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 Elmir wrote:

 EnTyme wrote:
This might be a good time to mention that WarCom has announced another community survey set to go up on April 15th. Last year's survey was one of the primary factors in GW deciding to remake the Adepta Sororitas, so if you want a faction brought back, this would be a good opportunity to let GW know directly. I know I'm going to voice my support for updating Free Peoples and bringing back the Tomb Kings in some form (I like the idea of focusing on the constructs and Ushabti).

You could not believe how hard Jess Goodwin burst out in laughter when I asked him if that community survey was the real reason sisters where being remade.

Had a nice chat with him during Warhammer fest Europe last summer. He told me the process from sketches to boxed set takes well over 4 years. The designs and sketches were long made, it was a perfect storm of internet meme, community survey and publicity stunt.

Asking for tomb kings back will not have the same effect at all, because it probably wasn't on GW's radar to begin with (unlike SoB).

Whatever you say, friend. Have a nice day.

auticus wrote:
Well at least now perhaps the jolly old "summoning is perfectly fine and totally balanced, its not like seraphon are winning any majors, you just need to git gud" can go away.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also as far as aspiring balance issues in the game, Adepticon I'm told was pretty bog standard in the armies that showed up. Heavy on daughters of khaine. Fair representation of the skaven and FEC (shocking I know). A lot of missing factions.

I don't feel thats pretty good for the game. I know we are getting more tomes this year. Thats good, I hope it resolves this.

Kings of War had 12 of their 14 factions represented at Adepticon and were all competitive. I think thats a good goal to aspire to get toward.

If I saw a majority (51%) of factions show up with more than one viable build I would be pretty happy.

Yeah my two big balance bugbears:

* external balance - a large chunk of the factions are not viable when the other person is powergaming

* internal balance - even the factions that can powergame are largely using one build or a minor deviation of that. With the exception of FEC... which has several.

Skaven have a wide range of viable builds/units, probably the most.

Some of the smaller factions like Fyreslayers are going to suffer with fewer options unless GW leans toward unit spam options - much like how Flesh Eater Courts are able to spam dragons/monsters. I see that being a theme for those armies until GW can get more models out for them. Skaven certainly have multiple options, but then at some 30+models in their range they've got a wealth of variety and choices.

I consider the smaller factions a minority. For those factions, they have less to choose from so it would be mathematically reasonable that they have less internal builds that are viable.

But one viable build is never going to cut it for me unless the book literally only has two or three options, which is not the case currently.

There are a lot of larger factions that don't even have one viable external build yet as well.

Also note *viable* build. A viable build is one that when going against someone stressing the system out in powergamer fashion can still reasonably perform ok and a good game be had (even if at a slight disadvantage which is also reasonable)

A small faction like fyreslayers having only one viable build is bad but not nearly as bad as, for example, stormcast which have a huge range of models yet only one viable build. Tbf there is some wiggle room, but the core of 'spam sacrosanct' is pretty set.

That said, the situation is not linear. If the top three army builds were nerfed it would probably make fivd other ones viable, were the top five nerfed it would probably make a dozen available. Because narrowing that bell curve creates an exponential effect, and only when balance is in a reasonable place does it start to get diminishing returns.

Which is to say that as things stand a little improvement will go a long way. If LoN, DoK, FEC, Skaven, sacrosanct and eels were nerfed the tournament diversity would explode.

Yeah provided they just did that nerf. They have a tendency to nerf some things, then ratchet some other things to 11 to continue the same cycle.

 EnTyme wrote:

Whatever you say, friend. Have a nice day.

You don't have to believe me ofc. But have a look at stormcast episodes (both Jes Goodwin and John Blanche recently), the usual time frame of miniature concept art to box release is always around 4 years.

A community survey started in december 2017 as the catalyst leading to actual models being released in late 2019 is just plain not realistic. It was the perfect storm and it's going to be a nice experiment for them to compare the sales when building up long term hype vs impulse buying (their current sales strategy essentially).

Those renders that were released today? Good chance that 'eavy metal has already painted most of the planned sister releases so they can be photographed for a codex that will have to be send to the printers in the next few months to even make a late 2019 release possible.



Sorry if this info about miniature design process is new to you. I'm not trying to offend... I'm just stating why the (very good and convincing) PR stunt of plastic sister is just that...

auticus wrote:
Yeah provided they just did that nerf. They have a tendency to nerf some things, then ratchet some other things to 11 to continue the same cycle.

Yeah...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The good news is that free peoples perform well in the tabletop and have a solid set of allegiance abilities.

Thanks for all the replies folks!

I'll be taking the plunge into Skirmish/Hinterlands soon and it's nice to know Free People ought to be sticking around and are currently quite playable if I decide to expand to a full army.

On a somewhat related note, how does AoS fare in terms of rules bloat, in respect of breadth of rules and the amount of physical books required for games? I imagine it's relatively fine since most of the rules are available for free online and unit profiles don't seem to be too convoluted. I'm afraid to say 40k seems to be getting a bit out of hand on that front and I'm curious if its a problem specific to that ruleset or part of GW's overall approach to their main games.

On a somewhat related note, how does AoS fare in terms of rules bloat, in respect of breadth of rules and the amount of physical books required for games?

I find them very minimal.

When I go play I have the small Rule Booklet, General's Handbook for missions, and then my tome. Of course if you start allying stuff in it might get a bit more cumbersome. On the other hand all stats for units are available on the GW website and can be gotten in small warscroll packs. Personally I just find the bookkeeping in AoS minimal in comparison to 40k due to easier access to playing aids.

The realm rules (which are supposedly a standard part of the rules) add some bloat, as they use the core book and the malign sorcery book.

Bloat exists, its degree will be in the eye of the beholder.

For campaign events, I try to consolidate bloat by putting all relevant hhouse rules and realm rules into one document so that people do not need to constantly be flipping around for them.

Bloat isn't too bad - but then again 40K bloat isn't horrendous either. It's more an issue when people are using multiple Codex for multiple armies.

I think AoS gets a bit more leeway there because when you use an allied army you don't need the Battletome; you just need the models warscroll as all the abilities, spells etc... are all tied to the core army so you only need the Battletome for that army.

Whilst 40K more strongly presents the need for taking multiple Codex (and all associated paperwork). So it feels worse - then again some Xeno's believe this is just the marine tax they have to pay for having a lot of toys to play with

I think AoS gets a bit more leeway there because when you use an allied army you don't need the Battletome; you just need the models warscroll as all the abilities, spells etc... are all tied to the core army so you only need the Battletome for that army.

In my case I tend to use the Age of Sigmar app a lot. It allows you to mark specially the unit you are using which means you are only flipping through your unit army. This basically means you only need your phone, Allegiance abilities + whatever rules you are playing with.

 Eldarsif wrote:

I think AoS gets a bit more leeway there because when you use an allied army you don't need the Battletome; you just need the models warscroll as all the abilities, spells etc... are all tied to the core army so you only need the Battletome for that army.

In my case I tend to use the Age of Sigmar app a lot. It allows you to mark specially the unit you are using which means you are only flipping through your unit army. This basically means you only need your phone, Allegiance abilities + whatever rules you are playing with.

Something i wish 40k would do :( both of these things you two are talking about.

They were asked about a 40k app at LVO. They said they are working on it, but the issue is that there are literally thousands of dataslates as opposed to hundreds for AoS, and those dataslates often do not include all the weapon options for a given unit.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They were asked about a 40k app at LVO. They said they are working on it, but the issue is that there are literally thousands of dataslates as opposed to hundreds for AoS, and those dataslates often do not include all the weapon options for a given unit.

I think the key difference is that in AoS - much like old fantasy - many units don't have a huge variety of weapons. Some might have two or three variations, but by and large they easily fit onto the stat bar for each unit. In that regard AoS also has the advantage that they can give the same type of weapon to two units in the same army and have them with totally different profiles.

Because of the way 40K has a much more modular approach to weapons (with armies like Tyranids being highly modular); you might have six, seven or more weapons for a single unit. Ontop of that you've got all the equipment types and upgrades that, if you're building an app, ideally want to be selected to appear on the models for that specific army.

The AoS just has to show warscroll cards; the 40K would have to let you build armies from the ground up to show all the various upgrade and equipment choices. That said it should be just a simple case of a form and table system. Then again if its not top priority for GW then it might only have a smaller budget.



Also what is it with the Grand Alliance forums today? All day its been "community not found"

 Overread wrote:

Also what is it with the Grand Alliance forums today? All day its been "community not found"

I've gotten the message before, but never for this long.

Thought about reaching out to the admin/founder who I am friends with on Facebook, but I'd rather not bother him as his page seems family/work focused so it felt weird. Perhaps an update to the site?

I know the fundraiser meter was pretty stagnant for quite some time, after the initial burst of activity. The needle hasn't really moved in months.

I may not have been a huge fan of that community but it would be a shame if they shut down. More AoS community engagement is good.

Naw I've seen it a few times last for a day or half day - though never known why. Sometimes it even gets sort of "half stuck" in the cache

I can't imagine its dying the guy in charge is way too connected to semi-major events (I think he even got a mention in the GW heroes list) so I'd figure its some kind of hiccup.

Ben Curry (the owner) is the professional sports for AOS champion and great friends with the design team. The site being down right now (I cannot view it as I am blocked) is 99.99% likely a technical issue with whatever their server is and I'd be more than sure will return in the very near future (tonight or so).

Whew, was worried it was another warseer incident.

Yeah I was pretty worried too.

So I proxied a few extra* plague monks in order to run an optimized pestilens list against my friends tourney DoK build, and tabled him round 3 (without a double-turn). My favorite moment was when my vermin lord corrupter walked up to his cauldron and hit it for 25 MWs. During the game I was struck by the sheer power of these armies; the capacity of each to simply dominate the field is so far beyond what an average list puts out.

*80

Edit: Just want to clarify that it was a great game and we both had a lot of fun. We both brought extremely heavy-hitters.

Sword of Judgement?

the capacity of each to simply dominate the field is so far beyond what an average list puts out.

That is the new average.

Still, and despite being on a 40k kick due to the new Chaos Marines, I can't help but shake the feeling AOS is, overall, the better game. It has similar issues but they seem way less pronounced than 40k, perhaps because the AOS team seem to be way more competent at design (being tourney players) than the old "forge the narrative" schmucks on the 40k team from the older editions.

The biggest turnoff for me about AOS is that everything seems crazier than the last, which would be a good design if there weren't periods between where some things are just lower due to having older tomes or fewer gimmicks than the new stuff that's being released.

Its a roller coaster. They release a book that isn't too bad, then follow that up with a wtf.