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 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Do you really need more than 4 terries?

Yes. Yes I do. I might go all Draogns though. Paint them up as the DnD Chromatics.

 Elmir wrote:

auticus wrote:

I'm pretty sure FEC isn't WHFB 7th demons style broken...

At the very least its "oh i showed up with 2000 pts of FEC with 3 or 4 arch regents and a bunch of terrorgheists... and you showed up with... a casual fun list. Do you want to do something else instead?"

I actually saw that very discussion happen yesterday only it was 40k.

I know you like harping on about that point (tbh it's starting to be beating a dead horse at this point), but if somebody comes with a casual list against a highly competitive "spammy netlist", they will indeed not have a lot of fun. This isn't a pure FEC thing by any stretch of the imagination... If I take a cutthroat DoK, LoN, SCE, IDK, GSG,BoC,.... list against somebody casually strolling into a shop with whatever he has painted up recently, it'll be a terrible, unenjoyable game. It's been like that in WHFB 4-5th edition, WH40k 2nd to 8th edition, warmachine mk1/2, confrontation, bushido and pretty much any "open wargame" I've played since I was a 12 year old boy.

In fact, FEC are only really "worse" in this regard because they only have 13 unit warscrolls to select from to begin with, and 3 of them are very good for their points cost (which can be changed in less than a year).... But that doesn't make them WHFB 7th style broken, not even close to that insanity in fact.

What separates FEC is that a non-optimized FEC list beats the snot out of the same from almost any other army. It doesn't need to be a cheese list vs casual at all. Aside from the Archregent the units are not even that bad, plenty out there that are worse from other armies. But the set of allegiance abilities they have...

auticus wrote:
Don't forget FEC also can summon a crap load of free points onto the table as well as recycle dead units for even more free points.

Heavy shooty or not, its hard to overcome a 3000-2000 point handicap game.

That would only be true if FEC units were worth their points on raw stats alone, which they are not, not in a million years. Outside the Archregent, their summons are baked into the cost of the summoners and are overcosted in the first place. Ghouls cost more than Chainrasps, consider that for a moment.

Yeah I agree that is a factor to consider. Really the problem units are ones that do not have said cost baked in; Terry (with the buff), Varghulf, Archregent.

I would need to see that laid out.

I can't really reconcile that the extra 1000+ points being recycled and freely summoned is fully baked into the cost of the archregents and monsters and the ghouls themselves really.

The math just doesn't support that at all.

I hear that as a counter argument nearly every day, that summoning is ok because they bake the cost into all of the units, but really that is not even the case half the time. There are some units where they did that... like horrors. And then there are a lot of units where that is simply not the case at all.

If you take an army that recycles / summons and put them up against an army of say Slaves to Darkness or High elves, that summoning is going to make the game much more than a 2000 v 2000 game. Its going to be a serious handicap for the slaves to darkness or high elf player. Hell take a summons army against a non summons army in general and that is a serious buff period. If the cost were baked into the points values of the other units then it would be the same as when you had reserve points. Which no one wanted to use because the cost wasn't free. The same reason why you don't see people really play tzeentch summoning horrors much ... because its not worth it because they baked the cost in for real into the models.

But you'll see plenty of other spam summons. For a reason... their costs are not factored in or if they are, laughably so.

To my understanding he means that is a factor, not that it at all compensates. Certainly that is what I mean; were all the summoning and allegiance taken out of the picture the basic FEC units (ghouls, horrors, flayers) would be notably sub-par. Similarly their corresponding courtiers would be; they don't fight very well. The Ghast courtier is somewhat of an exception but is one of those heroes that has a point reduction to compensate for a weeny hero occupying a leader slot (IMO he should just be 100 and not have the leader classification, but it works). Even the mounted dragon is not that great on stats alone; compare to VLoZD.

The problem on the unit end lies with the minority of units costed such that it does not compensate. The varghulf fights like 160 points for showing up, the mounted terry could probably have used a 20 point bump upwards before they buffed the maw and made it considerably stronger. The archregent is obviously ludicrous.

This is one thing on its own, the allegiance abilities being overpowered is layered on top.

I think from a casual standpoint that an FEC army that doesn't summon at all is still quite capable.

I know that that was a war I had to fight in my last campaign because two of the legion of nagash players said that if their army had summon death mechanics put on them after recycling 500 points that that made their army "unplayable". (sudden death mechanics being that after you summon 500 or more points in a 2000 pt game that your opponent has a sudden death objective to achieve since they are now outclassed)

That somehow their 2000 point army was really worth like 1000 points and that the summoning and recycling was what made it worth 2000 points.

I find that, in that case at least, and in the FEC example, both against casual lists, to be a load of bollocks.

Now against other armies spamming summoning or cranking out the mortal wound carousel, that would be something to consider.

And I'm defining casual list as a list that is not taking advantage of undercost OP units. Which is still a wide variety of lists. For example, my blood warrior list is blood warriors, reavers, some blood crusher cav, a mighty lord of khorne and a couple priests and a bloodsecrator. Gets totally smashed against a tourney list but in the casual sense, is not only narratively accurate, armies that spam summons do just fine against it if they arent' spamming summoning.

I'm saying put 200 points of ghoul vs 200 points of most other units and the ghouls are going to lose. Ditto for horrors/flayers and courtiers (by themselves, of course). In raw combat capability they are poor; the resurrection of dead models is baked into the point cost. Also note those units are not what people are bringing up when overpowered things are discussed.

Now could an army of just those still kick the snot out of a casual list? With the new book they dam well could, but with the GHB they certainly wouldn't. That is the allegiance talking.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
What separates FEC is that a non-optimized FEC list beats the snot out of the same from almost any other army. It doesn't need to be a cheese list vs casual at all. Aside from the Archregent the units are not even that bad, plenty out there that are worse from other armies. But the set of allegiance abilities they have...

I'm not sure that really applies. I've been testing my FEC quite a bit now in our PtG campaign (where taking the big monsters isn't an option) and they by no means just roflstomp all other lists like there is no tomorrow. In fact, their glass cannon nature was really starting to show in that format (and I was taking an archregent to lead my forces). I've only played a few normal games, but when you leave the dragons home, it's not a wrecking ball army at all. In fact, in my 1k abattoir build, I was still let down by how embarrassingly bad the crypt horrors are if they face any armor.

I'm happy somebody brought up just how ridiculously weak ghouls are compared to most other basic troops in this game. Summoning them does generate 200p, but that unit would only cost 160p in most other armies to begin with, so that points advantage you can get, hasn't been a miracle cure... especially since you do NOT want to spend those few precious CP you get on feeding frenzying those types of minimum summoned units.

The KNIGHT keyword units are all 160+ points for 12W 5+ save models and tend to get wiped out before any mustering can even happen, so those units are not breaking the game right now either.

The real problem units, are the big mounted monsters when they strike first (default mode for a gristtlegore general) and the undercosted archregent... Then it's absolute carnage. So what you are seeing is a bunch of people spamming those big gribblies while avoiding large SERF/KNIGHT units altogether (except for their troop requirements), but guess what... That's exactly what a honed hardcore FEC list looks like. Try going up against a 2k list with only a single monster and no archregent spam. The other reports of "non dragon/archregent spam" builds that are effective, is blisterkin/deadwatch apparently, but I don't have any first hand experience with that all, it's just what the FEC FB group is reporting.

However (and this goes back to my original self-policing point), I did see lists passing in that group along the lines of:

1k Grisstlegore grand court
AGKoTG
Archregent
rTG
10 ghouls

I could include the screenshot of me politely implying he's a massive enjoyment killing c*nt if he takes that to a casual game.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:
I see GW nerfing them in a month or 2.
They will keep them for now for sales purposes, but by April they will likely get grounded a bit.


I'd say we see the Archregent become unique and behemoths retain that status even as battle line.
Even with those 2 tweaks they will be a solid army, but I feel those 2 really tip the scales on it.

What sales purposes?

Seriously, Carrion Empire was the big ticket item and it sold out day of.

Ah yes Carrion Empire is only source of FEC models in the world. Yes that must be it ;-)

And before you say archregent is unique for that not forever.

GW then moves to sell stuff at full price rather than discount.

 Elmir wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
What separates FEC is that a non-optimized FEC list beats the snot out of the same from almost any other army. It doesn't need to be a cheese list vs casual at all. Aside from the Archregent the units are not even that bad, plenty out there that are worse from other armies. But the set of allegiance abilities they have...

I'm not sure that really applies. I've been testing my FEC quite a bit now in our PtG campaign (where taking the big monsters isn't an option) and they by no means just roflstomp all other lists like there is no tomorrow. In fact, their glass cannon nature was really starting to show in that format (and I was taking an archregent to lead my forces). I've only played a few normal games, but when you leave the dragons home, it's not a wrecking ball army at all. In fact, in my 1k abattoir build, I was still let down by how embarrassingly bad the crypt horrors are if they face any armor.

I'm happy somebody brought up just how ridiculously weak ghouls are compared to most other basic troops in this game. Summoning them does generate 200p, but that unit would only cost 160p in most other armies to begin with, so that points advantage you can get, hasn't been a miracle cure... especially since you do NOT want to spend those few precious CP you get on feeding frenzying those types of minimum summoned units.

The KNIGHT keyword units are all 160+ points for 12W 5+ save models and tend to get wiped out before any mustering can even happen, so those units are not breaking the game right now either.

The real problem units, are the big mounted monsters when they strike first (default mode for a gristtlegore general) and the undercosted archregent... Then it's absolute carnage. So what you are seeing is a bunch of people spamming those big gribblies while avoiding large SERF/KNIGHT units altogether (except for their troop requirements), but guess what... That's exactly what a honed hardcore FEC list looks like. Try going up against a 2k list with only a single monster and no archregent spam. The other reports of "non dragon/archregent spam" builds that are effective, is blisterkin/deadwatch apparently, but I don't have any first hand experience with that all, it's just what the FEC FB group is reporting.

However (and this goes back to my original self-policing point), I did see lists passing in that group along the lines of:

1k Grisstlegore grand court
AGKoTG
Archregent
rTG
10 ghouls

I could include the screenshot of me politely implying he's a massive enjoyment killing c*nt if he takes that to a casual game.

This seems accurate. The only problem I see for FEC in relation to casual games compared to any other tournament level army is that they have basically 3 kits... and the three of them come in the start collecting! set, so a TON of casual players will end up with busted lists that stomp other noobies. And thats a problem.

So turns out the local AOS crowd at my shop is of a competitive nature but not TFGs about it. So it looks like a good thing my two armies are FEC and Maggotkin if/when I decide to swing back around to AOS.

I think the main complaints about FEC result from being able to summon (which is the main part of the army as everything really sucks by itself) or the wonky BS like 3 archregents and 5 terrorgheists now that the FAQ said you ignore behemoth restrictions.

 Elmir wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
What separates FEC is that a non-optimized FEC list beats the snot out of the same from almost any other army. It doesn't need to be a cheese list vs casual at all. Aside from the Archregent the units are not even that bad, plenty out there that are worse from other armies. But the set of allegiance abilities they have...

I'm not sure that really applies. I've been testing my FEC quite a bit now in our PtG campaign (where taking the big monsters isn't an option) and they by no means just roflstomp all other lists like there is no tomorrow. In fact, their glass cannon nature was really starting to show in that format (and I was taking an archregent to lead my forces). I've only played a few normal games, but when you leave the dragons home, it's not a wrecking ball army at all. In fact, in my 1k abattoir build, I was still let down by how embarrassingly bad the crypt horrors are if they face any armor.

I'm happy somebody brought up just how ridiculously weak ghouls are compared to most other basic troops in this game. Summoning them does generate 200p, but that unit would only cost 160p in most other armies to begin with, so that points advantage you can get, hasn't been a miracle cure... especially since you do NOT want to spend those few precious CP you get on feeding frenzying those types of minimum summoned units.

The KNIGHT keyword units are all 160+ points for 12W 5+ save models and tend to get wiped out before any mustering can even happen, so those units are not breaking the game right now either.

The real problem units, are the big mounted monsters when they strike first (default mode for a gristtlegore general) and the undercosted archregent... Then it's absolute carnage. So what you are seeing is a bunch of people spamming those big gribblies while avoiding large SERF/KNIGHT units altogether (except for their troop requirements), but guess what... That's exactly what a honed hardcore FEC list looks like. Try going up against a 2k list with only a single monster and no archregent spam. The other reports of "non dragon/archregent spam" builds that are effective, is blisterkin/deadwatch apparently, but I don't have any first hand experience with that all, it's just what the FEC FB group is reporting.

However (and this goes back to my original self-policing point), I did see lists passing in that group along the lines of:

1k Grisstlegore grand court
AGKoTG
Archregent
rTG
10 ghouls

I could include the screenshot of me politely implying he's a massive enjoyment killing c*nt if he takes that to a casual game.

This lines up with what I am seeing locally as well. And honestly, the Zombie Dragon or unmounted terrorgheist hasn't been that bad, it's really been the AGkoTG that has been the problem. This is mainly due to the mount trait and Gristlegore benefits combined with an already under-costed unit. Then when you add 3 more Terrorgheists as battleline, it gets real dicey. The meta is starting to shift enough that I may consider an Anvils SCE list here real soon.

We also just had a local tourney , and FEC showed up, but didn't dominate. Still had IDK come in first, followed by Skaven and then FEC. Honestly, I think everyone is focusing on FEC while Skaven is flying a bit under the radar right now. They've been putting up a lot of results locally and at major tournaments.

tneva82 wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:
I see GW nerfing them in a month or 2.
They will keep them for now for sales purposes, but by April they will likely get grounded a bit.


I'd say we see the Archregent become unique and behemoths retain that status even as battle line.
Even with those 2 tweaks they will be a solid army, but I feel those 2 really tip the scales on it.

What sales purposes?

Seriously, Carrion Empire was the big ticket item and it sold out day of.

Ah yes Carrion Empire is only source of FEC models in the world. Yes that must be it ;-)

And before you say archregent is unique for that not forever.

GW then moves to sell stuff at full price rather than discount.

Archregent not being around to drive sales is kind of a big deal when it is the "new hotness" that everyone's complaining about. Everything else in that box for FEC can be had from a SC set--which also gets you a Terrorgheist/Zombie Dragon to boot.

So yeah that's kind of a big deal when people are claiming they won't nerf the Archregent because of sales.

I don't think that nerfing the arch regent is happening. At least anytime soon. Based on the conversations I'm reading, the tournament crowd feels AOS2 is in the best place its ever been ever.

auticus wrote:
I don't think that nerfing the arch regent is happening. At least anytime soon. Based on the conversations I'm reading, the tournament crowd feels AOS2 is in the best place its ever been ever.

I would say overall they aren't wrong. It's not *balanced* but it's overall a good game I think. You have the usual tournament balance you rail against a lot, but the game itself is in a better place than 40k right now in my opinion.

auticus wrote:
I don't think that nerfing the arch regent is happening. At least anytime soon. Based on the conversations I'm reading, the tournament crowd feels AOS2 is in the best place its ever been ever.

I think alot of this is because the game has been improving over time, but its still far from perfect.
There are alot of inconsistencies and issues that need ironing out still.
As a whole, I'd agree that it's currently better than it was.
I still say that FeC are above the rest at current though.

Creating internal balance is one thing, we often see a new book where a few units are basically an auto take while others are a handicap, but this levels out in its self.
The FeC book though is simply solid, there are no "bad" options.
Just about everything they have is average - great.
Then you add in the tactics, abilities etc and it's strength ramps up even more.


I'd be confident in saying a newer player using FeC could keep place with an average player and army.
Obviously ability comes into this, but it just amplifies it even more.
Take a top player and give them a top army, it's going to roll over most things with relative ease.

Most armies have a weak point or they lack somewhere, FeC just simply don't.


I'd say the only downside to them is a massively limited unit pool.






I think skaven have also flown under the radar aswell.
While alot of changes have irritated players (mortars, fiends etc) I feel they are currently in a good place.
Some of the units like jezzails have been improved alot.
Even special characters have a use, rather than being over costed centre pieces.
Thanquol for example (4x warpfire) can delete hordes and 2-3 wound model units with ease while being a stable casting platform.
It's nice to be able to actually use him for once.

Only real bug to me is the allies issues and mixed clans, but that can be worked around.

To be fair though, FEC has like 3 units anyways so it's kind of hard to have a bad choice when you're so limited.

What constantly bugs me, although I'm sure auticus is right, is why tournament players aren't focused on balanced design. You always see people say how a good tournament game is well balanced, but here we see tournament players being largely in control of the rules (how much control we don't know) and still making things wildly imbalanced despite the fact that being tournament players you would think they'd want something more balanced.

I saw someone saying the reason FEC is so imbalanced compared to say Gloomspite is because Gloomspite had new models, FEC didn't (other than the Archregent) so they had to make the book OP to sell more of them(aka the old "It's not balanced because their a business" saw that people seem to trot out as an excuse).

I Just find it funny how you see people here, for instance, always say how the goal of competitive play is to be as balanced as possible and yet in the same case we have tournament players deliberately making the game unbalanced.

Wayniac wrote:
To be fair though, FEC has like 3 units anyways so it's kind of hard to have a bad choice when you're so limited.

What constantly bugs me, although I'm sure auticus is right, is why tournament players aren't focused on balanced design. You always see people say how a good tournament game is well balanced, but here we see tournament players being largely in control of the rules (how much control we don't know) and still making things wildly imbalanced despite the fact that being tournament players you would think they'd want something more balanced.

I saw someone saying the reason FEC is so imbalanced compared to say Gloomspite is because Gloomspite had new models, FEC didn't (other than the Archregent) so they had to make the book OP to sell more of them(aka the old "It's not balanced because their a business" saw that people seem to trot out as an excuse).

I Just find it funny how you see people here, for instance, always say how the goal of competitive play is to be as balanced as possible and yet in the same case we have tournament players deliberately making the game unbalanced.

The thing is, most of the tome really isn't that unbalanced. The statline of nearly every unit is pretty poor, and expensive. They have their summoning rules to help fix this, and it's been discussed a bit There are only a few items that are really imbalanced, such as the AGKoTK and the Gristlecore court. Nearly every other unit is fine, with perhaps the Arch-regent being debatable.

Not to mention, I don't think it's fair to say that tournament players are deliberately making the game unbalanced.

 Sasori wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
To be fair though, FEC has like 3 units anyways so it's kind of hard to have a bad choice when you're so limited.

What constantly bugs me, although I'm sure auticus is right, is why tournament players aren't focused on balanced design. You always see people say how a good tournament game is well balanced, but here we see tournament players being largely in control of the rules (how much control we don't know) and still making things wildly imbalanced despite the fact that being tournament players you would think they'd want something more balanced.

I saw someone saying the reason FEC is so imbalanced compared to say Gloomspite is because Gloomspite had new models, FEC didn't (other than the Archregent) so they had to make the book OP to sell more of them(aka the old "It's not balanced because their a business" saw that people seem to trot out as an excuse).

I Just find it funny how you see people here, for instance, always say how the goal of competitive play is to be as balanced as possible and yet in the same case we have tournament players deliberately making the game unbalanced.

The thing is, most of the tome really isn't that unbalanced. The statline of nearly every unit is pretty poor, and expensive. They have their summoning rules to help fix this, and it's been discussed a bit There are only a few items that are really imbalanced, such as the AGKoTK and the Gristlecore court. Nearly every other unit is fine, with perhaps the Arch-regent being debatable.

Not to mention, I don't think it's fair to say that tournament players are deliberately making the game unbalanced.

It sure seems to be that way with how you'll have like two codexes that are alright, then one that's OMGWTFBBQ, then another that's strong but not broken, then OMGWTFBBQ, etc. Their design is all over the place. There has to be a reason why they are so inconsistent with their design and internal/external balance. Before it was that the designers seemed to be just schmucks who played for funsies (like the 40k team) but most of the AOS team is all UK tournament guys.

Wayniac wrote:
To be fair though, FEC has like 3 units anyways so it's kind of hard to have a bad choice when you're so limited.

What constantly bugs me, although I'm sure auticus is right, is why tournament players aren't focused on balanced design. You always see people say how a good tournament game is well balanced, but here we see tournament players being largely in control of the rules (how much control we don't know) and still making things wildly imbalanced despite the fact that being tournament players you would think they'd want something more balanced.

I saw someone saying the reason FEC is so imbalanced compared to say Gloomspite is because Gloomspite had new models, FEC didn't (other than the Archregent) so they had to make the book OP to sell more of them(aka the old "It's not balanced because their a business" saw that people seem to trot out as an excuse).

I Just find it funny how you see people here, for instance, always say how the goal of competitive play is to be as balanced as possible and yet in the same case we have tournament players deliberately making the game unbalanced.

Look at blood crushes ages ago.
£18 metal model and every tournament army took 9+ of them.
A while later, plastic kit of 3 for £33.
After the hype died, they got nerfed into the ground.
That seemed sales based to me sadly.




In terms of tournament players and balance, there is a simple answer to that.
People are different.
Everyone has thwir own vision of what balance is or what it should be.
The chance of finding several people that would agree on that are slim.
This isn't exclusive to GW either.
Any competitive game has this.
Some people call for nerfs, others call for buffs, no one ever agrees on a middle ground.

You then have to take personal experience and bias into this too.
No one wants their own army to get hit by the nerf bat, infact, they want it competing with top armies.
Some units will seem over the top against the army you play, yet in general, your army may just struggle against said unit.
As a result of that, you would want your army buffed to tackle this, which in turn, beefs up your army as a whole.

With the exception of games like chess, I really don't think any game will achieve a perfect balance, it's physically impossible.

Nobody wants perfect balance, but it's repeatedly funny to me how virtually every other wargames company except GW can at least make things *roughly* balanced to where there isn't glaring inconsistencies or cases where X just completely replaces Y in all ways, but the "biggest wargames company in the world" finds this task Herculean to do. If their competitors can do it while being way smaller, you would think the juggernaut could do it too.

Wayniac wrote:
Nobody wants perfect balance, but it's repeatedly funny to me how virtually every other wargames company except GW can at least make things *roughly* balanced to where there isn't glaring inconsistencies or cases where X just completely replaces Y in all ways, but the "biggest wargames company in the world" finds this task Herculean to do.

I'd stab a guess that it's because GW really is no slouch with content.
They pump out models and rules for several different game types and then various armies for each.
While they have a much bigger development team, they also put out far more than any other miniature company.

Jackal90 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
To be fair though, FEC has like 3 units anyways so it's kind of hard to have a bad choice when you're so limited.

What constantly bugs me, although I'm sure auticus is right, is why tournament players aren't focused on balanced design. You always see people say how a good tournament game is well balanced, but here we see tournament players being largely in control of the rules (how much control we don't know) and still making things wildly imbalanced despite the fact that being tournament players you would think they'd want something more balanced.

I saw someone saying the reason FEC is so imbalanced compared to say Gloomspite is because Gloomspite had new models, FEC didn't (other than the Archregent) so they had to make the book OP to sell more of them(aka the old "It's not balanced because their a business" saw that people seem to trot out as an excuse).

I Just find it funny how you see people here, for instance, always say how the goal of competitive play is to be as balanced as possible and yet in the same case we have tournament players deliberately making the game unbalanced.

Look at blood crushes ages ago.
£18 metal model and every tournament army took 9+ of them.
A while later, plastic kit of 3 for £33.
After the hype died, they got nerfed into the ground.
That seemed sales based to me sadly.




In terms of tournament players and balance, there is a simple answer to that.
People are different.
Everyone has thwir own vision of what balance is or what it should be.
The chance of finding several people that would agree on that are slim.
This isn't exclusive to GW either.
Any competitive game has this.
Some people call for nerfs, others call for buffs, no one ever agrees on a middle ground.

You then have to take personal experience and bias into this too.
No one wants their own army to get hit by the nerf bat, infact, they want it competing with top armies.
Some units will seem over the top against the army you play, yet in general, your army may just struggle against said unit.
As a result of that, you would want your army buffed to tackle this, which in turn, beefs up your army as a whole.

With the exception of games like chess, I really don't think any game will achieve a perfect balance, it's physically impossible.

You can cherry pick examples of both sides of the spectrum pretty easy though, your bloodcrusher example does not prove anything. For every "New unit is OP" you can pick out 1-2 units that were not OP or a release that was not OP or quite weak. It's really the fact that GW rules team is just not that great at balancing things.

 Sasori wrote:

Jackal90 wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
To be fair though, FEC has like 3 units anyways so it's kind of hard to have a bad choice when you're so limited.

What constantly bugs me, although I'm sure auticus is right, is why tournament players aren't focused on balanced design. You always see people say how a good tournament game is well balanced, but here we see tournament players being largely in control of the rules (how much control we don't know) and still making things wildly imbalanced despite the fact that being tournament players you would think they'd want something more balanced.

I saw someone saying the reason FEC is so imbalanced compared to say Gloomspite is because Gloomspite had new models, FEC didn't (other than the Archregent) so they had to make the book OP to sell more of them(aka the old "It's not balanced because their a business" saw that people seem to trot out as an excuse).

I Just find it funny how you see people here, for instance, always say how the goal of competitive play is to be as balanced as possible and yet in the same case we have tournament players deliberately making the game unbalanced.

Look at blood crushes ages ago.
£18 metal model and every tournament army took 9+ of them.
A while later, plastic kit of 3 for £33.
After the hype died, they got nerfed into the ground.
That seemed sales based to me sadly.




In terms of tournament players and balance, there is a simple answer to that.
People are different.
Everyone has thwir own vision of what balance is or what it should be.
The chance of finding several people that would agree on that are slim.
This isn't exclusive to GW either.
Any competitive game has this.
Some people call for nerfs, others call for buffs, no one ever agrees on a middle ground.

You then have to take personal experience and bias into this too.
No one wants their own army to get hit by the nerf bat, infact, they want it competing with top armies.
Some units will seem over the top against the army you play, yet in general, your army may just struggle against said unit.
As a result of that, you would want your army buffed to tackle this, which in turn, beefs up your army as a whole.

With the exception of games like chess, I really don't think any game will achieve a perfect balance, it's physically impossible.

You can cherry pick examples of both sides of the spectrum pretty easy though, your bloodcrusher example does not prove anything. For every "New unit is OP" you can pick out 1-2 units that were not OP or a release that was not OP or quite weak. It's really the fact that GW rules team is just not that great at balancing things.

That's true, but pricing has become more erratic too these days.
Back then there was almost a tax based on unit slot aswell.
Troops you need in mass? Cheap price.
Elite unit you'll like take maybe one to 2 of? Hike up the cost (I'm looking at you, goldswords)
Character you'll only need 1 of? Price hike again.


Currently though, pricing is all over the place.
I honestly wouldn't like to try and guess new pricing before releases.
Before you could essentially work out the price by knowing it's unit size, role and composition.

Not to mention, I don't think it's fair to say that tournament players are deliberately making the game unbalanced.

The point of listbuilding is to create a list that performs much higher than its point value. To pick the optimal / efficient units and to ignore the appropriately costed or overcosted units as much as possible.

That is in and of itself an attempt to load the game balance in your favor, or ... making the game unbalanced.

Listbuilding will always be a thing, and is a thing in every game. But in games like warlords of nowhere, battletech, and kings of war (games I play regularly) the bell curve of power is much much much broader meaning that there are in orders of magnitude many more viable builds than AOS has. If you're running khorne, because you like khorne, you have basically one type of build you can run. Even though there are a bunch of other models you may love, but those models are not able to tilt the game in your favor and thus are not optimal and thus showing up with them against someone building an efficient optimal list will guarantee you a loss unless the other person is just really really bad at target priority and objectives.

So it being fair or not is just where you stand on the spectrum. To be a tournament player and to be building to win tournaments is all about unbalancing the game in your favor. Thats just the reality of playing the game where winning is the primary concern. That is not good nor is it bad nor is it moral nor is it immoral.

Is that good for the game? Tournament players say "yes its a great place because all of these factions have a build that can compete instead of just 2-3 factions like its been for 20 years". I say "no, because people that want to play with their toys have to be VERY careful who they play against, which leads to a lot of frustration and pissed off people who drive 45 min to their game shop to get tabled in 2 turns because they liked mortal blood bound units and their opponent liked tournament power FEC".

What does me complaining about it on dakka do? Probably nothing, but I know the game devs read these forums they are just not allowed to post on them, and since I was silenced on the tga forum I post about it here. Because I think they need to do a whole lot better to broaden that bell curve out; thats what they are paid to do.

Now here's some math.

FEC player 2000 pts vs a test build of slaves to darkness. This is campaign tuning but we wanted a bell curve to sit on. FEC player list was only 2 terrorgheists and 3 arch regents. The rest ghouls, courtiers, horrors, etc. He considered this toned down. You can already guess the outcome of this game anyway, the slaves to darkness table conceded in turn 4 but the game was over after a turn 3 double turn.

FEC player averaged a damage output of 37 wounds for 2000 points a turn, slaves to darkness player averaged 25 wounds for 2000 points a turn. This was without summoning. FEC player absorbed in this game 16 wounds average a turn, slaves of darkness player averaged 14 wounds average a turn.

variables were rounded where appropriate.

This was without summoning by the way (i'll add the summoning in a moment)

FEC player paid 54 points per point of damage, slaves player paid 80 points per point of damage.
FEC player saved average 16 wounds a turn, or paid 125 points per saved wound. Slaves player saved 14 wounds or paid 142 points per saved wound.

FEC overall paid 90 points (89.5) for damage/save.25
Slaves paid 111 points for damage/save.

FEC player is raw stat operating roughly 12% more efficient without summoning than the slaves to darkness roster. And this is a toned down FEC roster.

Now adding summoning, FEC player was able to add and recycle roughly 560 points in this game. This drives the overall points paid down for the FEC player even more and drives their percentage up to about 18% more efficient than the slaves to darkness roster. This again being the toned down roster vs a slaves to darkness list (what I consider a poster boy for casual list).

From my own playtesting when a game crests 8% or so more efficient one list or the other, the game is typically decided at that point. So a 12% more efficient list is what we consider a foregone conclusion. 18% is "do you want to bother playing this game".

I will be doing more of this exercise for our campaign planning in the fall.

I mean it is definitely a good thing that every faction has a good build versus only 2-3 good factions, but I 100% agree that the power balance is so wonky that you easily get screwed because you like Unit X over Unit Y and Unit X is just bad. And I agree, nobody wants to drive to the game store to get their teeth kicked in because they picked units they like and their opponent's faction just so happens to be done better (read: more powerful) so that their opponent's units are way better than theirs.

Now had the slaves of darkness player in my example above had access to summon 500-1000 points of slaves to darkness units in the game, that would have driven the efficiency down to about 10% or so in favor of the FEC.

Still a one sided game because the FEC has a higher damage output but maintainable and workable in an objectives game.

To me, if you have off the chain summoning, everyone should have off the chain summoning. OR factions have to have high damage output to deal with that off the chain summoning.

This is why blood bound khorne can't really do well against similar lists despite having a more up to date book than slaves to darkness (that has none) and why I consider blood bound khorne also casual by virtue of just showing up with them.

The sudden death mechanics help with this as the slaves of darkness player has a sudden death objective he can achieve and still win so he still feels like he's in the game, but most of those are difficult too (try to slay the enemy general when you've been half killed in a turn or two and your opponent has also beefed up his list 500-800 points in two turns with summoning), but its something.

Now test the FEC against something that isn't a pretend Old World holdover faction...

The numbers are similar with bloodbound mortals as I noted above.

The numbers are also similar with sylvaneth funny enough (a casual build).

Thats with this "toned down" FEC build (for campaign they will be restricted to 1 arch-regent which will bring that number down a bit more)