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I have a well-optimized Skryre list that can and does mop the floor with the specifically constructed lists of other players. There are some armies that I know cannot build a list by any means which will give them a reasonable chance of success. But that isn't the worst of it; I am far from the top of the scale. There are lists I can go against where I know that not only will I almost certainly lose but I will almost certainly be tabled. Just from looking at the list. That is supremely unfun to me and I know I am not alone.

That is supremely unfun to me and I know I am not alone.

It is the #1 source of why people eventually ebay their stuff or turn to other games. Losing narrative or campaign players to this on the regular is very frustrating.

The tourney guys typically don't care as much if at all because they just ebay their list and then ebay or buy a tourney build and go from there.

I’m been out of the loop again. Did anyone find a solution to the problem of summoning?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Imagine a world were GW uses an index system (for both AoS and 40k) and said index system is an online subscription service. All rules and points adjusted instantly and together. Could be the future.

Pass.

Biggest reason I don't play my Wanderers outside of my home is that I don't want to be running around with my tablet/phone.

Agreed. All of my Chaos stuff in AoS is in book format. I got e-versions of the 40k stuff, and I vastly prefer the hard copies, even though they don't update automatically. Nothing beats the feel of a book.

auticus wrote:
So latest SCGT results:

#1 DOK
#2 DOK
#3 Skaven
#4 skaven
#5 - order something
#6 demons of khorne
#7 - skaven
#8 - FEC
#9 - skaven
#10 - FEC

DOK - top 2
Skaven - 4 of the top 10
FEC - 2 of the top 10

Was told FEC wasn't broken and they are just fine because they still aren't winning tournaments.

Hey wait I thought you guys said that tournament results don't matter and that just doing well at an event isn't an indicator of strength or quality.

Requizen wrote:

auticus wrote:
So latest SCGT results:

#1 DOK
#2 DOK
#3 Skaven
#4 skaven
#5 - order something
#6 demons of khorne
#7 - skaven
#8 - FEC
#9 - skaven
#10 - FEC

DOK - top 2
Skaven - 4 of the top 10
FEC - 2 of the top 10

Was told FEC wasn't broken and they are just fine because they still aren't winning tournaments.

Hey wait I thought you guys said that tournament results don't matter and that just doing well at an event isn't an indicator of strength or quality.

Spoiler:

I have continually insisted that they do matter, and it is an indicator of which armies are strong. I recall laying it all out quite clearly with the tourney data as evidence, to you specifically.




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 Future War Cultist wrote:
I’m been out of the loop again. Did anyone find a solution to the problem of summoning?

Well, Khorne happened. Khorne has the best designed and implemented summoning yet, something which has given hope GW will be toning it back in the future. Slaanesh is gaining new ways to generate summon points, making it as a faction less reliant upon what opponent it happens to be up against, and I have heard that the amount of points needed to summon units has been increased accordingly. With FEC being busted in all sorts of ways beyond just the summoning I have taken a 'wait and see' stance.

Hey wait I thought you guys said that tournament results don't matter and that just doing well at an event isn't an indicator of strength or quality.

Since you're here just to pick a fight I'll just respond briefly.

The opinion I held was that your assertion that the tournament scene had a variety of placings indicated the game as a whole was just fine, to include casual play and that we all just needed to... as people like you have claimed for a great many years, even during the demon list breakage of 7th edition (where I was top 10 placing GTs with said broken demon list), "learn to play".

My argument to you was that tournament play being broken leaks down into casual play and breaks the casual game apart, and that a wide variety of placings in a tournament does not indicate the game at the casual / narrative level is balanced, rather it indicated that the external balance will seem fine at the tournament level where everyone is powerlisting and bringing bent lists.

And now we're getting events with the same 3 army lists taking the lions share of top placings, which even blows the argument that the game is externally balanced just fine even at the powergamer level away.

And now we're getting events with the same 3 army lists taking the lions share of top placings, which even blows the argument that the game is externally balanced just fine even at the powergamer level away.

Could also be player bias, ie. a certain type of people go to tournaments and they are more inclined to use certain type of lists/factions. The most competitive players might not be inclined to take non-tome books, old tomes, or any other cofactor, and that may bias the overall outcome even if they could do surprisingly well otherwise(Chris's Order list is a bit of a testament to that as his list appears very unique). Just playing devil's advocate and have no interest in taking this argument further as I know we disagree very much on the definition of what GW considers active factions and non-active factions.

On another note I do find it interesting to see DoK having a comeback considering that in many of the big tourneys before they seemed to have dropped out of favor. Also, I was expecting more FEC than Skaven considering how much people have been talking about FEC. The "order something" list is an Alliance Soup if they are anything like the list Chris has made before. Ie. something like this: https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-list-rundowns/order-the-chaos-of-my-mind/
Perhaps my biggest surprise is that faction favorites that were winning before(and winning DoK lists) such as Nagash and Stormcast have disappeared, but that might be because of the aforementioned bias with tournament players moving from one faction to another.

Khorne indeed has the best summoning mechanic ever made, and it seems like Slaanesh isn’t too far behind either. They do prove that it can be done in a fair manner.

I’m not too familiar with the FEC. What specifically is wrong with their summoning?

Could also be player bias

Thats absolutely true.

I’m not too familiar with the FEC. What specifically is wrong with their summoning?

They don't have to do anything to "earn" it. They get it by virtue of the very difficult choice of including the hero that gives it to them. And then spamming said hero. And then getting ALL of those juicy free points in turn 1.

In essence... there is a tick mark that says "would you like to include and deploy 640 or so free points at the beginning of the game?" and they tick yes. And it is done.

auticus wrote:


They don't have to do anything to "earn" it. They get it by virtue of the very difficult choice of including the hero that gives it to them. And then spamming said hero. And then getting ALL of those juicy free points in turn 1.

In essence... there is a tick mark that says "would you like to include and deploy 640 or so free points at the beginning of the game?" and they tick yes. And it is done.

They have to keep the said heroes all gathered in a very specific place - in the close reach of their throne.

But yes, it's not that terrible as condition and it's easy to abuse the system right now (like everything when it goes competitive). You could easily settle this by restricting either use of the throne for one character per turn (if you have to keep the heroes for multiple turns in the area, it can be quite crippling since FEC heroes are very important to boost their troops) or do it the fluff way : one archregent per army only. These guys are basically ghoul emperors, having more than one of them in the same army is stupid, especially at the scale AoS games are playing.

I know, you competitive players don't care about the background. So only game restrictions will work with you.

On the other hand, narrative players know the other way to play AoS - by restricting yourself and doing it accordingly to the story. It you include only one Archregent, suddenly that FEC "abuse" isn't looking that bad. That means making lists that are fitting to the narrative and make interesting games, of course. List building has always been the core of the abuse in competitive games. Once you put the players in front of their responsabilities, a lot of so called "problems" solve themselves.

That's what some competitive players have difficulties to accept : that they have always been part of the problem. They are mostly the cause of their own unfun, in the end. It's not the game that forces them to build uninteresting lists - it's their mindset that keep making them abuse the system.

But yes, I admit that the way a game system is made and armies lists are written makes it sometimes easier to abuse them. It's a shame that it always ends in restrictions, that hit all players and usually make the game with less choices than before, just for the sake of competition. Which is pointless, because as long as you have the same mindset, you will always find a way to abuse the system. Even in Saga, Kings of War, or whatever any other game you will think are better written/thought.

If competitive players are playing against competitive players in a powergaming environment there isn't really a problem.

Its when they want to powergame outside of the powergaming environment that it becomes a problem.

Even in a non-competitive arena I cannot just build a fun, thematic army that I want to play and expect to get good games in. I have to figure out where my opponent is at on the power scale, because my thematic list may still totally crush them or be totally crushed. It is frustrating not being able to play what I want to play--both it being too strong and too weak, and me having no idea where it will be until I see what I am up against.

FEC is an undead faction I have always been interested and I was considering getting into them with the new tome... Then I saw how busted it was. I can't run the -theme- army I would want to run without it being disgustingly strong. That sucks.


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 Future War Cultist wrote:
Khorne indeed has the best summoning mechanic ever made, and it seems like Slaanesh isn’t too far behind either. They do prove that it can be done in a fair manner.

I've got my fingers crossed!

 Sarouan wrote:

auticus wrote:


They don't have to do anything to "earn" it. They get it by virtue of the very difficult choice of including the hero that gives it to them. And then spamming said hero. And then getting ALL of those juicy free points in turn 1.

In essence... there is a tick mark that says "would you like to include and deploy 640 or so free points at the beginning of the game?" and they tick yes. And it is done.

They have to keep the said heroes all gathered in a very specific place - in the close reach of their throne.

But yes, it's not that terrible as condition and it's easy to abuse the system right now (like everything when it goes competitive). You could easily settle this by restricting either use of the throne for one character per turn (if you have to keep the heroes for multiple turns in the area, it can be quite crippling since FEC heroes are very important to boost their troops) or do it the fluff way : one archregent per army only. These guys are basically ghoul emperors, having more than one of them in the same army is stupid, especially at the scale AoS games are playing.

I know, you competitive players don't care about the background. So only game restrictions will work with you.

On the other hand, narrative players know the other way to play AoS - by restricting yourself and doing it accordingly to the story. It you include only one Archregent, suddenly that FEC "abuse" isn't looking that bad. That means making lists that are fitting to the narrative and make interesting games, of course. List building has always been the core of the abuse in competitive games. Once you put the players in front of their responsabilities, a lot of so called "problems" solve themselves.

That's what some competitive players have difficulties to accept : that they have always been part of the problem. They are mostly the cause of their own unfun, in the end. It's not the game that forces them to build uninteresting lists - it's their mindset that keep making them abuse the system.

But yes, I admit that the way a game system is made and armies lists are written makes it sometimes easier to abuse them. It's a shame that it always ends in restrictions, that hit all players and usually make the game with less choices than before, just for the sake of competition. Which is pointless, because as long as you have the same mindset, you will always find a way to abuse the system. Even in Saga, Kings of War, or whatever any other game you will think are better written/thought.

lmao. like you cannot have a completely busted list within the fluffy contours of the game.
you just change the meta. the game won't be balanced.
.

I agree fully with ninth, you cannot see what should have brought before you see what your opponent has. Or you will stomp or get stomped. and it presumes players have a lot of knowledge of ALL the armies.

Or are you sending that new player that just bought a few startersets of sacrosanct stormcast home because he should not build a competitive list? Same goes for night haunt? Or that FEC player that thought the army was cool so bought 3-4 start to collect boxes to save money... Just to show that you do not even need a netlist to arrive at your flgs with an utterly broken list....

Why is it that narrative players always expect that the units they bought was going to make a cool army and that they think everyone else should adapt to there list because they bought some random stuff and had a certain idea about it.

My biggest problem with FEC summoning is that it appears to not really scale properly on point size unless I am missing some FAQ or something. Which means Archregent is always summoning at full capacity. This means 20% extra points per turn at 1000 points(200/1000) while that summoning is 10% at 2000 points. Overall the ability feels just too variable to balance around.

However, I do feel like we are in a bit of a death spiral about this and it is just bumming me and others out. So let us discuss something new and exciting.

What are people's opinions about the current selection of missions and how they affect the game balance?


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 Future War Cultist wrote:
Khorne indeed has the best summoning mechanic ever made, and it seems like Slaanesh isn’t too far behind either. They do prove that it can be done in a fair manner.

I’m not too familiar with the FEC. What specifically is wrong with their summoning?

https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls/AoS_Flesh-eater_Courts_WSCards_Abhorrant_Archregent.pdf

You keep a couple of Archregents and you can summon up to 200 points with each. Then you add a Charnel Throne(which costs nothing) and you can do those summons without spending a Command Point.

Why is it that narrative players always expect that the units they bought was going to make a cool army and that they think everyone else should adapt to there list because they bought some random stuff and had a certain idea about it.

I don't really have a lot of experience with that. Typically the issue is that the narrative player is in a group that does not want to tone their list down at all and thus can't get a game in that they would find enjoyable.

Which also comes down to the game not having any balance and forcing you to have to play the powergamer meta to get good games in in many cases. Which means you have to be willing to constantly buy or acquire new models and paint or have them painted pretty much regularly in order to continue to have games that are fun and not blowouts.

This is why I harp on the balance all the time. Because this is the only game (as well as 40k) that I play where this is really this bad of an issue.


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Curiously I pulled Azyr comp back out and have it retrofitted with the new books.

Amazingly many of the balance issues became a lot smaller. So again its the point costs being so horribad that is the prime culprit. Now to see if I can get my campaign group to use it for its points on the regular.

 minisnatcher wrote:
Why is it that narrative players always expect that the units they bought was going to make a cool army and that they think everyone else should adapt to there list because they bought some random stuff and had a certain idea about it.

This does not reflect my experience at all. Not once have I seen or heard of a narrative player acting this way. Tourney players I have seen it, but not narrative. But really it is more of a TFG thing. TFG trend towards the min-maxxy end so there is a similar trend but the attitude is not inherently tied to any game mode, just to douchebags.


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 Eldarsif wrote:
What are people's opinions about the current selection of missions and how they affect the game balance?

The ones in the current GHB are really good. The ones in the Core Rulebook are a bit more simple but in a manner that is good for the 'core' scenarios to be. Overall I think AoS has consistently had strong scenarios for matched play with a few duds here and there. The current ones are relocation orb, the one where you need artifacts/wizards to hold objectives, and the one where the deployment zones are a complete pain to measure out. One in particular I like is the one where no army can take reserves, in that it mixes up the meta and forces players to adapt. I would like to see more along those lines. However, I feel like flat-out denying reserve rules is a bit too harsh and can rob certain armies of their main mechanic. IMO a middle ground where reserves cannot be brought in rounds 1 or 2 would be better

Off the top of my head some ideas:
-A scenario where units on an objective ignore MWs on a 6+ or can re-roll 1s if they already have a similar mechanic
-Where heroes can't be used to control objectives
-Objective control is 9" instead of 6" but all units only count as one model
-New/returning units (summons) must be more than 9" from any objectives
-New/returning units cannot shoot or charge the turn they show up
-Heroes get look out sir from the objectives
-There is just one objective in the middle which does damage to units nearby
-Units that fight at the start of the combat phase are -1 to hit, but can opt to fight normally instead

Stuff that screws around with different mechanics a little without flat-out screwing anyone unless they are over-reliant on a single mechanic. It promotes more well-rounded builds.


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auticus wrote:
Curiously I pulled Azyr comp back out and have it retrofitted with the new books.

Amazingly many of the balance issues became a lot smaller. So again its the point costs being so horribad that is the prime culprit. Now to see if I can get my campaign group to use it for its points on the regular.

Can you share that?

Wow, so after what you guys told me and having done some reading...I’ve concluded that the FEC are taking the piss.

This could be a test case for us here. We could work on fixing it.

So, the command ability is one use isn’t it? And the throne makes it CP free, for all of them? I think the first step is to limit it to 1 character per turn.

auticus wrote:

Curiously I pulled Azyr comp back out and have it retrofitted with the new books.
Amazingly many of the balance issues became a lot smaller. So again its the point costs being so horribad that is the prime culprit. Now to see if I can get my campaign group to use it for its points on the regular.

Would like to see (and try) that too

Can you share that?

If my group elects to let us use those instead of ghb official points then I'll work on plugging it into a public interface.

Stuff that screws around with different mechanics a little without flat-out screwing anyone unless they are over-reliant on a single mechanic. It promotes more well-rounded builds.

I agree.

There is one mechanic I truly dislike as it tends to favor certain factions over others and that is the one where you can win the game by holding all objectives or easily burn them and therefore block any chance for the opponent to make a comeback. I feel those missions are problematic especially since some armies promote bodies more effectively as well as relocation of those bodies.

I also agree that scenarios are key to well rounded lists. If you do the scenarios properly. I prefer scenarios that require well rounded lists to do well and those that if you generate them can really hammer an overbearing list in the area that they MIN'd out on in favor for their MAX. But my preference is also for varied and well rounded lists over having to play min/max spam over and over.

LotR missions are really good that way. Diverse requirements which makes list building more than just spamming.

 minisnatcher wrote:


I agree fully with ninth, you cannot see what should have brought before you see what your opponent has. Or you will stomp or get stomped. and it presumes players have a lot of knowledge of ALL the armies.

Or are you sending that new player that just bought a few startersets of sacrosanct stormcast home because he should not build a competitive list? Same goes for night haunt? Or that FEC player that thought the army was cool so bought 3-4 start to collect boxes to save money... Just to show that you do not even need a netlist to arrive at your flgs with an utterly broken list....

That's why I say competitive players are part of the problem. Do you remember when Jervis Johnson was talking about the "social contract" of a game ? This is exactly that - you can talk with your opponent about what would make a game interesting to play, you don't have to play it blind. Doing like this means that you can't trust your fellow player about building an interesting game together - that's the competitive mindset.

Once you do it with a different mindset, a lot of the problems don't mind anymore. Because you don't abuse the system. The truth is - list building has always been the core of the abuse. There is not much skill needed in building a list in itself, honestly. However, using the units appropriately and deal with what you have given the scenario and what you are facing on the battlefield, that's where the skills can be seen and the fun to be had.

However, I agree that competitive mindset gives another point of view that is useful for tests. It's good to keep in mind that only considering it can be harmful to the rest of the game and players as well, as we have seen it multiples times in the past.

Why is it that narrative players always expect that the units they bought was going to make a cool army and that they think everyone else should adapt to there list because they bought some random stuff and had a certain idea about it.

Narrative players don't really do that. It's actually the other way around ; competitive players always pushing for their balance agenda, because they can't think of another way to play than abusing list building with their competitive mindset. They simply can't do it another way.

Do we really need to play lists with 3-4 archregents,for example ? Or do we have to play a ghoul king on Terrorgheist as warlord with as many terrorgheists we can fit in in a Gristlegore list ? The answer is no. This is a choice from the player to take it that way. If your warlord as Gristlegore is an archregent, suddenly its command ability isn't as powerful as with a ghoul king on Terrorgheists. Or if you mix zombie dragonsas monsters.

Sure, it's nice to have different choices, but you know perfectly well that the main reason some lists are used is because of abuse in optimization, not because they offer a cool way to play them. The player does it that way with that intent somewhere in a small piece of his mind. And he will keep doing it even if restrictions/nerfs hit the FEC hard - just with different lists.

The "don't abuse the system" concept has its flaws and merits, but doesn't even apply here because lists can be wildly different in power even with two players of a similar mindset. Besides, I really don't want to have to hash out a list individually for every match.

Are there any other issues with the FEC beyond the summoning nonsense?

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Are there any other issues with the FEC beyond the summoning nonsense?

Oh yeah. The command ability, wild imbalances between delusions/grand courts/traits, massive internal imbalance, overpowered revival based summoning, undercosted units, the works. FEC has every category of OP covered. Do you want a full breakdown?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Are there any other issues with the FEC beyond the summoning nonsense?

Oh yeah. The command ability, wild imbalances between delusions/grand courts/traits, massive internal imbalance, overpowered revival based summoning, undercosted units, the works. FEC has every category of OP covered. Do you want a full breakdown?

That would be nice thank you, if it’s not too much trouble.

Ug why did I volunteer...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Feeding Frenzy. One CP, target unit must be wholly within 12" of a hero or 18" of the general (which they will be anyways), spend it after the unit has fought for the first time in the combat phase and it immediately fights again. Not only is this an overpowered command ability for anyone it is especially so for FEC; they rarely need the CP elsewhere (in theory they need it for summons, in reality they do not). They also have some seriously powerhouse combat units, making this ability stronger still.

Delusion/Subfaction Imbalance: FEC theoretically have six delusions they can pick from, I do not even remember what the other ones are because they are so massively and utterly worse than Feast Day they may as well not exist. Feast Day gives you a free feeding frenzy (see above) every turn. Instead of a delusion they can pick one of four Grand Courts, of which two are grossly OP enough to be on par with Feast Day; Blisterskin and Gristlegore. Gristlegore stands out for the general (which will always be a mounted terrorgheist) being able to attack at the start of the combat phase all the time (note he can then feeding frenzy to be attacking twice at the start), while Blisterskin stands out for getting a free CP on a 4+ every turn and an artifact that makes units wholly within 12" be -1 to hit with shooting (strong shooting being the main weakness of FEC, this is potent in a tourney setting against triple-ballista stormcast). They each have several additional benefits as well, but you get the idea.

Trait Imbalance: FEC theoretically have twelve mount traits to chose from; 6 for a mounted terry and 6 for a mounted dragon. Again, from an effectiveness perspective all but one of those may as well not exist because one of the terry traits is so much stronger (re-roll failed hits on maw attacks).

Mounted terrorgheist. Incredibly undercosted unit. Fast, durable, heals automatically, a wizard with one of the strongest warscroll spells in the game, hits like a truck, and summons a 170 point unit (though this summon actually requires a CP as mounted kings do not benefit from the throne terrain piece). Main feature is it has 3 maw attacks that on a hit roll of 6 deal 6 mortal wounds (not d6, 6). Refer back to the mount trait that allows re-rolling said hits. Bonus cheese is that the archregent's warscroll spell gives it d3 extra attacks, and it can do that feeding frenzy bit to go twice. I have seen this guy wipe out a 10-man blightking unit in one combat phase.

Other undercosted units. Archregent has been mentioned, though I will add that he is still a bit undercosted even without any summoning ability at all. Flayers are undercosted just showing up, horrors are reasonably priced, neither properly account for the ease of summoning/returning slain models in that point cost (note that the basic ghouls very much do). The unmounted terry is undercosted due to having the same maw attack. The varghulf coutier is undercosted based on what he does, as are the ghast and haunter courtiers, though you would never actually put them in a list anyways (see below).

Internal imbalance. Some units vary between hugely OP and slightly OP, while others are perfectly fine. But more so, the summoning screws it up. An archregent summons in any courtier for free, and costs 200 points. Since all courtiers are equal when summoning, only the varghulf courtier is summoned. Since that courtier is 160 points it will never be included in a list since for 40 points more you can have it come in from any board edge and have an archregent. So out of four courtier choices, three are theme-only, and the fourth is never included in a list proper unless deliberately toning down. The exception to this if a battalion needs to have a courtier in it.

Mechanical imbalance. FEC shooting revolves around the typical banshee-like scream that deals MWs based off a roll against enemy bravery. It is one thing for a mechanic to be stronger against some armies over others, but the difference is such that shooting can be 400-500% more effective against low-bravery armies than high.

Returning slain models. Those courtiers that were mentioned (varghulf) roll six dice in every hero phase; each 2+ can return a slain ghoul to a unit within 10" while each 5+ can return a slain flayer/horror instead. In practice this amounts to ~250 points returned during an average game, which for exponentially compounding imbalance comes from a model that was summoned in for free.

I think that's everything.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

I think that's everything.

Your forgot the spell the Archregent has, and that can be stacked with the one from the Ghoul king on foot, that even increases the melee power of some units - especially the Ghoul King on Terrorgheist with Command Ability from Gristlegore.

Of course, you don't have to stack it, but the fact you can cast both in the same turn sure give more options to (ab)use in game as well, and increase the optimization of Feeding Frenzy as well.

Otherwise, I agree with your points.