GHB17 - massive regiments. Horde armies rejoice.

[Sadysaneto]

well:

 

Massive Regiments. This new addition to matched play is aimed at making horde units more viable by offering players a points discount when they take a unit at its full size; you’ll want to take your Skeleton Warriors in units of 40 and your Zombies in units of 60.

 

no more 20 models grots units to fit points? Thank gorka!

[VBS]

It's a good way of selling more minis. Like when the Warscrolls get bonuses the more minis you buy.

Can't see it being too practical for a skirmish game though... guess movement trays will be useful once again.

[polarbear]

As I wrote in the rumour thread, I love horde armies, but moving the models individually is a bad experience. It doesn't work for me very well if not on regiment bases.

[PJetski]

Here's hoping I can use it with my Saurus Warriors!

[Sheriff]

I would love to have bigger gobbo units but can't face painting more. I find the number of units has to be 3 so that kind of forces multiple small units over fewer but bigger units. 

[LJ26]

Correct @Auticus

[Furious]

I'm down. Even now, those battle line units that get better with numbers don't stand up to a lot of elites and monsters, point for point.

[wayniac]

I'm not a fan of this, as I thought AOS was going to move away from the WHFB style of huge blobs.  Having so many things with a bonus if you take 20 (which in matched play really means take 30) was bad enough.

[Furious]

13 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Unless there is more to this than we know about right now, this is very frustrating.  This is the opposite of what matched play is supposed to be about (balance).  

I strongly disagree that they don't stand up to elites and monsters point for point.  I've seen very much the opposite.  We had a death player run amuk for a while with hordes of skeletons for that very reason until he met kunnin rukk and skyfire spam.

If skeletons are really that bad then point them correctly!!  (for the record I've already statted this out a couple years ago, they are fine.  They are undercosted as it is.  This makes it worse)

I get your point, but to provide a counter anecdote, I've had my Infernal Guard Castellan kick the ****** out of 20 Blood Reavers in two rounds, taking only one wound. And they were within the Bloodsecrator bubble, so extra attacks and battleshock immunity included. That's the one character easily taking out 20 more points than he's worth. Similar thing have happened on other occasions as well.

I don't think either unit is costed incorrectly, really, but obviously there's some kind of inconsistency going on.

[Kirjava13]

...guess I'm going to need more Clanrats then.

*orders two more Spire of Blood sets*

[SaJeel]

I could actually see this helping out disspossed a lot, just crushed a skeleton army yesterday with my trees so let's see

[LJ26]

Skeletons are slow and die in droves to battle shock. Youre making them out to be some over powered unit which they aren't. People need to get better if they're losing over and over again to the same thing. Everyone over emphasizes lists and units. In my experience AoS is about how good a player is with thier army. 

[wayniac]

Just now, Auticus said:

Anything that gets free bonuses is by definition of the word over powered because their cost is less than it should be.

 

With all due respect, isn't this the same thing the competitive people whined about that caused summoning to be nerfed into the ground and Open Play to be DOA?  "But it's not fair you get something for FREE"

[Uncas]

I like this a lot. I wonder if darkling covens units will get the same horde bonus, whatever it is? Very exciting times if you play darkling covens, what with allegiance abilities, ability to ally in some non-infantry stuff(hopefully), and now this. I for one am pumped!

[chord]

Not a huge fan of huge hordes.   But I'm holding judgement till the rules come out. 

[Arkiham]

@Auticus

Sometimes I wonder why you even play dude, posts are always bashing aos in some way, if you really dislike it why not quit ? Not meant in a mean way, just something I've noticed.

 

Anyway.

I like it, it's a great to see variance otherwise the game stagnates, hordes have their place as much as ultra elite armies, and more options make a better game.

 

Besides, on a more personal view. This guy will be great 

[BobbyB]

He's got a point though.

 

There are plenty of inherent disadvantages to taking larger units and the built in bonuses only serve to balance these out, whether this further discount is necessary or not remains to be seen, but I look forward to giving it a try

[polarbear]

It seemed to me that few people were taking large units of anything, even with the bonuses, as the 3x10 battleline became popular. There were some builds that did have horde units though, like the Bloodletter bomb.

[shadowgra]

I like the horde thing a lot.

1st it balanced out shooting. We have a high rend-high damage shooting right now which is op vs armoured units and monsters. You are not going to take that much of a damage if you are playing a horde army since they will usually be buffed by their numbers. If 40 skeletons drop into combat with 10 thunderers, the thunderers will get deleted. So it balances out the game a bit.

2nd: hordes are mostly useless vs monsters and high elite units simply because they can put a lot of wounds in cc (which is 2 phases for batte round) and whittle down their forces before they can actually do some damage. For example: 4 fulminators vs 40 skeletons can kill a lot of them while taking almost no damage in return.

So it creates a paper-rock-scissor type of play that i enjoy a lot. It will take even more insight for players to create a balanced army or to win players vs counters.

 

About skeletons being op i just say 2 things: deathless minions will go away most likely and don't forget that is pretty difficult to move hordes in a battleground full of terrain features. 

[Arkiham]

Well obviously large hordes do suffer. How many do you see ? Outside of kunnin ruk. 

There is inbuilt disadvantages to large hordes as well as advantages, having too larger unit will often be worse for the owner than the opposition.

Horde units are consistently worse so they die fast, reducing their unit benefit really fast so what you saw was people not even bothering. 

having a option in a game which no one ever uses as its "garbage " or making it so its viable every now an then..sounds like the 1st option is worse game design than the 2nd

[Flood]

1 hour ago, Kirjava13 said:

...guess I'm going to need more Clanrats then.

*orders two more Spire of Blood sets*

LOL! I painted 160 clanrats during 8th edition. I still have 40 unpainted and will BBQ them before I paint more clanrats lol. 

[Siegfried VII]

I must say that I really do not like horde armies in AoS. And my main reason is not the power level and possible cheese involved.

I just do not want battles that will take forever. My few experiences with horde armies were terrible. It is extremely BORING to just sit and watch the opponent move his models one by one... In most of these games playing 3 rounds was the maximum we got before the time ran out...

And worst of it? Some of these guys in order to save time just pushed their units as a whole resulting in cheating in inches and me trying to decide whether I will let them cheat or not if only to avoid them taking even more time...

[daedalus81]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

Skeletons that have 3 attacks per model should be costed like a model that has 3 attacks per model.  Not like a model that has 1 attack and then discount it further.

That makes no sense either.  

If you cost them as 3 attacks then they're NEVER worth taking except in giant hordes.  And even LESS so when they lose models.

If hordes are the counter to meatgrinders like beastclaw then making them more lucrative overall without upsetting the lower end cost could be a win-win if it's handled well.

 

[wayniac]

One thing I am fearful of this is, if we see a resurgence of horde lists, we'll see less terrain.  It's already an issue with some metas where you see WHFB-style terrain (a hill or two, maybe a wood, some buildings) as AOS terrain that largely provides no LOS blocking or really anything because it's leftovers from a time when you moved around big blocks and needed a lot of clear spaces to set up charges and the like, I fear if we see more hordes, we'll see more open spaces to maneuver them better.

But yeah, this type of game doesn't want or need hordes, especially with no movement trays (by default).  Rank and flank is one thing when you can push a unit around, but pushing around 30 individual models, and three unit's worth of it, is BS.

[Galas]

5 minutes ago, wayniac said:

One thing I am fearful of this is, if we see a resurgence of horde lists, we'll see less terrain.  It's already an issue with some metas where you see WHFB-style terrain (a hill or two, maybe a wood, some buildings) as AOS terrain that largely provides no LOS blocking or really anything.

But yeah, this type of game doesn't want or need hordes, especially with no movement trays (by default).  Rank and flank is one thing when you can push a unit around, but pushing around 30 individual models, and three unit's worth of it, is BS.