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AoS complexity/rules bloat


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1 minute ago, chord said:

I don't see how creating more things will cause less bloat?

I think the implication in what you quotes is that it's less about "bloat" and more about the gulf in power between pre and post General's Handbook armies.  

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Just now, wayniac said:

I think the implication in what you quotes is that it's less about "bloat" and more about the gulf in power between pre and post General's Handbook armies.  

Oh. well in that case I disagree.  I play stormcast and khorne (thus have full access to everything) and still think its getting to be too much.

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1 hour ago, Oppenheimer said:

I totally agree. I am really struggling to play Sylvaneth because I keep forgetting my extra spells, artefacts, etc. I think I need to get some card stock and make reference cards but my local GW said that is printing off copyrighted material and they won't let me bring those cards into the store.

That's absolutely ridiculous on the part of your local GW. This is the kind of practice that the company should be clamping down on -- it reeks of the old GW's shortsighted and overly rigid tactics. Making index cards or what not for your own personal use is CLEARLY fair use. GW is within their right to not allow you to use that stuff in their store, but doing so is utterly absurd and will likely lose them paying customers for no discernible benefit. 

 

____________________________

 

On the general topic of the thread, I can absolutely see where people are coming from regarding this idea of rules bloat. There are lots of special rules to keep track of, both on warscrolls and in the battletomes, GHB, and whatever books you are running your battleplans out of. As others have said, however, there is no requirement to use these rules. That does help a bit.

 

I think perhaps it is worth taking some times to discuss what exactly makes rules bloat problematic from a gameplay perspective. From my perspective, there is exactly one thing that rules bloat threatens: increasing the length of games due to frequent referencing of rules text. I do think that the current AOS is a little worse than early AOS in this respect. We've got allegiance abilities, artefacts (and mount/banner type abilities), and special spells/prayers now in addition to the warscrolls that we always had. This does add a little overhead to the game, albeit that can be cut down by creating cheat sheets/reference cards for the abilities that you are using. For me, the benefits of this overhead far outweighs the costs. Even if I spend an extra 10 minutes per game referencing things, it's by far worth it for the added layer of complexity in both gameplay and list building.

The kind of rules bloat and overhead that would really have me more concerned are the kinds of rules that require you to repeatedly reference grids and charts throughout the game. The old WHFB system was rife with these. In addition to vastly more complex basic gameplay rules, WHFB frequently called on players to either memorize charts (WS to hit charts, BS to hit charts, S to T charts for wounding, long lists of possible modifiers to rolls, etc.) You either needed to memorize these charts (and lets be honest, both players would need to have them memorized and trust each-others' recollection) or else you're referencing tables multiple times per turn. This is the kind of rules bloat that really drags games down, and I don't see much evidence that AOS is becoming encumbered in this way.

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When it comes down to it some people loved the complex rules of 40k and WHFB.

The problem was that the complexity was deeply ingrained into the games core rules and structure.

AOS was never designed to be simple but "streamlined" by building the rules from the ground up allowing layers to be built up based on how much complexity people want.

It could get 10 times the amount of rules and i could still play it the same way i have been.

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4 hours ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

You are absolutely correct, you don't have to use the rules in other games either.  But when you are trying to pick out certain special rules out of pages and pages of a thick, dense textbook of a rulebook, it becomes harder to do, and can lead to potential imbalances when something is taken out with looking at how it works with everything else.  For example, in 40K (7th edition), I could make the house-rule that Pistols no longer add the extra attack in combat when used with regular close combat weapons.  That would be a minor change, but it would greatly change the effectiveness of some units that count on that extra attack.  But that is taking something away from the base rules of the game.  When used to playing with the full rules, taking something out like that can be very confusing and game-altering.

I also stick to friendly/fun/casual games, because I am must more interested in relaxing and coming up with stories than getting prizes and trophies.  (In my book, just playing a game is a a victory in itself!)

I agree, tournaments should use a set of rules and stick with it for the day, because the nature of tournaments is the competitive side of the hobby, with prizes and trophies presented to the winners.  Whatever rules they use, they need to make sure that everyone knows what to play and what they are doing in each game.

And not to also be a killjoy, but the experiences of any wargame are going to be identical - moving models around and rolling dice to determine outcomes with the goal of having fun.  To me, it is the bottom-up modularity of Age of Sigmar's rules that is it's strength.  House ruling, or a more top-down approach of rules changing can fix some issues, but it can make the game confusing and a little bit more difficult to remember the changes.

I know Age of Sigmar has always played this same way as I am enjoying, but I didn't play it until recently.  I didn't play it until the General's Handbook came out, and I have been in love ever since.  I tried it out when it was first released, but it just didn't grab me; it was too simple for me.  The rules were fine, but it felt that something as missing.  The added-in complexity on top of the base rules provided by the General's Handbook (mostly just army construction guidelines, points costs, and battle missions) was just what I needed to really enjoy it.  Now that I have, I have been enjoying playing around with more and less of these very rules that made the game better for me, and I am greatly enjoying it.

I played a pickup game last night, and our pre-battle planning consisted of asking each other "how many points?",  "are we worried about Battlefield roles?", "what mission type?", and "are we using allegiance abilities and artifacts?".  It was never that easy in 40K and Warmahordes, or any other game I have played, and this is what I am talking about when I say that Age of Sigmar is awesome.

I do wish that I had kept on playing Age of Sigmar from the beginning.  But I am here now, and catching up quick! :)

 

I am almost in the same boat as you!

It was was the new battletomb and GHB that enabled some creativity and variety in the way i built my list, that has drawn me back in. 

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10 hours ago, Dragonlover said:

So, I've seen a bunch of folks say that the game is getting too complicated and/or succumbing to rules bloat. I don't see it.

From a new player perspective, I must admit that there are a lot of individual rules that people talk about and I don't get the implications of what they are talking about if I'm not familiar with the particular thing they are mentioning.

It's probably very similar to listening to a conversation about the modern format in magic if you only ever play draft.  The names of abilities and rules interactions are going to seem like so much more than what you have dealt with so far. 

In play though, it's never been a problem.  I've only played a few games and in each game I find the opponent did a good job having all necessary information available.

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*snip the quote* as computer doesn't seem to be wanting to function properly today 9_9

Yeah, have a bad headache so bear with me and I'll try to answer. I may not be understanding your perspective. I can't do games like Malifaux as it's too much of a brain drain for me, though finally getting into Infinity with starter set only as that was presented more manageable and not overwhelming from the start. In my experience 40K players (I play both but have never been as excited for a game I know is coming as I am for 8th ed now), due largely to bloat which contributes to extreme unbalancing and not-worth-it gaming experiences, are loving the streamlining of AoS and the changes for the most part coming in 8th which echo much (but not all) of AoS. And that's even the latest tomes where you have multiple layers of rules to customize your Tzeentch or KO or whatever list. 

"Bloat" for me is akin to 40K where you lose stupid amounts of time looking up rules that interact with rules from multiple books and blah blah and you (I like how someone above said "have to") have to come to the table considering all of those categories for a competitive game of any degree. When we have access to all rules for free (except paying for battalions) and can just look at an opponent's warscroll rather than several books and rules/rules interaction questions we just play on. @swarmofseals already said it better than me so I'll stop there. 

14 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

On the subject of aking rules out of the game, how many people dont bother with the terrain rules from the core rules? I know my group rarely bothers with them!

I try to always use them, and make sure we remember. It can help both armies and adds so much to the game. It's just on auto-pilot when I start up a match. :) 

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1 hour ago, KHHaunts said:

 

When it comes down to it some people loved the complex rules of 40k and WHFB.

 

 For the record, I'm one of those people. 

I like AoS because it's not that (or wasn't,  anyway).

I love the elegant simplicity of the first year of AoS. I miss it already.

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2 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

On the subject of aking rules out of the game, how many people dont bother with the terrain rules from the core rules? I know my group rarely bothers with them!

My group just forgets them.  It's not that we are trying to avoid them, but we just get caught up in the game, whether objectives or tactics.  It just slips our mind.

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

 For the record, I'm one of those people. 

I like AoS because it's not that (or wasn't,  anyway).

I love the elegant simplicity of the first year of AoS. I miss it already.

Not that there is anything wrong with complex rules.  I actually still enjoy Warhammer Fantasy (as much time as I put into magnetic movement trays for my Lizardmen, they are going to stay that way forever!) and played at a legacy tournament with them this past winter.  It's just one of those things that a more complex rules set can still be fun, but sometimes simple is more fun.

It's all subjective anyways.  One rule set is not inherently "better" than another, nor is one layer of rules for Age of Sigmar "better" than another.  It really all depends on what you want to get out of the game.

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12 hours ago, wayniac said:

The "bloat" IMHO came from Sylvaneth and after, when GW went back to the idea of Battletome as Codex and added special things like artefacts, special traits, special spell lores, etc.  that added an additional layer of complexity to the game and, intentionally or not, also led to what seems to be a fair bit of power creep with each new tome.  The original game, with just the grand alliance books and battletomes providing small additions (reworked scrolls or battalions) was fine.

This.

I remember a game with my older greenskinz against the new sylvaneth. We introduced the armies to each other, to get a better understanding of each others army before the game. I was done in like 1 minute with "oh these guys are hitting with 4+/4+ -1 and these guy gets a bonus on 6, my general is giving thisandthat" etc. His introduction in return was going on for minimum 5 minutes explaining me every special rule of every model.. and there where a ton of them.. oh this guy can do this and gets a reroll here and if this guy stands nearby everyone gets this; ah i forgot, he also can do yaddayadda. For the first time i was shocked how much specialrules can be packed into one unit, not to mention in one army. I felt a litle bit left behind with my simple scrolls in comparison. But this seems to be the normal trend in AoS now - regarding to your opening question I guess thats what ppl mean.

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I'm not a big fan of the battletomes and battalions, as I think they are the main cause of power creep. I find the rules interesting enough as they are.

But GW have to keep making and selling new product, so I understand why they do it, and I like how easy it is to strip them away and just say "general's handbook only" or something of the sort.

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I think that while feelings are important to the individuals or groups sharing them, a bunch of stuff here is straying into rose tinted glasses territory. 

First year only open AoS was not much more simple than what we have now. 

There was a stacking system of interlocking rules sets:

  • Core rules 
  • Warscroll rules (containing) -
  1. Spells, prayers and command abilities 
  2. Special rules
  3. Modifiers
  • Battalion rules 
  • Scenario rules
  • Time of war rules 
  • Terrain rules
  • Triumph table
  • Sudden death rules 

To begin with I (and I know many others did so too) ignored elements from within these sets.

Time of war and terrain and sudden death were forgotten most of the time. I know the triumph table was oft forgotten. 

Some battalion bonuses were left by the wayside. Everyone forgot modifiers until they got more comfortable with an army. 

What are we adding to that list now?

Anything that's a warscroll or battalion is already part of a system we had in existence. You can't say adding more models, units or battalions is 'bloat'.

We have some:

  • New prayers and spell lores (new spells are part and parcel of the spell system we had at launch tbh)
  • Allegiance command abilities and traits (again these are like variations of what already exists on warscrolls)
  • Points 
  • Artefacts

And that's it I think? 

Just like at launch people can choose to ignore or use these rules.

I think when people are complaining that there's bloat, they perhaps really mean that they are in groups that don't gel with their own views and end up playing games where the opponent is keeping track of more rules than they are.

I don't see this as a clear cut measurement of the system as a whole becoming bloated, it's modular and neat.

The problem perhaps is more accurately summed up as another example of the issue where two different types of player meet in one community - players with a competitive streak (perhaps old WFB and 40k fall in here to) and players who enjoy storytelling and narrative experiences.

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18 hours ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

 

That said, their is starting to be some perceived bloat on Age of Sigmar, but you don't have to play it with the bloat.  I played a game last night that took three books to contain all the rules for my army:  Forces of Destruction, Ironjawz Battletome, and the General's Handbook.  I took something from each of those books to make my army, but I could just as easily not played my Battalion from the Ironjawz book, and I didn't have to use the points, Allegiance abilities, and points costs values from the General's Handbook.  Heck, the models come with their rules in the box anymore, so I could have dropped all three books and still been able to play the game.

I agree with you for the most part. Our (very small, very casual) group doesn't even play points. No one has bought anything after the GHB so most discussions on builds, meta and whatnot sound like something from 9th age or 40K.

However one can't deny that AoS only got traction after points were introduced, and that a good deal of the people who came in (especially those coming over from 40k) are into points, cost-effectiveness, meta and how-to-make-a-competitive-khorne-list. And if you want to compete you have to know exactly what the opponent brings or else get nasty surprises down the line.

And sadly that's becoming the new standard.

 

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For me only thing that feels bit strange to have both command trait and command ability for the general. The trait could just be an alternative command ability to avoid mixing up these.

Allegiance abilities would also be better if they were equally available. Now there is not so much point playing other than those armies with battletomes or the grand alliances. You don't gain much by sticking to some niche allegiance. Artefacts are nice and spell tables as well.

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First of I think that the rules for Age of Sigmar are very straight forward in design. In general the game should pan out well, because there arn't that many rules and not too many things are easy to confuse. What I do think are some issues are:

1. Using models as a frame for checking how tall they are or how far they can reach just doesn't endulge you to be creative. Basically any conversion can mess up the orginal design for gaming purposes this way but does look way cooler in many others.
2. Mathematical Order of operations should ideally become an integrated rule. Doubling isn't an issue, but adding before that makes things odd and unnatural to do.
3. The most important I can think of: GW should become more consistant and 'rules/law like' with their wording. In some cases it's 1, in others it's 2. In many cases you can have a written example of 1A, 1B, 1C and the same applies to 2. If you "hard rule" that you use add 1 and substract 1 as the 'keyword' for culumative abilities and use one, one more, single as the 'keyword' for non-culumative abilities they would seriously prefent some time.
4. I think the game would benifit more if the Phases are less revered to and each Phase contains a Move, so that rules can refer to the Move and not the Phase. As someone pointed out in a Khorne topic, treating an ability as if it where X Phase, isn't actually treating an ability as if it where X Phase but instead allowing to do the 'Move' that Phase allows for. Which causes a more complicated approach of something that could have been kept simple.

Lastly I do know that AoS is not soley designed for Matched Play and I hope the Community understands that aswell. 
What I mean by this is that certain rules will always be resolved in a less logical manner but do add a particular flavour and character and this is what Age of Sigmar is about.

Some additional rules I think would be helpful for Matched play:
5. Bases for models are the measurement item and are listed specifically to use for each model.
6. Prayers should be treated as Spells for the purposes of multiples.
7. Missle Attacks somehow should recieve a limit on their range under certain circumstances.
8. Summonning somehow should be more accesable, this is offcourse possible to do with upcomming Battle Traits.

1 hour ago, Jamopower said:

For me only thing that feels bit strange to have both command trait and command ability for the general. The trait could just be an alternative command ability to avoid mixing up these.

Allegiance abilities would also be better if they were equally available. Now there is not so much point playing other than those armies with battletomes or the grand alliances. You don't gain much by sticking to some niche allegiance. Artefacts are nice and spell tables as well.

I understand that, it would be much simpler if it would refer to Combat Trait and Command Ability. It's just a small word change :) 

Yeah GW still has a lot of fleshing out to do for AoS. Which is both a pro and con. The pro is that I do not expect a new edition any time soon. The con of that is more Generals Handbooks, House-rules and FAQ's to keep it all together. 

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I don't think AoS has any rules bloat really, it has 4 pages of rules, plus the warscrolls, alleigance abilities (and items), scenario and any time of war rules.

You don't need to know what every warscroll or alleigance ability in the game does, in the same way that MTG players don't know what every MTG card ever released does (you will often see pro players reading card text of their opponents cards to check what it does). You have the right to ask your opponent to see their army and warscrolls/abilities, and only need to keep in your head what is relevant for a particular game. 

I make a reference sheet (a matrix, with units down the left and phases along the top) of things that I need to remember, but the more I play, the less I refer to it. We always use scenery rules, and after using them for 2-3 games you never forget them (because they are such a key part of playing AoS). 

I think the complaints about rules bloat come mostly from people that want to be able to keep every rule (including all the warscrolls) in their heads, and that just isn't necessary. There is an issue in that some players can read a warscroll and understand its interactions with the other warscrolls in the battle, and others struggle to do this, but thats just about being good at the game.

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3 hours ago, Killax said:

First of I think that the rules for Age of Sigmar are very straight forward in design. In general the game should pan out well, because there arn't that many rules and not too many things are easy to confuse. What I do think are some issues are:

1. Using models as a frame for checking how tall they are or how far they can reach just doesn't endulge you to be creative. Basically any conversion can mess up the orginal design for gaming purposes this way but does look way cooler in many others.
2. Mathematical Order of operations should ideally become an integrated rule. Doubling isn't an issue, but adding before that makes things odd and unnatural to do.
3. The most important I can think of: GW should become more consistant and 'rules/law like' with their wording. In some cases it's 1, in others it's 2. In many cases you can have a written example of 1A, 1B, 1C and the same applies to 2. If you "hard rule" that you use add 1 and substract 1 as the 'keyword' for culumative abilities and use one, one more, single as the 'keyword' for non-culumative abilities they would seriously prefent some time.
4. I think the game would benifit more if the Phases are less revered to and each Phase contains a Move, so that rules can refer to the Move and not the Phase. As someone pointed out in a Khorne topic, treating an ability as if it where X Phase, isn't actually treating an ability as if it where X Phase but instead allowing to do the 'Move' that Phase allows for. Which causes a more complicated approach of something that could have been kept simple.
...
Some additional rules I think would be helpful for Matched play:
5. Bases for models are the measurement item and are listed specifically to use for each model.
6. Prayers should be treated as Spells for the purposes of multiples.
7. Missle Attacks somehow should recieve a limit on their range under certain circumstances.
8. Summonning somehow should be more accesable, this is offcourse possible to do with upcomming Battle Traits.

1. So long as the model has a similar footprint and visual profile on the tabletop, it shouldn't be a problem conversion.  Otherwise, I could see how it would cause problems.  Really though, I'm just glad AoS allows for conversion work in the game.

2. Agreed, My Dear Aunt Sally should be the standard used in that case, as that is the standard I was taught.  The only time I see it being a problem these days is if something does double to a 1d6 variable stat: does it become 1d6 x2 or 2d6?

3. YES.  I have mentioned before that I would love to see programming syntax in wargaming rules wording, such as FOR EACH, WHILE, IF/ELSE, etc.  That would greatly help as well.

4. Hm... I can see why you would argue that.  We kind of already have that with some rules, but it take some rebalancing.  In your example of Movement, some of those "extra moves" are there to increase the speed of the army; perhaps it would just be better to put those moves in the movement phase instead?

5. I would love to even just have a column or special table in the General's Handbook that lists the recommended round base size for various models.  Heck, I would even accept having different sizes for something (should all my Dispossessed be on 25mm rounds, or just the Warriors?  What about Heroes?).  But something official from GW would be awesome.

6. I could easily see the "Rule of One" affecting prayers and special abilities in the future, that a unit can only be affected by a particular ability at one time, to limit crazy stacking.

7. Aside from their range limits?  I'm missing something here, unless you refer to how a projectile usually loses effectiveness as it travels over distance and becomes weaker?

8. I haven't had any experience with summoning (using or playing against), but I have heard that the rules as are make it difficult to make use of the spells.  Maybe add in a line that you can use it to heal each unit?  How about, say, that on a successful cast, it heals 1d6 worth of wounds on the unit for each successful casting level rolled, restoring models as the wounds come back and leaving on caveats for having been summoned?  So for Skeletons, the Death Wizard casts Raise Skeletons to heal a unit of Skeleton Warriors within 18 inches that has taken some casualties, and on a successful cast of 5+ gets 1d6 models back, and on a 10+ it becomes 2d6 models instead?  For Bloodcrushers, it would be 1d6 wounds worth of healing on a 6+, or 2d6 wound healed on a 10+ (restoring lost models if enough wounds rolled).  How does that sound?  Throw in a caveat that you can heal units within 9 inches of enemy models, and I think it would work.

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6 hours ago, Orange said:

the battletomes and battalions, as I think they are the main cause of power creep

I want to be clear about my opinion. I don't think we have a power creep issue.  I've never believed that existed even in WFB. New stuff is just new and takes getting used to.  Yes, sometimes a unit that is too good makes it to print, but that's just a mistake,  not some sort of planned progression that creep implies.

Anyway, I do believe we have complexity creep. I think GW is even oddly proud of it.  Like, "how fiddly can we make it this time?" kind of proud.

I recall them saying somewhere, with glee, that the scroll for one of the new ships has the most rules so far in AoS.

That's a good thing? 

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I want to be clear about my opinion. I don't think we have a power creep issue.  I've never believed that existed even in WFB. New stuff is just new and takes getting used to.  Yes, sometimes a unit that is too good makes it to print, but that's just a mistake,  not some sort of planned progression that creep implies.
Anyway, I do believe we have complexity creep. I think GW is even oddly proud of it.  Like, "how fiddly can we make it this time?" kind of proud.
I recall them saying somewhere, with glee, that the scroll for one of the new ships has the most rules so far in AoS.
That's a good thing? 

Completely agree about power creep. It is *only* ever a problem in matched play.

Prior to GHB I saw discussions on forums about power creep in AoS and it just made me cringe. Without points, you're just complaining that unit/combo X is potent.
Which is hella dumb, because at that point in AoS the responsibility for "balancing" a match up lay with the players.
Even now, we still see "Monday morning" threads - of the format "Do you guys think this is broken?" when the subtext is "I played against this at the weekend and I lost."
My Duardin-obsessed friend has recently discovered some particularly ugly Kharadhron combos which I'm sure will be discovered by the wider community at some point, and then the accusations of power creep will be made again.

With all the effort GW are talking about supporting the 3-ways to play, I do wish they hadn't started including points in battletomes. Not because I have an issue with matched play, but because it makes amending points values a lot harder to do when stuff like this crawls out of the woodwork.

But then GW would need to impose some kind of configuration control on AoS, and they've actively railed against that to date. [emoji21]


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Better semantics on rule wording is needed, though.




The written word is imprecise. That's why scientists use math. 80+% of communication is non verbal. What you really want is a pile of videos that explain each rule so that you receive the entire message the rules writter is attempting to convey.

Ugh! [emoji6]


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The complexity has gone up, but I wouldn't say there is rules bloat yet. For the most part the new rules have made sense and been contained on a warscroll. With 40k I've felt like when I play get 85% of the rules right, the rest of the time I had to look things up, my opponent confused me,  or I did wrong (grenades :) ), with AoS I don't need to look up things once I'm familiar with the army.

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Isn't there quite clear power creep when the newer books have a lot more stuff to add to your army more or less free (allegiance abilities, mount abilities, prayers, etc.) compared to to "side factions" with older books or no books at all having nothing like that?

 

It's not the end of world, but I also don't think it can be denied. Also as the original pre ghb scrolls had essentially year worth of public playtestibg behind for their points, it's clear that the newer stuff has got less testing and there seems to be few units that are way too cheap in those armies. It will balance out, but it's also very normal thing to have in this kind of game.

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