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You lads have been busy trying to balance this thing, haven't you? Warseer has been as well, and put out the following pack yesterday: http://www.louisvillewargaming.com/Files/AzyrComp.pdf. Original thread is here: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?410903-Azyr-Comp-System.

It really is worth taking a look. I don't necessarily agree with the nerfs to shooting, but I haven't experienced the pain of a shooting skew list yet either. Clearly points, battle sizes, etc will be adjusted as games are played and feedback gathered.

- Salvage

I don't think I mind the actual comp. I don't agree with their rule changes (i.e. heroes can join units and no shooting if you're engaged). But I could see using the point system.

Yea, even the heroes joining stuff rule seems too clingy in regards to how 8E works. They've got a fakk ton of wounds for a reason!

That said, I am all for nerfing summoning into the ground.

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Yea, even the heroes joining stuff rule seems too clingy in regards to how 8E works. They've got a fakk ton of wounds for a reason!

That said, I am all for nerfing summoning into the ground.

- Salvage

Just some notes after a lot of games with the system:

Heroes can be targeted anywhere anytime so they were dying like flies and people were putting their heroes in the back of their armies. This seemed quite unheroic so we gave them look out sir rolls.

Shooting was changed to let you shoot into combat but half your hits hit your own guys to give some semblance of reality and make shooting not the no-brainer that it was turning into (why would i never take missile units otherwise?) the alternative is to cost missile units +1 point higher to compensate for their additional attack output that melee-only troops don't get.

File was updated to version 1.11b tonight. It is still in beta phase and playtesting.

Thanks for the comments.

Is there a new link? Will the missing stuff be added? (I'm after chaosfamiliars)

I think the cockatrice is missing too. Hopefully, they will amend it to include missing info. Still the best resource i've found.

 AesSedai wrote:
I think the cockatrice is missing too. Hopefully, they will amend it to include missing info. Still the best resource i've found.

I am wanting to add the monstrous arcana monsters and was going to hit the cockatrice there.

There was a new file last night that added versioning information as well as contact info for playtesting and you can register with my @Auticus twitter to get notifications when the file has been updated.

Chaos familiars are tricky. They used to be a magic item upgrade... I'm not sure that they are worth a point for a familiar but they would be too good for free.

Suggestions?

Cheers for the feedback, and for refining the packet

auticus wrote:
Heroes can be targeted anywhere anytime so they were dying like flies and people were putting their heroes in the back of their armies. This seemed quite unheroic so we gave them look out sir rolls.

LOS! rolls is good. Just doing 'hero within 3" of 5+ strong unit, unit takes hits on a 4+ per hit' deal?

Shooting was changed to let you shoot into combat but half your hits hit your own guys to give some semblance of reality and make shooting not the no-brainer that it was turning into (why would i never take missile units otherwise?) the alternative is to cost missile units +1 point higher to compensate for their additional attack output that melee-only troops don't get.

I was thinking about this last night, and feel like randomizing between engaged units works best, plus fits the feel of AoS and GW games in general (i.e. randomhammer). Exactly halving shots is a little too precise - and cost-benefit-analysis-y - for me.

Keep up the good work!

- Salvage

auticus wrote:

Chaos familiars are tricky. They used to be a magic item upgrade... I'm not sure that they are worth a point for a familiar but they would be too good for free.

Suggestions?

Up to 3 for 1 point?

Mentioned this in another thread, but I REALLY wish comps would stop limiting hero slots as if all hero war scrolls are equivalent. One of the skaven formations requires 6 Packmasters, are a W3 6+sv Hero model. You couldn't field a Moulder Clawpack in a freakin APOCALYPSE game with these rules.

Greetings!

We have uploaded our update this morning. It tweaks a few things (abomination 4 points, tomb kings sphix 4 points, cleaned up rules on scoring and cover, added sigmarites and the new khorne models)

The next update won't be for a bit and will be adding "half points" to further balance down the units.

Thanks for your feedback! We are also at work on a fall campaign set on the Burning Peninsula using this comp system and when that is complete it will also be made public.

As to limiting hero slots - facing off against an army of heroes is not what this comp packet or campaigns written using this comp packet are about.

If you wish to remove the hero restrictions - feel free to do so. I've already seen our local demon players fielding nothing but demon princes and blood thirsters and heralds to summon more demon princes and blood thirsters and thats really not a game I wish to entertain, though I'm sure others may find it good fun (and thats awesome on them).

What limiting hero slots does is say you have to have a force with your heroes as well.

We are looking at formations with the next update, which lets you break the restrictions if you run in formation.




Automatically Appended Next Post:
On chaos familiars - right now it is a free companion to a chaos sorcerer. We will look at addressing them more directly with the half point system.

The HPA moves UP to 4 points, but the Flame Phoenix stays at 3? Really? That thing can get back up on a 4+ every single time it dies and be given a 4+ ward save for nothing.

In what frelling world is the HPA worse than that?


And yeah, I'm sure people would be quaking in their boots to see 6 packmasters on the table. Absolute perfect comparison to daemon princes and bloodthirsters. You're right. Packmaster is a KILLING MACHINE!

Seriously, you already limit heroes by wounds, why further limit by slots? Heroes on their own will (usually) get obliterated, even more so for low-wound heroes who were actually in the "hero" category in 8e. If you want to limit the power of former "lord" level models, you've already done that with the wound cap.

Its not actually limited by slots its now total points spent on heroes based on tiers and sits roughly at 25% or close to it and as noted above is used to prevent armies of heroes or an army composed of mostly heroes.

With the HPA debate I have a small mountain of emails debating both sides of the equation. For every one person that says it should be 3 points another says it should be 4 and some even say 5. thats just how it works with the community - you will never find a consensus.

We resolve things as we playtest them. There is a reason why the version has a "b" in it - that stands for beta - its being tested. There isn't a human being alive that could drop a perfect comp system down in a week with no issues.

The next stage is to add in half points which will allow for items to be 1.5 , 2.5 etc and sit in their middle ground.

I will also create the second format of comp based on that math (Asqyth) which will be the raw score that can be used to calculate precision lists as opposed to general lists.

Have you fixed Chaos Warrior cost yet? They were 2 per 10 last time I checked which was considerably underpriced given that Stormvermin checked in at 2 per 10.

No because we find chaos warriors at 2 per 10 work pretty well. This again goes back to the concept that this is not a precision system.

Its not meant to be a :"this unit is exactly equal to this unit" by points. That's what a precision system is.

This is a general system. 2 per 10 is a Tier 2 unit. The half point system will add some granularity.

Also when looking at the math formula for chaos warriors vs storm vermin, the final score that they both came in at were not that far from each other in the AoS rules.

Chaos warriors are sitting at 3.85 pts with our formula vs Storm vermin which were 3.007 points. In contrast, chaos marauders are 0.68 pts.

Stom Vermin are definitely a tier 2 unit. If this were a precision system we would have chaos warriors cost around 38 points for 10 and storm vermin 30 points for 10, and that project is coming once all of our half points are complete.

In conclusion: Azyr is a general balance comp system meaning that units and heroes are broken into a tier system. This will produce lists that are generally but not precisely balanced.

A precision system is what everyone is used to (the 1000 based system) and attempts to get everything precisely balanced. This is, I feel, impossible though because scenarios will make a unit more useful in some cases and less useful in others (which leads people to not wanting to do anythign but core scenarios). However as many people like "crunch" systems which is what precision systems enable, I want to provide that as well and when we take Azyr to its half point threshold we will use the raw scores to also kick out a precision system that can run side by side at player discretion.

auticus wrote:Its not actually limited by slots its now total points spent on heroes based on tiers and sits roughly at 25% or close to it and as noted above is used to prevent armies of heroes or an army composed of mostly heroes.

With the HPA debate I have a small mountain of emails debating both sides of the equation. For every one person that says it should be 3 points another says it should be 4 and some even say 5. thats just how it works with the community - you will never find a consensus.

We resolve things as we playtest them. There is a reason why the version has a "b" in it - that stands for beta - its being tested. There isn't a human being alive that could drop a perfect comp system down in a week with no issues.

The next stage is to add in half points which will allow for items to be 1.5 , 2.5 etc and sit in their middle ground.

I will also create the second format of comp based on that math (Asqyth) which will be the raw score that can be used to calculate precision lists as opposed to general lists.

Er, I'm looking at 1.11b and the Army Composition page still lists a max number of heroes, so it is still limited by slots as well as points.

And my issue isn't with the cost of the HPA. 3 4 or 5, whatever. It's the Flame Phoenix, a unit which is potentially unkillable, being only 3 with its myriad abilities and potentially free ward save. It's insanely good and cheaper than a lot of weaker monsters.

I realize this is a beta system, and I realize that a lot of work goes into it. I do understand that no system will ever be perfect, so I apologize if I came off as rude or crapping all over your work.

I would be interested to see the math system you're talking about. The one for precision lists.

Current version is 1.2b. There are no max number of heroes its just points now.

IE skirmish is still 1. Patrol is 3 which means you can have heroes up to a total of 3 points of your 10.

The Phoenix' raw score is still a tier 3 creature. Its on the upper end of Tier 3. With the half point system it'll likely be a 3.5 point creature.

The math formula right nowt hat we are using is on a spreadsheet. When everything with the half point system is done I'll push out the raw score system and include the spreadsheet.

The reason I did not go for precision right off the bat is that scenarios often invalidate precision points right out of the gate (what is worth X points in a pitched battle may only be worth X - 5 points in a different scenario for example) and beacuse i'm watching about a dozen comp systems being developed in which everyone is squabbling over the weight on certain attributes or how to do it, and I wanted to avoid that because I don't think there will ever be a good consensus on which attributes to weigh over others.

My thing is consistency. As long as all models get the same formula you'll get a ballpark figure on their effectiveness (we also have a misc mod for abilities which is the hardest part of all!)

This has summoning all messed, making the amount of summon able units equal to the points of the hero dosnt work for example Ghoul King on terrorgheist = 4 vs a necromancer = 1, so for some reason the terrorgheist makes the ghoul king stronger?

wizards should be able to pay for different amounts of summoning if any thing so necromancer = 1, 2, 3, 4 instead

Hettar wrote:
This has summoning all messed, making the amount of summon able units equal to the points of the hero dosnt work for example Ghoul King on terrorgheist = 4 vs a necromancer = 1, so for some reason the terrorgheist makes the ghoul king stronger?

wizards should be able to pay for different amounts of summoning if any thing so necromancer = 1, 2, 3, 4 instead

It does make sense. It's not about how "good" a unit is fluff-wise, it's about the value a model brings to the table.

 Sigvatr wrote:

Hettar wrote:
This has summoning all messed, making the amount of summon able units equal to the points of the hero dosnt work for example Ghoul King on terrorgheist = 4 vs a necromancer = 1, so for some reason the terrorgheist makes the ghoul king stronger?

wizards should be able to pay for different amounts of summoning if any thing so necromancer = 1, 2, 3, 4 instead

It does make sense. It's not about how "good" a unit is fluff-wise, it's about the value a model brings to the table.

Precisely this.

Its a balancing mechanism. The more complicated and complex you make your balancing mechanism (ie, going through each summoning unit and trying to calc out mounts, bonuses, etc) the more holes will appear. I will say that currently the feedback concerning our summoning comp has been overwhelmingly positive.

If I'm paying 4 points for a summoning hero or heroes, that equals out overall to be 4 summoned units active on the table at once, whether that is a 4 point hero, or 4 one-point heroes.

Just as a heads up the Max Heroes column is still in 1.2b download even if the army composition page is 1.11b.

I'd consider a half point system for units that basically require 30 models to get a boost. From what I've seen these are generally units of things like skinks, clanrats/slaves, goblins, gnoblars and the like.

Don't care for the shooting change but haven't seen people going shooting heavy locally so I could be wrong.

I like the summoning rules.

I dislike the Look out Sir!. I'm not a fan of it in general but I also think a 2+ is to much. I feel like a 4+ should be the max for passing it on.

Just some thoughts looking it over.

Ah I see what you are saying and good catch. The max hero slot should go away.

In our early playtests we found shooting into combat was nasty. We either had to up all missile units points or come up with a way to restrict shooting into combat somehow.

It was also weird dropping a mortar shell onto a combat and only your guys got wounded but mine were ok.

Look out sir is in there because its absurdly easy right now to just pop heroes by turn 2 with missile units. So what we are seeing is rules as written heroes are way in the back, which seems rather unheroic and unrealistic (how a hero running with 50 guys is being targeted out by every warmachine and bow on the field).

4+ isn't enough to prevent people from hiding their heroes in the back. I fought a dwarf army with 20 crossbowmen (which is 40 shots) and a cannon. Thats 40 shots plus a cannon shooting at my hero. Even 2+ isn't really going to save him but a 4+ is the same as not at all in that situation - he's going to die and that's going to be on turn 1 or 2 depending on the range of the enemy's firepower.

Well I assume he's being picked out because he's so heroic looking. As for the actual possibility of losing your hero even with 20 crossbowmen (3pts under your system) is 40 shots. Which results in 20 hits, 10 wounds, 5 saves (at a 4+) to the character, and then 2.5 actual wounds. Seems about right honestly. 2+ makes them basically invulnerable to incoming fire.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Well I assume he's being picked out because he's so heroic looking. As for the actual possibility of losing your hero even with 20 crossbowmen (3pts under your system) is 40 shots. Which results in 20 hits, 10 wounds, 5 saves (at a 4+) to the character, and then 2.5 actual wounds. Seems about right honestly. 2+ makes them basically invulnerable to incoming fire.

In the playtest games where we were not using this, the chaos lord died by turn 2 in all five games due to missile fire. (add cannon shot in there as well). This was also because the dwarf lord was able to put his grudge on the chaos lord which makes wounding easier.

IMO heroes should be able to charge across the table without being gibbed every time unless they are on some giant monster (which usually m oves faster than a guy on foot). As it is rules as written, if you put your hero out front he's toast, so you'll see everyone keeping their heroes tucked away in the rear of the armies which seems daft to me.

So you're changing the rules to heavily favor a hero making it into combat because you want a hero in combat not because there is a flaw in the actual game design.

My opinion is that if you are wasting 2 turns of shooting with the equivalent of 3-4pts per turn to get rid of a single hero then you're probably going to have more issues.

Besides, hero's die. It's how you get new hero's

It's not a big deal if you are but if you are I think a 4+ LoS is appropriate and not a 2+ which equates to less than 1 damage taken on a character.

Seconding the 4+ LOS. Keep in mind that heroes / your General now serves as a buff for nearby troops and quite a few of them come with defensive abilities on their own.

Thirding 4+ LOS!

And I still think just randomizing shooting into combat fits the spirit of the game better than mathematically halving shots and nerfing bravery and all that. Plus it's extremely simple - for each shot that hits, roll a die: 1-3 hits friendly unit (randomize if more than one), 4-6 hits enemy unit (randomize if more than one). Voila, random carnage.

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Thirding 4+ LOS!

And I still think just randomizing shooting into combat fits the spirit of the game better than mathematically halving shots and nerfing bravery and all that. Plus it's extremely simple - for each shot that hits, roll a die: 1-3 hits friendly unit (randomize if more than one), 4-6 hits enemy unit (randomize if more than one). Voila, random carnage.

- Salvage

Halving shots makes it simple and constant. The nerf to bravery for shooting into your own guys is more an RPG element and gives a risk to doing it. If I drop a mortar shell on top of my guys that are fighting your guys, in most systems that allow that to happen, my own guys are going to be demoralized.

Randomizing it can also work but I prefer a constant value. Otherwise everytime someone shoots into combat and rolls horribly and ends up hitting their own guys 9 times out of 10 I'm going to get a hate mail about how my system is the stupidest thing that they ever heard of

auticus wrote:
Otherwise everytime someone shoots into combat and rolls horribly and ends up hitting their own guys 9 times out of 10 ...

Them's the breaks? 8E is the most random game I play, surely people playing comped AOS are at least in large part doing so out of a longing for a Warhams they remember, and would expect random to rule the day!

On top of being too precise in a world of D6 rolls, I find the mathematical halving actually more artificial, as that mortar shell would splash around haphazardly at best, not send 4 hits into the lone chaos lord and 4 hits into the mob of free company engaged with him. And rather than roleplay-esque, the Bravery nerf just adds to the general anti-shooting bent of the Azyr Comp. With the buffed survivability of heroes, ya'll have turned a game that arguably favors shooting into one that certainly favors combat, particularly involving heroes.

Which is a concept and may well be intentional, and maybe the people adopting Azyr are all for it. I guess I'm just concerned at the relationship of Age of Azyr and Age of Sigmar, as far as comping / house rules goes.

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:

auticus wrote:
Otherwise everytime someone shoots into combat and rolls horribly and ends up hitting their own guys 9 times out of 10 ...

Them's the breaks? 8E is the most random game I play

You don't play 40k? :O

Shooting into combat and hitting your own guys definitely is a good thing to have as it automatically balances shooting into allies. There needs to be an allocation rule, however, and rolling for every hit can quickly turn out to be too annoying (e.g. 100 shots by Bretonnia Archers...ugh!). How about just letting all missed hits hit your own unit instead? It would fit fluff-wise as better archers are less likely to shoot their friend's backs and worse archers (e.g. Goblins) don't care anyway

This definitely makes shooting into your own units a lot less attractive and risky, but that's the price you gotta pay if you want to take the risk.