Is AoS Balanced? What to Expect for 8th 40k?

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**Fafnir**

Traditio wrote:
ZebioLizard2 wrote:
The issue might be more along the lines of whether the rule of 1 is going for 40k.

It would harm several armies such as Thousand Sons who are led by Aspiring Sorcerers.. But probably not Horrors who they'll probably return to ranged with the ability to cast rather then relying on warp charge to deal damage.

Doesn't AoS have magic heavy tzeentch chaos armies (e.g., tzeentch demons)?

How do those work in AoS?

Very well.

The Tzeentch book comes with its own magical lore that can be given to Tzeentch casters. Additionally, since most casters come with at least one unique spell of their own, you're rarely ever left hung-out to dry on casting tools. The Rule of One mostly just encourages you to prioritize your casting more thoughtfully while discouraging the abuse that could come from loading up on too much of the same powerful spell.

**Traditio**

Fafnir, I actually do have one more question:

How are things in terms of points costs?

Are points costs all over the place, as in 40k 7th ed, or do things seem to be reasonably well costed for what they are?

**ZebioLizard2**

Traditio wrote:
Fafnir, I actually do have one more question:

How are things in terms of points costs?

Are points costs all over the place, as in 40k 7th ed, or do things seem to be reasonably well costed for what they are?

Most things tend to be reasonably costed though some armies suffered with expensive costs (Fyreslayers) and some are likely to be getting increases (Tzeentch Skyfliers). But that's the point of the generals handbook being updated yearly to fix costs.

**thekingofkings**

Traditio wrote:
ProwlerPC wrote:
In truth, behind all the snark, I'm pretty hopeful. If it's balanced enough that orks have a chance if played right then I'll be very happy. I might even travel to an event or two.

If it's balanced enough, you'll stop seeing Traditio complaint threads.

Do you really want to live in a world without Traditio complaint threads?

ABSOLUTELY NOT!! such a world is an abomination!

**Traditio**

Thanks guys!

All of this is really illuminating, and I am really looking forward to seeing what 8th edition actually looks like. I am definitely optimistic about this. That's for sure.

**curran12**

Traditio wrote:
Fafnir, I actually do have one more question:

How are things in terms of points costs?

Are points costs all over the place, as in 40k 7th ed, or do things seem to be reasonably well costed for what they are?

Points work slightly differently in AoS than they do in current 40k.

It is more streamlined and simplified. You buy units in a certain multiple, and each unit has a max size. So for example, you can buy a unit of guys at 160 points per 5, to a maximum unit size of 20. To expand the units, you can only buy in that 5-man increment and cost. Unit upgrades and gear are free, and rules for them tend along the lines of "for every 5 models, one can have a choice of this". Champions/Sergeants also have some unique gear, which is included in the cost.

Formations have additional points costs to use them.

As far as balance goes, it is pretty solid in my experience. It is also a lot more clean and less fiddly to use. Also, by buying units in increments like this, it is more well controlled and easier to judge army size by eye.

**Traditio**

Sorry, this just came to mind:

How do flamers and blasts work in AoS? For example, I'm sure that tzeentch demons in AoS probably have some flame-based attacks which, lorewise, fire in a tear-shaped pattern.

How does AoS adjudicate this?

**curran12**

Generally, blast weapons do a rolled number of hits or wounds. So for example, something might be d6+3 hits, or something similar.

**Traditio**

curran12 wrote:
Generally, blast weapons do a rolled number of hits or wounds. So for example, something might be d6+3 hits, or something similar.

I like that.

I'm personally not a fan of templates and blasts.

I do wonder how GW is going to deal with barrage weapons, though. Will Chapter Masters keep their orbital bombardment, for example?

**curran12**

Possibly. A bombardment could be very easy to represent in AoS style rules. Does d6+3-6 hits, and inflicts mortal wounds on a 3+ or something to represent the power. Make it once per game and there ya go.

**Grimgold**

I think things like lighting breath might be a better example of templates, pick a point, and either add a static value or die roll in inches and that's the radius of the attack. Units within it are hit, you roll to wound as normal and armor saves if it's not mortal wounds. That's one type of template replacing weapon, the other type just inflicts a number of hits on a unit. The trick is hits and wound are different things, if something inflicts a d6 hits it can hit up to six people or put them all into one, but if something does a d6 wounds on a single hit only a single model is affected, none of the excess damage is carried over to other members of the squad.

**Formerly Wu**

Grimgold wrote:
The trick is hits and wound are different things, if something inflicts a d6 hits it can hit up to six people or put them all into one, but if something does a d6 wounds on a single hit only a single model is affected, none of the excess damage is carried over to other members of the squad.

Where are you getting that reading of the rules from? Wounds are wounds, and are allocated by the controlling player until they're gone, with the caveat that you have to remove whole models.

**Grimgold**

whoops I misremembered that,

**Cmdr_Sune**

Formerly Wu wrote:
Grimgold wrote:
The trick is hits and wound are different things, if something inflicts a d6 hits it can hit up to six people or put them all into one, but if something does a d6 wounds on a single hit only a single model is affected, none of the excess damage is carried over to other members of the squad.

Where are you getting that reading of the rules from? Wounds are wounds, and are allocated by the controlling player until they're gone, with the caveat that you have to remove whole models.

I hope this doesn't carry over to 40k where a lascannon would kill several models if it does multiple wounds.
This means that a devastator squad spamming lascannons will be excellent against both vehicles and infantry.

Looking at 2nd ed 40k and Shadow wars a multiple wound weapon can only kill a single model, I would prefer it that way.

**Verviedi**

Traditio wrote:
ProwlerPC wrote:
In truth, behind all the snark, I'm pretty hopeful. If it's balanced enough that orks have a chance if played right then I'll be very happy. I might even travel to an event or two.

If it's balanced enough, you'll stop seeing Traditio complaint threads.

Do you really want to live in a world without Traditio complaint threads?

I would enjoy it to an almost euphoric extent.

Now, 8th. I like some things, I severely dislike others, all of which can and will get me dragged into internet mud-wrestling. I liked templates, sad that they're going. I'm also worrid about those 14 FOCs.

**ZebioLizard2**

Cmdr_Sune wrote:
Formerly Wu wrote:
Grimgold wrote:
The trick is hits and wound are different things, if something inflicts a d6 hits it can hit up to six people or put them all into one, but if something does a d6 wounds on a single hit only a single model is affected, none of the excess damage is carried over to other members of the squad.

Where are you getting that reading of the rules from? Wounds are wounds, and are allocated by the controlling player until they're gone, with the caveat that you have to remove whole models.

I hope this doesn't carry over to 40k where a lascannon would kill several models if it does multiple wounds.
This means that a devastator squad spamming lascannons will be excellent against both vehicles and infantry.

Looking at 2nd ed 40k and Shadow wars a multiple wound weapon can only kill a single model, I would prefer it that way.

..Why would this be a bad thing? Lascannons are currently terrible in the current edition as a result of just being single shot wonders. They aren't even that good against vehicles!

**Nevelon**

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Cmdr_Sune wrote:
Formerly Wu wrote:
Grimgold wrote:
The trick is hits and wound are different things, if something inflicts a d6 hits it can hit up to six people or put them all into one, but if something does a d6 wounds on a single hit only a single model is affected, none of the excess damage is carried over to other members of the squad.

Where are you getting that reading of the rules from? Wounds are wounds, and are allocated by the controlling player until they're gone, with the caveat that you have to remove whole models.

I hope this doesn't carry over to 40k where a lascannon would kill several models if it does multiple wounds.
This means that a devastator squad spamming lascannons will be excellent against both vehicles and infantry.

Looking at 2nd ed 40k and Shadow wars a multiple wound weapon can only kill a single model, I would prefer it that way.

..Why would this be a bad thing? Lascannons are currently terrible in the current edition as a result of just being single shot wonders. They aren't even that good against vehicles!

Because a LC’s job is not mowing down fields of grots. And if the rules matched the fluff, it would do a poor job of that. LC’s should excel at taking down single hard targets. Just because the currant rules don’t show that doesn’t make it an unreasonable goal.

There are a lot of heavy weapons. 7th has marginalized a lot of them. Hopefully 8th will give some of them their design space back.

**ZebioLizard2**

Actually if the rules matched the fluff it would mow down a field of grots just by virtue of splattering the first grot.. then the second in line, then the third in line, fourth, fifth...

Same with the Railguns of Tau.

**wuestenfux**

Okay. We started an AoS league. My army was Bloodbound and I played two games in there.
The first against Sylvaneth was nice and it looked balanced.
The second against Sigmarines was not. At the end it was very close but the Dragon was very powerful. We stopped playing there and our impression was that large monsters bring imbalance to the game. No one ever in our gaming club played a game after this and anybody playing a game would have been struck by a thunder bolt ending his life immediately.

**Sonic Keyboard**

IIRC in one of the IW vs UM books a single lascannon shot killed like 11 csms.

**Jammer87**

I would vote that its as balanced as you can make a game without people being TFG.

Large expensive models should do a ton of damage and take a ton of damage and they should also count for a ton of points. Which is all true. Does the 400 pt dragon take and do as much damage as 400 points of regular guys? No, it does and takes way more, however a mechanic to prevent this is how you're allowed to build your lists. A lord on a behemoth counts as both. So spamming large models is semi-controlled by the rules.

**sfshilo**

Traditio wrote:
DynamicCalories wrote:
List building is important.

That said, there is no 'auto win' list.

The lists that placed high at SCGT just passed were based on a few strong units: Tzeentch Skyfires, Skyre Stormfiends, Bloodletter bombs, Sayl etc

But none of them were identikit. A Seraphon force also placed fourth, even though they are allegedly very weak, because they get a bonus against Daemons, and a lot of big lists are quite daemon heavy.

There is no autowin button, and thanks to feedback and the General's Handbook being an annual update, a ruling list may not rule for long. The new Handbook is set to come out in a few months that will likely change some things to reset the balance.

So no, it is not balanced (can a game ever be truly balanced?) and it needs its Shooting Phase rules perhaps slightly reworked. But, it's a living game, a constant work in progress, and as such it is unlikely that one list will ever remain entirely dominant.

Also, playing objectives can make it difficult to win the game on list alone: if you fail your objective but table your opponent, you have still failed.

How is the balance relative to 40k 7th ed?

I play 50/50 40k to AoS, AoS is insanely balanced.

If you try to take a mob list you are going to get punked by archers.
If you try to death star you are going to get punked by mobs.
Etc

Automatically Appended Next Post:

wuestenfux wrote:
Okay. We started an AoS league. My army was Bloodbound and I played two games in there.
The first against Sylvaneth was nice and it looked balanced.
The second against Sigmarines was not. At the end it was very close but the Dragon was very powerful. We stopped playing there and our impression was that large monsters bring imbalance to the game. No one ever in our gaming club played a game after this and anybody playing a game would have been struck by a thunder bolt ending his life immediately.

So you played two games and decided AoS is imbalanced?

Monsters can be taken down by massed ranged fire or by large blocks of cheap units. Sigmarines are by definition none of those things so you need to adapt.

**Cmdr_Sune**

ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Cmdr_Sune wrote:
Formerly Wu wrote:
Grimgold wrote:
The trick is hits and wound are different things, if something inflicts a d6 hits it can hit up to six people or put them all into one, but if something does a d6 wounds on a single hit only a single model is affected, none of the excess damage is carried over to other members of the squad.

Where are you getting that reading of the rules from? Wounds are wounds, and are allocated by the controlling player until they're gone, with the caveat that you have to remove whole models.

I hope this doesn't carry over to 40k where a lascannon would kill several models if it does multiple wounds.
This means that a devastator squad spamming lascannons will be excellent against both vehicles and infantry.

Looking at 2nd ed 40k and Shadow wars a multiple wound weapon can only kill a single model, I would prefer it that way.

..Why would this be a bad thing? Lascannons are currently terrible in the current edition as a result of just being single shot wonders. They aren't even that good against vehicles!

If lascannons where buffed in this way most other weapons would be useless. Lascannons should be good at taking down single targets for the sake of the game even if it in the fluff would be possible to kill several troopers standing in a row.

3-7th ed where bad at representing it's damage to targets such as monstrous creatures. This will most likely be fixed with its ability to inflict multiple wounds per hit in 8th. This will also be true for all powerful single shot weapons.

**Fafnir**

wuestenfux wrote:
Okay. We started an AoS league. My army was Bloodbound and I played two games in there.
The first against Sylvaneth was nice and it looked balanced.
The second against Sigmarines was not. At the end it was very close but the Dragon was very powerful. We stopped playing there and our impression was that large monsters bring imbalance to the game. No one ever in our gaming club played a game after this and anybody playing a game would have been struck by a thunder bolt ending his life immediately.

Despite the fact that every model can be harmed by even the humblest foe, it doesn't necessarily mean that the humblest foe is a remotely credible threat. Good counter-play goes a long way in AoS. As big and scary as some monsters might be, some of them can be shut down by models that are a tiny fraction of their cost. For example, Gutrot Spume is a 120 point model that can happily beat down behemoths well over 400 points if the situation is right.

2 games is hardly enough to grasp the nature of the game's balance. Sigmarines are powerful, but they're rubbing shoulders with Sylvaneth, Tomb Kings, and mixed Destruction as the most potent forces in the game. And even then, armies like Flesheater Courts and various machinations of Chaos (especially once Sayl is involved) are not too far behind.

**Formerly Wu**

The keyword and warscroll/dataslate system makes it very easy to adjust what weapons are effective against what, even if they both do multiple wounds.

An anti-vehicle weapon would have a good AS modifier but low damage, plus a special rule that increased its damage to multiple wounds vs. units with keyword VEHICLE or MONSTER.

An anti-horde splash damage weapon would have, say D3 damage to start, increasing depending on the number of models in the target unit.

Meanwhile a character assassination weapon would have a moderate AS modifier (not enough to reliably break vehicle armor), low base damage, but also a special rule to make certain wounds unsaveable. Another implementation might only do multiple damage to units with the keyword HERO.

It's all in how you tune a particular weapon.

**Captain Joystick**

We do know from what we've heard so far that strength and toughness are still things in 8th, so we do know that it won't be directly analogous to AoS's flat to-hit and to-wound values.

Typically units with different options in weapons have those weapons balanced out between each other to try to make them all useful options with different applications (for example, you could have a sword that gives you three attacks that reduces the target armour save by one, or a pike that gives you one attack, reduces armour save by two, and does 3 damage) but it sounds like they're keeping weapons as purchasable upgrades for models as well.

With that in mind, if they're going to represent weapons on the units' profile like they do in AoS, do we run the risk of all bolters not being created equal?

**ERJAK**

Traditio wrote:
DynamicCalories wrote:
List building is important.

That said, there is no 'auto win' list.

The lists that placed high at SCGT just passed were based on a few strong units: Tzeentch Skyfires, Skyre Stormfiends, Bloodletter bombs, Sayl etc

But none of them were identikit. A Seraphon force also placed fourth, even though they are allegedly very weak, because they get a bonus against Daemons, and a lot of big lists are quite daemon heavy.

There is no autowin button, and thanks to feedback and the General's Handbook being an annual update, a ruling list may not rule for long. The new Handbook is set to come out in a few months that will likely change some things to reset the balance.

So no, it is not balanced (can a game ever be truly balanced?) and it needs its Shooting Phase rules perhaps slightly reworked. But, it's a living game, a constant work in progress, and as such it is unlikely that one list will ever remain entirely dominant.

Also, playing objectives can make it difficult to win the game on list alone: if you fail your objective but table your opponent, you have still failed.

How is the balance relative to 40k 7th ed?

AoS balance is a teeter totter with a fat kid and an average size kid with something to grab onto and pull himself even. Some armies have a clear advantage but if someone uses the tools they have better than you use yours they can absolutely beat a superior army.

7th ed 40k is like a teeter totter with a skinny kid on oneside and a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier on the other.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Formerly Wu wrote:
The keyword and warscroll/dataslate system makes it very easy to adjust what weapons are effective against what, even if they both do multiple wounds.

An anti-vehicle weapon would have a good AS modifier but low damage, plus a special rule that increased its damage to multiple wounds vs. units with keyword VEHICLE or MONSTER.

An anti-horde splash damage weapon would have, say D3 damage to start, increasing depending on the number of models in the target unit.

Meanwhile a character assassination weapon would have a moderate AS modifier (not enough to reliably break vehicle armor), low base damage, but also a special rule to make certain wounds unsaveable. Another implementation might only do multiple damage to units with the keyword HERO.

It's all in how you tune a particular weapon.

This is a perfect summation.

**DynamicCalories**

That is an incredible analogy that someone needs to illustrate.

**Slayer-Fan123**

Traditio wrote:
curran12 wrote:
Generally, blast weapons do a rolled number of hits or wounds. So for example, something might be d6+3 hits, or something similar.

I like that.

I'm personally not a fan of templates and blasts.

I do wonder how GW is going to deal with barrage weapons, though. Will Chapter Masters keep their orbital bombardment, for example?

I'm gonna miss the Large Blast and Template, but I'm definitely not sad to see small blasts to go.