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Made in us
Cold-Blooded Saurus Warrior




Xalapa, Veracruz

 Shakalooloo wrote:

It's that massive, bare expanse of thigh that draws the eye... Maybe if they had some bits of bling to cover that, in the same way they have different clothing and decorations on other parts of the body, the similarities would be dulled.


Thick thighs save lives.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka







 CMLR wrote:
 Shakalooloo wrote:

It's that massive, bare expanse of thigh that draws the eye... Maybe if they had some bits of bling to cover that, in the same way they have different clothing and decorations on other parts of the body, the similarities would be dulled.


Thick thighs save lives.

[Citation required]

2021-4 Plog - Here we go again... - my fifth attempt at a Dakka PLOG

My Pile of Potential - updates ongoing...

Gamgee on Tau Players wrote:we all kill cats and sell our own families to the devil and eat live puppies.


 Kanluwen wrote:
This is, emphatically, why I will continue suggesting nuking Guard and starting over again. It's a legacy army that needs to be rebooted with a new focal point.

Confirmation of why no-one should listen to Kanluwen when it comes to the IG - he doesn't want the IG, he want's Kan's New Model Army...

tneva82 wrote:
You aren't even trying ty pretend for honest arqument. Open bad faith trolling.
- No reason to keep this here, unless people want to use it for something... 
   
Made in us
Powerful Ushbati





United States

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Let's pop the pictures in


Those skeletons are amazing. I have Deathrattle, I hope this is a sign of a second wave to come in the future.
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Savage Minotaur




Baltimore, Maryland

Pretty interesting article up about how they attempt balance in AoS.

Personal opinion : While AoS3 went a bit too far in complexity, its in a great spot with a few outliers at the extremes. Though the slower release schedule this year kind of made the game lose a bit of steam.

Full article so folks can copy/paste any points they want to emphasize:

At the bottom end, Kruleboyz and Gloomspite Gitz both continue to struggle, and have suffered at the hands of Bounty Hunters. Both factions should expect significant boosts in the next Battlescroll.


Nice!

Also, seems like Belakor and Blightlords are going to receive some "attention".

Spoiler:

Welcome to our new Age of Sigmar Metawatch series, in which the Warhammer Age of Sigmar design team shares insights and analysis on the current state of competitive play.

​​Here on the Warhammer Age of Sigmar team, we’re huge fans of Matched Play. Each Monday, various team members will arrive at the studio ready to share their tales of conquest (or defeat!) from the weekend tournaments they attended, before we all examine the updated data from events around the world. It is fascinating watching factions rise and fall with shifts in the meta, as players learn how best to wield their favourite faction, discover combos, and build counters to new threats.

One of our most important tenets is Mastery Through Defeat. Players should always feel like they can learn and improve from each of their games, and should come away with new strategies, adjustments to their army roster or tactical manoeuvres that could have turned the tide of battle in their favour. This is why game balance is so important to us, as in an asymmetric game like this, any perception of inherent advantage for one side can interfere with your ability to learn and grow from the experience.

In this article we’ll touch on the following:

How we gather data to inform our design decisions
The core terminology that we’ll refer to in this series
Our current balance goals for the game
Snapshot the current faction standings to see where we stand relative to those goals.

The Data
Our analytics pipeline currently brings in all data from official Games Workshop events that are run around the world, as well as all the Warhammer Age of Sigmar games recorded in two popular community-run events tools – Best Coast Pairings and Tabletop.to. We have more than 35,000 individual games recorded in our database (captured from more than 1,700 events), and more than 4,000 games and 200 events are added every month.

We capture results, use of factions and subfactions, and we fully parse any available army rosters. This lets us see how often a particular warscroll or enhancement is used at events, and how often players who use that warscroll or enhancement go on to win their game.

It is important to note that this data is imperfect, as we are relying on community-generated data, while certain events track or present data in unusual ways. Fortunately, given the low rate of errors relative to the size of the broader dataset, these generally have a minimal impact on the broader trends.

Key Terminology
When we’re discussing game balance, things tend to boil down into two main categories. External balance measures the relative performance of one faction against others – an army is well balanced externally if it is on a similar power level as the majority of other factions.

Internal balance measures the relative performance of options within a faction. We measure this across several axes – warscrolls, enhancements, core battalions, grand strategies, and battle tactics.

There are a number of metrics we monitor for both internal and external balance, but the most common ones are Win Rate and Inclusion Rate.

Win rate is one of the key metrics for both internal and external balance. Our win rate calculation is simple – the percentage of games that result in a win. So for instance if a particular army played 10 games and won six, it would have a 60% win rate. We don’t include draws in our calculations, as a balanced result (e.g. a mirror match) results in a win rate lower than 50%.*

Inclusion rate is the percentage of army rosters which include a particular warscroll or enhancement. For instance if every Legion of the First Prince army includes Be’lakor, that warscroll has a 100% inclusion rate within that subfaction.

Finally, Margin of error is a statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in the results of our dataset. In simplest terms, the more we split up a particular data set, the noisier and less reliable the data will get.** We focus on a 60-day rolling average, which provides enough data to reduce our margin of error to <5% across all factions. This is still a significant margin – it is entirely possible that a handful of skilled generals perform particularly well at an event, nudging the average win rate for a faction up a couple of percentage points. This makes it especially important not to panic or overreact, but rather to be patient, monitor the situation and consult players and organisers to validate trends.

Our goals
Now that we’ve introduced the framework, we can discuss our current goals for improving balance on Age of Sigmar.

1. External balance: The average win rate for each faction should be between 45-55% – if every faction has a 50% win rate, a 5% margin of error produces results in this range. We monitor external balance at various levels, by battletome (i.e. Orruk Warclans), army type (i.e. Kruleboyz) or subfaction (i.e. Grinnin’ Blades).

2. Internal balance: We have different internal usage targets set per faction, but in general we want 60% of warscrolls to be used in more than 5% of competitive lists, along with 50% of faction enhancements.

3. Universal options: Universal warscrolls (such as endless spells) and universal enhancements (such as Arcane Tome) should be used in less than 10% of army rosters. These are useful tools, and help level the playing field, but we want a stronger focus on what makes each faction special and unique.

This list comes in priority order. It’s dangerous to try to tune too much at once, which has unintended consequences and can make it difficult to isolate which change contributed most to a shift in balance. Our most recent Battlescroll focused purely on trying to improve external balance. It made a marked improvement, and 83% of our battletomes currently sit within the target 45-55% bracket. As we work on the outliers and external balance improves, we will be able to move onto improving internal balance, and then to universal warscrolls and enhancements.

These goals are not final – once achieved, we set more ambitious targets for ourselves.

Current standings
Here is our current snapshot of external balance, based on 4,552 games played at 446 events held between the 27th of July and the 25th of September 2022.


Beasts of Chaos have continued to climb in the rankings thanks to a major power boost from their White Dwarf Battletome Update. As a faction that had been at the very bottom of the standings for much of this edition, they had a long way to climb, but the strength of the Herdstone combined with a handful of particularly efficient warscrolls have pushed them too far above our target bracket.


Similarly, certain dominant warscrolls (Pusgoyle Blightlords) and subfactions (Drowned Men) have pushed Maggotkin of Nurgle over the top. Sons of Behemat are a different story; while the Krondspine Incarnate has increased in popularity, the biggest factor appears to be a narrower spectrum of results. While they have a lower percentage of podium finishes relative to their win rate, they also have a much lower percentage of events where they win fewer than two of their games played, resulting in a net boost to their overall win rate.

At the bottom end, Kruleboyz and Gloomspite Gitz both continue to struggle, and have suffered at the hands of Bounty Hunters. Both factions should expect significant boosts in the next Battlescroll.

Where next for Metawatch?
We’ll use these articles to zoom in on the competitive meta for Age of Sigmar, touching upon internal balance, external balance between subfactions, and universal enhancements and core battalions.

We’re planning on supplementing this series with a new Metawatch podcast, which will allow us to delve deeper into these topics. We’re already planning an episode to your questions, so please email in any queries you’d like answered to aosfaq@gwplc.com. Topics can include specific data you’re curious about (“which faction is most likely to field a Krondspine Incarnate?”), or questions about our process (“how do we handle team or doubles events?”).

Game balance is an iterative process, and we are constantly working to improve our tools and methodologies. We feel like we’re going in the right direction, but recognise we still have a ways to go. The Warhammer Age of Sigmar team would like to extend a huge thank-you to everyone who has contributed to running or playing in events, or who has submitted feedback. We’re excited to hear what you all think of our next Battlescroll (coming soon!) and even more excited to measure the impact that it has!

* If a faction plays 10 games, wins four, loses four and draws two, it will only have a win rate of 40%.

** Imagine you roll a D6 three times and happen to roll 1,1, and 2. This results in an average value of ~1.3. If you rolled that same dice 1,000 times, you would get much closer to the true average value of 3.5.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/09/29 15:46:31


"Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep your opponent from winning." - The Emperor, from The Outcast Dead.
"Tell your gods we are coming for them, and that their realms will burn as ours did." -Thostos Bladestorm
 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






I am pleased to see these articles making increased use of terms the community has used for ages; internal/external balance, etc. It feels like they are really making a genuine effort to not just improve balance, but get better at the process.

Though it also leaves some hints at the old problem of seeing the what but not the why; blightlords weren't a problem until bounty hunters became a thing and doubled their damage output against a huge swathe of units. If bounty hunters only allowed Gvets to be put in it this would never have been an issue.

Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





11 battletomes in a year is slow? Christ.

Guess gw needs to fasten up. 2 books/month. Of course that requires then new edition a year...

As is combined with wd all but gits are aos3 updated to some level with about half books. 40k is close to 9e end and isn't done yet...

Compared to 40k aos is superfast.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/09/29 16:24:46


2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in us
Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps






Blight Lords were a problem before Bounty Hunters, for sure. They were a silent menace in the tournament scene. While people were complaining about Stormdrake lists, Blightlord lists coasted on by at the top of the game.

I'm on a podcast about (video) game design:
https://anchor.fm/makethatgame

And I also stream tabletop painting/playing Mon&Thurs 8PM EST
https://twitch.tv/tableitgaming
And make YouTube videos for that sometimes!
https://www.youtube.com/@tableitgaming 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






tneva82 wrote:
11 battletomes in a year is slow? Christ.

Guess gw needs to fasten up. 2 books/month. Of course that requires then new edition a year...

As is combined with wd all but gits are aos3 updated to some level with about half books. 40k is close to 9e end and isn't done yet...

Compared to 40k aos is superfast.


It's slow in terms of general, interesting releases. The majority has been a book and hero and that's it. There's been some interesting stuff in terms of the Krondspine, a touch of Sylvaneth etc, but compared to 40K, it's been very small in terms of actual army releases. But it's a 40K year, so next year it should be AoS as the cycle continues.
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






 Rihgu wrote:
Blight Lords were a problem before Bounty Hunters, for sure. They were a silent menace in the tournament scene. While people were complaining about Stormdrake lists, Blightlord lists coasted on by at the top of the game.
Hm, that wasn't what I saw. Do you have some data for reference? My knowledge could just be incomplete.

Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in us
Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps






I don't think I can direct link to a page of this but The Honest Wargamer's Stats, page 5, selected for Maggotkin.
It shows winrate over time, and doesn't show a discernible boost post-bounty hunters.

You can then go to page 20 and look at lists that went 5-0, and while you can't specifically filter on time, you can see a number of lists. Specifically, April 22 (immediately before the new season dropped) has a number of 5-0 lists with contain quite a bit of Blightlords

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZmVhM2E5YmMtOTk5NC00MWVmLTlhZmEtNmIxMjRmYWMwZGM4IiwidCI6IjMxMzkxZmFiLTE1NGYtNDczNi1hZDI4LWE0M2Q1ODkzMTM0YSJ9

Slight flaw (maybe?) in the data is that it is exclusively concerned with 5 round events. And I think an event needs a certain number of players in addition to being a 5 round event to be tracked here?

I have less empirical data myself, having personally followed a number of events through tabletop.to and best coast pairings including smaller events and remember (for as much as my memory is worth) a large number of blight lord-centric lists placing, if not #1, in the top 3 consistently.

And probably the LEAST empirical data I have is just being involved in the twitter community, and some prominent competitive players referencing the need for Blight Lords to be looked at in response to one of the rounds of Stormdrake nerfing.

I'm on a podcast about (video) game design:
https://anchor.fm/makethatgame

And I also stream tabletop painting/playing Mon&Thurs 8PM EST
https://twitch.tv/tableitgaming
And make YouTube videos for that sometimes!
https://www.youtube.com/@tableitgaming 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






I dunno, I'm seeing that only a minority of lists were going in heavy on pusgoyles and a significant portion didn't have any at all.

At any rate they are stronger now than they were then, and at worst they were borderline.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/10/02 02:55:52


Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in us
Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps






Of the 13 5-0 lists recorded, 7 of them have more than 1 unit of Pusgoyles.

Since the release of the Maggotkin battletome to the 2022-2023 GHB, 37% of lists were Drowned Men and had a 61% win rate, which while not conclusive due to lack of data on specific lists, Drowned Men lists are usually(tm) based around Pusgoyle Blightlords.

15 of 17 Nurgle lists at AoS Worlds 2022 had Pusgoyles
https://web.archive.org/web/20220511145732/https://aosworlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Two-pager.pdf

They were definitely the Nurgle go-to, at least in the late GHB2021 season.

But, you're right, they are stronger now, or at least perceived to be, maintaining the same win rate but with 58% of recorded lists being Drowned Men (and 76% of those lists having a Bounty Hunters battalion, wowee!).

We'll see what the balance scroll (next week?!) does for them.

I'm on a podcast about (video) game design:
https://anchor.fm/makethatgame

And I also stream tabletop painting/playing Mon&Thurs 8PM EST
https://twitch.tv/tableitgaming
And make YouTube videos for that sometimes!
https://www.youtube.com/@tableitgaming 
   
Made in jp
Longtime Dakkanaut





It's easy to make Sons of Behemat look unique. All you have to do is this.
[Thumb - Ek4j59qYm3sJ6s2H.jpg]

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2022/10/02 16:09:35


 
   
Made in si
Foxy Wildborne







Easy and cheap!

Posters on ignore list: 36

40k Potica Edition - 40k patch with reactions, suppression and all that good stuff. Feedback thread here.

Gangs of Nu Ork - Necromunda / Gorkamorka expansion supporting all faction. Feedback thread here
   
Made in us
Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps






Still has the same leg pose, smh

I'm on a podcast about (video) game design:
https://anchor.fm/makethatgame

And I also stream tabletop painting/playing Mon&Thurs 8PM EST
https://twitch.tv/tableitgaming
And make YouTube videos for that sometimes!
https://www.youtube.com/@tableitgaming 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






Lumineth and Behemat next week:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/10/02/sunday-preview-celebrate-warhammer-day-and-the-rise-of-the-lumineth-realm-lords/
   
Made in us
Ollanius Pius - Savior of the Emperor






Gathering the Informations.

Extremely disappointed in the Lumineth Vanguard set.

So many options for heroes...and they pick the Cathallar, literally the one that came out first?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/10/02 17:08:46


 
   
Made in us
Stealthy Warhound Titan Princeps








I was not expecting Sons of Behemat and Brodd out so soon! Terrible news for the wallet.

I'm on a podcast about (video) game design:
https://anchor.fm/makethatgame

And I also stream tabletop painting/playing Mon&Thurs 8PM EST
https://twitch.tv/tableitgaming
And make YouTube videos for that sometimes!
https://www.youtube.com/@tableitgaming 
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





 Kanluwen wrote:
Extremely disappointed in the Lumineth Vanguard set.

So many options for heroes...and they pick the Cathallar, literally the one that came out first?


It's the most useful one to start with. Unless rules change dramatically you virtually always want one.
   
Made in us
Cold-Blooded Saurus Warrior




Xalapa, Veracruz

Kinda surprised Mega-Gargants are getting a pseudo-Vanguard in the Mancrusher Mob.

And Brodd is not a separate expansion kit. Prices to the moon.

 Rihgu wrote:

I was not expecting Sons of Behemat and Brodd out so soon!


I'm the countrary; I'm still laughing at LRL being so late in schedule that SoB are actually on it.
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





The 3 mancrusher is nice one. 2/box super inconvenient for gargant players. Now i can get 3 without wasting 4th...unless new is 3 for price of 4

And lrl nice timing. It was this week or never for getting them to gaming day with friend this month.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2022/10/02 19:33:21


2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in us
Crazed Gorger



New Jersey

 CMLR wrote:
Kinda surprised Mega-Gargants are getting a pseudo-Vanguard in the Mancrusher Mob.

And Brodd is not a separate expansion kit. Prices to the moon.



Any guesses on the price hike for the mega box? $230 USD?
   
Made in ie
Fixture of Dakka






Euro prices - GBP and USD based on similar priced products on GW store.

King Brodd €170, £130, $210
Mancrusher Mob €125, £95, $160
LRL Vanguard €105, £80, $130
Battletome €42.50, £32.50, $55
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






That's a £10 increase for the Brodd and hunter uprgrade? And £15 for an extra mancrusher. I'm genuinely surprised.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Chaos Knights get their "official" unveiling:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/10/03/hear-the-herald-of-a-brand-new-unit-of-chaos-knights/

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2022/10/03 12:11:55


 
   
Made in si
Foxy Wildborne







3 Mancrushers for the price of 2 and a half is exactly what I expected.

The real question is, does the generic Mega Gargant remain on sale or are we henceforth paying the 15% markup for the Brodd sprue whether we want to or not?

Posters on ignore list: 36

40k Potica Edition - 40k patch with reactions, suppression and all that good stuff. Feedback thread here.

Gangs of Nu Ork - Necromunda / Gorkamorka expansion supporting all faction. Feedback thread here
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
That's a £10 increase for the Brodd and hunter uprgrade? And £15 for an extra mancrusher. I'm genuinely surprised.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Chaos Knights get their "official" unveiling:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/10/03/hear-the-herald-of-a-brand-new-unit-of-chaos-knights/


Better grab old gargant kit if you want old ones built then.

2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in gb
Longtime Dakkanaut






 lord_blackfang wrote:
3 Mancrushers for the price of 2 and a half is exactly what I expected.

The real question is, does the generic Mega Gargant remain on sale or are we henceforth paying the 15% markup for the Brodd sprue whether we want to or not?


Considering it's been out of stock everywhere, i doubt it. Besides, it's not hard to resell the extras. I've sold all the extra bits £30 a time.
   
Made in fi
Locked in the Tower of Amareo





 lord_blackfang wrote:
3 Mancrushers for the price of 2 and a half is exactly what I expected.

The real question is, does the generic Mega Gargant remain on sale or are we henceforth paying the 15% markup for the Brodd sprue whether we want to or not?


Seeing box got withdrawn by gw i expect it to follow knight pattern. 1 unified kit. If you need old version and aren't fan of magnetizating these time to buy now.

2024 painted/bought: 109/109 
   
Made in fi
Dakka Veteran





A point of interest about the Chaos Knight Musician: apart from musician related bits it's identical to one of the Easy-to-build models from Start Collecting! Slaves to Darkness. Instead of being a full new kit the command options are more likely to be an add-on sprue to existing models.



[Thumb - IMG_20221003_200310_edit_745034891233711.jpg]

   
Made in us
Cold-Blooded Saurus Warrior




Xalapa, Veracruz

tneva82 wrote:
The 3 mancrusher is nice one. 2/box super inconvenient for gargant players. Now i can get 3 without wasting 4th...unless new is 3 for price of 4

And lrl nice timing. It was this week or never for getting them to gaming day with friend this month.


You buyed three to get two mobs. I don't really see the problem.

   
 
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