Are mortal wounds killing the fun?

[Kramer]

2 minutes ago, Killax said:

Im not saying hunting Heroes should become impossible but am saying it should be specialistic role that isnt on everything with a ranged weapon.

 

yeah that would work, but it means even more rules and roles. And does that influence the cost of the unit and the availibilty of those units, etc. 

Again, i'm a big fan of making your own rules/game from the ruleset GW has given us. But messing with the core rules usually ends up with a lot more consequences than you initially see.  

But still go for it and encourage GW to add that depth if it works  

[Killax]

Well I think the shooting rule is almost there, a simple character protection line is not difficult to add.

This might mean melee orientated armies are stronger for a period but we can now more or less state that many shooting attacks are always stronger as melee and magic. By large because shooting is done in addition to melee and again completely unrestricted in its core rules. Leading to Skyfires and Judicators and other strong shooters dominating since gh2016s inception.

[Chikout]

The solution I suggested was for the the particular situation described in the op. I don't think it should be applied to the game as a whole. 

 

[ChaosUnited]

I have a difficult time at the moment against a beastclaw raiders army. 2 x thundertusks snipe any characters they wish in a couple of turns. 

I use a defensive screen of chaos warriors in front of my characters to stop brutal stonehorn charges, and it's quite effective at times. But against character sniping Im really struggle! 

Specifics regarding character sniping would improve our games for sure. As far as I am concerned, a protective screen should pretty much protect a character from sniping. I mean come on, a ogre on the back of a mammoth doesn't exactly have a scope does it?! Haha.

 

[wayniac]

I also think the issue with mortal wounds goes back to the fact that nothing stops shooting in AOS.  In 40k at least you can get a fast moving/ambushing/whatever unit into combat with a nasty shooting unit, and then it can't shoot you.  Can't do that in AOS.  Doesn't matter how many models you get to charge that Thundertusk, it's going to shoot at the "elite" stuff (albeit maybe reduced if you can damage it) the entire game until it dies.  That's where the other problem is.  Not only are mortal wounds so prevalent, but there's no way to stop them.

[ChaosUnited]

I wasn't playing aos when the first generals handbook came out, but how drastically did it change the mechanics of the game?

I'm asking because as far as I am concerned, the lack of shooting rules is a really weak part of the game. Which of course I'm hoping this generals handbook will improve upon. 

Mortal wounds I think are a cool aspect of the game. But having 12 of them zipping across the board turn 1 (that there is simply no way to stop) is frustrting.

[ChaosUnited]

@auticus ah I see, so do you believe these restrictions will include anything as substantial as what we are currently discussing? Or is it more restrictions about army lists and abilities/battalions etc etc. 

[wayniac]

I notice that, for whatever reason, GW is more willing to add extra restrictions to 40k while largely leaving AOS untouched apart from a few things (e.g. rule of ones).  I assume it's because 40k is their bigger cash cow so they have to be more adaptable, but I find it a bit of a double-edged sword since it means that AOS's growth is stifled by a reluctance to adjust the game beyond a few things, while with 40k they are more willing to do changes that impact a lot (such as the flyer change and the upcoming changes in Chapter Approved)

[CountryMou3e]

That always fascinates me having that stand point. If I liked sci fi I'd go straight to sci fi. If I like fantasy I'd go to that. Believing people would use AoS as an entry to 40k is mind blowing


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[Jamopower]

14 minutes ago, wayniac said:

I notice that, for whatever reason, GW is more willing to add extra restrictions to 40k while largely leaving AOS untouched apart from a few things (e.g. rule of ones).  I assume it's because 40k is their bigger cash cow so they have to be more adaptable, but I find it a bit of a double-edged sword since it means that AOS's growth is stifled by a reluctance to adjust the game beyond a few things, while with 40k they are more willing to do changes that impact a lot (such as the flyer change and the upcoming changes in Chapter Approved)

I guess big part has also been that there has been some massively broken stuff in the 8th edition, while in AoS even the broken stuff has enough counters that the lists are lot more varied on the top. Thundertusks are tough, but they aren't still stormraven tough.

[Jamopower]

Yes I agree with that. There is still differences. The broken flyers were much wider problem, because there are lot more of those besides Stormraven which have certain common rules making them so good, so you can design a wide fix for that. Whereas in AoS there are handful of problem units, that are good for different reasons, requiring much more delicate rework. They haven't after all done many direct adjustments for unit rules in 40k, except for the horrors, which was in a new codex. The only direct fix otherwise that I know was to the min unit size and price of razorwings.

It's one thing to adjust the matched play rules to adjusting rules of certain warscroll, which is printed on the booklet coming with the figure.

[Jamopower]

With delicate I mean that it's a bigger step to revise the written warscrolls, even if the required modifications would be small, as the rules are printed on battletomes and to the leaflet coming with the models, than e.g. revising the points cost that has deliberately left out to an own table. 

[Killax]

I think it might have something to do with the issues of the past but also catering to a particular style of play. As when we look at 40K the designs (of Codex and such) are much more designed towards what we would call Matched Play. In addition many 40K players also worried that 40K would suddenly loss their cost-made-designs, something I feel didn't help AoS at the start either.

But as said, AoS indeed in it's design is a double/triple edged sword. Being in the fact they it wants to cater to Open, Narrative and Matched play at the same time with pretty much everything. While this is really cool, what we also see is that the community in general will lean towards what the game provides the most of. In my opinion AoS has become more focused around Matched play and it did so because there was a lot of content for it in the Generals Handbook.

To date what I'd love to see is GW thaking the lead for all three with different supplements instead of stacking it into one bundle, as ultimately it's very difficult to have both RPG elements (Narrative) and wargame point elements (Matched) into "one game" or "one book". 

Though that has much less to do with the Core rules of the game, more the way they supplement the Core rules  Customers will follow where you get the most from regardless. 

[Jamopower]

I would say that in general, I guess mostly due to the lack of points in the release, the "AoS web-community" is much more Open/narrative oriented than in many other games. Maybe there is more focus in matched play after the GHB, but for example the big fb-group Age of Sigmar fans has quite low amount of stuff about tournaments and such and also on this board, the Open and Narrative gaming is quite well represented.

[rokapoke]

I think it would be interesting to try reversing 40K's wound allocation rules if mortal wounds are too prevalent in your games. So when that Thundertusk sends 6 mortal wounds, it gets applied to a single model in the unit. When Retributors strike and get three 6s to hit, then that's three pairs of mortal wounds that get applied to one model each. So attacking the same unit of, say, Saurus Warriors (1-wound models) with both attacks, the Thundertusk would just kill one of them and the Retributors would kill three.

I dunno, I'm just spitballing here.

[CountryMou3e]

Sounds brilliant. And really makes you think about what you target in 40k. I have a lot of overkill with my harlequin fusion pistols


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[Tidings]

20 hours ago, angrycontra said:

Problem is not mortal wounds themselves, problem is too easy risk-free way of dealing them. Thundertusk doesn't need point cost increase, it needs a warscroll change. 6 mortal wounds on 2+ is just stupid. Same with stormfiends, if you increase their points, any other variant except full flamer unit is useless (heck they're already overpriced if you don't use flamers). I really hope that that 1 page in ghb2 called warscroll changes is gonna have some of these problematic units changed.

This is exactly what GW should be doing. There are a number of Warscrolls that drastically need rewriting. Just upping the points of something with a totally broken rule doesn't really fix it - it's either a must pick still, or a never pick at that point. The fact that they have all the Warscrolls in an app and on pdfs means that it should be easy to update them. Sure sometimes that means one or two Warscrolls in a book are outdated, but that's a worthwhile inconvenience since the new one would be free and the health of the game would be improving. 

Thundertusk is a perfect example. Make its first tier 4 mortal wounds, its second tier D3+1, then d3, etc, and then take away the random vulture attack. That way it can't one shot heroes by itself, which is really the biggest problem.

I wish they would add something like "look out sir" as well. For example, as a rule of one - "Any hero within 1" of a friendly unit may pass half the wounds he takes onto that unit automatically."

[CountryMou3e]

This is exactly what GW should be doing. There are a number of Warscrolls that drastically need rewriting. Just upping the points of something with a totally broken rule doesn't really fix it - it's either a must pick still, or a never pick at that point. The fact that they have all the Warscrolls in an app and on pdfs means that it should be easy to update them. Sure sometimes that means one or two Warscrolls in a book are outdated, but that's a worthwhile inconvenience since the new one would be free and the health of the game would be improving. 
Thundertusk is a perfect example. Make its first tier 4 mortal wounds, its second tier D3+1, then d3, etc, and then take away the random vulture attack. That way it can't one shot heroes by itself, which is really the biggest problem.
I wish they would add something like "look out sir" as well. For example, as a rule of one - "Any hero within 1" of a friendly unit may pass half the wounds he takes onto that unit automatically."

I think current 40k hero targeting rules would be best. Parking a hero behind a 30 blob taking all those wounds won't be fun


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[Cerlin]

9 hours ago, Myzyrael said:

Thank you all for your responses.

 

What you are describing here might be the actual core of the problem. Having your important models exposed and (most of the time) no means to defend them against mortal wounds. The thundertusk indeed has a stupid rule imho, but this also applies to my tzeentch wizards. Seriously, I love the destiny dice, as they reduce the risk for critical dice rolls but they make removing key models way to easy. Just like the tt.

Maybe it really is the "I want this character removed", *some ridiculously easy dice roll*, "Done" thing that I try to blame here.

 

Normal shooting feels a lot less guaranteed compared to mortal wounds. You have to roll for hit, wound and save. I think you are right with the reliable and long-range argument here. 

 

May I ask how dependent you feel your armies are on key *models* (not units)? Maybe this is our problem that we build our lists around key models or the things they can do and get annoyed too easily when they are removed instead of just relying less on those easy to remove thingies and have more fun with our army overall... This^... Your ease with saying "so what" might be what we need to learn.

 

Question here is how do we overcome the problem of not min/max but still keeping the list building and trying to win aspect in the game? We have, for ourselves, already agreed that we do not want to see stuff like 4 thundertusks, big bird of tzeentch with all of his little friends, etc. (only if agreed beforehand) but how to prevent without restricting people even more? As stupid as it sounds, none of us want's to play with armies he knows beforehand they are completely useless. We love some of the competitive aspects of the game but want to settle on a lower level. And this feels way to hard for us. Our group is heavily mixed in the need for feeling challenge/competitiveness so this discussion is more "top"-down driven.
Indeed, fully agreeing to "do what you want" would solve this problem, because then it only comes down to you for not bringing the crazy stuff. Maybe this is a way we have to test. But not all of our group would follow us this way and we don't want to risk a split.

 

Thank you all again for your valuable input, you have given me a lot of food for thought.

The importance of key heroes depends heavily on army and build type. 

I currently run Dispossessed, Free Peoples, and aelf lists.  The Dwarf regular units are more vulnerable to moral wounds but the heroes are less key or can survive longer. I run artillery and 30 quarreller lists so my shooting is insulated from 10 points of moral wound sniping. 

The Humans need their general for his buffs, so they are more open to sniping. Because of this, I try to keep him behind terrain or in hard cover until the buffs are needed.  I also take the dwarf strategy of wound heavy shooters. I prefer 3 units of handgunners, to get max long rifles. With the general buff you have 3, 30' 2+ 2+ 1 rending shooters with 10 wounds each at least.  This let's me snipe artillery crew, mages, or mortal wound makers pretty well. 

Aelfs I run the new swifthawk batallion as support for the other two lists, which gives mortal wound protection, shooting, and speed.

 

At this point non shooting slow melee armies are probably weakest. Also armies with low overall wound counts. I am building a Kharadon Overlord army now, and I feel they will be really weak to mortal wounds. 

[Malakithe]

Because of how certain armies are designed MW's are a much needed mechanic. Have you tried facing tanky tree people ****** without spells? Short answer: you lose. Have you tried fighting other tanky armies? Like Stormcast or units that negate rend? You need MW..Tzeentch is on the extreme of the scale for spells, its not the standard. Its like Grey Knights or Tzeentch in 40k...lots of spell power but its not the norm...

Now on the flip side you might think you dont have enough MW's when facing mixed Death armies with a army wide save++ and with GH2017 Fyreslayers will be on the rise. Units of 30 Vulkies that negate evertying on a 4+ will be more common which spells and everything else just bounce off them. 

So if I were you...i would load up a changehost and load up more spells lol

[Criti]

7 hours ago, wayniac said:

I also think the issue with mortal wounds goes back to the fact that nothing stops shooting in AOS.  In 40k at least you can get a fast moving/ambushing/whatever unit into combat with a nasty shooting unit, and then it can't shoot you.  Can't do that in AOS.  Doesn't matter how many models you get to charge that Thundertusk, it's going to shoot at the "elite" stuff (albeit maybe reduced if you can damage it) the entire game until it dies.

Speak for yourself.  When I chatge Thundertusks, there coming off the table that combat phase.  If I can't assure that with 95% certainty,  I'm charging something else. 

[SlowPlay85]

10 hours ago, Terry Pike said:

You clearly have no idea what you are talking about when it comes to playing AoS. Horde armies just won the last three UK tournaments.

They have always been powerful, people just haven't been using them. They also just got better...

Lol no

[ChaosUnited]

@Criti I'm new to this game so am a little ignorant, but how would you be so assured of removing a thundertusk in one combat? 

[CountryMou3e]

[mention=767]Criti[/mention] I'm new to this game so am a little ignorant, but how would you be so assured of removing a thundertusk in one combat? 

10 protectors buffed by a celestant


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[ChaosUnited]

Tbh said celestant got sniped by 2 thundertusks turn one.... now what