Jump to content

Buying Command Points


PJetski

Recommended Posts

There are lots of command abilities that turn from powerful to oppressively strong when used 3+ times in the same turn, and being able to do that in the first turn of the game leads to a lot of lists built around alpha strikes that can table people.

What do you think about being able to buy command points? Is it fine, should that mechanic be removed, or perhaps the cost is just set too low at 50points?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 50
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Tabling people and alpha strikes are part of the game.  I think command points are fine the way they are.  Everyone can buy them so everyone has access to the same rules.

I think that if people are having a hard time with the game or getting tabled that a better answer would be to look at what is happening in the game and try to learn from mistakes being made so that being tabled is not happening as much.

Alpha striking is a fairly straight forward and common tactic, but the obvious defense is to position your models in such a way that only expendable screening units can be targeted.  Thats part of what makes the game fun, countering things like this.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know exactly what you mean but in a vacuum I think the cost itself seems perfectly fine.

There are certain lists that just have something like 60-80 points left over and nothing good to do with them so they just have that one extra CP as a nice little bonus. I'll go a step further and say that there are certain armies that could have 100 extra CPs and it wouldn't really be broken or overpowered. Beastclaw Raiders comes to mind as an example. Like, oh no, their low model units with high wound count dudes are going to be immune to battleshock all game and they get to reroll charges? **Shrug**

I don't want to turn this into CP Stacking debate but the outcome of this all is one of two things, the meta will adjust (and it will), or GW will FAQ them. They already went through and cherry picked warscrolls to say you can only use certain CAs once... I imagine they'll do more of that and if it really comes to it they'll make blanket rule of 1/unit/turn or go to the extreme and make a Rule of One. 

In the meantime, Command Abilities are fun, enjoy them. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Tabling people and alpha strikes are part of the game.  I think command points are fine the way they are.  Everyone can buy them so everyone has access to the same rules.

 

This is a little disingenuous - or at let a bit shortsighted.

Everyone might have access to the same rules, but different armies use/rely on Command Points in far different ways.  Saying Command Point useage is somehow even across all the armies is wildly inaccurate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree its not even across all armies, but competitively the armies that one would play to be viable should have a more even access to these items.

For armies that are not currently viable, I hope that Games Workshop addresses that and adds abilities for them as well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the ability to purchase command points is fine.  If there is an issue with the command point system then it lies with either how the system allows stacking or with specific abilities & interactions.

I greatly prefer the current AoS command point system to how it is handled in 40k - but that is a rant for another time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, mikethefish said:

This is a little disingenuous - or at let a bit shortsighted.

Everyone might have access to the same rules, but different armies use/rely on Command Points in far different ways.  Saying Command Point useage is somehow even across all the armies is wildly inaccurate.

This is only part of the problem. Command abilities can be insane force multipliers and it's not fun to play against grots doing 128 damage or 12 Longstrikes doing >200 shots before they even have to move. That it favours some factions over others only exacerbates this issue.

I don't think the issue is stacking command abilities, I think it's easy access to command points. It doesn't seem like the command ability system was designed with people starting the game with >10 command points. Anvils of the Heldenhammer wouldn't be so abusive if it only had +2 CP instead of +15.

Do people want to play a game that encourages you to spend 1/4 of your army buffing a single unit to absurd proportions instead of taking models? 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Quote

Do people want to play a game that encourages you to spend 1/4 of your army buffing a single unit to absurd proportions instead of taking models?

Honestly yes.  For me the lower the model count requirement the better.  If I can get away with spending 500 points out of 2000 on items that don't need models and my army still be as strong and viable and competitive, I would definitely do that every time.  If anything I'd like to see Age of Sigmar's model count come down to around 10 or 20 models.  Its easier to switch forces that way when they rotate power meta, its cheaper to collect, and you can play more forces and collect different forces easier than having to buy a bunch of models and paint them each time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Dead Scribe said:

Honestly yes.  For me the lower the model count requirement the better.  If I can get away with spending 500 points out of 2000 on items that don't need models and my army still be as strong and viable and competitive, I would definitely do that every time.

Just play a smaller game size...?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@PJetski & @Dead Scribe

I assure you it's not GW's intent to have people field 1/4 fewer models which raises an interesting and entirely alternate perspective on this. My stance on Command Points in general is probably somewhere between both of you. I like them. I don't even mind "some" of the abuses because I do think that the meta will adjust. Still, I think there's a couple things that are not working as intended/oversights and that'll be addressed in due time. In either case, I'm not worried. 

Buuuut... how does GW feel about people buying 25% fewer models because they let people just buy 500 CPs? That practically guarantees nerfs are incoming :P 

or a "Command Point" sculpt incoming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If model requirements for a standard game dropped, we would be more inclined to buy more forces.  Kind of like shadespire.  Buying forces for shadespire is not as painful because there aren't very many models to buy, so people buy them all.  They do that with xwing too :)  

When people have to buy a lot of models for a faction they tend to not want to buy other factions, so I think that the net result is less models sold overall.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, PJetski said:

It doesn't seem like the command ability system was designed with people starting the game with >10 command points. Anvils of the Heldenhammer wouldn't be so abusive if it only had +2 CP instead of +15.

Do people want to play a game that encourages you to spend 1/4 of your army buffing a single unit to absurd proportions instead of taking models? 

People are doing this?

If certain armies have abilities that incentivize spending a quarter of the points of your army stockpiling command points rather than putting miniatures onto the table then it seems to me that the issue at hand are those specific abilities.

And the grot damage multiplier ability is very much an issue about stacking.  The problem with that ability is that it stacks exponentially.  The ability itself has been untouched since the game released and it was not an issue when it could only be used once a turn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

 If anything I'd like to see Age of Sigmar's model count come down to around 10 or 20 models.  

You need to move to a different game if that is what you want for most factions.  GW has never supported low model count games for long term.  Their trend has been to increase the size of games rather than decrease.  If you want competitive games with 10-20 models then you should check out games like Malifaux.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Skabnoze said:

People are doing this?

If certain armies have abilities that incentivize spending a quarter of the points of your army stockpiling command points rather than putting miniatures onto the table then it seems to me that the issue at hand are those specific abilities.

I like the idea of people using that ability multiple times by pooling their command points and building a list that can benefit from that kind of ability, but 16 times in the first turn is entirely too much.

The Anvils ability would be powerful without being silly if people started the game with (for example) a max of +3 CP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Skabnoze said:

You need to move to a different game if that is what you want for most factions.  GW has never supported low model count games for long term.  Their trend has been to increase the size of games rather than decrease.  If you want competitive games with 10-20 models then you should check out games like Malifaux.

Just wishful thinking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mean I guess you can short yourself 500 points off a list to hoard cp but that's also 500 points not going to holding objectives and having more table presence  If people do that then the army has one or two beatsticks and nothing else. Would mean losing a unit is even more of a dire situation. I just can't see this becoming the norm. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, PJetski said:

I like the idea of people using that ability multiple times by pooling their command points and building a list that can benefit from that kind of ability, but 16 times in the first turn is entirely too much.

The Anvils ability would be powerful without being silly if people started the game with (for example) a max of +3 CP.

I am unaware of the list you are speaking of that wants to dump that many command points in the first turn.

I a not opposed to a cap of how many you can buy at the start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, Mikester1487 said:

I mean I guess you can short yourself 500 points off a list to hoard cp but that's also 500 points not going to holding objectives and having more table presence  If people do that then the army has one or two beatsticks and nothing else. Would mean losing a unit is even more of a dire situation. I just can't see this becoming the norm. 

In theory, sure.

In practice you get shot off the table in the first turn and then they casually stroll over to the objectives.

1 minute ago, Skabnoze said:

I am unaware of the list you are speaking of that wants to dump that many command points in the first turn.

I a not opposed to a cap of how many you can buy at the start.

Anvils of the Heldenhammer with 12 Longstrikes and as many command points as they can get.

A cap on starting CP might be the right solution.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

For me what I’ve always enjoyed about AoS matched play games is the scenarios that present a “problem to solve” tactically. Anything that enables one side to ignore that problem and just table their opponent quickly takes away the engagement that the game presents.

I also think there’s value in thinking narratively. How much damage should 1 Grot be able to do? 1 - fair enough. 2- in extreme circumstances maybe. 4, how? 8+ wtf??? Any ability (be it command ability stacking of anything else) which doesn’t fit the narrative/lore of the unit needs to be looked at.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Anvils of the Heldenhammer with 12 Longstrikes and as many command points as they can get.

A cap on starting CP might be the right solution.

I just looked at the formation and command ability and i am curious why the problem here is the amount of command points you can start with as opposed to the ability to freely trigger this ability as many times as you can afford?

Similar abilities for other armies such as Bonesplitterz or Daughters of Khaine have restrictions on them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I just looked at the formation and command ability and i am curious why the problem here is the amount of command points you can start with as opposed to the ability to freely trigger this ability as many times as you can afford?

Similar abilities for other armies such as Bonesplitterz or Daughters of Khaine have restrictions on them.

To me it's a matter of game design philosophy.  I think there should just be a single rule that governs how command abilities can be applied.  For example: "a unit may only benefit from a specific command ability once per turn."

By making it specific to each individual command ability, changes to the rules cannot be evaluated against one rule, that have to be evaluated against 200 command abilities.

I do agree that the problem isn't with the command point buying but with the rules around command point use (should I really be able to add 15" to my charges with Gavriel?).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Richelieu said:

To me it's a matter of game design philosophy.  I think there should just be a single rule that governs how command abilities can be applied.  For example: "a unit may only benefit from a specific command ability once per turn."

By making it specific to each individual command ability, changes to the rules cannot be evaluated against one rule, that have to be evaluated against 200 command abilities.

I do agree that the problem isn't with the command point buying but with the rules around command point use (should I really be able to add 15" to my charges with Gavriel?).

I agree with you.  Those are the most elegant solutions in general.  I also think it is better to put stricter guard-rails on systems/abilities like this that can get out of hand quickly.  If a command ability should be able to be used multiple times per turn then it seems better to me to add that exception into the specific command ability.  There would be less unintended interactions that way.

I find this topic a bit strange because we have played for a long time with magic spells behaving this way.  40k copied the magic system from Age of Sigmar and they removed the once per turn restriction on the arcane-bolt/smite spell and they have had nothing but problems with that since then.  40k has restrictions upon how many times you can use a specific stratagem per turn. 

It seems odd to me that most people are in favor of these restrictions but we balk at a restriction on Age of Sigmar command abilities.  I am curious about what most of the community would think after 6 months or so if they put a rule-of-one sort of thing on command abilities for matched play?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.


×
×
  • Create New...