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Made in ca
Furious Fire Dragon





I am wondering from a 40k player looking to get into aos more how the balance is. Are there any really overpowered/underpowered factions and where roughly do you think all armies stand. I currently have a few armies I picked up used for my group and want as fair fights as we can get, I have:
Skaven
High Elves
Lizardmen
Khorn Chaos
Slaanesh Chaos
Dark Elves
   
Made in pl
Regular Dakkanaut






Lizardmen (Seraphons) can be quite overpowered in AoS games. Lotz of good battalions, possible rerolls for any dice rolls and teleporting abilities (one or two units per turn) which is huge.
Skavesn and Khorne Chaos are balanced as they have strong and weak points.

With so many armies available You can play with each of them in AoS games and then decide which You prefer. : )
   
Made in us
Clousseau




It has the same balancing issues as any GW game. There are armies that are over the top busted, there are armies that you'd never choose because they are over the top weak, and then the rest fit in the middle somewhere.

Of the armies you listed, lizardmen (seraphon) are the most busted if you want them to be.

   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

The balance is IMHO better than 40k, as it's less swingy, but there's still a big gap. The broken stuff in AOS is really broken, and the weak stuff is really weak, but then the middle is not as ridiculous.

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






Take 40k, chuck the points, and make all games use power levels. That's literally AoS matched play, and it's as bad on balance as you might imagine. Now to mention incredibly annoying when you have stuff like a steed for your character being factored into it's cost so you are actively punished if you wanted to run it on foot (think of it like paying points for a space marine bike even if you didn't take one). There are effectively whole unit options, and unit sizes, that may as well not exist because they are strictly worse. I bet many people don't even know there's an option to take crossbows on judicators, or tzaangor enlightened on foot.

That said for casual play things are often good enough once you get a feel for what point on the power curve the local community plays on. For tournaments only cheese will do well, meaning whole armies are out of the running and those that remain are usually restricted to 1-2 effective builds. What I've seen is a divide where people are either playing tourney or non-tourney, the latter of which there's a unspoken agreement on not bringing lists above a certain level of potency. My tournament army doesn't even see the table outside of tourney/tourney practice games.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/14 17:44:11


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
Clousseau




heh yep and thats a struggling poiint in my community. There are a few guys that only own tournament calibre lists and so there is a lot of conflict when we do public narrative non-tournament campaigns...
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






FFA games are your friend, especially if people know who the power-gamers are. The strong lists get ganged up on hard. Just don't use the Triumph & treachery rules, they actively make FFA games worse.

The way we do it is anyone can attack anyone all the time (none of that 'pick one target' crap) and in the combat phase the player who's turn it is, along with any units in melee what that player's, get to swing. If the current player isn't involved in a given combat those units just wait it out. Works pretty well and has a nice side effect of counteracting the shooting meta (since units can get more than two combat phases of fighting in a round). Rolling for initiative suddenly becomes extremely fun too, since it can be very strategic to pick another player to go before you rather than binary double-turn management.

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
Longtime Dakkanaut





Balance simply is not a thing in AoS, Its absolutely garbage IMO for pickup games with strangers. That being said, if you have a group of players who get to know each other and what kind of forces they have (like we are ) the games can be really close and get down to the wire regardless of faction being played (we do not bother with points, just straight out the ol' box AoS) I believe wholeheartedly that AoS was made for folks who play with friends.
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Yeah I agree. AOS was created with the Ivory Tower mentality of you're playing with buddies and no one is trying to power game the other.
   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis






Home Base: Prosper, TX (Dallas)

Jeebus, I actually think that aos overall is in a much better place than 40k. But I've learned discussing balance in this environment doesn't generally doesn't go anywhere good. So I'll leave my opinion that I find it quite balanced.

Best Painted (2015 Adepticon 40k Champs)

They Shall Know Fear - Adepticon 40k TT Champion (2012 & 2013) & 40k TT Best Sport (2014), 40k TT Best Tactician (2015 & 2016) 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Hulksmash wrote:
Jeebus, I actually think that aos overall is in a much better place than 40k. But I've learned discussing balance in this environment doesn't generally doesn't go anywhere good. So I'll leave my opinion that I find it quite balanced.


In fairness, I dont believe that "Balance" as we generally look at it was even a goal,. The scenarios are almost all geared for asymetrical engagements. I think the idea of not having points to begin with was to discourage that whole mentality.
   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis






Home Base: Prosper, TX (Dallas)

I don't think balance was the initial goal either and I agree it was originally pushed as something very different than what match play currently is. However they've shown they are trying for balance now and I think it's better than 40k and getting better regularly. Set FAQ/Errata's to address issues on a regular basis shows this is something they are going for as well.

Also I find I like the missions. Proper selections from GHB1 & 2 can create a really great tournament experience as well.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/15 01:40:25


Best Painted (2015 Adepticon 40k Champs)

They Shall Know Fear - Adepticon 40k TT Champion (2012 & 2013) & 40k TT Best Sport (2014), 40k TT Best Tactician (2015 & 2016) 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






Assuming you brought a tournament-level army.

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
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Hulksmash wrote:
I don't think balance was the initial goal either and I agree it was originally pushed as something very different than what match play currently is. However they've shown they are trying for balance now and I think it's better than 40k and getting better regularly. Set FAQ/Errata's to address issues on a regular basis shows this is something they are going for as well.

Also I find I like the missions. Proper selections from GHB1 & 2 can create a really great tournament experience as well.



I think it is light years better than 40k and I have found its base much less toxic, the missions are the main thing to push, not mash in the middle.
   
Made in us
Archmagos Veneratus Extremis






Home Base: Prosper, TX (Dallas)

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Assuming you brought a tournament-level army.


And this is where we get separate. Because I don't think that's entirely true. I mean if you mean a tournament army in the sense of having a list you design to give you the tools to handle most missions you're going to play then yeah but that makes sense because I don't think they tailor units point values to their missions. If you mean tournament level like spamming the "best" units I don't think so. I've run into a lot of the "best" unit spam lists and generally have very little issues and tend to run "non-optomized" lists that have tools that work for me. There are definitely suboptimal units but if you choose to pick an army and build it with match play in mind balance is pretty solid. But like any game, in my opinion, it's more about the player than it is the list.

@thekingofkings

Agreed. The base is way, way less toxic than 40k currently. At least the people I run into. Though this will be the first year it's my primary game over 40k for the events I travel to so we'll see if I still hold this opinion (I think I will) at this time next year.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/15 02:05:28


Best Painted (2015 Adepticon 40k Champs)

They Shall Know Fear - Adepticon 40k TT Champion (2012 & 2013) & 40k TT Best Sport (2014), 40k TT Best Tactician (2015 & 2016) 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





 Hulksmash wrote:
 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Assuming you brought a tournament-level army.


And this is where we get separate. Because I don't think that's entirely true. I mean if you mean a tournament army in the sense of having a list you design to give you the tools to handle most missions you're going to play then yeah but that makes sense because I don't think they tailor units point values to their missions. If you mean tournament level like spamming the "best" units I don't think so. I've run into a lot of the "best" unit spam lists and generally have very little issues and tend to run "non-optomized" lists that have tools that work for me. There are definitely suboptimal units but if you choose to pick an army and build it with match play in mind balance is pretty solid. But like any game, in my opinion, it's more about the player than it is the list.

@thekingofkings

Agreed. The base is way, way less toxic than 40k currently. At least the people I run into. Though this will be the first year it's my primary game over 40k for the events I travel to so we'll see if I still hold this opinion (I think I will) at this time next year.


What I have found in tourney play (that has at least been the case in the few I have seen/played) the best thing to do is come ready to handle missions, I have beaten "optimal" forces simply by winning the mission. The game is not geared towards "tabling" the way 40k seems to be, maybe thats not fair, but thats what I have seen.
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






I do like that mission trumps tabling. If you get tabled but the opponent has more victory points, you lose, because tabling the opponent wasn't the goal.

As for lists, well, mine is going to pop up and drop ~30 mortal wounds anywhere on the board with no way to stop it. And unless the opposing army is single drop I will have picked turn 2, so I have a 50/50 chance of doing that again before the opponent gets a chance to react. This isn't including magic, non-mortal shooting, combat, or battleshock. I've yet to see a casual list that can even try to win against that.

But really, the proof is in the results. The armies that win tournaments come from the tiny subset of builds that are tournament level.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/15 02:33:42


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
Longtime Dakkanaut





 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I do like that mission trumps tabling. If you get tabled but the opponent has more victory points, you lose, because tabling the opponent wasn't the goal.

As for lists, well, mine is going to pop up and drop ~30 mortal wounds anywhere on the board with no way to stop it. And unless the opposing army is single drop I will have picked turn 2, so I have a 50/50 chance of doing that again before the opponent gets a chance to react. This isn't including magic, non-mortal shooting, combat, or battleshock. I've yet to see a casual list that can even try to win against that.

But really, the proof is in the results. The armies that win tournaments come from the tiny subset of builds that are tournament level.


Dice have a nasty way of thwarting many a plan
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






I did lose a game once due to dice using that list. Other losses were due to my own mistakes.

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
Longtime Dakkanaut





 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I did lose a game once due to dice using that list. Other losses were due to my own mistakes.


I got crushed by what I thought was a completely "weak" force by rolling like a total chump all fight
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

Honestly I find AOS to be way better when you aren't using the pitched battle scenarios, although the GH2017 ones are more interesting than the original GH ones.

My preference, not that most people here want to use them (or scenarios at all, I've found) is the open war cards. They have some issues sometimes if you draw the weird deployment zones, but they are very malleable and I really like that.

- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




I prefer the open war cards.
   
Made in us
Auspicious Aspiring Champion of Chaos






Every AoS balance thread ends up showcasing the same arguments by the same people. I feel like it should be noted that both auticus and NinthMusketeer have created their own points systems. Because of this, they are both very knowledgeable when it comes to balance, but they also have an inherent bias. Listen to wait they have to say, but keep this in mind. They have a tendency to make hyperbolic statements about the state of the game.

2000 Khorne Bloodbound (Skullfiend Tribe- Aqshy)
1000 Tzeentch Arcanites (Pyrofane Cult - Hysh) in progress
2000 Slaves to Darkness (Ravagers)
 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




I don't think its hyperbole at all. If I take a 2000 point list of a bunch of stuff I think is cool, and my opponent rocks up with a tournament powered list, he is going to stomp me. Switch armies and I will stomp my opponent (barring really bad dice). We do an army swap mechanic like that in our league play and barring two tourney lists fighting that have similar power, the list usually trumps the play at the table.

This same thing exists in 40k as well.

There is a wide gulf between tournament play and casual play in terms of army list power and that gotcha can get new players. Thats not an exaggeration or hyperbole. I see it on the regular, its what keeps my AOS community from getting bigger... tournament player stomps casual player and casual player gets annoyed and quits, or gits gud and gets a tournament powered list and the same handful of lists are running around.

I dont use my AOS comp system anymore since GHB points were published in 2016. I know that in Azyr (my comp system before GW decided they were going to release Azyr the army builder lol) the main complaint we got was about it being "too balanced", which I have determined to be a valid complaint as well (if everything is balanced, then listbuiilding is irreelvant and we live in a listbuilding culture which upset people that their listbuilding was not as important anymore).

Today instead of raging into the wind which is useless... I use command points to insert comp into my casual narrative events that reward players for not spamming mortal wounds and things of that nature. It has worked pretty well and we have built up a core campaign group of about 8-10 players now using it. There is still imbalance but there are now incentives for not doing the obvious things like spam shooting and mortal wounds because those are best. However YMMV.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2018/02/15 15:44:52


 
   
Made in us
Librarian with Freaky Familiar






Honestly tzeentzch should be up there. If you notice what makes an army strong is powerful and reliable ranged attacked. Tar your enemy then lay into them with range it works Everytime. It's why right now skyrere are one of the most powerful armies in the game.

I'd you want to balance the game very quickly there are 2 things you need to change.

1) you can not shoot into a unit that is in combat, nor can you shoot an enemy unit that is blocked by Los of another enemy unit or your own, elevation over the target negates this. Artillery may fire without Los of specified on their war scroll

2) characters can not be shot at if they are within 2" of an ally unit.

This make it so you can't fire into melee which made no god damn sense and also prevents range from just shooting over screening units into your characters.

The character targeting rules also help out armies like death who are very hero dependent characters

To many unpainted models to count. 
   
Made in us
Auspicious Aspiring Champion of Chaos






I can't think of a single wargame where I could take only the models I find cool and expect to go toe-to-toe with a tournament list. That's a pretty extreme example. Of course AoS has some serious balance issues, but it's no where near as bad as you and Ninth claim it to be. There are extremes on both ends of the power spectrum, but any mid-tier list can compete with most top-tier armies and have a decent chance of playing a close game. The game has a few very strong outliers (Skryre Fyre and Tzeentch being two of the best examples), but for the most part, games are competitive.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/15 17:06:48


2000 Khorne Bloodbound (Skullfiend Tribe- Aqshy)
1000 Tzeentch Arcanites (Pyrofane Cult - Hysh) in progress
2000 Slaves to Darkness (Ravagers)
 
   
Made in us
Clousseau




Maybe we are talking about the same thing then. We would have to have a solid definition of what constitutes middle-tier.

After watching a lot of Tzeentch or Stormcast squash matches against everything else, I struggle to see a middle tier army doing well against a tournament list. (or before that, the infamous kunnin rukk)

The one thing I will say for AOS is that there are a lot more middle tier armies than 40k has, so the odds of middle tier vs middle tier (and thus a good game) are greater.

At the end of the day the only way that I know how to quantify balance issues is by objective numeric data, which we already know not everyone agrees with either so becomes a moot discussion point. My objective numeric data says that about 1/5 of the game needs recosted. Some minorly. Some majorly. Now that number did shrink from GHB 2016 figures so thats good (it was like 24% now its 19% or so), but for what *I* want that is a big discrepancy. *I* want listbuilding to be less of a thing and for 2000 points to be 2000 points in almost all cases, which is where my viewpoint stems from.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2018/02/15 17:37:49


 
   
Made in si
Charging Dragon Prince





 auticus wrote:
Yeah I agree. AOS was created with the Ivory Tower mentality of you're playing with buddies and no one is trying to power game the other.


That's a wonderful analogy.
   
Made in us
Enigmatic Chaos Sorcerer




Tampa, FL

That mentality is basically GW in a nutshell. It's how they approach everything. You're playing with friends, so why are you trying to beat them as fast as possible/abuse the game mechanics to summon 500 models/bringing only the best units in the game/spamming mortal wounds.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2018/02/15 18:49:43


- Wayne
Formerly WayneTheGame 
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka




Wayniac wrote:
That mentality is basically GW in a nutshell. It's how they approach everything. You're playing with friends, so why are you trying to beat them as fast as possible/abuse the game mechanics to summon 500 models/bringing only the best units in the game/spamming mortal wounds.

Because he disconnected from our Pokemon battle and I need revenge!!! Nothing like a friendly grudge match.

tremere47-fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate, leads to triple riptide spam  
   
 
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