General's Handbook 2017 Announced

[Trout]

It sounds like there will be multiple new rules of one since they stated it in plural. Only one has been mentioned here as obvious (stacking buffs). What could the other(s) be? Could there be a rule of one that "fixes" shooting for matched play?

[Furious]

Perhaps certain units will fall under the rule of one. You know, to prevent spam abuse.

[Gauche]

No core rules changes is disappointing. Not because the rules suck but because one change would help. Random Initiative is fine if shooting is a lot weaker. Random Initiative gone is fine if Charges get a lot better. Shooting being weakened would be nice regardless.

I'm totally reserving judgement but unless there's a heavy gun tax, things won't change a ton. Cheaper melee armies, Ironjawz and Fyreslayers in particular (I know one is confirmed) would help that.

[PJetski]

58 minutes ago, Auticus said:

They already responded on the fb page that there were no core rules changes in the ghb 2017.

Disappointing. I suppose it's possible that they apply shooting restrictions for Matched Play only... but it's more likely that they're just going to increase the cost of shooting units

[Marc Wilson]

I'm pleased this appears to be an evolution and not a revolution. The game doesn't need lurches in direction, just little nudges - and I'm super confident they will be executed well. Of course, you can't please all the people all the time but my glass is very much half full.

intriguted as to which factions are getting allegiance abilities.

[Furious]

So, what, the points and faction abilities still haven't been leaked yet?

[Gauche]

I do have high hopes for Allegiance Abilities and Items. They were VERY poorly balanced initially, which is to be expected with the data they had. More than one viable option for competitive play, let's go!

[Sleboda]

55 minutes ago, Trout said:

Could there be a rule of one that "fixes" shooting for matched play?

No unit that is not battleline may be taken more than once.

 

Nah, that would limit model sales.

[Gauche]

1 minute ago, Sleboda said:

No unit that is not battleline may be taken more than once.

 

Nah, that would limit model sales.

I hate seeing simple fixes like this because they're so elegant, and so never, ever going to exist. Makes my heart hurt.

[Marc Wilson]

Anyway, back to the overwhelming positivity, eh chaps.

[WoollyMammoth]

@Gauche
AoS is not dead here, its just very quiet. The game has always been more people playing than talking about it on the internet. If you go into one of the local stores, you are likely to find a couple friends playing together. At the GW there is a skirmish campaign and there are something like 15 people signed up. I'm starting a Warhammer Wednesdays event to play AoS at GW every Wednesday night. The monthly AoS tournament at GW is next Saturday.  There are a couple local people practicing to go to a tournament next month in San Diego. AoS is very active it's just difficult to find and organize people.  Shadow Wars, Skirmish and 40k have all been taking away from AoS, which is feeling played out compared to all the shiny new stuff. The GH2 will reboot AoS, moving up to the newest, shiniest thing and there will be a lot more people looking to play. I'm guessing they are going to push GH2 back to September to give 40k time to simmer - let everyone hesitant to start 40k watch everyone having fun playing 40k until they finally break down and start a new 40k army. 
 

2 hours ago, Auticus said:

They already responded on the fb page that there were no core rules changes in the ghb 2017.

The rules of 1 significantly alter the core rules. For example, they could come up with a new rule of one that states a ranged unit must pick only one unit to target in the shooting phase.

---------------

Personally I think there is only particular abuse in Matched Play and it's mostly derived from mixed faction armies. The last major tournaments were won with - mixed chaos, mixed order, mixed destruction. Most of those insane combos come from taking two units from different factions and combining them to basically erase all the weaknesses and buff their strengths to astronomical levels. 

Currently, you cannot say that armies have to share a faction keyword because, most factions are a few models lumped into one group. The entire death "grand alliance" is really one faction split up, so they would be screwed over by this. But if we lived in a world where every 'faction' was a legitimate army with their own fully realized concept including a full book of allegiance and artifacts, you could then impose a rule for matched play that requires single-faction only. At that point, the disproportionate sizes of the grand alliances no longer matter and 99% of the nonsense power lists are done and a few point tweaks would make the game considerably balanced to the point where you don't know what to expect anymore and no one faction is considerably overpowered. But we have a long way to go until this would be a fair rule so, we will see what the GH2017 does. 

[Gauche]

I know you play up North Mammoth but it's dead as can be in the Valley. I'm at the stores 3-4 times a week and there are zero games. Glad things are doing well as GW and maybe IO though.

Agree with your other points.

[bottle]

I can't wait to see what's in store! I am guessing the Dispossessed repackaged signal Allegiance Abilities rather than a full blown Battletome.

 I hope the siege rules address "silly" things running up the walls like Chariots and Horses lol

I hope we can poor burning oil down from the ramparts etc

CANNOT WAIT FOR NEW MATCHED PLAY SCENARIOS.

Hope battleline becomes tied to a general to allow more Grand Alliance soups.

[Old Stonebeard]

I am so hyped, my hype is hyped.

IMO, I can see why they don't want to alter the core rules just yet; I mean, they're literally printed in every publication. That said, "Three Ways to Play" really open up a world of tweaking opportunity without having to change a word on those four pages.

- Alex

[Carnelian]

I'm on the hype train too! Seems like a really cool release and I'm pretty sure the game is only going to get better not worse so let's rejoice!

[Trout]

2 hours ago, wayniac said:

I don't know... most people I talk to hates things like random initiative and being able to shoot while in combat.  I can live with it if shooting is toned down, but it's the common complaints I hear.

I understand why some people might hate initiative rolling; I'm ambivalent about it myself. But I really don't understand the problem with shooting while in combat. I assume it has to do with competitive lists, which I don't play against. I'd like to understand the problem. What is the condition under which this becomes an issue? Is it really a mechanic that is being abused a lot or is it just that people aren't used to being able to do that in other games?

[Gauche]

@TroutIt makes guns have no drawbacks. You can engage me, I shoot the unit that got there. There's nothing that can stop guns in the entire game, very few systems have that. This means guns contribute from Turn 1 and never stop whereas melee don't contribute until Turn 2-3, have shorter ranges, etc.

Shooting Combat doesn't even stop you from fighting, you can do both. The offensive output of shooting units is MUCH higher than combat units when you look at the whole game. When you combine that with how crazy Morale is in AoS compared to other games, armies get shot off the table. I play a super competitive list from time to time and I have tabled people on Turn 2 with ease.

AoS also has no penalties to shooting, just cover. So when you keep stacking all this shooting is the thing to do at the competitive level.

[Erdemo86]

I see it comin, too much hype. I think they will only change some points(and still not enough), diffrent allegiances and that was it... im jumping out of that hype train.

[Trout]

24 minutes ago, Gauche said:

It makes guns have no drawbacks. You can engage me, I shoot the unit that got there. There's nothing that can stop guns in the entire game, very few systems have that. This means guns contribute from Turn 1 and never stop whereas melee don't contribute until Turn 2-3, have shorter ranges, etc.

Shooting Combat doesn't even stop you from fighting, you can do both. The offensive output of shooting units is MUCH higher than combat units when you look at the whole game. When you combine that with how crazy Morale is in AoS compared to other games, armies get shot off the table. I play a super competitive list from time to time and I have tabled people on Turn 2 with ease.

AoS also has no penalties to shooting, just cover. So when you keep stacking all this, shooting is the thing to do at the competitive level.

Those should all be solved by unit design. Units with strong shooting should be squishy; that's their drawback, they die easily.

 

Unless you are playing in wide open fields or a tiny play area, I can't imagine how you table someone in two turns with shooting alone. Is that the problem? Are people playing in empty fields?

[maximum_pants]

did anyone else pick up on "hosts of slannesh" getting renamed to "slanneshi hosts"?

[Karlbonner]

2 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

@Gauche
Personally I think there is only particular abuse in Matched Play and it's mostly derived from mixed faction armies. The last major tournaments were won with - mixed chaos, mixed order, mixed destruction. Most of those insane combos come from taking two units from different factions and combining them to basically erase all the weaknesses and buff their strengths to astronomical levels. 

Currently, you cannot say that armies have to share a faction keyword because, most factions are a few models lumped into one group. The entire death "grand alliance" is really one faction split up, so they would be screwed over by this. But if we lived in a world where every 'faction' was a legitimate army with their own fully realized concept including a full book of allegiance and artifacts, you could then impose a rule for matched play that requires single-faction only. At that point, the disproportionate sizes of the grand alliances no longer matter and 99% of the nonsense power lists are done and a few point tweaks would make the game considerably balanced to the point where you don't know what to expect anymore and no one faction is considerably overpowered. But we have a long way to go until this would be a fair rule so, we will see what the GH2017 does. 

This would be a very poor direction for the game to take. Mixed faction armies aren't a problem that needs fixing, they are an intended part of the game and they are one of the best things about AoS.

 

Creative choices being possible in listbuilding is one of the main edges that AoS has over other games. And AoS was never intended for mono-faction play to be the main way of listbuilding. Most factions are unplayable without combining. If mixed lists actually play well, then all the better. It rewards creative lists.

[Gauche]

45 minutes ago, Trout said:

Those should all be solved by unit design. Units with strong shooting should be squishy; that's their drawback, they die easily.

 

Unless you are playing in wide open fields or a tiny play area, I can't imagine how you table someone in two turns with shooting alone. Is that the problem? Are people playing in empty fields?

LoS Terrain makes no real difference, things in AoS aren't fast like other games. They'll get their shots and you can't hide your whole army. Also two of the worst offender shooting lists are extremely mobile. Almost no units that shoot at the top end are squishy, in fact they're brokenly durable for their points. The balanced shooting units are more along the lines of what you're thinking.

[fued]

wierd, shooting seems a bit underrepresented here... alpha strike lists seem far more common

[someone2040]

So definitely keen for a new Generals Handbook. Can't come soon enough IMO, but it seems that it's likely to drop late July or sometime in August, with the confirmation that there'll be new Primaris and Death Guard coming in July.

 

Also happy that we're getting Allegiance Abilities, will be interesting to see how far reaching they go. I'm a little bit surprised about this, I think a much cleaner and better place for them would've been to release some kind of revised Grand Alliance books which don't include the races with battle tomes. I've suggested a 'Forces of Azyr' book to replace GA:Order before, which would use the content gained from removing Stormcast, Sylvaneth, Fyreslayers and Seraphon to add in Allegiance abilities, magic items and extra battalions.

Still, it's definitely welcome if it's done right. It'll be interesting to see if every faction gets their own, or if they group a bunch of factions, or if some just get left out completely (e.g are they are going to create one for the Eldritch Council? Phoenix Temple? Order Draconis which all have only a few scrolls in the faction).

 

A bit disappointing to hear that they won't change the rules in GHB2017 apart from more rules of 1. I really think AoS is one or two elegant rules away from the it being a great game while having simple rules.

I kinda dislike the rules of 1 in some ways. In this particular case, it's become a 'buzz-word' for a bunch of rules that change something to only occur once, which really are changes to the core rules for the purpose of balance.

So why not, you know, just call them 'Advanced Rules' or 'Matched Play Rules' and have them go alongside the 'Monsters cannot gain the benefits of cover' rule, and any other rule they decide is necessary for making the game more interesting.

I can't really think of any rule of '1' that would fix the shooting phase and make it more tactically interesting. Perhaps, "Missile weapon range is reduced to 1" if you are within 3" of enemy models". Not the solution I'd like (I'd prefer some kind of negative to hit if you can't draw clear line of sight to at least one enemy model in the targeted unit - but this can slow down game play), but it'd make an obvious counter for missile units. Still wouldn't solve the Thundertusk problem though, which is why it's a bit sad that they're not willing to alter warscrolls.

 

Either way, will be good for the game and hope it comes soon.

[rokapoke]

9 minutes ago, someone2040 said:

I can't really think of any rule of '1' that would fix the shooting phase and make it more tactically interesting. Perhaps, "Missile weapon range is reduced to 1" if you are within 3" of enemy models". Not the solution I'd like (I'd prefer some kind of negative to hit if you can't draw clear line of sight to at least one enemy model in the targeted unit - but this can slow down game play), but it'd make an obvious counter for missile units. Still wouldn't solve the Thundertusk problem though, which is why it's a bit sad that they're not willing to alter warscrolls.

-1 to hit when shooting into or out of combat?