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GH2017: the honeymoon is over


WoollyMammoth

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7 hours ago, someone2040 said:

If there's anything to be critical about, IMO it's more on the models side than the rules side. We haven't had a single new model release since Kharadron Overlords in April (including from Forgeworld). That's 1/3 of the year without any new models. That's pretty abysmal. And while we have gotten content, the models have been rehashed boxed sets (Skirmish Sets, Allies sets, and now Firestorm Great Cities sets). 

This is where I am at myself.  I was all set to get into 40K too!  But the local players are either ultra-competitive, meta-chasing, powergamers, or are Narrative players with poor hygiene and take the rules way too seriously.

So it's pretty much just AoS for me anymore.  Simple rules, interesting stories, and fun games.  Works for me, especially since I'm a bigger fan of fantasy than sci-fi anyways.  Hopefully GW will start pushing out some more new stuff.

And wait a second, we did get new models!  The two new characters from Blightwar count, don't they?  ;)

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Having played all legacy armies that had no special abilities, this has been a godsend.

I guess if you were already meta chasing it would be disapointing. Or if you expected major rule shifts, which many on these forums did. 

I have been busy, but I still got 3 games in so far and I love the changes. They were gradual but changed the definition of what a prime army composition can be. With some battleline if changes and abilities for my armies now, I feel good.

I can see how say, death players have a case to argue for neglect, and i concur. I really want death to expand so I can make an army too.

Order is best off, followed by non skaven chaos then destruction.

I have already dropped money on more models for my Free Guild and Dispossessed armies, so I feel the excitement. Lets hope the skirmish game is cool and we all get new models.

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3 hours ago, wayniac said:

People are still salty that they didn't change the spammy shooting meta,

What are you talking about? Have you seen a Kurnoth Hunter Pew Pew list since then. Even Skyfires were (insufficiently) nerfed.

KO have been hit hard too. 

Also Khorne and Ironjawz are looking good now.

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10 minutes ago, Auticus said:

I think that they can do better than the 3-4 builds that are typical of GW games the past 15-20 years in terms of viable factions though.  

In viewing how the UK does tournaments, I wish that I lived over there.  The scenarios and what not enforce comp a lot better over there, from what I read here and on twitter and other forums.   Scenarios that punish extreme builds I think would go a long way, and actually being able to have terrain that blocks line of sight not be a rarity and not be able to fire willy nilly into combats would put a dint on spam shooty armies.

I fully agree. I guess it remains to be seen what builds are going to emerge. I'd say there was a lot more than 3-4 builds that were competitively viable in GH16 though!

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What, the honeymoon is already over? I have had the time to play just a single game.

But it was a great game, open war cards were great addition. The New allegiances have made me buy a lot of lizardmen, a nee death army and a bunch of additions for my Slaanesh army. The New realmsgate wars scenarios are just waiting to be played and the New matched play scenarios look also fun and don't get me started on the triumph and treachery. I can't wait I have the opportunity to test it for the first time.

 

So in a nutshell, a great book again. With my available time there will be enough content for the whole year without having to play two games that are the same.

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I am, and really have always been, a "competitive" player. But again, you have to recognize that there are different types of competitive players, and big shifts in the meta once a year will hurt certain types more than others. 

Players like me, that have been playing for 10+ years will be more likely to "roll with the punches" of the meta-shift because we have extensive collections. I have units that have sat on the shelf since the 5th edition Wood Elves book from WHFB. Players that have been plying and collecting for a while have units that were good, then bad, then really good, then sort of in-between (like Chaos chosen). We expect units and builds will go in and out of style as points values shift and new units/armies enter the competitive scene. 

Then there is the other type of competitive player. The one who goes out and buys complete armies because they won the last big tournament. The one that sells off "non-competeive armies/builds" as soon as something better/more powerful comes along. You know: "That guy."

Competitive is also relative term. I have always felt that the tier ranking of armies in terms of how "competitive" they were in tournaments is an artificial way to look at how good certain builds/armies are. I say that because I have frequently beat "tournament winning" builds with less optimized armies. There have also been times I've played a more optimized army that wins 4/5 matches, but there will always be the 1 out of 5 times you fail an short charge or an opponent rolled surprising high for a dispel on a key spell. I stand by my statement that there are (almost) no bad units in AoS, and you can find place for nearly everything in a competitive list. 

In terms of the changes between GHB16 and 17, it really seems to me that there were two types of changes:

1. Hard balance changes (such as Frostlord)

2. Reenforcing design concepts for army playstyles. 

#1 is one is how we normally think of balance changes; Adjusting units/mechanics that are disproportionally strong for their points, or units that are appropriately pointed, but are so desirable or easy to use in a wide variety of Meta's that they exclude all other possible choices. 

But the changes along the line #2 are the most interesting to me, because it's something we haven't seen for GW at this point. In WHFB, armies were more or less locked into their play style because of their codexes. But with army construction in AoS, I think a lot of armies were hitting the table (and dominating match play) in way that the designers had not intended. I think things like this explains some of the more puzzling army-wide changes. For example, the raising of Kurnoth Hunters for Sylvaneth but the points reduction for nearly everything else, and the inclusion of Wanderers as allies. I see that as the designers saying "We do not want to you to build a Hunters gunline army for Sylvaneth. If you want shooting, we will allow you a certain amount of "ranged support" but it shouldn't be your primary damage dealing tactic." Likewise the changes to Sayal say to me, "We do not want super-buffed bloodletters to be both ultra-killy and fast. There has to be some trade-off."

Also, we can hem and haw and be armchair-designers and say "GW should have known better", but in a game with as much unit interaction as AoS (and will so many legal ways to build armies) it would be impossible to see every interaction in every context. I made a comment when the GHB2017 came out that this edition is really the first fully-fleshed out handbook. Just like software designers consider every piece of software Beta before the first patch, GHB2016 was really just a huge beta-test of points/rules for AoS in matched play. The GHB2017 is our first patch, and gives us our first look at what the designers intend AoS to look like in matched play. 

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1 hour ago, Mirage8112 said:

Competitive is also relative term. I have always felt that the tier ranking of armies in terms of how "competitive" they were in tournaments is an artificial way to look at how good certain builds/armies are. I say that because I have frequently beat "tournament winning" builds with less optimized armies. There have also been times I've played a more optimized army that wins 4/5 matches, but there will always be the 1 out of 5 times you fail an short charge or an opponent rolled surprising high for a dispel on a key spell. I stand by my statement that there are (almost) no bad units in AoS, and you can find place for nearly everything in a competitive list. 

Very well put post, I agree with everything. I especially think this paragraph is a good point - in my opinion, tournament wins are much more about the players than they are about the builds. Certain players do very well consistently, even if they don't always play the most optimized lists, whereas others get mediocre results despite playing pure netlists. It's much more about how the units are utilized on the table than it is about which exact units are on the table.

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This is not intended as a competitive discussion. I mentioned some things that remain unchanged as a point that the GH did not deliver on what a lot of people wanted. My opinion regarding the competitive side of the GH:2017 is they did a lot of really great things to mix up the meta, and I'm interested to see what happens in the tournament scene.

You cannot compare magic to AoS; if you like that kind of competition, you should be playing MTG instead. Shadespire is GW's attempt to break into that more competitive market. AoS is about beautiful models and enjoying wargaming on a 3D scale. It will always be very far off from having a realistic competitive scene like MTG.
 

11 hours ago, Nico said:

The Delusions are extremely weak - rerolling 1s to hit is a bad buff - less than 1/6 extra damage and particularly bad on hit rolls of 4+.  It's not even on all the time - making it even weaker. Furthermore there are other reroll hit buffs in the army - so it's duplicative too.

This forces you to take the reroll saves of 1 delusion - which is meh for an army with a core 5+ save army.

This wouldn't be so bad were Feeding Frenzy not so awful. Things that work on a 6 are not something you can plan on and this particular one is only triggered after a fairly infrequent thing happens (compared to say Unforgettable Destruction for Chaos).

Artefacts are materially worse than Cursed Book and Ring.

Really disappointed by FEC as they needed the biggest boost.

I felt the same way about delusions - but I'm coming around. Sure they aren't amazing, but they are part of a triad of rules that make up one allegiance. 

First of all Crusading Army is my pick for the best over Defenders - never having to worry about 1s to run and charge is a big deal in a melee only army that is running and charging all day. Defenders can be amazing for keeping your mounted GK alive. Yesterday I was doing Royal Hunt and it was amazing - its freeing not having to keep a GK near your ghouls. there are a lot of armies that have a lot of monsters, especially heroes on monsters.  Grand Tournament is amazing for Ghoul Patrol - you can now ambush from the back of the board and still have your standard ghoul attacks. The really great thing about these is that they affect your monsters - a terrorgheist re-rolling hits and wounds of 1 in a monster mash is very, very good.

An important note about dilusions is you  can pick a new general, so they last throughout the game, whereas a list reliant on the VLoZD falls apart very fast when he is targeted down. With the right dilusion, you can still be bringing the hurt even when the ghoul kings go down.

Feeding frenzy is annoying. It would be fun to make a feast day/savage beyond reason VLoZD then charge him into a couple units and see what happens. with 5+ rerolling 1s, there is a reasonably decent chance for a double pile in on your dragon, which is pretty insane. Overall this is the most disappointing. There are several ways this could have been something we are excited about, rather than disappointed:

- if their attacks result in any models being slain, roll a 6+
- If their attacks result in a unit being wiped out, pile in or get a free move if there are no enemies within 3"
- if their attacks result in a unit being wiped out, roll a 4+

Hopefully it gets FAQ'd to be more useful.

The artifacts are not bad. Cursed book is terrible when playing against Death. The ring is somewhat comparable to the D6 heal. Most of them can be useful. 

I don't agree that FEC 'needed the biggest boost' they are pretty decent. Death overall just needs a big boost. 
 

7 hours ago, Arkiham said:

it costs 100 points..it used to be free, those 100 points can be alot to some armies, even in ones who leave points for summoning they are often used for summoning a unit to capture the objective instead of the balewind.

exploit a melee only who failed to bring a list to deal with a variety of threats ?  well yes you could.   is that down to poor list design or the warscroll? if i take nothing to deal with ranged threats behind a meatwall should all ranged threats then be banned? 

deal damage on the first turn.. what like catapults, skyfires, most long range shooting things, summoning could do if they make the charge, frost tusks, cannons, sayl, alpha strike lists.... seems like a large part of the game that. 

the balewind is strong in a tzeentch army, as that army is kinda designed around spells.

but spells are once per turn, like shooting, but in your hero phase,. unlike shooting you have to be within range first and cant move forward

So most of the time the enemy army has already positioned themselves how they want to be, if you arent within range turn 1, and get doubled turned that'll be 4 combat phases 4! before that squishy wizard can do anything. which they could fail, have dispelled or only do like 1 mortal wound. at least with shooting you can move then shoot before being doubled turned. and the enemy cant stop that, 

The 100 points wasn't a nerf, it was a massive buff - without it it would be banned for the most part.  Giving it a points value made it a 'real' thing so it can be legitimately used. 

Say what you will, a lot of people don't like the vortex and was hoping for a nerf in the GH:2017, and it did not deliver. 

 

 

 

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Ghb 2017 was never going to live up to the hype because since, when, January? , We've been holding onto it to fix all the problems.

I think it's about as good at it could be. It's fixed a few issues but I don't think it's revolutionary. Allies is Ok but is the first step on getting rid of grand alliance armies. The matched play battleplans are a bit ******. I think a lot of us were hoping to have twelve usable battleplans but a fair few are rehashes of older plans.

Its fine, certainly not the game changer that ghb 1 was, but probably never was going to be 

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The "honeymoon" definitely isn't over for me. I think the 2017 edition was fantastic and I continue to be hyped about it for several reasons. For reference, I don't really have a main army but I play Death, Sylvaneth, Legion of Azgorh and mixed Order with an emphasis on elves. By all rights I should be pretty bummed for several reasons:

  • Death content was nice but not enough to "make" the faction
  • Sylvaneth changes were so-so. Battalion nerfs hurt a lot, and my #1 desired ally (Phoenix Temple) didn't make it
  • Legion of Azgorh got no allegiance pack
  • None of the High Elf factions got allegiance packs

So why am I still really happy about GHB2017? Several reasons, in rough order of importance (to me):

  • Balance changes are a step in the right direction. GW is clearly trying to tighten up pointing, and while this pass certainly isn't perfect it did way better than I expected. Balance is usually an iterative process and it can take many attempts to really find a groove. Wizards of the Coast is pretty excellent at balancing and they still make mistakes even after decades of designing Magic. The amount of progress in just one year shows that GW is actually trying, which to me is the biggest takeaway. For a really long time GW was extremely cavalier about balance. The fact that they are taking it more seriously is huge.
  • Taken along with the FAQs and compendium updates, GW has also shown a real effort to tighten up their rules writing. There's plenty of room to improve further, but again it's the direction that matters more to me.
  • The allegiance content was generally good. A lot of the new packs are quite promising, not just ones like Seraphon and Fyreslayers. Slaanesh is really good, and I think Free Peoples have a lot of potential. The Soulblight package is nice, even if the faction itself isn't super competitive. There were only a few that I find really disappointing.  I was expecting far more duds.
  • Supplemental rules like the various battleplans, open war cards etc. are good content. Not all are perfect, of course, but again that is to be expected. I actually played a 3 player game a couple of weeks back and it was a lot of fun. A little clunky, sure, but better than expected. 

 

If one was expecting GHB2017 to fix every issue with AOS and undo decades of GW being... lax... about game design, then I can see why the book was a disappointment. From my perspective, I see a company that is making remarkable progress.

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I think I'm just burnt out on AoS, I've been playing two games a week. That combined with my continual depression regarding death content. All I want is new death models, while waiting I've started 5 different armies to try and enjoy new models, but it's just not the same and I'm just selling them off now. I'm just continually in a bad place despite having tons of armies.

- I love my Skaven but I prefer Verminous which didn't get anything in the new GH. I don't really get Skyre - Acolytes basically don'y exist and what damage do you even want to double with their new rule? All the good stuff is mortal wounds which is not damage that can be doubled. Plus the only new Skaven model in 3 years is the Deathrunner which is cool but got really weird and non-useful rules.
- Nighthaunt and Soulblight is just not enough. They are not even half-armies. I have played 1000 point games but these armies do not have enough models for me to really love them. And why the %#$& is the Mortis Engine not a Nighthaunt!!??????????
- My mixed death lists were great .. but they have been ended with the new GH.
- My Stormcast are still great, they have always gotten a lot of love if not in the GH, but I only go through short phases with them.
- I have a ton of Nurgle stuff but they are mostly disjointed and not a lot of fun to play right now - they need some serous updates.

Some armies got some really great stuff with the new allegiances that make them exciting to play, the only thing I got was FEC which is half nice, half WTF?

Meanwhile Death guard is raining content, 100 new incredible models with amazing rules, its all so so good. Its hard not to get pulled away from AoS in this position. I don't even know if I'll get into the game, 40k has always been more quantity, less quality with the community. 3/4 players play some form of the space marines, which is always the same army in a different color (and that color is gray 9/10 times). Half the time people just want to talk philosophy or brag about their combos and players are far more likely to be over competitive.  Iove  the old world and new world AoS lore, am always reading some AoS book but I cannot get into 40k lore at all. I read some codexes in the past, and they were cute but nothing like AoS reads. Regardless the new models are so beautiful I am willing to overlook this and just enjoy painting them.

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For me and the community here, I think the only limp ****** on the honeymoon was the release of 8th edition 40K. GH17 brought back some of the buzz from pre-40K. This isn't in any way surprising as a lot of the AoS players here used to play 40K. I hope some of them come back when the dust settles.

This thread for me really highlights the low self esteem of the AoS community. Since the release of AoS, and even more so the first Generals Handbook, variations of this debate seem to pop up every week. It's like two clingy people desperately keeping their relationship alive - "is it still good, are we happy, we ARE happy, surely?" If this comes from all the negativity at the end of WHF or from the fact that it is a young community, I don't know. But I do find it a bit sad. Is the interest in AoS really so shallow that a month - a mere month! - of GH17 triggers this debate? 

There has got to be hundreds of versions of lists out there that haven't been played yet. Hundreds and hundreds of possible outcomes of scenarios and match- ups. And way, waaayy before all those are tried and tested GW will have released new battle tomes, models, FAQ:s etc. 

I kinda wish people would read Ben's thread about all the negativity around here, and drop the complaining and just get out there and play the game. 

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1 hour ago, Ratatatata said:

For me and the community here, I think the only limp ****** on the honeymoon was the release of 8th edition 40K. GH17 brought back some of the buzz from pre-40K. This isn't in any way surprising as a lot of the AoS players here used to play 40K. I hope some of them come back when the dust settles.

Exactly. 40K happened, and at least over here much of the new blood were former 40k's which have understandably jumped back to their main game, while old blood are still locked in the different rank-and-file games.

Give them a few months while the new shiny syndrome goes away and hopefully they'll be back (I personally refuse to take up 40K again).

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For me I found the narrative section to be really weak in the GHB17.  The battle plans are just a few from the campaign books and not even the best ones.  The siege rules were from All-Gates and were improved.  The times of war were ok.   Some good ones and some misses.

 

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In the beginning there was the old world... and it exploded.

Then there was the barren wastelands of no points & no scenarios and the game was doomed until an intrepid band of individuals came along and designed a points system & scenarios.  The golden time of freedom and choice.

Then GHB 2016 came out, apparently it saved AOS (personally I thought it stuck a bunch of pointless limitations upon us) and gave us traits & items for characters and official scenarios.

Each army book then turned up the ante further and further until even characters mounts started getting traits and balance was destroyed by the shooting meta and underpointed filth units.

And lo unto us did the great overseer GW release GHB 2017 and there was much rejoicing.  Only it didn't really change the fundamentals of the game and it just moved the goalposts a little and everyone did grumble.

 

 

Overall I think there is a bit of player expectations are off base with what the GHB is meant to do.  What GHB's annual update is:

  • A rebasing of unit points
  • A change/rebalancing of scenarios
  • A rebalancing of armies (adding in traits for those that don't)

What it isn't:

  • A change of game rules
  • A change of model scroll rules
  • making the game balanced

 

I'm not a huge fan of the battleline, heroes & monsters limitations, I felt the game worked just fine without having those in place.  All they do is place unnecessary limits on army construction.

I'm also not a fan of the army traits & items.  Staunch defender & mirror shield are the easiest way of evidencing this.  Both are clearly more powerful than the other options out there so become no brainer and then they skew builds & matchups even further from the core came (0+ save stardrake and pretty much impossible to shoot off the buff character is not great army design).

 

Does any of this stop me from enjoying the game, hell no.  Does this influence the armies I choose to paint and play, nah not really.  Am I hugely invested in AOS and have multiple armies under each grand alliance so overall the change in GHB/points means I'm not that fussed, yup.

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I think there was an expectation that GHB2017 was going to be a huge shift to the game as a whole. In a way, it did create a shift, but in a very subtle way - things like Free Peoples getting lateral buffs makes them not straight up stronger, but stronger against certain meta armies, which brings them up overall. Lots of things like that are going on.

But I think the point of the yearly incremental GHB is not to shake the game wildly, make everything in perfect balance and harmony, etc, but rather just to do small changes that deal with serious outliers and provide new flavor. I can see that not being enough to reinvigorate the love of the game if you're already bored, so you should evaluate what bores you about the game in general and not blame the book. Not every game is for every person. I love AoS - loved it before GHB2017, still love it now - but it's not for everyone, especially if you're playing it semi-seriously.

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1 hour ago, Auticus said:

There are reams of pages of threads and replies on what a lot of people were hoping for.  Some of them are very complex.  Others not so much.  An example would be not being able to fire into melee combat.  Thats not very complex.  Or removing random initiative or having the official option of a match that is set turn over.  Again, not so complex.

 

probably more complex than it seems. unit costs battalion costs etc etc, its like a complete rewrite of the game

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

If it were an optional set of rules you could use, that would go a long way.

it is. its house rules.

Like how base to base is house rules.


The reason it hasn't become the " standard " is because obviously the majority of people do not want it.

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Yeah I agree with Arkiham. If you change the base rules of the game, even if they're optional, you ****** up points values and lots of other balancing things. Some Warscrolls may even need to be FAQ'd/rewritten to work with the new rules (look at poor Kroak with just the Rule of One). 

I understand not liking every aspect of the rules - heck I don't like everything about the game and I'm a huge fanboy. But I don't understand being upset that they didn't change things that they clearly were never going to change.

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Played my second post gh17 game today, using open war cards and free peoples allegiance, vs stormcasts with an allied dragon lord. Was awesome!

Between the unbalanced deployment, crazy twists (got double or nothing: no battleshock and wrath of the gods), random objective (treasure hunt), and the wild card allies (ok i took a hurricanum), the game felt very reactive - my layered defence of overlapping hit buffs went out the window on turn 1 when some liberators on the far flank found the treasure right away!

Both of us had to rush to the far flank, our hard units annihilated each other (dragon and concussors vs griffon general and demigryphs) and with double turns swinging back and forth it went right to the wire (i got hold the line off with my halberdiers and handgunners in combat around the treasure and managed to do enough damage to break the back of the stormcasts - if i hadnt got the initiative my mortal men would have been butchered by liberators!)

The only downside was, with the forces of Order at war with each other, their enemies grow stronger!

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17 hours ago, Auticus said:

Kind of like...how the game plays very differently if you don't use the official rule of measuring model to model?  But no one has a problem doing that and claiming points are suddenly wrong ;)

Measuring distance x to distance y is vastly different to changing the entire games mechanics and you know it..

 

Also measuring base to base was already extremely well established before generals handbook even mentions it, also it's literally under house rules section of it as an example 

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