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Stacking the Same Ability


WoollyMammoth

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4 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

The glaring one that most people don't like is the bloodsecrator. His rules were written early (first release) and you can't even buy him outside of the box. Hes clearly designed not to stack, and two of his 3 effects cant stack. They just didn't think anyone would get two of them. I'm not saying that it is essential that they nerf him, I'm just saying its fairly obvious that a quarter of everyone showing up for the tournaments having 2-3 bloodsecrators was an oversight.  They could have also included him in the expansion, the slaughterstorm, the easy to build kits or the start collecting box if he was designed to be essential to the army. Or maybe they just like selling starter boxes....

I'm not sure where you get "most people" or "clearly designed" from. Honestly, though I struggle sometimes against the double Bloodsecrator, I feel that it clearly is designed to stack, since the ability of the Bloodreavers specifically indicates "a totem" to prevent stacking of that ability, whereas the Bloodsecrator (a simultaneous release) avoids such notation. The army relies on such interactions, what with the lack of shooting and low bravery and saves (at least, within the starter box models).

Further, your arguments about model availability work just as easily for the Khorgorath, the Bloodstoker, the Mighty Lord of Khorne, and the Lord-Relictor from the other half of the box. Coincidence at best. 

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@WoollyMammoth I believe you could be overstating the SCGTs involvement in the process. The things you mention were part of last year's SCGT pack and they didn't appear in the GHB, other than the TK, Fyreslayers points there's no evidence to suggest anything else is being playtested. The fellas involved in the playtesting (and it's more than just the SCGT organisers) have been quite candid about the process on various podcasts. 

Who knows maybe more is going on but so far there hasn't been evidence of that. 

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I agree, the 5+ is amazing, by far the most potent allegiance ability in the GH.

Not by accident is it the best by far, it needs to be! Death and Destruction were vying for worst Grand Alliance for some time, then the first half of 2016 happened and Destruction jumped over Chaos and (for a few months) over Order as well.

It has become Death's crutch (as I've said many times before).

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Note that a lot of people dont like the 5++ that death has, and it is part of the GH, therefore its not set in stone and may see a nerf with GH2. Personally I kind of agree, but only if death received a huge update. If they made say, a Deathlords book with a command trait that each lord can summon a unit to the table each turn, which made all the named chars generic with awesome command abilities, and added 6 pages of artifacts and 3 new spell lores, I would probably not care what they do with generic death allegiance any more. 

I've said similar things elsewhere. It was clever using the GH Ward Save to prop up Death for another 8+ months without any new models since AoS (which is not to say that I don't like what they did with FEC - that was also a very efficient way to revitalise (redeathify?) a neglected part of the Vampire army and expand the narrative in a cool way). However, it has made them into Nu-Nurgle and indeed better Nurgle, since they can (shock horror) move quite fast or sometimes very fast and still have a 5+ ward save (at least for part of the army); and they have more interesting mechanics than Nurgle do (which isn't saying much). Although it's worth flagging that TK lists do not make use of the 5+ ward save (with one tiny exception).

However, this has also made Death potentially very boring/frustrating to play against. Watching your stuff bounce and then the stuff you killed come back to life is intended to be disheartening/scary (like a film about zombies or something). That - coupled with the rarity of Death armies (they do not represent 25% of the armies at tournaments in general for example, nor would you expect them to do so) - so a lot of people don't have as much experience of playing Death - gives some players an unfair view of how strong they are. Few players will have seen what happens when a two sixes of Necropolis Knights army either without mystic shield (or with it failing to cast) comes up against a well deployed bunker list with a good mix of long range and mid range pew pew (or what happens if you take a single drop army including Kunning Kukk Arrer Boyz and cast Hand of Broken and The Spirits Buff on 40 Arrerboyz after adding the Damned buff to them (+2 to hit, reroll 1s to hit, exploding attacks on 4+) in a pure Bonesplitterz army and lob them forward against 5+ save Necropolis Knights). However, bunker gunlines seemingly peaked in popularity in about October last year in the UK and have since become less popular (they too are boring).

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I think that preventing special chars from having an allegiance trait is too much; allegiance traits are quickly becoming the most essential part of the new rules. An allegiance trait is part of being a leader. The no artifact thing makes sense but no allegiance is too much and I hope they remove this from GH2. 

Maybe (with significant cost adjustments), but good luck getting through any change to the GH whatsoever which involves a net buff to Death.

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The major issue here is, most named are simply not named anymore. The Bloodsecrator is a perfect example of a special named char, but hes got no name. A Lord Celestant on Star-Drake is another named char without a name. Kroq-Gar on Carnosaur? Nope that's just an "Old-Blood". They are removing names and making generic stuff, but adding a peanilization for having a name. Again, death gets kicked in the balls for not being updated to par yet. Neferata should be a "vampire queen" or something like that, and she would become much better.

I don't follow the first few sentences at all. You could say that there are inconsistent changes like Ikit and The Curseling becoming generic while Throt remains a named character (because there are no above average Moulder Packmasters...).

However, Neffy and Mannderp would immediately become worth their points (or maybe even deserving a points increase) if genericised. Arkhan is probably the most deserving of this change (because his command ability is in my 5 worst in the game - if it was by 12" or if it also buffed unbinding range....sigh), although he's also playable in some lists whereas Mannderp and Neffy are so risky at that cost.

 

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I'm not sure where you get "most people" or "clearly designed" from. Honestly, though I struggle sometimes against the double Bloodsecrator, I feel that it clearly is designed to stack, since the ability of the Bloodreavers specifically indicates "a totem" to prevent stacking of that ability, whereas the Bloodsecrator (a simultaneous release) avoids such notation. The army relies on such interactions, what with the lack of shooting and low bravery and saves (at least, within the starter box models).

If you take out Russ Veal (who is the Master and I would say the best AoS player and who does well with whichever army he uses), where are all the Khorne armies smashing up events? Are they strong/popular in the US?

Pano has done very well too and is a legend! Sadly I've not had the pleasure of taking on his army. 

Club mate @Tom Loyn from the South London Legion has also managed second in a team event (he was using the Letterbomb turned up to the max).

However, Khorne are inherently a rock paper scissors army at best (absent a very favourable battleplan, they have serious problems with Mixed Destruction filth in particular). Some Sylvaneth armies (the ones that don't have all the overcosted big toys in them) can also give them huge problems. Seraphon could probably completely wreck them as well.  

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Not anymore, as of last week Stormcast have their own allegiance, formations, brotherhoods, 3 kinds of artifacts, lantern effects, mount effects and prayers. They have a lot of combos and synergies now.

They have changed. It will take time to see how things settle down. It still doesn't look like they anywhere near some of the other buff stacks out there (thankfully).
 

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The speed of any model doesn't really matter when you can use the (now cheaper) banner to teleport someone anywhere you want or just use the allegiance ability. +2 to hit in an army with already potent statlines is going to be worth making work. 

I don't agree. The nerf to the Vexillor is significant and if you're using two Vexillors to move the Lord Celestants, then that's quite an investment (and still subject to one or the other being sniped turn one).

Crucially, the battle trait means they arrive in the movement phase (as does the Hammerstrike force), which limits the ability of Stormcast to buff stack. The Aquilor potentially changes this as regards the new stuff (but the combos are less brutal than Retributors with +2 to hit).
 

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Nice skaven report. I have all that stuff but I cant bring myself to rebase (and finish painting) all my clanrats and stomvermin. I know the first game after spending months doing that, a Drycha, Gaunt Summoner or some Decimators are just going to melt hours of painting and base work in mere seconds. I vowed that ghouls would be my last horde army.

Thanks a lot!

It's worth it. It was one my most fun lists.

That probably will not happen and the beauty of that list was that any one of 3 units could destroy pretty much everything it could touch (provided I got the Sayl cast off). Drycha and the Gaunt Summoner may be able to nuke one unit, but that leaves the other two (and possibly gives you a double turn).

 

 

 

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It would affect models that don't need nerfing like the regular treelord (a very marginalised model whose potential to add another -1 to hit debuff is one of the few reasons to take him)... it just seems like an overreaction to me.

That's a great example. After prompting from the wise Lords of the Clan of Sylvaneth players @scrubyandwells @MidasKiss @Mirage8112@Forestreveries, I gave this dude a shot and despite not having an artefact (which seemed like a criminal waste to me when you can take 3 of them), he was very useful for his cost and I didn't have to worry about it getting melted the way you do with Durthu.*

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/02/12/age-of-sigmar-spotlight-sylvaneth-part-3/

Take away the chance of stacking stomps and he becomes drastically weaker.

 

*That said I was playing against the awesome @Bowlzee from the South London Legion and #CraigRolls were making their presence felt in my favour.

 

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B. you cant have worse than 6 to hit/wound
This dosent seem that improtant .. if you have 6 to hit or wound your mostly screwed regardless. It woudent hurt to have it added on to the "1 always fails" rule of 1 though, if only to keep it simple.

This seems to be yet another nerf aimed squarely at the Mourngul. It's unjustified. This also acts as a buff to 40 Arrer Boyz, as it would mitigate the few debuffs, like the Daemonsmith plus Balewind combo that can act as hard counters. As a general rule, anything which buffs the 40 Arrer Boyz really needs to be reconsidered (the change to the Free Spirits battalion which completely rewrites deemed phases and phase dependent buffs which buffs Arrerboyz a lot is the main example).

There are few units which hit on a 4+ or 5+ and have Bravery 6 or less in the relevant phases. Moreover, they are likely to be units that wouldn't do much to the Mourngul anyway or they are units that other groups of players consider to be filthy (for other completely unjustified reasons) e.g. 60 Gitmob Grots or indeed my Clanrat Bomb/Archaon's Furry Friends. 

I've just checked the wording of the (should be capped at 30 models and 120 points for 10 if not more) Arrer Boyz, despite being Bravery 5, if the Mourngul has the temerity to stand within 3" of them, then they become Bravery 7 in all phases (not just the Battleshock Phase), so they are in fact only -2 to hit if the Mourngul stands between 3" and 6" away and they don't retreat (which should never happen in a game given how fast Arrer Boyz are whether in Destruction or Bonesplitterz allegiance) and the fact that the Mourngul might want to actually hit something.

The Mourngul doesn't stack with another Mourngul and if they are using the Cursed Book then that's only because the December FAQ effectively deleted Death's other decent option for keeping their heroes alive longer. 

The counter to most of these tank combos is to take chaff and use the retreat button.
 

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D. initiative cannot be manipulated
Initiative seems too important to mess with usually. GW clearly agrees - look at the change to Kiros. I think this will appear.

This is a stealth buff to single drop armies (who really don't need one) and it's a big one. Taking a unit that can affect the first initiative roll soft nerfs the power of a Single Drop army to double turn you. In that sense it's actually pro-balance that these options exist.

As Vince Venturella (and others) have pointed out (e.g. on @scrubyandwells 's podcast - Episode 14), it's often better to add a soft/hard counter to something rather than to ban it (other than exceptionally broken things - e.g. the Tomb Herald bounce to infinity, which has probably never been used at an event). 

DoT come out, then in February the Hallowed Knights come out (they must be Dispossessed under all that armour), which are a soft counter to offensive magic. That looks like a healthier way to balance the game rather than playing Whack-A-Mole with the ban-hammer.

The fact that they changed Kairos only (rather than amending the FAQ in December) points the other way. Kairos's was much more significant than the other ways as:

  • It's pretty hard to kill Kairos (even old Kairos) in turn one (given that in extremis he could use the Oracle rule to save himself (e.g. changing D6 damage to 1 or passing a 6+ save against -2 rend);
  • It more or less guaranteed the win of the initiative roll; 
  • He was somewhat undercosted at that old price. 

I can see why they removed it from Kairos as it means that he can be more affordable points wise (not >400 points) and fit into more lists.

Conversely, the other ways of changing the initiative are costed on this basis (most obviously 160 points for the Lords of the Lodge, which is a bad formation otherwise - not least because it mandates a hero which is likely to be giving reroll wounds of 1 to an enemy unit like a cannon or something else that you don't want to have that buff). The Lords of the Lodge isn't guaranteed; and can be mitigated by popping the 5 wound heroes first turn.

I was actually considering building a Soulblight list including a Coven Throne as the general - but now I'm not (at least not until a Battletome Soulblight came along). I was going to convert Sisters of Silence to female Vampires and put them on Fellbats as my Blood Knights - "it's a bad plan, what's your plan?"

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E. Invulnerable targets cannot claim objectives
This seems important and should be noted in GH2. Specifically the issue with the balewind vortex needs to be addressed.

The Changeling and Carrion are close to invulnerable. I agree about these ones. 

A non-monster hero on a Balewind is far from invulnerable. The Balewind is cast on a 7. You will fail that cast roll often - you can also unbind it if they are trying to do it within your deployment zone.

Club mate@Leonardas failed that cast roll turn one against Arrer Boyz on his Gaunt Summoner in a game at the South London Legion yesterday. This cost him dearly (it was his first game using his well painted DoT)! Next time he may use Destiny Dice for this purpose.
 

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F. leader has to be your general
I'm not familiar with the reason for this ruling. As far as I know this is not a big deal but I'm sure there is something weird that sparked this rule. 

To nerf Death, Grots, Skaven and Ironjawz.

This is actually the most important of all these house rules under debate. This is one of the few soft counters to pew pew and one of the key bulwarks between where we are and Age of Pew Pew.

Some people find that it's not fluffy (but we're talking about Matched Play). Moreover this is completely subjective - some people are still saying that Mixed Allegiance armies aren't fluffy even when the narrative has been written so as to justify them.

Moreover, it tramples on the inalienable right of any noble pew pewist to kill your general turn one without fail if your general is a 4 wound Grot or other hapless bearer of a decent command ability*.

The strategy of trading off the right to have a command ability at all (other than Inspiring Presence which is often very good) for the right to not have your command ability AND command trait reliably lost far too early in the game is a valid one and encourages diverse listbuilding. Frankly all 5 wound heroes (who often have strong command abilities) are a huge gamble (unless you're Stormcast and have a bunch of passive buffs which counteract shooting (Protectors and several of the artefacts and traits in the new Battletome) from the start of the game before you've even had a hero phase....sigh). 

*Subject only to there being a Dreadhold or other gargantuan piece of scenery on the table which you might be able to cover behind.

While it's not aimed at them (unlike the pew pew), this nerf is particularly harsh on Ironjawz (who are not overpowered or anywhere close to being so), as all of their general options are bad (either overcosted Gorderp (where have all my Battalions gone?) and the overcosted Cabbage - or too easy to kill and with a weak command ability (Megaboss)) and they so desperately need Inspiring Presence to stop Brutes fleeing, hence they have begun to use a model within a unit of Brutes as the general (the Brute Boss). @Chris Tomlin @Sangfroid

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Nico said:

I've just checked the wording of the (should be capped at 30 models and 120 points for 10 if not more) Arrer Boyz, despite being Bravery 5, if the Mourngul has the temerity to stand within 3" of them, then they become Bravery 7 in all phases (not just the Battleshock Phase), so they are in fact only -2 to hit if the Mourngul stands between 3" and 6" away and they don't retreat (which should never happen in a game given how fast Arrer Boyz are whether in Destruction or Bonesplitterz allegiance) and the fact that the Mourngul might want to actually hit something.

I don't understand how you're determining that the big unit bravery bonus extends beyond the battleshock test. In the "Battleshock Phase" part of the rules, there is specific reference to causing models to run (that whole "battleshock test" roll), and "Add 1 to the Bravery characteristic being used [emphasis mine] for every 10 models that are in the unit when the test is taken [again, emphasis mine]." How on earth does that bonus affect anything other than the battleshock test?

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I don't understand how you're determining that the big unit bravery bonus extends beyond the battleshock test. In the "Battleshock Phase" part of the rules, there is specific reference to causing models to run (that whole "battleshock test" roll), and "Add 1 to the Bravery characteristic being used [emphasis mine] for every 10 models that are in the unit when the test is taken [again, emphasis mine]." How on earth does that bonus affect anything other than the battleshock test?

You poor innocent soul. Despite being bravery 5 cowards, they have a Bone Totem rule (they have it as do regular Savage Orruks), which makes them as Brave as Paladins (Bravery 7) when they are within 3" of the enemy (the Mourngul in this case). I shouldn't have taken this (broken) rule for a unit of 10 models, 20 wounds and 10 points as being common general knowledge in my post (it needs to be).

Usually bravery buffs on a unit are only in the Battleshock phase, so they don't work against things like the Mourngul or other Bravery weapons like Drycha. Not so for these kings of broken. 

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4 minutes ago, Nico said:

You poor innocent soul. Despite being bravery 5 cowards, they have a Bone Totem rule (they have it as do regular Savage Orruks), which makes them as Brave as Paladins (Bravery 7) when they are within 3" of the enemy (the Mourngul in this case). I shouldn't have taken this (broken) rule for a unit of 10 models, 20 wounds and 10 points as being common general knowledge in my post (it needs to be).

Usually bravery buffs on a unit are only in the Battleshock phase, so they don't work against things like the Mourngul or other Bravery weapons like Drycha. Not so for these kings of broken. 

Ah, a warscroll-specific rule. Totally didn't read that (which, I agree, seems to be active in all phases). Thanks for the clarification!

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@Davariel
I like the blanket rule because it prevents unexpected issues and fixes known ones. I still haven't heard a convincing argument where this really hurts an army. I don't agree that having 2+ bloodsecrators is mandatory to make Khorne good, I think that is a crutch.

@rokapoke
I don't mean most people or even most warhammer players. I mean most people who have an issue with stacking duplicates are going to cite the bloodsecrator as the reason why.

GW has a long history of making mistakes with their rules. When the Wood Elf book came out, there was tons of awesome stuff that worked, but there was literally no way to play the Sisters of Twilight on Gwindalor due to a rules conundrum. So they thought to make the Reavers within "a totem", but the bloodsecrator is this weird triple-rule thing and they forgot to make sure that part didn't stack. The way the rule is written it does not seem like they intended to make it so important. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe they meant to make every khorne army need 2+ bloodsecrators as mandatory in all lists. I just don't think so. But at least they realized his importance and made him expensive.

@Ollie Grimwood
There is a lot of evidence to back up the fact that SCGT has an influence on the GH.

@Nico
The main point is, death needs an update. Destruction saw 3 books last year, each with a lot more value than FEC. I think its cute how they reorganized most of death into FEC, and I play the army, but it was clearly made with a pre-GH mentality. The main thing is, it gutted death, which I thought was a precursor to a bunch of new releases.... that never came. Death needs a serious update. 

To be exact there were 16/74 death lists at LVO. This is about 22%. Maybe in England Death is not popular but its doing just fine in the states. This is a clear indicator that people have a desire to play death, even if the rules are not perfect. 
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Nobody that i heard of is limiting bloodsecrators in the US. Two people finished in the top 10 at LVO with 2 bloodsecrators and a boosted up super unit flying forward with sayl. This is the hardest hitting army I've seen to date. It has its limitations like any army, mainly shooting armies can take out its key points, but they need to be able to take a huge punch the first turn.

There was only 1 seraphon player at LVO, I haven't seen much of them. I started an army but got annoyed because I really don't like saurus warriors. 
 

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I don't agree. The nerf to the Vexillor is significant and if you're using two Vexillors to move the Lord Celestants, then that's quite an investment (and still subject to one or the other being sniped turn one).

Crucially, the battle trait means they arrive in the movement phase (as does the Hammerstrike force), which limits the ability of Stormcast to buff stack. The Aquilor potentially changes this as regards the new stuff (but the combos are less brutal than Retributors with +2 to hit)

Relictors essentially do the same thing on a 3+ with a new prayer. They can just move up a unit 24". They can do it every turn. But two Celestants might be overkill. Its not bad to just keep in your pocket though. As a defensive tactic it can be amazing. The command ability says all stormcast within 9" of him get the buff, so the paladins can be within 9" by the time the combat phase happens. There is a ton of stuff in the new book that buff stormcast a lot, and they were already quite good.

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Take away the chance of stacking stomps and he becomes drastically weaker.

Having two means you have a backup if one fails. The difference between -2 and -3 is not usually a big deal, in both cases the unit is screwed. If you have two you can do it in two places at once. Its very rare to get all three of these in the same place at once. Even if you took this every game, it would still likely be rare unless you were just so desperate to see this go off, and if that is the case you are too invested in getting -3 to go off where you should be paying attention to winning the game. Spreading -1 across the board is much more powerful than condensing -3 in one spot (in most cases)

@Mirage8112
I already addressed this comment. I'm just repeating a discussion that I have heard from many.
 




 

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8 minutes ago, WoollyMammoth said:



@Ollie Grimwood
There is a lot of evidence to back up the fact that SCGT has an influence on the GH.
 

They certainly have an input they've made that quite clear, they have told us what that input is, to infer that the SCGT pack is a full test for the GHB2 is speculation at best disingenuous at worst.  

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16 hours ago, Nico said:

To nerf Death, Grots, Skaven and Ironjawz.

This is actually the most important of all these house rules under debate. This is one of the few soft counters to pew pew and one of the key bulwarks between where we are and Age of Pew Pew.

Some people find that it's not fluffy (but we're talking about Matched Play). Moreover this is completely subjective - some people are still saying that Mixed Allegiance armies aren't fluffy even when the narrative has been written so as to justify them.

Moreover, it tramples on the inalienable right of any noble pew pewist to kill your general turn one without fail if your general is a 4 wound Grot or other hapless bearer of a decent command ability*.

The strategy of trading off the right to have a command ability at all (other than Inspiring Presence which is often very good) for the right to not have your command ability AND command trait reliably lost far too early in the game is a valid one and encourages diverse listbuilding. Frankly all 5 wound heroes (who often have strong command abilities) are a huge gamble (unless you're Stormcast and have a bunch of passive buffs which counteract shooting (Protectors and several of the artefacts and traits in the new Battletome) from the start of the game before you've even had a hero phase....sigh). 

*Subject only to there being a Dreadhold or other gargantuan piece of scenery on the table which you might be able to cover behind.

While it's not aimed at them (unlike the pew pew), this nerf is particularly harsh on Ironjawz (who are not overpowered or anywhere close to being so), as all of their general options are bad (either overcosted Gorderp (where have all my Battalions gone?) and the overcosted Cabbage - or too easy to kill and with a weak command ability (Megaboss)) and they so desperately need Inspiring Presence to stop Brutes fleeing, hence they have begun to use a model within a unit of Brutes as the general (the Brute Boss). @Chris Tomlin @Sangfroid

 

Nicely put @Nico - Without wanting to side-track too much here, I honestly don't get the hate towards the unit champion as General thing. I'm genuinely interested to know if it mostly comes from people who have preconceptions from other games that a hero has to be your general etc. Also I hate the fluff justification thing, its like this rule specifically gets picked on for that, yet plenty of other things get glossed over (you covered this well enough). I get abuse if my Brute Big Boss is leading his troops, however if I selected a Warchanter (leaving my Megabosses to roam free in either case), no one would bat an eyelid. Very strange IMO.

Removing this from the game does nothing to tone down any of the top tier builds out there, it just widens the gap for some of the other armies out there. From an Ironjawz point of view, it's interesting, as it's not even a given that you'd want to utilise this with some people preferring a more MSU approach. So it's not like this is a broken auto choice.

Meh, it being removed is something that I know is going to happen, despite being recently confirmed as ok in a FAQ, so I'll get over it and move on. I like to think I'm usually quite calm and easy going about rules changes etc, but this is one thing that admittedly does irritate me as I feel it's such an unrequited targeting! But hey, perhaps I'm totally biased/blinkered.

Apologise for the slightly negative tone there. Less than 4hrs sleep (painting Ironjawz!) and not enough coffee at work yet haha!!

Megaboss* Chris

*But also General

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I've hit my like cap.

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Also I hate the fluff justification thing, its like this rule specifically gets picked on for that, yet plenty of other things get glossed over (you covered this well enough). I get abuse if my Brute Big Boss is leading his troops, however if I selected a Warchanter (leaving my Megabosses to roam free in either case), no one would bat an eyelid. Very strange IMO.

Indeed. I'm surprised that people would give you abuse (in a serious way not banter) for anything.

Another situation would be if you were playing at 1,000 or especially 500 points and wanted to (shock horror) take a Wizard as your mandatory hero - is it so improbable that a unit champion (and some unit champions make 5 wound heroes look like they are hitting with pillows) could be a general.

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GW has a long history of making mistakes with their rules. When the Wood Elf book came out, there was tons of awesome stuff that worked, but there was literally no way to play the Sisters of Twilight on Gwindalor due to a rules conundrum. So they thought to make the Reavers within "a totem", but the bloodsecrator is this weird triple-rule thing and they forgot to make sure that part didn't stack. The way the rule is written it does not seem like they intended to make it so important. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe they meant to make every khorne army need 2+ bloodsecrators as mandatory in all lists. I just don't think so. But at least they realized his importance and made him expensive.

They have had 1.5 years to "fix" this alleged problem with Bloodsecrators stacking. There is no such problem.

The rules of one provided an elegant solution to the excessive buff stacks (primarily the infinite loops). Yes everyone, we all missed a once in a lifetime solution to win big with Beastmen (Bullgors had one of the best infinite loop combos in the game at the release of AoS). I spotted it too late. Maybe some people used it before Mo Comp banned it.

The Rules of One seem to be working, I would boldly suggest that none(?) of the current perceived filth relies on stacking the same buff (not even Tomb Kings in their recent December outing at the Masters and otherwise - they have moved away from Settra, 2 Tomb Kings and the Liche Priest).  

As Russ Veal pointed out about a year ago in a Facehammer podcast, it's very hard to define what stacking the same ability even means and this makes it really hard to come up with a clear general rule. If you said that to a Beastclaw Raiders player that you cannot "stack" the healing of 3 Husktusks on a Stonelord, he would likely bite your head off and charge around the room throwing snowballs at people in a blind rage. By comparison the Rules of One are pretty clear cut (especially now after settling in after 8 months). This rule is a recipe for people showing up and finding that their armies "don't work" or ending up in an argument game one, which isn't ideal.

I'm hoping that this is old wording from last year's pack that can safely be deleted.

GH v2.0 and SCGT

I should add that I'm flagging these points primarily as I don't want them to find their way into the GH v2.0 (least of all by default by being inherited from the 2016 pack without having been deliberately included) rather than for SCGT 2017 itself.

Last year at SCGT was an absolute blast - gaming, organisation, the sheer energy and enthusiasm in the halls. I met some great people for the first time - how lucky was I to draw randomly the legendary Mediocre Joe, then find myself playing against the Godfather of Beastclaw himself in round two - the awesome Paul Whitehead @Soup Dragon (are there two Soup Dragons)? A truly classic game - I tabled his army of 3 Thundertusks and 3 Stonehorns (the good ol' days) and yet due to the magic of AoS he won the game (as I didn't kill his last Gorger? quickly enough) due to a failed charge. The other games were great fun as well I should add (the Necrosphinx-off in the next game was decisive - first and only time I've seen this rule trigger and it went against me).

 

 

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Not anymore, as of last week Stormcast have their own allegiance, formations, brotherhoods, 3 kinds of artifacts, lantern effects, mount effects and prayers. They have a lot of combos and synergies now.
They have changed. It will take time to see how things settle down. It still doesn't look like they anywhere near some of the other buff stacks out there (thankfully).
 
The speed of any model doesn't really matter when you can use the (now cheaper) banner to teleport someone anywhere you want or just use the allegiance ability. +2 to hit in an army with already potent statlines is going to be worth making work. 
I don't agree. The nerf to the Vexillor is significant and if you're using two Vexillors to move the Lord Celestants, then that's quite an investment (and still subject to one or the other being sniped turn one).
Crucially, the battle trait means they arrive in the movement phase (as does the Hammerstrike force), which limits the ability of Stormcast to buff stack. The Aquilor potentially changes this as regards the new stuff (but the combos are less brutal than Retributors with +2 to hit).
 


I don't see what is so scary about retributors hitting harder.

They already kill the thing they attack then get priority removed from the table most asaply.

Seems like you would be better off taking a fighting buff hero and the 24" no battleshock hero or the new bird dog rider.


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I don't see what is so scary about retributors hitting harder. 

This is true in some ways. One danger of buff stacking is that they overkill the target and are simply fed chaff until the 5 turns run out.  

Nothing hard counters buff stacks on melee units (or Stonelords) better than cheap MSU pew pew spread out so that the enemy cannot kill more than one unit per turn.

Prosecutor with Javelin spam is perhaps the best example @Bryan C 

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@Ollie Grimwood
I never said or implied that SCGT is a full test for the GH. SCGT influences it. How much, we can't know exactly. 

@Chris Tomlin
Per the FAQ you can specifically bring your unit champion back to life, so this might be a fix for being able to rez your general. But overall I don't think most people care about this anyway and I doubt the FAQ will change or that this will be nerfed in the GH2.

@Nico
Most mistakes GW makes with their rules are never fixed. There were rule issues that went broken for a decade. The issues with the wood elf book were never addressed or resolved at all. GW is getting much better recently, but they would have to release a new scroll for him, which they are not doing, at least in a nerf capacity. They usually only buff scrolls (though the recent change to the Knight-Azyros shows maybe they are willing to start to nerf)

The Bloodsecrator is not necessarily a problem that is breaking game, its more of a mistake. It's not a mistake like, say the 7th ed Daemons book - so no need to admit their mistake and make a big deal about it. Perhaps GW thinks that this was an unfortunate mistake, perhaps they think this was a good mistake - there are fans on both sides of that line. In any case, its helping to sell more AoS starter boxes, so I'm sure they are content.

Based on history, it looks like this rule was a typical GW oversight. Again, I'm not saying that its breaking the game and needs to be nerfed, I just think it was a mistake that could be fixed. The right way to fix it would be to create a bloodbound allegiance that says that bloodbound get +1 attack on the charge. Now you don't really need to pay that 120 points just to get the attack in, and with enough incentive through other bonuses, there could be opportunities for more varied and effective bloodbound lists. This is what they just did for stormcast - released more varied units and broke down the 'mandatory' warrior brotherhood, so that you are likely to see more varied interesting and thematic stormcast lists.

There were a lot of issues with AoS launch. How about a LoC, that summons a LoC, that summons a LoC...........

Quote

it's very hard to define what stacking the same ability even means and this makes it really hard to come up with a clear general rule

I disagree. You left out the key word persistant. Effects have names. If that effect is applying its effect to a unit, the unit gets the buff/debuff. If you apply a second effect with the same exact name to the same exact unit, the unit does not get a double buff/debuff.

Winter’s Endurance: A second skin of ice forms on the unit as it is rimed with a healing frost. One model in the unit heals D3 wounds.

After the unit heals D3 wounds, the effect is over, and therefore you can apply the same effect again, since it's not persistent. 

Regardless, stacking 5 Relictors, or 5 Plague Priests is a bit of an issue right now considering that they work the same as magic without any restriction per the rules of 1. People are starting to cringe when they find out what Relictors can do after the new book. They might amend the rule of 1 to apply to prayers in GH2 (cant use the same prayer multiple times). Not sure what will happen,  but the issue is likely to come up during the rules discussion for GH2.

@TrexPushups
That's whats cool about the new book, there are lots of ways to have an effective army. A friend joked that its impossible to build a bad army with the new book. The important thing about the double-celestant idea is that its an 18" bubble, not a target on the Retributors. When turtled, an entire army gets +2 to hit at all times, which is pretty scary. It might not be the mandatory must-pick for the new book, but its certainly a powerful option.

"priority removing" is relative. A unit of 5 in cover with a Castellant buff is 2+. With the new lantern they are -1 to hit with shooting. And even if you priority remove a unit, what do you do when you are up against 4 units of them? 

 



 

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[mention=1837]Ollie Grimwood[/mention]
I never said or implied that SCGT is a full test for the GH. SCGT influences it. How much, we can't know exactly. 

[mention=45]Chris Tomlin[/mention]
Per the FAQ you can specifically bring your unit champion back to life, so this might be a fix for being able to rez your general. But overall I don't think most people care about this anyway and I doubt the FAQ will change or that this will be nerfed in the GH2.

[mention=163]Nico[/mention]
Most mistakes GW makes with their rules are never fixed. There were rule issues that went broken for a decade. The issues with the wood elf book were never addressed or resolved at all. GW is getting much better recently, but they would have to release a new scroll for him, which they are not doing, at least in a nerf capacity. They usually only buff scrolls (though the recent change to the Knight-Azyros shows maybe they are willing to start to nerf)

The Bloodsecrator is not necessarily a problem that is breaking game, its more of a mistake. It's not a mistake like, say the 7th ed Daemons book - so no need to admit their mistake and make a big deal about it. Perhaps GW thinks that this was an unfortunate mistake, perhaps they think this was a good mistake - there are fans on both sides of that line. In any case, its helping to sell more AoS starter boxes, so I'm sure they are content.

Based on history, it looks like this rule was a typical GW oversight. Again, I'm not saying that its breaking the game and needs to be nerfed, I just think it was a mistake that could be fixed. The right way to fix it would be to create a bloodbound allegiance that says that bloodbound get +1 attack on the charge. Now you don't really need to pay that 120 points just to get the attack in, and with enough incentive through other bonuses, there could be opportunities for more varied and effective bloodbound lists. This is what they just did for stormcast - released more varied units and broke down the 'mandatory' warrior brotherhood, so that you are likely to see more varied interesting and thematic stormcast lists.

There were a lot of issues with AoS launch. How about a LoC, that summons a LoC, that summons a LoC...........
it's very hard to define what stacking the same ability even means and this makes it really hard to come up with a clear general rule
I disagree. You left out the key word persistant. Effects have names. If that effect is applying its effect to a unit, the unit gets the buff/debuff. If you apply a second effect with the same exact name to the same exact unit, the unit does not get a double buff/debuff.

Winter’s Endurance: A second skin of ice forms on the unit as it is rimed with a healing frost. One model in the unit heals D3 wounds.

After the unit heals D3 wounds, the effect is over, and therefore you can apply the same effect again, since it's not persistent. 

Regardless, stacking 5 Relictors, or 5 Plague Priests is a bit of an issue right now considering that they work the same as magic without any restriction per the rules of 1. People are starting to cringe when they find out what Relictors can do after the new book. They might amend the rule of 1 to apply to prayers in GH2 (cant use the same prayer multiple times). Not sure what will happen,  but the issue is likely to come up during the rules discussion for GH2.

[mention=1239]TrexPushups[/mention]
That's whats cool about the new book, there are lots of ways to have an effective army. A friend joked that its impossible to build a bad army with the new book. The important thing about the double-celestant idea is that its an 18" bubble, not a target on the Retributors. When turtled, an entire army gets +2 to hit at all times, which is pretty scary. It might not be the mandatory must-pick for the new book, but its certainly a powerful option.

"priority removing" is relative. A unit of 5 in cover with a Castellant buff is 2+. With the new lantern they are -1 to hit with shooting. And even if you priority remove a unit, what do you do when you are up against 4 units of them? 

 



 

Me specifically?

I send in one of my 3 units of wrathmongers.

And use their own awesomeness against them.


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Regarding the whole leader/general thing, I doubt it was to prevent people resurrecting their general with an undead banner — it would be far easier to simply rule that a "resurrected" model is not the same model and therefore doesn't retain generalship status or any of the associated benefits.

They might have been thinking more about someone giving a Necrosphinx the Red Fury trait, or something along those lines. Being able to put "Ruler of the Night" on a skeleton champion would also be a potentially strong choice.

I don't think GW ever really intended for anyone to take a non-hero model as their general unless they were playing a much smaller game with no characters. To be honest, I doubt that they really thought about the overall impact on the game meta, or how this would benefit shooty armies, but more about "we don't our game to be a game where competitive players nominate a grot champion to be their 'general'".

It's a lot easier to just say "no that's not allowed any more", than to fine-tune the entire metagame until it's no longer the competitive option. Pretty much the same goes for Mystic Shield spam with no auto-failing 1s.

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I'm going to break this down for you, but first I want to point a few things out. 

Essentially, your argument is that the ability to stack buffs is a balance issue. The arguments regarding "it's bad game design" or "it's boring to play against" are arbitrary value judgements that don't have a set criteria by which we can effectively judge them. What's fun to play against for one player, might be boring as hell for another player. Likewise, some people only have fun when they're winning, and if a player finds particular strategy confounding and can't think around or otherwise neutralize it, they're just not going to have a good time. 

So, if we're looking simply about "stacking buffs" as being unbalanced. then that just what we're looking at. Rule conundrums from past games (WHFB) don't matter, one because it's not the same game, not the same design ethos and not even close to the same writer (Matt Wards last book was WE, but all three elf books were written at the same time). AoS is a creature unto itself, and if you're going to a make balance argument your going to compare apples to apples.  

So let's look at the math behind "stacking" buffs. I'm going to use 2 generic "made up" units of 10 models with average stats; 1 attack, 1" range, hitting on 4's, wounding on 4's, saving on 5's, average bravery. Say 7. I'm going to calculate a round of combat using average dice rolls and give a "finished" model count after battleshock. That way we can gauge the effect that buffs/debuffs have on an evenly matched combat. To make things easier we'll assume 5 models from each unit can get into range. 

In this case, both units do roughly the same amount of damage because no matter who attacks first they have the same amount of models in range. After the first round of combat:

Unit A: 9.175 models remain (no buffs)

Unit B: 9.175 models remain

How about with 1 Bloodsecrator buffing unit A? 

Unit A: 9.175 models remain (+1 attack)

Unit B: 8.35 models remain


How about 2 Bloodsecrators buffing unit A?

Unit A: 9.175 models remain (+2 attacks)

Unit B: 7.525 models remain


Seems pretty straight forward. Each "stack" of +1 attack translates into an extra .825 wounds (with these stats). What interesting is when you simultaneously stack +1 attack on unit A, plus a buff of +1 to hit. At one stack each:

Unit A: 9.175 models remain (+1 attack, +1 to hit)

Unit B: 7.822 models remain 


In this case, stacking a buff of +1 attack AND a buff of +1 to hit results in nearly the same amount of damage with only a .3 difference between them.

So who cares? 

The point here is that even if GW were to remove the stacking of abilities, you could still get roughly the same effect by stacking different abilities. In a game played with D6's, adjusting any stat by 1 has (roughly) the same effect. Adding a +1 to a hit, wound or save stat translates to 16% buff regardless of to which stat it is. So banning +2 to wound from the same source could effectively be replicated by buffing to wound by +1 and to hit by +1. 

Even units which have abilities that trigger on certain rolls can be buffed in other ways to approximate the same effect without stacking. For example, lets swap out one of our "made-up" test units, with a unit of 5 Retributors. (in this scenario, I'll ignoring the 2 star-soul maces because they aren't affected  by the buffs in the same way.)

So, after combat with a unit of unbuffed retributors, the units would look like this:

Retributors: 4.375 models remain

Unit B: 3.59 models remain 


Buffed with +2 to hit:

Retributors: 4.375 models remain (+2 to hit)

Unit B: 1.19 models remain 


Now how about +1 hit and +1 to wound?

Retributors: 4.375 models remain (+1 to hit, +1 to wound)

Unit B: 1.57 models remain


Nearly the same outcome. We're only talking about a difference of 1/3 of one wound which can easily be counted against a D6's rolling "margin for error". 

Now, granted not all army lists as we currently see at events have access to a reliable way to effect each any every "modifiable stat". Some have more ways of stacking -1 to hit (Sylvaneth) while other have more ways of increasing the volume of attacks (Bloodbound). But essentially what your arguing for (preventing stacking buffs of these are effect on one unit) can't be done, because there are plenty of ways to replicate the same effects. Changing that mechanic is impossible because you'd have to removing buffing and debuffing from the game entirely.   

Furthermore, we are talking about competitive play here, Where the object is win win the game decisively, in the shortest amount of time possible, and to beat a number of opponents by the highest margins possible. If you enjoy that type of play, then list optimization and min/maxing are a necessary (and one might say) inevitable outcome. Tournament players also seek every advantage and stacking force multipliers is just part of that process. Kill one mechanic for doing so, players will utilize any of the dozen other ways to achieve the same ends. In fact, I might argue that having a diversity of ways to accomplish the same ends is what balances the game. My unit of 20+ dryads guarding an ancient in a wood gives precisely zero f#cks about being changed by a unit with a +1,2,3 attack buff; because I can stack -1,2,3 to hit for days if need be. 

Some armies do need help in terms of how their armies perform in competitive play vs open play. Death armies in particular could very much benefit from a change to the summoning restrictions. Seraphon as well. In fact, it's my suspicion that Death didn't receive an update this last year because a core mechanic for their game play (summoning) was so adversely affected by the rules for reinforcement points.  

Stacking abilities is far and away working as intended. I see no reason from a balance perspective for any changes. 

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The Bloodsecrator is not necessarily a problem that is breaking game, its more of a mistake. It's not a mistake like, say the 7th ed Daemons book - so no need to admit their mistake and make a big deal about it. Perhaps GW thinks that this was an unfortunate mistake, perhaps they think this was a good mistake - there are fans on both sides of that line. In any case, its helping to sell more AoS starter boxes, so I'm sure they are content.

Every time you characterize that model's rules (or the other instances of buff stacking that you rail against) as an error or accident that really seems like broadcasting your opinion as fact. Here's what we know: GW made the rule and despite opportunity have not changed it. Sounds like a purposeful rule to me. 

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@Mirage8112

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Essentially, your argument is that the ability to stack buffs is a balance issue.

No, and you have to be more specific with your wording. This is a discussion about allowing persistent effects with the same name to stack.  
(ill address my argument later)

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 The arguments regarding "it's bad game design" or "it's boring to play against" are arbitrary value judgements that don't have a set criteria by which we can effectively judge them. 

I implied it was sloppy writing, not bad game design. I never said that playing against persistent effects is boring to play against, I said they promote less variety in competitive lists, which can be boring. Generally I don't find AoS boring at all. 

When you are making an argument against someone, you have to repeat their actual words, otherwise your argument becomes a straw man argument where you are debating concepts that nobody even said. So already three sentences in, your argument is very off base.

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Rule conundrums from past games (WHFB) don't matter, one because it's not the same game, not the same design ethos and not even close to the same writer (Matt Wards last book was WE, but all three elf books were written at the same time). AoS is a creature unto itself, and if you're going to a make balance argument your going to compare apples to apples.  

This is false. WHFB 8th edition was produced by the same company as AoS. That's like saying when the iPhone 8 comes out, we can expect an entirely different level of customer support from Apple. GW may have improved, but they are still making mistakes in their rules. The same company that released the WE book released AoS a little over a year later. Most of the employees including the writers and editors are very much the same.

Also Mat Ward's name is not on the WE book, and he quit shortly after it's release, which many believe had something to do with GW changing the book. The idea that all 3 elf books were written at the same time is another rumor. You should not include refutable rumors in your arguments.

Another thing you should avoid doing is math-hammering. All your math was done in a bubble. Sure if 10 skeletons are attacking 10 skeletons, and one group has 2 attacks vs the other has 1, yeah this is not a big deal. But when you are taking some bloodletters with +2 to hit getting +2 attacks? When you are talking Skullreapers flying across the board with +2 to hit and +2 attacks? All your math is to prove that +1 attack is near meaningless. If you go to any tournament and count the number of Bloodsecrators you find, you'll notice a lot of people don't agree with you.

Your math also seeks to prove that a variety of things instead of stacking the same thing both have good effects. Thats pretty much my point, people don't have to rely on stacking the same thing when they can take a better variety of things. Later, you say:

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 In fact, I might argue that having a diversity of ways to accomplish the same ends is what balances the game. 

There we go. And how do we promote diversity? By limiting the effectiveness of the same exact things

This is my argument, and you have come to nearly the same conclusion.


 

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Death armies in particular could very much benefit from a change to the summoning restrictions. Seraphon as well. 

The only issue with death is its neglect. Summoning can not and will not change.




 

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