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Allies as battleline


LJ26

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20 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

If the Destruction preview is anything to go by it looks like you'll be able to avoid spamming horde infantry by having a single horde eg of gobbos and filling the other battleline slots with BL if units eg Cave Squigs and Squig Hoppers.

This is ideal for people who want to take a big unit or two but still want to finish the game in a reasonable amount of time!

If things like cave squigs and orruk chariots have made the 'battleline if-' cut, I'm expecting a craaaaaazzzzy number of units to be available as battleline. I don't see what the argument against could be really. Giving you the opportunity of running a cool looking, but ultimately ineffectual, all orruk chariot army is hardly going to break the game. 

Now, will GW have allowed at least one type of troggoth to be taken as battleline in a troggoth allegiance army? 

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On 9-8-2017 at 10:18 PM, WoollyMammoth said:

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. 

I still don't get it, Im fully honest with you.

Core rank and file troops differ massively per cult and army. Both in real life and in the lore of Age of Sigmar. As explained in the Blades of Khorne book for example the Skullreapers are actually a really common soldier for some armies, usually armies who have fought for ages and on. As a result we get Battalion rules who reflect this with them being the 'Core' of the Battalon. 

My question wasn't about OMG SO GOOD rules what soever. My question refers to what does the GH2017 design team envision as Battleline and what does the AOS design team envision as Battleline. Because there is a clear distinct difference between the two and it isn't too appearant to me what exactly Battleline minimum requirements add to the game in a positive way. It's a small restriction and that's it, for no real reason. Likewise we have Battleline units in some armies who clearly represent the elite in others. 

Battleline units are not really cheaper or cheap per model, that's just not true. 

To me points are not a good example but the simple quantity of models is. However the question from me remains what does Battleline flavourfully and gamewise add? It certainly isn't adding a balancing factor if you can still get away with adding two minimum units of Battleline for roughly 60 points a unit...

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18 hours ago, GlanceOnASix said:

Narratively, I find that idea very jarring personally, and I know I can create fluff to justify anything in my personal story, but it dosen't LOOK right... when I see it all splayed out.

Yeah, but there are other combinations that do make sense and look good. Daemons of ____ with Chaos Marauder battleline would look good, for example. Pretty much any of the Death battlelines would look good in any of the other Death armies. Grots in an ironjaws or bonesplitterz army would also look good.

 

I don't know of any way you could force people to only take things that look good together and if you try to stop it by not allowing cross-faction battlelines you sacrifice all those that DO look good together.

 

Besides, I'm not creative enough to do it, but I know there are people out there creative enough to kitbash and/or paint their army in such a way that the group of skinks does look like they fit into a Stormcast army.

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@Auticus
Its not possible to legally field "Retributor Death Stars" or "all Dracoth Calvary" Stormcast lists. Its more likely that these armies had 15 liberators to min/max only 300 points of battleline, and you simply forgot about them because they just sat at the back of the board and never did anything. Maybe they held them off the table to stormstrike and never bothered, but this is unusual. Personally I have never played without my 10 liberators, and as pointed out, every successful tournament list has used liberators. I'm kind of hoping that they raise the minimum to 10 to force mode bodies on the field and less all out "Death stars and Calvary". 

On 8/10/2017 at 6:15 AM, Sheriff said:

My issue with battleline is that it dictates number of units rather than number of models. I totally get why battleline is a requirement, but don't like that it encourages loads of little units rather than hordes; why should I be punished for having 2 units of 40 goblins rather than 4 units of 20 goblins? 

I see it as a painting tax. You can't get a horde of 40 goblins into your army unless you've already painted 60 of the little gits. 

You are referring exclusively to horde armies, in which - yeah - you need to paint a lot of hordes. If you don't like painting hordes, then grots is not a good choice. The new rules are pushing hordes and more battleline, so you are likely going to have to paint more battleline across the board. For Horde armies, that means you are likely going to need 120 battelline models minumum across the board. But they are not punishing you, they are rewarding you with point decreases for getting all that painting done. If you like grots, but not hordes, I would recommend going Ironjaws and replacing their heads with grot heads!
 

2 hours ago, Killax said:

Core rank and file troops differ massively per cult and army. Both in real life and in the lore of Age of Sigmar. As explained in the Blades of Khorne book for example the Skullreapers are actually a really common soldier for some armies, usually armies who have fought for ages and on. As a result we get Battalion rules who reflect this with them being the 'Core' of the Battalon. 

I went over how some armies have 'elite' BL and how that still makes sense and how it is not broken competitively. The lore goes all over the place, in the new novel the core nurgle troops are "Rotbringers" and "Blightkings". Since Blightkings are the only Rotbringers, I'm not sure who the Rotbringers are supposed to be. Also Chaos Warriors are super powerful heroes, stronger than Blightkings. Fluff takes a lot of liberties to tell a good story. I don't have a problem with the concept of Skullreapers being core infantry, but I do have a lot of problems with their points and rules which cause a lot of issues, which is why they aren't actually battleline in the game. In the game they are so elite they are borderline heroes apiece for only 28 points each, so this would cause a lot of issues if you could fill out your battleline with them.
 

3 hours ago, Killax said:

My question wasn't about OMG SO GOOD rules what soever. My question refers to what does the GH2017 design team envision as Battleline and what does the AOS design team envision as Battleline. Because there is a clear distinct difference between the two and it isn't too appearant to me what exactly Battleline minimum requirements add to the game in a positive way. It's a small restriction and that's it, for no real reason. Likewise we have Battleline units in some armies who clearly represent the elite in others. 

The AoS team and the GH:2017 team are one in the same. They envision battleline as core troops that balance out army lists. They add to the game in a positive way because they create more variety on the table and force people to take some troops instead of all of the best of the best elite curb-stomping units. Currently you would have to sacrifice one of these units to fill out a minimum battleline, with the new GH, you have to take twice as much so - more core bodies on the field less big nasty devastating units overall. More of a core tax means you have to put more thought into your lists to figure out how to balance it out. My raising all the minumums, its no longer going to be such a small restriction.

You can't really compare armies. Each has inherent strengths and weaknesses. In almost all cases the elite battleline you are referring to is part of an exclusive restriction to that army only. I can't think of any competitive army that wants to field all battleline because they are so good and so elite. I went over the specifics of why the 'nastiest battleline' is not really a problem right now in my post.

3 hours ago, Killax said:

Battleline units are not really cheaper or cheap per model, that's just not true. 

Other than swarms/animals which cant really be counted as 'troops' rather than pets, give me one example of an army who's cheapest units are not battleline.
 

3 hours ago, Killax said:

To me points are not a good example but the simple quantity of models is. However the question from me remains what does Battleline flavourfully and gamewise add? It certainly isn't adding a balancing factor if you can still get away with adding two minimum units of Battleline for roughly 60 points a unit...

Not all armies have a 60pt option, most are 80 or 100, others (Tzeentch) cant go below 120. This min/maxing is a problem, and its being addressed in the new GH; it will not likely be possible to filed less than 360 points of battleline minimum (2000pt) ensuring that nearly 20% of your army is troops, then adding huge incentive for going more (I have clanrats for 120, why not double it to 40 for only 80 more points?)

The point is to have a 2000 point list look more like an army (180 rats + warmachines + heroes + monsters) than a warband (40 Skullreapers + 5 heroes) by forcing people to take cheap infantry in most cases, other than fluffy fun lists (15 stormfiends + a few heores) which are inherently very bad competitively, so are unlikely to be seen.

 




 

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I will be honest.  I hate battleline.  I hate a core tax.  I hate that AOS is, for most intents and purposes, WHFB Lite/WHFB with round bases.  It could have been so much more.  I absolutely hate garbage like "allegianceline" (although allies help a tiny bit) or, worse, allegianceline and restrictions such as with my Flesh-Eater Courts where I not only need to have a pure army BUT I need a specific hero as my general to unlock other battleline troops (which I find to be incredibly unfluffy as why oh why would my noble Ghoul King appoint a lackey as the commander of his glorious army when he himself is on the field).

It's an awful concept that didn't need to be brought back, especially with so many ways to circumvent it anyways.  This is basically going back to the "dark days" of WHFB, with a different name, instead of a groundbreaking approach at wargaming that hadn't really been seen since the 70s.

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@Auticus
They cheated, there is no way to field dracoths are battleline. Judicators are a good choice for battleline but they are exclusive to stomcast-only lists, which was unpopular early on when there was little point in doing so and so beneficial to take a wizard. Plus a lot of people made crossbow judicators when they dropped, only to find them borderline useless in most of their games. Post the new tome, Judicators as battleline are in a better spot, and crossbow judicators can drop on top of anything and barrage with a ton of shots, so this is more common. Model wise, Judicators are simply liberators with bows and lore-wise Judicators and Liberators are both fillign up the bulk of the troops in a stormcast army, so it all works. Personally I would never go all Judicators, since they are at a 60% higher cost than liberators, but I do enjoy taking one unit in my games.

@wayniac
I disagree, I dislike the "pick and choose the best and throw everything else in the trash" direction. I like everyone being forced to take basic troops and make the best with what they have. I do agree that the battleline options for FEC is stupidly lame and I hope they fix that, as well as several other glaring issues with the tome. The problem is that it was clearly written with no idea that in a few months the entire direction of the game was about to make a hard pivot. 

Regardless, we are in the golden age of fantasy right now with the highest recorded numbers in history, so if you preferred the dark age of WHFB slowly being strangled to death, well I'm sorry to hear that. There is a decent community of 9th age players still trying to hold on for dear life.

 

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On 8/10/2017 at 5:15 AM, Sheriff said:

I see it as a painting tax. You can't get a horde of 40 goblins into your army unless you've already painted 60 of the little gits. 

Good!

I firmly believe that if you can bother to paint (nicely - as much as you can anyway) your models, they can stay off the table.  If you want Powerful Thing X, then paint it, dad gummit.

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2 hours ago, wayniac said:

... didn't need to be brought back, especially with so many ways to circumvent it anyways.  This is basically going back to the "dark days" of WHFB, with a different name, instead of a groundbreaking approach at wargaming that hadn't really been seen since the 70s.

There is a lot of regression in the name of sales.  I don't blame them, but I do worry that the circle will eventually complete back to the bad-sales days because of how it will all devolve to compete-iness.

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I welcome the changing meta. Maybe, probably, GHB2018 flips everything on its ahead again. Imbalances aren't a big deal when they come and go so rapidly. I think it's cool that army building is always changing and you can't (or wouldn't want to) just make your one list and sit on it for the next 5 years. Almost enhances the fluff to me - the rise of the common man comes through massive regiments as war escalates across the realms, races rebound and come out of hiding, etc. 

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7 hours ago, Sleboda said:

There is a lot of regression in the name of sales.  I don't blame them, but I do worry that the circle will eventually complete back to the bad-sales days because of how it will all devolve to compete-iness.

Are you saying these changes are intended to make AoS more like 8th to increase sales? Sorry if I've misread your statement but, by all accounts, AoS has been a massive hit. The idea that they were trying to move backwards, when the huge changes have caused a massive increase in fantasy sales, doesn't seem to be a logical step. 

There's lots of negativity on this thread (I'm not being a mod. You're perfectly entitled to not like things, unlike on some other ex-forums). What I'd say is 'wait until GHB17 hits'. People are really concerned about an increasing 'core tax'. However, from what we're seeing, the idea of battleline is going to be expanded waaaaayy past just clanrats/skeletons/marauders and other rank and file types. These generic units may be increasing in size purely to avoid them becoming the go-to choice for every single army, and make the other options attractive.

I think we may be about to see a GHB designed to allow hobbyists to build hugely diverse armies. Hopefully we'll see some real variation in battleline choices. 

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14 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

The AoS team and the GH:2017 team are one in the same. They envision battleline as core troops that balance out army lists. They add to the game in a positive way because they create more variety on the table and force people to take some troops instead of all of the best of the best elite curb-stomping units. Currently you would have to sacrifice one of these units to fill out a minimum battleline, with the new GH, you have to take twice as much so - more core bodies on the field less big nasty devastating units overall. More of a core tax means you have to put more thought into your lists to figure out how to balance it out. My raising all the minumums, its no longer going to be such a small restriction.

You can't really compare armies. Each has inherent strengths and weaknesses. In almost all cases the elite battleline you are referring to is part of an exclusive restriction to that army only. I can't think of any competitive army that wants to field all battleline because they are so good and so elite. I went over the specifics of why the 'nastiest battleline' is not really a problem right now in my post.

Other than swarms/animals which cant really be counted as 'troops' rather than pets, give me one example of an army who's cheapest units are not battleline.

The point is to have a 2000 point list look more like an army (180 rats + warmachines + heroes + monsters) than a warband (40 Skullreapers + 5 heroes) by forcing people to take cheap infantry in most cases, other than fluffy fun lists (15 stormfiends + a few heores) which are inherently very bad competitively, so are unlikely to be seen.

I can confirm to you that the AoS Team and GH2017 Team are not one in the same. Likewise Skirmish creators and Shadespire creators are not always part of the same teams. What you are incorrectly stating is that Battleline is a part of the game, which it is not either, it's part of Matched play for unknown reasons. You again make the false suggestion that Battleline units are 'weaker' and not part of curb-stomping units, again this in itself is a lie. BoK as the example, the strongest units in the book actually are Battleline units. So far there is no tax on them and in addition they are likely to get cheaper as per GH2017. 

You can compare armies and should. Whatever their strenght and weakness is it should still be roughly equal across factions if your intend is to make a balanced game. The way AoS is set up has tons of unit "duplicates". While your knowledge might be lacking on full Battleline armies, I can assure you running nothing but Heroes and Bloodletters with Blades of Khorne makes for a fine army. One that is actually better as most mixed alternatives.

Many armies have units who are cheap and not Battleline, Slaves to Darkness and Stormcast come to mind. Swarms and animals most certainly can be counted as troops. The Monsters of Chaos are exactly that, an army of monsters and animals. 

You do not need 100+ models to make an list look like an army. You can clearly see the purpose and intend GW has for some armies. The whole point of Beastclaw Raiders is that they only need a few models to form an army, this is correct with their lore. The whole point is for Skaven to be a Vermintide. What you say really is a collection of things that arn't true.
1. AoS is made by a lot of different teams, to the point where great fan-work is even mixed into the original product (see Skirmish).
2. AoS has a lot of cross faction compairability (which makes it a good balanced game overall).
3. Some armies exactly are made up of animals and monsters.
4. An army does not have to have 200+ models to be considered an army.

The same question remains for others, what exactly does Battleline add to the game?
As per lore it doesn't reflect a Core unit and as per the Battalion rules it doesn't reflect a Core unit. 

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Please can posters be careful how they speak to each other on this thread. Clearly the topic is one we have strong feelings about, but this is the third time I've felt the need to comment after a post which is clearly antagonistic.

An assertion which you do not agree with is not a lie; it is a differing opinion. Please treat it as such, and treat the poster with respect. 

It'd be a shame to lock the thread (particularly as I'm enjoying the topic!) so please play nice. 

Thanks. 

Steve. 

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8 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

Suddenly i have legally playable factions from a whole host of my old wfb armies where i had one of each unit - combined with allies this GHB will breathe new life into my entire collection!

You already had a "legal" force under the rules of the game that were released on Day 1 and still spply.

Now you just get to feed the tournament machine as well.

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21 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

You already had a "legal" force under the rules of the game that were released on Day 1 and still spply.

Now you just get to feed the tournament machine as well.

I knew id get pedanted on that when i reread it!

Fine, I now have a bunch more armies legal in matched play making use of my collection of wfb models stretching back two decades. Hooray!

Still no plans to ever attend a tournament tho, i prefer campaign weekends... and as the ones i attend use matched play as a ready reckoner i now have plenty more options for what to field at the next one without having to spam more of the same models. Double hooray!

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[mention=5706]Killax[/mention]
Battline is an integral part of army balance for matched play. Battleine/core has been a major part of the game for a very long time, and battleline is only becoming more strict post GH:2017.

I'd love to see a 200 bloodletter list - I look forward to it. 

 
Murder host with 90 is horrible enough to face :)

Sent from my STV100-4 using Tapatalk

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