Balewind Vortex - Bad for the game?

[Nico]

Quote

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.

The generally dismal showing by Tzeentch at Heat One (including sadly my own performance) and the Masters despite their popularity (second most after Stormcast at Heat One) is some indication of balance. Bonesplitterz managed 2nd and 4th! 

Top tier looks to be KO, Stormcast (esp. Vanguard Wing), Tzeentch, Seraphon, maybe Freeguild and my most hated army Arrer Boyz (Bonesplitterz). Nurgle should join them.

Wanderers did well too.

[heywoah_twitch]

26 minutes ago, Nico said:

Wanderers did well too.

interestingly, in the heat they let wanderers cheeky teleportation stuff get closer than 9" from the trait/artefact, while in the masters they did not.

[Nullius]

I think there’s a very simple and common-sense fix for the Balewind Vortex: Allow models with the ‘Fly’ special rule to be able to strike the wizard on the vortex in close combat.  Or units with ‘fly’ or ‘monster’ (which is, I think, how it worked in Storm of Magic) The logic being that a flying unit can swoop down and snatch him/her/it off the dais, and a monster can reach up there and grab ‘em.

[stratigo]

On 1/17/2018 at 6:28 PM, Nico said:

The generally dismal showing by Tzeentch at Heat One (including sadly my own performance) and the Masters despite their popularity (second most after Stormcast at Heat One) is some indication of balance. Bonesplitterz managed 2nd and 4th! 

Top tier looks to be KO, Stormcast (esp. Vanguard Wing), Tzeentch, Seraphon, maybe Freeguild and my most hated army Arrer Boyz (Bonesplitterz). Nurgle should join them.

Wanderers did well too.

KOs aren't top tier. I'm not sure why you think this. They don't have a great ranking

 

On 1/11/2018 at 8:38 AM, Keldaur said:

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).

You do realize the gaunt summoner has a 36 inch range on that thing? Yeah? Right? He nukes hordes. Even if he somehow dies (and against khorne and ironjawz, that'll not happen ever.) The only way to 'get to' him is to have stupid fast ranged (eg, uh, tzeentch), or drop in ability. Or be nurgle now. Albeit, again, Nurgle still takes 2 turns.

[heywoah_twitch]

I thought KO was the new gautfyre scorch, aka the spoiler that will 1-drop turn one kill half of your army while you watch helpless or loses if you're running a thousand points of chaff.

[Arkiham]

2 hours ago, stratigo said:

KOs aren't top tier. I'm not sure why you think this. They don't have a great ranking

 

 

Ko's have a pretty strong ranking and id say they're top tier as much as every other faction that is top tier is.

one excessively strong battalion or list. 

3 hours ago, stratigo said:

You do realize the gaunt summoner has a 36 inch range on that thing? Yeah? Right? He nukes hordes. Even if he somehow dies (and against khorne and ironjawz, that'll not happen ever.) The only way to 'get to' him is to have stupid fast ranged (eg, uh, tzeentch), or drop in ability. Or be nurgle now. Albeit, again, Nurgle still takes 2 turns.

6

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Daemons-Of-Khorne-Skull-Cannon

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/beastclaw-raiders-huskard-on-thundertusk

no way of killing him??  ???  shooting?

you should say... 

"there is shooting options, but people decide they aren't helpful towards their lists and provide nothing towards the list and winning, so instead of countering those things thing they counter which makes their list bad people decide not to take it and instead complain about that thing they could have countered by taking one of these options being broken " 

[stratigo]

26 minutes ago, Arkiham said:

Ko's have a pretty strong ranking and id say they're top tier as much as every other faction that is top tier is.

one excessively strong battalion or list. 

 

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/Daemons-Of-Khorne-Skull-Cannon

https://www.games-workshop.com/en-GB/beastclaw-raiders-huskard-on-thundertusk

no way of killing him??  ???  shooting?

you should say... 

"there is shooting options, but people decide they aren't helpful towards their lists and provide nothing towards the list and winning, so instead of countering those things thing they counter which makes their list bad people decide not to take it and instead complain about that thing they could have countered by taking one of these options being broken " 

if you've taken the skullcannon, you've already accepted your loss, and oh hey, fail to go first and one shot him and he's still killing roughly 15 letters. Don't get him after his first go? Well shucks, that's 30 letters. Plus whatever elf he decides to cast.

 

The skullcannon is flatly a bad unit and demanding someone take a bad unit for a maybe possibly not very likely killing a gaunt summoner is an awful trade.

 

The thundertusk is simply never doing it. I mean, we're presuming you are demanding it ally into an ironjawz list right? No the thundertusk will never get close enough, tzeentch has too many ways to stop a thundertusk fast, and they're likely doing a one or, at most, two drop. You'd have to over saturate thundertusks, with BCR. ANd BCR are bad now

 

Also, really, look through tourny rankings. I think Gary is the guy who manages to break top 5 most often, but it's not super common. There's usually, but not always, one, but rarely more, in the top 10. I'd estimate that KO are around 7 or 8 in army ranking.

 

 

[Mayple]

@stratigo the gaunt summoner taking out 15 bloodletters will still get him less value than the worth of those bloodletters though. Two turns to wipe it out should give plenty of opportunity to take him out in turn, which would barely break even in his favour.

Skullcannon being 'bad' in general doesn't discount it's effectiveness in this particular scenario. Cheaper than a plagueclaw, with slightly less anti-horde capabilities, I don't see why you wouldn't take one or two if a balewind gaunt summoner is such a concern. If adding those would somehow create an auto-loss, then I'm not sure it was ever going to be a win anyway. Victory does not always come from a point of advantage.

Sometimes we gotta bring things we wouldn't normally bring, to respond to various expected, or unlikely, but dangerous threats. This is warfare. Anyone showing up to a tank fight with nothing but a knife has no business being surprised, or outraged, when the tank blows them to smithereens

 

I agree with the thundertusk point though. Although there are other ways to deal with it from that position that doesn't involve a giant frostbeast trying to 360 no-scope a wizard

[Nico]

Firstly - the Gaunt Summoner can suck up a lot of DD to even get the Balewind cast and Infernal Flames (on an 8) casts off. Secondly - my One was shot off his perch by a Cabbage in game one of Heat One (it took two shots).

Thirdly - good as the spell is - it barely scratches Arrer Boyz (you’ll be lucky to kill 11 even with Battleshock). Yes - it kills 30 Bloodletters - good thing they have 90 more in a proper Murderhost List, i.e. Dan Ford’s List. That’s if the Flesh Hounds don’t unbind you with a reroll (which happened when I played Dam Ford at @Chris Tomlin‘s awesome #Blackout event. 

Fourthly - the Spell is useless against non-horde armies.

Finally - do you really think the game needs anything further to encourage hordes?

[Nico]

Quote

KOs aren't top tier. I'm not sure why you think this. They don't have a great ranking

This comment removes any credibility you had remaining. Have you heard of Gary Percival? Gary was a few dice rolls away from being the Master and has podiumed consistently all year. Matt Tullock just won a One-dayer with a tasty 5,990 kill points.

KO’s absurd Strength is masked by the fact that few players take them to tournaments - but believe me they are the best army in the game (at least pre-Nurgle and pre-Nagash). 

They do struggle a bit against Bonesplitterz, but not in the way that Stormcast should annihilate Bonesplitterz.

[stratigo]

12 minutes ago, Mayple said:

@stratigo the gaunt summoner taking out 15 bloodletters will still get him less value than the worth of those bloodletters though. Two turns to wipe it out should give plenty of opportunity to take him out in turn, which would barely break even in his favour.

Skullcannon being 'bad' in general doesn't discount it's effectiveness in this particular scenario. Cheaper than a plagueclaw, with slightly less anti-horde capabilities, I don't see why you wouldn't take one or two if a balewind gaunt summoner is such a concern. If adding those would somehow create an auto-loss, then I'm not sure it was ever going to be a win anyway. Victory does not always come from a point of advantage.

Sometimes we gotta bring things we wouldn't normally bring, to respond to various expected, or unlikely, but dangerous threats. This is warfare. Anyone showing up to a tank fight with nothing but a knife has no business being surprised, or outraged, when the tank blows them to smithereens

 

I agree with the thundertusk point though. Although there are other ways to deal with it from that position that doesn't involve a giant frostbeast trying to 360 no-scope a wizard

Okay. Here's a secret. The Khorne skull cannon does on average 1.555 damage a turn to a gaunt summoner. That's roughly 4 turns to kill a gaunt summoner. The skull cannon is flat bad. If you are taking it to counter a summoner, it won't, and you've spent 180 points to make your army weaker. If the skull cannon could, reliably, snipe characters for 180 points, it would be everywhere in every khorne army. It cannot, and it does not.

 

12 minutes ago, Nico said:

This comment removes any credibility you had remaining. Have you heard of Gary Percival? Gary was a few dice rolls away from being the Master and has podiumed consistently all year.

KO’s absurd Strength is masked by the fact that few players take them to tournaments - but believe me they are the best army in the game (pre-Nurgle). 

They do struggle against Bonesplitterz, but then Stormcast should annihilate Bonesplitterz.

Kharadrons have been out for almost a year. If they were as magically powerful as you insist, then more than just Gary would be using them. They're a good army that (if you paid attention) mr percival himself detailed their strengths and weaknesses. They have a good matchup against the meta dominant army, and against a murder host. There are plenty of armies they struggle against. Luckily many of them are countered by Tzeentch, which is, again, the dominant meta army. But, again, the ACTUAL tournament results are never chocked full of kharadrons, and Gary is a fricken fantastic player, but everyone else who has ever looked at KO aren't incapable players.

[Nico]

Tzeentch aren’t the dominant meta army - maybe 3 or 4 months ago. Look at the Masters and Heat One. They are extremely vulnerable to any one drop army (as either all the 5 Wound casters or even the Changehost LoC are vulnerable. They are just one of several Top Tier armies. 

KO beat Changehost very reliably on any 12” deployment zone Battleplan as the LoC dies turn one barring catastrophic dice.

KO will crush any normal army barring dismal dice rolls and have only a few bad match ups (Games being over in 40 minutes to an hour are commonplace). The presence of Nurgle will make things harder for them, but they may yet cling on to top army even after Nurgle.

KO actually have answers to even the jankiest versions of the Vanguard Wing as they can with a modicum of luck - kill the general and wreck the Liberators turn one.

 

[ledha]

2 hours ago, Nico said:

This comment removes any credibility you had remaining. Have you heard of Gary Percival? Gary was a few dice rolls away from being the Master and has podiumed consistently all year. Matt Tullock just won a One-dayer with a tasty 5,990 kill points.

KO’s absurd Strength is masked by the fact that few players take them to tournaments - but believe me they are the best army in the game (at least pre-Nurgle and pre-Nagash). 

They do struggle a bit against Bonesplitterz, but not in the way that Stormcast should annihilate Bonesplitterz.

I may be wrong but we should take in account that the kharadron were much stronger before than now. Khemist Stack nerf as well as the skyhook and thunderers were a heavy hit

[Arkiham]

4 hours ago, stratigo said:

if you've taken the skullcannon, you've already accepted your loss, and oh hey, fail to go first and one shot him and he's still killing roughly 15 letters. Don't get him after his first go? Well shucks, that's 30 letters. Plus whatever elf he decides to cast.

 

The skullcannon is flatly a bad unit and demanding someone take a bad unit for a maybe possibly not very likely killing a gaunt summoner is an awful trade.

 

The thundertusk is simply never doing it. I mean, we're presuming you are demanding it ally into an ironjawz list right? No the thundertusk will never get close enough, tzeentch has too many ways to stop a thundertusk fast, and they're likely doing a one or, at most, two drop. You'd have to over saturate thundertusks, with BCR. ANd BCR are bad now

 

Also, really, look through tourny rankings. I think Gary is the guy who manages to break top 5 most often, but it's not super common. There's usually, but not always, one, but rarely more, in the top 10. I'd estimate that KO are around 7 or 8 in army ranking.

 

 

you're literally proving my point. 

you're loosing anyway. take the skull cannon, kill the dude. oh he's shooting your 180 point cannon with half of his destiny dice and that 220 points + unit?? well, he's not shooting your more expensive more deadly unit of bloodletters.... or, you know, carry on getting slaughtered as you aren't taking the one thing you have a chance on countering it with... 

 

Same goes with the thundertusk, take it as a distraction, if you're lucky he kills the gaunt summoner if not they're burning a lot of resources killing something you don't care about to stop it killing them while your actual army goes an wins. 

again, you're complaining about losing anyway so whats it going to hurt.  

[stratigo]

59 minutes ago, Arkiham said:

you're literally proving my point. 

you're loosing anyway. take the skull cannon, kill the dude. oh he's shooting your 180 point cannon with half of his destiny dice and that 220 points + unit?? well, he's not shooting your more expensive more deadly unit of bloodletters.... or, you know, carry on getting slaughtered as you aren't taking the one thing you have a chance on countering it with... 

 

Same goes with the thundertusk, take it as a distraction, if you're lucky he kills the gaunt summoner if not they're burning a lot of resources killing something you don't care about to stop it killing them while your actual army goes an wins. 

again, you're complaining about losing anyway so whats it going to hurt.  

 

I... what? "Yes, take the awful unit. He'll shoot at it anyways for a long time" No he won't. The Skull cannon is an easy removal. As opposed to taking an average of 4 turns to kill a gaunt sumonner. You're better off NOT taking it and trying to murder the entirety of a tzeentch army before the summoner kills too many of your blood letters.

 

3 hours ago, Nico said:

Tzeentch aren’t the dominant meta army - maybe 3 or 4 months ago. Look at the Masters and Heat One. They are extremely vulnerable to any one drop army (as either all the 5 Wound casters or even the Changehost LoC are vulnerable. They are just one of several Top Tier armies. 

KO beat Changehost very reliably on any 12” deployment zone Battleplan as the LoC dies turn one barring catastrophic dice.

KO will crush any normal army barring dismal dice rolls and have only a few bad match ups (Games being over in 40 minutes to an hour are commonplace). The presence of Nurgle will make things harder for them, but they may yet cling on to top army even after Nurgle.

KO actually have answers to even the jankiest versions of the Vanguard Wing as they can with a modicum of luck - kill the general and wreck the Liberators turn one.

 

 

Why do the stats not reflect this then? We even have a thread showing us the results of the most recent heat. KO didn't crack top 10, tzeentch managed to get in that. I think you are actively wrong based on statistics. I don't have all of them, but check the bad dice rankings for tourneys. KO usually grab near the top in Gary's hands, but struggle to make top 5 otherwise. My opinion of KO are based on their ACTUAL record. Where is yours? Because we cannot be working from the same data set. Do you have a data set?

 

Note, except for nurgle, not very much has changed rules wise since GHB17

[Mayple]

@stratigo I think my point was lost to you there, so I'll rephrase.

You take however many skullcannons you need to get the job done. Sub-optimal as it may be, they at least -can- deal with the gaunt summoner if you want him gone. 

If you're not taking them, or something else, to deal with the gaunt summoner, then you just sorta gotta accept that he'll throw out his spell left and right. If you accept that, then you really have no problem - but there's no use in complaining about the gaunt summoner if you could deal with him, but choose not to

[Nico]

While it’s important not to dwell on statistics from events, Tzeentch were the second most popular army at Heat One (after Stormcast) and did terribly (highest placing 5th and most of them well below that - sadly including me). Gary didn’t attend Heat One and there were very few KO armies there.

The GHB 2017 was a big nerf to DoT (many small nerfs in aggregate and some big ones plus other factions rising - like Fyreslayers and Seraphon which can give Tzeentch problems) - it took a little while for these changes to manifest themselves (most people didn’t have a Fyreslayer army on the shelf like I did).

I would advise arranging a game against a Clown Car list with any army of your choosing and then continuing this conversation.

[wanderingrogue]

7 hours ago, stratigo said:

 

I... what? "Yes, take the awful unit. He'll shoot at it anyways for a long time" No he won't. The Skull cannon is an easy removal. As opposed to taking an average of 4 turns to kill a gaunt sumonner. You're better off NOT taking it and trying to murder the entirety of a tzeentch army before the summoner kills too many of your blood letters.

 

 

Why do the stats not reflect this then? We even have a thread showing us the results of the most recent heat. KO didn't crack top 10, tzeentch managed to get in that. I think you are actively wrong based on statistics. I don't have all of them, but check the bad dice rankings for tourneys. KO usually grab near the top in Gary's hands, but struggle to make top 5 otherwise. My opinion of KO are based on their ACTUAL record. Where is yours? Because we cannot be working from the same data set. Do you have a data set?

 

Note, except for nurgle, not very much has changed rules wise since GHB17

actually if you look at the averages ko are by far the best performing faction on average. sure no ****** plays them but then they always do pretty well. tzeentch...as an example will have some near the top . some in the middle. some near the bottom.

yea no ko were in the top ten at heat 1. but I know all 3 players and 2 were at thier 1st tournament.  and they all came between 17th and 23rd.....tzeentch was 5th to 86th with 6 army's in the bottom 20.......

ko  are top tier. they do consistently well and are capable of beating all the other top tier lists. the fact is no ones cottoned on to it yet is a mystery to me and a conversation for somewhere else

[Nico]

Khorne incidentally have a solid counter to the Gaunt Summoner - Brazen Rune the Balewind summon turn one and then save your Blood Tithe for subsequent infinite range unbinds.

That said - the optimal Murderhost uses Chaos Allegiance for Cunning Deceiver - as Dan Ford has comprehensively demonstrated. This does leave them slightly open to Tzeentch - but it’s not an easy match up.

[Nico]

I’m genuinely astonished that KO aren’t more popular as a tournament army. 

The models are sweet - Battletome is great.

[Mayple]

54 minutes ago, Nico said:

I’m genuinely astonished that KO aren’t more popular as a tournament army. 

The models are sweet - Battletome is great.

A good question.

Personally, I'd be all over them if I was more of a duardin person, which curbed the hype. 

Generally speaking, and I'm just shooting in the dark here, KO plays a lot like a 40k army (sharing some similarities with dark eldar) in the sense that they play around their vehicles, and shooting. 

I don't know the statistics when it comes to how many AoS players also play 40k, but it could be a simple case of KO not fitting with the general AoS player's playstyle (or at least they might think so) - since KO plays very differently than a 'traditional' army. 

Pure guesswork.

[ledha]

The lharadron are a one-stat army too. Mostly based around shooting and not being engaged in melee (except for the baloons, who are still very fragile)

i find strange that they have so many melee option on their characters/items/traits but no really efficient/bulky unit in the battletome who actually WANT to engage

[wanderingrogue]

43 minutes ago, ledha said:

The lharadron are a one-stat army too. Mostly based around shooting and not being engaged in melee (except for the baloons, who are still very fragile)

i find strange that they have so many melee option on their characters/items/traits but no really efficient/bulky unit in the battletome who actually WANT to engage

not really true. not when played right at least

 

[Stevewren]

This thread seems to have taken some odd turns, although the discussion on top lists etc and Heat 1 in particular made me do a spot of research. 

There was a lot of Tzeentch that did badly, and a lot of Balewinds. I didn't take one, I did play against one, and I don't think its bad for the game. However with the list I took the Balewind is pretty redundant as my largest unit is 10 models. I wanted a list that can't be hurt by it so I actively chose not to take 30 Brimstone horrors as a screening unit for example. I did include a Gaunt Summoner, but I didn't take a Balewind of my own. Again my list operates at close quarters. I had very little shooting, and all my magic is 18" range so when units got close I could use the GS if needed.

In terms of army builds again I think its hard to pin down what is good as at Heat 1 lists were all over the place. There were lots of Tzeentch spread throughout the field, Stormcast spread around (7/15 not in the top 40). 5/7 Death players made the top 40, yet Death is rubbish? Apparently not. KO not overpowered? Yet the lowest KO player was 24th...? 

You can't look at things and just say this is too strong etc etc. I hate to say it, but good/experienced players build around these things, or at least have a plan to deal with them. 

Look at the Heat 1 top 10: 

Byron - won the GT final, qualified for masters (declined invite)
Ian Spink - only plays Bonesplitterz, didn't have a full rukk, experienced tournament player
Chris - Masters player
Ben - Masters player
Mick Wendell - irish ETC team
Terry - qualified for masters (declined invite)
Adi - at one point the best WFB player in the world
Adam - don't know him
Matthew - don't know him
Dan - Masters player

Is there a pattern here? I think so, but I don't think its unbeatable lists. I think its very good players, who probably couldn't care less about the Balewind Vortex

[Stevewren]

1 hour ago, wanderingrogue said:

not really true. not when played right at least

 

Gary, all you do with KO is prove that the list can be played extremely well and deal with a lot of options. When you have a very detailed knowledge of an army you will always do well, and this has proved true in all iterations of GW games. Less experienced players won't see the same things you do until they have played the army loads.