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Changes to Battalion point costs


Louzi

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2 minutes ago, Aryann said:

Still better than overcosted, unplayable battalions. 

We don't know if they're overcosted or unplayable yet. The community hasn't had the opportunity to comprehensively test them. Until that happens, any outcry is based on kneejerk reactions and guesswork.

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I try to play as often as I can without allegiance abilities and artifacts.  I think matched play without the extras gets the game to a much "better" place.

Nobody can complain about having bad abilities or items, nothing forces you to stay in a faction, etc.  And it speeds up gameplay.

Ideally that is where I'd like to see matched play go just like it was with fan comps prior to the GHB. I know it never will as Pandora's box has been opened.  But I encourage everyone to try it.

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1 hour ago, Aryann said:

So why not set all the battalions to 500 points? System's working. 

Well that wouldn’t work because no-one would ever take a batallion if it was that high. At very low points costs you don’t have to make many meaningful decisions between a batallion and a unit because often you can pay for a batallion with change. At very high costs you never take a batallion because they are never worth it.

At the new range of prices you have serious decisions to make about what you take, and you won’t always want to take one depending on how you’re building your list. I think that’s good design.

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I'm just afraid to much will be sacrificed in the name of balance. The less components, the better balance. Don't want to see battalions removed by applying steep costs for them. That's not the approach that in my opinion will solve the problem. 

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8 minutes ago, Aryann said:

I'm just afraid to much will be sacrificed in the name of balance. The less components, the better balance. Don't want to see battalions removed by applying steep costs for them. That's not the approach that in my opinion will solve the problem. 

You say 'the less components, the better balance' and actually I agree with this, but surely this is an argument in favour of removing battalions completely rather than making them cheaper??

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I'm just afraid to much will be sacrificed in the name of balance. The less components, the better balance. Don't want to see battalions removed by applying steep costs for them. That's not the approach that in my opinion will solve the problem. 

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It's hard to see problem here. Looking at the various "Let's talk" -threads on this forum, the batallions are still very much a thing. Of course the fluffier batallions that are usually not so much of an interest for tournament use could be made more attractive by reducing cost, but there's not much room to reduce the costs before you start to get "negative points" for taking them (so if a Batallion would cost 90 points after the overall 100 point hike for the reduced drops and additional artefact).

There are and will be lots of stuff in the game that no one will want to use any points in a competitive setting, because of various reasons, like being very unpredictable or useful only against certain enemies. Be it units or be it batallions. That's just a thing that should be kept in mind. Normally it is not an issue as these things can be talked out in a non competitive setting. For example we have often agreed that the "resurrect" abilities don't cost reinforcement points in our games, because they don't cause too big issues and the units are usually very bad with the additional cost, but the abilities are quite cool and thematic

11 minutes ago, Aryann said:

 

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Just now, Jamie the Jasper said:

You say 'the less components, the better balance' and actually I agree with this, but surely this is an argument in favour of removing battalions completely rather than making them cheaper??

I'm just showing sad consequences of being to eager to satisfy tournament players. I'm sure most of us prefer AoS over chess, knowing all of its flawes. The balance might be better thanks to new battalions' cost but seeong them less often in games won't make me happier. 

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2 minutes ago, Aryann said:

I'm just showing sad consequences of being to eager to satisfy tournament players. I'm sure most of us prefer AoS over chess, knowing all of its flawes. The balance might be better thanks to new battalions' cost but seeong them less often in games won't make me happier. 

If your not interested in tournament play then why are you bothered what is in the matched play rules? They are specifically there for competitive tournament play.

 

And while GW are eager to satisfy competitive players, they are also eager to satisfy narrative players (we just had a really nice expanded set of path to glory rules) and open play players (where we are getting open war cards, which are really great fun from my experience of using them in open play games of 40k).

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3 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

or example we have often agreed that the "resurrect" abilities don't cost reinforcement points in our games, because they don't cause too big issues and the units are usually very bad with the additional cost, but the abilities are quite cool and thematic

I'd rather they did something with summong and resirrecting. It is more need than these batallion fixes. 

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3 minutes ago, Aryann said:

I'm just showing sad consequences of being to eager to satisfy tournament players. I'm sure most of us prefer AoS over chess, knowing all of its flawes. The balance might be better thanks to new battalions' cost but seeong them less often in games won't make me happier. 

The fact that the points changes have been implemented to benefit competitive players shouldn't deter narrative and casual players from using battalions if they want to. Points are optional. If you're not a tournament player you have nothing to worry about - continue using the old battalion points if you want, or don't use points at all. AoS works fine without points for narrative and casual games - I played that way for a year after AoS was launched and had a great time, with lots of close and exciting battles.

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2 minutes ago, KnightFire said:

If your not interested in tournament play then why are you bothered what is in the matched play rules? They are specifically there for competitive tournament play.

I just believe this problem could have been handled in a manner satisfying both sides, not only tournament guys. And still I'm not sure if they appreciate the way it was fixed.

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2 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

The fact that the points changes have been implemented to benefit competitive players shouldn't deter narrative and casual players from using battalions if they want to. Points are optional. If you're not a tournament player you have nothing to worry about - continue using the old battalion points if you want, or don't use points at all. AoS works fine without points for narrative and casual games - I played that way for a year after AoS was launched and had a great time, with lots of close and exciting battles.

I'll just echo this. Games Workshop have designed the game to work in lots of ways to try and cater for all sorts of players. 

1 minute ago, Aryann said:

I just believe this problem could have been handled in a manner satisfying both sides, not only tournament guys. And still I'm not sure if they appreciate the way it was fixed.

If you don't like the points, don't use them. That's the whole point of the three different ways of play. You play the game how you want in your group ?

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2 minutes ago, Aryann said:

I just believe this problem could have been handled in a manner satisfying both sides, not only tournament guys. And still I'm not sure if they appreciate the way it was fixed.

Isn't one definition of compromise a solution in which neither party is happy?

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3 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

The fact that the points changes have been implemented to benefit competitive players shouldn't deter narrative and casual players from using battalions if they want to. Points are optional. If you're not a tournament player you have nothing to worry about - continue using the old battalion points if you want, or don't use points at all. AoS works fine without points for narrative and casual games - I played that way for a year after AoS was launched and had a great time, with lots of close and exciting battles.

I think there is too much dividing into two groups. Pros and casuals. Even if I don't go to tournaments I still expect interesting AND balanced gameplay. Why would I pick between those two? It can be both. It's not that i don't fit one group or the other. Just want the game to be fun. As all of us. 

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1 minute ago, Aryann said:

I just believe this problem could have been handled in a manner satisfying both sides, not only tournament guys. And still I'm not sure if they appreciate the way it was fixed.

There is the argument that what happens in competitive circles tends to influence casual circles, which I have a lot of sympathy for in cases where it limits the way people think about the game and restricts possibilities. But I really don't see it being a big issue in this particular case. Making battalions less of a 'must take' opens up more options for themed armies IMO, and has to be a good thing for narrative and casual players. We can't know yet if GW have gone too far and made battalions so unattractive that they're unusable. Just wait and see how it all works out.

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2 minutes ago, Aryann said:

I just believe this problem could have been handled in a manner satisfying both sides, not only tournament guys. And still I'm not sure if they appreciate the way it was fixed.

Thats fine for you to think that, but I think it was fixed using the right tool for the job (points). Especially given points are only really relavant to matched competitive play. 

I am glad that they have made the changes they did, I have always advocated that points are a perfrectly good tool for fixing balance and a stale metagame, and the changes in GHB17 and the overwhelmingly positive response to it show that most other players seem to feel the same way.  Battalions were always under costed, when you take into account that they give you a free artifact, reduce the number of drops (which gives a massive advantage on the tabletop) plus whatever the battalion does. Maybe 100 points wasnt the right increase, but the very best thing about AoS is that this stuff isn't set in stone. We play with GHB17 for a year and then next year GHB18 drops with further changes. If no one is using battalions any more they will drop in points, if they are still being used very heavily they may go up further. That is the beauty of the annual GHB system.

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5 minutes ago, Aryann said:

Hope you guys are right. I will give a try, those new points. Still believe they should have rather delete the option for dropping several units with battalions than making them expensive. But we will ckeck on that. 

I think even if you took the points associated with an artifact and a single drop out of the equation, many battalions were under-pointed. For example, and I’ll pick one that I know (those being very few), the Tzaangor Coven used to be 40 points, so relatively cheap. It conditionally allows the Tzaangor to pile in and attack in the hero phase, unconditionally add one to hit roles of the beak attack of said Tzaangor and conditionally add one to their wound roles. If there was a character that did this, he would cost more than 40 points and be much easier to kill. If you think about it in those terms there are very few characters that confer the kind of mass benefits that battalions do that cost under 100 points and they're far easier to snipe.

Probably not all of them were pointed in the same manner as the Tzaangor Coven and some were probably over-costed, but this is actually a fairly weak battalion compared to ones that include movement shenanigans and deep-striking.

If it's the theme that you like, you could still build your army to the battalion requirements and just not take the battalion. If the battalion was over-costed and fluffy anyway, then you made your army stronger by not taking it and kept your theme and now you can add allies for those points :)

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48 minutes ago, KnightFire said:

If your not interested in tournament play then why are you bothered what is in the matched play rules? They are specifically there for competitive tournament play.

No, they are for people who want structured games.  That's exactly what I was talking about before.  Matched Play is much more than "competitive tournament play" yet changes to help fix tournament balance will creep in to all matched play games (which, I maintain, are the majority of games played).  Changes good for tournaments should not necessarily affect all matched play games, only tournament matched play games.  There should IMHO be a differentiation between the two, so changes that make sense to curb tournament play don't necessarily affect the people who want to play a pickup game using points.   They are not the same thing.

Note I'm not saying I dislike these changes.  I don't (I think battalions were hit a bit too much in some cases).  I'm merely stating that there should be a divide between casual and tournament matched play, so changes good for one don't automatically affect the other.  When you look at events like SCGT and other high end (I would dare say "cutthroat") events, you need to have a stricter subset of the rules.  But they shouldn't affect all matched play games, yet how they are presented they will.

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30 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

Making battalions less of a 'must take' opens up more options for themed armies IMO, and has to be a good thing for narrative and casual players.

Yeah, because Stormhosts were not themed armies encouraging different styles of play with interesting but usually on-the-weak-side rules, right?

Now they will only be played by sensible players in points-free games.

I wanted to play a Roman-like heavy infantry force which rewarded me for keeping my troops in formation. Knights Excelsior gave me that. Now, I can't play them if I expect to win (not only in tournaments, people can also be competitive at home with friends) due to a full +200 tax.

This has killed a themed army and any incentive to keep that style of play. How is that good?

Please don't give me the "you have Open and Narrative to do whatever pleases you with the rules". I (and my group) don't want an unbalanced, free for all sandbox. We want some modicum of balance without resorting to everyone making up rules amendments and homemade point costs (and the rest disagreeing on them).

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8 minutes ago, DanielFM said:

Yeah, because Stormhosts were not themed armies encouraging different styles of play with interesting but usually on-the-weak-side rules, right?

Now they will only be played by sensible players in points-free games.

I wanted to play a Roman-like heavy infantry force which rewarded me for keeping my troops in formation. Knights Excelsior gave me that. Now, I can't play them if I expect to win (not only in tournaments, people can also be competitive at home with friends) due to a full +200 tax.

This has killed a themed army and any incentive to keep that style of play. How is that good?

Please don't give me the "you have Open and Narrative to do whatever pleases you with the rules". I (and my group) don't want an unbalanced, free for all sandbox. We want some modicum of balance without resorting to everyone making up rules amendments and homemade point costs (and the rest disagreeing on them).

I'm sorry that you feel that your personal army has been adversely affected by the change, but this in itself doesn't represent a damning indictment of the overall approach that GW has taken. There is no way that this change is anything but good overall for themed armies - bear in mind that most battalions don't appear to have been created with themes in mind, but rather as suggested ways of organising an army. Most of the genuinely thematic battalions don't even have points (e.g. Sons of Behemat). At most this change has killed your themed army, but even that is debatable. How many games have you played with the new rules and points so far?

Also, as has been pointed out above, if the theme is your main concern then there's nothing stopping you taking exactly the same army composition as before, but just not taking the battalion. Save those points and spend them elsewhere.

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10 minutes ago, wayniac said:

No, they are for people who want structured games.  That's exactly what I was talking about before.  Matched Play is much more than "competitive tournament play" yet changes to help fix tournament balance will creep in to all matched play games (which, I maintain, are the majority of games played).  Changes good for tournaments should not necessarily affect all matched play games, only tournament matched play games.  There should IMHO be a differentiation between the two, so changes that make sense to curb tournament play don't necessarily affect the people who want to play a pickup game using points.   They are not the same thing.

100x times that.

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Thing is we have 6 new Battle plans with new victory condition. Some old list may not have worked the people who do well at events for the next few months are the people who adapt their list fastest. I play Sythaneth and Bloodbound and have had do make major changes to both. 

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I think it is a brilliant move . Think about it. If people wants to play their batallions they will move into another range of points. AoS started at 1000-1500. Then moved to 1750-2000. More models. More cash. Battalions unusable ? Let's move to 2500. And so.

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