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 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

It kinda sound like your just abusing the no point system if at the end of turn 1 he has only 1 model left.

Now here is a serious question for all you point haters.

Q: how do points kill a game.
Haters A: Because they make you bring the best models for the points.

1Q: So if unit A kills most things it fights but unit B always ends up lossing you buy more of B right? Since it is a nice looking unit and model.
A:


2Q: If unit of 5 A always end up killing super heavies like greater daemon, you should take less then 5 maybe 4 for balance right? So it is a 50/50 chance of that unit winning the fight.
A:


3Q: If the person you are playing with says he will bring 2 greater daemons and a unit of flamers. You know 5 models of A beat a greater daemon so you would never bring 5 right so two units of 4 since your unit will lose 45% of the time? Or better yet bring more units of B right?
A:



4 Last question: if your unit is good at killing something and you know your local meta has alot of it. You would not buy alot of that model right since it is a self balancing system. Your goal is to never win more then 50% of the games you play since 50% is perfect balance.

So all units should have a 50% win rate vs all others and you should remove all models from that unit until it wins 50% of the time right?

A:


Ok one more question 5: If someone is new and they bring some models and place them down or you know what they have. Mostly horde army say each unit has 20 models in it. Now you know unit A will do nothing all game, unit B never does anything but die. But unit C has a splash AoE attack that is very good at killing hordes. You would try to avoid using alot of model C correct? He is bringing what he likes and you want a fun balanced game. So you place down 1 Unit of C enough to kill 1 unit of his horde but then would die and a few unies of A and B correct? So your chances of being able to win are less then if you used alot of unit C.

A:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

The Trap = Give the invader double points
The Ritual = Give the disrupter 1/3 more points

Simple.

As Boss Salvage already pointed out using models as a counter is already a points system, and the most horrific one you could imagine. Eyeballing it for balance instead, why not go a step further and give players an exact advantage in points for them to build around.

You can still play A-symmetric battles with points.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

For points-haters, there is no law that says you have to use them. If you don't want them, leave them out. Those on the inside have already said they're an option. Me? if someone wants to play without them, I'll politely decline and look for someone who wants to use them.

As far as the points values being 100% dead on, there are simply too many variables in tabletop gaming to get things perfect. the amount of terrain, the dimensions thereof, the placement, your opponent's army, the local meta, etc. Yes, some minis are absurdly over or under costed for their effect. Some can be game breaking. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is perfect.

All that said, I trust the individuals involved in the project. They have a lot of gaming experience, and from what I've heard the studio was willing to outright trash parts of the book that weren't up to snuff.

Only time, playing, and exposure to the minds of gamers looking to break the system will tell. I, however, have hope.

I'll probably not use them cause that's what the playerbase of it seems to be with around here, but for tournaments and such I kind of expect it to be used.

I don't think the issue is so much points suck....it's more that GW has a proven track record of being really bad at determining the value of X vs Y.

 Etna's Vassal wrote:
For points-haters, there is no law that says you have to use them. If you don't want them, leave them out.

Like I said before 40K Unbound. Yeah good luck trying to get a game with Unbound. Just because there is no law that says you have to use them try getting a game without them.

Points or some kind of limitation is necessary otherwise certain models will never get used. Why would you ever use any cavalry besides Varanguard if there is no limit on varanguard? You can say points bring out number crunching and other nonsense but no points means I can bring an army of dragons against whatever you bring and just say 'too bad'.

I know there are sudden death rules and such for Age of sigmar, but say we have 5 units each so that doesn't matter. You take a chaos lord, 2 squads of warriors, 3 chariots, and a giant. I take 5 maw-crusha riding orks. I win 100% of the time. Why wouldn't you want to restrict that in some form?

edit: I know you can say "well just don't play against that" and I agree, but we're discussing rules. Not playing a game doesn't help or fix rules.

Really though, the idea behind no points is discussing with your opponent to get a balanced game. Even with points players can still do this, hell I did that in WHFB.

Yes. And I like points for that. However a lot of people that I know use underpointed OP units regularly and the excuse is "GW point cost them this way so I will gladly take advantage of it, and them's the rules sorry"

I know I'm beating a dead horse it is what it is.

If we've got a "fixed" points cost again it's going to be interesting if the tourney scene all jumps on board or continues to comp the points as they have been. Having fluid points is one of the best things about the scene currently as it is very easy to cost things wrongly (for example SCGT got the Fyreslayer points off, which they have now just amended with the 2.2 update).

Yes that was one of my points above and in previous threads. I didn't want an official GW points because I have a feeling that everyone will flock to them as they are "official" and the fan comps made it a point to adjust point costs as we found things were busted.

GW won't do that. At least - they have never done that so I don't see them starting now.

 Don Savik wrote:
Points or some kind of limitation is necessary otherwise certain models will never get used.

Did you just say that seriously? BECAUSE of points a lot of units don't get used. I guess you are right. It goes both ways. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In the end it comes down to the person who abuses any system in place. If you are going to abuse varanguard, without points I guess you will abuse what ever else with points.

So it speaks volumes of the character of the person who does abuse the game, with or without points.

A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

 Bottle wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

The Trap = Give the invader double points
The Ritual = Give the disrupter 1/3 more points

Simple.

As Boss Salvage already pointed out using models as a counter is already a points system, and the most horrific one you could imagine. Eyeballing it for balance instead, why not go a step further and give players an exact advantage in points for them to build around.

You can still play A-symmetric battles with points.

No, you really can't. As bad as you seem to think the "no points" is, points is going to make it even worse.

Additionally, several of the asymmetric battleplans actually have built in limitations like you needing to take multiple Heroes and only a certain number of units/heroes start on the board at a time.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

I took an army that in 8th edition was fantastically bad. Waywatchers were one of two or three Rare options that Wood Elves had, and the only one which could be fit into some pointed games because the other options were Treemen or Eagles.

I took an army that, per the rules of the Escalation league we were running at the time, satisfied the following criteria for week one(when The Trap scenario was being used) and actually was understrength for what could have been done:
You could have up to two Heroes selected for week one and up to three units selected for week one. If you chose to have multiples of a unit, it still counted as one since it went off Keywords(i.e. you could have multiple units of Darkshards since you took one entry of them). You could not take multiples of named characters. You could only take units from a single faction--this was before the Grand Alliance books came out introducing the subfactions.
In week two, you would get to add another Hero and up to one unit with the "Monster" or "Warmachine" keywords.
In week three, you would get to add a unit with the "Priest" or "Wizard" keyword, another unit with "Monster" or "Warmachine".
For every week past three, you could get to add a single unit with no keyword restrictions if you so chose.
My list by the end of the Escalation League?
Orion
Waystalker
Waywatchers
Wild Riders
Hounds of Orion
Eternal Guard
Great Eagles



Also, I love how you focused upon "you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move" while ignoring the fact that the guy chose his Sudden Death Assassinate target to be a model that could be in literally any unit and does not even start on the board.
I knew the guy was playing like a tool as I had watched him the game before run his Darkshards as one huge block and do exactly what I did to him to a fresh AoS player, someone who the week before had picked up the starter set and was running Bloodbound. I don't feel bad at all about tabling him, especially since now he doesn't try to pull that crap on newbies anymore. One good tabling will bring people like that down and either force them out or force them to realize it ain't cool to play like that.

PS:
You know that Waywatchers got seriously altered with the Grand Alliance: Order book, yeah?
I can no longer run them as units if I'm running the GA: O version of Wanderers. They're now Heroes. At most these days I run one or two as part of the Wanderer formation from GA: O. So my 2 units of 7 Waywatchers is no longer a thing, unless I run the app list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

OgreChubbs wrote:
It kinda sound like your just abusing the no point system if at the end of turn 1 he has only 1 model left.

Actually, it was abusing the shooting rules(you can allocate shots from models in a unit to multiple targets as long as you have range; same as melee), abusing the Fast Shots rule(on every To Hit roll of a 6, you get an additional attack with your bow) and the fact that he was asinine enough to declare his hidden deployed Assassin as the Sudden Death target.

However if he hadn't done the declaring Assassin as the Sudden Death target? I wouldn't have done either of those.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

You do know that many battleplans actually say to ignore Sudden Death, right?

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:


The Trap = Give the invader double points
The Ritual = Give the disrupter 1/3 more points

Simple.

As Boss Salvage already pointed out using models as a counter is already a points system, and the most horrific one you could imagine. Eyeballing it for balance instead, why not go a step further and give players an exact advantage in points for them to build around.

You can still play A-symmetric battles with points.

No, you really can't. As bad as you seem to think the "no points" is, points is going to make it even worse.

You're making statements and then not giving any reasons lol. Why will it make it worse?

Additionally, several of the asymmetric battleplans actually have built in limitations like you needing to take multiple Heroes and only a certain number of units/heroes start on the board at a time.

So?

Factor it in.

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

I took an army that in 8th edition was fantastically bad. Waywatchers were one of two or three Rare options that Wood Elves had, and the only one which could be fit into some pointed games because the other options were Treemen or Eagles.

So?

I took an army that, per the rules of the Escalation league we were running at the time, satisfied the following criteria for week one(when The Trap scenario was being used) and actually was understrength for what could have been done:
You could have up to two Heroes selected for week one and up to three units selected for week one. If you chose to have multiples of a unit, it still counted as one since it went off Keywords(i.e. you could have multiple units of Darkshards since you took one entry of them). You could not take multiples of named characters. You could only take units from a single faction--this was before the Grand Alliance books came out introducing the subfactions.
In week two, you would get to add another Hero and up to one unit with the "Monster" or "Warmachine" keywords.
In week three, you would get to add a unit with the "Priest" or "Wizard" keyword, another unit with "Monster" or "Warmachine".
For every week past three, you could get to add a single unit with no keyword restrictions if you so chose.
My list by the end of the Escalation League?
Orion
Waystalker
Waywatchers
Wild Riders
Hounds of Orion
Eternal Guard
Great Eagles

Again, so?

Also, I love how you focused upon "you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move" while ignoring the fact that the guy chose his Sudden Death Assassinate target to be a model that could be in literally any unit and does not even start on the board.

It seemed like a cool premise for a narrative until you smashed him off the board with an unfair set up. "Assassinate the assassin! But where is he hiding? It's a game of cat-and-mouse- oh no wait. Game over before I played."

I knew the guy was playing like a tool as I had watched him the game before run his Darkshards as one huge block and do exactly what I did to him to a fresh AoS player, someone who the week before had picked up the starter set and was running Bloodbound. I don't feel bad at all about tabling him, especially since now he doesn't try to pull that crap on newbies anymore. One good tabling will bring people like that down and either force them out or force them to realize it ain't cool to play like that.

Ah, so you're a self appointed AoS moral compass in your store? There was certainly a "that guy" playing the game by the sounds of it but it wasn't your opponent.

PS:
You know that Waywatchers got seriously altered with the Grand Alliance: Order book, yeah?
I can no longer run them as units if I'm running the GA: O version of Wanderers. They're now Heroes. At most these days I run one or two as part of the Wanderer formation from GA: O. So my 2 units of 7 Waywatchers is no longer a thing, unless I run the app list.

So?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

You do know that many battleplans actually say to ignore Sudden Death, right?

You do realise I was just framing Don's comments in reply to Davor, right?

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

Cool. Says more about you than me.

"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

So what's the best army in AoS. Write me a tournament winning list for each GA from SCGT?

The thriving tourney scene in the UK for AoS shows it has lots of strategy.

Don't really see the hate on points. I will only have a problem with it if it harms the community and friendlyness in my store. I will notify the manager if such a thing happens.

Still where I am yeah some people are quite interested in points but people are also interested the narrative aspect of the general handbook that's coming out. Why can't we have both? Why must it be one or the other?

I feel if you game with people who want to have fun I feel they should be open to other aspects of how to play.

considering how hard it is to get anyone around here to actually play AoS or even bother with it, if points gets people in, then great, I am all for it. If after that they want to try without, good on that too. This is a game that managed to fragment an already dying game and make the community worse for it. Anything at all that helps bring more people either back into the fold or into it at all is going to be good for it. I would wait to honestly make any kind of call until the book is out, it could be the best thing to happen to AoS or the worst, but we wont know until we see it in hand.

 Bottle wrote:

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

I took an army that in 8th edition was fantastically bad. Waywatchers were one of two or three Rare options that Wood Elves had, and the only one which could be fit into some pointed games because the other options were Treemen or Eagles.

So?

Yeah...so, I took an army that was entirely awful in 8th, played them with very little complaint in 8th(to the point where because I ran Eternal Guard as my Core rather than Glade Guard/Glade Riders, opponents would be willing to grant me extra points to use when we did repeat games), and then when they came out stronger than ever before in AoS during the first few months of AoS' lifespan I used them as a way to cull out the powergamers from an Escalation League I helped organize for new players and veteran players alike.

Silly me! I should have just started a new army.

I took an army that, per the rules of the Escalation league we were running at the time, satisfied the following criteria for week one(when The Trap scenario was being used) and actually was understrength for what could have been done:
You could have up to two Heroes selected for week one and up to three units selected for week one. If you chose to have multiples of a unit, it still counted as one since it went off Keywords(i.e. you could have multiple units of Darkshards since you took one entry of them). You could not take multiples of named characters. You could only take units from a single faction--this was before the Grand Alliance books came out introducing the subfactions.
In week two, you would get to add another Hero and up to one unit with the "Monster" or "Warmachine" keywords.
In week three, you would get to add a unit with the "Priest" or "Wizard" keyword, another unit with "Monster" or "Warmachine".
For every week past three, you could get to add a single unit with no keyword restrictions if you so chose.
My list by the end of the Escalation League?
Orion
Waystalker
Waywatchers
Wild Riders
Hounds of Orion
Eternal Guard
Great Eagles

Again, so?

If you can't figure out what makes that a fairly underpowered list of things to use, I can't help you.

Also, I love how you focused upon "you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move" while ignoring the fact that the guy chose his Sudden Death Assassinate target to be a model that could be in literally any unit and does not even start on the board.

It seemed like a cool premise for a narrative until you smashed him off the board with an unfair set up. "Assassinate the assassin! But where is he hiding? It's a game of cat-and-mouse- oh no wait. Game over before I played."

Oh right, it's such a cool premise for a narrative.

That's why 5x Darkshard units with the bare minimum of models, an Assassin, and a Sorceress is such a thematic army!
And why whenever he fought an army that was CC oriented, he used the Sorceress as his Sudden Death Assassinate target for The Trap while if the opposition had even a single ranged unit, he picked the Assassin which doesn't actually start on the board to begin with and can only be killed when it is either revealed or the unit concealing it has been destroyed.

And to put things into perspective a bit more? It was known well in advance to everyone that list was going to be my first week list. The only people who were extremely concerned about it were this clown and his little buddy, to the point where they kept asking the manager what was going to be done to "curb the Waywatchers' alpha strike" which they had seen me demonstrate to the manager a few weeks before the league started so that he was aware of what could potentially be done.

I knew the guy was playing like a tool as I had watched him the game before run his Darkshards as one huge block and do exactly what I did to him to a fresh AoS player, someone who the week before had picked up the starter set and was running Bloodbound. I don't feel bad at all about tabling him, especially since now he doesn't try to pull that crap on newbies anymore. One good tabling will bring people like that down and either force them out or force them to realize it ain't cool to play like that.

Ah, so you're a self appointed AoS moral compass in your store? There was certainly a "that guy" playing the game by the sounds of it but it wasn't your opponent.

Yeah, that's why I have no issues getting AoS games and he has to go to a different store or play with a guy who runs an all Tzeentch summoning spam list.

I'm totally TFG.

That list I ran, the 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers? When it was going up against new players in week one, it was 6 models. A minimum sized unit of Waywatchers and a single Waystalker. Usually with a Sudden Death objective of capturing and holding a piece of terrain.

That particular player needed to be brought down several pegs. He played the list he did to try and prove a point about how "broken" Sudden Death was, in that he could abuse it with the Assassin.
Instead, he quit playing in the league after week two and we had an influx of new players after him and the other powergamers quit the league, claiming that it was "rigged" because I was able to do that in week one and mess up their standings.

PS:
You know that Waywatchers got seriously altered with the Grand Alliance: Order book, yeah?
I can no longer run them as units if I'm running the GA: O version of Wanderers. They're now Heroes. At most these days I run one or two as part of the Wanderer formation from GA: O. So my 2 units of 7 Waywatchers is no longer a thing, unless I run the app list.

So?

"So?" is not an answer or a comment. At this point in time, you're really just spamming.

You want points. Great. I think points are awful and I wish whoever convinced them to bring points back this soon would get a stern talking to from management.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

You do know that many battleplans actually say to ignore Sudden Death, right?

You do realise I was just framing Don's comments in reply to Davor, right?

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

Cool. Says more about you than me.

Yeah, it does.

It says that I can spot a nonsense statement. Earlier in this very post you maligned me for running an army of 15 models against an army of 52 models and winning via Sudden Death conditions after the other player basically pulled the biggest dick move you could make during the first few weeks of an Escalation League and got wrecked for doing so.

"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

So what's the best army in AoS. Write me a tournament winning list for each GA from SCGT?

The thriving tourney scene in the UK for AoS shows it has lots of strategy.

So you're having to set specifics for "Grand Alliances" and use tourneys that put in their own rulesets to prove your point about points being a necessity for list building?

Davor wrote:

 Don Savik wrote:
Points or some kind of limitation is necessary otherwise certain models will never get used.

Did you just say that seriously? BECAUSE of points a lot of units don't get used. I guess you are right. It goes both ways. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In the end it comes down to the person who abuses any system in place. If you are going to abuse varanguard, without points I guess you will abuse what ever else with points.

So it speaks volumes of the character of the person who does abuse the game, with or without points.

Well true, it comes down to the abuser. But then you get into the discussion of is power gaming wrong? A large chunk of this forum seems to think being competitive and bringing the strongest lists isn't wrong, and I'm just wondering if that would happen in Age of Sigmar. I don't see why it wouldn't.

edit: im for the idea of point costs or keyword (monster/war machine/hero) limitations but im not for the idea of current GW balancing. Unless they can pull a 180 for AoS than yea I'm not looking forward to point costs.

Kanluwen why do you hate points so much?

Your escalation list is in no way under powered, it's what you'd expect in a good AoS list, some fast units, some ranged units and eternal guard make an amazing front line if they can hunker down in a forest. I'm also a wanderer player so you don't get to play that off.

Wouldo you mind addressing my point on the large amount of heroes that make their way into AoS lists? An example is your unit of 3 waystalkers with a unit of 12 waywatchers. In 8th you'd never see that many heroes in the early stages of an escalation match, indeed Its a problem I've run into at all levels. I face far more heroes in AoS then I do chumps, but it's the chumps that make it feel like a war game and not dnd. 3 waystalkers can put out 9(?) Shots that hit on 3 wound on 3 2 dmg each, statistically that's 8 wounds at max range for only 15 wounds, heroes are more effective than chumps, and without points there is no inclination to take chumps over heroes and monsters. How would you address that?


Also would elves where fantastic in 8th, regularly placing at tournaments. Waywatchers where solid and regularly taken and eternal guard worked if you built them correctly with support characters, considering WE where top tier in 8th you don't get to say your army was fantastically bad unless you purposely bumped yourself.

 shinros wrote:
Don't really see the hate on points.

For me it's having no faith in GW when it comes to making a good point system game. Yes I keep championing that GW did an awesome job with LotR, but since GW did a great job in making me quit The Hobbit, I don't have much experience with them anymore with that point system and seeing how they are still making 40K horribly unbalanced, and from a rumour which I forget on how the point system was suppose to work for AoS (take this group for so many points but add more minis without adding extra points) I am scared that AoS will become like 40K or Fantasy again, a very imbalanced point system game.

It's points I am not hating on, I just don't think AoS will have a very balanced point system.

Guys are we really trying to debate the guy who says he wasn't being a bad sportsman when he destroyed his opponent before the latter even got a turn? Obviously logic has been left behind anyway, so we might was well say "well your wrong because chickens exist".

Davor wrote:

 shinros wrote:
Don't really see the hate on points.

For me it's having no faith in GW when it comes to making a good point system game. Yes I keep championing that GW did an awesome job with LotR, but since GW did a great job in making me quit The Hobbit, I don't have much experience with them anymore with that point system and seeing how they are still making 40K horribly unbalanced, and from a rumour which I forget on how the point system was suppose to work for AoS (take this group for so many points but add more minis without adding extra points) I am scared that AoS will become like 40K or Fantasy again, a very imbalanced point system game.

It's points I am not hating on, I just don't think AoS will have a very balanced point system.

I can see your point but since the guys at helenhammer and SCGT had a look at it, tested it and gave their feedback it might be better, so I am hopeful plus heard nothing but good things about their comp system. Still our GW store is not really "into" points per say honestly everyone here is more excited for the narrative section of the book he told me it's like path to glory . If the points are bad? We will just stick to what we are doing now. Maybe I just got lucky with the community we have in our store.:X

Since our manager main concern is to make sure the hobby is fun than what "works" he said he would support those who want to play points but he feels you don't really "need" it.

Points all the way even bad balance is better than no balance.

hobojebus wrote:
Points all the way even bad balance is better than no balance.

Bad balance can be used as a starting reference to make good balance.

 thekingofkings wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Points all the way even bad balance is better than no balance.

Bad balance can be used as a starting reference to make good balance.

Pretty much and they involved the community if they keep doing that I think it will turn out better than most rule editions we have now.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Your escalation list is in no way under powered, it's what you'd expect in a good AoS list, some fast units, some ranged units and eternal guard make an amazing front line if they can hunker down in a forest. I'm also a wanderer player so you don't get to play that off.

That's also the entirety of an 8 week Escalation League list.

Notice the number of units. I did not add more units past a certain point, mostly because I did not feel they were necessary.

Wouldo you mind addressing my point on the large amount of heroes that make their way into AoS lists? An example is your unit of 3 waystalkers with a unit of 12 waywatchers. In 8th you'd never see that many heroes in the early stages of an escalation match, indeed Its a problem I've run into at all levels.

In 8th, you'd never see that many heroes in the early stages of an Escalation match because 8th was basically building on what came before.
This was literally the first Escalation League we ever ran under AoS. Since then, we've ran two more with what we saw did or didn't work in the first one. For example, now?
Models with "Hero" or "Monster" do not get to count for the "Multiples of this can be taken" setup we had. Each one you want to take takes up a different week's allotment.

I face far more heroes in AoS then I do chumps, but it's the chumps that make it feel like a war game and not dnd. 3 waystalkers can put out 9(?) Shots that hit on 3 wound on 3 2 dmg each, statistically that's 8 wounds at max range for only 15 wounds, heroes are more effective than chumps, and without points there is no inclination to take chumps over heroes and monsters. How would you address that?

3 Waystalkers can put out 9 Aimed Shots that hit on 3s(2s if they do not move that turn and are targeting a Monster or Hero) and Wound on 3s with a -1 Rend normally; -2 if they roll a 6 to Wound.

Waywatchers, the new GA: O version of the Waystalker and the demise of the actual Waywatcher unit, does the same but with +1 to hit if it did not move.

As to why you see more Heroes than chumps?
Hero models tend to be cheaper and easier to justify for people than masses of chumps.

Also would elves where fantastic in 8th, regularly placing at tournaments. Waywatchers where solid and regularly taken and eternal guard worked if you built them correctly with support characters, considering WE where top tier in 8th you don't get to say your army was fantastically bad unless you purposely bumped yourself.

I'm calling garbage on that. You and I had this discussion before, and your responses were basically "Arcane Bodkins on mass of Glade Guard/Riders" in 8th. That's your perogative of course to run a list like that, but it was powergaming pure and simple.

And nowhere did I say "Waywatchers were never taken". I said they were the easiest option to fit in.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

Wow, that sounds like such a fun game...

Taking an army that shoots your entire opponents army bar 1 model off the board turn one is a That Guy move, no matter what you say. No game should allow that to happen and it goes totally against the 'spirit' of the game that AoS fanboys always go on about.

 Kanluwen wrote:
"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

I'm always happy to gak on 40k and it's lack of strategy, but I found a reasonable amount of it playing 8th ed, and it certainly was not just about finding the most undercosted options. Lets assume WHFB was terribad for a moment though, these are both terrible examples of point systems. A well balanced system, by definition, would not have under costed units to spam, and if people found something under costed it would only be by a little bit so why bother filling half your army with it when it is only a minor advantage at the cost of not being able to take models that are better at different roles, synergize with other units in your list, suit your playstyle better, or just have nicer models you want to paint?

 Kanluwen wrote:
And to put things into perspective a bit more? It was known well in advance to everyone that list was going to be my first week list. The only people who were extremely concerned about it were this clown and his little buddy, to the point where they kept asking the manager what was going to be done to "curb the Waywatchers' alpha strike" which they had seen me demonstrate to the manager a few weeks before the league started so that he was aware of what could potentially be done.

I think the picture is becoming a little clearer here....


I remember saying waaaaay back when AoS first landed and this 'points are bad' argument started that an unbalanced game attracts WAAC players, just look at 40k.

I would use both.