What AoS can learn from the new 40k

[Nin Win]

18 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I'd even like to see AoS go back a step and remove magic items, spell lores, traits, etc. It's creeping ever closer to old Warhammer as we go, and hey, didn't GW kill of old Warhammer because it was not a game that sold well enough the way it was?

 

I'd actually like to see something closer to 40k here.  With items being possibilities mentioned right on the warscroll on a unit by unit basis.  And no modification of gear for named characters.

[WoollyMammoth]

17 hours ago, KnightFire said:

We had something like that, it was called WFHB 8th edition, and nearly everyone agrees that the simplicity of AoS is a huge improvement. GW would lose very large numbers of players if they moved AoS away from a streamlined game where strategy and tactics are key, to one about rules lawyering your opponent out of the game (like 8th was).

WHFB 8th ed had 151 pages of rules, and many people loved it. 40k 7th edition has much more rules and is still today at least 2x as popular as AoS. The amount of rules and complexity of the system does not deter the popularity of the system, but a steep learning curve limits new players from becoming interested in the hobby. With less and less new people, the sales for WHFB were dropping very low.

The real problem with WHFB was not the complexity of rules, but the fact that the system was an arms race that was completely out of control, with the notable 'atom bomb' starting with 7th ed deamons. Skaven, High Elves and Dark Elves were all written to one up the next (and have good sales) while some armies like Beastmen and Brettonia were left in complete dust to the point that you play to lose only because you love the armies. 

Add to that the cannon rules, which negated almost every big beautiful model in the game, un-killable deathstar rules and Purple Sun which was a lame band-aid which ruined way more than it fixed.

AoS represents an extremely conservative fix to end all this nonsense, while promoting new players through a simple and free point of entry.

There are clearly two sides to the coin here, people who love the very basic loose conservative rules, and people who want a more intricate, deep game but with balance.

"I'd love for AoS to go back to 8th WHFB" vs "I'd quit if that happened"
- two sides of the coin

The "three ways of play" is supposed to be accomodating these two sides 

Open Play is supposed to be easy to set up and just play and not worry about it. These people love the simple 4 pages of rules and don't want to make it more complex. I love this idea for 40k - with power levels. Its super easy to say "lets play 30 power" put the models down and play, and you know nothing is going to be so crazy that the game is totally one sided. If they had this in AoS, I would be more up for playing Open all the time. Unfortunately, Open Play is marred with summoning rules, which make games completely one sided. I would never risk playing open play while summoning is free like this. If they added power levels and made a note where you have to save some of your power level for summoning, then I would play open play all the time with the basic rules and without any extra allegiance, spell, artifact rules, etc.

If you love the lore and how undead/deamons just summon all the time and it doesn't make sense to limit this, this is the point of Narrative Play.

Matched Play is designed for the players who want more depth and balance. This is my personal preferred way to play. Right now its fine except the shooting rules kind of bring back the cannon problem. Personally I would like to see a more in-depth casting phase (for fun) and more restrictions on the shooting phase (for balance). There should be more rules but, 5-6 pages, not back to 151. Overall the armies with their own tomes are totally awesome and, when AoS is up to speed so that every faction (or at least every grand alliance) has a tome, I'll be happy (again, as long as they fix the shooting problem).

I think that if they made these changes, it would truly accommodate for the different kinds of players. more people would be down to play open games and less people would be down to play Matched Play, which is fine. As it stands, 95%+ are trying to play matched only so everyone is mostly voicing their opinions on how they want matched play to be.

When someone says "I want AoS to be more like WHFB" they are really saying "I want AoS Matched Play to be more like WHFB" 
When somone says they hate that, they are saying "I don't want matched play to be more like WHFB, because I can't get people to play open with me"

With the above changes, both sides will be accommodated a lot more, and we can each pick a side without complaining about the other.


 

[AverageBoss]

19 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I'd even like to see AoS go back a step and remove magic items, spell lores, traits, etc. It's creeping ever closer to old Warhammer as we go, and hey, didn't GW kill of old Warhammer because it was not a game that sold well enough the way it was?

 

19 hours ago, rokapoke said:

I'd agree to that if only because more than half the time I forget one or more of the items/effects through the course of the game.

 

16 hours ago, Johann said:

Sign! I preferred just to put the units/models on the table and not looking for some magic items combos beforehand. Most heroes have unique abilities, in my opinion there's no need for "uniquer" items... 

 

Why not just play without them then if you and your groups don't like them? That way those that like the options can have them, and those that don't can just ignore them being there. Everyone wins.

[KnightFire]

11 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

... more restrictions on the shooting phase (for balance).

There is already a mechanism for balance in the shooting phase, and its points. There is no need to alter game rules or make restrictions, all that needs to happen is for GW to stop under costing powerful shooting units. No one complains about the shooting units that came out at launch, the problem is thing like skyfires (amazing shooting and decent combat for less than the cost of a decent combat unit) kurnoth hunters (amazing shooting that just won't die unless you commit about 4x their points cost to dealing with them) or kunnin rukk (so much shooting that unless you kill them in the first two turns you are out of the game). 

If powerful shooting units were costed appropriately, they wouldn't be the most efficient thing to take, and people wouldn't take them. I think the issue is more likely that GWs current mechanism for calculating points uses wound output and base wound absorption to calculate points, without taking into account the innate advantage that shooting has (an inherrent takiness from not actually being in combat, and therefore not taking wounds back) and not taking into account common buffs (such as kernoth hunters basically always being in cover, and always planting roots).

 

 

[KnightFire]

2 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Kunnin Rukk would like to have a word with you

Rumors point to some modifications forthcoming.  A lot of us are hoping for shooting to get the 40k treatment.  Here's to the long wait for GHB2.

kunnin rukk is under costed, its easy to fix

[Killax]

13 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

When someone says "I want AoS to be more like WHFB" they are really saying "I want AoS Matched Play to be more like WHFB" 
When somone says they hate that, they are saying "I don't want matched play to be more like WHFB, because I can't get people to play open with me"

With the above changes, both sides will be accommodated a lot more, and we can each pick a side without complaining about the other.

I want to make clear that this is not really what I'm saying. To me the core rules in AoS are about as vague as the whole set up was. No costs, no rules consistency, several abilities that are very open to anyone's opinion, several Warscroll updates that arn't ****** required to use despite them being updated...

The issue with AoS isn't with it's costs, that is really fine. The basic unit desigsn work out well also. What are main issues to the game is:
1. The Shooting phase doesn't follow any of the Combat phase designs and therefor is the default best tactic.
2. Both Magic and Summoning are restricted in such a way that they will never be a totally viable option right now. The issue in this is how the Core rules essentially didn't put any depth to it. You've got your 2 basic spells for EVERY WIZARD and for the rest you can basically go and figure it out for yourself.

Now to some extend the GH has helped us. As before not only for Matched play but much more even for Narrative play. Because Narrative means a focus on character and the basic rules do not allow you to create a charater yourself. Only with the addition of Battle Traits, Command Traits and Artefacts are we really capable of creating something. All other designs are get a unit and repeat the process, without cost, it's up to you to basically create a game.

When I want it to be like WFB I also do not want it like 8th alone, WFB had much better editions an as with 8th 40K I would like to see the ideal designs used through all kinds of editions in WFB. This could mean:
- Characters are an essential part of the game (AoS does this well) and can be created to your liking (Battletomes and GH allow for this)
- Battalions are a nice way to enforce Narrative, I simply said like them. There is Kunnin Rukk and Kunning Rukk is not too cheap it's just again poor design. You can only apply such massive abilities in other Battalions if they are filled with the units possible to thake in a Battalion... It needs a redesign, as simple as that.
- Units are well designed too, I dont feel the requirement to thake Magical Banners for them just yet. The product also doesnt support it so that is what it is (40K has done itself a massive favour in that regard by providing special weapons).

What I dislike now however is:
- "Rare" Artefacts can be taken however as many as you want of the same name.
- Casting a spell with the same name however is impossible to do.
- Stacking abilities with the same name however can technically be done ad nauseum.
- Rolls of 1 always fail, Rolls of 6 can even fail. It makes the whole rule unfinished if you allow for stacking abilities to force players to roll 7's on 1d6...
- Shooting phase allows forces to dominate and the trend of this is repeated since the first day of AoS. As before, there are close to no top 3's of any tournament that do not include severe ranged attack tactics. The way it works now removes tactical thought and rewards simple strategies to the extreme (Hero hunt). 

When we then look at 40K we see:
- Items can be taken however as you want, costs are attached to them however which prevent you from going nuts on them.
- Casting a spell with the same name is possible to do.
- The 8th 40K game includes very few stackable abilities. 
- Rolls of 6's do connect, even something as weak as Strenght 2 can damage Toughness 16, EVERYTHING matters in this game.
- Shooting phase allows for added tactical depth due to types of shooting weaponry, forced shooting on closest targets, removed shooting in melee for certain weapons and option 'pot shots' as a charge reaction. 
In addition;
- Characters remain an essential part of the game.
- Narrative is partially enforced on 1-2 pages by Chapters and Legions. This part still needs to be improved but from the getgo offers much more as AoS ever did for Narrative play.
- Units are arguably better designed because they serve a purpose. While it is cool that AoS has the 'all can do everything' rule the downside of it is that you directly compair things with the same cost and purpose and 1 will be better. The downside of this is that 1 unit becomes a rarity in the game. 
E.g. Bloodcrushers vs Skullcrushers, Skyfires vs Flamers, you name it. There are too many examples...

[chord]

30 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Sure.  We saw that it was undercosted last september.  Here it is June.  Almost a year later of dealing with that garbage.  It may be easy to fix but those fixes don't come down the pipe.  That should have been fixed along with any other undercosted unit before 2016 ended.

Hopefully the GHB2 will use better points.  I'm not really confident in that as many of the community members who give it input I'm not sure will stress to GW how badly undercosted some are

[Killax]

Just now, chord said:

Hopefully the GHB2 will use better points.  I'm not really confident in that as many of the community members who give it input I'm not sure will stress to GW how badly undercosted some are

Fortunately they are some. I think we wont see a global re-costing because frankly speaking I dont think this is needed. In certain cases Id even say that some units are off by 20 points and the impact of that is actually quite marginal unless you are going to spam them.

Spamming undercosted units/warscrolls is what AoS is largely about now if you want to gain an army that has a rules advantage over your opponents. Skyfires are such an example and to date I do not know why GW decided to go against their own set grain for 'super chaos units' and have them be cost 160 instead of 180. On a single unit this difference isn't too noticable and at 180 they would still be very viable.

What you do see however now is that running 5-9 units of them essentially translates into 100 to 180 'undercosted points' and this is the moment where you do start noticing that they simply said are too cheap for their own good.
Much the same applies to Sayl. Crank him up to 180-200 and he suddenly becomes a different individual, one that is still extremely good but also one that costs a lot of points what what he does. The thing with Sayl is that his abilities dont even stop at scooting up a unit.

[chord]

6 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Thats how WHFB and 40k operate as well (spamming the undercosted units).

That was always my issue with the community comp that made GHB in the first place... how they costed things, and is why I was cranky last september when GHB was released.

I also don't anticipate global repointing.  I expect minor adjustments here and there.  That works ok for some of the broken things right now, but some items like Kunnin Rukk need completely slapped down.  Formations shouldn't cost X points.  They are multipliers.   They should multiply the unit's points they impact.  60 points for that formation is as much a joke as 7th edition WHFB daemons were to the game.  60 points for a formation that takes a unit from 120 shots to 240 shots?  Yes sir... all day long and then some.

 

A multiplier is an interesting approach.

[Captain Marius]

Im getting more and more drawn to the idea of both an update to the core rules and a revamp of the matched play rules.

1s fail, 6s succeed looks to have been nicely implemented in 40k and would be fine in aos open play. Could also do away with one of the rules of 1 in matched play.

I dont mind shooting in combat, but if they removed/restricted that and repointed all the shooting units as appropriate i wouldnt mind.

Id like to see the no targeting heroes unless theyre closest or in 12" rule. This is a nice compromise between the all or nothing approaches and rewards a bit of tactical play.

I like the way the armies now offset unit choice with command points and wouldnt mind seeing them have a go at full on 'battlefield-role'ing every AoS unit.

While we're at it, i love how you can customise your army with their own unique faction keyword eg <Knights of Sigmar> but by this point i think we'd be looking at restarting the AoS design paradigm... tho Kharadrons do have this already.

Mind you it will have been months between the Kharadrons and whatever the next release is, so i wouldnt be surprised if the next batch of books leave tzeentch, stormcast and khorne in the dust as much as they did their predecessors!

As of tomorrow gw will have with 40k something they havent had since wfb 6th was launched - every faction on a consistent level.

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, KnightFire said:

GWs current mechanism for calculating points uses wound output and base wound absorption to calculate points

I sincerely doubt the existence of a calculation. Ballpark it, play a few games, adjust based on experience,  and done. 

At least with annual GHB and points not being in the books there is a chance we could see yearly tweaks based on many games.

[Earthtremor]

Do remember that the kunnin Rukk is dependent on one of the squishiest characters available. An increase of 20 points to the savages and a cap of 30 models on the unit seems like a balanced approach. Most armies have the tools to remove the boss and the ability to either quickly remove boys or stay out of range.

Perhaps making them 1 wound models would also balance them massively. Getting 11 wounds on the unit instantly takes them down a peg or 2

Other options would be to limit shooting units to only being able to shoot at the unit they are in melee with if they are in melee. Or a flat -1 to hit if they are in melee. Kunnin Rukk hitting on 6s suddenly is much less scary.

I just hope that whatever balance is put in place doesn't swing it too much the other way and make shooting pointless through ridiculous knee ****** reactions 

 

[Killax]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

Thats how I wrote Azyr Comp to work.  The first iteration we costed the battalions but that wasn't very good because you can't flat cost a battalion.  A battalion may be crappy on one unit but amazing on another.  

Kunnin Rukk, for example, doubles the shooting output of the unit.  To me that means a 400 point unit is operating as if it were 600 or 800 points.  

Yes, Kunning Rukk from the getgo is not how you want to design things. If it happened once per game/battle things would still be very good but not endlessly repeated.

As a compairable but weaker example, Murderhost, a very cheap 20 point Khorne Battalion allows Daemons in the Battalion to move up 2d6" after deployment (dont ask why not everybody is playing it, I dont know either) but this process can ONLY be repeated if the whole Battalion is filled with units, which at that point leaves extremely little room for additional powerful pieces as in order to do this your 800+ points deep into it and all you get for it is having every unit be a 10 man unit. This whole process also still stops when the Hero is removed. 

6 minutes ago, Earthtremor said:

Do remember that the kunnin Rukk is dependent on one of the squishiest characters available. An increase of 20 points to the savages and a cap of 30 models on the unit seems like a balanced approach. Most armies have the tools to remove the boss and the ability to either quickly remove boys or stay out of range.

Perhaps making them 1 wound models would also balance them massively. Getting 11 wounds on the unit instantly takes them down a peg or 2

Other options would be to limit shooting units to only being able to shoot at the unit they are in melee with if they are in melee. Or a flat -1 to hit if they are in melee. Kunnin Rukk hitting on 6s suddenly is much less scary.

I just hope that whatever balance is put in place doesn't swing it too much the other way and make shooting pointless through ridiculous knee ****** reactions 

 

At that range it stops starting to matter as the ONLY armies who have the tools for it are the same armies who run Skyfires, Hunters etc. This directly again reinforces why the shooting phase is an under developed rule as part of the core rules. AoS promotes shooting on a tactical level so much that it isn't funny nor makes sence for a Fantasy related game. As before, shooting in AoS is better as it is in 40K.

The option to make Kunnin Rukk good but not broken would be to have it as a once per battle effect unless the whole Battalion is filled with units. However even at that point a cost reconsideration would be appropriate. 

[BunkhouseBuster]

27 minutes ago, Killax said:

As a compairable but weaker example, Murderhost, a very cheap 20 point Khorne Battalion allows Daemons in the Battalion to move up 2d6" after deployment (dont ask why not everybody is playing it, I dont know either) but this process can ONLY be repeated if the whole Battalion is filled with units, which at that point leaves extremely little room for additional powerful pieces as in order to do this your 800+ points deep into it and all you get for it is having every unit be a 10 man unit. This whole process also still stops when the Hero is removed.

Indeed.  Having stricter requirements would help out with some of the really powerful combinations.

To me, part of the problem is that there is no way to COUNTER a Battalion.  It is points being spent (or not in the case of Narrative and Open Play Battalion use) that can't be defeated at all.  Oh, that big scary unit can damage me?  I can at least damage it over time and attack it with SOMETHING; there is no counter to Battalions once the game starts aside from attacking the units that are buffed up by it.  In that example you listed, the Hero being the lynchpin to the Battalion working makes sense from a gameplay perspective AND a Narrative one, win-win!

[WoollyMammoth]

@Mikosan
Frankly, a points update would not and cannot fix the problem. Making the kunnin rukk 120 points, or even 300 points would not fix the problem. A kunnin rukk doubles a 400 point unit so, something like 350 points would be appropriate. This is astronomical and would never be done. The other problem is allowing the general to be a unit champion is just wrong. You just have to wonder what the people who write the FAQs are thinking.

The Kurnoth and Skyfire issue is more of a scroll issue than a points issue. Imagine a monster with 15 wounds, 4+ save that can re-roll all failed saves and dishes out either 6 (-1) D3 damage shooting attacks or 9 D3 damage (-2) melee attacks. I would cost this monster at 350 points minimum. Because this monster is split into 3 models, it can now gain cover, making it better. So its 370 points? no its 180. Are they going to make Kurnoth 370, 350, or even a low 300? not a chance. 

Frankly, none of these changes will happen because they would mean you need (to buy) less models. A more realistic solution is to start putting caps on how many models you can take:

Arrow Boys: min 10, max 20 [max 40 models per army] - FIXED
Kurnoth: min 3, max 6 [max 6 models per army] FIXED
Skyfires: min 3 max 6 [max 6 models per army] FIXED

One problem is that, once you "fix" shooting, it will make the other problems stick out more. Thundertusks - A special ability that does 6 flat damage on a 2+, built around a game was designed to limit everything to D3 mortals on an average of 4+ to keep things from getting crazy. Sayl completely negates the factor of mobility for an entire grand alliance in a game where absolutely every mobility boost is designed to block you from appearing within 9" of an enemy first turn. Sylvaneth can put down 9+ forest bases before you get your first turn, making the entire board dangerous terrain that casts multiple free arcane bolts with a third of every spell they cast. Fanatics magically steal your turn and block you from charging with no options around it. The ability to halve all wounds is ridiculous. Everything about a Mourngul is just wrong.

Absolutely everyone who has played against any of these scrolls has had a bad taste in their mouth after the game, and there is a reason for this - they all break the games foundation and do absolutely insane things that have no business being in the game at all. They are all turds in the punchbowl.

These things are only fixed with proper scroll updates. A Thundertusk should be a 3+ hit roll for D6 damage max. Sayls spell should be changed to 12". A sylvaneth wyldwood should have to be more than 3" from any terrain or model and consist of a single base. Fanatics should have to be placed on the board to start the game. "Halve all wounds" should be changed to reduce all damage to 1 instead. A Mourngul's aura should only affect targeting the mourngul. This is all really easy simple stuff that would make these scrolls still fun & very viable but just brought down to sanity.

Right now there is one good answer to all this stuff; 21 Kurnoth or 21 skyfires. If we fix them we have to look at the rest of it.

But none of this is likely to be addressed. All these models are boosting sales. We are likely to see a meager point increase only. When we all get excited when GH2 comes out, we will likely still be dealing with all this stuff, and most of us will be getting melted by the K. Overlords army, which make a kunnin rukk seem soft. 
 

[chord]

18 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@Mikosan
Frankly, a points update would not and cannot fix the problem. Making the kunnin rukk 120 points, or even 300 points would not fix the problem. A kunnin rukk doubles a 400 point unit so, something like 350 points would be appropriate. This is astronomical and would never be done. The other problem is allowing the general to be a unit champion is just wrong. You just have to wonder what the people who write the FAQs are thinking.

The Kurnoth and Skyfire issue is more of a scroll issue than a points issue. Imagine a monster with 15 wounds, 4+ save that can re-roll all failed saves and dishes out either 6 (-1) D3 damage shooting attacks or 9 D3 damage (-2) melee attacks. I would cost this monster at 350 points minimum. Because this monster is split into 3 models, it can now gain cover, making it better. So its 370 points? no its 180. Are they going to make Kurnoth 370, 350, or even a low 300? not a chance. 

Frankly, none of these changes will happen because they would mean you need (to buy) less models. A more realistic solution is to start putting caps on how many models you can take:

Arrow Boys: min 10, max 20 [max 40 models per army] - FIXED
Kurnoth: min 3, max 6 [max 6 models per army] FIXED
Skyfires: min 3 max 6 [max 6 models per army] FIXED

One problem is that, once you "fix" shooting, it will make the other problems stick out more. Thundertusks - A special ability that does 6 flat damage on a 2+, built around a game was designed to limited everything to D3 mortals on an average of 4+ to keep things from getting crazy. Sayl completely negates the factor of mobility for an entire grand alliance in a game where absolutely every mobility boost is designed to block you from appearing within 9" of an enemy first turn. Sylvaneth can put down 9+ forest bases before you get your first turn, making the entire board dangerous terrain that casts multiple free arcane bolts with a third of every spell they cast. Fanatics magically steal your turn and block you from charging with no options around it. The ability to halve all wounds is ridiculous. Everything about a Mourngul is just wrong.

Absolutely everyone who has played against any of these scrolls has had a bad taste in their mouth after the game, and there is a reason for this - they all break the games foundation and do absolutely insane things that have no business being in the game at all. They are all turds in the punchbowl.

These things are only fixed with proper scroll updates. A Thundertusk should be a 3+ hit roll for D6 damage max. Sayls spell should be changed to 12". A sylvaneth wyldwood should have to be move than 3" from any terrain or model and consist of a single base. Fanatics should have to be placed on the board to start the game. "Halve all wounds" should be changed to reduce all damage to 1 instead. A Mourngul's aura should only affect targeting the mourngul. This is all really easy simple stuff that would make these scrolls still fun & very viable but just brought down to sanity.

Right now there is one good answer to all this stuff; 21 Kurnoth or 21 skyfires. If we fix them we have to look at the rest of it.

But none of this is likely to be addressed. All these models a boosting sales. We are likely to see a meager point increase only. When we all get excited when GH2 comes out, we will likely still be dealing with all this stuff, and most of us will be getting melted by the K. Overlords army, which makes a kunnin rukk seem soft. 
 

Some great points.  

[Mikosan]

34 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@Mikosan
Stuff...

 

I think you have the wrong guy.  I said on page 2 the problems with shooting are certain warscrolls(as well as points), you seem to agree.  I will say that you seem awful negative about new GW... a view I currently do not share.    I believe there will be lots of point changes coming, and current major offenders will be pointed higher, but if it's one thing I've learned on forums and the internet in general, there is just no pleasing everyone.

[Earthtremor]

39 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@Mikosan
Frankly, a points update would not and cannot fix the problem. Making the kunnin rukk 120 points, or even 300 points would not fix the problem. A kunnin rukk doubles a 400 point unit so, something like 350 points would be appropriate. This is astronomical and would never be done. The other problem is allowing the general to be a unit champion is just wrong. You just have to wonder what the people who write the FAQs are thinking.

The Kurnoth and Skyfire issue is more of a scroll issue than a points issue. Imagine a monster with 15 wounds, 4+ save that can re-roll all failed saves and dishes out either 6 (-1) D3 damage shooting attacks or 9 D3 damage (-2) melee attacks. I would cost this monster at 350 points minimum. Because this monster is split into 3 models, it can now gain cover, making it better. So its 370 points? no its 180. Are they going to make Kurnoth 370, 350, or even a low 300? not a chance. 

Frankly, none of these changes will happen because they would mean you need (to buy) less models. A more realistic solution is to start putting caps on how many models you can take:

Arrow Boys: min 10, max 20 [max 40 models per army] - FIXED
Kurnoth: min 3, max 6 [max 6 models per army] FIXED
Skyfires: min 3 max 6 [max 6 models per army] FIXED

One problem is that, once you "fix" shooting, it will make the other problems stick out more. Thundertusks - A special ability that does 6 flat damage on a 2+, built around a game was designed to limited everything to D3 mortals on an average of 4+ to keep things from getting crazy. Sayl completely negates the factor of mobility for an entire grand alliance in a game where absolutely every mobility boost is designed to block you from appearing within 9" of an enemy first turn. Sylvaneth can put down 9+ forest bases before you get your first turn, making the entire board dangerous terrain that casts multiple free arcane bolts with a third of every spell they cast. Fanatics magically steal your turn and block you from charging with no options around it. The ability to halve all wounds is ridiculous. Everything about a Mourngul is just wrong.

Absolutely everyone who has played against any of these scrolls has had a bad taste in their mouth after the game, and there is a reason for this - they all break the games foundation and do absolutely insane things that have no business being in the game at all. They are all turds in the punchbowl.

These things are only fixed with proper scroll updates. A Thundertusk should be a 3+ hit roll for D6 damage max. Sayls spell should be changed to 12". A sylvaneth wyldwood should have to be move than 3" from any terrain or model and consist of a single base. Fanatics should have to be placed on the board to start the game. "Halve all wounds" should be changed to reduce all damage to 1 instead. A Mourngul's aura should only affect targeting the mourngul. This is all really easy simple stuff that would make these scrolls still fun & very viable but just brought down to sanity.

Right now there is one good answer to all this stuff; 21 Kurnoth or 21 skyfires. If we fix them we have to look at the rest of it.

But none of this is likely to be addressed. All these models a boosting sales. We are likely to see a meager point increase only. When we all get excited when GH2 comes out, we will likely still be dealing with all this stuff, and most of us will be getting melted by the K. Overlords army, which makes a kunnin rukk seem soft. 
 

Some good points but you also have to look at the effectiveness of the armies as a whole. Eliminate kunnin Rukk and will we seriously see any Bonesplitterz anywhere? Eliminate the Fanatics and will anyone bother with Moonclan? 

There will always be imbalance because the armies are designed to be really different and these special rules give those armies character and a unique flavour. If we go too far we end up making everything vanilla and boring. 

I also disagree with your statement that everyone hates playing against these lists. Some of my favourite games have been against Rukks and letterbombs and sayl stormfiends and all of the other filth because I had to work hard to get the win or get something out of the game. I like to think that people also enjoy playing against me. I ran double stonehorn with the kunnin Rukk at a tournament and got best sports prize, which hopefully indicated I wasn't a complete douchebag. 

These min max lists also often suffer with the objectives, so whilst you might take a pasting, a clever general with a balanced list often comes out on top points wise. Even if you finish the game with nothing on the board.

 

[WoollyMammoth]

@Mikosan
Cool I thought you were saying you don't want to change shooting or any rules, I was making the point that they might have to change some rules. I meant that they could do a big points increase but it would be better to actually change some scrolls but more realistically they might change some core rules to fix some of these problems.  

The "new" GW is really good. The discount box sets, the Facebook, the free rules, the mobile app, the more organized and simpler rules and especially the HQ models. But its not all roses, the new 40k has a $75 entry cost (compared to AoS 0-$25), the people who write the FAQs are blatantly not AoS players, some rules are insane (listed above) and for some reason they have been ignoring death for two years, only showing up to kick them in the balls for no reason.

Honestly overall I have been getting less and less enjoyment out of AoS as you see more players turning to the powerlists so they don't have to worry about getting screwed. I see less and less AoS being played in my area. I hope that the "new GW" knows what its doing and dosen't just release a new $60 GH that only addresses balance by tacking 20 points on to broken under-costed scrolls.  

8 minutes ago, Earthtremor said:

Some good points but you also have to look at the effectiveness of the armies as a whole. Eliminate kunnin Rukk and will we seriously see any Bonesplitterz anywhere? Eliminate the Fanatics and will anyone bother with Moonclan? 

There will always be imbalance because the armies are designed to be really different and these special rules give those armies character and a unique flavour. If we go too far we end up making everything vanilla and boring. 

I also disagree with your statement that everyone hates playing against these lists. Some of my favourite games have been against Rukks and letterbombs and sayl stormfiends and all of the other filth because I had to work hard to get the win or get something out of the game. I like to think that people also enjoy playing against me. I ran double stonehorn with the kunnin Rukk at a tournament and got best sports prize, which hopefully indicated I wasn't a complete douchebag. 

These min max lists also often suffer with the objectives, so whilst you might take a pasting, a clever general with a balanced list often comes out on top points wise. Even if you finish the game with nothing on the board.

 

Bonesplitterz has a lot of good value that nobody bothers with because people are hyper-focused on kunnin rukk. I've just never seen moonclan. These are always in "mixed destruction". Note that the changes I've proposed doesn't ruin these either, only makes them more sane. And if you take out all the broken scrolls/abilities that break the game, everything becomes more viable, so there would be no issue with playing these armies at all, in fact it would open up to playing cooler more varied lists of these armies. If either army got a new book with their own allegiance, spells, etc, they could be awesome.

not at all. you could make sylvaneth put down lots of forests that don't have to murder you and explode. You can have ogors riding giant monsters that don't have totally insane rules. There is a million ways to make an army unique, fluffy and fun without making them break the game and horrible to play against. I listed simple fixes that would make these units good without breaking the game.

Your perspective is dealing with filth with filth. You don't need to focus so much on how your opponent is breaking the game while you are tearing it open yourself. When you have a steamroller its cool when someone can actually do something that makes you have to think. Its fun to battle out a game where both sides have rocket launchers - Its not that fun when you have a handgun and everyone else has a rocket launcher. Your not a total DB for taking this list because, what else can you do in this meta? 



 

[Mikosan]

@WoollyMammoth

You are partially correct.  I don't want to see many changes to the core rules, as to me the scrolls are the offender and that is where I think the solution should happen.  After so many years of bloated rules I am loathe to "fix" problems with individual units by changing the actual rules of the game, because of course you will then need even more new rules to allow a cool ability or item or whatever. 

Sorry about your meta dude, here, as i said before it's more a casual competitive scene. Sure there are Kunnin ruks, mournguls, and destro beast lists, but it is relatively few, and they rarely actually win the tourney.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, WoollyMammoth said:

The other problem is allowing the general to be a unit champion is just wrong. You just have to wonder what the people who write the FAQs are thinking.

Maybe something like "Really? Do we even have to answer this? The rules say pick a model as your general.  How hard is that?"

(Left over from when I used to have to organize the FAQ the studio gave US Customer Service back in the day and they would often reply similarly.)

 

Also "absolutely everyone..." and "$75 entry cost." The trend continues. Facts be damned.

[WoollyMammoth]

@Mikosan
I agree but my point is, it is very unlikely that GW will do what needs to be done to "fix" the scrolls that are causing issues.

There's not a problem with my meta, its THE meta. Every tournament I've heard of post the DoT book has been won by exploiting the shooting rules, and things are getting worse all the time. If this is not the case in your meta that is very unusual. 

[rokapoke]

If your meta involves playing a lot of tournament players and/or lists, then you're going to face the armies that exploit undercosted units/battalions and spam things like 27 Skyfires. Thankfully the group I play with doesn't do any of that; maybe I'm just lucky. 

The new 40k has drawn me in to finally buy and play some Tyranids. Excluding models, the "mandatory" buy-in is the $25 faction book to get the warscrolls (datasheets, I think). Yes, I can spend more money for the advanced rules in the full book, but it isn't required. Total buy-in for 40k: US$25. Not a penny more. 

[Killax]

From my experience in other games, including Warmachine, in many cases a 'small broken part' is not a massive meta influencer. An example of that could be Bloodletters, 10 for 100 is okay, 20 for 200 is okay, 30 for 300 becomes a little bit shaky as they are significantly better as the parts of it's total by comparison... So what you see is that if you then add another piece that is arguably too cheap, like Sayl, the whole module can eliminate things roughly up to 360 points because it can be argued that 30 for 300 might be 20 too cheap and Sayl might be 20-40 points too cheap.

Offcourse balance also comes with dice...

So as another example, Skyfires do profit from the way the Shooting phase works, to the extreme even because they can possibly create Mortal wounds aswell (see also Bloodletters). Now at 180 points per 3 your still looking at a heavy costed unit for this purpose. At 160 however you see that in many cases they cost as much or less as the Heroes they can start to eliminate from turn 1 and up. A big part in this also comes from their dice manipulation... 

Then there is the Shooting phase...

As before, and as Kunning Rukk shows, quantity does enough here because you cannot stop it. With this I mean that shooting continues throughout the game and even being in melee combat does not force you to shoot at the unit your engaged with.

All this leads to is that the moment you can ignore or bypass regular norms for the Combat phase you have a superior phase that is the Shooting phase. Maby, just maby, a fix could be if the Shooting phase happened later in the game. However I personally believe that a bigger part of it should come in the form of it being as "vunerable" to 'board control' as the Combat phase is.

One alternative is to have Magic and Summonning count for something... As ideally they would also be parts of the game that bypass effects that happen in the Combat phase. For example, 40K Summons through deepstriking or 'delayed' placement. The advantage here is that in 40K this ability is a given. Likewise Magic or Psychic phase in 40K isn't restricted in particular and instead offers a no nonsence set of 3 Psychic abilities. Cool as many of the Spells and Prayers are in AoS, about half of them arn't "useful" so why I do not mind the option, I do mind that there is another restriction put onto the both of them that further prefents from their use being legit.

In my ideal world the importance of AoS should revolve around:
- Combat first
- Magic second
- Shooting third

Obviously some factions will have Shooting second and Magic third (such as Dwarfs or Wood Aelves) but for the grand mayority I do believe that the way combat works out is both easy but still gives the players a tactical choice. There is little to no tactical choice to be made for the shooting phase. You meassure, point and roll. There is no way to not do this unless the model is removed itself.

[WoollyMammoth]

@rokapoke
WHFB has always gravitated towards tournament play, because competition drives the hobby. With the more options that AoS provides though, you can branch off and try different avenues. A lot of people have started to get into narrative campaigns or do the skirmish. 

Congrats, the Tyranids look awesome. I had started Tyranids before but sold them off because 7th was just too much for me. The Hive Guard look really cool. I'm only getting the Death Guard because I got the whole thing for the price of one average box and I want to tie in my Nurgle Daemons which can be used in AoS as well. I might get into Tyranid/Genestealer Cults but I want to see how 40k pans out before I start dishing out a lot of money.

The indexes might be cheaper on smartphones, and whats cool is you can take screens and organize your datasheets to print only what you need. So it might even be cheaper that $25. You are going to need the rules though, you can probably use the book at GW, or you can use other's books. Also with all the people buying sets to split on ebay, the rule books will likely be on firesale soon.

@Killax
I haven't mentioned anything about "broken" melee units because, in most cases you can negate any kind of sayl bomb by screening your army with chaff, forcing a bad charge on your opponent (tactics). Shooting has no tactics. Unlike WHFB, where you could have a fast moving combat unit engage a shooting unit to pin them down to screen your advance (same as 40k 8th), there is literally nothing you can do, other than hide behind scenery, or stack saves in cover and pray.