Arkhan/Nagash Game Breaking +3 Cast/Unbind

[Krieger]

Death is absolutely dominating our local scene and not in a good way.  For the first time ever three of the same faction took 1st, 2nd and 3rd in a 14 person event.

Arkhan/Nagash having a +3 to cast/unbind is creating an environment where Death is all but guaranteed that all of their buffs,debuffs,heals,and magic damage go off every turn uncontested while simultaneously shutting down any of these options for their opponent. 

In addition their mobility and durability allow them to close the 18" range needed to lock down these +3 unbinds.

Giving one army the ability to rule an entire portion of the game as powerful as magic is just asking for trouble.  Combine this with Death's increased number of powerful spells and it's very disconcerting.

Imagine a powerful unit having a permanent +3 to hit and -3 to hit for enemy attacks.

[Slayerofmen]

Given that those bonuses are tied to characters that are quite expensive and can be alpha struck easily, ignoring that without buffs most death units are trash. Id probably give it more then a month to see where the book settles

[Thostos]

Also,keep in mind that the Cast/ Dispel bonuses were in the game on day one,yet no one in their right mind would bother to plop down either model in competative play.

 Now that the book has a spell lore and near unstoppable regeneration,Death finally has  potential top table lists available to it.

[stratigo]

41 minutes ago, Slayerofmen said:

Given that those bonuses are tied to characters that are quite expensive and can be alpha struck easily, ignoring that without buffs most death units are trash. Id probably give it more then a month to see where the book settles

honestly, you just get like 4 or 5 necromancers with unstoppable spells backed by arkhan. Arkhan dies first turn and... meh? who cares, your skeletons are still one of the deadliest units in the game flat out, and ridiculously deadly for their low price.

 

I'm waiting to see how adeptacon shakes out, but I am seeing death challenge tzeentch's top cheese spot.

[Thostos]

18 minutes ago, stratigo said:

honestly, you just get like 4 or 5 necromancers with unstoppable spells backed by arkhan. Arkhan dies first turn and... meh? who cares, your skeletons are still one of the deadliest units in the game flat out, and ridiculously deadly for their low price.

 

I'm waiting to see how adeptacon shakes out, but I am seeing death challenge tzeentch's top cheese spot.

Tzeench is a problem for LoN,,Gaunt Summoner on Balewind is the absolute counter to Skeleton blocks due to his spell and early on he WILL be out of range of countering,and besides even if he could get countered would likely save DD`s to insure a 12+ cast,,thus still requiring a 10+ counter for Nagash.Skyfires take out Morghast,  army  becomes neutered then..

  Also KO party boats could be huge problems with the strong possibility of taking out a big hero,even Nagash with the ship drop,,though even with a strong kill on characters first turn,they may struggle with the hordes that remain,,needs testing.

 

[Slayerofmen]

2 hours ago, stratigo said:

honestly, you just get like 4 or 5 necromancers with unstoppable spells backed by arkhan. Arkhan dies first turn and... meh? who cares, your skeletons are still one of the deadliest units in the game flat out, and ridiculously deadly for their low price.

 

I'm waiting to see how adeptacon shakes out, but I am seeing death challenge tzeentch's top cheese spot.

Okay sure, you are commiting close to 1000pts to do one thing half of which is okay to loose first turn? Leaving 4-5 squishy characters which are 5wounds 5+ save? 

Thats a big investment to buff a unit of skeletons

[PJetski]

Just kill them? Arkhan only has 11 wounds...

[Galas]

3 hours ago, Krieger said:

Death is absolutely dominating our local scene and not in a good way.  For the first time ever three of the same faction took 1st, 2nd and 3rd in a 14 person event.

Arkhan/Nagash having a +3 to cast/unbind is creating an environment where Death is all but guaranteed that all of their buffs,debuffs,heals,and magic damage go off every turn uncontested while simultaneously shutting down any of these options for their opponent. 

In addition their mobility and durability allow them to close the 18" range needed to lock down these +3 unbinds.

Giving one army the ability to rule an entire portion of the game as powerful as magic is just asking for trouble.  Combine this with Death's increased number of powerful spells and it's very disconcerting.

Imagine a powerful unit having a permanent +3 to hit and -3 to hit for enemy attacks.

I'll say this in the most honets and well-intended of ways. Why, instead of your first reaction being that theres a problem (It could perfectly be one, GW is GW!), don't you assume that if a new factions has just drop, people will have 0 experience facing it, to now know what to expect, how to counter it, how to play agaisnt, etc?

Theres a reason videogame companies don't make balance changes before 1 month, 2 months have passed since they have done a change in the game, add a new hero, etc... because the dust needs to settle for people to learn how that character works.

[Tittliewinks22]

What combination of spells gives +3 to hit and -3 to hit for death?

I believe your local guys may be playing locus wrong. You need a natural 9+ roll to get double cast. The +casting bonus on Nagash and Arkhan do not apply to Locus rule...

[BURF1]

3 hours ago, stratigo said:

honestly, you just get like 4 or 5 necromancers with unstoppable spells backed by arkhan. Arkhan dies first turn and... meh? who cares, your skeletons are still one of the deadliest units in the game flat out, and ridiculously deadly for their low price.

 

I'm waiting to see how adeptacon shakes out, but I am seeing death challenge tzeentch's top cheese spot.

Skeletons aren't deadly. I don't care how many attacks they get. They end up doing more damage to the time clock than to enemy models.

[BURF1]

1 hour ago, Tittliewinks22 said:

What combination of spells gives +3 to hit and -3 to hit for death?

I believe your local guys may be playing locus wrong. You need a natural 9+ roll to get double cast. The +casting bonus on Nagash and Arkhan do not apply to Locus rule...

I'm gonna go with this. There's absolutely no way to get permanent +3 -3 if you're playing the book right and using the rules of 1.

[swarmofseals]

5 hours ago, Krieger said:

Death is absolutely dominating our local scene and not in a good way.  For the first time ever three of the same faction took 1st, 2nd and 3rd in a 14 person event.

Arkhan/Nagash having a +3 to cast/unbind is creating an environment where Death is all but guaranteed that all of their buffs,debuffs,heals,and magic damage go off every turn uncontested while simultaneously shutting down any of these options for their opponent. 

In addition their mobility and durability allow them to close the 18" range needed to lock down these +3 unbinds.

Giving one army the ability to rule an entire portion of the game as powerful as magic is just asking for trouble.  Combine this with Death's increased number of powerful spells and it's very disconcerting.

Imagine a powerful unit having a permanent +3 to hit and -3 to hit for enemy attacks.

Out of the three main damage dealing phases, magic is by far the least important in AOS except in VERY specific matchups. Shooting and combat are both far more impactful than magic. +3 to hit and -3 to be hit is in no way analogous to +3 to cast and unbind.

I'd also like to bring up that there is already a very common warscroll that is just as good at casting and unbinding: the Lord of Change. The average roll on 2d6 is 7. Arkhan gives +2 and Nagash gives +3, so their averages would be 9 and 10 respectively. If you do the math on the Lord of Change, his Mastery of Magic ability makes his average 2d6 roll 9, and then his command ability gives a further +1. And his unbind radius can be increased to 27". 

So Arkhan gets 2 unbinds with an average roll of 9 and that is suddenly game breaking when Lord of Change has 3 unbinds at an average roll of 10 and an unbind radius of 27"? I get that Nagash dominates the magic phase, but he also costs 800 points. Also both Nagash and Arkhan lose their bonuses as they get damaged while the Lord of Change does not. AND the Lord of Change likely gets access to destiny dice to guarantee his cast rolls. 

 

 

[Krieger]

14 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

I'm gonna go with this. There's absolutely no way to get permanent +3 -3 if you're playing the book right and using the rules of 1.

It's their warscroll rule

[BURF1]

2 minutes ago, Krieger said:

It's their warscroll rule

I really don't think they have a rule on their warscroll that says 'this model gives +3 to hit and -3 to hit to whatever unit it wants'. 

Hang on, reread it now. You were trying to say that +3 to cast is equivalent to +3 to hit, which is SUPER wrong.  LoN is good, it's not THAT good. The biggest strength is that it heavily punishes stormcasts, which means that it's going to have a favorable matchup against about 30% of any tournament lineup.

Also, if you are playing Locus of Shyish wrong, that would inflate the power of the list quite a lot.

[Arentius]

4 minutes ago, Krieger said:

It's their warscroll rule

And it starts to drop just after 3 wounds on Nagash...it’s really not that big a deal

[Envyus]

And Arkhan has a +2 not a plus 3.

[AthlorianStoners]

1 hour ago, Envyus said:

And Arkhan has a +2 not a plus 3.

If you run a Sacrament army Arkhan gets an additional +1 to cast because he’s a wizard. 

[Mordeus]

7 hours ago, Thostos said:

Tzeench is a problem for LoN,,Gaunt Summoner on Balewind is the absolute counter to Skeleton blocks due to his spell and early on he WILL be out of range of countering,and besides even if he could get countered would likely save DD`s to insure a 12+ cast,,thus still requiring a 10+ counter for Nagash.Skyfires take out Morghast,  army  becomes neutered then..

  Also KO party boats could be huge problems with the strong possibility of taking out a big hero,even Nagash with the ship drop,,though even with a strong kill on characters first turn,they may struggle with the hordes that remain,,needs testing.

 

I played a game saturday with my KO, and felt I was doing alright killing quite a lot of stuff and still got wiped off in the end. It was a 1000 pts game and i didn't bring any boats but i was quite surprised in the end to be wiped. Too much stuff on the table coming back, not enough damage.

But so what is the final consensus? Is the 3+ -3 possible or not?

[RuneBrush]

I think the term is "meta changing" rather than game breaking.  +3 to cast is very powerful don't get me wrong, but it's not synonymous with a +/- hit bonus.  You're also talking about a huge investment in points - 800 for Nagash and over 400 for Arkhan by the time you factor in the battalion.  Even playing a 2000 point game, that's 40% & 20% of your army and in the case of Arkhan on an 11 wound 4+ save model (and the bonus degrades).  Also bear in mind that out of the spells in the new Lores only 3 have a casting value of 5, the rest are 6 or 7, so you're not talking a guaranteed cast.

I'd also counter that most armies are capable of dominating one phase in a turn, Khorne is perfectly capable of dominating the combat phase as an example.  Legions of Nagash is completely different to anything we've seen in the game so far, hordes of skeletons are really durable so you're going to need different tactics as you can't simply bludgeon them into submission

[Killax]

What can I say, last month I got occused of trolling the Death topics about how good Legions of Nagash is. Now I see a topic claiming it's way too OP, or at least locally. My standpoint on it all is quite simple. Indeed Legions of Nagash has the tools to compete with the current competitive meta. This is actually a very good thing. I feel that the GW design team has nailed it in terms of good overall balance when we look at Maggotkin of Nurgle, Daughters of Khaine and the more drastic Errata/FAQ changes.
In reality this is how it should be for every Allegiance. What I believe is the biggest changing factor is that Grand Allegiance Death in GH2016 was a solid 8/10 (with certain pieces being 9/10), Grand Allegiance Death in GH2017 went to a 5/10 and now it's a very healthy 7/10 (with certain pieces being 8/10).

What I mean by this is that Legions of Nagash is certainly an army that you have to thake into consideration when you want to play a competitive game or tournament. There are certain ways to counter certain aspects for them, but this is true in every army. If you want to find where to hit them look into the Battletome  .

Cheers and good luck!

PS yes Arkhan is awesome if you want to go that route (totally unrequired but he has quite a lot of fans). If you can thake him out through ranged attacks however the army can fold quick. Nagash creates a whole new sub-game that doesn't revolve (as non LoN player) around stomping him but instead keep Objective play in mind. Again LoN is absolutely no push over and like MoN or DoK you have to be aware of what they do if you want to beat them.
I think Legions of Nagash probably has one of the most gotcha rules if you don't know what's going on, much like deep striking elsewhere. Such as not thaking Summonning into consideration. Just killing a few here and there for the sake of it, only to see that effort being blocked by Deadly Invocations or not really realizing where the treat priority should be. 

[Twitch of Izalith]

While I think the opening post is a bit exaggerated I'm much happier seeing people complaining that Death is too powerful than that the army is not worth taking in a competitive game! 

I think GW & the playtest teams have done a really good job with making Maggotkin, LoN and DoK (based on what we know so far) into books that have multiple competitive builds, strong narrative themes, reasonable points balance and nothing obviously overpowered for its points cost.

Thats 3 factions in 3 months that I can see being contenders for a top 10 finish in major tournaments - which can only be good for our game  

[Vextol]

I am not a fan of the "wait a month because you can't possibly know yet." mentality.  You definitely can know without waiting a month.   You can know just by reading the book without ever playing the game.  

When I first read about destiny dice I said "That's crazy powerful" and when I read about sky fires I said "Those are going to get spammed."  Never played them at that point and I was dead on.  Since that time new factions have come out and new ways to play have arisen but the underlying problems didn't go away.  And guess what? They increased the points! Because it was a problem.  I don't think you need to get spanked 100 times to make an opinion

As for the " if you're not ready for that, it's your own problem" speech, this doesn't serve to better the game.  It just limits your options even more because you have to meet super powered army with super powered counter army.  

Here's the thing about a true counter: they have to end up being considerably cheaper than the things they are countering.   If they aren't, then they're not a counter, they're just another big,  expensive unit that's generally better than the unit they're killing.   That's why we see so few dynamic armies.  It's also why people say shooting is so "OP".  At this point, it's the best universal 'counter'.  You can almost always end up killing more than you paid for.  Technically, that is  a counter, but it shouldn't be quite so hard to handle and certainly not so universal. 

Why don't we see a cheap unit that has 1 wound, no save, 1 Attack, - 3 to hit in the shooting phase with a 16 inch movement that gets +2 to attack, hit, wound, rend and damage if the unit it's attacking has a shooting profile?  That's what a counter looks like!  Obviously that's an extreme example and not fully examined, but still. 

I believe the gaunt summoner is one of the only well done counters in sigmar.   Blood tithe dispelling isn't bad.   These are things that are inexpensive and very specific.  Kharadron had a great and not OP dispelling artifact that the FAQ ruined.  Stonehorn used to be a good counter for ranged but now he sucks.  They should have changed his rule to half all damage except in the combat phase, then it halves damage characteristic. That would have kept him as a good counter as well. I digress... 

As far as not being synonymous with +3 - 3 to hit, we don't need to argue over it.  We'll know soon enough when all we see on the field is super charged death magic.  I'm very worried about this battletome because I think there are very few armies that have the necessary tools to handle this.  It's going to amplify the problem that older armies keep getting worse and worse and worse and the currently spammed 'counters' are just going to keep getting more and more used.  It ends up being "Age of 'if you're not taking one of these three lists you don't have a chance' - Mar".  

PS, I think dispelling is one of the most under-addressed areas of Sigmar. 

Edit: Not sure why everyone is so confused by this post . Seems like the thing to do though. BRING ON THE CONFUSION REACTIONS !!!! 

[RuneBrush]

9 minutes ago, Vextol said:

I am not a fan of the "wait a month because you can't possibly know yet." mentality.  You definitely can know without waiting a month.   You can know just by reading the book without ever playing the game.  

When I first read about destiny dice I said "That's crazy powerful" and when I read about sky fires I said "Those are going to get spammed."  Never played them at that point and I was dead on.  Since that time new factions have come out and new ways to play have arisen but the underlying problems didn't go away.  And guess what? They increased the points! Because it was a problem.  I don't think you need to get spanked 100 times to make an opinion

The issue with raising concerns before seeing how they actually work in games is that it's very easy to overreact with how powerful something is.  Now occasionally there are units that are very clearly powerful with no limitations (Skyfires are a good example of that) but in other cases the initial reaction is not valid - if I recall when Kharadron Overlords came out there were loads of cries of "they're overpowered".  On paper they looked brutal, but in reality they didn't have that big an impact in game.

I'm sure that we're going to see a few hard counter lists for Nagash and Arkhan come out and then less people will field them.  If that doesn't happen and we continue to see a proliferation of lists containing one of them (and most importantly continuing to win), then I'm sure GW will make changes.

14 minutes ago, Vextol said:

As for the " if you're not ready for that, it's your own problem" speech, this doesn't serve to better the game.  It just limits your options even more because you have to meet super powered army with super powered counter army.  

I completely agree with this, however I would also say that if you're taking a list to a tournament you do need to be prepared to see an increased amount of magic being thrown around.  It's one of the reasons why I can't see me using my Bloodbound that often, they simply don't have the tools to react to mortal wounds, magic and shooting.  I can't really blame my opponent or GW if I take no anti-magic and then get nuked by spells (which has happened to me in the past).

[GeneralZero]

I agree about the counter/spam issue but I can't avoid applause to GW  making Death gret again. At least, we'll probably see them more often. Order, Chaos, Death have now big hammers to strike. Unfortunately, destruction seems to be a (big) let down nowadays....

[Vextol]

 

19 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

The issue with raising concerns before seeing how they actually work in games is that it's very easy to overreact with how powerful something is.  Now occasionally there are units that are very clearly powerful with no limitations (Skyfires are a good example of that) but in other cases the initial reaction is not valid - if I recall when Kharadron Overlords came out there were loads of cries of "they're overpowered".  On paper they looked brutal, but in reality they didn't have that big an impact in game.

I think overreaction is kind of part of the fun.  Just as opponents overreact to the power, the people who play them get a little excited that they have all these cool new tricks.  The cries of "OP!!!" echo darkly for me and my dead stonehorns and unpainted thunderers so I am not keen on crying early.  I think that Death is very strong and their magic is very powerful, but I'm not going to say they are overly strong. 

Here's how I feel; every game aspect should be outlined (shooting, combat, mortal wounds, magic....etc.) and then factions should be built so they have equality across these areas.  Assume a faction has 50 points to distribute.   If 20 makes you the best at an area, say you have 20 in shooting, you will be the best shooting army.  You could be the best in shooting and magic for 40 points, but you know you're going to be terrible almost everywhere else.  I like to look at factions like that.  Power creep is when everyone has 50 points, but you have 60.  Nerfing is when they take your 20 points, and make it 10, but don't give the 10 back (BCR, kharadrons).  Balance is when these areas (shooting, combat..blah blah blah) have equal value or are weighted so more points go into more valuable categories.

So, expanding on my imaginary system, I'm worried because I think Death may have 65 points and they are the first army since stormcast to have that many.  They may be able to do too many things well at once.  The nice thing about that is that Death will probably be competitive for a long time because "Pretty good at everything" is harder to break than "Best at one thing".

Doesn't really matter though.  Book is out and if things do need to be tweaked, we won't see drastic changes until GH 2018.  Until then, if Death is too strong, have a good few months!!  You guys deserve it.

PS: I was in camp NOT op when kharadrons came out.  I was actually so appalled by their saves and wound count that I almost didn't purchase them.  Held off until the GH....then I REALLY didn't want to buy them.  Couldn't' help myself though.  Love those models