios at my store where they are foregoing points the players are doing exactly this too - and their answer is "why wouldn't I do that? Thats how you win the scenario??" - and they are not using points largely at my store.

auticus wrote:


When plugging into a point system, the stormcast player is usually up by like 50 points to 35 or so, even though to him it seems balance just by looking (and he's happy because he wins a pretty easy game as the points would indicate) When you have them use points, the stormcast players get cranky because their model count drops and even though the games are typically a lot closer, they feel it is unfair because by their eyeball method they are now at a gross disadvantage.

We have noticed that whatever Stormcast feels right, it is normally best if they drop a few models (hence the eyeball 'third' rule I mention above). I am guessing Ogors are the same, though I have not messed about with them yet. However, that is something you can get to grips with very quickly and take into account - and it works on a unit level as well, such as Paladins being a cut above Liberators beyond a 50% wound increase.

Also worth mentioning, using Wounds is a points system in itself We just use them to briefly eyeball things and adjust from there (add more Paladins, make sure your overall Wounds are much lower...).

True true - wounds are a form of a point system. Albeit a point system that only takes into account how many successful wounds the side can sustain before being totally wiped out (and ignoring all of the other parts of the game)

And also yes - whatever the stormcast player feels is right when they drop a few models they tend to bring the game to more balance, but that depends on the temperament of the player in question (which is the niggle - if he feels its balanced because his eyeball method says its balanced, you have to either accept you are playing at what could be a fairly large disadvantage - because if you add more models he will do the same since to him its balanced) or deny a game, which is not constructive either considering the effort trying to be made to keep an AoS community going.

(this is why I wrote Azyr lol)