Another tome ruined for Named Chars

[Qaz]

I rather it be a choice than having the named character being always the optimized/"must-have" choice. On the other hand, being so inefficient that is army crippling is disappointing. 

Let's wait till people got some games in before judging.

[WoollyMammoth]

On 2/25/2018 at 3:23 AM, Kramer said:

@WoollyMammoth on how many test games is your judgement based? 

This is irrelevant. I've already said this. nothing I'm talking about requires playtesting. I've played plenty of games with 5++ saves to know their incredible value in the current mortal wound meta we live in.

Same thing @rokapoke is saying. its irrelevant and off topic. 

Read the actual post, not just the headline, before commenting. 
 

22 hours ago, Spiny Norman said:

I'm really far from agreeing to this nonsense.

Badly? Doesn't she come with the most hubristic survivability item, yet?

no you can kill her before battle round 3 begins. A lot of other chars have healing which can sustain much longer than that. The most important sustain is mortal wound protection, which she has nothing but a 6+++, which will not be anywhere near as good as a 5+++/5++++.

@Payce gets it.

 

21 hours ago, DantePQ said:

With DoK it's perfectly fine for Morathi to use some Slaughter Queen as proxy. It suits her lorewise. 

What lore are you talking about? There is no lore where Morathi is commanded by her subordinate. 

 

17 hours ago, Bradifer said:

Within 5 minutes of reading the Legions of Nagash battle tome, I figured out that most of the LoN factions really want you to bring a cool named thematically on-point mortarch.

How cool! Then i realized it forces you to take the Mortarch of its choosing, and forces you not to take any of the 12 cool command traits or artefacts I just sat there and read.

It went down like this:

Step 1: Be excited, read all about new command traits and artefacts the balance team spent (months?) putting together.

Step 2: Immediately realize that GW designed it so that you are unlikely to ever use the things I just got excited about, because I have to use specific named characters and they have to be the general. (in some lists).

Step 3: Skip to long awaited Death battalions and laugh at how bad all but 1 of them are.

 

I completely agree this named character thing is nonsense. It's confusing for a new player to get excited about a fun way to buff their favorite named hero, then just suddenly "No, you can't, idiot." when they realize GW is essentially nerfing every named character forever until they feel like changing it.

This is a problem with Sylvaneth, not with named characters. The issue is that Sylvaneth has incredibly good and passive buffs in the form of their command traits and artefacts. They require no decision making or positioning, just "whelp I'm worth more points now."

@WoollyMammoth While I don't think it's ruining the game, it's certainly a dissapointment and it feels really clunky and stupid. LoN Death battletome technically was a buff for me as a death player, but man did they sure figure out a bunch of ways not to excite me at all. Pretty much rolled my eyes as I figured out how half of it restricts the usage of the named characters they are trying to force. As somebody with a well painted Mortarch I want to use, it already feels like Arkhan is the only choice and the command traits I've already deleted from my mind. Nice book.

 

You know what's fun? Making a powerful army that you customized to be the best it can be.

What's not fun?  Reading through a huge list of fun things you cannot use because the character was deemed too powerful already, when it reality, those named characters are usually overshadowed by generic heroes. Promote the named characters, don't give reasons not to take them.

I agree with everything you say 100%. thank you for being the first person who fully gets the point. I thought that more people were intelligent enough to understand the weird rule conundrums that the named char restrictions are causing. Maybe shoot the FAQ team a message about this. Hopefully GW will start to address how this is weird and come up with a balanced solution.
 

16 hours ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

Back in the day, up through 5th Edition 40K, I remember when named characters were not allowed at tournaments and required your opponent's permission to even field.  Unless it was a what-if scenario battle or recreation of one from the stories, named characters were pretty much a special treat in games. 

Yeah but back in the day armies were armies with a huge variety of units and options. Now armies are 'mini-factions'. DoK without mortathi feels like a bunch of witch elves. Sure there are some options to take and you can do some different things but the army really feels empty without considering morathi. She is the only good wizard and the only monster in the army. 

If it were like the old editions, there would be a variety of totally customizable heroes and Morathi would be overpriced with a bunch of overblown unique things most of which you don't even care about, making her a fluff piece only. Also in most of the old editions you could buy the named char model and play it as a generic char.

Its just completely different worlds, you cant really compare them. 
 

8 hours ago, Galas said:

So Named Characters that are extremely powerfull and with a ton of special and unique habilities can't have bonuses that are intended to use to customize generic characters?

Hmmm... who could that be? Do you want W40K where theres really 0 reason to take generic characters as your warlords because named ones are just flat out better 90% of the time?

And... shouldn't be the title of the thread "Another Battletome ruined FOR named chars"? 

lowly chars are almost never taken as generals regardless. Most of them have uses outside of being the general. You are not likely to see an undead force led by a necromancer for example. they are led by powerful chars like VLoZD that function like a strong named char, but with all the customization. In many cases this is making these strong no-namers the must take. In fact, this is my very argument. If i have to choose between a no-name being the must take or the epic named chars, I'd take the named chars any day. They tend to be more beautiful models with crazy rules that make games more interesting.

AoS is interesting and varied enough that I still don't see named chars with customization being a problem. If you think its cool to make the cauldron the general instead, so be it. It might be the better option regardless. But making it the definitive option without even giving Morathi a chance is disappointing. 

Fair enough. People who like to read only the title and complain (without reading the actual point of the post) are getting hung up on the title. Thats a good idea - I changed it. 







 

[Killax]

1 hour ago, WoollyMammoth said:

I thought that more people were intelligent enough to understand the weird rule conundrums that the named char restrictions are causing

Ah you see this as a restriction?You'd rather hame Named Characters be the general all the time and every time?
Because their inability to not have Command Traits at least means that non-Named Characters are a relevant choice also.

In reality your posts are full of extremes, but please explain why you rather have it the other way. Narrative? An even better exuse to skip on the diversity of the line and understand where to focus on for competitive list designs? 

The thing is really that it could be designed differently, like 40K, but then forces additional ruling to show up that points towards a must-thake Command Trait. Because if you don't do that (and there isn't anything you suggest should follow that) it's Named Characters + Chaff all the time and every time.

[GammaMage]

4 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Yeah but back in the day armies were armies with a huge variety of units and options. Now armies are 'mini-factions'. DoK without mortathi feels like a bunch of witch elves. Sure there are some options to take and you can do some different things but the army really feels empty without considering morathi. She is the only good wizard and the only monster in the army. 

If it were like the old editions, there would be a variety of totally customizable heroes and Morathi would be overpriced with a bunch of overblown unique things most of which you don't even care about, making her a fluff piece only. Also in most of the old editions you could buy the named char model and play it as a generic char.

I'm confused, I thought you were saying you wanted Morathi to be able to pick command traits so you could take her as general, but now you seem to be saying you want her to be nothing but a fluff piece that most people wouldn't play.

Now, it is true that the army doesn't have vast amounts of unit options, but even without Morathi it's more than just witch aelves. The Melusai look really cool, and differ enough from the witch aelf norm, plus there's the Doomfire Warlocks who have this creepy nazghul vibe going on.

As for saying Morathi is the only good wizard, that's not true either. The Bloodwrack Medusa has more than 5 wounds and has attacks that can actually deal damage. Do you know how much I'd pay for my Darkling Covens to have a foot wizard like that?

[WoollyMammoth]

2 hours ago, GammaMage said:

I'm confused, I thought you were saying you wanted Morathi to be able to pick command traits so you could take her as general, but now you seem to be saying you want her to be nothing but a fluff piece that most people wouldn't play.

This has nothing to do with my point. I was simply addressing what BunkhouseBuster said.

[Malfunct Bot]

On ‎26‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 2:16 AM, Bradifer said:

This is a problem with Sylvaneth, not with named characters. The issue is that Sylvaneth has incredibly good and passive buffs in the form of their command traits and artefacts. They require no decision making or positioning, just "whelp I'm worth more points now."

If it's a problem for Sylvaneth it's a problem for everyone. Allowing traits for Named Characters opens the floodgates and allows everyone to stack their rediculous abilities on characters that are decently balanced (though not top tier. Not everything's a Skyfire, and not everything should be).

In the same vein to the impenetrable beetle bug I'd rather NOT face a big monster that's giving a MASSIVE buff to her entire army and would take a MINIMUM of 2 full Battlerounds to kill despite anything I can hope to do (and no, niche items like a Mighty Lord of Khorne's axe or Nurgle's Nail are too unreliable and inaccessible to count). It doesn't encourage strategy, it doesn't require planning, it's not clever, it's just a near instant "I win" button against anything that's not of the same level of hard cheddar.

AoS needs less powercreep, buff stacking and ways to break the game, not more of it.

[WoollyMammoth]

46 minutes ago, Malfunct Bot said:

In the same vein to the impenetrable beetle bug I'd rather NOT face a big monster that's giving a MASSIVE buff to her entire army and would take a MINIMUM of 2 full Battlerounds to kill despite anything I can hope to do (and no, niche items like a Mighty Lord of Khorne's axe or Nurgle's Nail are too unreliable and inaccessible to count). It doesn't encourage strategy, it doesn't require planning, it's not clever, it's just a near instant "I win" button against anything that's not of the same level of hard cheddar.

Well, you are going to. The only difference from what you describe is that the Cauldron is giving the 5++, which means you have to focus your attacks on taking down the cauldron while Morathi is ripping you apart.

allowing Morathi to take the trait simply makes the army make more sense from a lore perspective, it doesn't raise the 'powercreep' or remove buff stacking. It also gives more freedom and variety to the listbuilding so that you can choose a cauldron or Morathi, rather than the cauldron being the 'must take' option that is the general in 99% of lists. 

[Redmanphill]

I’m glad they make this distinction on special characters.

[TheOtherJosh]

On 2/25/2018 at 2:10 AM, Burf said:

If Nagash is on the battlefield he IS leading death. He has to be general.

...

Technically, if you use “Allegiance:Death” you can make another leader the General even with Nagash in the army.

You're only “stuck” with Nagash as General if you use ‘Grand Host of Nagash’ (and he can’t be taken in any others of the Allegiances.)

[Malfunct Bot]

5 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Well, you are going to. The only difference from what you describe is that the Cauldron is giving the 5++, which means you have to focus your attacks on taking down the cauldron while Morathi is ripping you apart.

allowing Morathi to take the trait simply makes the army make more sense from a lore perspective, it doesn't raise the 'powercreep' or remove buff stacking. It also gives more freedom and variety to the listbuilding so that you can choose a cauldron or Morathi, rather than the cauldron being the 'must take' option that is the general in 99% of lists. 

The difference is, as I said and you decided to ignore, is that Morathi has the Iron-Heart of Khaine, meaning that it will take a minimum of two full Battlerounds to kill her off. The Cauldron you can at least attack, the Cauldron you can at least do something about, with Morathi you are LITERALLY HELPLESS. Against Morathi you are HELPLESS at trying to kill the massive buffing character while with the Cauldron you can at least TRY. It won't give you variety, it just means you'll take Morathi in 100% of cases rather than the Cauldron, because the ability is just more powerful and useful on her rather than the Cauldron. Aka, powercreep.

And stop using the excuse of "the lore", because even that excuse doesn't hold up. Maybe Morathi went "it would seriously suck if I hulked out in the middle of the battle and left my entire army leaderless and without direction, maybe it'd be smart to appoint someone else to direct my army so that doesn't happen." Maybe Alarielle went "I will appoint this Treelord Ancient with generations of combat experiance to coordinate the troops so I can focus fully on breaking the back of the Nurglite forces with my martial strength." Maybe Gordrakk went "Iz guz gonna run forward and smash sum gitz."

And how does it make sense that Morathi hulks out and looses her ability to command with her Command Ability, but keeps her ability to command with her Command Trait? Doesn't seem very lore friendly to me.

[someone2040]

Personally I don't think there is an issue here.

I know people have suggested that special characters should have a defined one if they're the General like in 40k. But that also has issues because there always seems to be 1 or 2 traits that are 'the best', so if your special character doesn't end up with that one, then they're not a good General.

But overall, I think there is a misconception that is perhaps spread by calling them 'command traits'. Command traits are nothing more than a way people can customize their General (Who should be an important character in your army) a bit more. Some are good at casting, some are tough, some are inspiring, some are better fighters. This is what the command trait does, it allows us to customize our General to make them a bit more of our own.

Special characters should not get that. They've already got special rules that show what they're good at and specialised at. In essence, they've already got command traits baked into their rules.

If anything, I think there are a few reasons you don't see some special characters lead armies.

Some command traits are extremely powerful like Staunch Defender (and whatever the Sylvaneth ones are).

Coupled with the fact that they're free, it makes you feel like you're 'missing out' on something if you aren't getting one.

Lastly, many special characters just don't have good enough command abilities to make them interesting Generals. Even if a Treelord didn't actually get a command trait, I would argue he might still be the better General over Alarielle. Just because his command ability is better than hers (in my opinion).

[WoollyMammoth]

5 hours ago, Malfunct Bot said:

The difference is, as I said and you decided to ignore, is that Morathi has the Iron-Heart of Khaine, meaning that it will take a minimum of two full Battlerounds to kill her off. The Cauldron you can at least attack, the Cauldron you can at least do something about, with Morathi you are LITERALLY HELPLESS. Against Morathi you are HELPLESS at trying to kill the massive buffing character while with the Cauldron you can at least TRY. It won't give you variety, it just means you'll take Morathi in 100% of cases rather than the Cauldron, because the ability is just more powerful and useful on her rather than the Cauldron. Aka, powercreep.

And stop using the excuse of "the lore", because even that excuse doesn't hold up. Maybe Morathi went "it would seriously suck if I hulked out in the middle of the battle and left my entire army leaderless and without direction, maybe it'd be smart to appoint someone else to direct my army so that doesn't happen." Maybe Alarielle went "I will appoint this Treelord Ancient with generations of combat experiance to coordinate the troops so I can focus fully on breaking the back of the Nurglite forces with my martial strength." Maybe Gordrakk went "Iz guz gonna run forward and smash sum gitz."

And how does it make sense that Morathi hulks out and looses her ability to command with her Command Ability, but keeps her ability to command with her Command Trait? Doesn't seem very lore friendly to me.

I didn't choose to ignore your point about the Heart of Khaine, its just not accurate. If, for example Morathi goes first and stays in oracle form, you now have her turn and your turn to kill her before battle round 2 begins. That might be tough but you could get the double turn, so you have 3 turns to cause 6 wounds and kill her. Even if you only manage 5 in three turns she will transform with 2 wounds remaining, and should be pretty easy to clean up at that point.

That's not a bad point but it has never happened in the lore. On the table it happens all the time die to the restrictions. I'm just looking for a middle ground.

That is a good point; if she were granted command traits in Oracle form but lost all traits in Shadow Form, that would be interesting.
 

 

3 hours ago, someone2040 said:

Personally I don't think there is an issue here.

I know people have suggested that special characters should have a defined one if they're the General like in 40k. But that also has issues because there always seems to be 1 or 2 traits that are 'the best', so if your special character doesn't end up with that one, then they're not a good General.

But overall, I think there is a misconception that is perhaps spread by calling them 'command traits'. Command traits are nothing more than a way people can customize their General (Who should be an important character in your army) a bit more. Some are good at casting, some are tough, some are inspiring, some are better fighters. This is what the command trait does, it allows us to customize our General to make them a bit more of our own.

Special characters should not get that. They've already got special rules that show what they're good at and specialised at. In essence, they've already got command traits baked into their rules.

If anything, I think there are a few reasons you don't see some special characters lead armies.

Some command traits are extremely powerful like Staunch Defender (and whatever the Sylvaneth ones are).

Coupled with the fact that they're free, it makes you feel like you're 'missing out' on something if you aren't getting one.

Lastly, many special characters just don't have good enough command abilities to make them interesting Generals. Even if a Treelord didn't actually get a command trait, I would argue he might still be the better General over Alarielle. Just because his command ability is better than hers (in my opinion).

The problem is, everyone goes to the command trait with the best synergy (if possible). The synergy represents being a good leader.  There are some command traits which do nothing but selfishly help the general, but these are not a big deal and most people would not feel left out by skipping these for a named char. These lame abilities i would agree are not really 'command traits' but 'self-bonuses'.  Named chars rarely, if ever have a special rule that provides synergy, other than the command ability. But non-named chars get both their command ability and a trait, making them perform as better leaders than named chars in most cases. 

 

[Undeadly]

Throwing my two cents into the hat here, but I don't find it annoying to loose Command Traits and Artifacts for when it comes to named characters, since it makes sense that they would already have a load out of weaponry and a unique way of commanding the battlefield, which is already pretty well represented in the rules on most named character's sheets. 

On the other hand though, I find it INCREDIBLY annoying that I must take Arkhan/Nefereta/Mannfred/Nagash as my generals. I do not believe, to my knowledge, that any other battletome has had this restriction, and I find it very aggravating.