Balewind Vortex - Bad for the game?

[Richelieu]

5 hours ago, Aginor said:

Sooooo any Seraphon players in your area?

EDIT
Further thoughts: Seraphon have, like, two competitive lists: Kroaknado and Thunderquake.
Without the BWV one of them (the better one) is basically dead.

Tzeentch can live without the Balewind very well.

Kroaknado lists require 800 points (Kroak, Astrolith and the BWV) to really work. That's really expensive. I fail to see how those are OP although I see the following problem: if you change your IJ army to include BS archers to counter it, your army becomes SO much worse against other armies that you probably can just go home instead of playing...

I know this is just a single data point, but Robert Sedgeman finished higher on average than all but 4 other lists with a non-Kroak, Sunclaw starhost at the UK Masters.

[heywoah_twitch]

It's a great, flavorful, cool option that really lets the wizardry of the game affect the table in neat ways. It's super cool that you can take this in your army and your wizard is now a badass. Problem is the rules for the vortex are just laughably overpowered. Cheeky 3" move for models in front of it is fine (I think it's a cool little clever use of game mechanics).

Total melee immunity and doubling the range of spells feel like off the cuff magic wish session of rules writing from the height of the 'AoS won't even have points and anyone can do anything just smash your toy men together' period of the game. Get this terrain some reasonable rules like a profile so melee can attack and kill the vortex, -1 to hit the mage at range, +2 to cast while on it, 1D6" extra range, and reduce its cost to like a 'rounding out your list' cost of 40/60. 

Doubling the range is too exploitative, and warps the quality of corner-case spells the game over, and of course, total melee immunity is too cut and dry for armies that don't enjoy the absolute privilege of easy access to well-costed and powerful ranged (which is already arguably too good). It's possible to counter it with most factions, but you have the unenviable choice between a sizeable chunk of your army being overcosted and weak ranged or running a solid list and being dead to this one random overpowered terrain piece.

I'm hearing a lot of this kind of thing in the thread:

"Just point your awesome ranged guys that are always good that you have at the wizard."

"I don't have access to that."

"Oh, well just add your faction's really bad and expensive ranged/allies to all your lists, and then maybe kill the wizard over 3 turns if they survive and can get in range and hit, while just being worse in all non-vortex matchups. Problem solved."

"T-thanks."

[Aginor]

6 minutes ago, Richelieu said:

I know this is just a single data point, but Robert Sedgeman finished higher on average than all but 4 other lists with a non-Kroak, Sunclaw starhost at the UK Masters.

Yeah it gives me some hope. I really applaud him for that great achievement. Although I admit I am not keen on painting 60 more Saurus to recreate such a list...

I have a horde army already (Skeletons) and would like to not play my Seraphon that way.

[someone2040]

5 hours ago, Aginor said:

Sooooo any Seraphon players in your area?

EDIT
Further thoughts: Seraphon have, like, two competitive lists: Kroaknado and Thunderquake.
Without the BWV one of them (the better one) is basically dead.

Tzeentch can live without the Balewind very well.

Kroaknado lists require 800 points (Kroak, Astrolith and the BWV) to really work. That's really expensive. I fail to see how those are OP although I see the following problem: if you change your IJ army to include BS archers to counter it, your army becomes SO much worse against other armies that you probably can just go home instead of playing...

So I'm not going to join in the argument, but I'll just say this:

It's a super poor excuse to defend something that is obviously causing grief on the basis that "It kills one of Seraphons only competitive lists". It stinks of the same defense people used to say about the Death and Destruction allegiance abilities - "Oh they should be OP because those Grand Alliances are weak". It might balance itself out in the equation overall, but it still leads to poor experiences when that OP thing runs wild.

The correct answer should always be nerf the stuff that is OP and you work at balancing the rest of the army to raise the power level (or decrease the power level of the other top tier builds if it's the case that they're over performing).

[Aginor]

28 minutes ago, someone2040 said:

So I'm not going to join in the argument, but I'll just say this:

It's a super poor excuse to defend something that is obviously causing grief on the basis that "It kills one of Seraphons only competitive lists". It stinks of the same defense people used to say about the Death and Destruction allegiance abilities - "Oh they should be OP because those Grand Alliances are weak". It might balance itself out in the equation overall, but it still leads to poor experiences when that OP thing runs wild.

The correct answer should always be nerf the stuff that is OP and you work at balancing the rest of the army to raise the power level (or decrease the power level of the other top tier builds if it's the case that they're over performing).

I agree actually. But since balance isn't going to happen I'll take what I can get if it means I can win then. The BWV is far from OP in my opinion. Not in comparison with some of the ridiculously broken stuff.

Hypothetically speaking here, I haven't played a Kroaknado list yet as I don't see it as fun to play. I have used the Vortex with Starpriests and normal Slann and it is mediocre at best with those.

[someone2040]

1 minute ago, Aginor said:

I agree actually. But since balance isn't going to happen I'll take what I can get if it means I can win then. The BWV is far from OP in my opinion. Not in comparison with some of the ridiculously broken stuff.

Hypothetically speaking here, I haven't played a Kroaknado list yet as I don't see it as fun to play. I have used the Vortex with Starpriests and normal Slann and it is mediocre at best with those.

Well, balance will happen, but it's more likely further away for Seraphon than it is for the Balewind.

It wouldn't surprise me for example, if GW come out with some Trial Rules that impact the Balewind Vortex in some way for some upcoming major tournament (Perhaps SCGT again? or Adepticon?). The Seraphon points adjustments likely won't happen until GHB2018 (Which I would guess is still 7-8 months away).

What this may mean, is yes, Seraphon may dip out of the top tier meta for a while due to changes to the Balewind, but hopefully it's not for long. But who knows, changes to the Balewind might come with other adjustments (Like to Vanguard Wing or unkillable Fyreslayers), so it's hard to predict how the meta may shift as we tend to look at only one change in a vacuum.

[Kirjava13]

I'm curious: in-universe, how is it justified that shooting arrows at the Balewind Vortex can "hurt" it, but hitting it with swords doesn't? Unless I've really misunderstood something...

[Richelieu]

9 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said:

I'm curious: in-universe, how is it justified that shooting arrows at the Balewind Vortex can "hurt" it, but hitting it with swords doesn't? Unless I've really misunderstood something...

You shoot the wizard standing on top of it.  Said wizard is out of melee reach.  You can't actually attack the vortex itself.

[Nico]

Quote

Doubling the range is too exploitative, and warps the quality of corner-case spells the game over, and of course, total melee immunity is too cut and dry for armies that don't enjoy the absolute privilege of easy access to well-costed and powerful ranged (which is already arguably too good). It's possible to counter it with most factions, but you have the unenviable choice between a sizeable chunk of your army being overcosted and weak ranged or running a solid list and being dead to this one random overpowered terrain piece.

As you even admit - ranged shooting threat has gotten better as well. Kurnoths once blew everyone’s minds with efficiently costed 30” range shooting, Raptors, Skyfires and KO Skyhooks came along too.

Judging from recent events in the UK Tzeentch are merely one of the top tier armies alongside at least KO (I would say top), Vanguard Wing, Fyreslayers, Khorne (esp Dan Ford’s list); and Seraphon - probably bottom of Tier One. They simply aren’t overpowered any more - read the two pages of nerfs. Any one drop army has a chance of shooting the Gaunt Summoner turn one.

Wizards aren’t overpowered either - especially with more autounbinds (Fyreslayers, Seraphon) proliferating. Nurgle are likely to be another serious threat to Tzeentch with the 5++ wards and surprising speed.

The Khorne answer is the auto unbind artefact infinite range backed up by 2 Blood Tithe Points every turn for more autounbinds.

The Balewind is vital for any debuff spells (Daemonsmith).

 

[heywoah_twitch]

21 minutes ago, Nico said:

As you even admit - ranged shooting threat has gotten better as well. Kurnoths once blew everyone’s minds with efficiently costed 30” range shooting, Raptors, Skyfires and KO Skyhooks came along too.

Judging from recent events in the UK Tzeentch are merely one of the top tier armies alongside at least KO (I would say top), Vanguard Wing, Fyreslayers, Khorne (esp Dan Ford’s list); and Seraphon - probably bottom of Tier One. They simply aren’t overpowered any more - read the two pages of nerfs. Any one drop army has a chance of shooting the Gaunt Summoner turn one.

Wizards aren’t overpowered either - especially with more autounbinds (Fyreslayers, Seraphon) proliferating. Nurgle are likely to be another serious threat to Tzeentch with the 5++ wards and surprising speed.

The Khorne answer is the auto unbind artefact infinite range backed up by 2 Blood Tithe Points every turn for more autounbinds.

The Balewind is vital for any debuff spells (Daemonsmith).

 

I'd be shocked if vanguard wing works like it does now in the future, it's just about a foregone conclusion that at least a few cogs in that wheel will get changed. Similarly for embarked KO not counting as drops. And further for "easily engage you turn one" lists.

Wizards aren't overpowered, but on a vortex they are. It's one of the reasons why tzeentch saturation has warped the metagame, obliging people to stack normally too situational stuff like auto-unbinds to deal with it. I think it even brings Seraphon up from high T2 to bottom of T1 since they can attempt unlimited range unbinds against the most numerous tier one army. When half of the field skews their lists to be able to deal with you, and afterwards you are still tier 1, that's impressive. When losing vortex would drop you out of tier one entirely, that's pretty telling of its incredible power.

At the end of the day, there are just going to be strong strategies (movement shenanigans and ranged most notably), but I'm generally against stuff that is uncounterable if your army doesn't have a deep pool of options to draw from. That being said, it'd be way better if they gave every faction a release with proper competitive-capable line of warscrolls and models, but it seems clear that they will not.

 

[MacDuff]

I just wish I had a second piece for the top platform, so it could become a more random piece of ground terrain. Move onto it and on a 4+ it elevates under you and has its effect. Check next turn; it stays up or descends again.

[Falandris]

Even as an IJ-Player I don't think it's broken. Khorne and IJs are easily screened so it wouldn't change much and most of the other armies seem to have the tools. You also pay a premium for the Vortex. 

So from my point of view: keep it like it is, there are a lot of other things which are much more worthwhile nerfing atm.

[heywoah_twitch]

19 minutes ago, Falandris said:

there are a lot of other things which are much more worthwhile nerfing atm.

well I'll agree to that part easily

[Nico]

Quote

Similarly for embarked KO not counting as drops. And further for "easily engage you turn one" lists.

I'd be astonished if they changed the former. That would kill the army all the way down to the bottom of tier 3.

On the latter - there is a constant back and forth between gunlines ("funlines") and bunkers and buff stacks on the one hand; and alpha strikes over the course of the game (with alpha bunkering being one of the others). At times, alpha strikes have been too strong (Tomb King dominance and Warrior Brotherhood) and at times the other types of army have been too strong (Hurricanum and Kurnoth Spam, Mixed Chaos Skyfire spam). 

In my view, there are few things less fun that quadruple ward save armies, turbo bunkers and static "funlines" with a few token units to grab objectives. This is why alpha strikes and movement tricks and especially ways to delete key buffing pieces (5-7 wound heroes) need to be part of the game. Indeed movement tricks are what stop the game from becoming what the 9th Agers used to caricature as the scrum in the middle.

Many of the armies perceived to be overpowered can be mitigated by correct deployment (for example, you never let the Warrior Brotherhood conga line through a gap a second time) or taking chaff units or particular hard counter.

Quote

Wizards aren't overpowered, but on a vortex they are. It's one of the reasons why tzeentch saturation has warped the metagame, obliging people to stack normally too situational stuff like auto-unbinds to deal with it. I think it even brings Seraphon up from high T2 to bottom of T1 since they can attempt unlimited range unbinds against the most numerous tier one army. When half of the field skews their lists to be able to deal with you, and afterwards you are still tier 1, that's impressive. When losing vortex would drop you out of tier one entirely, that's pretty telling of its incredible power.

I don't agree. Auto unbinds are one solution, taking a one or even a 2 drop army (typically Tzeentch armies are 3+ drops with little leeway) is sufficient to kill the Gaunt Summoner turn one and/or even kill or cripple the Lord of Change of the Changehost turn one - KO do this as a mathematical likelihood on most Battleplans - the relative lack of the armies at events is astonishing to me (perhaps they are all coming to play at Heat One?). This is exactly why I correctly called that Tzeentch wouldn't win the Masters on paper (I thought Tony @Countmoore might come second again - they are seriously dependent on going first and cannot take the loss of a few points of critical weakness, whereas the Masters lists were heavily stacked with 1 drop armies and 2 drop armies. No amount of generalship can stop KO from killing the Lord of Change in a 12" deep deployment zone as a Tzeentch army if KO go first (barring a friendly Chaos Dreadhold to hide behind) for example.

 

[Nico]

Quote

At the end of the day, there are just going to be strong strategies (movement shenanigans and ranged most notably), but I'm generally against stuff that is uncounterable if your army doesn't have a deep pool of options to draw from. That being said, it'd be way better if they gave every faction a release with proper competitive-capable line of warscrolls and models, but it seems clear that they will not.

People are still clamouring for Sylvaneth nerfs, while Sylvaneth players have already gone home for the winter and that's even before the Deluge of Nurgle comes in 2 days time.

Tzeentch have dropped in relative power with every subsequent release - Khorne, Stormcast and especially KO. Nurgle will be a fascinating match up.

The rapid release schedule has kept the meta fresh and contributes to balance better than hammer blow points changes (indiscriminate 25% plus swings on Tomb Kings) or excessive nerfs.

Another point is the distinction between how hard to beat an army is because of lack of knowledge of its mechanics and how hard it is to beat with equal player knowledge. If you don't encounter an army frequently it is very easy to underestimate its strength or forget small points or simply misplay a game (I did all of the above yesterday with a Tzeentch army against Slannesh versus Declan at the South London Legion - terrible target selection). Perceiving that army as overpowered in that situation is obviously wrong. Fyreslayers are a classic example as people don't know what to do in terms of target selection/zoning unless they have played against them before. However, once they have done, the army becomes far more manageable. I believe that the sour taste defeats that ludicrous 27 Skyfire games left have poisoned many against Tzeentch (and I made this point back in the early days of DoT).

I make an effort to play as many armies as realistically possible and to theoryhammer virtually all the ones that I don't build (even Brayherd). This gives me a better feel for balance.

 

[heywoah_twitch]

It's a really good point about types of armies gaining different benefits from a less experienced player, as some stuff will really fall apart if you are familiar with what makes a list tick. Doubly so for people having residual opinions about strength that are old or just don't apply anymore - it's something to guard against myself trying to keep current. As an example, most people at my shop and on facebook are still of the opinion that beastclaw is tier 1 

[Twitch of Izalith]

@Nico Good point about so called OP abilities just being abilities we are not used to dealing with. I've been playing against fyreslayers in my local group since they were released and you are right they become more manageable as you get used to them - I mitigate their tunneling as best I can, screen my hard hitters, kill their characters and settle in to see who wins the grind! They don't get any more fun to play against though. The opposite in fact!

I think Nurgle will cause some problems initially too, they are getting a big speed boost, lots of AOE mortal wound output and all the resilience will still be there i'm sure. Their magic sounds lethal so i expect to see them on Balewinds quite a lot.

I still think the best answer to the BWV, so dealing with it becomes more of a tactical choice,  is to make it possible for flying units to attack in combat - it gives options to Khorne or FEC who may either not have the option or find it unthematic to take shooting. And it stops Order armies from having to have Venators along all the time!

I note that the summon spells are dissapearing from the demon warscrolls in the Nurgle book so maybe the whole summoning mechanic will change at some point.

 

[Aginor]

I still think that mortal wounds (and to a lesser degree shooting rules) are the biggest problems in AoS. No amount of Balewind Vortex changes will solve that, but especially if the mortal wounds are magically created I admit that the BWV is part of the problem.

[Aginor]

Ok another thing I was just thinking about (someone mentioned it already in this thread IIRC):

Is the BWV really the problem or is it only some of the wizards?

Example for Seraphon: Kroak is a major problem on a Vortex, but IMO a Starpriest or even a normal Slann isn't. I rarely use my BWV because for those wizards it isn't worth the 100 points. I cannot screen them from shooting anymore if they are up there and they cannot move. 100 Points are better spent for 5 Saurus Knights or Guards or two Razordons...

So for the Seraphon side you would probably be just fine with adding either a "no named characters" rule for the Vortex or give Kroak the Monster keyword which would also disallow him up there.

 

Edit: or maybe just disallow area spells? The targeted ones seem to be less of a problem.

 

So let's talk about which wizards are actually the problem on top of the Vortex. Not that many IMO. An Ironjawz Weirdnob Shaman can buff his Foot of Gork and I played against one that was really luck and killed four of my heroes but that's not very likely.

Who is really worth it? From the top of my head maybe some Tzeentch wizards and maybe a Sylvaneth Branchwych but who else?

EDIT: thinking about it some more, and from the armies I play or know rather well:
- Arkhan and Alarielle cannot use it (thank <insertdeityhere>)
- Necromancers actually get worse when on top
- Wurrgog Prophet...OK.
- Weirdnob Shaman....situational. I would even say he gets worse most of the time.
- Maniak Weirdnob...meh. More bad than good.
- Wardokk gets worse
- Starpriest...meh.
- Slann...meh.
- Kroak GREAT
- Starseer...meh.
- Treelord Ancient cannot use it
- Branchwych...OK.
- Branchwraith...meh. I want it in the woods and the Vortex doesn't fit.
- Vampire Lord. OK but you probably want him in melee.
- Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon cannot use it
- Abhorrant Ghoul King...meh. Gets worse I'd say because he cannot fight.

...list will continue

EDIT:
Not an expert for Tzeentch but the Changeling, the Herald of Tzeentch and especially the Gaunt Summoner are probably problematic. Fortunately Kairos and the other Lord of Change can't use it. The Blue Scribes are OK.

[Keldaur]

Gaunt summoner and herald are the ones who make the most out of it (for different reasons, AoE vs Single Target sniping), but they are easilly sniped too when on top of a vortex. The downsides (price, LOS) and the upsides (range) are decently tied up. In herald's case, you can also summon him, so you don't really need the Balewind for sniping purposes. Most Tzeench players aren't spamming balewinds anymore every game, the 100 point tax is very important, and it's better to tie up a unit with 30 brimstones and then use the gaunt summoner behind the screens, rather than summon it right away in a lot of match ups if the opponent has means to kill it, or if you need the screen.

By the way, i don't know if you have been checking, but Nurgle will put a lot of wounds in the table, they will be quite fast and can have a save vs mortal wounds. GW has been releasing armies to fill some gaps (ie monsters dominance then release KO).

[Rob Hawkins]

On 1/10/2018 at 3:45 AM, RuneBrush said:

Sadly some of those one-dimensional lists are that way because that's the way the armies are designed to work (Ironjawz have been mentioned a couple of times and are a good example of this, but there are a few others too).  It's a poor show if a single scenery piece forces people to substantially adjust their army just on the off-chance they may come across it, which I think is what this discussion is about.

One adjustment I would make is that models can only use a Balewind if they have a wounds characteristic of 6 or less.  This would exclude Kroak who has a wounds characteristic of * and mean Behemoths cannot use it.  I'd also tweak it so that if the summoner dies the model is unsummoned

Sorry to go off tangent a little here (and could well need an official FAQ) but I'd say that in order to set up a Balewind Vortex, the caster should have enough space around them to place the model without moving any other models.  Once set up you and your opponent then move everything within 3" aside as per the rules on the warscroll for summoning it.  Moving models to set up the Balewind isn't how the warscroll is written to work (and apologies again, this does risk the post going away from the topic and me getting poked for reading something incorrectly )

The Wounds Characteristic sounds like a good workaround.  As for summoning it, I can see what you're getting at-- It says "set up" a Balewind, and then move the models, so I guess you'd need room for it.  But you can still use the placing of the Balewind to push your dudes forward in front of it as they get outside of its 3" bubble.

On 1/10/2018 at 8:34 AM, Keldaur said:

 

@Rob Hawkins Monsters can't be on top of it.

 

I know Monsters can't be on top, but nothing prevents a Behemoth from being up there.  There are plenty of Behemoth Wizards like the Celestial Hurricanum, Screaming Bell, Coven Throne...  If a large monster can't be atop a Balewind, those gigantic machines probably should be up there either.

[rokapoke]

2 hours ago, Rob Hawkins said:

I know Monsters can't be on top, but nothing prevents a Behemoth from being up there.  There are plenty of Behemoth Wizards like the Celestial Hurricanum, Screaming Bell, Coven Throne...  If a large monster can't be atop a Balewind, those gigantic machines probably should be up there either.

The issue, of course, is that the rule is keyword-based, and Behemoth isn’t a keyword. It could be dependent upon wounds, but it might not be as elegant as the current rule. 

[Nico]

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I still think the best answer to the BWV, so dealing with it becomes more of a tactical choice,  is to make it possible for flying units to attack in combat - it gives options to Khorne or FEC who may either not have the option or find it unthematic to take shooting. And it stops Order armies from having to have Venators along all the time!

If it were to be nerfed (which would be unjustified) for the third or fourth time, then allowing fliers to attack the hero would be one of the less bad options. 

Anything that makes it harder to put a mere 12.5 mortal wounds on one of 3 blocks of 60 Wound 30 Arrer Boyz blocks would be actively bad for balance. At the moment - you can barely get them under 20 models even with Battleshock.

[PJetski]

9 hours ago, Nico said:

If it were to be nerfed (which would be unjustified) for the third or fourth time, then allowing fliers to attack the hero would be one of the less bad options. 

Anything that makes it harder to put a mere 12.5 mortal wounds on one of 3 blocks of 60 Wound 30 Arrer Boyz blocks would be actively bad for balance. At the moment - you can barely get them under 20 models even with Battleshock.

I can honestly say I have never had a problem killing big blocks of infantry (even 2 wound infantry) with focused fire.

What size games do you usually play?

[Kaleb Daark]

easy answer, maybe just petition GW through their fb page to change the Held aloft rule so that anyone can unbind the vortex not just the wizard parked on top of it.

It's summoned into being through a spell so the risk to the summoner should be that it's unbound as one as well.

Nearly every army including khorne has something with range - a breath weapon, a bloodthirster's whip,  marauder horsemen javelins - it's not totally undefeatable unless you convince yourself that it is.  Every army is strong in something and it's the things that you aren't good at that you try and work out how to counter effectively.  Ultimately we sacrifice to gain,  and finding the balance is the tricky art of list building surely.

That's the beauty of this game, its not like magic where you have the one deck to rule them all.