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The tournament result data is sometimes not great. It's hard to tell how actually effective that WarCom Stormcast list actually is, because on it's run to a First Place Finish it played against, in this order,

Beasts of Chaos, Sons of Behemat (22nd place finisher), Hedonites of Slaanesh, Sylvaneth, and Host of Everchosen StD (4th place finisher)

It ran in to two major contenders, on paper. It took a win off what's likely a minmax Archeon list, but that's the only real opposition it faced. Some details are just missing with that data, and you can really run in to all sorts at tournaments. It's not all competitive lists there. It can give an idea and some good framework data for sure, but I feel like more in depth BatReps give better data.

I don't think its a pointless question at all. Its a question in response to how good or great the game's balance is allegedly.

So my question still stands - if having to face broken lists mostly, how does the game balance stand?

Yes its true any game with listbuilding has this same power curve question - but each game's power curve is different.

Tournament results don't give me what I want because tournaments its assumed everyone is trying to plow their opposition as fast as possible, so its a different sort of environment. I'd never show up to a tournament with a "B" list.

I can play kings of war and field a fairly solid "B" list and take on tournament lists and the game is not a roflstomping.

I can play Conquest, Warlords of Nowhere, and Battletech equally with a solid "B" list and have a good game. I'll likely still lose against a power build but its not a grotesque game and it doesn't feel super hopeless.

In AOS or 40k, my "B" lists are wiped out in two turns, so the power curve to me seems a bit more extreme in those two games if you aren't chasing after meta lists yourself.

So maybe a better worded version of my question is how gross is the power curve in terms of balance for normal builds vs tournament builds to you in this particular game for this particular edition?

Or another way to look at it is I am genuinely curious if the balance pass which I hear was one of the best evah really helped bring things down a notch or is it still as gross as ever?

The area I have moved to seems to be also a lot of competitive min/max builds so these are relevant questions to me as I poke around wondering what to play because even if I go to the store and just play open game day in a non tournament environment, I'm going to face these min max builds fairly regularly (from what I gather going to the store and watching what others are bringing and talking about)

Ill be honest I dont really get how one can possibly equate the levels of lethality present in 40k and AOS.

the distinction honestly seems pretty stark to me. If you threw a randomly selected collection of 40k models at equivalent points values down on an empty table 24" apart, youd see a tabling by turn 3.

I'm really not convinced a random collection of AOS models would get anywhere close to that.

Only one of the 6 games of AOS I either played in or observed the other day ended close to a tabling at the end of BR5 - and that was due to severe bad luck on the part of our Soulblight player, who had an entire list of basically summonable skellingtons and wolves and just KEPT failing the rolls to see if he got to bring gak back.

 the_scotsman wrote:
Ill be honest I dont really get how one can possibly equate the levels of lethality present in 40k and AOS.

My points of reference were from 2019 when I last played both games. In 2019 my last campaign game ended at the end of turn 2 because my opponent was fielding 3 keepers of secrets and had summoned 1800 extra points on top of his 2000 by then, essentially doubling my army in what was on the table. (I was fielding the more friendly campaign casual slaanesh list that only had one keeper of secrets which did pretty well against the other handful of campaign casual lists but was murdered in 2 turns on average by the tournament lists that the other half of the group regularly fielded)

Things may have changed two years later.

Yeah, I'd say it has changed a lot. That kind of peak cheese has been reduced considerably.

Which isn't to say there aren't difficult to face skew lists. But they arent summoning a 2nd army for free.

No summoning spam, but now we've got KO who don't play AoS any more, unchargable Seraphon Skinks, Belakor+Kairos filth... Not as bad, but the cheese is still pungent.

 auticus wrote:

 the_scotsman wrote:
Ill be honest I dont really get how one can possibly equate the levels of lethality present in 40k and AOS.

My points of reference were from 2019 when I last played both games. In 2019 my last campaign game ended at the end of turn 2 because my opponent was fielding 3 keepers of secrets and had summoned 1800 extra points on top of his 2000 by then, essentially doubling my army in what was on the table. (I was fielding the more friendly campaign casual slaanesh list that only had one keeper of secrets which did pretty well against the other handful of campaign casual lists but was murdered in 2 turns on average by the tournament lists that the other half of the group regularly fielded)

Things may have changed two years later.

End of the day maybe it comes down to 'does your opponent choose to do the cheesy thing' but at this point if you just play by all the rules for 40k your army essentially auto-tables the opposing army by turn 3. The levels of damage are just..not in any way the same.

I remember the times of 2nd pre-slaanesh nerf were a single keeper of secrets slaugtherer my whole 2k point khorne minotaur and barbarian army.

Like, other two keepers and 60 daemonettes were just in his deployment zone while the sole Keeper of Seccrets ran from one of my flanks to the other killing unit after unit.

We both laughed about because what can you do when something like that happens?
The next tournament I used a 30 skullcrusher list with blood pool daemon prince with sword of judgement and massaccred his slaanesh army under my metal hooves. It felt great. Specially when my daemon prince survived with 1 wound after a 6+ save and killed the keeper of secrets with 27 mortal wounds.

 the_scotsman wrote:

can't get cover, because I also have shields, save capped at 5. Shot with a ranged weapon? Oh, I have an ability that - no, wait, that ability literally does nothing, fething stat cap. Got a plus one to hit, that's great, that...means I cant use all out attack, stat cap. Oh, i've got netters, so you're -1 to hit...which means the spell i cast you earlier this turn didnt freaking do anything, thanks again stat cap.

Cover helps. Like almost everybody has rend. Without cover rend would negate shield. With cover you get +1 to save anyway.

Net and spell? Negates opponents all out attack being any use.

Note cap is after adding up ALL modifiers so +4 to saves can come into play as my Kragnos found out when his -3 rend was irrelevant. Literally. Could have had -0 rend and been exact same odds as opponent got the +1 anyway.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Togusa wrote:
Question to you all, is the 2021 GHB worth it for the missions?

Yes. Without it you are stuck with 3 in core book which gets repeative. Your battle tactic count is also less which means even more repeativity. More grand strategies also but then again those are fairly irrelevant.

But 12 scenarios=lot more variety than 3. Also hell of a easier to carry around than The Brick.