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That is true. With the objective game that will definitely influence things.

Which is why GHB 19 scares me, because if they write new scenarios that give elite armies an even footing in those regards, we will be opening the gates wide to that direction I feel.

I only say that scares me because I enjoy the spectacle of armies clashing, not D&D parties clashing.

Now I want an army of a Wizard Dragon, Fighter Dragon, Priest Dragon and Thief Dragon.

Replace Dragon with behemoth of your choice to taste, of course. Like Mangler Squig.

auticus wrote:
That is true. With the objective game that will definitely influence things.

Which is why GHB 19 scares me, because if they write new scenarios that give elite armies an even footing in those regards, we will be opening the gates wide to that direction I feel.

I only say that scares me because I enjoy the spectacle of armies clashing, not D&D parties clashing.

You and me both. When I see an ‘army’ that’s just a bunch of big hero wizard monsters backed up by 3 minimum sized cheap battleline units, a tiny little part of me just wants to say ‘ah piss off’.

It wasn't even quite that bad in the Herohammer days of 5th. Sure you had a hero on emperor dragon with Hydra Sword and Black amulet (or was it Heart of Woe?) and Helm of Many Eyes that was like 1000 points, but you only had one and your opponent almost certainly had an equivalent. So it basically played out like ancient armies: The two generals dueled to determine the winner.

Some armies. It was definitely all about heroes. My chaos army had 11 models though.

My undead army had like 22 models or something ridiculously small.

Those were the tourney standards back then.

When 6th dropped and made troops relevant again there was a good deal of howling and gnashing of teeth that GW was screwing its player base over by forcing people to buy crappy core tax just to get them to spend money when before they didn't really have to (there was a 25% min on troops back then but what constituted troops back then is like AOS considering battleline... my chaos knights were troops lol)

On that note, I remember in 5th a guy I fought in a league/multi-week elimination tournament at the FLGS his father owned who ran Bretonnia with a hero on a dragon and like some min archer squads who hid the entire game (I don't remember all the details but Bretonnia could take a larger percentage in heroes).

He crushed everyone and like everyone except me dropped out of the league because they didn't want to fight him as it was basically known he was playing a filth army specifically to crush everybody and win the league; like straigh tup admitted he was being TFG just because he could.

So it was down to him and me in the finals because while I hadn't done too well, everyone else dropped out. I remember I kitted out a Vampire Lord with the entire gimmick being trying to Hand of Dust his general since his whole strategy was going after your units with the hero on the dragon. I rolled like 2 wounds lower than would have killed him and conceded because that was literally my only chance to win. So he won the tournament and spent his winnings on Magic cards (in his dad's gaming store keep in mind) while I got.. I think something for 40k I forget for coming in 2nd, I think a box of space marines or something.

So this guy steamrolled a friendly league and made everyone drop out deliberately so he could win it to spend store credit on magic cards in a store that he worked in and that was owned by his father.

Yeah bretonnia could take 75% of their army in heroes whereas most everyone else could do 50%.

Our bretonnian player's "army" was king on emperor dragon (blue so lightning), a min size of archers, a min size unit of knights, and an assortment of heroes to fill out the army.

It was roughly 18 models or so.

But to win you really only had to kill the king on the dragon. And I played undead and chaos back then. My undead were rolling with hand of dust or curse of the years (auto death spells) with forbidden rod (irresistable force by using the rod, no roll needed) and my chaos lord on dragon had upwards of 44 attacks by himself with the hydra blade and mark of khorne.

auticus wrote:
That is true. With the objective game that will definitely influence things.

Which is why GHB 19 scares me, because if they write new scenarios that give elite armies an even footing in those regards, we will be opening the gates wide to that direction I feel.

I only say that scares me because I enjoy the spectacle of armies clashing, not D&D parties clashing.

Doubt it. 16 out of the 18 GHB scenarios we've had so far have been some variant of 'most models gets the objective' with some needing no enemy models in range but also 5 of your own. The exceptions are three places of power and the other one that's similar (forget the name) which can be difficult for monster armies in their own way since the big monster needs to sit in the objectives rather than running about smashing things.

What a dick.

I remember the days of percent points for your choice of units though (what edition was out at the turn of the millennium?). I wonder if it still has merits? Because sometimes I’m annoyed that a unit of 20 battleline models doesn’t carry the same weight as two units of 10.

Percentage was 5th edition. 6th and 7th turned to slots.

8th went back to percentage.

6th edition was my hay day (although I started with 5th).

I don’t know if percentages are a good idea either.

I prefer percentages over slots, simply because percentages work with the resource values of the game (points) whereas slots do not and can be highly gamed.

25% battleline / core is great to me provided battleline/core are your backbone troops that are not superheroes. Puts some basic troopers on the board instead of letting everything be all jacked to 11 all the time.

auticus wrote:
I prefer percentages over slots, simply because percentages work with the resource values of the game (points) whereas slots do not and can be highly gamed.

25% battleline / core is great to me provided battleline/core are your backbone troops that are not superheroes. Puts some basic troopers on the board instead of letting everything be all jacked to 11 all the time.

I agree. It would certainly stop mini maxing in lists (taking only 3 tiny units to spam big monsters). I was running some numbers and in the modern game, I think 20% compulsory battleline (400pts at 2k) is a good start.

Yeah I like point percentages as well, because while I find slots more fun in theory the reality is they get abused. What I would really like to see is 25% minimum battleline, 50% behemoth limit, and 50% hero limit (behemoth heroes counting against both totals).

That would work for me as well.

I'm not sure a % based battle line system is the solution.

Some armies just have it better with their "battle line if" options (especially the newer ones). It would just be another power creep factor.

My nighthaunt for instance, laugh at how easy a 25% battle line requirement would be (while still selecting quality troops). My FEC would be in deep trouble however. Additionally, it'll be mostly the older armies who really have crappy, underwhelming battle line options who will get affected.

Modern battle line troops are actually quite good imo. If you are stuck with a bunch of 1A 4+ 4+ dredges with older factions (wanderers, freeguild etc), you would be really SooL if that's 400 obligatory points in there. The modern armies laugh it away, the older armies would be struggling even more.

And I don't think it's really going to make some of the more hardcore builds softer.

Honestly the way the game is today I don't even see a need for battleline. The whole point of AOS is to spam the most powerful things and often your battleline includes some of that.

Battleline only works if your battleline are actually run of the mill troops. The moment you let things like stormfiends and dragons and trolls be battleline you have sunk the concept and might as well not bother with it.

Instead of adding percentages of battlelines I think it would be better to boost battleline unit to be stronger so you have a reason to take them. The big problem with tax is that too often the tax is useless chaff that you really don't want to have if you could skip them.

Thats because given the choice between something "elite" and something "not elite" you're going to want to take elite every time unless the chaffe is cost effective and provides a benefit.

Boosting battleline to be stronger is essentially making battleline on par with elite, erego not really needing the concept of battleline in the first place as if everything is elite there is no point in a battleline concept.

The point of battleline / core "tax" was to have normal guys in your army so that you couldn't just cherry pick all of the elite stuff. So get rid of battleline as a concept IMO in AOS.

I feel like battleline should get some sort of unique ability. Something akin to 40k's thing of them always counting as holding an objective over other units. Something utility based would make them more interesting to use

The ‘massive regiments’ concept could be a good start for battleline. Going forward in future, you could limit the discount to battleline troops, making them even better value when compared to elites.

I’ve come around to the idea of percentages too. I really think that 20% minimum for battleline and 50% max for the others would work out great provided that what constitutes battleline is properly determined beforehand (KO for example need some help in that regard).

The problem I have with battlelines is that depending on Tome some are going to get more of the good battlelines while others are going to get utter gak. I'd rather not be forced to have more crap battleline in my armies so I can lose harder because other armies are getting better battlelines. I mean, looking at current competitive Khorne armies and you see a distinct lack of battlelines for the most part except to get Gore Pilgrim and then Flesh Hounds for unbinding.

That is my biggest contention with percentages. Some battlelines for certain armies are above decent while others must linger in a deep grave of despair.

Now, if people could promise absolute parity between battlelines between armies then sure, percentages can work.

Thats the key. Battleline only works if the design team makes sure that all battlelines are rounded out against each other.

Having an army where bob the commoner is a battleline but then giving another army a snarling troll as battleline and another army a dragon as a battleline ruins that.

Yup, I'm completely in agreement with Eldarsif on this one...

Percentages would hamstring the (often older) armies that have the old "battleline is pretty crappy units" design.

Modern armies tend to have way more solid and interesting basic troops/battle line option... Changing to a % based system would create just as many imbalances in the current game and it would kick the armies that are already hamstrung by crappy battle line, down even more.

Also, the current meta seems to heavily favor a large amount of bodies on the table, for that reason alone, I often see large amounts of core troops still being fielded.

Extra incentive for some "true battle line" (not battle line if...) could still be added. An objective secured equivalent is an obvious choice.

I think another thing about percentages is, it's maths. Simple maths, but still maths. Slots are a lot easier to comprehend for a wider audience who want to chuck units together for lolz.

Well the slots are based on point cost categories (1000, 2000, 2500) so GW could easily just put the % numbers there instead. Allies are a percentage and it doesn't cause an issue.

As for battleline; some armies have poor battleline units, because some units are poor. Similarly some armies have OP battleline units, because some units are OP. Armies also have plenty of non-battleline which are poor, and plenty of non-battleline which are OP. That's a balance issue, not an argument against percentages.

Presumably there would be no need to force battlelines if all units cost what they're worth.

Depends.

If I made Unit A that was a generic troop choice with baseline stats, and made it cost correctly, and then made Unit B which was an elite version of that troop with elite stats, and also made it cost correctly, and then said you can choose whatever you want, Unit A is still not going to see much table time barring someone that loves the idea of normal troops.

There are outside factors as well such as the objective game. If the elites cost too much and you can't field as many, people will want to field some of Unit A to hold objectives, which is good.

But typically in games like this, beating someone in the mouth over and over again is a winning tactic, and the elites will always be chosen because they can do that easier and are also typically more durable.

The objectives in AOS make (currently) needing some chaffe ideal but if scenarios start bucking that, that will throw off composition desires.

I have always oposed to the idea of "chaff" or "tax". I have to buy those things. I hate buying uninspiring things that are by design crap and useless.

And I say this as someone that LOVES his average guys. I have much more joy building and painting my battleline infanry than characters.

I don't want my battleline and basic units to be super heroes, but I want them to feel like they are accomplising something on the battlefield that isn't just being there and dying to make some kidn of sense of a real "battle", and force me to buy more models.

So... I'm not opposed to having a forced minimun of "basic troops". I'm opposed to the idea that those should be useless. And I'm not talking about making a normal human spearmen equiparable to elite units. They just need to have their place on the battlefield.