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IF the designers would do their job it would be balanced for both.

People seem to think casual gamers etc don't care about balance or benefit. Actually it's the casual players to whom having game balanced matters most. Balance helps everybody but the one where it's absolutely essential is casual games. Tournament games don't care if only 10% of the game is playable.

A tightly balanced ruleset is not going to be able to account for the many variables one would be able to play with in one's list. If one can just take any sort of list, without any consideration for their own strategy, balance, and synergy it should fall to the wayside compared to a more optimized and planned out list. A list that looks like you just grabbed any model and tossed it in there and has a chance with something planned you've made a big issue that strategy or planning the list does not matter.

 nels1031 wrote:

auticus wrote:


Case in point this morning on a facebook group there was a ton of talk about some GT that just finished and how balanced and perfect the game was because of how diverse the top tier armies all are at tournaments.

As in over 100 posters saying the same thing and nary an opposing viewpoint

Which group? Seems most of the AoS pages I follow have devolved into "Check out my paintjob/conversion/whatever"(which is fine, I steal plenty of ideas!) with little to no tactics discussion. Would love to join a group that talks more about the gaming side of AoS.

TGA forums is pretty good on that.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

IF the designers would do their job it would be balanced for both.

People seem to think casual gamers etc don't care about balance or benefit. Actually it's the casual players to whom having game balanced matters most. Balance helps everybody but the one where it's absolutely essential is casual games. Tournament games don't care if only 10% of the game is playable.

A tightly balanced ruleset is not going to be able to account for the many variables one would be able to play with in one's list. If one can just take any sort of list, without any consideration for their own strategy, balance, and synergy it should fall to the wayside compared to a more optimized and planned out list. A list that looks like you just grabbed any model and tossed it in there and has a chance with something planned you've made a big issue that strategy or planning the list does not matter.

No one is suggesting that a list with random units should be on par with one that has a proper balance of battlefield roles.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

IF the designers would do their job it would be balanced for both.

People seem to think casual gamers etc don't care about balance or benefit. Actually it's the casual players to whom having game balanced matters most. Balance helps everybody but the one where it's absolutely essential is casual games. Tournament games don't care if only 10% of the game is playable.

A tightly balanced ruleset is not going to be able to account for the many variables one would be able to play with in one's list. If one can just take any sort of list, without any consideration for their own strategy, balance, and synergy it should fall to the wayside compared to a more optimized and planned out list. A list that looks like you just grabbed any model and tossed it in there and has a chance with something planned you've made a big issue that strategy or planning the list does not matter.

No one is suggesting that a list with random units should be on par with one that has a proper balance of battlefield roles.

Yeah thats an strawman that I hate to see when people say that they want balance and nearly equal chances of winning.

Look at it like Total War Warhammer. I know that if I make a full big-Dinosaur Lizardmen army my chances of winning are very swingy. I accept that the moment I make a spam based and unbalanced force, that I try for fun. But when I do a balanced force (A infantry core, supported by magic, monsters, cavalry, and/or artillery, etc... or whatever is balanced, for example if I'm playing a cavalry faction then I would have a cavalry core supported by other elements) I expect to have an equal chance of winning vs a opponent of my same level of hability.

AverageBoss wrote:

 nels1031 wrote:

auticus wrote:


Case in point this morning on a facebook group there was a ton of talk about some GT that just finished and how balanced and perfect the game was because of how diverse the top tier armies all are at tournaments.

As in over 100 posters saying the same thing and nary an opposing viewpoint

Which group? Seems most of the AoS pages I follow have devolved into "Check out my paintjob/conversion/whatever"(which is fine, I steal plenty of ideas!) with little to no tactics discussion. Would love to join a group that talks more about the gaming side of AoS.

TGA forums is pretty good on that.

Ya, I'm on TGA, but would love another venue to discuss AoS, or just read peoples varied opinions/experiences.

tneva82 wrote:
So it's okay for game designers to be lazy incompetent ones because players can do their job in their place instead. Yep yep. That makes sense. GW can sell whatever crap balance and it's okay because players are expected to do their job instead.

tneva82 wrote:
crap balance

Seeing as balance appears to be around the competitive meta, I'd say the game's balance is in a good place right now (could always be better, it'll never be perfect). What you want isn't balance, it's homogenization. You want to be able to bring a list you "think is cool" to the table against someone else's "cool list" and have a "balanced game" when the reality is there are TONS of "imbalanced" units, abilities, spells, terrain rules, missions, and battalions that the only way a "balanced" game can be played is by both players communicating with one another before pen hits paper. It doesn't matter if this communication is between two players changing their lists or between tournament organizers (using house rules or GW's own Matched Play rules) and players, the communication needs to happen.

Games Workshop have done their job already by making a decently balanced tournament meta. You need to do your job by communicating with whoever you are playing. That may mean not using some of the models you spent days on, but that is the cost of a decently balanced tournament meta. If they balanced around casual armies you would end up with homogenization and the killing of anything that makes armies unique, or you'd end up with a far smaller ruleset and amount of armies. This is the price we are all paying.

To say they are being lazy by doing this, after 2.0 and tons of FAQs, is absurd. Just be honest: the game's not balanced the way you want it so you're mad about it.

Did summoning ruin AoS again? No, the players did.

How is a tournament meta where only a small minory of the factions do well balanced? Can you explain the reasoning there?

No one thinks the balance is perfectly fine where it is. I don't think we are arguing that we like where things are, we are arguing that we like where things are heading.

The tournament data shows a clear discrepancy between Battle Tome armies and those without. That's not to say this is perfect either. Kharadron Overlords, despite being a newer army but I believe that can be fixed with some points adjustment.

Now it has yet to be seen where Beast of Chaos will land on the balance spectrum. But by its mere existence it shows that GW hasn't abandons these older factions. I look forward for the day when these factions receive their respected updates.

No one thinks the balance is perfectly fine where it is

I don't really care about the subject anymore as I've emotionally moved my investment from AOS, but I will say there are quite a bit of people saying the balance is perfectly fine where it is OR that the balance is actually desirable to that individual because the tournament standings are at a diversity level that they find acceptable and even desired.

More specifically to the topic at hand, that summoning is indeed just fine because at tournament levels there is a diversity of standings and the summoning armies arent' all winning tournaments, so therefore the game overall is fine and summoning is overall fine.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
How is a tournament meta where only a small minory of the factions do well balanced? Can you explain the reasoning there?

So, I think a huge problem with this is that a lot of the factions are lacking battletomes. It's no surprise that a faction without a battletome isn't going to be able to compete at the tournament level.

Here is the list from the most recent GT:



Rank Name Faction Wins
1 Ben Savva Daughters of Khaine 6
2 Robert Sedgman Nighthaunt 6
3 Terry Pike Maggotkin of Nurgle 5
4 Gary Percival Stormcast 5
5 Steve Curtis Legions of Nagash 4
6 Nick Thompson Daughters of Khaine 5
7 Chris Myhill Order 5
8 Dan Bradshaw Idoneth Deepkin 5
9 Tony Moore Legions of Nagash 5
10 Colin Cochrane Daughters of Khaine 4
11 Ritchie McAlley Sylvaneth 4
12 Russ Veal Blades of Khorne 4
13 Andy Hughes Legions of Azghor 4
14 Rich Arnold Legions of Nagash 4
15 Ian Spink Bonesplittaz


That's fairly diverse. There was a different army played by each person in the top 5, and the top 15 has a ton of different armies. While this is no means perfect (DoK look to be a bit too strong) It does show a semblance of balance for the battletome armies.

when we say ton of different armies, lets also examine the actual army lists which tend to be very similar in a lot of cases.

This is highly misleading. I play a lot of nurgle. I know their competitive build and I know that if you deviate from that build, you are not going to be on the list above in a tournament barring some great dice luck and great play on your part and abysmal dice luck and play on your opponent's part.

So to say that the battletome army is balanced is very misleading. It would be more accurate to say that they've done a better job at making sure most battletome armies have a powergaming build to tournament with which is different from the past where only 3 or 4 of the 20+ factions had a powergaming build that could do well in a tournament.

But I think those two things (an army being balanced and a book having a viable powergaming build) are very different from each other.

18 battletome allegiances plus 6 others and 4 grand alliances, so 28 full armies. I do not have issue with non-allegiances being sub par since there is not a practical way of bringing them up without making units OP. But I leave it open; to call the tournament level balanced in the most liberal sense there should be at least a majority (15) that perform on approximately equivalent levels. This is still ignoring build diversity and that LoN is actually four allegiances. If it cannot be shown that the above is the case then I feel there is no room to objectively call things balanced. It IS a very subjective term, but to say a situation overall is balanced when it is not even a majority is definitely unreasonable.

All of that is to say, the tournament level is not at all balanced. Is it better than it was? Absolutely. But to say it is balanced is simply a falsehood. And to bring things back to summoning; from what I have seen balance has actually gotten worse outside or tournaments in that randomly matching one 2000 pt list with another results in worse gaps more often. I still think 2.0 is better because the new rules make up for that and then some. Yet if summoning were restrained things would be better at the non-tourney scene as well and that would expand the number of customers far more than the tourney scene ever will.

auticus wrote:
when we say ton of different armies, lets also examine the actual army lists which tend to be very similar in a lot of cases.

This is highly misleading. I play a lot of nurgle. I know their competitive build and I know that if you deviate from that build, you are not going to be on the list above in a tournament barring some great dice luck and great play on your part and abysmal dice luck and play on your opponent's part.

So to say that the battletome army is balanced is very misleading. It would be more accurate to say that they've done a better job at making sure most battletome armies have a powergaming build to tournament with which is different from the past where only 3 or 4 of the 20+ factions had a powergaming build that could do well in a tournament.

But I think those two things (an army being balanced and a book having a viable powergaming build) are very different from each other.

Besides the Legion of Nagash build, all of the builds are pretty diverse. If you look up the indivudal DoK list, all three of them are very different. One was a typical sisters one, while one had a bunch of melee snakes. From some of the comments of the Nurgle list, the one that the player took was not something , since he took the thircefold befoulment battalion.

He took three great unclean ones. The nurgle power builds require you to take a couple greater demons on average. The nurgle list taken here was not that grossly different from typical builds, and as usual relies heavily on the demons.

I was wondering if anyone else saw the power of thricefold befoulment.

12 Russ Veal Blades of Khorne 4
13 Andy Hughes Legions of Azghor 4
14 Rich Arnold Legions of Nagash 4

I haven't checked the C.dwarfs out in forever, but how did they become viable again? I remember them being very poor off quite sometime ago.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

12 Russ Veal Blades of Khorne 4
13 Andy Hughes Legions of Azghor 4
14 Rich Arnold Legions of Nagash 4

I haven't checked the C.dwarfs out in forever, but how did they become viable again? I remember them being very poor off quite sometime ago.

Seriously. There are two(another at 19) in the Top 20.

What happened?

They got allegiance abilities, and already had some strong warscrolls to draw from. I think some of the warscrolls got improvements as well. Dunno how much their points changed.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
18 battletome allegiances plus 6 others and 4 grand alliances, so 28 full armies. I do not have issue with non-allegiances being sub par since there is not a practical way of bringing them up without making units OP. But I leave it open; to call the tournament level balanced in the most liberal sense there should be at least a majority (15) that perform on approximately equivalent levels. This is still ignoring build diversity and that LoN is actually four allegiances. If it cannot be shown that the above is the case then I feel there is no room to objectively call things balanced. It IS a very subjective term, but to say a situation overall is balanced when it is not even a majority is definitely unreasonable.

All of that is to say, the tournament level is not at all balanced. Is it better than it was? Absolutely. But to say it is balanced is simply a falsehood. And to bring things back to summoning; from what I have seen balance has actually gotten worse outside or tournaments in that randomly matching one 2000 pt list with another results in worse gaps more often. I still think 2.0 is better because the new rules make up for that and then some. Yet if summoning were restrained things would be better at the non-tourney scene as well and that would expand the number of customers far more than the tourney scene ever will.

I want to address this again.

So, let's address your first point. The fact of the matter is right now armies without battletomes are going to be weaker than armies with them, in most cases. While this should be fixed overtime, and is a problem, you cannot reasonably expect them to compete in a tournament level.

If you count the battle tome armies, of which there are about 18, 10 armies were represented. Add in the Legions of Azgor, you have 11 different armies in the top 15. That is quite diverse, and very reasonable. Over half the battletome armies in a top 15 is objectivity excellent. Is there room for improvement? Sure. Also of note, summoning was not a major factor in the top ten, with 1 army in the top 5, and 3 in the top fifteen.

This presents to me a pretty healthy competitive scene. I of course think there could be improvements, but it looks to be much more balanced than some are making it out to be.

 Sasori wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
18 battletome allegiances plus 6 others and 4 grand alliances, so 28 full armies. I do not have issue with non-allegiances being sub par since there is not a practical way of bringing them up without making units OP. But I leave it open; to call the tournament level balanced in the most liberal sense there should be at least a majority (15) that perform on approximately equivalent levels. This is still ignoring build diversity and that LoN is actually four allegiances. If it cannot be shown that the above is the case then I feel there is no room to objectively call things balanced. It IS a very subjective term, but to say a situation overall is balanced when it is not even a majority is definitely unreasonable.

All of that is to say, the tournament level is not at all balanced. Is it better than it was? Absolutely. But to say it is balanced is simply a falsehood. And to bring things back to summoning; from what I have seen balance has actually gotten worse outside or tournaments in that randomly matching one 2000 pt list with another results in worse gaps more often. I still think 2.0 is better because the new rules make up for that and then some. Yet if summoning were restrained things would be better at the non-tourney scene as well and that would expand the number of customers far more than the tourney scene ever will.

I want to address this again.

So, let's address your first point. The fact of the matter is right now armies without battletomes are going to be weaker than armies with them, in most cases. While this should be fixed overtime, and is a problem, you cannot reasonably expect them to compete in a tournament level.

If you count the battle tome armies, of which there are about 18, 10 armies were represented. Add in the Legions of Azgor, you have 11 different armies in the top 15. That is quite diverse, and very reasonable. Over half the battletome armies in a top 15 is objectivity excellent. Is there room for improvement? Sure. Also of note, summoning was not a major factor in the top ten, with 1 army in the top 5, and 3 in the top fifteen.

This presents to me a pretty healthy competitive scene. I of course think there could be improvements, but it looks to be much more balanced than some are making it out to be.

Pretty much this, it's a surprisingly good spread of factions rather then one single battle tome dominating. There's a few problem codex's, but even they don't just strongly contest the top like you'd expect.

The battletomes provide a fair few benefits that even the GH2018 does not provide (Such as lores for some reason) so even if that helped, it's not going to be as close as a battletome.

That all will be subjective on the individual's personal judgement of what a "healthy" competitive scene looks like and at what threshold it is not.

For some people, I remember ten years ago in 7th edition whfb that 2-3 viable armies in the entire game was still a "healthy competitive scene".

summoning was not a major factor in the top ten, with 1 army in the top 5, and 3 in the top fifteen.

And also has been repeated ad naseum that summoning at the powergaming level is passable. Its at the casual level that its an unbalanced force that creates one-sided games.

Well yes, some people. But many people disliked the constant dominance of the top three. It would be a very small minority to claim that WHFB 7th editions tournament scene was even liked.

And also has been repeated ad naseum that summoning at the powergaming level is passable. Its at the casual level that its an unbalanced force that creates one-sided games.

And has been repeated ad naseum, that balancing at the casual level is a difficult endeavor at best, useless at worst.

Heh, balance is useless. Cannot argue with that logic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sasori wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
18 battletome allegiances plus 6 others and 4 grand alliances, so 28 full armies. I do not have issue with non-allegiances being sub par since there is not a practical way of bringing them up without making units OP. But I leave it open; to call the tournament level balanced in the most liberal sense there should be at least a majority (15) that perform on approximately equivalent levels. This is still ignoring build diversity and that LoN is actually four allegiances. If it cannot be shown that the above is the case then I feel there is no room to objectively call things balanced. It IS a very subjective term, but to say a situation overall is balanced when it is not even a majority is definitely unreasonable.

All of that is to say, the tournament level is not at all balanced. Is it better than it was? Absolutely. But to say it is balanced is simply a falsehood. And to bring things back to summoning; from what I have seen balance has actually gotten worse outside or tournaments in that randomly matching one 2000 pt list with another results in worse gaps more often. I still think 2.0 is better because the new rules make up for that and then some. Yet if summoning were restrained things would be better at the non-tourney scene as well and that would expand the number of customers far more than the tourney scene ever will.

I want to address this again.

So, let's address your first point. The fact of the matter is right now armies without battletomes are going to be weaker than armies with them, in most cases. While this should be fixed overtime, and is a problem, you cannot reasonably expect them to compete in a tournament level.

If you count the battle tome armies, of which there are about 18, 10 armies were represented. Add in the Legions of Azgor, you have 11 different armies in the top 15. That is quite diverse, and very reasonable. Over half the battletome armies in a top 15 is objectivity excellent. Is there room for improvement? Sure. Also of note, summoning was not a major factor in the top ten, with 1 army in the top 5, and 3 in the top fifteen.

This presents to me a pretty healthy competitive scene. I of course think there could be improvements, but it looks to be much more balanced than some are making it out to be.

So balance is objectively excellent, if you cut out the majority of the product line. Even from a strictly financial perspective that reasoning is objectively bad.

"AoS fans, would you like to see more diversity of armies and more players?"

"No, because 9 different armies that count made the top 15."

Not even remotely what I said.

"No, because 9 different armies that count made the top 15."

There's 11 out of 15, Apparently counting, like balance is useless
Daughters of Khaine, Nighthaunt, Maggotkin, Stormcast, Legions of Nagash, Order, Idoneth Deepkin, Sylvaneth, Blades of Khorne, Legions of Azghor, and Bonesplittaz.

One cannot deny that's a very good spread of armies along the top fifteen.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Heh, balance is useless. Cannot argue with that logic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sasori wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
18 battletome allegiances plus 6 others and 4 grand alliances, so 28 full armies. I do not have issue with non-allegiances being sub par since there is not a practical way of bringing them up without making units OP. But I leave it open; to call the tournament level balanced in the most liberal sense there should be at least a majority (15) that perform on approximately equivalent levels. This is still ignoring build diversity and that LoN is actually four allegiances. If it cannot be shown that the above is the case then I feel there is no room to objectively call things balanced. It IS a very subjective term, but to say a situation overall is balanced when it is not even a majority is definitely unreasonable.

All of that is to say, the tournament level is not at all balanced. Is it better than it was? Absolutely. But to say it is balanced is simply a falsehood. And to bring things back to summoning; from what I have seen balance has actually gotten worse outside or tournaments in that randomly matching one 2000 pt list with another results in worse gaps more often. I still think 2.0 is better because the new rules make up for that and then some. Yet if summoning were restrained things would be better at the non-tourney scene as well and that would expand the number of customers far more than the tourney scene ever will.

I want to address this again.

So, let's address your first point. The fact of the matter is right now armies without battletomes are going to be weaker than armies with them, in most cases. While this should be fixed overtime, and is a problem, you cannot reasonably expect them to compete in a tournament level.

If you count the battle tome armies, of which there are about 18, 10 armies were represented. Add in the Legions of Azgor, you have 11 different armies in the top 15. That is quite diverse, and very reasonable. Over half the battletome armies in a top 15 is objectivity excellent. Is there room for improvement? Sure. Also of note, summoning was not a major factor in the top ten, with 1 army in the top 5, and 3 in the top fifteen.

This presents to me a pretty healthy competitive scene. I of course think there could be improvements, but it looks to be much more balanced than some are making it out to be.

So balance is objectively excellent, if you cut out the majority of the product line. Even from a strictly financial perspective that reasoning is objectively bad.

"AoS fans, would you like to see more diversity of armies and more players?"

"No, because 9 different armies that count made the top 15."

No, the reasoning is perfectly valid when you consider that most of the armies don't yet have their battle tome. The Generals handbook has helped in this matter, but once again, it is not reasonable to expect a faction that has not gotten a full release to compete on the same level of a faction that does. The battletome factions will almost always have more units, more battalions, more relics, just more tools than non-battle tome armies. I do not see how you can think that it is fair to compare the two when this is taken into account.

At what point did I say or even imply that that I did not want to see more diversity? Now, you are just being disingenuous with your argument. I even said that there is room for improvement, and I addressed that not all armies having a battletome is a problem.

Also, it was 11 different armies in the top 15.

If GHB & grand alliance allegiances do not count, it was only 9. So do they count for balance or do they not?

And yes, I was being disingenuous. It was meant as a call out to you saying only a minority of armies count for balance, which is disingenuous.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If GHB & grand alliance allegiances do not count, it was only 9. So do they count for balance or do they not?

And yes, I was being disingenuous. It was meant as a call out to you saying only a minority of armies count for balance, which is disingenuous.

While he was discussing how armies with all their options gained through battletomes which grant updated warscrolls (These do change when a battletome comes out) and lores that provides an army with better benefits and in general makes an army stronger as a result.

You decided to essentially bad faith post with actual disingenuous positions, with a strawman in there. He never said they should not count for balance, he is saying they would overall be weaker as a result.

How is that not saying they don't count for balance? The argument is that it is OK (if not desireable) for the overwhelming majority of GWs products to perform poorly in the game they are sold for, and that this is somehow a reasonable way to run the game. If that is the logic I am faced with it is entirely fair to return it in kind.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If GHB & grand alliance allegiances do not count, it was only 9. So do they count for balance or do they not?

And yes, I was being disingenuous. It was meant as a call out to you saying only a minority of armies count for balance, which is disingenuous.

My argument is not being disingenuous. I fully acknowledged in my post that those armies not having a battletome is a problem that needs to be addressed. I also said there is room for improvement. But trying to say that all of these armies, most of which don't even have token level support, are expected to be on the same level in a competitive environment as full releases is absurd.






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
How is that not saying they don't count for balance? The argument is that it is OK (if not desireable) for the overwhelming majority of GWs products to perform poorly in the game they are sold for, and that this is somehow a reasonable way to run the game. If that is the logic I am faced with it is entirely fair to return it in kind.

I addressed quite clearly in my post that it is an issue that needs to be fixed. If you are just going to ignore that I ackowledged that there is a problem, then there is no further reason to dicuss this with you.

 Sasori wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
If GHB & grand alliance allegiances do not count, it was only 9. So do they count for balance or do they not?

And yes, I was being disingenuous. It was meant as a call out to you saying only a minority of armies count for balance, which is disingenuous.

My argument is not being disingenuous. I fully acknowledged in my post that those armies not having a battletome is a problem that needs to be addressed. I also said there is room for improvement. But trying to say that all of these armies, most of which don't even have token level support, are expected to be on the same level in a competitive environment as full releases is absurd.

THAT is a straw man. I said that the simple majority of armies with allegiance abilities (that can be made powerful enough to compensate for artifact/spell diversity) should be competitive to say the game is balanced. The response was that only allegiances in battletomes matter since all others are supposed to be worse, which is saying that the vast majority of the game does not matter for balance