GHB 2017 Points changes

[13on2D6]

5 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Indeed.  Bubble wrapping is how you counter that, but the problem is that very few people I know want to invest in the time, money, and patience to paint up a bunch of cheap trash troops to bubble wrap with.

Can see your point, but a lot of armies you have the option of having a mixture with the battleline requirements.

Got to look at balance in your list, with versatility to counter things like alpha strikes, tunnelling from stormfiends or weapons teams, changling, stormcast deployment from celestial realm etc.

Not saying the current points/balance is 100% right but I don't think its far off! Depends on your local meta too

 

[Mirage8112]

3 hours ago, Auticus said:

Indeed.  Bubble wrapping is how you counter that, but the problem is that very few people I know want to invest in the time, money, and patience to paint up a bunch of cheap trash troops to bubble wrap with.

Sounds like they're dedicated to the problem rather than solving it. 

This is the main reason I have trouble with players who complain about balance issues. Often there is an easily accessible solution to a list/strategy that's giving them problems. But they refuse to use whatever that unit is because it doesn't fit with the theme or narrative of the army. I appreciate the desire to only collect what you want to collect but you can't have your cake an eat it too. That is to say, a 2k list made up of goblins and nothing else might be super fluffy, but you can't expect that army to take on a diversified force that's designed to work together. 

@Auticus i also though I would just point out that I'm not referring to you specifically in the paragraph above. I don't agree with everything you say, but I have a good deal respect for your opinions and your early contributions to the game (Azyr comp). But I do think the desire to write narrative lists and hope that they can compete against tourney-tuned lists is a bit of a non-sequitur. A lot of the things cited above as being broken are fairly easy to counter; not in way that makes them easy to beat, but certainly in a way that makes the matchup far from one sided. 

I don't think this is case of "git gud son", but it certainly raises an eyebrow when players have easily accessible solutions but just can't be bothered to implement them. 

[rokapoke]

4 hours ago, Auticus said:

Look at Lord of the Rings.  Solid rules.  Probably the best game GW ever did IMO and lauded by many in the same manner, but you can't pay someone to play it with you.

I've not played Lord of the Rings, but I love the books and the movies. I'll be happy to play for pay!

[swarmofseals]

2 minutes ago, Auticus said:

In a properly balanced game, list-building would die in a dumpster-fire because while there will always be math involved... the tighter the balance would open up the field much more for the narrative armies and close the gap and player skill would matter more.  The gap right now is a chasm between the two and the only time player skill matters in the game is if both players are min/maxing.

I know that this can happen because I've played games where the balance was a lot tighter.  The thing is that the devs have openly admitted at games days that they write part of the game FOR list builders* which means intentionally having poorly costed units to min/max on and Phil Kelly's answer to the complaints to that was "if that bothers you then don't play with people that have to min max all the time".

* - following the rules of Magic the Gathering where the designers write cards for the three gamer personalities, GW has said they do something similar.

 

47 minutes ago, Mirage8112 said:

This is the main reason I have trouble with players who complain about balance issues. 

<etc.>

I strongly agree with both of you, somehow. I think your comments when taken together highlight some of the contradictions in our hobby, and Auticus at least in part suggest something close to what I think is a workable solution.

Game balance is self correcting in a game where player choices are very liquid. Part of the contradiction of competitive wargaming is that our hobby is very much not liquid, especially compared to something like Magic.  In magic, all you need to do to dramatically change your strategy is to go through your collection and pull out some different cards, or at the very most buy new cards. Granted, that can be a substantial investment but the only real factor is cost. Also, players (aside from the very new) typically own way more cards than they are using at any given point in time. In our hobby, it takes both time and money to put something new on the table. At the very least you have to assemble new models, and if you want to paint you are looking at quite a few hours to make a major change even at low standards of painting. I know that some people can churn out tabletop standard really fast, but that isn't the experience for most players. Furthermore, players are typically actively using a larger % of their overall collection so it's less likely that they can just swap things in and out without having to buy and paint more stuff.

What this means is that there is a LOT of friction for individual players. Trying a new strategy like Mirage suggests is a really big deal for a lot of players. 

It's for that reason that I agree strongly with Auticus that Warhammer needs mathematically tighter balancing. I don't think this is simply a matter of bridging the divide between the ways to play (although that's certainly a nice side effect). It's also about increasing the likelihood that players who are getting started or who are playing a random new opponent will have a good game. In Magic it's a bit more tolerable to have a big delta between casual decks and tournament decks because it's not that hard to make the leap from one to the other (in terms of cards, skill is another matter). In Warhammer, if you buy and paint an army only to find that most of your games are over before deployment begins it can be utterly crushing. 

I think it's important to take a moment and consider the implications of what Auticus said about the game being designed for list builders, particularly the comparison to Magic. Auticus correctly notes that Magic designs cards for specific player psychographics, the most important of which are Timmy, Johnny, and Spike. The TL;DR version:

Timmy - likes big, splashy impressive stuff

Johnny - likes creative, intricate, convoluted stuff

Spike - likes efficient stuff

While "Spike" cards are more likely to be competitive, it's critically important to note that this does NOT mean that "Johnny" and "Timmy" cards aren't competitive. There are plenty of cases where the tournament format is impacted by big, splashy monsters or creative, interesting combo decks (although this latter bit is less common recently, while the former is more common). More importantly, competitive list building is not simply an exercise in finding the most efficient choices and slamming them together. Even the most straightforward, efficient decks have interesting choices where at least a few card selections are debatable on tactical grounds. More often, pro players have to put a lot of effort into list building and playtesting in order to find which combinations work and which don't. Efficiency is a part of the equation, but most of the work goes into other concerns.

In Warhammer, however, GW would be shooting itself in the foot if it thought that designing for listbuilders began and ended with efficiency. It's so obvious when certain warscrolls are huge outliers. In fact, I would argue that having a big delta on efficiency makes list building more boring because it makes efficiency basically the only concern, particularly for allegiances that have fewer choices to begin with. 

In my mind, the ideal balance is to have a design strategy where there are some variations in points efficiency between warscrolls (especially when there are limitations on how much you can take of a given thing), but that those variations are relatively small. This serves a bunch of purposes:

• There is still a question of min maxing for those who enjoy it, but the effects of it are reduced and it actually becomes more interesting because the differences are harder to detect
• There are more choices in list building, and the possibility of trading off efficiency for tactical considerations becomes much more important. You want there to be valid reasons for taking the less mathematically efficient choice.
• This design encourages a greater degree of flexibility in what types of games people can play and still have a good time. If you are primarily a tournament player and have to radically alter your list to have a good narrative game, then that is a barrier in the hobby that doesn't need to exist. The same goes the other way -- if you are a narrative player and know from the outset that you are going to go 0-3 if you show up for a tournament without making major changes, then that is a huge problem. The hobby will thrive if players can take the same or similar list to a different type of play group and keep everyone happy. Maybe the tournament player will have to tone it down a little, but that's fine. It's easy to tone down 10% (you can probably do that just by taking different artefacts/abilities). The narrative player maybe will be looking at a likely 1-2 or 2-1 if they don't make some tweaks, but that's fine -- a far cry from knowing you are going 0-3.

Meanwhile the strategy GW seems to be using now results in a worse play experience AND a worse listbuilding experience. 

 

I'd posit two reasons for the current approach that I think are most likely:

 

1. Tight balancing is not easy, and GW does not currently have the resources or the will to invest the resources that it would take to accomplish it.
2. GW believes that it is in their financial interest to push new releases on power level.

 

In either case, I think GW is shooting themselves in the foot. Failing to invest enough resources for a tighter balance is undoubtedly inhibiting the growth of the game, and while pushing new releases on power level may have some effect on sales, I strongly suspect that it has a much more deleterious effect in the long run. When the balance delta is high, an unintentionally underpowered release (which obviously does happen) is much more likely to flop regardless of the quality of the models. When the balance delta is low, the coolness factor of new models will sell them regardless of their power level. Furthermore, a low balance delta makes it easier for players to get into the game and stay into the game, and opens up a wider variety of play options for players across the board.

 

I can't tell you how frustrating I find the classic GW sentiment of "We're a miniatures company first and foremost, the game is just tacked on." The internal contradictions in this statement are massive, and it takes a special kind of shortsightedness not to see it. If your game is poorly designed/balanced, then it means the game abilities will play a larger role in purchasing decisions, not a smaller one! If you want your miniatures to sell mostly on their aesthetic merits, their fluff, theme, etc. then just make sure the balance delta is low and suddenly people who care about playability have to worry far less about the warscroll and can be content to buy what looks cool. It doesn't mean that there is no list building either -- it just means that the decisions are more interesting and the advantage gained is less (but still present).

 

Sorry... that turned into a bit of a rant.

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Auticus said:

You are correct in that there are at least counters, but to those people those counters might as well not exist because their army style cannot counter them.

That is 100% on them and I have zero sympathy for them.  Don't get me wrong - themes are cool, really, but players who go for one limited style and pretend that it's the designers fault for not giving them things to fit that style are pretty low on the list of people I enjoy playing against.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, swarmofseals said:

I can't tell you how frustrating I find the classic GW sentiment of "We're a miniatures company first and foremost, the game is just tacked on." The internal contradictions in this statement are massive, and it takes a special kind of shortsightedness not to see it. If your game is poorly designed/balanced, then it means the game abilities will play a larger role in purchasing decisions, not a smaller one! If you want your miniatures to sell mostly on their aesthetic merits, their fluff, theme, etc. then just make ...

... AoS pre GHB where there were tons of awesome models and they all had a use because even the "bad" units didn't have to bump out "good" ones to be included in a battle. The majority of AoS's issues right now came about when GW lost the courage of their convictions and threw out their grand experiment in matching the hobbygame to its own stated ideal, replacing it with the very thing that was slowly killing Warhammer.

[swarmofseals]

26 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

... AoS pre GHB where there were tons of awesome models and they all had a use because even the "bad" units didn't have to bump out "good" ones to be included in a battle. The majority of AoS's issues right now came about when GW lost the courage of their convictions and threw out their grand experiment in matching the hobbygame to its own stated ideal, replacing it with the very thing that was slowly killing Warhammer.

Sorry but I can't disagree more. The idea that the mere existence of a points system is what killed Warhammer seems absurd to me. There are a great many wargames with some version of a points system that do quite well. AoS before the GHB was not doing very well, and a lot of players came back to the game after the GHB came out. The idea that somehow the hobby would have flourished if only matched play was never introduced seems like complete wishcasting to me. 

Furthermore, pre-GHB many of the remaining players weren't really playing true Open Play. Some used homebrewed points systems but many just went by wound count, which was an absolutely horrible balancing mechanism. Under systems like that there absolutely were good units (and good factions) bumping out others. 

Yes, the GHB has caused issues, but I think they are far less serious than the issues that AoS had in the time preceding the GHB.

Just as an aside, I really find it hard to sympathize with players who dislike matched play, label it pejoratively as the "One True Way" to play and complain that nobody wants to do anything but matched play anymore. Aren't you basically saying that you just want Open to be the "One True Way"? If matched play is so much worse, and you had people to play Open with before, why not just keep playing Open with those people? Why does it matter if other people want to play Matched? If all your friends that used to play Open just want to play Matched now, then maybe people actually prefer Matched play (warts and all)? I don't see how you can simultaneously contend that there is a large enough community to support Open play alone and that Matched play is killing the game and nobody will play Open anymore. 

[Sleboda]

For the record, I LIKE matched play. I also LIKE vodka. Both are enjoyable and ultimately destructive.

 

Also, you are ascribing view and thoughts to me that I didn't express, making it difficult to engage in conversation.

[swarmofseals]

9 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

For the record, I LIKE matched play. I also LIKE vodka. Both are enjoyable and ultimately destructive.

 

Also, you are ascribing view and thoughts to me that I didn't express, making it difficult to engage in conversation.

Apologies, although I'm not sure which views and thoughts you are referring to specifically. I'm guessing you are referring to my aside, I didn't intend to ascribe those specific views to you (I should have been more clear and not slipped into casual use of "you" in that paragraph) but rather a broader spectrum of anti-GHB folks that I have seen make those specific claims.

I suppose it's possible that you disagree with the idea you expressed in your post, but it seemed like you were suggesting that the hobby is worse off with Matched Play even existing and that GW should have stuck to its guns. 

[Ratty_McRatface]

3 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Sorry... that turned into a bit of a rant.

Maybe it did, but I totally agree with you on all your major points.  One thing I might challenge you on is weather GW dose not recognize this now and will try there best to implement the most balanced system they can with the help of the community.  They at least have said that was there goal with ,the new 40k realases and I think they did try. having looked at the rules/points for a bunch of the models in that system.

I for one am really interested in what they will do with GH2017 it will let us know what there goals are.

 

Cheers,

Ratty

[swarmofseals]

42 minutes ago, Ratty_McRatface said:

Maybe it did, but I totally agree with you on all your major points.  One thing I might challenge you on is weather GW dose not recognize this now and will try there best to implement the most balanced system they can with the help of the community.  They at least have said that was there goal with ,the new 40k realases and I think they did try. having looked at the rules/points for a bunch of the models in that system.

I for one am really interested in what they will do with GH2017 it will let us know what there goals are.

 

Cheers,

Ratty

Yeah, I am really hoping GH2017 will be good! It's certainly an excellent opportunity to show some movement in the right direction.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

The GW hobby is expensive.  Players shouldn't have to go buy rock, then buy paper, then buy scissors builds.  Then on top of that show up to the game and hope they brought the army list that wins in the list building phase over their opponent.

I find that to be pretty bad design personally.  People are going to spend money on an army.  They expect ...

In the context of an alpha assault army, bubble wrap is its counter, but having to go through my own miniature collection...

I think *that* is the primary source of disappointment.  I totally get having to adapt playstyle and what not but you shouldn't have to fork out $500-$800 per build just to get a good game in once in a while.  

Emphasis mine.

I think the problem is expectations and the fact that GW has facilitated people going down that path again. None of that "has" to happen.  People should only expect that they models are great and with likeminded players so is the game.  Pre GHB this was the case. Sadly, we are back to a time when GW used to tell us it was all about the fun, and that people should put their better selves to the fore, and that the game is open and grand and lovely for good, honest, just, and honorable people ... and then they would put out a product that fed the horrible, deceitful, vicious, selfish mindset that is more often than nt inherent in humans all the while expecting people to deny their nature.  It always made me think of that scene in The Devil's Advocate where Satan is talking about god teasing mankind, setting them up to fail.

of course people are expecting and having and so on. They can't resist the urge to act on their own worse impulses and then GW is saying "Well, you can still do Open Play" while they know full well that people are largely incapable of being kind to each other.  Pre-GHB kindness was the rule and the bad people were not the normal player.  Ha! Maybe that's why it had so few players! Not many people are good enough to overcome human nature.  Hmm.  I'll have to think about that.

 

[Mirage8112]

7 hours ago, Auticus said:

You are correct in that there are at least counters, but to those people those counters might as well not exist because their army style cannot counter them.

And indeed in the paper/rock/scissors that are GW games, alpha first turn charge striking is the paper to the elite low-model count army's rock if they get it to go off first.

The problem that a lot of people have is that the concept that paper/rock/scissors even exists burns their ***.  A lot of people would prefer that every style have the tools in the box to handle anything across the board (so all armies can handle all styles, and you can focus on the models and what not you find cool instead of having to focus on the trigonometry coefficient calculations in Excel)

GW games are only rock/scissors/paper if you write rock/scissors/paper lists. Regardless of army "style" you should include a couple of units of chaff, because chaff wins games (We'll come back to this in a moment).  

 

7 hours ago, Auticus said:

In a properly balanced game, list-building would die in a dumpster-fire because while there will always be math involved... the tighter the balance would open up the field much more for the narrative armies and close the gap and player skill would matter more.  The gap right now is a chasm between the two and the only time player skill matters in the game is if both players are min/maxing.

You keep bringing this up, but math and probability is part of the game whether you spreadsheet or not. Personally I spreadsheet, because it means I can get a feel for a unit's potential without having to go through the trial and error of seeing how much damage a unit can dish out/take. When games take 90 min - 2 hours it makes it pretty difficult to get an accurate feel for how things play. For me, spreadsheeting isn't about delivering maximum wounds, It's about figuring out what role I want the unit to play on the tabletop. 

Furthermore I don't understand the obsession with comparing narrative armies and competitive builds. Narrative armies are, by definition, comprised of unit choices designed to tell a story. Now If you've ever read any actual narratives battle, fiction or not, you'll notice that they don't always win. In fact, in function, a protagonist that frequently wins is often quite boring. If your main goal is telling a story what does it matter if you win or lose? Furthermore, I'm fairly certain a general who keeps getting his ass handed to him by a bunch of orcs with bows would quickly figure out that he needs to rethink the composition of his forces. If he doesn't and instead chooses to stick to his noble principles and stand by the men who've followed him on his campaign, he's likely to die a very noble and principled death on a battlefield. Nobody with any sense shows up to a gun fight with a knife two days in a row....

 

2 hours ago, Auticus said:

eh.  While I agree with your words, I don't agree with the context.

The GW hobby is expensive.  Players shouldn't have to go buy rock, then buy paper, then buy scissors builds.  Then on top of that show up to the game and hope they brought the army list that wins in the list building phase over their opponent.

This hobby is as expensive as you want it to be. I've seen games played with scraps of paper as placeholders. You can proxy, scratch build, find other miniatures from cheaper companies and so on and so forth. If people are planning on making a one-time buy and purchasing a 2k army in a single shot with the intention of never spending a dime after that, you had better be damn sure that what your buying is what you want. Personally, I think that's a foolish way to play. But to each his own I suppose. 
 

2 hours ago, Auticus said:

 People are going to spend money on an army.  They expect that 2000 points or whatever is 2000 points.  The level of disparity in the points system (mainly with about 10% of the game being undercost as it is) is what causes that chasm of difference and makes a 2000 point army operate like its 3000 points when that level of disparity should never be there to begin with.

Your logic is flawed here. Your assuming that there is disparity because things are improperly priced. But the truth is, that points values are relative to the army across from them. In the disciples of Tzneetch book, a Curseling can single-handedly ruin a Sylvaneth Gnarlroot list by shutting down the magic phase and stealing the spells that make that build so powerful. In that context 140 pts is a bargain. Vs a stormcast player? In that particular context, I'd say 140 pts is overpriced since they have no magic to speak of. 

It's the same in real life. $10 might buy you a hammer and some nails, or a cheeseburger and fries. If your starving, $10 worth of a hammer and nails is virtually worthless. Likewise if you have a hole in your wall and somebody gives you a burger and fries to fix it with. The disparity isn't because the hammer is too expensive or the burger is too cheap. It's the context in which that purchase is intended to be used that makes it worthwhile or not. The intended use of the unit matters. 

Playing a narrative list of mixed chaos forces might be your bag, but they aren't designed to work together. Sure perhaps theres a story that unifies them, but narratives aren't rules. Writing lists with theme being the foremost consideration, without regard for rules means that army just doesn't play well on the tabletop. That's not a design fault. That's the player trying to round hole a square peg. Sure you can make it fit but it just will not fit as smoothly as the peg designed to fit that particular hole. 

I'm all for players playing what they want to play. But, as I stated before, you can't always have your cake and eat it too. You cannot field a section of units that aren't designed to work together and expect it to play as well as units that are. Full stop. 

Finally, I might add the units are pointed in a context as well. The designers know how units function as a group on the tabletop and points are likely assigned based on their performance within those various groups. Take those units without their synergetic relationships, you are likely paying more points that the unit actually worth. Like paying for a car without tires. Certainly not everything in the army needs to worth with everything else, and an army with 90% synergy can probably still stand against one with 100%. But at a certain point, when you start getting down to 75%, 68%, or 50% synergy, that army will clearly struggle against one where all the elements mesh neatly. 




 

[swarmofseals]

1 hour ago, Mirage8112 said:

Your logic is flawed here. Your assuming that there is disparity because things are improperly priced. But the truth is, that points values are relative to the army across from them. In the disciples of Tzneetch book, a Curseling can single-handedly ruin a Sylvaneth Gnarlroot list by shutting down the magic phase and stealing the spells that make that build so powerful. In that context 140 pts is a bargain. Vs a stormcast player? In that particular context, I'd say 140 pts is overpriced since they have no magic to speak of. 

...

Finally, I might add the units are pointed in a context as well. The designers know how units function as a group on the tabletop and points are likely assigned based on their performance within those various groups. Take those units without their synergetic relationships, you are likely paying more points that the unit actually worth. Like paying for a car without tires. Certainly not everything in the army needs to worth with everything else, and an army with 90% synergy can probably still stand against one with 100%. But at a certain point, when you start getting down to 75%, 68%, or 50% synergy, that army will clearly struggle against one where all the elements mesh neatly. 




 

Your points are definitely valid, but it's also worth noting that there are some serious pointing disparities too. I recently ran the basic numbers for the entire Death Grand Alliance and even within the faction there are HUGE inconsistencies in pointing between warscrolls that simply can't be explained by situational abilities. Some pretty much just strictly better than others, and in more cases there are warscrolls that have vast disparities in offensive and defensive efficiency that hugely outweigh any minor synergy or ability that the less efficient warscroll provides.

It's entirely possible for both of you to be correct here. The game could have substantially tighter pointing and still have plenty of room for situational warscrolls, synergy etc. I personally would welcome a design focus that emphasized synergy (and I mean that in a broad sense, not just making sure your keywords line up) more and strict min/maxing less.

[KnightFire]

4 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

GW games are only rock/scissors/paper if you write rock/scissors/paper lists. Regardless of army "style" you should include a couple of units of chaff, because chaff wins games (We'll come back to this in a moment).  

 

That isn't true at all, there are some armies that only do one thing (and may or may not do it well). For example you can't really build a shooting ironjawz army. The game is designed to have that rock paper scisors aspect to it (as discussed by Jervis in some of his podcast and WHTV appearances). 

But the concept of rock-paper-scisors isn't actually so much about being all of one thing, its about the concept that A beats B, B beats C, C beads D, and D beats A. In this case, a combined arms (bit of everything) army is still in the rock paper scisors equiation, it will beat some things and not others.

In MTG, the "rock paper scisors" aspects are generally considered to be "combo, control, aggro and midrange" where midrange decks are the equivalent of a combined army army. Midrange is often considered to lose to aggro (because it doesnt get its threads out fast enough) but beat control and combo (because it has a diverse range of threats to beat control, and enough control to beat combo). 

[wayniac]

9 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Sadly, we are back to a time when GW used to tell us it was all about the fun, and that people should put their better selves to the fore, and that the game is open and grand and lovely for good, honest, just, and honorable people ... and then they would put out a product that fed the horrible, deceitful, vicious, selfish mindset that is more often than nt inherent in humans all the while expecting people to deny their nature.

Ah yes, the old "Spirit of the Game" articles.  I remember those.  It boiled down to "Sure you CAN do X and we allow you to do X, but doing X isn't in the spirit of the game and your'e a bad person for doing it even though nothing stops you"

[Nico]

Quote

Your logic is flawed here. Your assuming that there is disparity because things are improperly priced. But the truth is, that points values are relative to the army across from them. In the disciples of Tzneetch book, a Curseling can single-handedly ruin a Sylvaneth Gnarlroot list by shutting down the magic phase and stealing the spells that make that build so powerful. In that context 140 pts is a bargain. Vs a stormcast player? In that particular context, I'd say 140 pts is overpriced since they have no magic to speak of. 
 

Another good example is the 27" unbind Command Trait, which looks like the best of a pretty meh bunch of traits, until you realise that you could easily go to a tournament and face 30% Stormcast and Khorne (or Destruction lists without Shamen).

Quote

The points costs are about 80% fine.  And 20% garbage.  The hot garbage is what ruins the remaining 80%.  

I wouldn't put it this high. A lot of the points that are off the mark don't really have much consequence as the units aren't popular anyway. There's only a handful of Warscrolls where cost increases/rule of one are integral to the health of the game (Celestial Hurricanum, Skyfires, Khemists not stacking, Arrer Boyz).

Then there are the nice to haves: Chaos Knights down, Lord on Manticore down, Exalted Greater Daemons down, Rogue Idol down, Durthu down, Spite Revenants Battleline, elite infantry (the 2 attacks, 3+, 3+, -1 brigade) down, Nagash down, Alarielle down, Gordrakk down, Husktusk up 20 points.

[chord]

I'd like to see gryph hounds come down in points.

[Sleboda]

8 hours ago, Mirage8112 said:

It's the same in real life. $10 might buy you a hammer and some nails, or a cheeseburger and fries. If your starving, $10 worth of a hammer and nails is virtually worthless. Likewise if you have a hole in your wall and somebody gives you a burger and fries to fix it with.

I just wanted to say I like that. I'll be stealing it.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

Ah yes, the old "Spirit of the Game" articles.  I remember those.  It boiled down to "Sure you CAN do X and we allow you to do X, but doing X isn't in the spirit of the game and your'e a bad person for doing it even though nothing stops you"

Yeah. ****** "spirit." It never existed (just like common sense is a fiction) ... except for 1 year of AoS when the rules and the spirit were in harmony.  Sort of.

 

Spirit of the game & common sense are the gamer equivalent of faith - something you toss out when you don't have adequate reasoning capabilities to intelligently support an opinion. 

[Terry Pike]

17 minutes ago, Auticus said:

www.louisvillewargaming.com/AOSStats.aspx

Just had a look at this. Sadly I believe its close to worthless as it doesn't really take into account any of the rules outside of a singular Warscroll. for example its lists Bloodletters as C for offensive rating. What about a unit of 30 with +3 to hit that are flying with re-roll hit and wound?

as far as points per model go 10pts per bloodletter, C rating is a joke.

You can't use formulas and stats to work out the true costs of units as you have to price them against everything else that is similar and then work in traits, buffs, abilities and all the other external factors.

Sure a formula could be used to work out unit A which is 10 men vs unit B of 10 skeletons and not factor in any special rules.

Should clarify "worthless" in terms of balancing units, its actually interesting to see what the stats come out as so not worthless in that sense lol

[BunkhouseBuster]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

The thing is - for list building to be a thing, you cannot have balance, because if you had the level of balance that I want there would be no point in spreadsheeting.  Spreadsheeting is all about finding the bad balance and taking advantage of it.  

What some consider "being a good player".  

And what some of us consider "bookkeeping".  I tried doing spreadsheet math to figure out two thing once before in my life: first was to figure out the statistics behind the Leadership mechanic of my Lizardmen army for 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy (LD9 with Cold-blooded is amazing, by the way).  The second was in figuring out the average offensive output of a theoretical early 7th Edition Chaos Space Marine army I was thinking about collecting; specifically, I was planning out which Heavy Support choice would do best against the most targets from a list of what I would expect to face in my local area.

I found the first one to be an interesting experiment in dice probability and fun.  It was not a comparison of one unit over another or comparing armies, but trying to understand a flavorful mechanic unique to my army.

I found the second to be an exercise in futility, as I kept thinking of new targets they could choose, trying to figure out the different non-offensive upgrades, and then realized that variables such as terrain, deployment, and the variety of mission types would make such a spreadsheet only theoretical in its application.  The tabletop execution of their role is figure out (CSM Heavy Support is pretty much just stand-back-and-shoot) but with the sheer amount of other stuff going on in the game, I quickly realized that this was not worth it to me, especially when, as I was planning this out, I had some real-life stuff come up that has not gone away yet, and then the Traitor Legion Supplement came out and would have changed up my entire army had I made the purchases I was originally planning.

So I can see the appeal in calculating out how your dice are likely to perform on the tabletop, but it isn't for me anymore.  With my limited time, I don't even have time to look at the army books anymore, and I can only browse the forums during slow periods at work.  If you enjoy using a spreadsheet to figure your army out, go for it!  But some of us don't have the time for it, and just rely on trusting others (whether GW or other players and fans) to keep things in check.

1 hour ago, wayniac said:

Ah yes, the old "Spirit of the Game" articles.  I remember those.  It boiled down to "Sure you CAN do X and we allow you to do X, but doing X isn't in the spirit of the game and your'e a bad person for doing it even though nothing stops you"

Is it cheating when it is allowed?  To use a baseball analogy, corked bats and steroid use is illegal in the game, but they can confer benefits to some players.  But if there is nothing in the rules, what can stop players from using these things to their advantage?  SPORTSMANSHIP, that's how!  You can call it honor, or valor, or whatever you want, but a greater sense of sportsmanship could be a great thing for wargaming, especially when it gets competitive.  I mean, the WAAC-powergamer-competitive players in my area are sorely lacking in it, and they don't realize what they are doing.

Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should.

12 minutes ago, Terry Pike said:

Just had a look at this. Sadly I believe its close to worthless as it doesn't really take into account any of the rules outside of a singular Warscroll. for example its lists Bloodletters as C for offensive rating. What about a unit of 30 with +3 to hit that are flying with re-roll hit and wound?

I have had several games against Bloodletters over the past year, and not once have I faced a block bigger than 20, and never have I faced against Sayl to give them their extra mobility.  Lacking those major buffs, they kind of are middle-of-the-road in their abilities.  I have seen them whiff as often as overwhelm, and they don't seem broken or under-powered in those games.  Bloodletters aren't the problem, Sayl is in this case, as he is the force-multiplier that can also buff up other units.  Bloodletters shouldn't go up in cost because their abilities are boosted by a different model, rather that different model should be priced appropriately.

But then again, the local AoS players in my area are much more relaxed and laid back in our games.

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

or list building to be a thing, you cannot have balance, because if you had the level of balance that I want there would be no point in spreadsheeting.  Spreadsheeting is all about finding the bad balance and taking advantage of it.  

Wow, man.  Nothing personal,  but if that's where your mind had landed because you're had frequent,  steady evidence supporting the view ... I mean,  I just ... gosh, that would be such a sad gaming universe to live in for me. 

Ppl sitting around using technology to exploit systems so they can ****** over their supposed friends? It doesn't paint a pretty picture. 

[Terry Pike]

1 minute ago, BunkhouseBuster said:

I have had several games against Bloodletters over the past year, and not once have I faced a block bigger than 20, and never have I faced against Sayl to give them their extra mobility.  Lacking those major buffs, they kind of are middle-of-the-road in their abilities.  I have seen them whiff as often as overwhelm, and they don't seem broken or under-powered in those games.  Bloodletters aren't the problem, Sayl is in this case.

You don't need Sayl to make them good, he just makes anything with low movement strong in mixed chaos. They are strong on there own, throw a couple of buffs on them and they become one of the strongest combat units in the game. High bravery, rend, mortal wounds, good hit/wound roll, models can come back, synergies VERY well with chaos buffing

[Terry Pike]

1 minute ago, Auticus said:

You can absolutely use formulas and stats to work out base costs of units.  This was the basis for several of the fan comps that came out pre-GHB where games seemed to be a lot closer than they are today.

Some of those points were also way out because they only factored in a units damage output and survivability. They didn't account for what happens when you put 120 saurus warriors in a formation that makes them completely broken in terms of points per model. The stats of a saurus warrior looked bad when you worked it out, but in actual game play it was another story.