How balanced is AoS now?

[Gotrek]

2 minutes ago, Sheriff said:

The argument that mixed armies are viable always mentions order but not chaos or death or destruction 

To be fair, all death armies are mixed death. Even with the new legion rules we still get to pick from the entire range (well, flesh eaters are allies so they only half count)

[Sheriff]

1 minute ago, Gotrek said:

To be fair, all death armies are mixed death. Even with the new legion rules we still get to pick from the entire range (well, flesh eaters are allies so they only half count)

That's not mixed. We're talking GA allegiances here. 

Mixed Order does waaaaay better than other mixed GAs, this shouldn't need backing up, just look at all tournament results ever. 

[ledha]

On 07/03/2018 at 12:49 PM, Carnivore said:

I just see, that factions, that gain the love of GW ( Stormcasts, Sisters of Khain now, the new elves possibly ) get more and better abilities, and better point cost. I guess that's maybe the issue.

From a marketing perspective it makes sense, that the "new" factions get strong, point worthy and good. Because they shall be bought. And that's where I would generelly criticise the lack of having justified point cost in generell.

Maybe people don't agree with me, but that's totally ok!

Yeah I know, that old GW management was eben worse, but is the new now that much better? In terms of community presens, and customer support, yes! But within their decisions of the game itself, sometimes I doubt it a little bit.

 

It's fun to see this, because since the nerf of the overpowered Vanguard Wing, Khorne do way better results than Stormcast.  Last example is the 2 khorne list in the top 21 of adepticon, and no stormcast.

Khorne consistently do well enough in tournament since one year. I think the problem of khorne is more the internal balance (demons > mortals, few battalions worth it, bloodcrusher are very meh) than performance. Sure, they don't win tournament (but except Tzeentch, Fyreslayer and old Vanguard Wing, who does ? ) but it's very common to see khorne list in the upper part of the board

[DinoTitanedition]

The initial question of the thread is wrong. It should be:

 

How balanced is AoS in Matched Play now?

 

AoS itself is always as balanced as the players like it to be. In the meanwhile I even believe that Open Play, where people have to talk to each other before fielding their stuff and the Sudden Death rules give something of an equalizer in many games.

The selection of units or battalions is also wider. I`ve felt, that the usual setup to work was two to three units, one or two heroes (depending if the guy is a bud or a stud), and something special (monster, hero on monster, a unit of odd or bigger creatures).

 

Matched Play however is and will get more and more unbalanced over time. I am wondering why nobody seems to have noticed yet, but we are pretty much at the old edition again in Matched Play. Huge units, costs that will always narrow down your selection, units that never get fielded, as they are not efficient enough on the field, spiraling power levels with each new release and with more variety of armies more disbalances (at least if you are restricted to certain units).

 

[sal4m4nd3r]

4 hours ago, ledha said:

It's fun to see this, because since the nerf of the overpowered Vanguard Wing, Khorne do way better results than Stormcast.  Last example is the 2 khorne list in the top 21 of adepticon, and no stormcast.

Khorne consistently do well enough in tournament since one year. I think the problem of khorne is more the internal balance (demons > mortals, few battalions worth it, bloodcrusher are very meh) than performance. Sure, they don't win tournament (but except Tzeentch, Fyreslayer and old Vanguard Wing, who does ? ) but it's very common to see khorne list in the upper part of the board

I will never ever under estimate bloodcrushers and khorgoraths ever again, after my championship game at Adepticon. In the hands of a SKILLED player they are really good. 

[Tasman]

1 hour ago, DinoTitanedition said:

The initial question of the thread is wrong. It should be:

 

How balanced is AoS in Matched Play now?

 

AoS itself is always as balanced as the players like it to be. In the meanwhile I even believe that Open Play, where people have to talk to each other before fielding their stuff and the Sudden Death rules give something of an equalizer in many games.

The selection of units or battalions is also wider. I`ve felt, that the usual setup to work was two to three units, one or two heroes (depending if the guy is a bud or a stud), and something special (monster, hero on monster, a unit of odd or bigger creatures).

 

Matched Play however is and will get more and more unbalanced over time. I am wondering why nobody seems to have noticed yet, but we are pretty much at the old edition again in Matched Play. Huge units, costs that will always narrow down your selection, units that never get fielded, as they are not efficient enough on the field, spiraling power levels with each new release and with more variety of armies more disbalances (at least if you are restricted to certain units).

 

Truth. The problem here, as I see it at least in my area, is that matched play is king. The odd thing is that some of the most vocal opponents to AoS when it was first released were people that complained that it wasn't balanced because of the lack of points. Most of these dudes still don't play AoS. They were just there to complain and now have gone back to 40k as there's nothing left to complain about i.e. lack of points.

I had many great games using the open play format [which is the actual form that the basic rules seem to support]. The obvious sticking point here, is, as you mention, that it requires opponents to actually converse before a game. What a novel idea. No wonder it didn't catch on.

[ledha]

1 hour ago, sal4m4nd3r said:

I will never ever under estimate bloodcrushers and khorgoraths ever again, after my championship game at Adepticon. In the hands of a SKILLED player they are really good. 

Well, compare the skullcrusher (human mounted) and bloodcrusher (daemon mounted) and you will understand what i mean

[Skreech Verminking]

2 hours ago, Tasman said:

Truth. The problem here, as I see it at least in my area, is that matched play is king. The odd thing is that some of the most vocal opponents to AoS when it was first released were people that complained that it wasn't balanced because of the lack of points. Most of these dudes still don't play AoS. They were just there to complain and now have gone back to 40k as there's nothing left to complain about i.e. lack of points.

I had many great games using the open play format [which is the actual form that the basic rules seem to support]. The obvious sticking point here, is, as you mention, that it requires opponents to actually converse before a game. What a novel idea. No wonder it didn't catch on.

Well yeah, and the next thing most people did was play with wound count, like 100 wounds against 100wounds.

for somebody like me who played skaven, that literally meant   playing 100clanrats against like 100 Bestigors.

seems fair right?

[Skreech Verminking]

Just now, Skreech Verminking said:

Well yeah, and the next thing most people did was play with wound count, like 100 wounds against 100wounds.

for somebody like me who played skaven, that literally meant   playing 100clanrats against like 100 Bestigors.

seems fair right?

But Aos today isn’t balanced at all, yes we finally have some kind of pointcost per Modell, but since many army’s are lacking a Battletome and with it new units or rules as well as updates which  some warscrolls realy need.?

well but at least those army’s still exist 

[NemoVonUtopia]

2 hours ago, Tasman said:

Truth. The problem here, as I see it at least in my area, is that matched play is king. The odd thing is that some of the most vocal opponents to AoS when it was first released were people that complained that it wasn't balanced because of the lack of points. Most of these dudes still don't play AoS. They were just there to complain and now have gone back to 40k as there's nothing left to complain about i.e. lack of points.

I had many great games using the open play format [which is the actual form that the basic rules seem to support]. The obvious sticking point here, is, as you mention, that it requires opponents to actually converse before a game. What a novel idea. No wonder it didn't catch on.

The best games I have had had the communication needed for open play with the structure of matched play. The last game I played I got crushed because I was playing a list I threw together to try out a couple of new units and I was going up against a list that my opponent got from a tournament. And it was one of the first times I have faced his army. But I am confident that I could make a list that could compete. I think a lot of the inbalance is caused by lack of communication and totally blind list building. In most of the close games ive played both players knew what armies they were facing as well as how competitive they are.

[DinoTitanedition]

3 minutes ago, NemoVonUtopia said:

In most of the close games ive played both players knew what armies they were facing as well as how competitive they are.

This. At least partly. When you know what your army can do and what not, you can communicate that. After a while you know your army pretty well and can always tweak to your opponents setting or tell him to tweak his a bit.

Quote

Well yeah, and the next thing most people did was play with wound count, like 100 wounds against 100wounds.

for somebody like me who played skaven, that literally meant   playing 100clanrats against like 100 Bestigors.

seems fair right?

Well, I don`t know what "most people" did, as I don`t know "most people". I can only tell you that "most people I played with", were pretty able to distinguish capability and the amount of wounds. Therefore we talked about it, tried it, and if didn`t work out to our liking we tweaked it the next match. Simple as that.

 

As for the Skaven Bestigor example, I`ll give you another one:  14 Skaven against 1 Bloodthirster. I don`t need to be a genius to estimate the outcome, even though the unlikely is very well possible in this scenario.

But if you already know it`s unevenly matched, the mistake lies not within the game. Additionally you can always even the stakes by the scenario. If it`s about conquering objectives....you know it`s not always "Wipe out the other guy".

 

Now don`t get this wrong, this is a mere observation not a judgement, even if it is of course tainted by my own perception. Personally I believe, that it is better to be a bit more laid back when playing a game. Especially when hobby enthusiasts get older, get a demanding job, a wife and maybe kids and time becomes a luxury, there really is no time to stress yourself with lots of balancing issues. At that point you will always try to make a good game for both participants, as time has simply become too precious.

[hughwyeth]

1 hour ago, NemoVonUtopia said:

The best games I have had had the communication needed for open play with the structure of matched play. The last game I played I got crushed because I was playing a list I threw together to try out a couple of new units and I was going up against a list that my opponent got from a tournament. And it was one of the first times I have faced his army. But I am confident that I could make a list that could compete. I think a lot of the inbalance is caused by lack of communication and totally blind list building. In most of the close games ive played both players knew what armies they were facing as well as how competitive they are.

Totally agree. AoS has the same issue that 40k has (though 40k seems totally plagued by this, whereas most AoS players seem to be cool about this)- people want to win at all costs. If you say "I'm just bringing a bunch of models with a grand alliance allegiance", some people will bring a Tzeentch netlist to fight it. It's gonna be a crappy game, but there are players that play AoS to win games.

I have to say I really don't get it. The cost of buy-in for any GW game, in terms of time spent making and painting, time spent learning the game and strategy and learning your force and of course the actual monetary cost is greater than any hobby I can think of. If all you care about is winning, why not just pay to win clash of kings on iphone? A lot less effort and you can do that on the toilet. 

[svnvaldez]

I skipped all 111 comments and just answering the title of the thread

AOS is a semi balanced game with beautiful models!

[bonzai]

Lol. Before I read this thread, I thought Blades of Khorne were a strong army. Not what I would consider top 4, but certainly close to it. 

I agree that hero sniping is a legitimate problem in the game. It's a little too easy for certain armies to take them out. In fact I would say it's my biggest issue with the game as it stands right now. I wouldn't mind seeing some additional anti range options being added to most armies. Things like fulminators that laugh off shooting, body guard units, spells/abilities that nerf range, etc...   different things for different armies, each with it's own flavor. Maybe Flesh Eater courts get a spell that envelopes a unit in darkness and stops them from shooting for a turn, maybe Sylvaneth get Treekin back and they have bonuses vs shooting attacks. Stuff like that.

Balance is something that will never be achieved, but can always be improved upon. That being said, with tzeentch being knocked back a step, and early battle tomes getting some boosts, I think ghb17 helped more than it hurt (and this from some one plays Bonesplitterz and Clan Verminus). It wasnt great for everyone, but it helped shake the meta up, which was needed.

Its going to be interesting to see how the new codexes impact things. I am just starting to see KO lists starting to find their footing, though it appears that they a shapping up to be a mono build spoiler style army similar to bonesplitterz. Can win RTs, but run into hard counters at GTs.  Maggotkin look solid, and DoK look downright scary. LoN is mostly an improvement for Death, but I am on the fence about how big of an impact it will make over all.

It's going to be fun to see what comes from them.

[angrycontra]

I think aos is reasonably well balanced game. In fact, I kinda hate it when some people argue against some balance changes by saying "there's always gonna be the top tier army that everyone picks/people will just adapt to next best thing". Now sure, yes there's always gonna be that one army that has higher win rate than others, but the question is not whether such army exists but rather how much better it is than the rest. There's a big difference between winning 55/100 games and winning 70/100 games.

The biggest issue I see with aos though is the lack of counterplay tactics for some armies. Ideally healthy meta works something like this: army x is powerful, and a lot of people are playing it. Army y however counters army x and thus army x slowly drops out of fad. Army z (previously dominated by x) counters army y and so the wheel keeps spinning. Healthy meta is not that there is 3-4 tzeentch changehost lists in every damn tournament top 10.

[Carnivore]

8 hours ago, angrycontra said:

I think aos is reasonably well balanced game. In fact, I kinda hate it when some people argue against some balance changes by saying "there's always gonna be the top tier army that everyone picks/people will just adapt to next best thing". Now sure, yes there's always gonna be that one army that has higher win rate than others, but the question is not whether such army exists but rather how much better it is than the rest. There's a big difference between winning 55/100 games and winning 70/100 games.

The biggest issue I see with aos though is the lack of counterplay tactics for some armies. Ideally healthy meta works something like this: army x is powerful, and a lot of people are playing it. Army y however counters army x and thus army x slowly drops out of fad. Army z (previously dominated by x) counters army y and so the wheel keeps spinning. Healthy meta is not that there is 3-4 tzeentch changehost lists in every damn tournament top 10.

Exactly this. So, from what I have seen, the overall thing is indeed the counterplay. Some armies can just not really counter others, so it is not possible, to build one army, that will compete with them all. It will be good vs some of them, but might just lack versus others.
This in combination with some ( kind of gamebreaking sometimes ) game mechanics, that allow you to just snipe the enemy hero and make that army worthless then, should be the task of being balanced.
So it is kind of up to a remake for the core rules ( especially shooting! IMO) and a little point adjustment. That's basically it, as far what I would suggest.

The competetive play would automatically be more balanced, but a game like AoS can not be evenly balanced entirely. Then we all would have units with kind of the same abilities. So what I learned is, that we wanna figure out, wich unkts are worth it, and combine abilities and the actual TACTICS to compete well.

I have noticed myself, that I made really nasty mistakes, that cost me the win a lot of times. It was just due to the simple placement of units. Simple as that.

The issue being at the moment in generel seems to be, that GW decides now to push out 40K's codices one after the other, while in AoS pushing new factions for ORDER, and not redesigning Battletomes for all armies.
That's a little odd, GW.
Order still has the most attention, and will have it more, but I guess we can just relax here. The other factions will get attention too, hopefully.

[Tasman]

On 4/3/2018 at 9:23 AM, Skreech Verminking said:

Well yeah, and the next thing most people did was play with wound count, like 100 wounds against 100wounds.

for somebody like me who played skaven, that literally meant   playing 100clanrats against like 100 Bestigors.

seems fair right?

Yeah, that never worked well...... we did try an open play format that simply used the min/max unit sizes in the GHB. we'd say something like " I'm bringing x # of war scrolls can you match that?" Made for some pretty interesting games.

[Lou_Cypher]

Would implementing the character rules of 40k help AoS? 

The protection part really, where models under 10 wounds are protected from most targettable attacks.

[Some Tiny People]

15 minutes ago, Lou_Cypher said:

Would implementing the character rules of 40k help AoS? 

The protection part really, where models under 10 wounds are protected from most targettable attacks.

This is the only aspect of the core rules that feels obviously in need of attention to me. The game's just so contingent on hero buffs, and ranged attacks are already so powerful. I can't help thinking Morathi's three-wound-max-a-turn rule is there simply to prevent her from being shot off the board in any competitive game.

And really, the 40k rule felt like a lesson learned from AoS (and then refined in the beta rule version).

[Iradekhorne]

1 hour ago, Lou_Cypher said:

Would implementing the character rules of 40k help AoS? 

The protection part really, where models under 10 wounds are protected from most targettable attacks.

I think that was a mistake, some characters have a really madness buffs, like the vanhel dance of a necromacer, the spell of the Gaunt summoner, Lord kroak or the bloodsecrators. 

I think a lighter rule will be bettter, like pass the hit to a nearby 3" unit on a 5+ or similar, cause the auras in aos are so much stronger (except guilliman, that ******....) and more in number also!

 

[NemoVonUtopia]

1 hour ago, Lou_Cypher said:

Would implementing the character rules of 40k help AoS? 

The protection part really, where models under 10 wounds are protected from most targettable attacks.

I don't think going that far would be good. It would remove counter play to thinks like bloodsecrators or Necromancers. That rule also has rather funky implications in 40k that I would rather not have in AoS. 

Stormcast heroes with mirrorshields are infuriating enough to deal with.

Passing off wounds or getting the benefit of cover when near friendly units would be better.

[Xasz]

These threads are always the same.

Starting off somewhat reasonable for 1-2 pages, then devolving into some bash of either the competitive or casual scene and how bad the game is and everything was better when there was no GHB  (while at the same time, the tournament scene is rather diverse and good fun). It's not that AoS is perfect, but most of the heavily opinionated statements in these threads tend to be just laughable.

To contribute something to this dying thread...

The 40k protection rule is really, really bad design in my opinion and gets abused rather handsomely. (besides, 40k suffers from legacy issues from time to time but that's something else)

The only thing I'd like to see in the future (and could be implemented without changing AoS at its core):

• Units locked in combat cannot shoot on enemy units that are farther than 3" away (if not for balancing reasons at least for fluff reasons, unrestricted shooting out of combat did not sit well within our playgroup)
• -1 to hit when shooting non-monster, non-behemoth characters

[Agent of Chaos]

9 hours ago, Xasz said:

• Units locked in combat cannot shoot on enemy units that are farther than 3" away (if not for balancing reasons at least for fluff reasons, unrestricted shooting out of combat did not sit well within our playgroup)
• -1 to hit when shooting non-monster, non-behemoth characters

This! Harking back to the old shooting rules from fantasy battle which totally make sense.

How do you notch an arrow/load a bolt thrower, cannon or rifle and shoot something on the other side of the battlefield while engaged in melee? Even firing at the unit you are engaged with seems wrong but I could live with it.

I dont like the 40K rule of not being able to target a character with less than 10 wounds but why is shooting a single human sized model as accurate as a unit of 40? A -1 to hit single models (character or otherwise) is fair and reasonable but needs to be balanced by giving +1 to hit monsters/behemoths/war machines (excluding crew). Fluffy & Logical.

I know its a fantasy game with magic etc but that doesnt mean all logic and reasoning goes out the window. And yes we dont want to over complicate the rules however if it makes sense and adds balance I dont think its going to be too complicated. If the above rules were implemented it could coincide with a small point decrease for ranged units.

[DinoTitanedition]

10 hours ago, Xasz said:

Units locked in combat cannot shoot on enemy units that are farther than 3" away (if not for balancing reasons at least for fluff reasons, unrestricted shooting out of combat did not sit well within our playgroup)

• -1 to hit when shooting non-monster, non-behemoth characters

We houseruled shooting. If you shoot into combat:

 

If you need a 4+ to hit with your ranged attack and shoot into combat, 4+ will hit the target. Dicerolls lower than 4+ will hit your own forces. The chaos makes the fight a bit too thick to shoot precisely. This also works great with shooters that need less than 4x. It simply resembles their quality of targeting.

 

We haven`t used that rule yet with shooting out of close combat, but it could be handled the same way: if you roll anything lower than the neccessary result you hit yourself. Loading and shooting distracts you so much, that the opponent has a good opportunity to strike at you.

[Amenhotep]

I think a better question is are any imbalances in the game sufficient to crush the fun out of playing, and are tournaments getting dominated by a single armybook/list? I remember back in the days of 7th ed. fantasy where you could go to a GT and play against Daemons all weekend, and after the 3rd time playing against Kairos Fateweaver you were about ready to throw your army in the bin on the way out...

Looking at what seems to be being taken to tournaments currently it doesn't seem nearly so bad, and there's pretty reasonable diversity in lists out there. The sadder element suggested here is that of falling into the trap of just getting into the 'all tournament practice all the time' mindset locally - the problem with this is that it discourages new players and burns out existing players eventually as you can get caught in an ever rolling meta arms race that often leads to games just ending up unsatisfying and boring. 

To me this isn't as much of an issue of internal game balance (which is something that's a bit wonky for every wargame when you get right down to it) and more about player attitudes, as harsh as that may sound.  It's easy to get caught up in the drive to do better at tournaments, but if you get to the point you're just getting frustrated you're better off approaching the game from a different angle for a while at least, and trying to just enjoy it - it's a hobby afterall so should always be fun