But here's the thing... If "your" default position is a hardcore style gameplay (matched play), it might not be a bad thing to mention that to your opponent before hand? Matched play exists as a way of letting your opponent know that you aren't holding any punches... This needs to be communicated beforehand. A list without obvious combo play is going to get decimated against one that does attempt to get more than the sum of it's parts... That's what matched play is all about.... And the hardcore tournament goers are pretty much agreeing that the game functions quite well at that level.
I think most of the issues people have, is there not being a clear indication of what you want to play beforehand (which is kind of your own responsibility to communicate to your opponent in the new style of GW games).
If you get curbstomped in a matched play setting (assuming both you and your opponent actually thought beforehand that was the deal), maybe it's just a gak list? Just like in MtG (or any other nerd game) you could just have made a pretty bad deck yourself.
If that wasn't your intention (you just wanted a fluffy list or one that makes more sense from a narrative point of view, or just has a lot of variation in models because that what you like etc...), is it the dev's fault that you and your opponent misinterpreted the point of the battle in first place?
auticus wrote: Someone on my region's facebook shared the ICv2 rating from last fall and AOS made #2 on the list, while xwing fell from #1 to #4. (40k regained its kingdom at #1)
As was commented on in my region's facebook group, despite any whining about balance problems, the overall wargaming playerbase has latched on and loves it.
It certainly has set an unarguable precedent. As Ninth said... bad balance is indeed a selling feature not a bug.
Or, you know, balance isn't the highest priority for most people, and having a game that's fun with cool models and balance that's "good enough" is a recipe for success. You keep saying people play the game because it's poorly balanced. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe they play it despite the balance issues?
I'm going to add another post to this, simply because I feel this is the most misunderstood bit about the game right now:
Matched play does NOT exist so that any combination of models you throw together has an equal shot at winning the game compare to any other random list!
Matched play exists so you can play the game on the cutting edge of competitive gameplay. List building is a big part of that. Somebody who put a lot of thought into that aspect of his army is going to have a major advantage compared to somebody who just made his list because of his collection, what's painted, what's fluffy, what fits his backstory,etc.
People with the same mindset (tournament players) seem to agree that the game functions quite well within those boundaries... I agree with it. There are very few factions right now, that seem to have a clear cut advantage over another when you consider the "maximum potential". The differences are within acceptable limits in that context.
Elmir wrote: You keep saying "bad balance" and then referring to "if a casual gamer fights a hardcore list, it's poorly balanced" to give your arguments any credence.
Maybe... Just maybe... Have you considered your line of thought here is a bit wonky and the community as a whole has figured out that there are three modes of play?
And when some d*ckheads use one mode of play (matched play style lists) to "compete" in another mode of play (open or narrative lists) it all goes tits up? The game is actually not doing that poorly around where I live either.... But we do have the self-policing I've already mentioned once or twice, to stop n*bheads from trying to feel like their e-peen grew bigger if they curbstomp through a narrative campaign with matched play lists.
I mean for God's sake... Even the main rulebook tells people this game has three different "tiers" of gameplay by now.
*edit* This was mostly a reply to Auticus
If I have to negotiate with my opponent before hand to tone down their list because the rules allow them to create monstrosities, thats bad balance. Thats poorly balanced. AOS and 40k are the only games that I have this issue with to this extent.
Playing narrative or open play does not really say "don't break the game" either. Hell the NEO group (Narrative Event Organizers) host narrative events at Adepticon and other places, and those events are also predominantly competitive with different scenarios and the liike. They put a hell of a lot of effort into what they do I went to the adepticon event last year and the lists facing off were not much different from across the hall at the tournament side.
So to answer your question, if a game requires this much poliicing to have a good game with then yes to me that is poorly balanced. The three modes of play do not differentiate between power level of lists. As a matter of fact, matched play is said by the dev staff themselves to be how you play a balanced competitive version of the game.
auticus wrote: Someone on my region's facebook shared the ICv2 rating from last fall and AOS made #2 on the list, while xwing fell from #1 to #4. (40k regained its kingdom at #1)
As was commented on in my region's facebook group, despite any whining about balance problems, the overall wargaming playerbase has latched on and loves it.
It certainly has set an unarguable precedent. As Ninth said... bad balance is indeed a selling feature not a bug.
Or, you know, balance isn't the highest priority for most people, and having a game that's fun with cool models and balance that's "good enough" is a recipe for success. You keep saying people play the game because it's poorly balanced. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe they play it despite the balance issues?
I hear that a lot too but when I look around and people are actively choosing to keep up with the meta, that indicates to me they are concerned about balance. They just have no emotional tie to any faction or models and are more interested in the game-game. If they werent' concerned about the meta then I would expect a wider smattering of army types, but the army types I see in the wild are predominantly competitive style builds.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Per GW's AOS page on Matched Play:
In matched play, balance and the competetive aspect takes center stage.
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Matched play does NOT exist so that any combination of models you throw together has an equal shot at winning the game compare to any other random list!
A proper points system implemented correctly does slide the reality more towards this quote.
2000 points should mean 2000 points. GW 2000 points means 1000 points. Or 3000 points. Or in extreme cases 4000-5000 points.
It will never be random list has chance against random list, nor should it.
But it should also not be any of these X factions better not bother showing up. Don't bother selling those models if thats going to be the case. *EVERY* faction should be viable. If I like bloodbound mortals, I should have a chance to play a good game against any other faction using them. If I like sky dwarves, then I should have a chance to play a good game against any other faction using them. If I play Flesh Eater Courts, I shouldn't be able to be running on easy mode against most other factions by virtue of me playing that faction.
That's proper balance. At the faction level.
IIn Warlords of Nowhere I can't just pick a faction and randomly throw a list together and win either, I have to be smart about what I take. But all ten or so factions are equally viable against each other, because the game was created to be playable with any faction.
Again, no one is making you stay here. The vast majority of players are perfectly fine with the state of the game. We know it isn't perfect, but it's good enough for us, and getting better all the time. You're a casual player in a competitive meta, and for that I'm sorry. I wish you could find like-minded players so you could get the same enjoyment out of the I do. Now, for the love of god, stop projecting your meta on to the rest of the world, or create a better meta.
Personally speaking, I couldn't care less about balance but more to the fun had at the table. If i'm underpowered, whatever. Have my opponent and I had some fun and shared a laugh or two? Does my army look good and give my opponent satisfaction to look at and play against? If yes then all good, everyone's had a good time and that's all that matters.
Elmir wrote: But here's the thing... If "your" default position is a hardcore style gameplay (matched play), it might not be a bad thing to mention that to your opponent before hand? Matched play exists as a way of letting your opponent know that you aren't holding any punches... This needs to be communicated beforehand. A list without obvious combo play is going to get decimated against one that does attempt to get more than the sum of it's parts... That's what matched play is all about.... And the hardcore tournament goers are pretty much agreeing that the game functions quite well at that level.
By that logic 3/4 of the armies/units in matched play should not even have points, because they are just going to get curb-stomped by the strongest ones.
I think most of the issues people have, is there not being a clear indication of what you want to play beforehand (which is kind of your own responsibility to communicate to your opponent in the new style of GW games).
Matched play is literally stated that balance is the point.
If you get curbstomped in a matched play setting (assuming both you and your opponent actually thought beforehand that was the deal), maybe it's just a gak list? Just like in MtG (or any other nerd game) you could just have made a pretty bad deck yourself.
To the contrary; against all but my two tourney buddies I need to know how much I am going to weaken my list. And I have still mistakenly showed up and rolled over opponents. I hate that. I also hate that the fluffy/thematic list I WANT to run is too strong just by virtue of what I am up against; is it suddenly my responsibility to help my opponent make are stronger list just so I can play with what I actually want to?
If that wasn't your intention (you just wanted a fluffy list or one that makes more sense from a narrative point of view, or just has a lot of variation in models because that what you like etc...), is it the dev's fault that you and your opponent misinterpreted the point of the battle in first place?
My intention is that I can show up and play without needing to go through the discussion and self-balancing act that exists in narrative.
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Elmir wrote: Matched play does NOT exist so that any combination of models you throw together has an equal shot at winning the game compare to any other random list
Straw man. No one has suggested this, ever.
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EnTyme wrote: Again, no one is making you stay here.
His community and mountain of pre-existing models he put a ton of work into, on the other hand...
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EnTyme wrote: Again, no one is making you stay here. The vast majority of players are perfectly fine with the state of the game. We know it isn't perfect, but it's good enough for us, and getting better all the time. You're a casual player in a competitive meta, and for that I'm sorry. I wish you could find like-minded players so you could get the same enjoyment out of the I do. Now, for the love of god, stop projecting your meta on to the rest of the world, or create a better meta.
You just projected your meta and asked that he stop projecting his.
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Inquisitor Gideon wrote: Personally speaking, I couldn't care less about balance but more to the fun had at the table. If i'm underpowered, whatever. Have my opponent and I had some fun and shared a laugh or two? Does my army look good and give my opponent satisfaction to look at and play against? If yes then all good, everyone's had a good time and that's all that matters.
The issue with the balance or lack thereof is that it's all over the place and random. Do you not understand what that means? If it's a game you're supposed to play with cool models, then what happens when Bob wants to play Kharadron Overlords (arguably the worst faction in the game currently) because he thinks the models are awesome, and Steve wants to play Gristlegore FEC with 5 Terrorgheists because he likes big monsters?
Both players are picking what they think is cool, but Steve's army is going to curb stomp Bob's every single time they play. What's the solution? "Hey Bob I know you really like steampunk sky pirate dwarves but they suck in the game, you should pick a better army so you don't always get your teeth kicked in"?
You cannot be realistically defending that as a "feature" and not a bug when the game itself besides all its talk about Matched Play being balanced and fair, if you take two players and they each pick an army they like and units they like, there's a 50% chance one of them is going to be head and shoulders better than the other just because GW decided that Tome A needed some broken whizzbang feature and Tome B they decided did not.
As to other styles let's not kid ourselves here: Matched Play is the default mode of play, full stop. Going into a game store and asking if anyone is interested in Open or Narrative play is either going to get you laughed at, told emphatically to shut the feth up and play Matched since it's balanced, or worst find TFG who will agree and then play a list with 10 Nagashes or some gak like that because "hurr durr it's Open Play so it's allowed". That's the reality in the "vast majority" of games such that the other two styles may as well not even exist or take up space in publications. Ergo, the style of play that touts "balance" as its feature is the one that we discuss, and the one that fails to live up to that.
It is a fundamental problem of the game when one person can like steampunk sky pirate dwarfs and one person can like delusional cannibals and there is a vast power gap between them for no discernable reason. Nobody is arguing you should be able to pick models at random and do well, but don't you think that you shouldn't be told when you walk into a game store and say you're interested in starting up AOS (or 40k for that matter) and you really like steampunk sky pirate dwarfs that the army sucks and if you pick them you're going to lose constantly and you should pick something better?
Do you really think that is going to retain or bring in new players, when they are told sure you can play what you want, but if you don't pick a good army you're going to get the gak kicked out of you game after game after game until you either pick an army that's good, or get fed up and stop playing entirely.
Not even talking about whether or not GW cares about balance, do you honestly think that is a good scenario for anything, let alone a hobby you plan to spend a lot of money on?
So no other game system has AoS levels of "bad balance"?
So people are saying that I can throw together a random army in a different game system (using its points limit or equivalent) and then play someone who is set towards top tier tournament play, and it won't be a massacre?
Nearly every game system I know of that is based on miniatures has different levels as such, all within their balanced mode of play.
This isn't something special or unique to AoS or even GW.
Yes, GW has wonky balqnce issues, I really don't deny that.
My issue is that people claim other games are much better balanced, yet I can still see a huge power imbalance with those games.
As I stated a while back, apart from games like chess, achieving a perfect or even solid balance is near impossible.
The other thing that makes me laugh is some of the comparisons people try to bring up.
Most of which are an entirely different thing altogether, be it army scale or how the game plays.
The only thing I think that can really compare is mantic (to a degree)
No other company comes close to the scale of balance that is needed to work around this many armies.
Mantic players here?
Yea, balance isn't too hot in that game either.
There are alot of insta-take units or characters and just as many useless ones.
We also then have how each person views balance.
A group of 20 hardcore gamers could come together and make a set of rules to be viewed by another 20, they would then alter it as they wouldn't agree with everything.
Being human means we can all think for our selves and all have differing opinions.
Trying to get everyone to agree on something? Won't happen.
Best case is that the majority agree.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Imbalance is not binary; just because it exists in other games just not make the severity the same.
I never said it was.
My issue is that others bring up these games and state they are about as balanced as possible, yet in reality, they have their own issues with wonky rules etc.
As I stated a while back, apart from games like chess, achieving a perfect or even solid balance is near impossible.
Except that some of the fan comps before GHB dropped did a great job at the balance and it was pretty solid to the point that I got about 650 gmail messages over the course of three months stating that I broke AOS with Azyr (my Azyr) because the game was now boring because it was too balanced and that listbuilding was vital for the game to thrive and too much balance was bad.
Thats how I know, if I and other members of the community could make a more balanced game (not perfect, no one is statiing perfect) then the guys that get paid to write games for a living should also be able to match or even exceed our efforts.
I had a guy all caps scream at me in public, almost flip a table and storm out of the store because for our publiic campaign we were still using Azyr iinstead of GHB (this was 2016 a few months after GHB released theiir first attempt at points) and his stormcast were designed to be busted per GHB and listbuildiing was a lot less of a deal in Azyr and that incensed him. Because he spent money and time assembliing and painting a force he knew was bent and by making the game more balanced I effectively robbed him of money and time because the intent of listbuilding was and is to break the game.
I play Kings of War. I don't have the issue over there where whole factions are unplayable. Of course there are tourney builds. But I can pick most of the factions over there and have at least a good game. In my hyped up competitive meta. No thats not me saying I can randomly throw a list together and go win with it. Thats saying I can find a faction that speaks to me and it has a fighting chance to have a liist or three that can put up a fight.
Warlords doesn't have that issue eiither. I'm bettiing Conquest does not have that issue. Battletech doesn't have that issue. Just AOS and 40k have that issue to that extreme.
Also to be clear, as Ninth points out, this is not a binary issue. Its not "its either unbalanced or its not at all" and nor am I stating that. Its about acceptable balance, which as has been made obvious the past couple years the community's threshold for imbalance is quite high to the point where they don't care, or chase the meta happily (in my region's case) to obtain remaining balanced.
If one enjoys driving 45 min to their game store to get stomped and all they care about is laughing and throwing dice, then sure the game is a blast. Thats not somethiing that I enjoy though so I'm not going to take any console in that direction. The sudden death rules I have baked iinto our campaign is working for the most part ok in that it at least lets you have a fiighting chance to win. For right now that is working for my campaign group and doesn't enrage people that don't want to be told you can't take those models because they are OP.
No, other games do not have anywhere near the level of imbalance as GW games have. That's not to say they are "perfectly balanced" because we all know that is a fallacy. But every other wargame company except the big dog can seemingly write well-written rules and at least attempt something resembling balance. Sure, if you play Bolt Action and you want to use Poland or France against 1944-era Germany you're probably going to be in for a bad time, but things like that are the exception.
Games like Warmahordes has its share of balance issues but it's nowhere near the level of GW's. Same with Kings of War, Infinity, Star Wars Legion, the umpteen historical wargames out there, and basically any other game that isn't Warhammer.
You only see these extreme levels of imbalance, where you can be fethed over ONLY because of being attracted to Faction A which is weak at that point because of reasons, in Warhammer games. There's always going to be "tournament lists" and optimal builds, but the goal should be to make the gap as small as possible. Warhammer seems to pride itself on the opposite, having huge gulfs in power between armies.
I wonder if we need to move on beyond balance and open the thread for more general AoS chatter or change the title an split off general and balance discussion - only I feel for the general thread for AoS we've got a lot of balance chatter that's mostly going in a lot of circles. It's likely worth its own space
Wayniac wrote: The issue with the balance or lack thereof is that it's all over the place and random. Do you not understand what that means? If it's a game you're supposed to play with cool models, then what happens when Bob wants to play Kharadron Overlords (arguably the worst faction in the game currently) because he thinks the models are awesome, and Steve wants to play Gristlegore FEC with 5 Terrorgheists because he likes big monsters?
Both players are picking what they think is cool, but Steve's army is going to curb stomp Bob's every single time they play. What's the solution? "Hey Bob I know you really like steampunk sky pirate dwarves but they suck in the game, you should pick a better army so you don't always get your teeth kicked in"?
You cannot be realistically defending that as a "feature" and not a bug when the game itself besides all its talk about Matched Play being balanced and fair, if you take two players and they each pick an army they like and units they like, there's a 50% chance one of them is going to be head and shoulders better than the other just because GW decided that Tome A needed some broken whizzbang feature and Tome B they decided did not.
As to other styles let's not kid ourselves here: Matched Play is the default mode of play, full stop. Going into a game store and asking if anyone is interested in Open or Narrative play is either going to get you laughed at, told emphatically to shut the feth up and play Matched since it's balanced, or worst find TFG who will agree and then play a list with 10 Nagashes or some gak like that because "hurr durr it's Open Play so it's allowed". That's the reality in the "vast majority" of games such that the other two styles may as well not even exist or take up space in publications. Ergo, the style of play that touts "balance" as its feature is the one that we discuss, and the one that fails to live up to that.
It is a fundamental problem of the game when one person can like steampunk sky pirate dwarfs and one person can like delusional cannibals and there is a vast power gap between them for no discernable reason. Nobody is arguing you should be able to pick models at random and do well, but don't you think that you shouldn't be told when you walk into a game store and say you're interested in starting up AOS (or 40k for that matter) and you really like steampunk sky pirate dwarfs that the army sucks and if you pick them you're going to lose constantly and you should pick something better?
Do you really think that is going to retain or bring in new players, when they are told sure you can play what you want, but if you don't pick a good army you're going to get the gak kicked out of you game after game after game until you either pick an army that's good, or get fed up and stop playing entirely.
Not even talking about whether or not GW cares about balance, do you honestly think that is a good scenario for anything, let alone a hobby you plan to spend a lot of money on?
As an Overlord Player, this really speaks to me. Thank you.
I yearn for balance. I just want any faction to have a reasonable chance at defeating another one. We don’t have that. How good you are at the game should be a mixture of your tactical skill and a little bit of luck. Not simply because your force just destroys your opppnents through overwhelming power.
It’s doable. It’s absolutely doable, I’m sure it is.
Sort of back on AOS general talk (but not fully) do we think the Blades of Khorne tome will get a significant boost? Apparently, it's coming with the same sort of stormhost/grand court stuff so you can put all your guys under say The Goretide and get some bonuses just for that.
Also yes I absolutely think we need a separate balance thread, the issue is they always go around in circles.
I can't imagine they won't boost it in some way. The Bloodletter got a small nerf in Wrath & Rapture, so we know they're going to be changing warscrolls up. Hopefully Blood Warriors will get a damage boost in some way. Right now, I just don't see much reason to take them over Bloodreavers. Warriors aren't durable enough to make up for their low damage output. Bloodreavers at least have a niche as an all-or-nothing berserker unit.
I think that it will get a boost. I do not think it will be a considerable boost. My expectation iis that my preferred way of playing khorne, that beiing the mortal units, will still be kicked in the balls and that you'll have to play with multiple blood thirsters and some formation that boosts demons exponentially.
Now that is just my expectation based on the past incarnations of khorne in AOS. They've been solidly an enhancement talent made to make billy the stormcast player look powerful and awesome.
My HOPE is that they are given actual teeth and that my force led by a chaos lord of khorne and followed into combat by a wall of blood warriors and juggernaut cavalry and khorgoraths can actually make someone do somethiing other than lol uncontrollably as they make me scoop piles of my models off per turn.
EnTyme wrote: I can't imagine they won't boost it in some way. The Bloodletter got a small nerf in Wrath & Rapture, so we know they're going to be changing warscrolls up. Hopefully Blood Warriors will get a damage boost in some way. Right now, I just don't see much reason to take them over Bloodreavers. Warriors aren't durable enough to make up for their low damage output. Bloodreavers at least have a niche as an all-or-nothing berserker unit.
The basic reavers and blood warriors are not terrible but are noticeably sub-par, when that is supposed to be the core of a mortal khorne army it causes serious problems. I think if that alone were addressed a lot of khorne players would be quite happy. Sidenote; bloodletters got a buff as while their bomb build is gone they are now useful outside of that and in 10-man units since hit penalties do not neuter them anymore and because the MW is in addition rather than instead of. I am surprised the massive buff to bloodcrushers went under the radar as well. GW did a good job updating the warscrolls in Wrath & Wrapture, IMO.
That's good to know. And I fully agree on Mortal battlelines. Both are seriously underwhelming, but you can at least make Bloodreavers into a massive blob of 4+ attacks per model. Blood Warriors are just inferior IMO. Their only real appeal is that the models attack after death, and if you have to die to be useful, you're not a good viable option, you're a modern artist.
EnTyme wrote: That's good to know. And I fully agree on Mortal battlelines. Both are seriously underwhelming, but you can at least make Bloodreavers into a massive blob of 4+ attacks per model. Blood Warriors are just inferior IMO. Their only real appeal is that the models attack after death, and if you have to die to be useful, you're not a good viable option, you're a modern artist.
I’ll be curious to see what they do with Blood Warriors too. They need a little boost. Just a little one. Personally, I think they should get the same blood soaked banner ability that mighty skull crushers have, and that’s just for starters. Another idea could be a bonus for having 15+ models in the unit.
If it was up to me, I'd give them some sort of "on a hit roll of 6" ability. Maybe a hit roll of six results in two hits, or hit roll of 6 is -2 rend (MW on the Goreglaive). Something like that (with an appropriate points increase, of course). There just aren't many ways to make Blood Warriors exciting right now. Low number of attacks, low rend, low damage. Everything about them is just so "Meh".
For reavers I would bake the +1 attack for being in totem range into their profile by default as I feel that little change would make them worthwhile. For blood warriors just give them rend -1 (and make the gorefists deal a mw back on unmodified saves of 6 to make them consistent with modern rule design).
I like the idea of reavers getting an extra boost from being in totem range, though. It's like they're so psychotic that just the sight of a Brass Skull sends them into a frenzy. Not that I would complain too loudly if you didn't have to have a Bloodsecrator in every army. I just don't know why you wouldn't want one. As I've mentioned, though, I already feel Bloodreavers are worth taking in a Mortal Khorne army.
Why not both? Give reavers 2 attacks basic, and this becomes 3 whilst under the influence of a totem. I think that is perfectly fair on account of how ‘weedy’ they are overall (1 wound, crap save, basic to hit & wound stats).
I think it should be baked in because right now they must be supported to be worthwhile; a bloodsecrator triples their output (+1 from their ability, +1 from his). Just giving them an extra attack on top of current buffs means they go to 4 with a bloodsecrator and still need one to perform since he doubles their output. Making them 2 normally/3 when 'secrated means they still have most of their punch on their own and can stay dirt cheap points wise or even go to 60/10.
Elmir wrote: You keep saying "bad balance" and then referring to "if a casual gamer fights a hardcore list, it's poorly balanced" to give your arguments any credence.
Maybe... Just maybe... Have you considered your line of thought here is a bit wonky and the community as a whole has figured out that there are three modes of play?
And when some d*ckheads use one mode of play (matched play style lists) to "compete" in another mode of play (open or narrative lists) it all goes tits up? The game is actually not doing that poorly around where I live either.... But we do have the self-policing I've already mentioned once or twice, to stop n*bheads from trying to feel like their e-peen grew bigger if they curbstomp through a narrative campaign with matched play lists.
I mean for God's sake... Even the main rulebook tells people this game has three different "tiers" of gameplay by now.
*edit* This was mostly a reply to Auticus
You realize right that if developers would do their job properly there wouldn't be so big gap between armies? Excuses like "different playing ways" are just that. EXCUSES. Dev's are either too lazy, too incompetent or are aiming for deliberately to create imbalance for sale reason. But matched play does not excuse poor balance. You can have good balance AND 3 ways to play funny that.
But it should also not be any of these X factions better not bother showing up. Don't bother selling those models if thats going to be the case. *EVERY* faction should be viable. If I like bloodbound mortals, I should have a chance to play a good game against any other faction using them. If I like sky dwarves, then I should have a chance to play a good game against any other faction using them. If I play Flesh Eater Courts, I shouldn't be able to be running on easy mode against most other factions by virtue of me playing that faction.
That's proper balance. At the faction level.
I agree that faction level balance should exist and barring a few outliers I do experience a somewhat balanced games.
Regarding balance in other games - which tends to be a popular argument - the balance in those games is very clearly modulated by very often barring any and all synergy between units. That which people often like about Warhammer is also its greatest Achilles Heel. Warhammer tends to like its heroes and elites that force multiply other aspects of the army, but at the same time it means the army must be balanced with those force multipliers in mind which means that very often these force multipliers become something you need to take to really get your army's worth. I mean, how are vanilla Space Marines supposed to be balanced when a faction in the codex boosts Ultramarines considerably like Roboute? Same issue goes for Blades of Khorne and their Bloodsecrator. It is troublesome to point balance a synergy unit because you are trying to predict every combination and edge case and exponential cases.
For all other tabletop games I just don't see this level of synergy and force multiplying and that in turn makes it much easier to balance those games. It also makes it much easier to balance units 1-to-1 as you don't have to worry about a force multiplier dropping a bomb into the entire equation.
Now, there are potential fixes. You could make it so a Hero unit must join a squad(a la 7th and before) and that hero can only buff that unit. You can also make it so that a hero can only actively buff a single targeted unit in the beginning of a round. These are things that would limit potential exponential force multipliers and in turn allow for better balancing.
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NinthMusketeer wrote: For reavers I would bake the +1 attack for being in totem range into their profile by default as I feel that little change would make them worthwhile. For blood warriors just give them rend -1 (and make the gorefists deal a mw back on unmodified saves of 6 to make them consistent with modern rule design).
I would like Bloodreavers to get their attack plus from being near a hero instead of a totem so a Bloodsecrator doesn't always have to be taken to get the maximum value out of Reavers.
Agree that Blood Warriors should get a -1 to rend. They really need that extra punch to give them a bit of an elite status. Goreglaive could be -2 to make it different.
For all other tabletop games I just don't see this level of synergy and force multiplying and that in turn makes it much easier to balance those games. It also makes it much easier to balance units 1-to-1 as you don't have to worry about a force multiplier dropping a bomb into the entire equation.
While true, I'll once again poiint to the fan poiint systems before GHB that were individually and collectively objectively more balanced than the official version of points, and the game was just as synergy driven before GHB existed.
They were not perfect balance but they were almost all acceptably balanced to where all factions were viable and also had tournament data to back them up.
Going over my khorne list, another great issue that they have is lack of meaningful rend (coupled with no real way to deal mortal wounds). The damage output of the mortal units (and therefore the mortal faction) is god awful poor.
Look at things like a chaos lord of khorne. Supposed to be the most baddest wrecker of worlds in human form. 3 attacks. -1 rend. D3 damage. lol. No one is afraid of that. Thats the statline of Teenage Champion of Khorne, not a chaos lord. "But the lord on foot has that axe that auto slays things he wounds on a 5+". Yeah. I think I've managed to have that go off all of twice in four or so years. The problem is with 3 attacks, you're going to typically at best wound twice with a pitiful rend. The things that you want to auto slay usually also have good saves to go along with that. Then if you *happen* to knock a wound into your target you do have the 1:3 chance of killing it. So the off-chance is there, and then when that 1:3 doesn't happen, your target demolishes the lord of khorne and you managed to put a couple wounds on your target with what is supposed to be the most baddest wrecker of worlds in human form.
They should be rocking a 3+ armor save (they are just as armored as stormcast) and I'd expect a chaos lord of khorne to have 5-6 attacks with some mortal wound pop on 6 to hit or damage 3 on 6 to hit or something.
Blood Warriors - also lol. They should be rocking a 3+ armor save and -1 rend with some type of mortal wound or more damage mechanic on a 6 OR they should have a lot more attacks. Doing that makes them almost worth the points you pay for them. They are bezerkers. You should be afraid of them, not chuckling to yourself because your opponent was stupid and brought them.
Those were the things that stuck out the worst and most obvious to me.
I'd like to see reavers parallel with plague monks. Horde of them with a ton of attacks but virtually no save and die and run away easily.
They need a significant boost in damage output to make them viable even in a semi-competitive situation. Or they need their points dropped fairly significantly to match their pathetic damage output potential so you can at least run them in a horde.
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GW also discovered synergistic rules only a few years ago, probably in a bad attempt to copy Warmachine, so that argument is hilariously bad.
Of this there is no doubt. The designers of AOS were very obviously giant fan boys of Warmachine and how it played. Down to almost copying the Daily mechanic.
"Daily" mechanic? Whatchu talking 'bout, auticus? I guess you mean Feats but nothing in AOS compares to those although I suppose summoning MIGHT but nowhere near the same as how polarizing the Feat is to Warmahordes I do think they intended to go for that wombo-combo style of play, but whether it was due to Warmahordes or Magic who can say.
The issue is that they're bad at it (IMHO) and as you've frequently lamented want to push list building to the extreme of all else and push that as the pinnacle of skill such that you are a good player if you can build a list that takes 2000 points and makes it play like 3000 points, rather than take a 2000 point list and play it against an equally pointed list (what you saw with your feedback that Azyr Comp was "too balanced" which I find hilarious as a drawback from any serious gamer).
At some point in time, the attitude of what made a good player degenerated from playing two balanced armies and being the superior general to gaming the army building part of the game to try and build a list that was X points on paper but functioned as X+Y points in the game. I have no idea what pushed wargaming to that sort of primitive and IMHO toxic style of play but it happened and it seems like we will never go back to the days when 2000 points was 2000 points and you had to be the better player to win, rather than trying to win before the game even begins.
lord_blackfang wrote: GW also discovered synergistic rules only a few years ago, probably in a bad attempt to copy Warmachine, so that argument is hilariously bad.
I actually think AOS has more simularities to Heroscape with the use of hero buffs, warscrolls, keywords etc
The initial implementation of Command abilities. It wasn't daily in that you could only use it once, but only the general could use it. It was to me inspired by the daily ability of warmachine generals.
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At some point in time, the attitude of what made a good player degenerated from playing two balanced armies and being the superior general to gaming the army building part of the game to try and build a list that was X points on paper but functioned as X+Y points in the game. I have no idea what pushed wargaming to that sort of primitive and IMHO toxic style of play
Magic: The Gathering was responsible for that shift. Magic: The Gathering brought about deckbuildiing games, and deckbuilding games are about building the stronger deck where that is touted as one of its primary skills.
That bled over into wargaming where listbuilding became the primary skill. That shift happened in warhammer in 5th edition (mid to late 90s) and fully blossomed at the end of 6th edition, when Warmachine had first started to kick off. One of warmachine's main sales lines was that listbuilding was indeed king, but that they cared about balance unlike GW whose games even then were poorly balanced (it didn't take long for the ravening hordes balance to disappear when GW resumed their staggered army book releases).
Going into 7th edition whfb, list buiilding was king and has been king to this very day.
lord_blackfang wrote: GW also discovered synergistic rules only a few years ago, probably in a bad attempt to copy Warmachine, so that argument is hilariously bad.
I actually think AOS has more simularities to Heroscape with the use of hero buffs, warscrolls, keywords etc
Hero Scape, what a great game. It wasn't perfect, far from it, but it was tons of fun.
About Khorne, I have found that the best use for a Khorne army is having bloodstokers lashing your Minotaurs in a Khorne-Minotaur army. Put a couple of Blood Reavers to cap objetives and you are set.
Magic: The Gathering was responsible for that shift. Magic: The Gathering brought about deckbuildiing games, and deckbuilding games are about building the stronger deck where that is touted as one of its primary skills.
That bled over into wargaming where listbuilding became the primary skill. That shift happened in warhammer in 5th edition (mid to late 90s) and fully blossomed at the end of 6th edition, when Warmachine had first started to kick off. One of warmachine's main sales lines was that listbuilding was indeed king, but that they cared about balance unlike GW whose games even then were poorly balanced (it didn't take long for the ravening hordes balance to disappear when GW resumed their staggered army book releases).
Going into 7th edition whfb, list buiilding was king and has been king to this very day.
The real focus of Warmachine (and Magic) is the complexity of interactions. GW never got that. A "strong" WHFB list is just one stuffed with units that are too cheap for what they do that any child can spot instantly upon opening an army book. A "strong" Warmachine list (or Magic deck) is one containing complimentary tools that allow a highly skilled player to pull off clever combos to reach their goal from an unexpected angle. AoS and 40k 8th might have force multipliers, but that rarely goes beyond straightforward power buffs like RR1s and extra attacks. It takes no list building skill to make a good AoS list and barely any gaming skill to drive one to victory, whereas you need both in spades to win at a real "list building" game.
I don't know anymore where I was going with this except that, if list building was a goal for GW, they are failing miserably even at that.
I agree, and thats one of the central pillars of my entire problem with the game. They put sole focus on list building as their primary skill, but made it so easy to puzzle out that its like solving one of those blocky puzzles made for little children. It takes very little skill to figure out the elementary math and determine what you should take.
Yes there is still some tuning involved but the takes vs the never takes are pretty much advertised and figurable within five minutes of cracking the book open.
Now as to failing at list building, I suppose that depends on your perspective. To a lot of people, this is exactly what they want because list building is central, plus easy for them to figure out.
Magic: The Gathering was responsible for that shift. Magic: The Gathering brought about deckbuildiing games, and deckbuilding games are about building the stronger deck where that is touted as one of its primary skills.
That bled over into wargaming where listbuilding became the primary skill. That shift happened in warhammer in 5th edition (mid to late 90s) and fully blossomed at the end of 6th edition, when Warmachine had first started to kick off. One of warmachine's main sales lines was that listbuilding was indeed king, but that they cared about balance unlike GW whose games even then were poorly balanced (it didn't take long for the ravening hordes balance to disappear when GW resumed their staggered army book releases).
Going into 7th edition whfb, list buiilding was king and has been king to this very day.
The real focus of Warmachine (and Magic) is the complexity of interactions. GW never got that. A "strong" WHFB list is just one stuffed with units that are too cheap for what they do that any child can spot instantly upon opening an army book. A "strong" Warmachine list (or Magic deck) is one containing complimentary tools that allow a highly skilled player to pull off clever combos to reach their goal from an unexpected angle. AoS and 40k 8th might have force multipliers, but that rarely goes beyond straightforward power buffs like RR1s and extra attacks. It takes no list building skill to make a good AoS list and barely any gaming skill to drive one to victory, whereas you need both in spades to win at a real "list building" game.
I don't know anymore where I was going with this except that, if list building was a goal for GW, they are failing miserably even at that.
They are. Just thats what people seem to think of when they think of listbuilding: Make a 2000 point list act like a 3000 point list, when listbuilding is really about HOW you use things, not WHAT. Like in Warmahordes, while you did see a lot of skew lists (there was a saying you either asked a question or brought an answer to one to be good) you also saw a lot of dark horse or "Janky" lists that on paper didn't look great but if you did the right things in the right way, the sum of the parts was better than the individual parts.
That's IMHO real listbuilding. Warhammer's listbuilding is basically just abusing bad points costs, with the occasional stacking buffs.
auticus wrote: I agree, and thats one of the central pillars of my entire problem with the game. They put sole focus on list building as their primary skill, but made it so easy to puzzle out that its like solving one of those blocky puzzles made for little children. It takes very little skill to figure out the elementary math and determine what you should take.
Yes there is still some tuning involved but the takes vs the never takes are pretty much advertised and figurable within five minutes of cracking the book open.
Now as to failing at list building, I suppose that depends on your perspective. To a lot of people, this is exactly what they want because list building is central, plus easy for them to figure out.
This I agree with.
Within an hour of a new book landing you can essentially pick through it and spot instant combos that will be top tier.
You can also sift through the units and right away realise which are junk and which will be insanely useful.
I also agree with the comment above yours in that any form of synergy is very straight forward and simplistic, it's basically buff a unit and beat another unit to death with it.
Other games implement systems and rules that allow a much more complex way of playing which in turn, allows for alot more strategy.
I think one major part that lets GW down in rules is the way they make fluffy armies possible.
I love a fluffy army, but the way it's done sometimes is severely lacklustre.
Like trolls? Run an entire troll army.
Like squigs? Run a pure squig army.
While gloomspite isn't the best choice for this point (it's one of the best recent books in terms of internal balance IMO) its an issue at times.
Want to run a minataur only list? Sure, but it's wonky.
All mounted elves? Sure, that's wonky too.
They try to keep these builds fun and fluffy but I feel that's where they majorly screw up in terms of rules.
They used to address this in White Dwarf. They had an article back in the late 90s that basically said their army lists are flexible to give you the flexibility to build armies, but people "abuse" that flexibility to min/max.
auticus wrote: "But the lord on foot has that axe that auto slays things he wounds on a 5+". Yeah. I think I've managed to have that go off all of twice in four or so years.
Really? The Reality-Splitting Axe has always been one of my most reliable character killers. Maybe I'm just insanely lucky with it. I definitely agree with buffing the save on the Lord and Blood Warriors. There's no reason their save should be lower than that of a Stormcast. In regards to Ninth's suggestion of making Bloodreavers less dependent on supporting heroes, I'm going to have to disagree. I just feel like the need for hero support is a big part of the unit's identity. The lore describes Bloodreavers as being almost animalistic in their savagery to the point that some Lords of Khorne won't even use them in their armies. That sounds like the kind of unit that needs some serious oversight from heroes to me.
So games like LOTR or Warlords have mechanics similar. For example, in Warlords you are typically limited to a single unit of trolls or minotaurs or whatever. Cavalry is not limited, but cavalry also is not like in old versions of whfb (an auto win) and cavalry that over extends in warlords can and will get destroyed so its not necessary to cap.
Rick Priestely in Warlords does let you remove those caps, or add dragons etc. He makes it player permission though. So by giving permission to allow those things you are agreeing to an imbalanced game that you may find fun.
But if you are playing say competitively, you won't see those iimbalanced things exist.
If anything thats the route I'd love to see. You want to run those game busting lists? Cool, thats a narrative game. Player permission, have at it. THe matched play balanced variant would cap that though.
I know this won't happen though because that would limit sales. if I want to sell troll models, I'm not going to tell you that you can only have a unit of six of them in your army unless player permission lets you run the all troll version, because GW marketing and sales knows fully well most people only play matched play.
However there are a good half dozen things that can be implemented right now today
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Maybe I'm just insanely lucky with it.
I'd say yes you are very lucky with it. With only three attacks, he's typically only doing 1.5 wounds (so 1-2 wounds) that with the meh rend of -1 means most characters you are going after that have 3+ or so saves are not sweating it, then only on a 5+ are they insta dead.
But my opponents are always smart enough to never even let him get into contact with anything that matters. He's on foot. He's slow. He only has 6 wounds and a lol 4+ save. He's pretty much a dead man walking that will get to kill chaffe.
So as thats the case, to me boost hiis attacks up. If he's on foot and can only get fed chaffe make him damn good at killiing that stuff.
Now if he flew or something, thats a different game altogether at that poiint since he could more reliably contact what he needs to hit. But I'd still give him more than 3(lol) attacks.
Just so I can understand this better, because this is something I’m very interested in, AoS is considered bad in list building because it usually envolves nothing but simple, straight attack buffs stacked on top of one another, whilst a good list building system would be one that’s far more subtle than this yes? Can anyone give me an example or two?
A lot of people say AOS is the perfect awesome list-buildiing system because list building is so prominent, because you have to show up with the right list to do well. That its easy to figure out is not a consideration to a lot of people.
I can go post on twitter right now that AOS is a bad list building game because its straight forward easy stuff, and get a dozen down votes and terse replies telling me to feth off and go play 9th age because simple systems are superior to complex ones. If I posted that on TGA forums, I'd get a moderator warning and locked.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Let me also add with the prominence of the internet that something like subtle list building is much more difficult to pull off because netlisting has been a thing for a couple decades now. once someone creates a good list that does well in the public arena, it is copied ad naseum.
So it can be argued that even in the most subtle of systems that complex list building is useless because once one person figures out a good list, the netlisters will just copy it.
I know this won't happen though because that would limit sales. if I want to sell troll models, I'm not going to tell you that you can only have a unit of six of them in your army unless player permission lets you run the all troll version, because GW marketing and sales knows fully well most people only play matched play.
To be fair GW did put the Limit of 3 in 40k so they are not entire beyond applying limits.
GW used to have "with permission" rules. In 3rd edition 40k (and maybe 5th edition WHFB I don't remember exactly) you could only field special characters with your opponent's permission (and tournaments usually forbade them but let you use the model as a generic version e.g. you could use the Marneus Calgar model as a Chapter Master, even though he wouldn't have his special wargear).
They got rid of that because I guess people don't like having to ask to use things in the rules, they want to just have it be the default.
Anyways, a good listbuilding system has enough balance to where there is a choice and what you pick determines some synergies you pick. Warhammer has that on the surface but it's really just taking advantage of things that are undercosted, rather than looking at options and seeing that this unit works well in tandem with this unit and this buffing character for that unit, but if you took this other unit instead then these other options suddenly become better.
That's what Warhammer lacks for listbuilding IMHO. It lacks the variety of options that generally get "unlocked", indeed as was previously stated often anyone with even a modicum of sense can look at a new book and within an hour figure out what is the really good and likely "meta" options.
Ironically a fairly good example of this in Warhammer IMHO, albeit it's made too extreme, is FEC simply because there are builds for virtually every style of play you want: Ghoul heavy (Morgaunt), Horror heavy (Hollowmourne), Flayer heavy (Blisterskin) and Monster heavy (Gristlegore). That in and of itself is a good list building design, it's just ruined by GW's usual over/under powering of things. But in concept that's what you should have: A variety of ways to build your army that can function well, rather than a go-to build that works and most everything else is trash.
I think some things - like special characters - became a moot point in most clubs or divided people. Ergo most clubs would be auto yes or no to allowing special characters so the "with permission" rule wasn't really used it was just defaulted on and that was it. Meanwhile some places that allowed them would only allow certain ones based on how "powerful" they were which could lead to all kinds of debate - esp if one player is allowed to bring theirs but another isnt.
From GW's perspective it also meant slower sales of special character models, not a good thing if they are shifting them from metal to plastic and thus need high sales on them. So it makes sense that it was a rule that steadily went away.
That loops back to why I think GW will never limit things. It hurts their sales.
But the no limit on things also means more things to be busted.
I think its ok to have a very powerful model that can shape the meta. I don't think its ok that you can basically take as many of that model as you want, because that is where even points start to not work fully in establishing a fun experience for the other person across the table.
I know this won't happen though because that would limit sales. if I want to sell troll models, I'm not going to tell you that you can only have a unit of six of them in your army unless player permission lets you run the all troll version, because GW marketing and sales knows fully well most people only play matched play.
To be fair GW did put the Limit of 3 in 40k so they are not entire beyond applying limits.
You mean the suggestion for organized events (i.e. tournaments)?
I know this won't happen though because that would limit sales. if I want to sell troll models, I'm not going to tell you that you can only have a unit of six of them in your army unless player permission lets you run the all troll version, because GW marketing and sales knows fully well most people only play matched play.
To be fair GW did put the Limit of 3 in 40k so they are not entire beyond applying limits.
You mean the suggestion for organized events (i.e. tournaments)?
Do you mean the "suggestion" that is taken as gospel and a change to Matched Play as a whole despite that?
Ever since that rule was introduced I've never seen anyone NOT use it from tournament games to tournament prep to casual game night at the local store. It's for all intents and purposes a Matched Play change, which for all intents and purposes makes it a default rule of the game.
Thats not surprising if your meta is tournament players, since their pickup games and other games outside of tournaments will also be tournament tune-up games.
Also, to be absolutely fair to Dakkadakka history, a lot of people here claim to know the absolutely broken build at release, but when things start churning in the real world things look a lot different.
Of course, the difficult thing about all of this is that we can either look at tournament results where things tend to be relatively even except for a few outliers, or we can try to look at more casual games and then things just become a lot more difficult to evaluate as things vary a bit more. Even the more casual tournaments locally for me tend to be relatively even all things considered.
Now, there is one problem that I would like to point out which is a problem in Warhammer of all kinds is that it feels like GW wants to balance certain point levels, ie. many factions are played at just one point value like 2000 points or something similar. I see this especially in an escalation league I am helping with now and some armies will cruelly dominate at 1000 and below while evening out with the rest as we go higher in points. It's very interesting to watch and does point out that the game - in regards to Matched play - is intended for a certain point level.
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auticus wrote: Thats not surprising if your meta is tournament players, since their pickup games and other games outside of tournaments will also be tournament tune-up games.
Completely unrelated to whether your FLGS is tournament meta or not. When GW comes with a beta rule/suggestion it is generally accepted that it is fixing an apparent issue in the game. You could even say that it is a balancing act and some people - tournament or not - like when the game is balanced.
I agree and have mentioned many times in the past it is easy to always assume all discussions are from the perspective of tournament play.
When I say "this is busted" I will often get derided since it turns out not to be as big a deal.... in tournament play.
But when I say "this is busted" I am talking about campaign play more often than not. And everything I have said in the history of my posting on Dakka here as far as AOS is concerned has indeed been busted in campaign play and has caused me grief as an event organizer.
you could even say that it is a balancing act and some people - tournament or not - like when the game is balanced.
That is the puzzle! It would seem logical anyway that people would like that. Or perhaps it is I confusing "like" with "accepting". Probably the latter.
auticus wrote: Thats not surprising if your meta is tournament players, since their pickup games and other games outside of tournaments will also be tournament tune-up games.
Even in non-tournament metas. Beta rules and fixes like that are seen as actual balance errata, not "only for tournaments" so are treated as the gospel and a fundamental change to the game.
That's another thing entirely but there is no real "for organized play". Those are for all intents and purposes matched play changes that are to be applied whether you play in tournaments or casual games with matched play in your garage.
I'd say yes you are very lucky with it. With only three attacks, he's typically only doing 1.5 wounds (so 1-2 wounds) that with the meh rend of -1 means most characters you are going after that have 3+ or so saves are not sweating it, then only on a 5+ are they insta dead.
But my opponents are always smart enough to never even let him get into contact with anything that matters. He's on foot. He's slow. He only has 6 wounds and a lol 4+ save. He's pretty much a dead man walking that will get to kill chaffe.
So as thats the case, to me boost hiis attacks up. If he's on foot and can only get fed chaffe make him damn good at killiing that stuff.
Now if he flew or something, thats a different game altogether at that poiint since he could more reliably contact what he needs to hit. But I'd still give him more than 3(lol) attacks.
I find he's plenty fast. Have him whipped by a Blood Stoker for +3 to advance and charge, couple that with his own +3 to charge command ability and you can charge pretty much anything on the board by turn 2 unless you deployed him poorly. As far as the number of attacks? +1 from a Bloodsecrator, +1 from Wrathmongers, and +1 from an Aspiring Deathbringer if you're really feeling salty. Add in a Khorne-marked Warshrine to reroll hits.
So new khorne stuff looks neat. The anti wizard theme gives them a defensive boost against magical mortal wound spew and keeps enemy buffs down.
Thats a plus.
The downside so far is that I see nothing that really makes the mortal side viable as a faction still and that you'll still be doing mostly demons for the heavy lifting.
The downside so far is that I see nothing that really makes the mortal side viable as a faction still and that you'll still be doing mostly demons for the heavy lifting.
They haven't revealed much of anything so it is too soon to tell. My guess is that we'll start seeing reveals beginning of next weeks as preorders go up now on Saturday.
Back to the original post about General Discussion. I have been seeing a few tactics/tactica threads pop up and I was wondering if there should be tactics thread for all tomes released in the last year to consolidate both discussion of tactics, issues, and general complaints about the related faction.
I agree iits too soon to tell. However, as this is the third iteration of the book and the first two made mortals pretty much enhancement talent for stormcast players to look good against, my asssumption is that until they throw a review showiing how they buffed mortals that they will continue to be business as usual (take the priests and bloodsecrator, fill out the rest with blood thirsters and blood letters)
Honestly, there are a few changes that NEED to be in the Khorne book; the Skullcrushers need to be Mortal/Daemonic and so do the Mighty Lord of Khorne/Khorgas Khul models. All three of the other gods have these combo units (Hellstriders of Slaanesh, tzaangor enlightened on disc, gaunt summoner on disc, Pusgoyle Blightlords). Khorne, being the first, wasn’t given this combo kit, but these two units specifically deserve it. Valkia does too, actually. She died. She’s Daemonic at this point. Or at least half Daemon.
Automatically Appended Next Post: They upped the brass stampede it looks like. And skarbrand. Sadly doesn't look like reavers, blood warriors, or that chaos lord of khorne are going to be coming off the shelf still.
Automatically Appended Next Post: They upped the brass stampede it looks like. And skarbrand. Sadly doesn't look like reavers, blood warriors, or that chaos lord of khorne are going to be coming off the shelf still.
Wonder how many people will commit heresy and mix khorne and tzeentch?
Fateweavers Oracle ability could make skarbrand even more amusing.
"So your big model has 16 wounds and no save against mortal wounds eh? That roll is now a 6"
They upped the brass stampede it looks like. And skarbrand. Sadly doesn't look like reavers, blood warriors, or that chaos lord of khorne are going to be coming off the shelf still.
Wouldn't rule it out completely. They are not going to drop their entire load on the first run or completely before the book is out.
I personally am expecting that Bloodreavers will stop being buffed by a totem wielder and will be buffed by a hero instead.
Automatically Appended Next Post: They upped the brass stampede it looks like. And skarbrand. Sadly doesn't look like reavers, blood warriors, or that chaos lord of khorne are going to be coming off the shelf still.
Ehh... The bit about updated warscrolls seemed to me like they were saying the mortal ones are getting buffed. Think about it; a good chunk of the daemon scrolls were already updated in wrath & rapture. I feel like GW wants to see those mortal models on the table and will make changes to see that happen.
Skarbrand already murdered everything he touched, him murdering things a different way won't change things.
Skarbrand sucks now (unless you're mixing and putting him with Kairos, as pointed out). I posted this in the N&R portion, but he used to be able to get MULTIPLE attacks for Total Carnage; now, it's just "roll a die and do this". You could potentially have 3-4 dice causing Total Carnage (Bloodsecrator and Wrathmonger bonuses, for example), giving up to 24 mortal wounds. Now, unless you have a way to guarantee the 6 (like Kairos as an ally), it's actually inferior to what he was before.
The old wording of Skarbrand's ability is weird. They basically state that it can't be saved against and no FnP works against it so it is all but Mortal Wound in name.
Against single target, but dealing MWs will more damage against multiple model units since it will boil over.
Wounds in AoS normally boil over unless I am reading the following wrong:
Wounds are allocated one at a time
to models in the target unit. You can
allocate the wounds inflicted on your
units as you see fit (the models do
not have to be within range or visible
to the attacking unit). However, if
you allocate a wound to a model,
you must keep on allocating wounds
to that model until it is slain – a
unit can never have more than one
wounded model.
Eldarsif wrote: The old wording of Skarbrand's ability is weird. They basically state that it can't be saved against and no FnP works against it so it is all but Mortal Wound in name.
Against single target, but dealing MWs will more damage against multiple model units since it will boil over.
Wounds in AoS normally boil over unless I am reading the following wrong:
Wounds are allocated one at a time
to models in the target unit. You can
allocate the wounds inflicted on your
units as you see fit (the models do
not have to be within range or visible
to the attacking unit). However, if
you allocate a wound to a model,
you must keep on allocating wounds
to that model until it is slain – a
unit can never have more than one
wounded model.
They do, but skarbrand's ability specifically picked out that it was a single model losing the wounds (and if the model had 8 or less it simply died instead).
timetowaste85 wrote: Oh, right. Now he can’t insta-gib Morathi or anything like that. If he doesn’t go down to the same price as a regular Bt, he’s crap.
Well, like I said, his use against multiple model units has been magnified considerably. As it stands this rule change is not a nerf.
It is a nerf. His ability wasn’t mortal wounds, so it got around the mortal wound saves. His ability got around her Iron Heart. It was completely 100% uncancelleable. He’s been nerfed in two different ways with a minimal chance of being able to kill swarms better. His attacks with Slaughter already accomplished that. If he sees a point increase or even stays the same, he becomes pointless to field. Denying it is missing the point of putting him on the field.
Yes it does not get around MW saves or Morathi anymore, but it is still a ton of MWs and will have no trouble killing elite models. In fact it is a straight upgrade against everything except stuff that has a MW save; the vast majority of the game. And a rather significant factor is it ignores hit penalties now. It is not a nerf, as it stands. Now if the roll to trigger it is 5+ or something THEN it is a nerf.
I am disappointed that warcry is limited to just chaos. That pretty much removes it from play other than as a side board game (which I gather is its intent anyway).
I was hoping to integrate a versiion of AOS killteam into my campaign for quests.
I do wonder what their overall intention is with it. As it stands now it feels a bit more like Necromunda, but for Age of Sigmar, rather than an Age of Sigmar Kill Team.
Disappointed with Warcry. Also, I don't think they should do another expansion (i.e. Forbidden Power) before everything is properly updated. But in true GW fashion, they chug along full steam without looking backward, and most people are okay with it because "ThEy ArE a BuSiNeSs"
They are already in with 3 books and the fourth is coming out in 2 weeks which means we have 4 books in 3 months. I wouldn't be surprised if we end up getting around 10 updated books over the year if this keeps up. Considering that Maggotkin and up were made with 2.0 in mind I wonder what books we are going to see. Most likely KO, Sylvaneth, Seraphon, Orruks, Slaves to Darkness, and Slaanesh. Who knows, we might even get more.
With the new expansion I wouldn't be surprised if it leads to a set of tomes tying into the entire story. Personally I don't mind the campaign expansions as they are used to forward the story and build up conjecture and excitement for something new. An expansion also helps opening up the lore and more to new factions that haven't been getting the limelight in previous books.
If AoS gets 10 or more tomes this year then its going to be darn close to where 40K was at the end of 2018 - ergo most of the game updated to the current rules edition. We are 3 months in and already have 4 tomes and the only thing that might mess up this maths is the Aelves in Order - we've really no idea what GW is doing with them - though we have lost Glade Guard recently.
We know there's 2 new Aelven armies to come (basically your light and dark options) and its likely we'll see at least one of them released this year.
Also don't forget that Expansions are great for existing armies that might not be seeing any attention for a while. AoS is in a messy place right now due to its unique history. Over its lifespan its had a huge turn around and honestly its 2.0 release was probably the best place to start listing its lifespan from. Everything form the end of Old World to 2.0 was rather messy for AoS. First there was the "no rules" era, then the end of that with Kirby leaving and a new CEO and we got the fast rushed out 1.0 things which mostly had Battletomes that were just warscroll collections. It was rushed and wasn't as well rounded. 2.0 has come along and we've got big positive changes.
Honestly the new expansion I'm expecting to be Malign Sorcery 2 - a new boxed set likely priced similar with a new swathe of universal Endless Spells and some additional optional equipment, spell lores, realm stuff and the like. Ergo the new Endless Spells willl likely be snapped up by everyone whilst the other half will be like real stuff - accepted mostly but some places won't and some will be optional and some will vary etc....
Over its lifespan its had a huge turn around and honestly its 2.0 release was probably the best place to start listing its lifespan from. Everything form the end of Old World to 2.0 was rather messy for AoS.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. 2.0 Feels like the actual launch of the line whereas 1.0 felt like Early Access.
First, Warcry looks amazing. Can’t wait to see more.
Second, I’m sorry to see Glade Guard go. Makes me think Duardin warriors and quarrellers/thunderers might go too, on account of the weird numbers in the box. Although they could have just added another sprue into the box.
EDIT: Agree on 2.0 being the beginning of ‘true’ AoS.
Eldarsif wrote: What I find weird about Glade Guards is that they went through the hassle of making Age of Sigmar boxes for them with a faction name and all.
They gave all the aelf subfactions lore; heck the Greenskins also got a getting started boxed set. I think the issue is that AoS launch edition fragmented the game into LOADS of tiny armies. I think the view then was just so different from what it is now. I think the idea then was to basically have everyone playing "whatever they want" and mostly "grand alliance armies." So all the little subfactions were just flavour. GW could then retire whole subfactions in a block but also add new factions with a handful of new models. It would play ideally into a very casual game focused more around model collecting than army collecting with GW having no pressure to keep each "army" going but instead keeping the "Grand Alliance" going.
AoS 1.0 started to reverse this and 2.0 has fully kicked this idea out. AoS is now back to closer to what Old world and 40K are; long term investment in distinct and specific armies and less of a "souped grand alliance" approach. It's basically what most of the market screamed for and we've got it. However a downside is that it left GW with an over-abundance of armies. Most they've resolved like Gloomspite and Skaven - by putting them back together. Others I think they are cutting out and whilst I HATE the idea of it I can see them cutting more of the old Aelf range and then producing some kind of Aelven Alliance faction or somesuch. It's messy, its not ideal, but I think its something that is likely to happen for the good of what AoS is as of today.
It means that GW will have a number of armies that they can feasibly manage and release updates and new models for and keep them alive; rather than having a crippling overhead of so many factions that they just never have time for them; meaning some will get loads of attention and others totally ignored (which is basically just prolonging eventual squatting of armies).
The gave all the aelf subfactions lore; heck the Greenskins also got a getting started boxed set.
The difference is that individual units in the Wanderers got updated boxes. Greenskinz only got the Start Collecting unless I am misremembering.
I do imagine they will cut out a lot of aged kits and resin ones. Others I could easily see them harvest into a larger tome like they did with Skaven and Nagash. In fact, I think we will see a few more racial tomes instead of alliance tomes. At this point I would not be surprised if they consolidate dwarves and orcs into their respective Duardin and Orruk books. Although the Duardin - save for KO maybe - might end up being combined with free folks.
I can see :
Fyreslayers and Dispossessed being put into a single book. Overlords I don't think will join them as they are just radically different kinds of dwarves.
Bonesplitters and Ironjaws being put together like Gloomspite/Skaven (so two armies which can go solo but who can also form a single united army).
Gutbusters and Beastclaw Raiders being combined since they visually share so much and BCR are basically running on the versatility of one plastic kit and a couple of other kits.
Those would be the combos that I can clearly see being possible future releases for GW. They make sense, and fit into the themes for the armies. Aelves is still a big questionmark because we've no idea if the new light/dark aelf armies will absorb any of the models from the current armies into them.
OK, if a unit was withdrawn, could they be returned at a latter date? Is there any precedent for this?
Technically anything can happen, but there is no precedent for this.
Warpfire thrower for Skaven - and that's a model in metal. Provided GW still has the moulds they can bring stuff back. They often don't because either the whole army is removed or they've replaced it or taken the army in a new direction. That said it could happen. I'm also fully expecting the AoS side of the new survey that iwll come out to get a LOT of asks for TombKings to come back in some form or another - even if its just the models being rolled into an existing army.
I’m wondering what’s going on here, because honestly, the Wanderers are actually like the most developed Aelf faction there is along with the Darkling Covens. They had an alligence ability, artifacts, and an OK model range. If any Aelf faction was in dire shape it was the high elf ones.
How much did 16 gladeguard cost before getting pulled? I swear, they could have just added an extra sprue and charged the same as a box of 20 clanrats or Moonclan grots (£20.50)?
EDIT: If they can bring back that ancient warpfire thrower model, then anything really is possible!
For me and my satisfaction level, if dark elves, slaves to darkness, or tomb kings (lol yes i know) can get an updated book that is not a wet napkin I will be much happier. I've been going 3+ years now having to play factions I don't really like because the rules have been bad for the ones I do like.
I actually fear what will happen with normal Ogors. I have always loved them, and the kits, but now, having a AoS style box isn't even proof that you will be safe.
The ogor cannon is actually very cool and modern but the ogor kits not so much. Man, Ironbelly are just so cool.
Also I LOVE Warcry. I hope is more AoS Necromunda than AoS Killteam. But I'm a big chaos barbarian fanboy so...
How much did 16 gladeguard cost before getting pulled? I swear, they could have just added an extra sprue and charged the same as a box of 20 clanrats or Moonclan grots (£20.50)?
One of the cheapest kits you could buy. 20 pounds for 16 troop models. Regret not buying it when I had the chance, if not only for conversion projects.
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if dark elves, slaves to darkness, or tomb kings (lol yes i know) can get an updated book that is not a wet napkin I will be much happier. I've been going 3+ years now having to play factions I don't really like because the rules have been bad for the ones I do like.
Sounds like my situation, although I was elated to get Daughters of Khaine as it scratched my itch of having a mostly women's army and elf. Would still love a larger and more robust Dark Elf army(as well as light elf).
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tomb kings (lol yes i know)
With the new campaign expansion I am actually rather optimistic we might see the return of Tomb Kings in some form.
Automatically Appended Next Post: More info regarding the Endless Prayers
auticus wrote: For me and my satisfaction level, if dark elves, slaves to darkness, or tomb kings (lol yes i know) can get an updated book that is not a wet napkin I will be much happier. I've been going 3+ years now having to play factions I don't really like because the rules have been bad for the ones I do like.
But Auticus, just buy new models if you want to win!
I checked earlier this morning and they were No longer available and had been for some time. They are now back in the store and under the Aelf category.
So maybe this means they are still making them and the old line lives to fight another day.
Eldarsif wrote: I checked earlier this morning and they were No longer available and had been for some time. They are now back in the store and under the Aelf category.
So maybe this means they are still making them and the old line lives to fight another day.
Wanderers got some new stuff in the latest General's Handbook. I can't imagine they would give them rules for a few months, only to strip away they line. The Wood Elf forces are definitely going away, but most of the Wanderers kits are pretty new. There is a reasonable expectation they will stick around.
Overread wrote: I can see :
Fyreslayers and Dispossessed being put into a single book. Overlords I don't think will join them as they are just radically different kinds of dwarves.
Bonesplitters and Ironjaws being put together like Gloomspite/Skaven (so two armies which can go solo but who can also form a single united army).
Gutbusters and Beastclaw Raiders being combined since they visually share so much and BCR are basically running on the versatility of one plastic kit and a couple of other kits.
Those would be the combos that I can clearly see being possible future releases for GW. They make sense, and fit into the themes for the armies. Aelves is still a big questionmark because we've no idea if the new light/dark aelf armies will absorb any of the models from the current armies into them.
In many ways a Dispossed/Ironweld/Free Peoples combination Battletome would make more sense than combining them with Slayers and Overlords?
Overread wrote: I can see :
Fyreslayers and Dispossessed being put into a single book. Overlords I don't think will join them as they are just radically different kinds of dwarves.
Bonesplitters and Ironjaws being put together like Gloomspite/Skaven (so two armies which can go solo but who can also form a single united army).
Gutbusters and Beastclaw Raiders being combined since they visually share so much and BCR are basically running on the versatility of one plastic kit and a couple of other kits.
Those would be the combos that I can clearly see being possible future releases for GW. They make sense, and fit into the themes for the armies. Aelves is still a big questionmark because we've no idea if the new light/dark aelf armies will absorb any of the models from the current armies into them.
In many ways a Dispossed/Ironweld/Free Peoples combination Battletome would make more sense than combining them with Slayers and Overlords?
Jackal90 wrote: I'm calling it now.
Fellowship of the ring idea steal.
Just mash dwarves, elves and regular humans together, done.
I feel like the "city" rules in the Firestorm book that came in that expansion box were an attempt to do just that.
Maybe if they tried that again with the new combined faction formulas(BoC, GG, Skaven, etc.), coupled with expanded lore they'd have better success now.
I know the consolidation of a lot of the armies on the GW site was recent, but did it occur before or after Gloomspite Gitz? I'm just wondering if we have any precedence for losing a faction after Gloomspite. I feel like GW wants to minimize the amount of hurt they want to do to people.
Warcry has such nice models that I might jump in even though I'm not a Chaos fan. I really love the tribal look of that one Warband. I really hope these releases tie into a large Everchosen/Slaves to Darkness release that sees them get updated.
It was before. Afaik we have not actually lost any whole factions following the big cull. Greenskinz & Gitmob we have lost the models but they have made it clear they are still armies in the fluff & rules so that just means a relaunch at some point.
Ninth Greenskins might have rules and be in the lore, but GW took all their models off sale including their Getting started boxed set.
Old rules and the lore are, honestly, no defence for a faction sticking around. Plus I'd have thought GW would have kept Greenskins around even if just in one current kit if they were going to bring them back in the next two years or so
Eldarsif wrote: Maybe they'll see a comeback later. I am also willing to bet that we're going to see a consolidated Orruk tome rather than separate ones.
I am thinking Ironjawz + Greenskinz put together with Bonesplittaz left on their own. Reason being that the Bonesplittaz battletome is still fine and hasn't had any problems since they fixed kunnin' rukk, and that they are a separate ally in Gloomspite. But I would not be surprised if they did wrap them all together, or if they kept them all separate (though the latter I see as a bit less likely).
Pestilence had a book way back in dec 2015 in the first early days of AOS.
The new skaven book has all of the skaven in it.
I would be highly surprised if the orc book did not recombine all of the orcs.
But then again the new goblin book left out wolf riders and the like so... who knows. They seem to throw a dart at the board in terms of their direction and then they change that direction every three months or so.
Wolf Riders could be joining another force for all we know.
What I do sense, though, is that GW regrets splitting all the factions up too much and are now consolidating as much as they trust themselves. I mean, it is technically easier to have a few larger forces and then later on expand them into individual forces rather than having multiple smaller forces that each need to be expanded.
Automatically Appended Next Post: New Khorne article up.
It I was a betting man, I’d say that one day all Orc factions will be consolidated into one book. The Waaagh will be it’s common theme (like how the Gloomspite is for the grots), and it’ll pretty much be a combination of regular orruks, bonesplitta orruks, and the Ironjawz as leaders. Maybe to make regular orruks more distinctive, they could feature incredibly crude black powder weapons, like how the ogres do.
A possibility. Would be a shame though. Especially since, if I remember correctly, both Ironjawz and Bonesplittas recruit from regular orruk tribes. The former allow ‘ardboyz’ in, whilst the latter are orks who go a bit ‘off’ due to too much Waaagh going through their heads.
Just like with humans, you need ‘regular’ orks to set a benchmark.
I agree with auticus in that I'd have expected to see regular goblins thrown in with gloomspite stuff.
I'd also say that ironjawz, bonesplittaz and regular orcs will get thrown into a book together.
While regular orcs are on the verge of being squatted, I think they may scrape by.
Tons of new fluff still talks about them quite alot.
While that's not alot to base it on, I wouldn't mind betting they stay.
They do however share the boar sprues with bone splittaz, not that it really matters lol.
All three orruk factions are into the waaagh, but it manifests itself in different ways; bonesplittas want to kill, eat and take the bones of great beasts, Ironjawz want to bring down civilisation and fight endlessly against worthy foes...‘regular’ orruks want to loot everything in sight and show off in the process.
In other words, Ironjawz are Goths, Bonesplittas are a combo of Deathskullz (superstition and blue warpaint) and Snake Bitez (traditional), and regular orruks are a combo of Freebootas, Badmoons and the looting aspect of Deathskullz.
More info about Khorne. Some welcome changes like the Bloodsecrator can finally move while using his ability(although a nerf is attached to that change) and Blood Warriors with Gorefist now have the same rules as Witch Aelves with bucklers, ie. Mortal Wound on an unmodified 6.
I am really liking the changes that have been revealed so far for Khorne.
I always found the old Bloodsecrator to be weirdly designed for an army like Khorne. You want the army to charge into your enemy, not create a perimeter or conga-line just to get buffs. With the changes to the Bloodsecrator he can now finally run like the Khorne fanatic he is into enemy lines.
NinthMusketeer wrote:It was before. Afaik we have not actually lost any whole factions following the big cull. Greenskinz & Gitmob we have lost the models but they have made it clear they are still armies in the fluff & rules so that just means a relaunch at some point.
I hope there will be a relaunch, but I feel like if they really wanted to relaunch them they wouldn't have pulled the entire range from the site. I feel like Gloomspite might have been published and finished before the decision to pull the Orks off of the range was complete. In the podcasts they've mentioned that sometimes books can sit around for a while because the models got delayed. Wouldn't surprise me if Gloomspite Gitz was supposed to launch earlier in the year.
I just get a lot of Draenei vibe from this screenshot with a hint of Blood Elf.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wrathmongers no longer add attacks to enemy units unless they have the Khorne tag. Looking forward to trying them out now.
Eldarsif wrote: I just get a lot of Draenei vibe from this screenshot with a hint of Blood Elf.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Wrathmongers no longer add attacks to enemy units unless they have the Khorne tag. Looking forward to trying them out now.
I don’t know how to feel about that change to ‘Mongers.
And great to see Hysh. It has (ironically) been so unclear so far.
Jackal90 wrote: I agree with auticus in that I'd have expected to see regular goblins thrown in with gloomspite stuff.
.
It only would have happened if they had added new regular goblin models, and the gloomspite release was rather big as it was. Certainly bigger than I expected it to be when they first announced it. Though I'm disappointed a forest goblin unit didn't happen.
This doesn't apply as much to regular orks, but the common gobbo models have been in desperate need of replacement for decades, I'm not shocked they vanished, even if only until a later release. Also, Night goblins are pretty identifiably Warhammer, but common ones weren't as much, too much 'standard fantasy' bleedover, perhaps.
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Definitely too much Warcraft in that Hysh screenshot. It looks like it came straight out of the Argus zone in the Legion expansion. They would have done better doing a version of the high elf towers from various old battle reports in crystal
In fairness that game doesn't really try to take itself too seriously - heck the "armies" you play with aren't even faction locked so its more "throw whatever you want on the table"
I am honestly kind of at a loss with Greenskinz getting pulled, I mained Orcs and Goblins back in the day. But with more of a heavier Orruk focus. I've been working on a small Ironjawz force. But I was really hoping to main my old models.
Overread wrote: In fairness that game doesn't really try to take itself too seriously - heck the "armies" you play with aren't even faction locked so its more "throw whatever you want on the table"
The style is cartoony, however, the particle effects and the color scheme is something that will be in character. We might hear more info about this college in the future, it's a piece of new information to take in.
Considering how GW has, to me anyway, openly gone after the warmahordes players and embraced the WoW playstyle and fanbase, this does not surprise me at all.
The app has updated all the warscrolls for Khorne.
Wrath of Khorne bloodthirster can now dispel endless magic
Skullreapers are now the same weapon profile regardless of loadout
Have a feeling Skullreapers and Wrathmongers will see a bit more field day.
Skarbrand is a beast. Expensive, but a beast.
I am really liking the changes. Most of them are lowkey, but make them more in line with the armies that are going on. Really looking forward to fielding a force on the table when the tome comes out.
Good that he can dispel endless, it was lame he couldn't before.
So far liking all the warscroll changes I have seen. The daemon updates from wrath & rapture are good, and these ones are good. The skaven ones were good too for that matter, just messed up by the point costs.
Come to think of it in strict warscroll terms the only newer ones I have a problem with are FEC. Before that Nighthaunt & Sequitors. They have been doing a good job overall making them flavorful but also playable.
Well, they still didn't fix the Skullcrushers, Mighty LOK, Khorgas Khul, or Lord on Juggernaut to be Mortal/Daemon. Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh get them, Khorne doesn't. WTH? Makes absolutely zero sense. Sounds like something to ask GW, and just "okay" with my opponents. It's asine to not have it. Probably Wrathmongers as well, since they're supposed to be half daemonic/half human.
Mutated/empowered mortals have never been daemons; it is having a daemon mount that gives them the keyword. You are right that the skullcrushers & juggy lord should have it, but the others don't have their equivalents in other gods being daemons either. Blightkings, tzaangors, enlightened on foot all do not have the keyword.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Mutated/empowered mortals have never been daemons; it is having a daemon mount that gives them the keyword. You are right that the skullcrushers & juggy lord should have it, but the others don't have their equivalents in other gods being daemons either. Blightkings, tzaangors, enlightened on foot all do not have the keyword.
Mighty Lord of khorne and Khorgas Khul have the flesh hound pet
And tzaangors are mutated; they aren’t actually Daemons or half Daemon. Wrathmonger s are half Daemon. So is Valkia. And she’s listed as mortal. They just don’t make sense. They should get the benefits (and curses) of both.
Well GW has said they are not daemons, and that is always how they have done it in AoS. Can you explain your reasoning for why that should change from a rules perspective? Because fluff wise it is cut-and-dry; that is how they wrote it.
Where does it say Wrathmongers are half daemon? Honest question, I'm a sucker for GW fluff however korney it may be.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Mutated/empowered mortals have never been daemons; it is having a daemon mount that gives them the keyword. You are right that the skullcrushers & juggy lord should have it, but the others don't have their equivalents in other gods being daemons either. Blightkings, tzaangors, enlightened on foot all do not have the keyword.
Mighty Lord of khorne and Khorgas Khul have the flesh hound pet
Which is a fair point. I assume GW decided that being mounted on a daemon is enough to gain the keyword, but having a 'pet' one isn't. Festus is the same way.
Mechanically speaking I personally do not feel even daemon-mounted mortals should have the daemon keyword as it lets them 'double dip' on benefits. There are some abilities that make it undesirable to be a daemon but they are not particularly common.
The beings that emerge from the Brazen Cage are greater than those that entered. They have become wrathmongers, mortal flesh made mighty through battle, and infused with the unnatural energies of a daemon. They have fought upon the battlegrounds of their soul and emerged victorious; what is there to fear after such a trial? Moreover, they now walk upon the very cusp of reality, the daemon subjugated within providing them with a conduit to the boundless power of the Realm of Chaos.
Mechanically speaking I personally do not feel even daemon-mounted mortals should have the daemon keyword as it lets them 'double dip' on benefits. There are some abilities that make it undesirable to be a daemon but they are not particularly common.
I feel the same way. Its really mostly benefit very little drawback, and its one of the things that I agree with on the design team. I want to see a differentiate between mortals and demons. The books outlie the two factions as separate within the same book, so mechanically they should be separate (and they are)
Except the other three Chaos gods have this ability. Khorne is excluded. And it’s been that way since the first BoK book. DoT and MKoN both got books after where this ability came into play. So the exact same situation is NOT being treated the same in each corresponding book. Whether you like it or not, a Khorne warrior riding a Juggernaut is as much a combination of mortal on Daemon as a Tzaangor on Disc or Blightking on Plague Drone is (Or marauder on Steed of Slaanesh, but they don’t have a proper book yet).
The design team changes design paradigms every three months or so. All this means is that now they've decided that those things don't give demonic benefits anymore.
Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh all do not have up to date books iwth this paradigms. Tzeentch and Nurgle are outdated and reflected a different paradigm.
It is what it is. The only thing I can tell you is houserule it with your play group. If you are in a tournament community that abhors house rules then you will just have to find a way to accept it.
I don't mind having buffs that affect both mortals and daemons like the Bloodsecrator, but I feel that should be in the buff and there should not be overlap on regular units between daemon-only and mortal-only buffs. If it is a particularly powerful character or unusual unit sure, but that should be considered a special benefit the warscroll has. There could also be battalions that give the daemon keyword to mortal models.
Important bits: Phase is split into 3 parts (start, during, end) Abilities that let units fight first are at the Start of the phase. These are resolved first starting with ALL of the applicable units of the controlling player in which ever order they choose. Then the opposing player can activate any units that can fight first. If either player has a unit that can fight first and fight more then once it occurs during the Start of the phase.
Durring the phase is the same as laid out in the core rules
End of the phase works the same as the Start of the phase.
It's the Start/end of phase abilities that I found interesting. My group always understood it as alternating activations. (if we both have 2 units with start of fight phase we would go ABAB instead of AABB)
It is good that they posted that article. Aside from the errata that is how the rules have always worked but figuring it out meant digging through specific wording in the core rules & commentary. Hopefully they will include this more clearly worded version the next time they print the rules (maybe GHB4?).
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BomBomHotdog wrote: My group always understood it as alternating activations. (if we both have 2 units with start of fight phase we would go ABAB instead of AABB)
So having now read the new khorne book, the power cycle has again come down to gloomspite gitz book. Yes there are some thing that powergamers are going to latch on to and dryhump to death like skull crushers. You'll pretty much only see skull crushers in units of 9 so that they are doing d3 mortal wounds per model until you drop them below 6 (so a charging skullcrusher unit is going to hit you for a **** ton of mortal wounds on a 2+ each model)
I'd put this book maybe a half a notch above the gloomspite book. Its a very good book in terms of its art, its fluff, etc. I really liked that you have four different "armies" you can belong to with abilities (like I can be a goretide army and that means something now).
It is astounding that the same team that pushes out gloomspite and the khorne book also just pushed out the skaven and FEC stuff when it comes to power level of the armies though.
I have to admit that article actually confused me more.
That's such an odd way a resolving things, just because they come at the start or end, rather than the normal sequence. I'm still not quite sure -why- that makes it an exception to the sequence beyond 'the article totally says it does'
auticus wrote: So having now read the new khorne book, the power cycle has again come down to gloomspite gitz book. Yes there are some thing that powergamers are going to latch on to and dryhump to death like skull crushers. You'll pretty much only see skull crushers in units of 9 so that they are doing d3 mortal wounds per model until you drop them below 6 (so a charging skullcrusher unit is going to hit you for a **** ton of mortal wounds on a 2+ each model)
I have not gone through in detail yet, but I think you may be underestimating how unwieldy a 9-man unit becomes when they are on such large bases. Double the MWs on the charge is a big deal, but the difficulty in positioning and ease of screening against such a unit I feel is a big enough downside to even it out.
It is astounding that the same team that pushes out gloomspite and the khorne book also just pushed out the skaven and FEC stuff when it comes to power level of the armies though.
Maybe they are different parts of a larger team, or those two were pushed out with little to no playtesting due to release date shenanigans. It does seem tremendously odd that they would have a definite trend towards improved balance starting with 2.0 interrupted by a sudden release that put together is probably the worst balanced in the game's history, then immediately resuming. If GW releases another well-balanced (relatively) battletome after this I will likely give them the benefit of the doubt. This sort of thing is not totally unprecedented--the LoN book path to glory charts are wildly out of sync with all the others in being of a different power level entirely.
Its consistent in that its a fairly even up and then down cycle. You get a good book or two. Then you get a broken book or two. Then you get a good book or two. Sometimes throw in the opposite of broken and get stinker broken (like kharadron)
Hm, things were all over the place for so long I'm not sure it is worth calling a trend... We will see.
Anyways gone through the Khorne book now, skullcrushers seem like they are the best unit. Loss of ignoring MWs from spells hurts but 3+ save helps more. Thirsters still look a bit undercosted to me, reavers & blood warriors a bit overcosted, and bloodletters still shouldn't be getting a horde discount.
That said the overall design quality and rule clarity has improved markedly from the last khorne tome. I feel like it is much easier in a practical sense to play the army and has more room for conventional tactical play instead of needing to work around layering gimmicks properly.
As a mortal player I have six skull crushers plus a lord on juggernaut. The rest of my army is foot troops from the line and khorgoraths. I also have the FW giant khorgorath but ... he's not really that good.
I think I can at least have entertaining games with that, unless I'm up against the tournament beat stick players running the FEC cheese.
FW needs to seriously look at AoS - heck the Warpgnaw Verminlord had his main signature ability downgraded some and has no command ability (despite all the other Verminlords having one).
That said with the FWAoS team being disbanded last I heard - before they could deliver anything save for a few alternate stormcast heads, it might be that AoS support from FW is still going to be a fickle thing for a few more years as yet. Which is a shame really because the AoS setting is so insanely rich and ripe for a boutique casting company to go wild with the setting - not just factions but monsters, beasts and realm stuff as well.
Also please remember only the Skaven can use cheese - everyone else has to use cheese substitute.
auticus wrote: I guess it just shows you how much more a juggernaut 40k is.
Honestly its not even 40K its Space Marines and Imperials.
Whilst many 40K factions do have models from FW look at races like Tyranids and Eldar - they have a tiny representation of models compared to Imperials. Meanwhile armies like Tau get a random boost of models and armies ilke Dark Eldar have basically nothing (I think they've got 1 model and one upgrade kit).
FW has long had a big dominance of Space Marine and Imperial gear; probably because it sold really well compared to the rest (don't forget its only comparativly recently that FW has become more common - go back 15 or so years and FW stuff was super rare even online); and because its what the FW staff wanted to make.
I think its a symptom of GW's designer led design aspect in the extreme; where the lack of a management push (or where the only push was more marines) has resulted in a heavy bias within the team that is now trickier to repair. Then again FW has been going through a lot of changes as of late and I don't think we properly know where they stand (FW itself might not even be all that settled).
I'd really love to see them take more time for other armies and games; so far AoS has really only had a few stormcast heads and a Chaos dragon which was in the works for ages and ages.
The khornagor monster was AOS as well. Also fantasy had the black fire pass goblin line, and the Tamurkhan book. Black Fire Pass was the 2nd book in the line, but was canceled for moar horuss heresyz.
Let's get a Tau Manta-sized Kharadron skyvessel and a greater eidolon of mathlann which is a giant aelf rising above a waterspout filled with unmounted allopex.
So, I’m still unhappy about the changes to Skarbrand and the Bloodstoker (affects mortals only), and the lack of “Daemon” being on the MLoK and Mighty Skullcrusher scrolls. Other than that, the book looks FUN! I can run two BTs with a MLoK, all rocking a bunch of attacks, plus a Dark Feast warband that has 4 units of 10 BRs potentially churning out 51 attacks each (BR rule, DF ability, Bloodsecrator, Wrathmongers), re-rolling hits of 1. Add in a huge unit of Bloodcrushers, and watch the opponent not know who to hit. Plus the MLoK has 7 attacks that can rip a whole in reality that insta-gibs nasty targets.
timetowaste85 wrote: And tzaangors are mutated; they aren’t actually Daemons or half Daemon. Wrathmonger s are half Daemon. So is Valkia. And she’s listed as mortal. They just don’t make sense. They should get the benefits (and curses) of both.
I responded to this earlier saying these were not daemons, but I have to correct myself on one point as Valkia is described as a "daemon queen" in the recent battletome. I was wrong on that one.
Are the "out of stock" or "sold out online" because there's a big difference.
The former is simply stock issues and overseas stores get their stock in bulk orders shipped over, so they run a higher risk of running out of stock on items before they get restocked. If its the latter then it means that the item isn't going to be restocked and that means its being removed from sale.
Removal might mean that:
1) They are reboxing which triggers a change of box code and thus the system counts it as the original being removed from sale
2) They are removing it from sale and not bringing it back in any form
3) They are removing it from sale and replacing it with an updated version.
Overread wrote: Are the "out of stock" or "sold out online" because there's a big difference.
The former is simply stock issues and overseas stores get their stock in bulk orders shipped over, so they run a higher risk of running out of stock on items before they get restocked. If its the latter then it means that the item isn't going to be restocked and that means its being removed from sale.
Removal might mean that:
1) They are reboxing which triggers a change of box code and thus the system counts it as the original being removed from sale
2) They are removing it from sale and not bringing it back in any form
3) They are removing it from sale and replacing it with an updated version.
Stores are telling people that the tomes will not be restocked and the only way to get them is through GW.
Overread wrote: Are the "out of stock" or "sold out online" because there's a big difference.
The former is simply stock issues and overseas stores get their stock in bulk orders shipped over, so they run a higher risk of running out of stock on items before they get restocked. If its the latter then it means that the item isn't going to be restocked and that means its being removed from sale.
Removal might mean that:
1) They are reboxing which triggers a change of box code and thus the system counts it as the original being removed from sale
2) They are removing it from sale and not bringing it back in any form
3) They are removing it from sale and replacing it with an updated version.
Stores are telling people that the tomes will not be restocked and the only way to get them is through GW.
Well we know now that the Fyrelsayers are confirmed so that near enough confirms new Lizardbook!
I'm not really sure where to ask this, so just gonna post it here.
How are the future prospects for a Free People's battletome looking? I've got a steadily growing concern that they could potentially end up being purged from the line like Greenskins.
nurgle5 wrote: I'm not really sure where to ask this, so just gonna post it here.
How are the future prospects for a Free People's battletome looking? I've got a steadily growing concern that they could potentially end up being purged from the line like Greenskins.
It is exceptionally unlikely that GW would purge Free Peoples from the setting. First up they are the only human faction (stormcast are not actually humans). Secondly almost all the cities in the Mortal Realms that are not aelf, dwarf or undead are Free Peoples Cities - ergo they feature heavily in the lore itself.
Overall that isn't the best defence, but its pretty unlikely that GW would remove them, they've just too much connection to the game. Now they might remove and move models around a lot, but the faction as a whole I would not expect to vanish; however WHEN they might get a battletome is impossible to guess.
There has been no word from the design team, which means while they are a huge part of the setting, there are currently no plans that we know of to get us a book anytime soon and we must rely on the legacy warscrolls (lolololol) if you want to play them.
They’re involved heavily in the lore. However, that doesn’t prevent them from becoming NPCs to just drive the story. Who knows. Are free-people taking Slaanesh’s place in the “who gets squatted next”? Dunno. It could easily happen, but it could easily be an upcoming release. I’d say it’s 50/50 right now, sadly. I didn’t expect greenskins to bite it either.
nurgle5 wrote: I'm not really sure where to ask this, so just gonna post it here.
How are the future prospects for a Free People's battletome looking? I've got a steadily growing concern that they could potentially end up being purged from the line like Greenskins.
Twitter, 2/18/19
Josh Reynolds(prominent AoSBL Author) :
"Todays realisation: I would give my right molar to help write the lore for a Free Peoples battletome for Age of Sigmar
...
Well, somebodys right molar, anyway.
Pete Foley, (Book and Box Games Manager at GW)
"Check your DMs Josh" including a .gif of The Rock "Lets do this"
I think the prospects of us getting a Free Peoples battletome is somewhat promising.
auticus wrote: There has been no word from the design team, which means while they are a huge part of the setting, there are currently no plans that we know of to get us a book anytime soon and we must rely on the legacy warscrolls (lolololol) if you want to play them.
In fairness top end GW Staff don't give out hints until its in the official marketing release.
So basically they won't let it slip until its the actual time for the info to come out and rumours have dried up a lot to what they once were.*
At this stage I'd be really shocked if GW removed or didn't release Freepeoples. Sure I can see GW reworking them = removing and adding models etc... But I can't see the faction vanish as a whole. They are just too strong a component of the story and lore and setting itself. One must remember that Stormcast are not technically human and that the greater population of many realms is humans and humans are Freepeoples (at present its the only major named faction we have). It would be like GW removing Imperial Guard from sale and just sticking to Marines. Yes they can do it, but its darn odd to have a huge armed force (Guard) in all the stories, lore and background and yet not have them as an active army.
* I put this down to GW being better at preventing and discouraging them; but also due to the greater outreach of marketing that GW is doing now. In the Kirby days I think there was more pressure on some staff to leak info because there were long periods of silence which led to demoralized fans. There was more temptation for staff to let slip info and for staffers to keep fans happy.
Honestly, I think that a Free Peoples battletome would be the most important one overall. Because it’s the benchmark that all the others should be compared to rule wise, fluff wise etc.
It’s nearly there too. There’s the handbook rules and a near full plastic range. Even if the models are a bit off in design (German mercenary look).
This might be a good time to mention that WarCom has announced another community survey set to go up on April 15th. Last year's survey was one of the primary factors in GW deciding to remake the Adepta Sororitas, so if you want a faction brought back, this would be a good opportunity to let GW know directly. I know I'm going to voice my support for updating Free Peoples and bringing back the Tomb Kings in some form (I like the idea of focusing on the constructs and Ushabti).
The discontinuation of the plastic Spynx was the worst crime GW has ever done in miniature form. A kit so beautifull, that was so short period of time to purchase... oh. How it hurts.
EnTyme wrote: This might be a good time to mention that WarCom has announced another community survey set to go up on April 15th. Last year's survey was one of the primary factors in GW deciding to remake the Adepta Sororitas, so if you want a faction brought back, this would be a good opportunity to let GW know directly. I know I'm going to voice my support for updating Free Peoples and bringing back the Tomb Kings in some form (I like the idea of focusing on the constructs and Ushabti).
You could not believe how hard Jess Goodwin burst out in laughter when I asked him if that community survey was the real reason sisters where being remade.
Had a nice chat with him during Warhammer fest Europe last summer. He told me the process from sketches to boxed set takes well over 4 years. The designs and sketches were long made, it was a perfect storm of internet meme, community survey and publicity stunt.
Asking for tomb kings back will not have the same effect at all, because it probably wasn't on GW's radar to begin with (unlike SoB).
Like Khorne, Seraphon rely entirely on gimmick play to do decently at tournaments and outside them. Summoning is the gimmick, and they do it extremely well (a properly optimized list has little trouble bringing in 700+ points a game). This is tied almost entirely to a Slann general, making one auto-take, with the command trait and artifact more or less being fixed as well since one option is far superior. The slann does not actually cast spells for the most part, but is instead focused on getting as many potential spell casts as possible then not using them in order to summon; the intent was undoubtedly to make things a trade-off, but the result is that one of the best spellcasters in the game is not worth casting spells with (unless you brought two). The saurus half of the army performs worse than the skink half, and so is never seen outside casual play (bar the astrolith). Speaking of, going with a saurus general instead of a slann single-handedly takes them from overpowered to sub-par, building an army around saurus makes them even worse. There is a solid bunch of units that are undercosted to overpowered on their own which are spammed consistently.
Suffice it to say both the internal and external balance is pretty bad, and the functionality serves to restrict viable options tremendously. A new tome that does for Seraphon what Khorne just got would be a rebirth for the army, I hope it works out that way.
Seraphon won adepticon, as I was told, by spam summoning to hell and back. Spam summoning has been an OP busted thing since it was first revealed as coming back for free. That an army won one of the biggest tournaments in north america using it shocks me none.
Spam summoning is something that can run amuk here in our local area and it causes a lot of frustration. It was one of the things that irritated the bejeezus out of me with the last GHB when they came out and said that free summoning off the chain was going to be a thing again, and that "don't worry it won't be that bad" was not something I put any stock in.
Seraphon gimmick summoning, much like the FEC version, is super out of line with the rest of the game and invalidates quite a few factions. A new army book should bring that more in line. Will they do so?
Depends on how they are feeling at the time I suppose.
Well at least now perhaps the jolly old "summoning is perfectly fine and totally balanced, its not like seraphon are winning any majors, you just need to git gud" can go away.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also as far as aspiring balance issues in the game, Adepticon I'm told was pretty bog standard in the armies that showed up. Heavy on daughters of khaine. Fair representation of the skaven and FEC (shocking I know). A lot of missing factions.
I don't feel thats pretty good for the game. I know we are getting more tomes this year. Thats good, I hope it resolves this.
Kings of War had 12 of their 14 factions represented at Adepticon and were all competitive. I think thats a good goal to aspire to get toward.
EnTyme wrote: This might be a good time to mention that WarCom has announced another community survey set to go up on April 15th. Last year's survey was one of the primary factors in GW deciding to remake the Adepta Sororitas, so if you want a faction brought back, this would be a good opportunity to let GW know directly. I know I'm going to voice my support for updating Free Peoples and bringing back the Tomb Kings in some form (I like the idea of focusing on the constructs and Ushabti).
You could not believe how hard Jess Goodwin burst out in laughter when I asked him if that community survey was the real reason sisters where being remade.
Had a nice chat with him during Warhammer fest Europe last summer. He told me the process from sketches to boxed set takes well over 4 years. The designs and sketches were long made, it was a perfect storm of internet meme, community survey and publicity stunt.
Asking for tomb kings back will not have the same effect at all, because it probably wasn't on GW's radar to begin with (unlike SoB).
auticus wrote: Well at least now perhaps the jolly old "summoning is perfectly fine and totally balanced, its not like seraphon are winning any majors, you just need to git gud" can go away.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Also as far as aspiring balance issues in the game, Adepticon I'm told was pretty bog standard in the armies that showed up. Heavy on daughters of khaine. Fair representation of the skaven and FEC (shocking I know). A lot of missing factions.
I don't feel thats pretty good for the game. I know we are getting more tomes this year. Thats good, I hope it resolves this.
Kings of War had 12 of their 14 factions represented at Adepticon and were all competitive. I think thats a good goal to aspire to get toward.
If I saw a majority (51%) of factions show up with more than one viable build I would be pretty happy.
* external balance - a large chunk of the factions are not viable when the other person is powergaming
* internal balance - even the factions that can powergame are largely using one build or a minor deviation of that. With the exception of FEC... which has several.
Some of the smaller factions like Fyreslayers are going to suffer with fewer options unless GW leans toward unit spam options - much like how Flesh Eater Courts are able to spam dragons/monsters. I see that being a theme for those armies until GW can get more models out for them. Skaven certainly have multiple options, but then at some 30+models in their range they've got a wealth of variety and choices.
I consider the smaller factions a minority. For those factions, they have less to choose from so it would be mathematically reasonable that they have less internal builds that are viable.
But one viable build is never going to cut it for me unless the book literally only has two or three options, which is not the case currently.
There are a lot of larger factions that don't even have one viable external build yet as well.
Also note *viable* build. A viable build is one that when going against someone stressing the system out in powergamer fashion can still reasonably perform ok and a good game be had (even if at a slight disadvantage which is also reasonable)
A small faction like fyreslayers having only one viable build is bad but not nearly as bad as, for example, stormcast which have a huge range of models yet only one viable build. Tbf there is some wiggle room, but the core of 'spam sacrosanct' is pretty set.
That said, the situation is not linear. If the top three army builds were nerfed it would probably make fivd other ones viable, were the top five nerfed it would probably make a dozen available. Because narrowing that bell curve creates an exponential effect, and only when balance is in a reasonable place does it start to get diminishing returns.
Which is to say that as things stand a little improvement will go a long way. If LoN, DoK, FEC, Skaven, sacrosanct and eels were nerfed the tournament diversity would explode.
You don't have to believe me ofc. But have a look at stormcast episodes (both Jes Goodwin and John Blanche recently), the usual time frame of miniature concept art to box release is always around 4 years.
A community survey started in december 2017 as the catalyst leading to actual models being released in late 2019 is just plain not realistic. It was the perfect storm and it's going to be a nice experiment for them to compare the sales when building up long term hype vs impulse buying (their current sales strategy essentially).
Those renders that were released today? Good chance that 'eavy metal has already painted most of the planned sister releases so they can be photographed for a codex that will have to be send to the printers in the next few months to even make a late 2019 release possible.
Sorry if this info about miniature design process is new to you. I'm not trying to offend... I'm just stating why the (very good and convincing) PR stunt of plastic sister is just that...
auticus wrote: Yeah provided they just did that nerf. They have a tendency to nerf some things, then ratchet some other things to 11 to continue the same cycle.
NinthMusketeer wrote: The good news is that free peoples perform well in the tabletop and have a solid set of allegiance abilities.
Thanks for all the replies folks!
I'll be taking the plunge into Skirmish/Hinterlands soon and it's nice to know Free People ought to be sticking around and are currently quite playable if I decide to expand to a full army.
On a somewhat related note, how does AoS fare in terms of rules bloat, in respect of breadth of rules and the amount of physical books required for games? I imagine it's relatively fine since most of the rules are available for free online and unit profiles don't seem to be too convoluted. I'm afraid to say 40k seems to be getting a bit out of hand on that front and I'm curious if its a problem specific to that ruleset or part of GW's overall approach to their main games.
On a somewhat related note, how does AoS fare in terms of rules bloat, in respect of breadth of rules and the amount of physical books required for games?
I find them very minimal.
When I go play I have the small Rule Booklet, General's Handbook for missions, and then my tome. Of course if you start allying stuff in it might get a bit more cumbersome. On the other hand all stats for units are available on the GW website and can be gotten in small warscroll packs. Personally I just find the bookkeeping in AoS minimal in comparison to 40k due to easier access to playing aids.
Bloat exists, its degree will be in the eye of the beholder.
For campaign events, I try to consolidate bloat by putting all relevant hhouse rules and realm rules into one document so that people do not need to constantly be flipping around for them.
Bloat isn't too bad - but then again 40K bloat isn't horrendous either. It's more an issue when people are using multiple Codex for multiple armies.
I think AoS gets a bit more leeway there because when you use an allied army you don't need the Battletome; you just need the models warscroll as all the abilities, spells etc... are all tied to the core army so you only need the Battletome for that army.
Whilst 40K more strongly presents the need for taking multiple Codex (and all associated paperwork). So it feels worse - then again some Xeno's believe this is just the marine tax they have to pay for having a lot of toys to play with
I think AoS gets a bit more leeway there because when you use an allied army you don't need the Battletome; you just need the models warscroll as all the abilities, spells etc... are all tied to the core army so you only need the Battletome for that army.
In my case I tend to use the Age of Sigmar app a lot. It allows you to mark specially the unit you are using which means you are only flipping through your unit army. This basically means you only need your phone, Allegiance abilities + whatever rules you are playing with.
I think AoS gets a bit more leeway there because when you use an allied army you don't need the Battletome; you just need the models warscroll as all the abilities, spells etc... are all tied to the core army so you only need the Battletome for that army.
In my case I tend to use the Age of Sigmar app a lot. It allows you to mark specially the unit you are using which means you are only flipping through your unit army. This basically means you only need your phone, Allegiance abilities + whatever rules you are playing with.
Something i wish 40k would do :( both of these things you two are talking about.
They were asked about a 40k app at LVO. They said they are working on it, but the issue is that there are literally thousands of dataslates as opposed to hundreds for AoS, and those dataslates often do not include all the weapon options for a given unit.
NinthMusketeer wrote: They were asked about a 40k app at LVO. They said they are working on it, but the issue is that there are literally thousands of dataslates as opposed to hundreds for AoS, and those dataslates often do not include all the weapon options for a given unit.
I think the key difference is that in AoS - much like old fantasy - many units don't have a huge variety of weapons. Some might have two or three variations, but by and large they easily fit onto the stat bar for each unit. In that regard AoS also has the advantage that they can give the same type of weapon to two units in the same army and have them with totally different profiles.
Because of the way 40K has a much more modular approach to weapons (with armies like Tyranids being highly modular); you might have six, seven or more weapons for a single unit. Ontop of that you've got all the equipment types and upgrades that, if you're building an app, ideally want to be selected to appear on the models for that specific army.
The AoS just has to show warscroll cards; the 40K would have to let you build armies from the ground up to show all the various upgrade and equipment choices. That said it should be just a simple case of a form and table system. Then again if its not top priority for GW then it might only have a smaller budget.
Also what is it with the Grand Alliance forums today? All day its been "community not found"
Also what is it with the Grand Alliance forums today? All day its been "community not found"
I've gotten the message before, but never for this long.
Thought about reaching out to the admin/founder who I am friends with on Facebook, but I'd rather not bother him as his page seems family/work focused so it felt weird. Perhaps an update to the site?
I know the fundraiser meter was pretty stagnant for quite some time, after the initial burst of activity. The needle hasn't really moved in months.
Naw I've seen it a few times last for a day or half day - though never known why. Sometimes it even gets sort of "half stuck" in the cache
I can't imagine its dying the guy in charge is way too connected to semi-major events (I think he even got a mention in the GW heroes list) so I'd figure its some kind of hiccup.
Ben Curry (the owner) is the professional sports for AOS champion and great friends with the design team. The site being down right now (I cannot view it as I am blocked) is 99.99% likely a technical issue with whatever their server is and I'd be more than sure will return in the very near future (tonight or so).
So I proxied a few extra* plague monks in order to run an optimized pestilens list against my friends tourney DoK build, and tabled him round 3 (without a double-turn). My favorite moment was when my vermin lord corrupter walked up to his cauldron and hit it for 25 MWs. During the game I was struck by the sheer power of these armies; the capacity of each to simply dominate the field is so far beyond what an average list puts out.
*80
Edit: Just want to clarify that it was a great game and we both had a lot of fun. We both brought extremely heavy-hitters.
Still, and despite being on a 40k kick due to the new Chaos Marines, I can't help but shake the feeling AOS is, overall, the better game. It has similar issues but they seem way less pronounced than 40k, perhaps because the AOS team seem to be way more competent at design (being tourney players) than the old "forge the narrative" schmucks on the 40k team from the older editions.
The biggest turnoff for me about AOS is that everything seems crazier than the last, which would be a good design if there weren't periods between where some things are just lower due to having older tomes or fewer gimmicks than the new stuff that's being released.
auticus wrote: Its a roller coaster. They release a book that isn't too bad, then follow that up with a wtf.
I mean it does seem they want to go on the approach that everything has some sort of crazy gimmick. The power levels specifically vary, but that appears to be their goal. Give every faction a gimmick, and it will balance out in the long run.
Auticus does seem to largely feel the game is beyond broken but the tourney players want to keep it that way so they can feel good about finding the wombo-combos.
He's not wrong, at least from how I can see it. There are a lot of wombo-combos you see, and the AOS design team being mostly UK tournament guys means they have a finger on the pulse of the competitive AOS crowd, in the UK at least, and seem to want this style of gameplay although I do wonder how much is them wanting it and how much is GW wanting krazy kombos to sell models. It might be a bit of both, the team certainly doesn't seem to mind it.
It does show, however, that the AOS team seems way more passionate about the rules for their game than the 40k team seems to be. I've noticed this for a while where the AOS team seems to take more pride in what they're doing, and care more about the game while the 40k team seems to just be going through the motions and seem reluctant to really care about compeittive play.
Wayniac wrote: Auticus does seem to largely feel the game is beyond broken but the tourney players want to keep it that way so they can feel good about finding the wombo-combos.
He's not wrong, at least from how I can see it. There are a lot of wombo-combos you see, and the AOS design team being mostly UK tournament guys means they have a finger on the pulse of the competitive AOS crowd, in the UK at least, and seem to want this style of gameplay although I do wonder how much is them wanting it and how much is GW wanting krazy kombos to sell models. It might be a bit of both, the team certainly doesn't seem to mind it.
It does show, however, that the AOS team seems way more passionate about the rules for their game than the 40k team seems to be. I've noticed this for a while where the AOS team seems to take more pride in what they're doing, and care more about the game while the 40k team seems to just be going through the motions and seem reluctant to really care about compeittive play.
I think you have a very valid point here, and I agree it shows through in the game. As much as I criticize it AoS is still fun as hell, especially for narrative.
auticus wrote: Its not beyond broken. A few minor tweaks and it woukd be great.
Seraphon and fec summoning and nagash recycling/summoning are big negative play experiences. If they were like say...khorne... they would be ok,
Saying summoning is like any allegiance ability doesnt take into account you get to actually see the free point count.
A unit that cost 160 prs that is summoned is a free 160 extra pts.
An ability that does a mortal wound on a 6 cant easily be given a point cost.
You are also failing to see that those 160pts of Horrors are not very good, they are the same cost as IDK Eels. Summoning takes the cost into account.
Crypt Horrors:
Move 7"
Wounds 12
Save 5
Attacks Each: 1" 3 , 4+/3+, 0 rend, 2 damage
Abilities, re-roll 1's, heal 1 wound, can be 3 damage on a 6
Morrsarr Guard:
Move 14" with Fly
Wounds 12
Save 4+
Attacks Each: 2", 1", 2" 2+1+D3, Rend 0, D1, D3, D1 damage
Re-roll charges
Abilities, MW's on 3+/6+ (1/D3) start of combat, If they charge change main weapons to -2 rend and 2D
For the same points you are getting over all less movement, no fly, less attacks, no MW potential, 1 lower save, no rend potential, and no re-roll charges, less reach.
But really you summon in Crypt Flayers, they do cost 10pts more, but you get Fly and a range weapon, with -1 rend. Over all they are better, but still you are losing 1/2 the movement, 1 point in saves, less attacks, no re-rolls of any kind.
When looking at summoning armies you need to also look at the Raw stats and compare them.
I had a game at adepticon where a FEC player summon in Flayers, killed a few Raiders then i shot back and killed them off, it was a pointless summon (FYI he did win, b.c thats b.c they double turn me and double attack with the Grsitlegore Ghoul King on Terrorgheist, that nasty guy, he won b.c of that 1 hero, not b.c of summoning).
Hey to a slaves of darkness or kharadron player that 160 pts may be to you overcost but thats even more of an uphill battle that they have to deal with.
Not as big a deal if you are also powergaming but if you arent powergaming, dont bother playing.
auticus wrote: Hey to a slaves of darkness or kharadron player that 160 pts may be to you overcost but thats even more of an uphill battle that they have to deal with.
Not as big a deal if you are also powergaming but if you arent powergaming, dont bother playing.
Comparing anything to those two armies is moot IMO, everyone knows they are bad and under powered, when they get a new book, if it still feels that way, then i will fully agree with you.
Why they only hit mostly on 4+ and 5+ saves is crazy (KO i mean) when my buddy and i first play i thought he was joking, full dwarf army is bad saves and bad to hit.. wtf Glass shooting with no good shooting is terrible, especially when you give up powers and fighting.
auticus wrote: There is half of the game that falls into the same category.
Your response is dont play weak factions and you wont notice the imbalance.
Sucks to be the chumps that threw away good money on trash.
No, i didnt say dont play weak factions, dont put words in my mouth to fit what you want. I was stating how you are comparing is off.
If you have an average power rating of 5 for most armies (the average) with 2-3 armies at PR 8-9 and 2-3 armies at PR 3-4, but then you have 1 army at power 10 and 1 at power 1, yes those 2 armies are a problem and needs to be addressed for sure. BUT thats not what you are saying, you are comparing a level 1 to a level 6 and then saying the level 6 is the problem, I'm saying that KO is the problem, and when they are fixed if its still a problem then for sure i will agree with you.
Edit: My english is bad
Automatically Appended Next Post: To add: I would rather make KO better than make 3-4 other armies worst. KO is a problem, if you make summoning armies worst, then sure KO will be better vs those few armies, but then armies like Skaven, DoK, Deepkin, BCR, Bonesplitterz, Gloomspite, etc.. will still be just as strong, but now more dominating in the meta.
Fix KO, SoD and wait for Slaanesh and Seraphon to be released, then if summoning is still a problem lets fix it.
auticus wrote: How they do their army releases is exactly the provlem. You can never have everything relative when it takes years to get to every faction.
It took 2 years get all of 40K on the same codex version - the first time in ages
It's taken longer for AoS because through its lifespan its had vast changes to it as a product. AoS Launch, AoS 1.0 and AoS 2.0 were massive shifts in the management (very massive between the first and the second) and in the attitude and product design. Quite simply AoS at launch was a totally different product. The Lore and models might be the same but the attitude toward it and what it was have shifted dramatically.
So it has taken longer and honestly I'd only "count" the time since the 2.0 release as being valid to discuss in terms of balance performance. You might extend it to include 1.0, however the 1.0 Battletomes had no alliance abilities and the like. They were very bare-bones Battletomes rushed out as GW started to make the game more into a formal wargame. 2.0 is really where AoS as we understand it today began its proper life. So since then I'd say GW has 2 years or so to bring all armies currently released up to a Battletome Release.
Right now there is
Kharadron
Slaves to darkness
Most of the high elf
Dark elves under malerion
Slaanesh
Wanderers
Duardin
Free people
To be fair 7 of those factions have never seen a tome and have possibly been on the chopping block until further notice. I am actually surprised you didn't put Tomb Kings in there for the sake of posterity. A core rule of the system is that tomes make an army so I doubt people are flocking to them by accident. Especially considering the undeniable fact that these factions are almost all Direct Order only except for KO and Slaanesh. If you are someone who orders directly off the GW website I would argue that you are in most likelihood not an unknowing novice.
So of all those you listed I would say your argument about "not selling models" I would say Kharadron Overlords the only one that fits the bill as Slaanesh are not in the worst position and is also used in 40k.
Now, as a fan of beautiful models and models that I can buy, paint, and just collect, I am extremely grateful that GW hasn't stopped selling them. I am actually miffed they removed Tomb Kings as I would have loved to buy some of the models just for the sake of the non-game hobby.
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It's taken longer for AoS because through its lifespan its had vast changes to it as a product. AoS Launch, AoS 1.0 and AoS 2.0 were massive shifts in the management (very massive between the first and the second) and in the attitude and product design. Quite simply AoS at launch was a totally different product. The Lore and models might be the same but the attitude toward it and what it was have shifted dramatically.
There has also been the layover of GW not knowing entirely what to do with all the AoS factions and how to flesh them out properly. It seems that as of late they are consolidating and trying to get their house in order and with that we'll see some shifts in how they view factions and whether they are going to continue supporting certain model ranges moving forward. A part of me wonders if the next GHB will reveal to some extent their proposed faction plan.
auticus wrote: How they do their army releases is exactly the provlem. You can never have everything relative when it takes years to get to every faction.
It took 2 years get all of 40K on the same codex version - the first time in ages
It's taken longer for AoS because through its lifespan its had vast changes to it as a product. AoS Launch, AoS 1.0 and AoS 2.0 were massive shifts in the management (very massive between the first and the second) and in the attitude and product design. Quite simply AoS at launch was a totally different product. The Lore and models might be the same but the attitude toward it and what it was have shifted dramatically.
So it has taken longer and honestly I'd only "count" the time since the 2.0 release as being valid to discuss in terms of balance performance. You might extend it to include 1.0, however the 1.0 Battletomes had no alliance abilities and the like. They were very bare-bones Battletomes rushed out as GW started to make the game more into a formal wargame. 2.0 is really where AoS as we understand it today began its proper life. So since then I'd say GW has 2 years or so to bring all armies currently released up to a Battletome Release.
If you watch episode 2 of their podcast, its taking longer b.c they spent a year making a system to pump them out really fast all around the same power level. This was released when the BoC book game out, if you look at how fast the new battletomes has been released, i think its safe to say most will be out this year.
I find it difficult to reconcile how so many people are ok with the current situation and will go to lengths to defend the abysmal internal balance and poor external balance.
Gw literally has no incentive to make things better because bad balance is not just tolerated, its embraced it seems.
This is quite literally a phenomenon not seen in any other game system.
If a company sells models for a faction and lets that faction br unviable at all to play, they are deceiving those who are coming at the game not to collect and put on a shelf.
Becauae i have never met a person who believes a game willingly and knowingly has garbage factions until theyve ecperienced gw. Everyone starts believing points are a balancing mechanic and provide for a good game
Cwrtainly no gw shop owner forewarns someone that those boxes of varanguard are utter flaming trash in the game and have been since they were released a few years back.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The day gw lives up to their word and releases all of the other factions in one year, the first time ever, ill reconsider my stance.
Auticus actually my experience is people have been complaining about imbalance in GW products for DECADES without stop. The internet highlights it, but imbalance has been an issue for ages - its nothing new at all.
I've also noticed that Warmachine, Dystopian Wars, Halo, heck pretty much all the game systems get imbalance discussions thrown at them.
So based on those two lines of evidence its no shock to me that we do continue to get imbalance.
THAT said at present GW is making serious effort to improve balance. It cannot be ignored that the simple act alone of updating all the Codex at once led to GW getting the biggest spike in sales that they've ever seen - heck it was big enough that they beat every other UK company in the stock market for a while. For a company that makes models that's a phenomenal achievement - especially as its still a niche hobby.
Clearly better balance and updated rules IS a selling point for GW; one that they ignored (possibly in part due to the influence of Kirby and his lack of proper consumer research and feedback but also due to the fact that even before this GW was doing well and sitll the best of any wargame company in the fantasy/scifi market).
I will agree fully that GW should let us know the long term prognosis for how they are going to tackle the many factions of AoS, in fact I think most people have said that and wanted to know. GW isn't letting us know though and we can't really force their hand in any meaningful way - only make our case and hope its heard (and hoenstly most of us make our case in a forum and its NOT heard by anyone but other geeks).
Also note bad balance isn't embraced. Sure an army that is easy to win with is popular and one hard to win with is unpopular. So GW again has reason to want good armies unless their business plan is to funnel all sales into a few lines whilst investing in other and using them as lower profit.loss leaders - a business plan that is daft when a single mould is running hundreds of thousands to make.
As for GW store owners eh they are just hobbyists who get paid to play and market the game. They generally ahve a decent understanding of the game, but are not world class players who have memorized every efficent build. Though my impression is that GW Staff in the UK are on the whole better than in other territories - but that the situation overseas is improving.
As for updating all the rules at once - GW Did do it. They did it for 40K with the Index. For AoS they are taking longer, but then the rules are tied to other things and other products as well. Sure its taking a year or two to get AoS up to date, but 2 years since AoS 2.0 is not in any way bad I think considering how big the model range is. From that point on we'll have to see how GW tackles things.
Sure its taking a year or two to get AoS up to date, but 2 years since AoS 2.0 is not in any way bad I think considering how big the model range is. From that point on we'll have to see how GW tackles things.
My primary armies are slaves to darkness, tomb kings, and dark elves (no not witch elves, the dark elf army)
Its been four years almost since AOS dropped and none of those armies has been touched. If I want to have good games of AOS I have had to go out and buy and paint up factions I don't really care about. Great for the GW bottom line, I am a part of the enabling machine myself and only have myself to blame for that.
Also note bad balance isn't embraced.
With the sheer number of posts from people saying that there is no bad balance and the game is in a great place, I have to disagree with you.
Auticus actually my experience is people have been complaining about imbalance in GW products for DECADES without stop.
Its varied. In the 5th edition days ( late 1990s) the complaints were more on hero hammer and people didn't want hero hammer. They were sold a wargame fought between armies, but games in 5th edition were.. .well... a lot like AOS (it shows how much the community and what they want has so grossly changed in 20 years).
In the 6th edition days, most everything was balanced due to ravening hordes. Complaining existed but was minor.
The complaining back in those days was on price of models mostly as opposed to the rules being imbalanced (there were some issues with some wanky rules as well)
The true complaining about balance issues started when the demon book in 7th dropped. The demon book, vampire counts book, and dark elf book eclipsed the entire game. And it only continued from there into 8th edition where you had to build a certain way to have decent games.
I would actually say the internal balance of the game was solid from 2000 - 2007 or so. After 2007 it went off the rails and GW has never recovered, and its fan base seems to largely be ambivalent to it. "just play an army that isn't junk"
Sure its taking a year or two to get AoS up to date, but 2 years since AoS 2.0 is not in any way bad I think considering how big the model range is. From that point on we'll have to see how GW tackles things.
My primary armies are slaves to darkness, tomb kings, and dark elves (no not witch elves, the dark elf army)
Its been four years almost since AOS dropped and none of those armies has been touched. If I want to have good games of AOS I have had to go out and buy and paint up factions I don't really care about. Great for the GW bottom line, I am a part of the enabling machine myself and only have myself to blame for that.
Well you know that Tomb Kings are gone - totally and utterly gone at present. Your greatest hope is possibly the community survey, though I don't know if AoS and the TK have quite the same power behind them that Sisters of Battle have (yes I've also read reports that GW were going to release Sisters anyway, however a big community ask that defends your investment is just as good and even sets up the theory that if TK got a similar level of support it might make them worth adding to the list if they were not already added adn just a long way off).
Dark Elves are also gone - they've been gone along while along with the rest of the elf forces - who honestly I think are going to come out worse from all the other armies that got shattered when GW launched AoS. Though we still don't know GW's long term plan you already know that at least the witches and like got portioned out into their own army.
Slaves to Darkness are still in and likely to get updated this year. If not then early next year. AoS does need more work than 40K to get it up to speed, and I do appreciate that the lifespan of AoS isn't short and it has been a rough ride. That said I'd have expected you really happy right now because the Battletomes are coming out very fast now and its got a high chance of Slaves being "soon" within possibly months not years. It's a far cry from just one edition ago where it wasn't when but if you'd ever see a battletome before the next game edition.
My primary armies are slaves to darkness, tomb kings, and dark elves (no not witch elves, the dark elf army)
Then the question would be whether these were your armies before AoS or after AoS. If these were your WHFB armies then I would argue GW has made it perfectly clear that AoS is not WHFB and was never intended as a continuation of anything existing. Their squatting of Tomb Kings was a heavy-handed testament to that.
As Overread mentioned two of your armies are no longer existing armies. Dark Elves have been split into so many mini-factions that I would at best call them ally-able forces rather than single factions except for the Daughters of Khaine.
Slaves to Darkness is perhaps the only army of the three you might see a meaningful update to this year since they've been selling Battleforces and whatnot including them as well as featuring them in Warhammer Underworld and I think Warcry to some extent. I do, however, believe that when we finally get StD they will be something different and very likely joined with Everchosen.
On an unrelated note I agree with Overread that the community survey is our last best hope to revive Tomb Kings in some form or another. If able I will very likely add a note about wanting them back even if I do not intend to play them. I just want some of their more prettier models to paint and collect.
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AoS does need more work than 40K to get it up to speed, and I do appreciate that the lifespan of AoS isn't short and it has been a rough ride. That said I'd have expected you really happy right now because the Battletomes are coming out very fast now and its got a high chance of Slaves being "soon" within possibly months not years. It's a far cry from just one edition ago where it wasn't when but if you'd ever see a battletome before the next game edition.
The bumpy ride is kinda what I am enjoying about AoS. It means that there are meaningful surprises around the corner and things are interesting for this jaded soul of mine, even if we get annoying crap like some Nagash shenanigans.
The release schedule has also been at a breakneck pace recently in both AoS and 40k and I am enjoying it thoroughly except for my wallet. With the new CSM Revised codex they've established that they will do a second release within an edition to update things which means that we might not have to wait entire editions for updates.
Dark elves are even a compendium army now I think? It's the clearest sign that the concept of a united DE force (as old WHFB knew it) is also axed. Much like the old Tomb Kings I'm afraid. And the GWdevs already stated that it's basically a bone thrown to those older players, but they never want these unavailable "legacy" armies to rise to the top of tournament scenes again (like the very first year of AoS).
BTW, if you want to play strong StD with powerfull allegiances, I think you can just pick any of the mono-god books and run with it, so it's not like you cannot have a strong showing right now with a StD/Everchosen mix. It's just awkward through "borrowing" another book.
But I'll agree that it sucks. My death army was in exactly the same boat a little over a year ago now. And look where old VC death players are at now! Two of the stronger books out there and one gorgeous new model-line that can go effortlessly with the old VC stuff.
It's like Eldarsif essentially sums it up: it's a wacky roller-coaster right now, but I'm liking it.
And this is 100% personal preference, This game has units that can do insane things (dice abide) and utterly demolish other units in one turn. But I actually enjoy the faster game pace as well compared to 2 armies slowly eroding each other, locked into 4-5 rounds of combat grind with nothing really happening.
My only real issue is that you can't have every new release crazier than the last if there are huge gaps between when you release and who you release for. That's gakky design because you are limited by time in what releases you can do, and everyone who you decide to bless with a release gets a bonus while those you don't (whether that's because you never want to, or because you didn't have time; the reason is really irrelevant) suffer and continue to suffer as the gap widens.
This goes doubly so with GW where there's always a chance that the next release will change the design paradigm and push things even further and now include recently released armies too that don't share that paradigm. E.g. Sylvaneth in 1.0 changed the game paradigm by making Battletomes more like Codexes with special things in them.
When you change the way you design armies halfway through releases, it just makes for balance all over the place because some armies are using old tomes with GHB alliances (usually bad but not always, see Seraphon), some are using pre-2.0 tomes with the newer paradigm (not as bad, e.g. Sylvaneth), some are using early 2.0 design (Maggotkin, Deepkin?), some are using the new design (FEC, Skaven, Stormcast?), and some are doing even more new things (Khorne, Fyreslayers) so what you have is a bunch of various tiers that are all essentially using different design goals since it's too much for GW to update all at once (not that they would even if they could) but they don't STOP. They don't come up with a good paradigm and say we're happy with this, let's bring everyone up to speed to this style first, they start to do some in that style, have a "brilliant" idea to shift the paradigm and then continue along with whatever the next army on their plate is using that new (and often OP) paradigm while leaving everyone else in the dust.
Then the question would be whether these were your armies before AoS or after AoS.
These are the armies that I have an emotional investment in. None of the other armies do anything for me. It doesn't matter if they were pre or post AOS.
For me to have a good game of AOS where I'm not losing simply because of list, I have to collect and paint a force that I don't care about.
They don't come up with a good paradigm and say we're happy with this
Most likely because AoS is a big exploration into a new system for them. They threw away what they knew and introduced a new game with new rules while also trying to haphazardly attempt to support indirectly what came before. I don't think people fully realize that the fantasy line of Warhammer miniatures was all but dead to GW and it has had to a lot of soul searching, growing, and evolving to get to where it is today. I would argue that with 2.0 we are actually seeing GW get properly behind their new line and supporting instead of the token gestures they did before.
I mean, if I were to judge AoS at its 0.0 and 1.0 zenith I would say that it was a mediocre to an okay game. Nothing special about it and truth be told not very exciting. It feels more that 2.0 is the team coming into its own and actually making AoS into what they want it to be because from Maggotkin(which is the first 2.0 prototype) and up the game has been fun and with it the game has also become more popular due to the fact that it is giving us something that is entertaining and is much closer to being fully supported than what came before.
Could GW do better? Sure. They could provide us continual point updates in apps and embrace fully the digital generation. That in itself would fix a lot of issues people are having.
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These are the armies that I have an emotional investment in. None of the other armies do anything for me. It doesn't matter if they were pre or post AOS.
For me to have a good game of AOS where I'm not losing simply because of list, I have to collect and paint a force that I don't care about.
But it does matter. It matters because you participated in a game that had no promises for 2 of those factions(and the third didn't get any potential promises until recently). I mean, chances are you did in the weird interim between WHFB and AoS, but then you are suffering from the same problem every early adopter must face. I mean, I have some HD-DVDs here that I bought for some strange reason. They now sit in my storage as dust magnets.
I have a feeling GW will never provide the experience you seek. Not unless you become a developer for them.
With respect to auticus I think a big issue is that they kept a lot of holdovers from WHFB to not piss off the old guard who had WHFB armies and wanted to use them in AOS (which ended up largely happening anyway). So you have situations where someone had an army from years ago, wants to keep using them and expects to be able to.
They don't come up with a good paradigm and say we're happy with this
Most likely because AoS is a big exploration into a new system for them. They threw away what they knew and introduced a new game with new rules while also trying to haphazardly attempt to support indirectly what came before. I don't think people fully realize that the fantasy line of Warhammer miniatures was all but dead to GW and it has had to a lot of soul searching, growing, and evolving to get to where it is today. I would argue that with 2.0 we are actually seeing GW get properly behind their new line and supporting instead of the token gestures they did before.
I mean, if I were to judge AoS at its 0.0 and 1.0 zenith I would say that it was a mediocre to an okay game. Nothing special about it and truth be told not very exciting. It feels more that 2.0 is the team coming into its own and actually making AoS into what they want it to be because from Maggotkin(which is the first 2.0 prototype) and up the game has been fun and with it the game has also become more popular due to the fact that it is giving us something that is entertaining and is much closer to being fully supported than what came before.
I think also the focus changed a lot. AoS at its 0.0 launch was basically copy-catting Forgeworld with Plastic with a side order of Magic The Gathering Unhinged.
Basically it was following the mantra "we are a model company" to its extreme end. I think that's why we saw them fragment so many armies into tiny forces. I think at that stage the game plan was to basically have 4 "alliance" armies and for GW to add and remove smaller niche forces within those alliances at a whim. So they'd have the ability to add loads of crazy models with a short bit of fluff behind them in small and big bursts, but also able to remove them from the game as well. A mould breaks, a line isn't selling - BAM - its gone. The super casual and jovial rules were working toward that end as well, by removing serious rules I think the intent was to make it purely about models (building and painting) and less about the game. So imbalance, lack of points, lack of rules for a model, rules that are 5 years old etc... all wouldn't "matter" because there was no serious game to it.
It was a huge experiment and it mostly failed. Oh to be sure it had a period of increased sales over Old World (which I think more highlights how bad Old World was selling come the end); however it also totally disillusioned the core Old World market that GW had just been exciting with the "end times" event. It also turned away a large portion of players long term. I think had GW stuck with their guns we'd have seen AoS tick over with cool model releases, but lacking any real structure of major fanbase that was organised and promoting itself heavily. We'd also likely have a billion "home made" rule systems trying to make it "work"
AoS 1.0 was a kneejerk reaction to stem the anger and disillusioned market and as such was rather simplistic in structure - mostly warscroll cards and some points.
IT wasn't till we saw 2.0 that we really saw an overall firming up of the game as a game in itself as most of us would understand it.
0.0 was the experiment; 1.0 was the beta; 2.0 is the launch.
As for holdovers I think AoS will never lose its "hold over" aspect because even in the lore its still tied to the Old World model line. It will always have that legacy to work with. GW made a deliberate choice with that when they could have retired the whole Old World line and went with a new game. So I don't see it so much as a "hold over" I see it simply as the evolution of the original game (albeit with some issues along the way).
We can call it hold overs all day long. The thing is they sell those holdover models. If they are selling the faction they need to make the faction playable. Otherwise just get rid of the models.
I will maintain that in my opinion the reason AOS 0.0 failed was because of people being unwilling to adopt a 70s/80s style wargaming mindset in the 21st century. The idea that you had no points and had to discuss what sort of game you wanted to have is very much rooted in the historical wargames of old and comes from a simpler time before people wanted to make everything highly competitive.
If people were more willing to do that rather than try and do whatever to "win", and if pickup game mindset wasn't so prevalent where you barely know the people you're playing against so you don't care to talk about the type of game you want to have.
Wayniac wrote: I will maintain that in my opinion the reason AOS 0.0 failed was because of people being unwilling to adopt a 70s/80s style wargaming mindset in the 21st century. The idea that you had no points and had to discuss what sort of game you wanted to have is very much rooted in the historical wargames of old and comes from a simpler time before people wanted to make everything highly competitive.
If people were more willing to do that rather than try and do whatever to "win", and if pickup game mindset wasn't so prevalent where you barely know the people you're playing against so you don't care to talk about the type of game you want to have.
I disagree and I don't think its all about "winning" at all.
I think at its core its about a fair game or at least a game where both sides (be they strangers or friends) can come together and have a game with each having a chance to win provided that their skill and understanding of game mechanics is similar.
Historical games sort of skirt that because many of the games they play can often be about re-creation of historical battles where there's written records and conversions into the game already out there. So you are already agreeing to an imbalanced game because you're aiming for a tactical experience. AoS at launch didn't have that at all in any shape nor form. There were no books of example armies from historical battles to re-create; there were no huge campaigns to play out or the like and the rules themselves were jovial in nature. Again something historical games didn't have (in fact they are pretty serious rules sets by and large).
AoS without points and rules could work, but the problem was you'd have to increase the pre-game phase a lot in order ot ensure you were both coming to the table with the same expectation and approach. To ensure that you didn't endup with one player bringing 10 dragons and the other bringing 10 units of swords men who couldn't hardly touch let alone harm the dragons. Furthermore it was my observation many were making AoS work back then by basing things off the Old World points values as a base line.
Another issue is that historical games are often smaller models; so you can more practically carry most of your army with you. AoS has big models in some armies to the point where you can't easily carry the whole army to the game club (esp if you don't have a car or the parking is a long way off). That in itself adds an additional layer of limitations; a disaster if, in the example above, both players only brought that army with them to the game club.
Now yes I think GW could do more with Narrative, right now its sort of "there" but they've not really addressed it and mostly left it up to players to work out (which basically is nothing different to how their games worked before they formally added narative and open play). I think one of the barriers is the variety of armies and factions, yet if we look at Total War the CA team has already put in a load of challenging quest battles, so such things can be done. Pre-designed armies or concepts or appraoches to the game could be beefed up. GW could do more to support alternative play ideas and one could even argue that the mini-games in their duel boxes are already sort of approaching that idea.
I'd definitely agree with that. The concept of not having points at all and just throwing stuff down narrative-style was as alien to the current gen of players as could be.
GW has open and narrative play as a way to play. But really... ask people what is narrative play and watch as you get 100 answers back.
No one really knows what GW is pushing there. The closest universal I have found is that narrative play is basically matched play with a story around the battle and likely not using a matched play scenario.
auticus wrote: I'd definitely agree with that. The concept of not having points at all and just throwing stuff down narrative-style was as alien to the current gen of players as could be.
GW has open and narrative play as a way to play. But really... ask people what is narrative play and watch as you get 100 answers back.
No one really knows what GW is pushing there. The closest universal I have found is that narrative play is basically matched play with a story around the battle and likely not using a matched play scenario.
Isn't it though? I find even when people talk about "narrative" they really mean a story, not imbalanced forces like a last stand where your opponent has twice your points, or an ambush where you need to divide up your army, or things like that. It's basically "matched play with looser restrictions", whether that's an asymmetrical scenario or something like saying ignore the Battleline/Behemoth/etc. restrictions.
The fact GW isn't really doing much of anything for narrative play to really demonstrate it isn't helping. The few they've shown in White Dwarf have either been like that or been "We each decided to take a couple of units and some heroes" with no real guidelines on HOW to do that.
I think if they had an article in a White Dwarf (maybe written by Jervis since he's shown he likes that style of play) showing just how to approach that sort of pre-game talk, like how do you decide what's fair, how do you compromise with your opponent if they want to take a specific model (e.g. Okay sure you can take that extra monster, I'll take an extra unit and character to compensate) and so on Open Play style might be more accepted since there will be actual examples of that negotiation. They could even show it on WHTV,, like actually have the two people playing the game talk about it beforehand, to show how it would really work with someone. But right now it's really "take whatever you want, talk with your opponent about it" and that's not really any guidelines at all.
I'm sure people would still dismiss it (or try to abuse it, which IMHO just shows they shouldn't be playing Open Play anyways), but at least there would be a concrete example from GW on how to broach the subject.
Agreed I also think that they need to show how the pre-game can be fun to talk about and not a chore; perhaps even provide some streamline structures for players to work with to aid them speed it up. Considering that many might only get one or two games a week and that those games will be hours long a time I think many are cautious to subscribe to a game approach that might prove so unbalanced as to be unfun.
Plus I think many are worried that Steve only likes to push "narrative or open" games because he can take his deathstar of 10 dragons and beat everyone with it because its "his" narrative. Ergo that it will attract power gamers putting down super overpowered combos for the fun of it.
I think we might see GW open up more on the two modes once they've got the last of the Battletomes out. Because like it or not the warscrolls, at the very least, are pretty much core to the whole game working
A neat twist and something they could do is shift narrative to the use of things ilke Grand Alliance books. Ergo leave matched play focused on mostly single faction armies with allies; and then focus on bringing Grand Alliance armies (and other such allied forces) into Narrative games. That would give Narrative a start of its own identity for players to work with; brings back the idea of motley armies with no single unified faction - all without touching the games balance nor expereince in Matched play.
auticus wrote: We can call it hold overs all day long. The thing is they sell those holdover models. If they are selling the faction they need to make the faction playable. Otherwise just get rid of the models.
For the longest time they claimed to be a model designers first and foremost going as far to claim they were the Apple of the Miniature toy world. As someone who enjoys painting and assembling models I am happy and grateful GW does not take a cue from you as that would mean ruining a large part of the hobby for a good portion of the customer base.
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Wayniac wrote: With respect to auticus I think a big issue is that they kept a lot of holdovers from WHFB to not piss off the old guard who had WHFB armies and wanted to use them in AOS (which ended up largely happening anyway). So you have situations where someone had an army from years ago, wants to keep using them and expects to be able to.
True. It was a weird moment for GW where they tried to have a cake and eat it too. Ultimately the era between WHFB and AoS 1.0 is an era that just was weird. I still remember the weird rules where you had to have a beard or something or shout something to one another. For me 0.0 was just a long Andy Kaufman joke.
I think the joke rules were just that, but people were already bitter over WHFB being killed and AOS being brought in with "dumbed down" rules, no points, etc. that the joke rules were just the straw that broke the camel's back.
0.0 was the experiment; 1.0 was the beta; 2.0 is the launch.
As for holdovers I think AoS will never lose its "hold over" aspect because even in the lore its still tied to the Old World model line. It will always have that legacy to work with. GW made a deliberate choice with that when they could have retired the whole Old World line and went with a new game. So I don't see it so much as a "hold over" I see it simply as the evolution of the original game (albeit with some issues along the way).
I agree with the experiment, beta, and launch.
I also think that some of the holdover models are also there because of several reasons.
A ) Beautiful models. They can sell them to miniature painters and DnD hobbyists. It is good to keep in mind that the greatest casualties of the model purge were the butt ugly models people bought only to use in armies like the High Elf Spearmen. They even brought the High Elf Spearmen from the Isle of Blood box for some time because of demand. Otherwise a lot of the old models went the way of the dodo.
B ) A part of them probably wants to use some of the existing models to expand into a larger force and I feel like we might see some of that coming this year. This is probably the most self-evident reason.
C ) Strangely enough a lot of the old models are excellent for various conversions. I can't tell you how many people buy Cold One kits or the High Elf knights models to make prettier Shining Spears. A lot of the still available kits are quite good as an alternate unit for existing models or as a base for beautiful kitbashed models. Again a good reason to keep those lines for us who like to make things more personalized or just want to enjoy other aspects of the hobby. I mean, the entire Dark Elf line is ripe for Drukhari conversions of all kind. The old Wood Elf line combined with High Elf is also really fun for Exodite and some Corsair conversions.
What I think the big problem was that GW split all their factions into these supposedly different factions and then had each and every faction as a tag on the GW website. This created potential confusion and it seems they've realized this as they've combined the leftover tags into generic ones.
They probably should have just created a tag called "Legacy Lines" or something similar.
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Wayniac wrote: I think the joke rules were just that, but people were already bitter over WHFB being killed and AOS being brought in with "dumbed down" rules, no points, etc. that the joke rules were just the straw that broke the camel's back.
The weird thing is that DoK has one rule that reminds me a bit of the old joke rules. Death's Touch where you have to put a dice in one hand and have the opponent pick which hand. It's such a stupid and pointless rule that is easily replaced by a 50/50 dice roll.
I think the issue overall was they killed WHFB without warning then were like here's a new game that uses the same models but is completely different. They should have just done like a post-End Times WHFB that allowed for both small scale (AOS) and large scale (WHFB) style play (like the LOTR games). What they did though was blow up the world and recreate the world to be over the top cartoony fantasy. So people were already bitter over that. I think if they had given more warning about it, it might not have felt like being kicked to the curb.
They could have kept a lot of the early lines too: Stormcast could have been a knightly order from the remnants of the human kingdoms that worshipped Sigmar, rather than virtually immortal respawning angel-knights created from magic lightning.
An almost post apocWHFB would have been cool without just scrapping the old world.
Wayniac wrote: I think the issue overall was they killed WHFB without warning then were like here's a new game. They should have just done like a post-End Times WHFB that allowed for both small scale (AOS) and large scale (WHFB) style play. What they did though was blow up the world and recreate the world to be over the top cartoony fantasy. So people were already bitter over that. I think if they had given more warning about it, it might not have felt like being kicked to the curb.
They could have kept a lot of the early lines too: Stormcast could have been a knightly order from the remnants of the human kingdoms that worshipped Sigmar, rather than virtually immortal respawning angel-knights created from magic lightning
True, but AoS came out of a time in GW that appeared to be influenced by two things: Copyrighting enough to be unique and where there was no communications at all from GW at large. It was night impossible to get any rumors or news of what was coming and sites like Faeit had a larger userbase mostly because there was nowhere else to go to get "potential" news.
I would say that the so called "NU-GW" is at best 2 years old now(release of 8th edition 40k) and in those two years GW has made a lot of changes and I expect more changes down the line. GW before that time as well as Warhammer feels like Magic the Gathering in the 90s before MTG became the big kid on the block with all its stuff. If anything it feels like GW has been entering the big league in the last year or so.
Wayniac wrote: I think the issue overall was they killed WHFB without warning then were like here's a new game. They should have just done like a post-End Times WHFB that allowed for both small scale (AOS) and large scale (WHFB) style play. What they did though was blow up the world and recreate the world to be over the top cartoony fantasy. So people were already bitter over that. I think if they had given more warning about it, it might not have felt like being kicked to the curb.
They could have kept a lot of the early lines too: Stormcast could have been a knightly order from the remnants of the human kingdoms that worshipped Sigmar, rather than virtually immortal respawning angel-knights created from magic lightning
True, but AoS came out of a time in GW that appeared to be influenced by two things: Copyrighting enough to be unique and where there was no communications at all from GW at large. It was night impossible to get any rumors or news of what was coming and sites like Faeit had a larger userbase mostly because there was nowhere else to go to get "potential" news.
I would say that the so called "NU-GW" is at best 2 years old now(release of 8th edition 40k) and in those two years GW has made a lot of changes and I expect more changes down the line. GW before that time as well as Warhammer feels like Magic the Gathering in the 90s before MTG became the big kid on the block with all its stuff. If anything it feels like GW has been entering the big league in the last year or so.
With everything except rules quality, it seems Since their proofreading is as bad as ever (at least on the 40k side, not really sure how it is on AOS side) and balance is and always has been terrible.
I think the issue was that whilst Kirby did turn GW around in a bad spot years back, his management approach got more and more isolated from the market. A top-down approach which increasingly isolated itself from their actual customers.
The lack of marketing outreach and even ignoring major social media avenues of that era I think showed how much they were distancing themselves from their customers. I think more than copyright, they wanted to be the Apple of wargames - to define what the market wanted rather than satisfy the market desires.
You can see that in early AoS. It was clearly a project designed in meetings and around boardroom tables focused on what made it work best and cheapest for GW management and the like. There was clearly less player input, far little to no real feedback and the whole approach clearly ignored the customer (esp with the way they handled the end of the world - having just given Old World new models and marketing in abig way after years of ignoring only to pull the carpet out from under the gamers by ending the whole game and replacing it with something totally different).
Thankfully I think GW also needed to make AoS 0.0. It kind of needed to take its mistakes to the next level to result in the massive changes we've seen over the last few years. Since then GW has shifted its focus entirely. Sure some elements are still the same, but heck look at what happened when the Slaanesh fiend sprue got leaked. GW of old would have issued threats/legal orders to shut down the person listing it and done their best to hide it - GW of today (far as I know) didn't bother with the guy listing it for sale*; instead they made a video to advertise the leak. Sure I bet whoever let it out got a good telling off internally; but overall they went with the event and built on it rather than being hostile.
Heck I recall when GW went after news sites and tried shutting them down from reporting on rumours which led to several dropping any GW news at the time (some still do ignore GW marketing).
Suffice it to say some big attitudes have changed and GW now does marketing and community interaction 7 days a week and didn't even stop over christmas.
* I actually ebay messaged the person listing it because they appeared to not have a clue what they were selling and they replied that it was rather shocking them how high the price on the sprue was going. I figure they didn't want to wind up with a load of jovial prices being bid and then dealing with the fallout of cancelled bids and the like.
GW is all about creating a lifestyle now. It's why they have a strong community and gave us that weird Hammer-feather logo. It's why we now have ton of Warhammer merch for all kinds like leggings and cereal bowls. It's like they finally realized what they had in their hands and are now embracing it.
For the longest time they claimed to be a model designers first and foremost going as far to claim they were the Apple of the Miniature toy world.
That was actually only for a handful of years. And new players today have no idea what was being said five - ten years ago. They go into a gw store, they see the awesome varangar models, they get excited about those, GW guy tells them how awesome they are, they drop a crap ton of money on those models, and then find out that they are the equivalent of flaming trash and that their opponents need to give them sudden death victory conditions just for playing that faction.
Several times a month we have new people come in and get ready to drop a ton of money on factions that are garbage because the default assumption is that everything is at least playable, and thats the farthest thing from the truth.
If they aren't forewarned, you have bitter people that dropped a ton of money on something that can't play the game hardly at all.
If you're just in it to paint then sure, thats great. Put a disclaimer on the box "warning: this model is flaming garbage on the table"
And they've had several GHB iterations that could have fixed their points at the very least, and they chose to just lol them.
What I think the big problem was that GW split all their factions into these supposedly different factions and then had each and every faction as a tag on the GW website. This created potential confusion and it seems they've realized this as they've combined the leftover tags into generic ones.
In world building terms each fof the minor factions should have been expanded upon from the start instead of the myopic focus on Stormcast and Blood Warriors. Factions like the Daughters of Khaine and many of the smaller factions have begun to have intersting elements in the background - which is why its a bit sad they are re-focussing on the same armies again rather than a pdf update of them all and then getting on with new stuff - however the new skirmish game does look like some good new info.
Several times a month we have new people come in and get ready to drop a ton of money on factions that are garbage because the default assumption is that everything is at least playable, and thats the farthest thing from the truth.
If they aren't forewarned, you have bitter people that dropped a ton of money on something that can't play the game hardly at all.
Sounds like your area is top-tier ultra competitive. With the exception of KO(which players have given up here) most factions with books are seeing playtime and people are having fun where I am. Hell, last tourney we had there was a Gloomspite in first place, ogor in second place, and Nagash finally in 3rd place. When people are playing regular games they are having fun and very few are being actively curbstomped. Only time there is active imbalance is when someone brings an army that isn't currently supported by GW(and KO) and the players who have those armies are very rare as they have to rely on DO to order stuff which - and I am reiterating - is not really accessible to innocent Timmys and Tammies who are just starting out in the hobby. This means that that crowd tends to be much older and more active at reading up on what they are buying. They more often than not go into the faction knowing full well what they are doing.
I also find it strange that you have new players coming in, putting a ton of money on a faction without ever having played the game before. That just sounds like your area is filthy rich or has a lack of impulse control. Again, maybe the difference is that you are at the cutting edge of tournament play and the attitude is different, but when a new player comes where I've lived they usually just buy something easy and accessible like the dual faction starters or the Core Starter. Even the kids that go to the FLG/GW store just buy some small pack to assemble and paint before participating in LVO.
Truth be told I feel like you are making a mountain out of a molehill, but not really knowing how cuttthroat your area is I could be not seeing how bad the playerbase you are engaging with is. If it is truly this difficult, toxic, and just vile you have my sincere condolences. I'd probably not bother with the hobby in that type of environment if I were to be honest. It's the reason I couldn't be bothered with M:TG after a while.
I also think this is where there is a bit of disconnect going on. Ton of people are having immense enjoyment out of AoS and if it were as bad as you have described in detail I would rather think the hobby dead than alive. This especially considering the marketshare GW lost in previous 40k editions when their balance was truly atrocious. So my stance - at least until I experience the playerbase you engage in - is that Age of Sigmar is in a neat little place right now. Could use some tweaks here and there, but for the most part people seem to be having fun even when they are playing matched games.
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In world building terms each fof the minor factions should have been expanded upon from the start instead of the myopic focus on Stormcast and Blood Warriors.
I think originally they were stuck with a limited pool of faction as they probably had a very small budget for the entire thing. Which is probably why had so much Stormcast and Khorne in 0.0 early on. The problem is that it is most likely a recursive problem. With the launch of AoS 0.0 and continuation of 1.0 they probably got a ton of new players who invested in Stormcast and Khorne due to cost(It's why I have Stormcast and Khorne for example) so when they release an update they must address those userbases quicker as they are more recent userbases in comparison to other factions that exist in "maybe" limbo. It's basically the same reason you tend to see Space Marines come first in new edition. Most people own starter armies and therefore releasing a book targeted at starter armies is more likely to stabilize retention rates whereas a new faction(or a faction that hasn't been selling well) is more of a risk. So ultimately I think the approach is purely a logical market move even though one would indeed like to see more factions added to the game.
Ton of people are having immense enjoyment out of AoS and if it were as bad as you have described in detail I would rather think the hobby dead than alive
I would say thats more a statement that the community in general for AOS is not really that concerned with balance and viable factions and that its acceptable to just say play a different army.
People are having fun. Because balance is not as big a concern for them as it is people like me who want to see all factions viable and an internal balance that gives you multiple viable builds so you aren't railroaded on what builds you can take to be able to have good games.
People are having fun because it is acceptable to say "half the game is trash, so just don't play that half of the game and you'll be fine".
Its not a disconnect. I am fully aware of how much of a minority I am, because the people like me play other games where those issues are not as big a deal or mostly dealt with, or just simply don't play anymore. So you will largely never hear from people that share my opinion.
The phrase "why do you even bother anymore" is one I hear several times a week.
People are having fun because it is acceptable to say "half the game is trash, so just don't play that half of the game and you'll be fine".
I would personally argue that less than half the game is trash, but that seems to be more based on us having different conventions and boundaries. I personally only count actual supported armies(that have had a tome and such) and do not count un-tomed factions as they are - for all we know - still on the chopping block. Even then, some interesting things have happened. Seen some magical stuff happen with good Ogor and Order Draconis players.
Ultimately I think that for a good portion of the players there is acceptable balance in AoS. The tourney balance that has been discussed here ad infinitum show that in a certain context and at a certain level there is balance to be had. As I have had the habit of hanging around with people of all ages I have discovered that the competitiveness is very generational and me - being as old as I am - would probably be considered a filthy casual by many younger players. These same players are also probably more accustomed to having to adjust their armies accordingly and play differently(mutable playstyle) than the older generation(fixed playstyle) which I have always felt to go for more thematic than competitive. I just know that the people who grew up playing boardgames, card games, and video games tends to have a much more adaptable spirit when it comes to playing effectively. It's different to what I grew up with in some extent, but at the same time I appreciate it for its own worth. Because life is just such a wonderful progression of evolutionary changes in societal systems.
The difference is instead of saying "half the game is trash don't play it" you're saying "that half of the game doesn't exist, so if you bought into those models you knowingly bought into a faction that doesn't exist even though models and rules exist for those models".
I'd actually argue those two statements are basically the same thing: "half of the game is not valid, just play the half of the game that is valid".
For me thats just not an acceptable place for a game to be sitting in.
Part of the issue that Auticus faces is that the "balance" is really what he is saying: "Good enough" if you metagame and check what armies are doing well. Which is understandable, but GW also is the first ones to go and say how you should pick an army that pops out to you visually or because you read a story and really liked them or you like their background. So it is more than a little dishonest that they say this, but there are choices that are essentially not worth spending money on because they are so bad.
This is where that "trap" comes from: Someone looks at KO which are an absolutely amazing concept, and then has to either be told that army is garbage don't pick it unless you want to lose constantly if you actually plan to play the game, or else risk them getting really fed up when they are doing exactly what GW says you should do and end up just getting curbstomped every game because the "balance" is all over the place. If this was a video game then it'd be a simple matter of picking a different character. But someone who drops money on an army that looks awesome and they really enjoy is going to feel lied to and cheated if they find out after the fact that it's piss poor. Unless they frequent forums or happen to have players in their area who will tell that person considering KO that if they want to win they really need to pick a different army, they are going to be essentially tricked into buying a lemon.
If you look at the tournament level, which already ignores 50% of the armies and a huge swathe of unit choices in the armies that are viable, so a very small percentage of what is actually available, then it might look like balance is there. But if you look below the surface, there isn't as much balance as you think because you are purposely ignoring large chunks of armies, and entire armies, when talking about "balance". Is that an acceptable way to "demonstrate" balance? It's balanced if you only consider these certain armies, and within those armies ignore everything except these units?
Auticus is one of those people who want to embrace the game as it was originally intended before it was turned into a wombo-combo MtG type competitive focused game. His area is well known for being pretty cutthroat and dominated by tournament tryhards who hate narrative play and expect everything to be "tournament standard" and he's had an uphill struggle to push something beyond that.
Actually as much as it took to get me on board with accepting AOS for its wombo combo ccg design, that is a secondary issue for me that I have learned to overlook.
I have learned to overlook AOS lack of immersion, and its basically being a card game with models because thats just the way it is and will never change.
So I can accept that and not really gripe about it.
What I absolutely do not want to deal with is the disparity in power levels. If I want to run a public campaign event, I don't want it populated with adepticon lists, because the people I want to play in it won't show up because no one wants their nose rubbed in dog crap all game because they fell in love with a faction that "isn't viable so don't play it" or "you have to run that one mono build if you want this to be a good game and not a one sided stomp fest"
I play lots of tabletop games, so the "all games are imbalanced" doesn't work for me because... none of those other games have this problem to this degree. And I know AOS could be better and could be tons more engaging if the devs would actually through their actions make the game playable for all factions and not release things like Kharadron or the current FEC book.
On that note I do find it interesting that GW games are the only games that have such a huge imbalance/power gap. Sure, every game has its "competitive" builds, but from when I played Warmahordes it was way less; you could and often did see "dark horse" janky lists show up specifically because they weren't meta builds but asked a question/answered a question.
You almost never saw anyone say "X sucks don't use it" with very few exceptions, and even then it was usually "X isn't that great, but if you take Y and Z you could do 123 with it and it could work".
It's only Warhammer that I have found which has this "Well just don't play that army" and "It's okay to have some armies garbage tier and some good" mindset and to this day I don't know where it comes from or why it's accepted when elsewhere that mentality would be considered such a huge flaw of the game that it would most likely cause outrage
I firmly believe its because they design their games with the magic the gathering foundation on a white board in the room.
Have to make the game appeal to people that like big explosions, people that love to list build and figure out janky combos, and then the people that love powergaming and require bent lists.
The require bent lists means you have to cook in imbalances on purpose to appeal to Spike.
That works in magic the gathering because they have "formats" where you have events and formats specifically for Spike and then they have formats that appeal to the others.
In AOS you basically have matched play. Which is supposed to appeal to I assume Spike, but then narrative and open play i guess are supposed to appeal to big explosions Timmy and List building and do it how i want Johnny. But the problem is the format in magic actually says "spike you can't bring your adepticon FEC list" whereas the narrative play in AOS says "spike can teabag the narrative group by the rules all he wants".
Auticus is one of those people who want to embrace the game as it was originally intended before it was turned into a wombo-combo MtG type competitive focused game.
Perhaps this is then the root of the problem. Me, you, or anyone else have actually little to no claim of what is currently intended* or not when it comes to anything GW makes. What GW intends is what GW intends and we will always be beholden to that. As much as Auticus fears buying a useless unit I fear losing beautiful models because GW might one day decide that it isn't worth keeping the models around(and much to the chagrin of hobbyists around the globe). The difference is perhaps that I accept that GW does not abide by my rule and all I am doing is buying into a theme park ride, and for me - honestly - that theme park has been fun; at least since 2.0 came out. 0.0 and 1.0, regardless of any balancing intentions, was a really boring game.
In short, past or future intentions of GW mean little to nothing in the grand scheme. We have what we have as GW intend it to be right now and we can either enjoy it or not. As my buddy Alan Watts would put it:
The future is a concept, it doesn't exist. There is no such thing as tomorrow. There never will be, because time is always now. That's one of the things we discover when we stop talking to ourselves and stop thinking. We find there is only present, only an eternal now.
On that note I do find it interesting that GW games are the only games that have such a huge imbalance/power gap. Sure, every game has its "competitive" builds, but from when I played Warmahordes it was way less; you could and often did see "dark horse" janky lists show up specifically because they weren't meta builds but asked a question/answered a question.
Sadly I have seen this in every game I've tried, including Warmahordes. As soon as you dwell fully into a game you will find the imbalance and it will be as unsightly as the imbalance in other games. Warmahorde included and one of the reason I had no interest in the game. It's just that when you have something else to compare it you are more likely to forgive the imbalances and when Warmahorde was at its height it was comparing itself against 6th and 7th edition 40k which were legendarily imbalanced. In that comparison Warmahordes would exemplify the near literal perfect balance. Hell, I saw the same thing happen again in X-Wing 1.0 at the time. People claiming it to be perfectly balanced, but at the same time admitting ton of builds being crap and unviable and some units ouright broken. Yet, it was "balanced" for all intents and purposes because there were other things considered more imbalanced.
I also see janky lists do wonders in many GW games. I think the problem is more that a lot of the tryhards tend to go for for netlists instead of testing things out for themselves so it ends up contaminating the sample of what could work and what doesn't. I think another problem we don't see more janky lists is also that some of the armies are severely limited in their unit selection. You really don't have breathing space to make things janky to begin with unless you ally or something similar. It's one of the reasons the jankiest lists I encounter are Grand Alliance lists and Khorne. AoS factions tend to be mostly starved for units except for the two release behemoths(Stormcast and Khorne).
It's only Warhammer that I have found which has this "Well just don't play that army" and "It's okay to have some armies garbage tier and some good"
GW is unique in the fact that they managed to make exactly one garbage army for each game: Grey Knights and KO, although I wouldn't be surprised if KO would see redemption sooner rather than later. Nobody thinks that it is okay to have one army or two in garbage tier, but we are also in the age of early access and I can tell you that 0.0 and 1.0 of AoS are the definition of Early Access game. The parallels are actually quite interesting now that I put my mint into it.
I have learned to overlook AOS lack of immersion,
For me that is mostly because the lore and such has been stuck in Early Access for so long. When you buy into 40k you buy into a monolith of stories and general drama. With AoS you have much less to go on.
If you look at the tournament level, which already ignores 50% of the armies
This is if and only if you are considering non-tome factions as viable and established forces for which they aren't. Auticus has for example talked about three of his armies which two - Dark Elves and Tomb Kings - are in fact Faction non Grata in the entire game and have never been promised or indicated by GW themselves. This leaves Auticus with the only real faction gripe being Slaves to Darkness which I admit should have gotten a tome a long time ago as they've established already(imo with the Darkoath Queen release) that they intend on keeping them in the game.
Which is why I pointed out that the discussion is really stuck in the gap of definition. Some of us define the game as armies with tomes, whereas Auticus et al considers each and every single idea of a faction released as an individual army. This will always create a discordant dialogue because people are arguing from completely different corners both considering our views objective in the grand scheme of things even if neither are. It is also the reason why this discussion will probably never go anywhere as our individual definition of the borders of the game are just too different. It just means we'll be arguing in circles until the cows come home and started playing BMG.
So my prediction is: Some of us will consider AoS fun and relatively balanced all things considered, and Auticus or others might call us powergamers, ignorant, or even Timmys or whatever that word is(Only Tim I remember was the Prodigal Sorcerer in Revised) and so on. It will be a continual cycle for years to come and even if GW would fulfill Auticus' every desire there will be another Auticus(Noticus) to take his place who will claim that GW is this, players are that, and that things should be even better. It is the endless law of Dakka/online forums up until we experience the heat death of the universe or climate change so bad we'll all be wiped out.
Because in the end the cycle of pain and suffering is endless and through that limbo we all struggle to have our words and actions noticed in a world we fear to be uncaring. So for as long as we are witnessed we may be assured of our continued existence and place in this world of ours.
That was fun and probably my last post on this particular subject as this is really is a Danse Macabre for all involved.
* My belief is that the original intention was to make AoS and 40k cross-compatible like Warmahordes and if you disagree and can't show me definitive peer-reviewed proof that it wasn't I will consider you cray cray because why not.
As I said earlier, the people like me don't come to the AOS forums anymore. They moved on to other games or quit gaming altogether, so you won't hear their voices.
Where I am other games have no traction so its largely me playing with myself in my garage when I go that route.
You make it sound like I have 100 grievances with the game, which I feel is very much an unfair assessment. I have one grievance with the game. That is as I've explained it. It is impossible for me to participate in any campaigns or narratives where I am without having to deal with Adepticon lists, because the rules let it happen and the rules let half the game wallow in trash tier. It maybe that by the end of the year GW has released a ton of books to have marginalized this trash tier, and I hope so. As of today in April that is obviously not the case.
Sal4m4nd3r wrote: I just think you dismiss a lot as trash tier, and elevate to much to god tier. fething seraphon just won adepticon with skinks, and thunderquake LOL
Sal4m4nd3r wrote: I just think you dismiss a lot as trash tier, and elevate to much to god tier. fething seraphon just won adepticon with skinks, and thunderquake LOL
Trash tier is a large swathe of factions that have almost no chance in hell of having even remotely a good game against a "god tier".
Seraphon has always been powerful. When they released the ghb and the uber free summoning I said as much and got boo'd out of the room for suggesting that they were powerful. Then when kroaknado got FAQ'd out apparently a giant chunk of you all thought that was their only viable "god tier" mode build. I disagreed. ANd got boo'd out of the room again with the "how many big tournaments have they won again?" rebuttal. They have a couple of powerful builds that make a mockery out of the casual scene here. One of our seraphon players quit because the game was too easy (his words) and the other put them away because he felt bad for grinding down most of his opposition when they were trying to play for fun and he had a hard time making a "for fun" list with them. Both of these have to do with the casual players, which is where all of my energy has been devoted to keeping and retaining.
I'm sure the story may be different in a store where everyone is training for the wheaties endorsement, and seraphon drop down to just being a strong list in a morass of other strong lists dominated by a couple of "god tier" lists.
The amount of "god tier" builds is very limited to a handful. The amount of trash tier factions exponentially outweigh them. If a faction loses the game by virtue of showing up, and additionally has no adepticon powerbuild to even remotely come close to having a good game against their opponent, thats trash tier to me. From what I see in a community that has about four or five guys that have to have their adepticon lists at all times in all games, casual or otherwise, yes about half the game's factions are trash tier because they lose by showing up against these handful of jacked up Spike builds and they struggle on hard-mode against the moderate books like khorne and nurgle and the goblin book.
I think using the words "trash" and "god" to describe tiers is a bit extreme and implies a lack of nuance to the situation, which there certainly is. But certainly there are armies that barring an unusual context/specific build will just show up and win/lose against a different tier near-automatically.
And before it gets mentioned; tournament match win % stats are heavily skewed towards 50, because after the first round matchmaking is bent to do that by putting strong v strong and weak v weak. It also does not display any issues of internal balance.
I imagine it's relatively fine since most of the rules are available for free online and unit profiles don't seem to be too convoluted. I'm afraid to say 
