Is there a way to negate the disadvantages of having a multi-faction army??

[chord]

8 minutes ago, ChaosUnited said:

The way I see it is that the overall premise of AOS is that there are 4 alliances (althoughI understand that the chaos gods bicker like children) - what is an alliance if nothing more than a rag-tag group of creatures. 

Therefore I feel that buffs should work more frequently across alliances, and not be so limited to factions - that being said I do mean more frequently and not entirely. 

Agreed.

[wayniac]

13 minutes ago, ChaosUnited said:

The way I see it is that the overall premise of AOS is that there are 4 alliances (althoughI understand that the chaos gods bicker like children) - what is an alliance if nothing more than a rag-tag group of creatures. 

Therefore I feel that buffs should work more frequently across alliances, and not be so limited to factions - that being said I do mean more frequently and not entirely. 

I also find that GW has slowly moved away from the concept of alliances and back to WHFB-style army books.  Sure there is overlap due to the alliance keywords still floating about, but it's been increasingly that they are pushing mono-factions again over a themed grouping of the variety of alliances.  That is evident by having single faction specific rules in battletomes that you only get if your entire army is of that faction.

[stato]

1 hour ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

My issue is with anything that pushes people towards one of those 3 ways to play over another, when that particular way to play might not be the most fun for them. And lets face it, there are no forces pushing matched players towards open or narrative. People who find open and narrative more satisfying are pushed towards matched play because, as you say, this is the way of the majority. Whether the majority of people play matched because they genuinely prefer it, or because they're pushed in this direction by forces within the community and by mechanics such as allegiance abilities is open to debate. But those forces do exist. You argue as if each individual has a completely free choice about how they play, when in fact this is a community and the decision is largely made for them collectively at various levels.

Battalions are a great introduction to becoming interested in narrative side of things. The KO have a battalion which is 50% stormcast, fully built on a fluffy bit of writing to justify it. I know some dont have much fluff background and many players just look at them in terms of power, but some are pretty cool and will entice players to collect them and end up with a themed force.

[rokapoke]

1 hour ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Allegiance abilities, almost certainly unintentionally, push hobbyists towards a more restrictive army selection and a more competitive way of approaching the game. There is probably a way of implementing characterful faction rules that doesn't create this push factor, but that isn't what happened, and here we are. Sadly I don't see any prospect of a do-over any time soon, and in fact we seem to be heading towards more allegiance abilities shenanigans rather than less. When you do something that feeds the desires of the competitive side of the community it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.

Yes, allegiance abilities push toward more restrictive armies than, say, a narrative or open player may desire. But let's look at where allegiance abilities are presented - in the matched play section of the General's Handbook. So if you are playing matched play with a wildly mixed army, you will get the less meaningful generalized allegiance abilities for your grand alliance. 

If you're not playing matched play, then including allegiance abilities would be a house rule as opposed to the norm.

Ultimately, allegiance abilities don't force one kind of play or another unless the players in your local group insist on using them regardless of game type.

[Squirrelmaster]

3 hours ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Everything was heading in a positive direction, for all types of players.

As a player who had just about quit on AoS before the GH came out, I disagree.

I mostly play pick-up games at my local store. Points systems devised by TOs are no use to me unless they become more widely adopted. Ditto home-brew. I don't have the expertise needed to eyeball a balanced game without spending an hour or so looking through the warscrolls and running the numbers, and I don't have time to do that. I have never experienced a "balanced" game without using points and I can assure you it's not from lack of trying.

GW took away the option for me to play a "competitive" game, and I know I'm not alone in that. That's why open and narrative play flourished — because many players didn't have the option to play any other way, without investing more time and energy than they were prepared to. Half the community up and left, and I honestly suspect GW came closer to killing AoS than to ushering in a golden age (though of course, we'll never know).

It isn't possible to foster a single, united community in which the different play styles are equally supported, by definition. Playing requires that either both players want the same type of game, or one player gets pressured into a style they don't want to play. That means if most players prefer one style, that will dominate and pressure others into playing the same way. If preferences are more even, the community will split into sub-communities who mostly only play among themselves and not with each other.

As I said before: If you want to play open or narrative play, you are free to go and find others who feel the same way. Form your own sub-community.

But if all the players in your local community choose to play competitively, or such a vast majority of them that narrative play isn't an option for you, that's their choice.

The matched play rules don't pressure players into playing a certain way any more than the narrative campaign rules do — they just provide players with the option to play how they want, and that is what causes the "pressure" within the community.

[BunkhouseBuster]

4 hours ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

So, while it's good and right that the 3 ways to play should exist, it's also healthy to foster a system in which people aren't subject to these forces and pressures that push them towards a particular way to play. Or at least to foster a system in which these forces are mitigated as much as possible. Allegiance abilities, almost certainly unintentionally, push hobbyists towards a more restrictive army selection and a more competitive way of approaching the game. There is probably a way of implementing characterful faction rules that doesn't create this push factor, but that isn't what happened, and here we are. Sadly I don't see any prospect of a do-over any time soon, and in fact we seem to be heading towards more allegiance abilities shenanigans rather than less. When you do something that feeds the desires of the competitive side of the community it's impossible to put the genie back in the bottle.

Agreed.  Having the multiple "sanctioned" ways to play is a good thing for the hobby.  However, when I first read through the General's Handbook, I didn't realize that the Allegiance Abilities were a part of Matched Play, rather a way to encourage multi-faction, intra-Allegiance armies without worry too much about synergies.  For example, I have a small smattering of Humans, Aelves, and Duardin models that I want to use to make an army.  They are okay on their own, and they have their own faction synergies to encourage playstyles, but I saw the Allegiance Abilities more as a way to encourage mixed armies when they didn't have fuller and more fleshed out factions.

Really, I would like to see the new Allegiance Abilities to be presented in three ways.  First, put it in between the Narrative and Matched Play sections, even if it gets its own section of the book (and what with all the different factions available, that might just happen!).  Second, make the Grand Alliance Abilities a bit better for mixed armies, if not just having an outright "mixed Alliance" Allegiance Ability page, in order to have more people willing to mix and match their armies up instead of throwing in the most powerful units.  Thirdly, give each ability and artifact/relic/banner/extra spells/extra prayers a points cost for Matched Play.  Even if it's a trivial amount, if it is something that can be chosen at will and added to the army, it ought to pay the same penalty as the units and Battalions for the army.

[WoollyMammoth]

8 hours ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

I will always have this nagging doubt that we were robbed of a new golden age.

 

The first year of AoS was not going well. More people quit than started. With lots of shiny new models they coasted but only by fans manually building game structures to make the game .. a game. There are a handful of players who loved the "throw down and see what happens" game style but that is very niche and the game was not growing. For me it was no fun - was familiar with the models and the units and I already knew what was going to happen 99% of the time.

Given more time, it was likely to just fail. Personally I could not have gone on much longer with the way things were, desperately trying to organize people, only one person showing up for my events. Constantly listening to naysayers about how "its a kids skirmish game"  

Then they released the GH. Now there is a balanced structure to play your games, however you want to play them. All the various groups were united under one unified rule set. As a result, more people are playing fantasy than ever before. Podcast listeners are at an all time high, tournament attendance is matching the best its ever been, its growing non-stop. 

Welcome to the new golden age. 
 

On 7/11/2017 at 7:57 AM, ChaosUnited said:

Any advice in this regard would be immense. I really want a Khorne/Nurgle/chaos dwarf army... 

Mixed armies are OP. Most of the tournaments this year have been won by mixed armies. Like it or not, picking and choosing the most cost effective and useful units is always the best way to go. You don't have to pick and choose the best units to play a mixed army, but you will, because your question is about how you can win games with a mixed army. 

With the GH allegiances, you are robbed of nothing by playing mixed, so you get all the benefit of an allegiance while being able to pick from hundreds of units, instead of .. 10 or fewer.

Personally I prefer thematic lists; all Skaven, all Skeletons, all Elves. But currently you have to play mixed lists, or else be stuck buying duplicates of the same models. You can play a fun thematic Elf list, and you are still combining 4 factions together. 

I hope with the new faction-specific allegiances they just do away with grand-alliance allegiances to kick the overpowered mix lists down a notch.

As for being competitive with chaos, simply take Sayl, and you are competitive. 

 

[ChaosUnited]

@WoollyMammoth, so many people have mentioned this Sayl to me. Is he really that overpowered?? 

[someone2040]

9 minutes ago, ChaosUnited said:

@WoollyMammoth, so many people have mentioned this Sayl to me. Is he really that overpowered?? 

His spell is basically broken. It turns any unit in the same army into a fast moving flying unit.

This enables a lot of units which ordinarily wouldn't be able to get up the field very fast to be in your opponents face from the start. This usually means you turn a strong but slow infantry unit into something that's faster than everything else in the game for a single turn. So you get large units of Bloodletters or Stormfiends that ordinarily move 5-6" (So aren't going to be anywhere near combat first turn), to something that flies up the board extremely quickly.

All that for the bargain cost of 160 points and you just need to roll a 6 on 2 dice (or once per battle, on 3 dice!).

So yeah, he's pretty good. It wouldn't be as bad if his spell had targeting restrictions, such as only SLAVES TO DARKNESS. But it would probably still cause problems. Given GW's reluctance to change warscrolls, I expect Sayl is going to be pointed out of the game come GHB2. 

It would instead be much nicer if they toned down his spell (While still appropriately adjusting his points).

[Captain Marius]

I think its worth pointing out that Sayl (and the mourngul for that matter) isnt in the GHB and i doubt will be in GHB2 either. As forgeworld models it is entirely up to FW to amend the rules or points, and i think its unlikely that FW models will have even been considered by the design team (GW) when repointing was done for GHB2.

Theres a weird state of affairs with compendium units too - in the app theyre mixed in with the factions they fit in with, but they do not appear in any of the printed GA books or battletomes. I think this will cause a lot of confusion and moaning when GW finally(!) ditch them all.

I absolutely think compendium units should be removed from matched play as they are making a mess of the 'official' AoS factions... however with so many factions with only a handful of units i think that should be part of a bigger overhaul of how the armies are structured.

Id like to see the GA books reissued like the 40k indexes, with points and Alliance Allegiance Abilities, but no faction ones or battalions.

[WoollyMammoth]

@someone2040
Good point but, there is no fast-moving flying unit that can move 18" .. lol. 18" is faster than anything in the game. A fast-moving flying unit is 12", super fast is 14" and some things are insanely fast at 16".

There are very specific (and mostly unreliable) ways to get around the '9" from enemy models" rule, making first turn charges very difficult. Death has some interesting options. Usually when there is a really good option - like hammerstrike force - its a big deal. 

Sayl can take any unit in the Chaos GA and its getting into combat on turn one. The three dice thing makes it laughably difficult to fail and almost impossible to dispel, if you are lucky enough to have the option. You can take anything you want - Archaon, a bloodthrister, some Warpfire Stormvermin, a massive unit of bloodletters, etc and its going to hurt you first turn. With the way that AoS works, if you have a large unit, you can spread all over a front line and cause enough casualties in multiple units to cause lots of battleshock and, for the most part win the game before your opponent gets to take their first turn.

Overall the strategy is mostly a sucker punch though, because once you have lost to it, you know what is coming and you can simply deploy on the back of the board or screen with trash mobs that tarpit and waste the time of the charging unit. This is why the most successful lists are shooting - there is no need to worry about your charge when your weapon is 24" long,  and your opponent has zero options to do anything about it, other than sit in cover and pray. 

 

[swarmofseals]

On 7/11/2017 at 6:20 AM, Jamie the Jasper said:

I'm kind of tired of the erroneous line that 'the advantage of multi-faction armies is that you can pick the most powerful unit combinations' and variations thereof - as if this is the only plausible motivation for doing it and that this automatically puts mixed armies on par with single-faction allegiance abilities.

What about the large number of people who bought into the whole 'collect what you like' ethos that AoS originally espoused, and who genuinely just want to mix factions so that they can either A) collect whatever models take their fancy, or B) build a themed army? These people get no such comparable benefit from mixing factions.

The only way that mixing factions has any inherent advantage is if you limit the composition of your army to benefit from the small number of cross-faction synergies that exist. In it's own way that's just as restrictive (perhaps even more so) as sticking to a single faction in order to benefit from better allegiance abilities.

People who want to collect what appeals to them the most or create cool and perfectly valid cross-faction themes are basically hung out to dry. There is no gameplay advantage to engaging with the hobby in this way - GW is actively disincentivising it. So can we put to rest the idea that mixed faction armies offer some kind of inherent advantage that single faction armies don't? For 90% of hobbyists who want to collect and play in this way, it simply isn't true.

I strongly disagree with this for a couple of reasons having to do both with the argument itself and the underlying assumptions behind that argument. First of all, I disagree with the idea that most large allegiance armies are at a competitive disadvantage vs. narrow allegiance armies. Literally every Death and Destruction GA army is better off taking the broad allegiance rather than the narrow one. The Death and Destruction allegiance abilities are just better than anything any of the subfactions have to offer. Looking to Order and Chaos, the following armies have their own allegiance packages: Stormcast Eternals, Sylvaneth, Kharadon Overlords, Khorne, and Tzeentch. Among these, I think you can only truly point to Stormcast and confidently say that they have an advantage over broad-allegiance opponents, and IMO that has more to do with Stormcast being very strong and having access to efficient units for every battlefield role than it does with their allegiance pack. Sylvaneth and Tzeentch are both quite powerful as well, but not to the point where they dominate broad allegiance opponents. Mixed GA Chaos lists with a heavy Tzeentch core outperformed pure Tzeentch lists on the GT scene, and outside of a few very strong lists I don't think you can say that either Sylvaneth or Khorne are leaving opponents in the dust. Sure if you compare a Skyfire spam Tzeentch list or a Gnarlroot Sylvaneth list against an "average" fluffy GA: Order or Chaos list then the focused lists are going to be way ahead. But that's an apples to oranges comparison pitting the most competitive builds of one sub allegiance against a non-competitive build.

I also disagree with your characterization of the advantages of playing with combinations of units from multiple factions. Your argument is that beyond a few broad synergies (like, say, Sayl or the Celestial Hurricanum) there are no benefits. I disagree mainly on the grounds that different subfactions have units that are highly efficient in different roles, but generally have weaknesses in other roles. The classic Mixed Destruction list that has put up very respectable tournament results is a great example of this. It combines the hero sniping power of the Thundertusk, the damage concentration of the Stonehorn, and the efficient chaff of goblins. While the GA: Destruction allegiance abilities are helpful for this army, the strength has a lot more to do with how good combining the most efficient options from different subfactions can be. Beastclaw Raiders have awesome monsters, and that is balanced at least in theory by the lack of cheap, mass troops for objectives. Goblins have lots of cheap stuff, but they lack the raw power and hero sniping ability that Beastclaw brings. Mash them together and you get a list that performs really well on the table, and it has nothing to do with any overt synergies between the Goblin units and the Beastclaw units. There are loads of examples like this across all of the Grand Alliances. There is real value in being able to draw from a larger pool of units that goes far beyond overt synergy.

Finally, I fundamentally disagree with the basic position you are coming from. You state that "people who want to collect what appeals to them the most or create cool and perfectly valid cross-faction themes are basically hung out to dry." Even if I agreed with you that cross-faction armies are inherently weaker, I still have a problem with this reasoning. For one, other game modes exist. Open Play exists. Narrative Play exists. Open Matched Play exists. ALL of these game modes are more tailored toward people who want to buy whatever pleases them and put it on the table. Pitched Battle Matched Play is the only real refuge for people who want something more structured. It's not like GW isn't supporting these other modes either. Furthermore, there is a lot of internal contradiction in the idea of someone building lists based on a mashup of whatever models they like without thought to in-game effectiveness then complaining that they are at a competitive disadvantage. Of course there is a competitive disadvantage in this approach. 

I apologize if all of this comes off as hostile, but it really bothers me when people essentially make the case that every game mode in AoS should be tailored to their personal preferences. It's very entitled and, in my opinion, bad for the hobby. Play the game modes that suit your playstyle and leave the other game modes to folks who prefer them.