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If I want the game to be balanced do we agree with opponent for the number of war scrolls per side? Also for some warscrolls it does not say the size of the unit, ( unit may have any number of models) how can we handle that?
There are no categories like core,special ,rare. Do we need to agree that each side allowed takes say 2 heroes and 2 monsters and rest are ordinary units?

devestator 7777777 wrote:
If I want the game to be balanced do we agree with opponent for the number of war scrolls per side? Also for some warscrolls it does not say the size of the unit, ( unit may have any number of models) how can we handle that?
There are no categories like core,special ,rare. Do we need to agree that each side allowed takes say 2 heroes and 2 monsters and rest are ordinary units?

And warmachines. And units of single models.

The simple solution is to put a max on heroes and monsters, a max on unit size 1, and a min and max on total wounds, and a min-max on total units.

IMO, wounds are a critical balance. You'd never run marauders when you could run chosen. You'd never run night goblins when you would run trolls.
Put a cap on total wounds, and everything is closer to balanced.

Thx Mat.

From what I've been seeing, it looks like if you just bring an army that you would bring from 8th edition you're in for a fair fight with another army someone would bring from 8th edition.

Although I do feel like there would still be some issues there if a skaven player shows up with 2 units of 50 skavenslaves, 2 hellpits, a screaming bell, and 40 stormvermin/clanrats (as well as the heroes, and I'm sure there's something else that's missing there) with the normalization of offensive capabilities.

I would say, have a go with your friends with that as starting point and figure out where the imbalance is ("Oh, jeez, your 50 skavenslaves really did a lot of work that game. Maybe cut the unit down to 30 and only bring one of them next time?" and then "well, 1 unit of 30 wasn't enough to do anything, so try 2 units of 20?" and after that game... hopefully... "perfect!")

Oh yeah, I think we can use the point costs and categories like core, special and rarer from old army books.

However, we need to come up with a way to balance that works for new players. Referring to old lists is well and good...but only if you have old lists!

Wounds seems like the most straightforward way to find balance, but I've discovered there are problems.

For example. If we play an 80 wound battle, you can take blah blah blah, and I take 5 Soul Grinders, or 5 Nagash (since there doesn't seem to be a "Unique" rule), and then I can claim Sudden Death (since I'll certainly be outnumbered), and then I'll just murder the *bleep* out of one of your units and win turn 1.

How do we balance that?

 Elric Greywolf wrote:
However, we need to come up with a way to balance that works for new players. Referring to old lists is well and good...but only if you have old lists!

Wounds seems like the most straightforward way to find balance, but I've discovered there are problems.

For example. If we play an 80 wound battle, you can take blah blah blah, and I take 5 Soul Grinders, or 5 Nagash (since there doesn't seem to be a "Unique" rule), and then I can claim Sudden Death (since I'll certainly be outnumbered), and then I'll just murder the *bleep* out of one of your units and win turn 1.

How do we balance that?

If you bought 5 nagash or 5 soul grinders to play this game, GW is smiling at you for blowing that much coin on one model just for AoS. Also, if you take 5 soul grinders, a more balanced list won't have much trouble with it.

My group has been playing 75-125 wound total games and completely toss out the "number of models" mechanic of the game since it is easily the most ridiculous part of the ruleset. We have gotten rid of sudden death. We also count named Heroes as unique so you can't actually take 5 Nagash models.

So far this game is going to be played in local groups, usually amongst friends, and tournament plays will be a while away. Rest assured by the time we see some tournaments roll around, they will have figured out some more balancing list building rules.

I think limit the number of warscrolls and total wounds.
Count all units with 5 or models in their describtion and assume each warscrolls of this unit only provides 5 models. If you want a bigger unit of that sort you need more warscrolls.

10 warscrolls
1-3 heroes
0-2 monsters
0-2 warmachines
2+ other
No more then 25 wounds in a single unit or you could say total wound pool no greater then 100 and ditch the 10 warscrolls part and the wound limit on units.

Those numbers are all arbitrary of course and can be tweaked to suit the game you want to play.

Can we move all of these attempts to add a method of pre-creating lists to the proposed rules forums?

You simply don't make lists ahead of time for this game. You bring what you might want to play with and then deploy units one at a time, alternating with your opponent. As you deploy units, you can see what he's already put down, so you can both tailor your list to counter the other. In this way, balance is maintained.

The only ways balance ISN'T maintained is if you make a fixed list ahead of time that you aren't willing to change, if you're a crap player and have no idea how to counter enemy units or if you simply don't own a good enough variety of units to counter the enemy.

Question, for all of those who are complaining about balance... how many actual games of AoS have you played thus far to come to this conclusion?

Wounds seems best to me. The tough thing with warscrolls is so many units benefit from buffing the starting 10 to 20-30 you're going to want to do it every time.

Counting wounds seems the best option on my way-to-early-to-tell-need-to-play idea I've heard.

Time 2 Roll wrote:
Wounds seems best to me. The tough thing with warscrolls is so many units benefit from buffing the starting 10 to 20-30 you're going to want to do it every time.

Counting wounds seems the best option on my way-to-early-to-tell-need-to-play idea I've heard.

You're definitely NOT going to want to do that because your opponent will simply take smaller, more powerful units and claim a sudden death objective. What you're most likely going to want to do is try to stay relatively balanced with what your opponent puts down AS he puts it down to avoid sudden death objectives.

1. Have a "collection" of 120-150 wounds.
2. Roll 2d6 and multiply by ten. Reroll if both of you dont like it. Deploy that many wounds for the game. The rest is for spawning or just looking pretty
3. One 10+ wound model per 50 wounds to limit shinanigans.

That core set of rules is doing really well for us.

Man, I was so excited for AoS and now everyone is ruining my dreams :(

If the only thing you have as limit is the number of wounds and you do not limit the number of warscrolls than I think the game is more likely to be not balanced. For exammple 50 models of black guard of nagharoth have the same number of wounds as 50 models of Bleakswords. Yet black guard of nagaroth is much better per model. My sugestion is to limit the number of models in powerful units like black guard two 5 per warscroll and if you need a bigger unit than spend more warscrolls for it. Limit the total number of warscrolls and the total number of wounds. If a player uses all his warscrolls on powerful units than he will have far less number of wounds than the maximum allowed.

Eyeball test seems to work well, if you have any experience playing already.

See your opponent w/ a Grey Seer, 20 Clanrats, a Screaming Bell, 2 Rat Ogres, and 20 Plague Monks, you know you're probably close to that level if you bring Manfredd, 20 zombies, 8 Crypt Ghouls, and 4 Crypt Horrors.

The trouble is that the balance of some units changed. For exammple the wood elf glade guard are now less effective per volley than dark elf darkshards.

devestator 7777777 wrote:
The trouble is that the balance of some units changed. For exammple the wood elf glade guard are now less effective per volley than dark elf darkshards.

I understand, but nothing will be perfectly, objectively even in AoS.

Once people start understanding the changes (like even I was thinking "Man, I love Slayers now compared to in 8E and my Empire can get even more buffs than before!"), the eyeball test can still apply.

I think I'll just stick with max number of warscrolls and max number of wounds, limit elite units to 5 models per warscroll.

Everyone uses their own balance from what I see at the moment, I wonder if Gw will update the AOS rules or provide an expansions that would allow games to be more balanced.

 Kriswall wrote:
Can we move all of these attempts to add a method of pre-creating lists to the proposed rules forums?

You simply don't make lists ahead of time for this game. You bring what you might want to play with and then deploy units one at a time, alternating with your opponent. As you deploy units, you can see what he's already put down, so you can both tailor your list to counter the other. In this way, balance is maintained.

The only ways balance ISN'T maintained is if you make a fixed list ahead of time that you aren't willing to change, if you're a crap player and have no idea how to counter enemy units or if you simply don't own a good enough variety of units to counter the enemy.

Question, for all of those who are complaining about balance... how many actual games of AoS have you played thus far to come to this conclusion?

Spot On!

There's at least one thread on it in proposed rules:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/654696.page

Probably a better place for this for now - thanks!