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Tournaments, Balance, and Curating our Community


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Hi all,

I'm new around here but am a relatively long time Warhammer player (since the mid to late 90's) and very long time competitive gamer. While I have not participated extensively in the Warhammer tournament scene, I have played quite a few other competitive games at a high level, both online and tabletop.

Since getting into Age of Sigmar I've been reading quite a lot of talk about the current state of game balance. With the results of the UK Masters just coming out and the controversy over the use of compendium warscrolls at SCGT, there has been a lot of talk about whether certain warscrolls or even whole factions are "broken" and should be banned. This discussion extends to talk about what should be changed in the next edition of the GHB.

As a person who has been following and participating in tournament gaming for a very long time, I find a lot of this talk to be troubling for a number of reasons. Specifically, I find the underlying logic of the arguments to be flawed and I am concerned that the logical conclusion of these arguments will be highly detrimental to the community over the long run.

In order to make my point, I'm going to be making a number of analogies to Magic: The Gathering. While Warhammer and Magic are very different in many respects, I think it's extremely useful to look at Magic as a model for a number of reasons: it's arguably the most successful game in history, it's very challenging to balance, it has a similar design philosophy of releasing new content for the game on a regular basis and thus needs ongoing balancing, and it has a very long-standing and extremely successful tournament scene that has conclusively demonstrated crossover success with other games (IE: many of the top Magic players have proven to be able to also compete at the top level of other highly competitive games). I've also played Magic at a high level for a very long time, so my familiarity there is helpful. Anyway, back to AOS. 

One of the themes that I see coming up frequently is the idea that List X is broken, and the fact that it won Tournament Y proves it. I've heard this before about a number of different armies, and most recently I've been hearing it about Tomb Kings with respect to the UK Masters. All I can say is that the results of a single tournament are extremely insufficient to prove a point like this. Games with high levels of variance require large amounts of data in order to draw solid conclusions. Wizards of the Coast rarely if ever makes conclusions about balance based on the results of a single tournament, and even if it were to the tournaments in question would involve hundreds or thousands of participants and over a dozen rounds of play. I don't know that any AoS tournaments even come close to this scale. Even then, the strategy that wins the tournament is rarely what Wizards is looking at. There have been many instances of major tournaments in which the winning strategy ended up not doing much after that tournament while another strategy that performed well but didn't win went on to dominate the tournament scene in the following months, resulting in a banning. For example, Wizards of the Coast just recently announced the banning of three cards in the standard format. Standard bannings are very rare -- the last time one happened was in 2011, and before that was 2005. If you look back to the results of Pro Tour: Kaladesh (the most recent super-high level magic tournament), neither of the two finalists' decks contained any of the recently banned cards. It takes a LOT of data to really demonstrate that a strategy needs to be reigned in. We need to be very careful about jumping to conclusions based on a small sample of data.

Perhaps more importantly, the philosophy of "Strategy X is winning, therefore it is broken and needs balancing oversight" is potentially very problematic for the long term health of the game. Most competitive games have a number of strategies that shake out into tiers of competitiveness. There are usually a couple of Tier 1 Strategies that are extremely competitive, some Tier 2 Strategies that are either broadly effective but not as effective at the Tier 1 Strategies or narrowly effective against a specific popular strategy, and then Tier 3 Strategies that are kinda strange and competitive enough to win sometimes but not with any consistency at the high level. Most tournaments will be won by a Tier 1 or Tier 2 strategy, and occasionally a Tier 3 strategy will sneak by and grab a trophy. Most casual strategies will be hopelessly outclassed by Tier 1 and Tier 2 strategies and may have some game against Tier 3 but will still be pretty dominated. Age of Sigmar is no different from this. I'm not deep enough into AoS tournaments to really talk about what strategy belongs in what tier, but I think we've all heard some things come up frequently. Clan Skryre, Kunnin Rukk, Warrior Brotherhood/Skybourne Slayers, certain Sylvaneth Lists, Settra lists, Beastclaw Behemoth Spam, Mourngul/Neferata, Ironfist, Letterbomb etc. all probably fit somewhere in AoS's tier system. I'm sure I'm missing some, so please don't consider this an exhaustive list. If your approach to balance is to identify what the Tier 1 Strategies are and then nerf them, all you succeed in doing is turning the Tier 2 Strategies into Tier 1. Then you nerf those and after enough nerfs eventually you get a really flat balance plane where nothing really stands out. Now, that may sound awesome to some people and honestly I think it would be if the game were static. The problem is that new stuff gets released over time. Wizards of the Coast puts FAR more resources into ongoing playtesting that GW ever has and likely ever will, and they still make mistakes on a fairly routine basis. GW has an absolutely terrible track record of balancing new releases, and they have an active financial incentive in making sure every new release is powerful. So in practice, a flat balance system very rapidly becomes a system in which whatever was released most recently is absolutely dominant. New release happens, it wins a bunch of tournaments easily, gets nerfed, then the next new thing comes along and the cycle repeats. A pattern like this is incredibly toxic for the game. Players love getting new toys to play with, but they hate feeling compelled to buy the newest thing in order to be competitive. 

So when is it justified to heavily nerf or ban a strategy? I'd argue that the most healthy long term method is to reserve this for strategies that emerge and are effectively "Tier 0". A Tier 0 Strategy is plainly dominant against most other strategies to the point where it's oppressive and the metagame devolves into Strategy X and Anti-Strategy X. In that case, Strategy X has to go for the health of the game. That's generally the approach that has been used with a good amount of success in Magic, and I think it would work well for Warhammer as well. Magic has a high level of investment. Cards are expensive, and it really sucks to spend a couple hundred dollars/pounds/euro on a deck only to have it banhammered into oblivion. The level of financial investment in Warhammer is fairly similar -- a competitive tournament army is going to run you a couple hundred at least. Then you have the time investment of painting it, which is substantially greater than anything you see in Magic. If anything, I'd expect Warhammer players to be more attached to their armies than Magic players are to their decks, so banning or nerfing an army into a non-competitive state carries a very high cost to the community. If bans and nerfs are a regular thing a lot of players will be lost and many prospective players will be turned off (why should I spend a bunch of time and money on this when they are just going to take it away?)

Given the high cost of bannings and the unhealthy nature of a heavily policed metagame, I think we need to accept that there are going to be tiered strategies and some are just going to be better than others at a given point in time. Ideally, every major faction should have the ability to field a list that is at least Tier 2. In such a system, the Tier 1 and 2 Strategies are going to feel broken compared to kitchen table strategies, but the tournament metagame itself is actually quite healthy. When new stuff gets released it's less likely to dominate if there are existing powerful strategies that can compete with it. The key is to know the context you are playing in and negotiate with your opponent when possible. If you are playing casual games, don't bring a high-tier tournament list unless you talk it over with your opponent first. If you are entering a tournament, expect to see tier-level strategies and don't show up with a kitchen table build if you aren't OK with losing. 

So given that I'm arguing against an aggressive approach to nerfing/banning, what do I propose instead? Again, I think we can learn a lot from Wizards of the Coast. If you've followed Magic for a long time, you will inevitably notice that there are certain types of strategies that have all but disappeared from top level play. Broadly speaking, the strategies that have waned over time all fit into the general category of "strategies that are intended to prevent your opponent from participating in the game in a meaningful way". Two great examples are Combo strategies and Draw-Go Control strategies. Combo strategies essentially ignore the opponent and focus entirely on assembling a combination that ends the game in one turn. Needless to say, playing against Combo gets boring for most people real fast. Draw-Go Control focuses on countering or otherwise stopping every play your opponent makes. While playing against this kind of Control strategy isn't necessarily boring, it's often extremely frustrating.  What Wizards realized is that while some people enjoy playing these strategies, very few people enjoy playing against them. And thus, through a series of design decisions they were basically phased out. You do occasionally see Combo and Control decks but they aren't nearly as extreme as they used to be, and they tend not to be Tier 1. Since making this shift, Magic has grown massively.

Essentially, Wizards asked the question "what is unfun?" rather than "what is too powerful?" when determining the direction of the game. I think a similar approach could work really well for Warhammer. Over the long run, I think we need to identify the kinds of strategies that lead to bad games and eventually weed them out. Again, I'm not well versed enough in the tournament scene to really say with any confidence what these strategies might be, but I suspect that two culprits are leading contenders: Alpha Strike and Debuff Stacking. Alpha Strike lists are essentially trying to remove the opponent from the table before they can react either by shooting or deploying directly into melee. Debuff stacking prevents the opponent from playing the game by completely crippling their ability to use their units even if those units are still on the table. Both strategies have the same fundamental goal: stop the opponent from doing anything. I could very well be off on this though, so take that with a boulder of salt. When GW does identify strategies that are unfun, they should clearly articulate what it is that is unfun and make sure to check new designs against this blacklist of unfun things. For example, GW could decide that it will avoid introducing any new warscrolls that allow large numbers of units to deploy within close range of the opponent. Single units deepstriking might be fine, but whole battalions might not be.

Occasionally, there will be game mechanics that are fundamentally too powerful and need to be adjusted. The need for this should lessen over time, and we can already see evidence of GW doing this. A great example is abilities that allow you to use multiple command abilities in a single turn. There used to be quite a few ways of doing this, and most of them have been removed through updated warscrolls. Unlimited summoning is another example, and we all know that one was demolished through the matched play rules (perhaps in too heavy handed a fashion, depending on who you ask). You can see this strategy used successfully by Wizards of the Coast as well. Over time, Wizards learned that things like fast mana were very frequently found at the heart of degenerate strategies, and so they stopped printing cards like that. The result has been much improved balance. The only thing stopping GW from doing this very easily is their potential unwillingness to alter legacy warscrolls that they don't intend to replace. Personally, I don't think that point adjustments will work well for this kind of balancing.

I know that was an extremely long post, but I'm hoping that it will at least get us thinking about what kind of competitive balance would be healthy for the game over the long run, and I hope that we can look to other successful competitive gaming systems and learn from their successes and failures.

 

TL;DR:

  • One can't accurately assess balance based on the results of a single tournament
  • An ongoing heavy handed approach to banning/nerfing will very likely be extremely unhealthy for the game over the long run
  • A better approach to balance over the long run will involve accepting that there will be different tiers of competitiveness and that top tiers will always seem broken compared to kitchen table strategies as well as identifying strategies that are fundamentally unfun and abilities that are fundamentally too likely to be overpowered
  • Aim to ensure that all factions have at least one strategy that is Tier 1 or Tier 2
  • Discontinue publishing warscrolls with mechanics that are identified as unfun or too likely to be oppressively overpowered
  • Be willing to update all specific warscrolls that involve unfun or oppressive mechanics OR introduce rules that nullify these mechanics (possible examples include: you can never use more than one command ability in a turn, you must start the game with at least half of your points on the table, no unit can move more than X" in a single turn etc. -- note that this is just spitballing, I don't intend to advocate for any of these changes in particular). 
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Well, you need to remember that there have been people playing Tomb Kings throughout AOS last year, and to my knowledge, at least this last 6 months, there hasn't been anyone who won a tournament with them. 
It wasn't until someone like Russ Veal, who has placed high with pretty much every army he has played with, played them at the masters and won. 

Tomb Kings are in a weird spot because they are discontinued line, that GW have been pretty clear about not supporting, but their scrolls were really strong. I don't think that the whole compendiumgate thing is because TK were strong. More that GW wants to direct the game away from their older lines that are not in their vision for AOS. 

With regards to nerfs and buffs, I would say AOS is in a really good spot with how their rules are laid out. My hope is that each rule book/battletome will come with a code that unlocks all scrolls in the app. Then, everything is digital and they can tweak stats/rules as they identify a problem or if they thing something is breaking the game. 
We aren't a long way off this given the technology in place. 

As far as independent tournament organisers banning certain things. It is their right to make what ever comp rules they want. People will vote with their feet and it isn't in their best interest to make any unfair/unfun decisions on any rules. 

 

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Just now, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

A very well thought out and considered post which I wholeheartedly agree with.

The Banhammer for anything is an outdated and heavy handed approach and should only be the last option considered. 

Agreed. For anything the be Banned outright, something seriously needs to be wrong. I'm all for big shake ups in rules maybe like once every year or so, but generally small changes as to not disturb people too much are my preference. 

I know it is just a recent change, and one some people will certainly disagree with me here, but I think the change to the Fateweavers ability was a nice change. It isn't a massive change. Just adding in a sentence to stop one action. 
 

This is just a point I am making, and I'm not saying this is how it was. Say GW didn't intend on the Fateweavers ability being used to change priority roll. They release him, and everyone is using it to change priority and they can combo this to get into an unbeatable position with a double turn. The fact GW can edit the scroll and say "Except the priority roll" and the problem is fixed is pretty cool. 

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Good thread, and thanks for taking the time to write it.

I have a question though:  Have GW ever addressed any warscrolls since the release of Age of Sigmar because of balance reasons now that General's Handbook has been released and warscrolls are digital?

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Good thread, and thanks for taking the time to write it.

I have a question though:  Have GW ever addressed any warscrolls since the release of Age of Sigmar because of balance reasons now that General's Handbook has been released and warscrolls are digital?

Not to my knowledge. Compendium warscrolls have been updated/outdated, but I don't know of any that have been updated after being released in print.

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2 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Wizards of the Coast puts FAR more resources into ongoing playtesting that GW ever has and likely ever will, and they still make mistakes on a fairly routine basis. GW has an absolutely terrible track record of balancing new releases, and they have an active financial incentive in making sure every new release is powerful. So in practice, a flat balance system very rapidly becomes a system in which whatever was released most recently is absolutely dominant

Yes. This is one of my biggest complaints about GW. They know they have a problem with lack of thought when it comes to rules which is why they tried to not have points in AoS. They're the ones who said they are a miniatures company first.

But people complained so hard that here we are back at step 1. Almost random rules such as what is selected as battleline and what units are broken into which sub factions and points which are not actually indicative of how one unit is in power level to another.

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1 hour ago, Oppenheimer said:

Yes. This is one of my biggest complaints about GW. They know they have a problem with lack of thought when it comes to rules which is why they tried to not have points in AoS. They're the ones who said they are a miniatures company first.

But people complained so hard that here we are back at step 1. Almost random rules such as what is selected as battleline and what units are broken into which sub factions and points which are not actually indicative of how one unit is in power level to another.

I liked swarmofseals initial post. It's an interesting read. Please do not drag this thread down by making this a discusson if GW can write rules or not or if they try to put some thoughts into what they do or not.

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4 hours ago, HERO said:

Good thread, and thanks for taking the time to write it.

I have a question though:  Have GW ever addressed any warscrolls since the release of Age of Sigmar because of balance reasons now that General's Handbook has been released and warscrolls are digital?

They're not going to move at a speed that makes us consider that, but there are two things that makes me say yes.

1)  Kairos lost his initiative ability
2) Warhammer TV competitive games lets us know they have perspective on strong lists

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6 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

and they have an active financial incentive in making sure every new release is powerful. So in practice, a flat balance system very rapidly becomes a system in which whatever was released most recently is absolutely dominant.

bingo

 

Unless we see a commitment to objectively balanced points for all the units in the game (a fundamental principal that will take some intestinal fortitude to execute) things will not change.

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1 minute ago, buffalozap said:

 

Unless we see a commitment to objectively balanced points for all the units in the game (a fundamental principal that will take some intestinal fortitude to execute) things will not change.

 

I actually don't quite agree with this. It's very difficult if not impossible to assign objectively balanced points costs simply because some abilities defy simple quantitative analysis. Factions also have differences in what they have access to, and a strict assignment of points based purely on objective stats does not account for this.

I also think that a completely strict objective points cost system would sap a lot of the flavor out of the game. As long as many options are viable I think both the competitive and casual scenes can be healthy. This is certainly true of Magic: The Gathering. In MtG they sometimes print cards that are strictly better than other cards, and they frequently print cards that are effectively better. That's OK though because as long as the balance is reasonable there are plenty of options that work. Part of the fun is figuring out what works best, and then adapting to that. Play and counterplay are part of the metagame, and that's a good thing.

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18 minutes ago, buffalozap said:

bingo

 

Unless we see a commitment to objectively balanced points for all the units in the game (a fundamental principal that will take some intestinal fortitude to execute) things will not change.

 

Actually no the best selling AOS model or at least one that seems to pop in and out of stock lock a strobe light at a bad rave party, would be the bale wind vortex. An item that was heavily nerfed from it's former glory. Heck they added points to the thing.

Look at sylvaneth those guys sell like crazy, and i have come under the opinion recently that they kind of suck having only a really damaging dyrcha and then just some tanky stuff that poses no real threats. Not to mention the price in dollars to actually run this army effectively is out of this world silly.  BUt the stormcast box... one of the armies that actually won a major tournament is still quite well in stock... heck... they didn't even make a skaven one because they weren't popular enough. THey sylvaneth one atleast in the US stores was at some point unavailible. 

However, we can continue to going around saying things that simply just aren't true because we're upset or something. 

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As a fellow competitive gamer (online as well) I see your point on the need for vast amount of data.

The issue with a game such as AOS is that there is no such data available.

Games like league of Legends basis it balance on the LCS, LCK and NA split teams. They all tend to be all prolific high skilled player whom practice day in and day out. They also attend regular tournaments.

The difference here is there are numerous tournaments which dont have the same type of competition. You will have a field of say, 40 players, 10 of which are there to compete, the other 30 who are there just for the hobby.  Creating a balance just between those 10 players (whom can change as they wont attend every single tournament) makes the game difficult to balance.

You then have the issue that this game revolves around LUCK

An army can be overpowered but still lose if you have horrendously bad luck. The armies which tend to do well balance that luck and give you more CHANCE tow in i.e. a Kunnin' Rukk has 120 dice which allows you the CHANCE to kill whatever it shoots at. It doesn't necessarily make the models themselves broken, but a combination which perhaps was overlooked creates more of a CHANCE to win.

Now looking at Tomb Kings, they are clearly overpowered as the chance of them winning by a good general or not is very high. Seeing 3 of the almost identical list shows there is little variation in a broken combo. The same goes with Stonehorns with orks and Warrior Brotherhood. When a list becomes a copy and paste of one another, you know that the list is strong as everyone is using them. Just because it does not win a tourney, does not mean it is less competitive or in fact overpowered. The balance will need to come straight from GW with the assistance of top tier players whom have play tested this.

Straight up banning things limits choice, which is wrong, however if there is not balancing act created from the designers (Riot for example updates the game every few weeks, and Wizard have their own balance team) then it comes down to TO's to make a stance.

Rather than re-creating warscrolls, it is a lot easier for TO's to simply ban it completely. Perhaps something the ITC does for 40k: A large compendium of FAQ's which balances the game mechanics i.e. if your models appear from reserve you cannot assault if you are closer than 9 inches (stops warrior brotherhoods freely assaulting anywhere with no risk) or no turn 1 assaults (stops flying units taking advantage of 1st turn) This is a balancing mechanic but again that comes down to changing the game.

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I really don't want an objectively balanced game. I'd much rather a fluffy and fun unbalanced one than a perfectly balanced but very dull fair one - I think that market is cornered by warmachine ;) 

They do have some data - sales. I would wager that sales of e.g Nagash have plummeted after GHB - the fact that his high points cost has been negated by rule of one will mean, I suspect, a lot less people are buying him than previously.

Also the chance elements should average out given enough data.

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I think the future is really bright for AoS.  GW have demonstrated that not only are they prepared to admit when they've done something that doesn't quite work, but also attempt to fix it.  I think one responsibility we have as a community is to accept that somethings can be changed quickly (such as the FAQ change) and some things may take a long time - possibly even needing us to wait for a new Generals Handbook.

One of the challenges as very well put by @swarmofseals is that GW need to get quite a lot of "hard data" in before they can appropriately determine what needs to be changed or amended and this data needs to be very objective and have as little personal opinion in as possible.  As an example, I look after a fairly large web site as part of my day-job.   I wouldn't implement or change a feature based on a single customers opinion, however if I have the same request by a few dozen, then I'll investigate it - however my resolution maybe something different to was originally asked because I understand how it would impact across the rest of the website and for the thousands of other customers.  The original customer may not be happy that I've not implemented their exact suggestion, but the other customers like what I've done even though they didn't ask for it.

I think that another challenge GW faces is trying to strike a balance between the opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of play style and attitude.  On the one hand you have people who want to put down some models and have a thematic and enjoyable game and at the other you have people who want to travel across the country win tournaments.  Both (very much) have a place in the game, but there will have to be some compromises made along the way.

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I really don't want an objectively balanced game. I'd much rather a fluffy and fun unbalanced one than a perfectly balanced but very dull fair one - I think that market is cornered by warmachine [emoji6] 
They do have some data - sales. I would wager that sales of e.g Nagash have plummeted after GHB - the fact that his high points cost has been negated by rule of one will mean, I suspect, a lot less people are buying him than previously.
Also the chance elements should average out given enough data.

I think there's an important point there.
AoS is intended to appeal to a wide audience and is designed in a modular fashion, so it's always going to have a somewhat Rorschach ruleset.

People will always want to see a game develop more to their liking. The existence 9th age is absolute testimony to this.

The balancing act GW have to pull off is ensuring that the game doesn't get pulled too far to appease "us" to the detriment of "them", or vice versa.
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One thing to remember is that a well-balanced rule set benefits everybody while a poorly balanced rules only benefits the people who find combinations to break. That has always been the problem GW games, in the fact that they care more about what will sell and what looks cool rather than how it actually interacts in the game.

It may sound like GW bashing but it is true and has been true for probably the entire life of the game and that they have never really written good rules just that in the past there weren't so many things that can break it.

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It may sound like GW bashing but it is true and has been true for probably the entire life of the game and that they have never really written good rules just that in the past there weren't so many things that can break it.


[emoji106]
I definitely think GW made a rod for their own backs here.
Everything plugs into the 4-page core rules.

Just look at the rules thread.
A big chunk of the posts relate to poor semantic control of terms around causing/inflicting/suffering wounds/damage in the core rules, for example.

Warscrolls that have special rules that then link in to that mechanic have even more work to do to try and clarify things, if they try at all.

To players who understand this, it's an annoyance but you can live with it.
If you're playing competitively or use matched play as a Lingua Franca to enable pick up games against people you don't know well, it's a factor that can seriously damage your experience - you need clarity.

Another example is the Tzaangor shaman being able to cast the same spell twice.
This rule is in conflict with the matched play rules of one. But the GHB predates the warscroll. There's an argument to be had that the ability is a 'special dispensation' under matched play based on the concept of most recent rules having seniority. But there are older warscrolls with the ability on, and then the GHB trumps them on the same logic. And so on.

When AoS was initially released the apparent design of the rule system (small core, digital add-ons) made me hopeful that frequent updates/amendments would be possible.

But I think that we're now too far past the tipping point so we're stuck with a ruleset that needs an FAQ/errata of comparable length, and the sheer number of warscrolls that would need to be worked through to check for required updates is pretty insurmountable now.

?For V2!

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Just as a side note about Tournament-homerules focused on balance :

There is a tournament nearby coming in one month.

-Forgeworld is banned

-Silver Tower is banned

-Scenery (oh my, where are my Wildwoods?) are banned

They complain about the lack of pre-inscriprion (not even half the max).

Ahah.

 

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9 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

It's very difficult if not impossible to assign objectively balanced points costs simply because some abilities defy simple quantitative analysis. Factions also have differences in what they have access to, and a strict assignment of points based purely on objective stats does not account for this.

Agree to disagree that balancing the points in an objective impartial way (with minimum subjectivity) is impossible.  There are ways to look holistically at the global set of units in the game and make categorical sub sets with ascribed values and with some fancy matrix math find coefficient points vectors with minimized R2 but its technical and WAY over the heads of 99.9% of people who will just look at the complex data set and think it must be impossible.

9 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

I also think that a completely strict objective points cost system would sap a lot of the flavor out of the game.

Agree to disagree again.  Like you yourself said, "Factions also have differences in what they have access to" and that + random dice factor + smart decision making on the field are in my opinion what brings the flavor and fun, as opposed to the fun being brought by bringing overpowered units that dominate games due to poor points balance.  Frankly I don't see how anyone can objectively think that a game system where planned obsolescence i.e. cyclical new releases are overpowered relative to all prior releases is "fun".

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3 hours ago, BaldoBeardo said:


Another example is the Tzaangor shaman being able to cast the same spell twice.
This rule is in conflict with the matched play rules of one. But the GHB predates the warscroll. There's an argument to be had that the ability is a 'special dispensation' under matched play based on the concept of most recent rules having seniority.
 

Unfortunately, this idea illustrates just how completely our awesome AoS hobby has backslid to 8th ed. post-GH.

The only way this argument holds any water at all is if you dismiss narrative and open play entirely. If, on the other hand, you recognize that all three types are perfectly valid, you see that this rule and the GH rule work just fine together.

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