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new death battletome announced!


tea_wild_owl

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If you have big units, it's quite easy to keep your heroes away from harm and have the units still within 6" of them.

 

I'm an aspiring death general, having just played my first game with them and I'm Really interested in this release, it looks just much more interesting that the Death was before even without the most interesting parts shown yet. Partiualry the resummoning tied to the heroes is something that I had been wishing. Hopefully it is also available as a spell.

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LOL maybe they'll give us a command trait that says:

"Mortal wounds are for mere mortals, Death doesn't care. If your General picks this trait all DEATH models within 18 inch become immune to mortal wounds."

I would start laughing maniacally. :D

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18 minutes ago, Rahr said:

now that all got minus 1 to barveri that might be really big if they stack. for terrorghiast and banishs for some mortal wound out put we did not have before so hope they do

The banners do not stack with each other.  They do stack with other bravery reducing effects, but with nerfs to the SSC in the compendium, it's unclear yet whether there enough of those to make it work.  Morghasts have a leadership reducing bubble instead of buffing summoning spells now.  Personally, I would have preferred if they had the deathly invocation ability, but whatever.  Might get some bravery debuffs in spells.  I'm not sure how much total would be needed to make it worthwhile on screams alone, given that several competitive armies right now effectively ignore battleshock altogether, or just have a very high initial bravery to dig through.

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I believe it has been a thin line to balance the morale de-buffs combined with the banshee screams and such. If all of the banners would stack, it wouldn't be too hard to make really awful mortal wound combos. But with, say combined -2 to -3 to bravery, the screams can be quite nasty against something like the Stormcast, who don't have particularly high bravery to start with.

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I know we have to wait for all the rules but... man, I'm just not seeing what rules could plausibly save our heroes from being gunned down. The loss of deep-striking morghasts also stings pretty badly.

Unless we get some particularly strong bubble spell/ability I'm not sure how to deal with some of the cheesier Tzeench lists or Kroaknado.

I am glad that Black Knights got a little buff; I will never forget my first ever game where I sent my big, spooky knights charging into combat only to score zero wounds in two rounds of combat. 

Of course, now I'm gonna need to get a nightmare for my wight king so he can keep up with them...

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9 minutes ago, Throderick said:

I know we have to wait for all the rules but... man, I'm just not seeing what rules could plausibly save our heroes from being gunned down. The loss of deep-striking morghasts also stings pretty badly.

Unless we get some particularly strong bubble spell/ability I'm not sure how to deal with some of the cheesier Tzeench lists or Kroaknado.

Of course, now I'm gonna need to get a nightmare for my wight king so he can keep up with them...

As a Seraphon player I should probably be happy (although I don't play Kroaknado) but I am really not. That's just... Maybe we really lack information. I don't want to believe that GW would do something like that to us. The imbalance seems so obvious. There has to be something we don't see (yet).

What I fear is: Many armies deal mortal wounds left and right, and it seems for GW balancing means giving that ability to everyone.
So we get an incredibly deadly game which basically means that whoever shoots first wins. And that's NOT what I want.

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10 minutes ago, Aginor said:

As a Seraphon player I should probably be happy (although I don't play Kroaknado) but I am really not. That's just... Maybe we really lack information. I don't want to believe that GW would do something like that to us. The imbalance seems so obvious. There has to be something we don't see (yet).

What I fear is: Many armies deal mortal wounds left and right, and it seems for GW balancing means giving that ability to everyone.
So we get an incredibly deadly game which basically means that whoever shoots first wins. And that's NOT what I want.

I typically play against (read: lose to) a Seraphon player. I have to imagine these changes to Death, absent some very very impressive allegiance abilities, are going to make him happy.

At least getting nuked by a dead frog or a lazer-ankylosaurus is kind of hilarious.

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20 minutes ago, Sception said:

You'll want three wight kings to average the same wound restoring power that their free banner used to grant.

I hope there's a lot of point-balancing going on. If Skeleton Warriors (e.g.) don't get significantly cheaper... I don't know how we will be able to compete given the cost of multiple hero supports.

Are there any other factions that are this reliant on support from hero units? I am struggling to think of any right now.

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20 minutes ago, RoyalDachshund said:

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So, at this point, only a trait that somehow negates/redirects MW can save us?

Near about.  I mean, if we get 5++ deathless minions back that... might make a difference?  Probably not enough of one to keep our heroes on the table.  There have been a lot of positive changes to the core rules of AoS since its release, but the proliferation of spammable long range mortal wounds among several battle tomes in the last year really feels like it's more than undercut any improvements the core rules might have made so far or could even conceivably make in the future.  For armies that don't either shrug mortal wounds, spam them themselves, or both, it's just not a game worth playing.  Even for those that do, it's far to much of a coin flip victory based on first turn.

The same problem is playing out in 40k, a game with a dramatically better core rule set, but where the overwhelming firepower available, mortal based or otherwise, reduces the game to a who-shoots-first coin flip that just isn't worth playing.

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Trying to fix that by putting stuff that beats the last great thing to new battletomes would just lead to an arms race, which would result to an even worse situation.

 

Also aren't the Stormcast also very dependant on the heroes, which bring the staunch defender, the battleshock immunity, the stardrake and a lot more of the abilities that seem to make the army from collection of warscrolls to a good force? Or well, almost every army of the game to some extent.

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You know what might have been cool? A rule similar to that of Reanimation Protocols for Necrons. Each turn roll a dice for each missing miniature on a unit and on a specific number they come back. And then you'd have heroes buff that RP roll somehow or even allow it to be done twice once a game or something. That way you depend on heroes to get consistent regen like they seem to want but if they get sniped off the board the units still retain some capabilities on their own.

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I'm not sure the fluff has changed, but it has always been part of Undead in Warhammer and it's spinoffs, that undead are mostly incapable of doing anything without their heroes. Back in the day the whole army started crumbling from the table after the death of the general. So from that point the rules are a. according to the theme of the army and b. much less harsh what they used to be.

 

(And before anyone says, they were balanced by the free summoning and ridiculously good benefits of fear, which were actually so good that the Undead/VC were always one of the best armies in the game, even with very severe drawbacks.)

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25 minutes ago, Sception said:

The same problem is playing out in 40k, a game with a dramatically better core rule set, but where the overwhelming firepower available, mortal based or otherwise, reduces the game to a who-shoots-first coin flip that just isn't worth playing.

How is it dramatically better? Its basically the same game with a more variable to wound roll which is actually a worse mechanic the minute  you introduce +1 to wound buffs into the game. The fact you can't shoot Bobby G if he has a guardsman standing closer to you is ludicrous and the missions are inferior to the AoS matched play ones.

I like the chargers go first mechanic in 40k and don't like being able to shoot out of combat at a unit half a table away in AoS. On the whole I think they are very similar rule sets in terms of quality - neither is perfect and both have plus points and minus points.

The "who goes first wins" problem is easily solved by having lots of big terrain on the table while leaving long open "lanes" in between so you don't over correct and make heavy weapons useless. (EDIT - In 40k)

I completely agree we have seen too many armies with multiple saving throws and too many long range sources of mortal wounds in AoS over the last few releases but I think its a bit extreme to say the game is unplayable.

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1 minute ago, Jamopower said:

I'm not sure the fluff has changed, but it has always been part of Undead in Warhammer and it's spinoffs, that undead are mostly incapable of doing anything without their heroes. Back in the day the whole army started crumbling from the table after the death of the general. So from that point the rules are a. according to the theme of the army and b. much less harsh what they used to be.

 

(And before anyone says, they were balanced by the free summoning and ridiculously good benefits of fear, which were actually so good that the Undead/VC were always one of the best armies in the game, even with very severe drawbacks.)

Sure, but in 7th/8th Heroes could at least hide from shooting.  In AoS there is nowhere to hide.

I'm struggling to figure out how this army will work.

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14 minutes ago, Sception said:

For armies that don't either shrug mortal wounds, spam them themselves, or both, it's just not a game worth playing

That's why I am a very concerned person right now. I see it when I compare the armies I play (Seraphon, Deathrattle, and a bit of Sylvaneth).

 

Right now I am hoping for the following traits/allegiance abilities/spells

- Something to deal with mortal wounds . Like improving the save from 6 to 5 or a anti-mortal-wound-bubble spell or something.
- Something buffing the reanimation, like rerolls, doubling rolls, making it happen before battleshock instead or something like that.
- Something to heal heroes (like the old Heinrich Kemmler spell) OR transfer their wounds and mortal wounds to Skeletons. or maybe kill own skeletons and heal heroes with that energy. Or bring some mortal guys with the death army and kill those.

I hope they don't make Death another deep strike army although of course that would help. But it would be the "flip coin who wins" thing I guess and I don't want that. I like Death as the "mighty glacier" army. I hate how Nurgle got fast because they were the other mighty glacier.

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They were balanced by summoning, fear, fearlessness, the fact that your heroes could join units, making it very hard to target them at all, and even outside of units they could be considerably more durable than we generally see now.

As for how 40k is variable:

variable to wound rolls allows for better functioning of larger models, as well as more variety in kinds of offense.  No double turns.  charge-goes-first rules make positioning & timing more important.  No standing on other model's bases.  Wording on rules in general is clearer, even for stuff that in practice works the same.  No sniping infantry heroes.  The fact that a trebuchet can pick out one particular dude out of an entire army's worth of dudes in AoS is what's really ridiculous.  And entirely apart from realism, this is supposed to be a game of heroic fantasy, not a real world simulation engine where important people never approach the front lines.

Not as much a core rule thing, but the kind of terrain commonly found in 40k can actually block line of sight, there's relatively little terrain in AoS that even does so.  You can have a board absolutely lousy with terrain in AoS and still have no hope of hiding even lone models, let alone units.

 

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Yeah the shooting is one thing. But I don't think it as a flaw of the undead, but more of a flaw of the few units that are bit too good and thus can dictate the whole game. I'm lucky that I play in an environment that is quite casual and we don't have any problems with this massed mortal wound sniping thing. If there would, I probably wouldn't play this game at all. 40k around here is very different, being very competitive, and I have stopped playing it many years ago, because it just isn't worth it. The game is just an expensive list building exercise. With moderate shooting bias, AoS is a great game with lots of tactical depth, but with lots of ranged attacks, it becomes 40k with a rules system that is even less suited for a shooting game.

 

That said, there are many active tournament players involved in the design of AoS and based on the battletomes they have been putting out, they have learned from their mistakes, so I wouldn't lose hope before we actually know even half of the actual content of the book, let alone without playing any games with it.

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In a game that has circa 200 units that you can combine almost limitless and about 20 factions that get bonuses when certain units are fileded together, with limitless amount of different scenarios, you can playtest 'til the end of world and there can be stuff that has not been thought about. That's why they are now revising the stuff few times per year.

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I actually introduced 40k to a group of AoS players where I live. It's getting hard to motivate any of them to play AoS anymore because of how stupid the shooting rules in this game are. The game sadly feels incredibly inferior to where 40k is at now, both in how weapon damage is handled, shooting can be locked down AND how characters/heroes are protected against these silly ranged units....

Having an army that relies on extremely easy to kill heroes, coupled with no real ranged units of our own is always going to keep death from playing along with the top  dog lists... The core rules are just sort of stacked against us to begin with. 

But I remain cautiously optimistic that these summoning rules can at least be better than the previous iteration. I'm pretty sure that's why GA:D is in the book to adres all summoning and possibly all spells for the faction too.  A simple spell to protect a hero from firepower (a shrouding if you will) would solve all our woes. 

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