Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A ground-up rewrite is hardly reactionary. Rather, it seems considered and closing an obvious imbalance loophole.

That's not what I said. What I said was that changing the rule to the polar opposite seems reactionary, as if no attempt to find a middle ground was found.

All dancing, all summoning was an obvious bad, But is the exact opposite that an obvious good? Were Tervigons tearing up the tournament scene? Were a few extra bases of Scarabs ruining the lives of everyone who fought Necrons?

Not every problem requires the sledgehammer approach.

Summoning in narrative and open play don't sound like they'll involve points. It's only in the competitive focused Matched Play games when summon points will crop up, and it's at this level where the imbalance matters.

 Lysenis wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

 Lysenis wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Spoiler:

 alextroy wrote:
Here's a thought I've been having about the Mortal Wounds controversy. So far, we have been told of three sources of Mortal Wounds in NuHammer

Smite Psychic Power

Asurman's Sword of Asur

Maniblasters that hit at the beginning of the Fight Phase

While the sword is simply a case of a weapon dealing Mortal Wounds (Automatically, Hit, Wound, or a specific roll to Hit or Wound is unknown), the other two appear to be cases of damage being done outside of the normal damage dealing phases (Shooting and Fight). Could it be that GW has decided to simplify those instances of damage by just having these actions deal Mortal Wounds?

Compare Smite (one roll to cast, one roll to deal damage) to an 7th Edition Witchfire power (Roll to cast, roll of Random number of attacks, roll to Hit, roll to Wound, Roll Save). That's two rolls (3 if you include the Deny the Witch) instead of 5 (6 with DTW). Talk about a time saving.

The same could hold true for Maniblasters. I'm sure it's probably something simple like a unit of Striking Scorpions deal 1dx Mortal Wounds (or roll 1d6 per SS and deal a MW on a roll of 5+) to a unit it is engaged with at the start of the Fight Phase before any units attack. That's one roll rather than three spent on Hit, Wound, Save.

Sure, this is less granular than the rules of old and leads to oddities (let's take down that Titan with Maniblaster Mortal Wounds), but it will certainly speed up the game.

If someone kills a titan with Mandiblasters I'm going to assume they assaulted inside of the thing, and killed the crew with them. </headcanon>

Isn't that how every Titan dies to infantry?

It is the more fluff appropiate answer: they get aboard and kill the crew or sabotage the reactor, or generally break it frommthe inside.

I figured if we want to get cramky about it, I'm just going to fluff it in my head that they got inside on teir charge and made a mess there instead of on the outside. At least it makes sense and is as fluffy as this unicorn:

In other words that a what they get for letting infantry in close. I do remember what was it Titanicus... What's that the Hours Heresy Titan book? That book brought up the need for ground troops.

On a side note, that is also my fluff for a War pin Spider kill since everything can hurt everything

This is exactly how we explained it in one of our old apocalypse games. My 2nd Inquisitional henchmen unit came in from reserves on his table edge (due to my apocalypse advantage) and fire 3 meltaguns (for the 2nd turn in a row) at an eldar titan, rolled well and blew it up. It didn't even explode. We explained that they blew a hole open, sent in the xenos purgation member (i.e. the suicide bomber) and blew up the titan from the inside out. Man those guys were my heroes, with some fancy transport maneuvers, they even survived the eldar ranger attempt at avenging their titan.

Leggy wrote:
Summoning in narrative and open play don't sound like they'll involve points. It's only in the competitive focused Matched Play games when summon points will crop up, and it's at this level where the imbalance matters.

That doesn't really answer the point I made.

I'm aware of the imbalance that unlimited summoning can create - we've seen it in 40K already. My point is that a total heel turn on summoning doesn't seem like the best result. It's GW punishing all armies because they wrote rules that allowed certain specific armies to abuse it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Leggy wrote:
Summoning in narrative and open play don't sound like they'll involve points. It's only in the competitive focused Matched Play games when summon points will crop up, and it's at this level where the imbalance matters.

That doesn't really answer the point I made.

I'm aware of the imbalance that unlimited summoning can create - we've seen it in 40K already. My point is that a total heel turn on summoning doesn't seem like the best result. It's GW punishing all armies because they wrote rules that allowed certain specific armies to abuse it.

Interesting.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Leggy wrote:
Summoning in narrative and open play don't sound like they'll involve points. It's only in the competitive focused Matched Play games when summon points will crop up, and it's at this level where the imbalance matters.

That doesn't really answer the point I made.

I'm aware of the imbalance that unlimited summoning can create - we've seen it in 40K already. My point is that a total heel turn on summoning doesn't seem like the best result. It's GW punishing all armies because they wrote rules that allowed certain specific armies to abuse it.

Did they release rules for the Tervigon or the Canoptek Spyder?

 Dakka Flakka Flame wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Leggy wrote:
Summoning in narrative and open play don't sound like they'll involve points. It's only in the competitive focused Matched Play games when summon points will crop up, and it's at this level where the imbalance matters.

That doesn't really answer the point I made.

I'm aware of the imbalance that unlimited summoning can create - we've seen it in 40K already. My point is that a total heel turn on summoning doesn't seem like the best result. It's GW punishing all armies because they wrote rules that allowed certain specific armies to abuse it.

Did they release rules for the Tervigon or the Canoptek Spyder?

No. Using the AoS rules for Reinforcement Points as a precedent, both Tervigons and Canoptek Spyders 'summon' models.

 Ghaz wrote:
No. Using the AoS rules for Reinforcement Points as a precedent, both Tervigons and Canoptek Spyders 'summon' models.

Using the 7th Edition rules for those units and the AoS rules for summoning. However, we don't know what the 8th Edition rules will be yet. My understanding is that in AoS there are certain circumstances where models can be added to an existing unit, but the unit can't exceed its starting strength, and those models don't cost points. So maybe the Tervigon doesn't spawn new units of Termagants but instead a unit of Termagants within 6" can regain 1d6 models every turn?

We don't know that all armies are being punished.

They're still 'free models'. I don't see a reason why 'free models' should be treated differently due to the name of the rule.

 Ghaz wrote:
They're still 'free models'. I don't see a reason why 'free models' should be treated differently due to the name of the rule.

It's a distinction they made. Abilities that give a random D6 of models generally isn't as abusive as summoning a full strength unit.

Daedalus81 wrote:

No no. I mean GW will publish missions for Narrative games using power levels and missions for Matched play games. The Matched play missions won't be asymmetrical.

Those missions will work just as well with both. Both ways. Less granularity is not requirement for asymmetrical. People have been playing asymmetricals for years with granular points.

Only difference between them is that one is quicker to use but less accurate approximation of balance. Good fos quick games between friends. But neither has unique point that makes scenario works only with them. At it'" core both are points.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A ground-up rewrite is hardly reactionary. Rather, it seems considered and closing an obvious imbalance loophole.

That's not what I said. What I said was that changing the rule to the polar opposite seems reactionary, as if no attempt to find a middle ground was found.

All dancing, all summoning was an obvious bad, But is the exact opposite that an obvious good? Were Tervigons tearing up the tournament scene? Were a few extra bases of Scarabs ruining the lives of everyone who fought Necrons?

Not every problem requires the sledgehammer approach.

Until they tease summoning tomorrow (they did say tomorrow right?), then we can make better discussions on this.

 EnTyme wrote:

NinthMusketeer wrote:I read the article and came here to read epic rage over summoning costing full points. I am surprised and somewhat impressed.

You and I have discussed my feelings on AoS summoning ad nauseum, but as much as I dislike this solution to summoning, I don't think I nor anyone else is really surprised.

Oh don't get me wrong--I am disappointed that they went with this approach because I feel it swings things too far the other way and just takes some of the fun out of summoning. But it's still an improvement over everything being free, yet when it hit in AoS the summon-spammers acted like it was the end of the world.

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A ground-up rewrite is hardly reactionary. Rather, it seems considered and closing an obvious imbalance loophole.

Problem is in aos it went too far so summoning is joke. Flexibility not worth being underdog for a while and losing tons of points when summomer dies. Only help 40k has is bit harder to snipe charaltdr but you need to invest lots of points to ensure fast weapon platform doesn't leave you without summoner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Flood wrote:


Marines, assumedly being the baseline for their balance, are 13pts. How did they arrive at this figure? It seems somewhat arbitrary and based solely on what 'feels' right given the past context for the unit value in their aged game system, rather than the end result of a formula.
If everything else is determined from this baseline, we yet again have a system of values that are appointed by educated guesses, rather than a strict method. This way lies imbalance.

I'm genuinely looking forward to everything I've seen thus far, but I am pessimistic about how game balance is to be maintained.

If they had used formula you could be 100% sure points are busted. More likely before they were stupid enough to use formula seeing mess they created.

Formulas sounds nice in theory but never work

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A ground-up rewrite is hardly reactionary. Rather, it seems considered and closing an obvious imbalance loophole.

That's not what I said. What I said was that changing the rule to the polar opposite seems reactionary, as if no attempt to find a middle ground was found.

All dancing, all summoning was an obvious bad, But is the exact opposite that an obvious good? Were Tervigons tearing up the tournament scene? Were a few extra bases of Scarabs ruining the lives of everyone who fought Necrons?

Not every problem requires the sledgehammer approach.

I don't think I of approach is a bad thing. It's a totally different game, who cares if they are OP now?

If things summon they do X. Across all armies.

Let's just hope they manage to stick to it

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Leggy wrote:
Summoning in narrative and open play don't sound like they'll involve points. It's only in the competitive focused Matched Play games when summon points will crop up, and it's at this level where the imbalance matters.

That doesn't really answer the point I made.

I'm aware of the imbalance that unlimited summoning can create - we've seen it in 40K already. My point is that a total heel turn on summoning doesn't seem like the best result. It's GW punishing all armies because they wrote rules that allowed certain specific armies to abuse it.

It's a binary problem. Free points or no free points. Giving summoned units a cheaper cost is the same problem just watered down.

What alternative do you propose?

Maybe some forms of "summoning" (IE Tyranid spawning) won't count towards points, as it isn't considered summoning anymore. Only time will tell.

tneva82 wrote:

 ClockworkZion wrote:

Really? I can think of a few possibilities:
1. New Players
2. People who want to run unbalanced missions (Meatgrinder, Ambush)
3. Casual players who don't want to muck with trying to perfectly fill points levels in
4. People looking for a pick up game with whatever they brought with them

2 works with either points so not that

Yes on #2. Just not exclusively.

tneva82 wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A ground-up rewrite is hardly reactionary. Rather, it seems considered and closing an obvious imbalance loophole.

Problem is in aos it went too far so summoning is joke. Flexibility not worth being underdog for a while and losing tons of points when summomer dies. Only help 40k has is bit harder to snipe charaltdr but you need to invest lots of points to ensure fast weapon platform doesn't leave you without summoner.

Summoning is actually used quite alot in AoS tournaments. Both of the best death armies in scgt had quite many points reserved for summoning.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 JohnnyHell wrote:
A ground-up rewrite is hardly reactionary. Rather, it seems considered and closing an obvious imbalance loophole.

That's not what I said. What I said was that changing the rule to the polar opposite seems reactionary, as if no attempt to find a middle ground was found.

All dancing, all summoning was an obvious bad, But is the exact opposite that an obvious good? Were Tervigons tearing up the tournament scene? Were a few extra bases of Scarabs ruining the lives of everyone who fought Necrons?

Not every problem requires the sledgehammer approach.

Here's the disconnect I have with your argument though HBMC: The scarabs and tervigon extra models were not summoning. Summon spam lists that wrecked tourneys were psychic summoning, these two units are not that. It's entirely possible that both the Tervigon and Canoptec spider have retained their ability to reinforce or make new units of scarabs and termagaunts, if this is the case I'd imagine a small portion of the points cost of these units may be rolled into the cost of the Tervigon and Spider themselves. I fully expect to see a model reinforcement mechanic to be built into both the Tervigon and Spider, neither of which we've seen the rules for yet so we have no way of knowing for sure at this time. What we do know is that psychic summoning has been changed a lot and in my opinion much to the benefit of the game. I feel you've seen a portion of a rule for one mechanic (psychic daemon summoning), correlated it to another unrelated mechanic (Tervigon birthing and spider scarab reinforcement) and somehow come to the conclusion that this is punishing armies? Perhaps you've jumped the gun on this?

Psychic summoning absolutely needed the axe, it was a ridiculous implementation from the get-go. The new method is much more reliable, maintains the tactical versatility of being able to select the right daemon for the job and since you pay points for those daemons is much more balanced, from what we've seen I'd say it's a win all around. You may disagree that the new summoning system is an improvement and that's definitely a matter worth discussing and looking in to even with our very limited knowledge of it right now but I feel that discussion has little (if anything) to do with the mechanics of a Tervigon, Canoptek Spider or even a Ghost Ark for that matter. The latter three will have rules specific to them that will dictate how they function apart from the core Daemon summoning rules.

 jamopower wrote:

Summoning is actually used quite alot in AoS tournaments. Both of the best death armies in scgt had quite many points reserved for summoning.

Yeah, despite the complaints on places like this there are competitive players (and good ones) who do not think 'summoning' in AoS is somehow too expensive in matched play. The ability to plonk down a unit where you want when you want in objective based games is huge. AoS matched play does not revolve around killing stuff to win, but objectives. A lot of people seem to forget that. Worrying about being at half strength, or how much you are losing models etc is misdirecting yourself as to what will or will not win you the game.

 Crimson Devil wrote:
It's a binary problem. Free points or no free points. Giving summoned units a cheaper cost is the same problem just watered down.

What alternative do you propose?

It's not a binary problem. It's a contextual problem. Unlimited summoning of power units like Daemons and Daemonic characters is obviously a major issue, something we all saw happen in current 40K. On the flip-side making a few Scarab bases is an order of magnitude different to the Daemon example.

The same solution needn't be applied to everything.

They say that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But there are different sized hammers. GW need not always go for the biggest one.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
On the flip-side making a few Scarab bases is an order of magnitude different to the Daemon example.


They say that when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. But there are different sized hammers. GW need not always go for the biggest one.

So a few scarab bases might only cost 10 points vs 100 points for the daemons if that is the points cost. So the solution is a magnitude of order different?

Of course, If those few scarab bases will claim the objective as well as the few daemons then the problem may not be the same magnitude of order different at all. As you say context... If matched play is objective based then then they will have different solution to simple 'kill all' play

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Here's the disconnect I have with your argument though HBMC: The scarabs and tervigon extra models were not summoning.

The premise of my argument is that "Generating models during a game = Summoning". If that turns out to be a false premise, and that they are infact talking about summoning Daemons, as opposed to just the generation of new miniatures, then that's fine. In that instance you'll be 100% right, my argument will be flawed and I will in fact be fine with that.

My concern is that GW has looked at summoning Daemons and gone "Summoning bad! GW SMASH!" and just done this to anything that generates any miniatures in complete over reaction (ie. fixing the general rule when it was a specific rule causing the problem).

 Inevitable_Faith wrote:
Summon spam lists that wrecked tourneys were psychic summoning, these two units are not that. It's entirely possible that both the Tervigon and Canoptec spider have retained their ability to reinforce or make new units of scarabs and termagaunts, if this is the case I'd imagine a small portion of the points cost of these units may be rolled into the cost of the Tervigon and Spider themselves. I fully expect to see a model reinforcement mechanic to be built into both the Tervigon and Spider, neither of which we've seen the rules for yet so we have no way of knowing for sure at this time. What we do know is that psychic summoning has been changed a lot and in my opinion much to the benefit of the game. I feel you've seen a portion of a rule for one mechanic (psychic daemon summoning), correlated it to another unrelated mechanic (Tervigon birthing and spider scarab reinforcement) and somehow come to the conclusion that this is punishing armies? Perhaps you've jumped the gun on this?

Psychic summoning absolutely needed the axe, it was a ridiculous implementation from the get-go. The new method is much more reliable, maintains the tactical versatility of being able to select the right daemon for the job and since you pay points for those daemons is much more balanced, from what we've seen I'd say it's a win all around. You may disagree that the new summoning system is an improvement and that's definitely a matter worth discussing and looking in to even with our very limited knowledge of it right now but I feel that discussion has little (if anything) to do with the mechanics of a Tervigon, Canoptek Spider or even a Ghost Ark for that matter. The latter three will have rules specific to them that will dictate how they function apart from the core Daemon summoning rules.

I don't disagree with any of this, and I fully admit that we don't know what Tervigons or Tomb Spyders or any of them are actually going to do yet. I am simply expressing a concern that stems from an educated guess using GW's prior behaviour when it comes to "balancing".

I've also fully acknowledge that the constantly Daemon summoning was a bad thing, so people need to stop coming back at me was "But Daemon summoning was breaking the game! This change needed to happen!". I get it, but as I have said numerous times in this thread in one way or another, just because I'm concerned for an 8th Ed rules ---does not mean--- I am advocating for 7th Ed rules.

Grimdakka wrote:
I'm not looking forward to my first argument over whether we're using "power level" or the proper points system when selecting armies.

I can see it now, the local Tau player insisting that power level is "close enough, I swear!" as he pulls out 14 Riptides with every possible upgrade, the cheesy git.

I dunno if it's a theoretical player you're referring to or an actual one. Either way, you probably don't want to play that guy anyway. He sounds like TFG and not a lot of fun regardless. Play someone like me next time you're in the area and we'll both have a bunch of fun without being dicks to one another.

Points system for me, please. I don't really see any reason to have an "approximate" points system when the precise points system exists. It's like installing a second speedometer, except this one says you're going "Oh, I dunno, like 50 mph or so I guess," while the proper one tells you the exact speed. Why would you ever bother with less precision when more precision is available? Is the mere seconds of savings on basic arithmetic really worth the inevitable loss of balance?

Ease of use. Speed of setup, etc. I hated the un-pointed nature of release-era AoS since there was absoloyely no way to balance anything beyond guesswork, but I'll happily use both Power Level and Points in games, depending on who I am playing and how we're playing. Power level is perfect for "Close-enough" points for friendly battles where I provide both armies built as fluffy forces for mates coming around for an evening of fun.

HBMC has made his position clear, but no-one is under any obligation to somehow disprove that view. That's not how this discussion thing works. We just disagree and move on. The subject of the thread is not "HBMC is right: discuss" (not being rude to HBMC here, to be clear, I'm just illustrating that the convo has gone a little circular and is eating itself).

Daedalus81 wrote:

No no. I mean GW will publish missions for Narrative games using power levels and missions for Matched play games. The Matched play missions won't be asymmetrical.

Ideally, they could have two sets of points for their published missions. That would be ideal, allowing such published missions to work for both PL-based and traditional pointed armies, but we'll see how it eventuates.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

theocracity wrote:

It also doesn't prompt the same level of anxiety during the construction and painting phase of army building. If there's an upgrade that I want to build because it looks cool, I don't get stymied by worries that the upgrade isn't points-efficient and uncompetitive. Anything that reduces potential barriers to play a game are great in my book. I've got enough on my plate in life that I don't need extra things to futz with prior to gaming during the brief opportunities I get to do so.

SO much this. I like to build forces that make thematic sense and model figures (and units) that follow the Rule of Cool over eking out the most competitive list and agonising over whether my IG should have Meltas or Plasmas this edition and exactly what the most effective loadout for my Russes is going to be and whether they should have sponsons or not for maximum efficiency.

Why would you ever bother with less precision when more precision is available? Is the mere seconds of savings on basic arithmetic really worth the inevitable loss of balance?

You do realise that precision and accuracy/balance are independent. The less precise system could in fact be more balanced, there is no inevitability about increased precision being more balanced at all.

Can't see it taking mere seconds extra either for most people.

I'm glad the summoning has had the nurf hammer, my first game of 40k when I come back to the hobby was daemons I was tabled turn 4 without killing any of his core army he summoned me to death, shot "beam magic" through my blobs he even managed to take 4 objectives.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Leggy wrote:
Summoning in narrative and open play don't sound like they'll involve points. It's only in the competitive focused Matched Play games when summon points will crop up, and it's at this level where the imbalance matters.

That doesn't really answer the point I made.

I'm aware of the imbalance that unlimited summoning can create - we've seen it in 40K already. My point is that a total heel turn on summoning doesn't seem like the best result. It's GW punishing all armies because they wrote rules that allowed certain specific armies to abuse it.

You aren't taking into account the effectiveness of the units in the new game though. Maybe scarabs do have their place, and taking them for free could truly be game unbalancing. Remember they've said from the start, the goal is to build from the ground up to make ALL units effective and have their role.

They should have just made spyders and term's transports from the get go anyway to be honest. Free points, models, upgrades in any and all of its forms is wrong for the game, narrative or competitive. If you want to have an imbalance of points, it's built into the scenario.

 Ghaz wrote:
They're still 'free models'. I don't see a reason why 'free models' should be treated differently due to the name of the rule.

because GW thinks summoning is the problem and not free models in general
the same as a multi faction death star is evil but a single faction death star is not

the same people don't like too much randomness and GW thinks this is what makes the game fun in the first place