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To respond to several people who quoted me;

I agree that most FEC units simply are not a problem (on their own). And unmounted monsters aren't really something to be feared. But PtG isn't a good measurement though, since that dynamic is completely different than matched play. When I say that a casual FEC list dominates what I mean is elements like a mounted terry with re-roll maw hits; if you don't have shooting or magic to take it down very fast it can easily turn the game single-handedly. Charges, fights, frenzy to fight again immediately will bite a chunk out of your army no matter what you do (save screening, which has its own issues and often means ceding objective control). Yes, it is not as bad without re-roll maw hits but when there is a clear strongest option even a casual list will take it; doing otherwise is specifically tailoring to be weaker. And there is more than one element like that in the tome.

I agree that Skaven are absolutely flying in under the radar with their slew of potential cheese builds and being much more difficult to counter-play when run properly.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

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.

It is, but that speaks only to the standard being poor. I'm trying to be more positive about AoS and give credit where it is due, but on the balance front this state is in my eyes inexcusable. It is just plain bad. I'm also trying to tune my thinking towards this imbalance being a feature rather than a drawback because that is how GW treats it. That this is an undesirable feature to the average person and IMO hurts GWs sales for no benefit at all (the players who like imbalance would still be playing anyways) means it irritates me with how utterly foolish it is to make it a feature, but it is what it is.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 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.

I agree wholeheartedly that most of the tome isn't that unbalanced. In terms of percentage that is a problem is it several orders of magnitude better than Skaven. But the severity of those portions which are... I think a big issue too is that feeding frenzy is overpowered right off the bat. That they get to fight again immediately rather than getting the option to be chosen again later in the phase (like every other similar ability) is what does it. My hope is that GW will address that with an errata, my expectation is that they will increase the point cost of units instead.

But speaking of positivity, I think there is a huge wealth of content in the new FEC battletome and I'm glad GW included it. Seperate traits and artifacts for courtiers was a great idea and another army getting mount traits is cool to see. If the minority of problem elements are addressed reasonably the battletome's underlying strength in design could come through like it does with Gloomspite.

I'm also trying to tune my thinking towards this imbalance being a feature rather than a drawback

I don't know how to reconcile that. Unless one can just play for the love of playing and not care about getting stomped. I just can't get into that though, I don't like driving 40 minutes to the game store to get my nose rubbed in pooh because I like models that happen to just suck and my opponent is willing to ebay his old armies and buy the latest broken to keep up.

For right now, heavily house ruled AOS is still working for us. But we have a whole lot of playtesting to go before we can release the final campaign packet for the fall.

The content and art in the books is pretty cool as are the models. From a gaming standpoint just need to find the right people and play with the right mindset. Instead of public type events. I think that'll work out good for me.

I didn't say it had to be a feature that I, others, or even the majority likes. Spiciness is a feature of jalapenos, doesn't mean everyone needs to like it.

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. If their competitors can do it while being way smaller, you would think the juggernaut could do it too.

One little side note, that I believe explains how this happens, Games Workshop has never considered itself a "wargame company". They are a "miniature company" that happens to also sell a war game alongside them.

Just sit and consider the ramifications of that.

That has been said but the reality has always been the more GW behaves like a wargames company they more miniatures they sell.

 Charistoph wrote:

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. If their competitors can do it while being way smaller, you would think the juggernaut could do it too.

One little side note, that I believe explains how this happens, Games Workshop has never considered itself a "wargame company". They are a "miniature company" that happens to also sell a war game alongside them.

Just sit and consider the ramifications of that.

https://investor.games-workshop.com/our-business-model/

They are a "miniature" manufacturer. Not a "games" retailer.

The ramifications of the statement start and stop in that being their corporate objective (AKA: their main source of income).

Stuff like this is what brought them to drop the miniatures and games part, because apparently reading comprehension is hard.

However much they try to claim they aren't a games company, the reality is they are. They can repeat they aren't until Doomsday and it won't change the fact the majority of people who buy their products buy them because they are pieces in a game, not because they are pretty models they want to lovingly paint and stick on a shelf somewhere.

But yeah, that's exactly why. Ever since they started adopting that line (mid/late 2000s? I forget when but it was around when all the good designers they had including Rick Priestly left) they've shown they don't really care about rules they just will do the bare minimum to say they're doing something.

Wayniac wrote:
However much they try to claim they aren't a games company, .

Except they've never claimed such a thing.

That also hasn't been said since the new management took over. Can we please stop using an out-of-context quote from the previous administration to discredit GW?

 EnTyme wrote:
That also hasn't been said since the new management took over. Can we please stop using an out-of-context quote from the previous administration to discredit GW?

It doesn't matter what they say. They still let sales drive the rules, don't they? They still do models first and rules second, don't they? Maybe stop trying to pretend they aren't doing it because they say they aren't doing it. The media doesn't say it lies and makes gak up to push agendas but that doesn't mean they don't do it.

They still let sales drive the rules, don't they?

Which is why GW has decided to sell us mostly Finecast as a lot of Finecast models in 40k are awesome units(Aeldari soups are driven by the force of Finecast). By 2020 Finecast will become the main produce of Games Workshop and all plastic molds will be destroyed in favor of more resin.

To be fair model rules and sales have never really held hand in hand. When the new plastic wracks came out their rules were subpar. Same goes for ton of other models. Morka- and Gorkanauts were subpar when they were released.

Their Kirby era goal was just to release beautiful models. Rules were something that came secondary to that goal(which is why they were all over the place). In new GW this might have changed somewhat and with their focus divided between stuff like Warhammer Underworlds, Necromunda, and their testing of making boardgames(Speedfreakz) I do get the sense that they want to become proper game developers. I wouldn't be surprised that after their previous FFG licensing deal and seeing that FFG was encroaching upon GW domain GW decided they needed to change some of their focus.

I mean, GW's current game balancing is miles above their old track record. If anything I'd say GW has realized that perhaps a fun rule system that isn't bonkers helps sell the game that includes all their models.

I mean, GW's current game balancing is miles above their old track record.

Maybe circa 2011-2014. 40k is still a garbage fire in terms of balance, and AOS is also a garbage fire unless you're a tournament player and are cool with rotating your army around regularly to keep up with the meta.

They are better in that before only 2-3 factions had a broken build and today double that or so have broken builds so the tournament halls are more diverse.

They are a far cry from where they were when Priestely and Allessio were there in 2000-2006. I'd say they are on par with the same balance issues from 2007 - 2011, also known as the Matt Ward era.

I disagree with 40k. Most armies are coming in at the 50/50 with few outliers(IG+Castellan, Ynnari, GK). The Matt Ward era was much worse where people could just refuse playing certain armies because of how broken they were. Hell, I'd prefer going against the two top outliers in 40k than any of the Matt Ward codexes at the end of 5th.

In regards to AoS there is a definite schism between 1.0 and 2.0 tomes which is reminiscent of the Index vs. Codex problems we had in starting of 8th. We are seeing a few strong contenders, but going by history they will soon have some price hikes in the next GHB which will further fix things.

I think the only game that is doing balancing the right way right now would be X-Wing, but that's also because they embraced their digital frontier which very few are doing. It gives them an unprecedented reaction time.

auticus wrote:

I mean, GW's current game balancing is miles above their old track record.

Maybe circa 2011-2014. 40k is still a garbage fire in terms of balance, and AOS is also a garbage fire unless you're a tournament player and are cool with rotating your army around regularly to keep up with the meta.

They are better in that before only 2-3 factions had a broken build and today double that or so have broken builds so the tournament halls are more diverse.

They are a far cry from where they were when Priestely and Allessio were there in 2000-2006. I'd say they are on par with the same balance issues from 2007 - 2011, also known as the Matt Ward era.

Precisely. And the difference seems to be when Priestly and Alessio were there, they at the least did rules and models hand in hand if not rules driving models. Now it's "Oi you lads we have these new models going on sale in a month, throw some rules for it".

Didn't Rick Priestly himself say that he left GW because they were pushing the sales aspect over everything else?

"Oi you lads we have these new models going on sale in a month, throw some rules for it".

You would be surprised how many game companies do this in the digital landscape.

Although to be fair towards developers it is probably a two way street. Artists makes an asset and asks the game designers to make rules for it and sometimes game designers have ideas they ask the artists to create a model for. It is the basis of many scrum principles to have different teams make feature requests to each other based on ideas generated within a team that are reliant on another team.

In regards to AoS there is a definite schism between 1.0 and 2.0 tomes which is reminiscent of the Index vs. Codex problems we had in starting of 8th.

Definitely a sure thing, but the goblin book that came out is not in the same league as skaven or FEC either. I'd even say that the stormcast, which had the much maligned and busted evocators (due to their extreme undercosting) are not as bad now either.

It would surely benefit the game if they'd just release all the other factions like every other game does.

Doing the staggered release is probably one of the biiggest culprits for their bad balance.

Wayniac wrote:

It doesn't matter what they say. They still let sales drive the rules, don't they?.

Which explains why Atalan Jackals, Achilles Ridgerunners, Aberrants, and the new characters are by far the strongest things in the new GSC codex! Oh. Right. The only new kits that are considered strong are the Kelermorph and Locus (and the latter is only because it buffs a gimmick requiring older models. If you aren't trying for a Mental Onslaught bomb, it's basically worthless). Everything else is either average or overshadowed by something older. Seriously. This is another argument that needs to die. Balance is all over the place and has nothing to do with the kit that just released.

So, new to AoS, long-time 40K player. What book(s) does one need to get into Matched Play with Chaos Daemons, mostly Slaanesh and Tzeentch?

Thanks!

 Octopoid wrote:
So, new to AoS, long-time 40K player. What book(s) does one need to get into Matched Play with Chaos Daemons, mostly Slaanesh and Tzeentch?

Thanks!

Generals handbook - This gives you all the info you will need to begin with.
Tzeentch has it's own book, so that would help alot.
There is a slaanesh book on the horizon, so that would also be useful.

At bare minimum though, you only need the generals handbook.
That will allow you to run a chaos faction and gives you points costs.

 Octopoid wrote:
So, new to AoS, long-time 40K player. What book(s) does one need to get into Matched Play with Chaos Daemons, mostly Slaanesh and Tzeentch?

Thanks!

Well first up be aware that Slaanesh is pegged to get a new Battletome this year and "new models". Already the fiends of slaanesh and a new leader playing a grisly harp are in the new Khorne VS Slaanesh twin boxed set (splits on ebay or with people if you can find them to split a box if you don't want the khorne stuff).


Otherwise what you'd need for AoS is:
1) The Core Rules. You can get them free off the downloads area on the GW website or you can get them in the Big Rule Book - that book also contains rules for matched play, battleplans, lots and lots of lore and other neat stuff you'd expect from the games core book.

2) The Battletome for Tzeentch - NOTE this is an "older" tome and likely will be replaced. Double check with a Tzeentch player because if its very old then all it will have is the warscrolls which you can get online off the GW store for free if you want. Plus if its old its likely to get replaced at some point (with GW's current pace iwthin the next 2 years at some point I would estimate)

3) The Battletome for Slaanesh - not yet published and on the "soon" list which means we've no idea, however keep an eye out because once the Khorne Battletome is out that's the last "hinted" at release for AoS on radar except Warcry so there's a good chance that at a major event soon GW will likely do a reveal of the next few months to come.

4) Generals Handbook 2018 - has some rules for Slaanesh (alliance abilities) and updated points, but in all honesty with a new Tome on the horizon it might not be best to jump to buy it - club/other persons copy should be fine to check out to get what you need from it (about a page and a bit). Otherwise the rest of it is some battleplans that you might want.

5) Malign Sorcery boxed set - Contains Endless spells, warscrolls for them and the realm spells and items for realm rules. Most clubs and groups have accepted Endless Spells with open arms and this set gives you all the rules AND models (for less than a getting started set). Tzeentch is a major wizard in the game so having access to all the generic endless spells will be very beneficial for a Tzeentch player. The Realm stuff is more hit and miss and broken into two halves; the realm your faction comes from (affects artifacts and equipment for lords) and the realm your battle is set in (gives you new spell tables). Some places use it all some not some hit and miss, but as its all bookkeeping side of things you can easily add and remove without much trouble.
I'd say this is a set very worth getting, esp for a Tzeentch player.



And that's about it, its sort of a tricky time to get into both armies as one is a near guaranteed update coming and another is very likely to get one. Use the warscrolls off the GW store (downloads/rules tab on model store pages) and have a quick glance at a copy of the Generals Handbook 2018 for some of the slaanesh. If you do get any tomes and such just be prepared for them to become out of date for Tzeentch likely within a year or two - however no one can predict what GW will do that's purely based on their current release pattern.

I'm aware this isn't quite what you likely wanted to hear, but its a transitional phase for those two chaos armies so things are a little up in the air. Of course it igves you a great time to collect up some models and get them battle-ready for the table. The only model I know that will change is the Keeper of Secrets is likely to be replaced with a new and likely bigger platsic model (just like the other Chaos Gods have big leader models now for their demons)


Note you can also use the warscroll builder from the GW website to build the army iwth as that contains the point values and unit limts for the models
https://www.warhammer-community.com/warscroll-builder/

Thanks for the helpful commentary, both of you! Cheers!

Lord Kragan wrote:

 Charistoph wrote:

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. If their competitors can do it while being way smaller, you would think the juggernaut could do it too.

One little side note, that I believe explains how this happens, Games Workshop has never considered itself a "wargame company". They are a "miniature company" that happens to also sell a war game alongside them.

Just sit and consider the ramifications of that.

https://investor.games-workshop.com/our-business-model/

They are a "miniature" manufacturer. Not a "games" retailer.

The ramifications of the statement start and stop in that being their corporate objective (AKA: their main source of income).

Stuff like this is what brought them to drop the miniatures and games part, because apparently reading comprehension is hard.

Good thing I never claimed they were a game retailer, because reading comprehension is hard.

They are a miniature company. That is their main focus. Game creation is not their focus, and is only there to help sell their miniatures. Nothing in that link counters that. I never claimed that they were a retailer of any kind. There are many game companies who are game companies, but not retailers, think of all the games on an playstation or x-box console. With the exception of the direct download options, the games are sold through someone else.

GW's brick and mortars are not a focus any more than their games are a focus. Their miniatures are the focus, and everything else is to augment that focus, from the games, to the paints, to the brick and mortar stores.

Lord Kragan wrote:

Wayniac wrote:
However much they try to claim they aren't a games company, .

Except they've never claimed such a thing.

You're right, they've never claimed such a thing. The problem is that they have never really claimed the opposite, either, i.e. being a company focused on building games. Their business model declares them to be a miniature company.

While it is an interesting topic, if we could turn this back towards Age of Sigmar discussion...

 Octopoid wrote:
So, new to AoS, long-time 40K player. What book(s) does one need to get into Matched Play with Chaos Daemons, mostly Slaanesh and Tzeentch?

Thanks!

General Chaos Demons don't work super well. In Sigmar, you wanna stick to a god, but by all means collect them all. I'm a mainly Slaanesh player that his dipped some Tzeentch in.

EDIT:Eh, this line of argument isn't going to go anywhere, so I will not go further down.

I want to try out a mixed daemon force, WHFB style using generic Chaos allegiance, eventually. Not aiming to be competitive but want to see if it is viable. Obviously the allegiance benefits will be slim but being able to mix & match daemon types will provide a level of tactical flexibility that mono-god forces have to work hard to get.

Honestly I want to see support for semi-specialized lists be strengthened, like how the firestorm free city rules work but a bit more developed into their own GHB-level allegiances. It would be great to see a two-page allegiance for mixed Daemons, mixed Duardin, mixed Grots, mixed Humans, etc. Buuuut at the same time I'm not complaining because something I wanted for years and years was 'Codex/Army: Nurgle' and now I have it and am still so happy about that.

Someone on my region's facebook shared the ICv2 rating from last fall and AOS made #2 on the list, while xwing fell from #1 to #4. (40k regained its kingdom at #1)

As was commented on in my region's facebook group, despite any whining about balance problems, the overall wargaming playerbase has latched on and loves it.

It certainly has set an unarguable precedent. As Ninth said... bad balance is indeed a selling feature not a bug.

I'm not sure it is a positive feature overall. AoS balance has improved in that timeframe; while there is much to discuss about how bad it may be, and FEC are certainly a big step backwards, it has undoubtedly gotten better. GW did a pretty good job with the 2.0 rules (& fluff) and I'm sure that has helped as well.

You keep saying "bad balance" and then referring to "if a casual gamer fights a hardcore list, it's poorly balanced" to give your arguments any credence.


Maybe... Just maybe... Have you considered your line of thought here is a bit wonky and the community as a whole has figured out that there are three modes of play?

And when some d*ckheads use one mode of play (matched play style lists) to "compete" in another mode of play (open or narrative lists) it all goes tits up? The game is actually not doing that poorly around where I live either.... But we do have the self-policing I've already mentioned once or twice, to stop n*bheads from trying to feel like their e-peen grew bigger if they curbstomp through a narrative campaign with matched play lists.

I mean for God's sake... Even the main rulebook tells people this game has three different "tiers" of gameplay by now.

*edit* This was mostly a reply to Auticus

When I have to check with my opponent beforehand to figure out what power level I am making a list at, and all army advice threads start with "what power level are you aiming for?" I would say it's pretty bad. The entire point of matched play is to not have to do that.