Allies as battleline

[Trout]

2 hours ago, TheOtherJosh said:

 

In 40k instead of having battalion warscrolls they have force organization charts called Detachments. There are 14 basic versions.

These allow various compositions of models in an army.

In much the same way that AoS has three levels of "basic" force organization of Vanguard, Battlehost and Warhost where there are different levels of min and max unit choices.

Instead of command abilities, they get Command Points (or CP), which can be spent to reroll or for strategies that change things that are happening in the battlefield. (Strategies, tactical game changers ... etc.)

Different Detachments give different amounts of command points to add to your CP pool.

Every Army gets 3cp to start out, and depending on the force org will get more. Or in the case of using Allied Detachments, cost CP to include.

40k defines "battlefield roles" as HQ, Troop, Elite, Fast Attack, Heavy Support and Lord of War.

A minimum Patrol Detachment of 1 HQ, and 1 Troop won't give any additional CP, but increase to a "Batallion Detachment" with a required 2 HQ and 3 Troops and that adds another +3CP. Running a Vanguard Detachment of 1HQ and 3 Elites? That gives only +1CP.

So, it is possible to have an "elite force" in 40k but they get fewer command points available to them.

That sounds like an interesting approach. How are people liking it? What effect is it having?

 

Perhaps more importantly, what would that look like in AoS?

[Trout]

10 hours ago, Auticus said:

 

 

Then that would be the first time in the history of the game (spanning back into WHFB as well) that this would be the normal behavior.

Given the choice between an elite and a generic troop, we've already seen in open play in the early days of AOS that people prefer the elite because its both powerful and because it lowers the model count of the force (which seems to be a huge attractor for many players)

"We" haven't seen anything. Speak for yourself.

 

What I've seen is that people choose things they enjoy looking at and painting. Some of these are battleline units, some aren't.

[wayniac]

10 minutes ago, Trout said:

That sounds like an interesting approach. How are people liking it? What effect is it having?

 

Perhaps more importantly, what would that look like in AoS?

It really couldn't work in AOS since you don't have nearly as much unit types as you do in 40k.  It's a good approach, the issue is it's easily gamed.  You could take all elites or all heavy support or, until a recent FAQ nerfed it, all flyers and it's "legal".  It's basically the concept of Open Play (take what you want), albeit with points, given a structured way to make it acceptable instead of just allowing it to be done, which wouldn't have been accepted because it could be abused.

[Trout]

5 minutes ago, Auticus said:

"We" can pull up tournament rosters dating back to the beginning of the game and see the trend quite clearly in black and white.  

"I" also have a solid eight months of data from writing a fan comp that was utilized in many competitions with several thousand army rosters submitted for analysis to see the trend quite clearly in the pre-GHB days.

 

Most players don't even play in tournaments.

 

You made a comp system that appealed to specific kinds of players. You got feedback from those kinds of players.

[Trout]

Just now, Auticus said:

We have already had many polls on this topic.  Most players may not play in tournaments, but a solid chunk, and usually a majority, play competitively and choose units based on power.  One does not have to play in an actual tournament to have a competitive group that picks units based on their power level first.

If polls indicated otherwise, I'd certainly change my opinion, but whenever a "are you competitive" poll comes up, a giant chunk will say they play competitively and try to keep at least a strong army.  A tiny minority will admit to chasing the WAAC, but we're not discussing chasing the WAAC here.  

We did do a poll here and it did not support your conclusion. You even participated in it and observed that it appears that tournament standard is not a thing anymore. Did you already forget?

 

Here it is:

 

[Trout]

5 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Yes that poll here comes out to be 48% competitive.   (its located on page one of this forum "Are you Competitive"

The poll on dakka a month back was 70% competitive.  The poll on the AOS FB forum was near 75%.  The poll on Bell of Lost Souls last spring was also near 75% competitive.

This site is the most tame of any site I've seen pretty much ever, so it being 48% competitive does not surprise me.  Every other forum etc is competitive focused.  Every group I've ever met is typically competitive focused.

For every poll you can find that is not competitive focused, I can find a handful that are.

Right, so if you spend time in competitive communities you wind up thinking everyone is competitive. If you don't then you don't. Kinda exactly what I said.

 

"We" didn't learn anything. You did because of the people that you hang out with. I, on the other hand, learned that people enjoy buying models that look cool and that would be fun to paint and they enjoy building thematic armies.

 

I'm fully aware that not everyone is like those in my area. Thus why I would never do as you do and pretend that the things I learned are the things we all learned. Clearly there are a wide variety of players. When you say "we learned", you're speaking for yourself and/or your community, not for "we".

[Trout]

6 minutes ago, Auticus said:

When I have reams of data showing contrary to what you are saying, then I am fairly confident that my statement is accurate for most of the player base based on a deep trend that supports it.

Your data comes from specific types of players who were either actively participating in tournaments or were so inclined to the competitive side of the game that they were actively seeking to help beta test a comp system. You don't see the problem with that data?

 

The polls, as you have admitted, always show that when in competitive forums you get competitive responses and when in more casual ones you get more casual responses.

 

So, the data you have is basically worthless.

[Trout]

1 minute ago, Auticus said:

If you have data that can show contrary I'd love to view it.

Hell even the wargames yearly publication does that survey monkey thing and it shows most people build competitively vs aesthetically.  And the wargaming yearly survey hits as wide an audience as one could expect, to include a large pool of historical players.

Pretty much every data point is contrary to what you are postulating.

You discarded the data you didn't like. I just pointed you to a poll on this very forum that contradicts it and you, in turn, pointed out to another. Those two don't count to you though.

 

Wargaming yearly does not hit a wide audience. It's not even available in Games Workshop stores, so it's not even going to be on the radar of anyone whose primary connection to the hobby is through their local store.

[Marc Wilson]

These kind of arguments pretty much ruin threads. Consider that please.

[TheOtherJosh]

How about we give it a couple weeks and see whether you can ally in your battleline.

I can see it being helpful, especially with the challenges for the Malignants. (Night haunt)

The PtG actually had to make a specific exception for using the current Start Collecting:Malignants to allow the Mortis Engine as a "Leader/Champion Type" and fit in with the Spirit Hosts as the standard Followers.

Basically, if one was using the Nighthaunt Allegiance in GHB 2016 to get Spirit Hosts as battleline, you had the options of Hexwraiths and some more leaders. That was it. No behemoths, no warscroll battalions no artillery...

The reboot potential for managing battleline in GHB 2017 is pretty interestingly significant.

But, the issue with battline and Malignants made collecting and creating a Death army that was more ghostly a challenge (to put it mildly). (And technically invalidated the Start Collecting Box.)

For example, with Stormcast Allegiance, one can use the relatively more elite archery choice of Judicators as Battleline.

More importantly is (or will) the allotments for the other pieces, leaders, behemoth and artillery also come out of the total maximums?

If they will be included in the maximums and Allies don't allow you to "Stack the Deck" and over subscribe to leaders/behemoth/artillery then this is positive.

Having to take your battleline from your Primary Allegiance choice, makes sense through allowing you to bring in the Specialists from other areas of the faction. For example, I want a Giant / Doom Diver / Trolls for my Moonclan Grots or I want to use Skaarsnik as the General for my Orruk army.

I'm interested in seeing it, but not entirely sold on "battleline outside of primary Allegiance"...

[WoollyMammoth]

Will you be able to take allies as battleline? IMO, without a doubt. 



This image says a whole lot that has not been discussed yet.

The trend for most competitive armies is to take the absolute minimum battleline "tax", then fill up your list with the biggest baddest things you can find. GW is aware of this and is breaking up the trend with new factors:

A. Clanrats are no longer minimum 10. If you want to fill your BL with clanrats, you now have to spend 360 points instead of 180 (double the investment). Note that Clanrats are the only generic 'cheap battleline' in all of Skaven. This will likely be seen across the board, requiring a larger investment in minimum core if you want to just fill a cheap core tax. 
B. If you decide to push it further, and take units of 40 instead of 20, you are paying just 80 points per unit to turn that half decent unit of 20 clanrats into a scary horde of 40 models. 
C. If you decide to limit your army by sticking to one allegiance (in this case Verminus) you can forgo the Clanrat tax entirely and fill your BL with nasty units of Stormvermin. They have talked a lot about these new BL options.  
D. The options you have available to you are limited to the ally list; Verminous can only ally with other Skaven. While claiming Verminous Allegiance, there is literally no other BL options available (in the current generals handbook)
 
The result is that we are not likely to see everyone just sticking a few cheap BL units in their army to fill out their tax anymore. This will be much more difficult and there is more varied incentives.  Sure, you can take all nasty troops as your battleline, but that is no different than has always been possible (Stormfiends, Stonehorns, etc) and in doing so, you are forgoing the option to just pick the best units in your grand alliance. For example, If I have 3 units of 40 stormvermin as my battleine, I'm only allowed 400 points to add shooting, spells, synergy, etc. Sticking to one specific faction means sticking with their core design of strengths and weaknesses. 
 

@Auticus
In terms of "picking and choosing the best" or "cherry picking", this is what AoS was designed for. I like the idea of specific factions vs "mix and match" as well but sadly, this is just not the direction that warhammer is going. They wanted to break up the idea that you play one army and only buy models from one army in order to promote a wider variety of sales. The GH:2017 is most likely still going to have full Grand Alliance lists where you can pick the best models and put them together. Most of the competitive lists have been mixed lists. Rather than nerf these lists and bring them down, it looks like GW is working toward bringing faction lists up by allowing them 400 points to pick their own good stuff. This is not exactly going to fix the problem with overpowered lists right now, but if you combine this with point increases and tighter rules of one, its most certainly going to force them to change in some way - this will be interesting to see. Hopefully the effect of allies is that we will see more armies that are 80% one faction and less mixed armies.

4 hours ago, Auticus said:

Yes that poll here comes out to be 48% competitive. (its located on page one of this forum "Are you Competitive"

Polls are completely useless. I could go on and on about how statistics work and sample size and audiance and blah blah blah. Use facts and logic, and what you see with your own eyes.

If you look at sales, "most people" buy a box and never do anything with it, or buy a boxed set and play it at home with a friend a couple times. As this is a social forum to promote and discuss warhammer as a community, we should only care about those people who are trying to contribute warhammer as a social community. Contributing to the community means showing up on Saturday to get a game at the local store, showing up for "Warhammer Wednesday" weekly event to play some games, going to the monthly tournament at GW with 5-8 players, or travelling to the 100+ player tournament at a special event. It doesn't matter whether you are a local store player or a 'tournament player' the only important thing is that you are part of a community.

There are also non-community players, who play in private with their one friend. If you are this kind of player, you should try to branch out and go to the local store and be social.

Warhammer is a game where two people put their models on the table and compete to win a game. For this reason, 100% of people who play warhammer are competitive. In the middle of that is a big gray area of how many rules are needed to make the game competitive and balanced, and how important winning the game is to you. 

4 hours ago, Trout said:

The polls, as you have admitted, always show that when in competitive forums you get competitive responses and when in more casual ones you get more casual responses.

The term 'casual' player is generally referred to as anyone who is not a "powergamer" but these terms are trying to peg us all in black and white categories. The reality is that we are all on a broad spectrum including various levels of painting and hobby, fluff and lore, competition and balance, winning and losing. We also individually change and adapt over time, growing as we get more or less into the hobby, fluff or competitive in nature. We might also vary from day to day - maybe one day you want to practice painting on your lore based 'fluff' list because you enjoy the narrative flow during your game, then after losing 10 games in a row and are frustrated at painting, you order a pre-painted double kunnin' rukk to get some revenge. 

Lets not create false narratives to pigeonhole everyone into black and white categories so that everyone can pick a side. Instead, go to the store and play some games and just have fun. Tell people how you would like to play a game, find people who are interested, make compromises and have fun. 
 

[WoollyMammoth]

@Auticus
With the new open play cards I would be interested to play more open, though I prefer points for balance. If you wanted to play open with the new cards, without any list building restrictions, I would be happy to play a game with you. If you play this way and have fun in your community, lots of people are likely to want to try it. 

[Lord Veshnakar]

We we are also forgetting that these new battleline units are likely all going to be "battleline if" which would mean say for instance you want to use Stormvermin (what some would consider elite) as battleline, you would have to have verminus allegiance. Its not like everyone that plays chaos could take Stormvermin as BL in their allies.

[TheOtherJosh]

Will you be able to take allies as battleline? IMO, without a doubt. 

 

 

This image says a whole lot that has not been discussed yet.

 

The trend for most competitive armies is to take the absolute minimum battleline "tax", then fill up your list with the biggest baddest things you can find. GW is aware of this and is breaking up the trend with new factors:

 

A. Clanrats are no longer minimum 10. If you want to fill your BL with clanrats, you now have to spend 360 points instead of 180 (double the investment). Note that Clanrats are the only generic 'cheap battleline' in all of Skaven. This will likely be seen across the board, requiring a larger investment in minimum core if you want to just fill a cheap core tax. 

...

 

PtG may have been foreshadowing some of the changes.

 

Clanrats were bumped to a min-20 squadsize in the Warband tables.

 

Bloodreavers, Marauders, Plague Monks, Skinks, Blue Horrors, Brimstone Horrors, Zombies and Ungors have also been bumped to a min-20 unit size in PtG. (As compared to the current minimums in the 2016 GHB)

[TheOtherJosh]

I'm going to place my two ur-gold on any Battleline unit that cost less than 80 points will have the minimum unit size doubled and their minimum costs adjusted accordingly. And it appears as though we may be seeing a couple that were at 80 get the "double minimum treatment" as well.

 

In further digging, PtG is also upping some unit minimum sizes to 10 from 5 (e.g. Vulkite Berserkers, Skyre Acolytes) both of which cost less than 80 for their minimum battleline unit size.

 

Skeletons just made the cut as they're 80 (and they tend to be taken in larger blocks). But everything that did get the "double treatment" appears to have been between 40-80 points for the minimum size unit. Skinks got their battleline size upped in PtG, though they're on the 80 point cusp in the 2016 GHB. So ...

 

It looks like the objective is to "even out" the battleline costs to between 80-160 for the "new" minimum size unit. Potentially taking into consideration the current and expected meta.

 

 

[WoollyMammoth]

What is PtG?

[TheOtherJosh]

What is PtG?

 

Path to Glory

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/Age-of-Sigmar-Path-to-Glory-ePub-2017

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/AoS-path-to-glory-2017-ENG

[WoollyMammoth]

Interesting, I didn't notice the minimum changes in that. Skeletons are likely just an oversight. It might be related to the fact that deathrattle is likely getting its own battletome soon. The rules for skeletons might change, or they might be battleline only for deathrattle allegiance.  

[someone2040]

What's particular disappointing about increasing minimum unit sizes is that it also increases the minimum increment size. I really dislike the fact that increment sizes are linked to the minimum, as it makes it really inflexible when building your army.

I don't really mind so much if they make the minimum for a lot of these 'hoardier' units be 20, it's the fact that the next step up is a 20 rather than a 10 which is a bother.

Or stuff like Dracoth Knights minimum size 2, the next increment is also a 2 rather than a 1 (And being able to build a Lord Celestant on the side).

 

Anyway. In regards to Allies as battleline. I hope that there's nothing preventing it as I think it means if you do decide to take a Battleline ally, you can at least spend more points in your core faction on elites and the like. But I could see GW not allowing it, as they may want the 'core' of the army to feel like it's from your particular main faction, hence battleline comes from there.

Guess like many things, it's wait and see until leaks/release.

[Captain Marius]

I guess itll boil down to the 'always' battleline units - for example it would be handy to take Plaguebearers, Chaos Warriors and or Marauders and not lose Rotbringers allegiance... not that they have one yet, and I guess itll be Nurgle.

Ok itll be handy to take some skellies or zombies as Battleline in a Flesh Eater Courts army to mix things up a bit! Or Liberators in a Freeguild army etc!

[Sheriff]

Not getting my hopes up but it would be great if goblins could have one more battleline option within grand alliance of moonclan and spiderfang. Grots are great, but I just don't want to paint 60+ of them. Painted 5 spider riders this week and it almost killed me. 

[Killax]

Personally and I really still stand by it I don't care for Battleline at all. To me it's a vague reflection to Core units from WFB and while fun I don't see it adding as much in any time, not now or ever.

The prime reason as to why I believe Battleline has no real added value for me is the reason that if you go for balanced design (which AoS usually has) added subtypes that enforce a mandatory inclusion are more limiting as they are another balancing factor.

Do I get that some suggestion of Core units are good? Really only if Lore suggests it. 
If we end up with Battalions that are still representations of lore armies and they do not include any Battleline unit I really again do not see the point of Battleline units. 

However the more Battleline there is the better. Hopefully it will come to a point where it doesn't need to be there . Restrictions on characters, monsters and artillery is something I do agree with. Types of massed ranked units, not so much. As there is always a cult that completely can consist out of elite warriors. That part isn't even fantasy. 

[TheOtherJosh]

...
If we end up with Battalions that are still representations of lore armies and they do not include any Battleline unit I really again do not see the point of Battleline units. ...

Those armies that are lore representations that "don't include any battleline" appear to be fitting in with the expanded "battleline if" concept.

Rotbringers and Putrid Blightkings comes to mind. And Judicator and Stormcast Eternals as well.

In the novels/lore both are "elite" but fill a more battleline role in their overall armies.

[Killax]

1 hour ago, TheOtherJosh said:

 

Those armies that are lore representations that "don't include any battleline" appear to be fitting in with the expanded "battleline if" concept.

Rotbringers and Putrid Blightkings comes to mind. And Judicator and Stormcast Eternals as well.

In the novels/lore both are "elite" but fill a more battleline role in their overall armies.

 

The real question then again becomes what's the point again? Adding special concepts to units you'll thake so they are "special"? While Battleline means they are not special?
In reality I think any unit can become a Battleline in lore concept, to the point where I again don't see where the additional rule actually gets us anywhere.

To me elitism of units is reflected in actual costs and numbers.
For example, Wrathmongers are elite to me because they are 5 guys swinging hammers on chains and costing roughly the same as 20 other dudes. What we see in Battalions is that in some cases, such as the Bloodforged Battalion "army" these Wrathmongers actually make up the main part of their force...

In essence any multi-model unit to me can be Battleline unless we're really talking about named characters being part of those units. Why? Because well... there is somehow more as 1 so it certainly isn't a character and the game doesn't cap the quantity of non-Battleline either at any point. 

Though if it makes others happy I'm all for it! I just really don't get it, havn't done so last year either. By large because we have mixed lore and Battalions who directly suggest something that hasn't got anything to do with Battleline whatsoever.

[WoollyMammoth]

Battleline is important. It represents the core rank and file troops. Every model cant have "OMG SO GOOD" rules. If they removed the requirement to have zombies, clanrats, infantry men, etc. - then no one would ever take them. Why send in the army when you have 1000 navy seals? It doesn't make a whole lot of sense is why. Every general would like to have nothing but the most elite troops, but its far easier to recruit 100 grunts than one super solider. You have to find a good candidate - train them, buy them better equipment, keep them well fed and well rested.

Battleline also tends to be cheaper per model, so you get more models on the table as well, making your 'army' feel more like an 'army' and less like an 'elite warband'.

Points are not a good example. elite models are worth more than their points. One elite model could be worth 5 non elite models for what they do, and the cost is never 5x as much. The onyl time points are relevant in this way is when they make a model cost so many points that they essentially 'price it out' so that nobody takes the model with broken rules anymore.

The problem right now is that the lines have become blurred to much.

-Stormcast is an army of elite navy seals, although the reality is that every liberator is essentially 2 soldiers, so a unit of 5 is actually equivalent to a unit of 10 sliders. This concept of making a heroic unit by combining two 'normal' units is not bad. But imagine a world in which stormcast didn't need to bother with liberators and took another unit of Retributors instead. That's a scary thought.

-BCR are ridiculous. They should have included normal ogors and made them the only battleline. Almost everything they have is battleline, but the armies have so few models that the army struggles with objectives anyway, so this has not been much of an issue. They are only battleline for BCR, so its not like other armies can take monsters as battleline.

-Death can just take 3 units of zombies and combine them into one which is silly. Since Death has been neglected so much, and because its a grand alliance without a single decent shooting option in a game currently dominated by shooters, this has not yet been a problem. The only other issue is an army with 3 units of blood knights, which is insane - but is very rare due to the fact that the models themselves are old and overpriced. 

-Skyre can field all stormfiends. This is another silly thing. Luckly the awkwardness of spending 900 points on them, along with the fact that Acolytes almost don't exist makes this another rare army.  You also sacrifice some cool Skaven stuff by sticking to Skyre, and there is no cool Skyre allegiance (yet).  

There are many cases where armies can just throw in under 200 points of battleline and fill up their army with the best stuff. Luckily, it looks like they are reeling this in and fixing this problem by forcing armies to spend more on battleline. I'm hoping they make the minimum 10 liberators, taking stormcast down a notch and forcing more troops on the ground. Clanrats, the only generic Skaven battleline, are now minimum of 20 instead of 10, doubling the cost to field only these troops. Likely the same will happen for ghouls, zombies, skeletons, skinks, etc. 

Another thing they are doing is changing how the battleline units work. A purebred army of Verminous can field all stormvermin. This is cool but pricey, and there is not much you can use to fill out the list. Stormvermin are still rank and file troopers, so this still works.

Overall its clear they are working toward making battleline make more sense, adding more troops to the field and making armies look and function more like armies. If you want to fill up your army with whatever you want and skip this part, open play does not have any army building restrictions.