Community help, want to make a tier system like in Bloodbowl Leagues for AoS

[James McPherson]

I want to make a tier system up, mostly to encourage people to take less obvious choices at events and not feel like they are fighting an uphill struggle. It works quite well in Bloodbowl tournaments so I'm basically copying what they do and trying to port it over to AoS.

The basic idea is Tier 1 armies get no compensation, Tier 2 get a slight compensation in the form of some extra points, say 200, and then Tier 3 gets say 400pts. I haven't quite worked out if they should be spelled out what you can spend it on ie battleline only, or perhaps anything & give an additional character slot as well for instance, so I'm interested to hear how people would handle it, especially interested in what competitive gamers and TO's think.

Here's the rough tiers I've blocked out so far

Tier 1

Armies: Disciples of Tzeentch, Kharadron Overlords, Stormcast Eternals,
Nurgle Maggotkin, Seraphon, Legions of Nagash, Khorne Bloodbound, FyreSlayers,
Beastclaw Raiders, Grand Alliance Order/Chaos/Destruction/Death, Daughters of Khaine

Tier 2

Armies: Flesh Eater Courts, Slaves to Darkness, Clan Skryre, Clan Pestilens,
Free Peoples, Legion of Azgorh, Sylvaneth, Ironjaws

Tier 3

Armies: All other armies

 

So what do people think? Good/bad idea?  Can you help me balance the tiers a bit better? What would you keep in Tier 1/2/3 and what would you swap?

 

thanks in advance, Jim =)

 

 

[AthlorianStoners]

I’d think Beastclaws would be a Tier 2 army myself 

[Iradekhorne]

I think this game have no tiers, you can play and win with a good combo and skill. See the squig or the nighaunt army, they win his Tournaments bcause a good combo and the players, except certain armies... The game is really balanced, if we have tiers right now they have to be tier 1 and tier 2 (all other armies).

You can have 3 types of tier (1000 point games, 2000 point and 2500 point games)

Anyway in your tier list you need drop beastclaw to tier 2 and up skyre to tier 1 (in 2500 point games). You need put bonnesplitters on tier 1 also.

If you want go more deep you can put the combo or batallion, for example changuehost is more stronger than skyfire spam or fatesworn, and they are from the same army.

[James McPherson]

Just now, Iradekhorne said:

I think this game have no tiers, you can play and win with a good combo and skill. See the squig or the nighaunt army, they win his Tournaments bcause a good combo and the players, except certain armyes the game is really balanced, if we have tiers right now they need to be tier 1 and tier 2 (all other armyes).

You can have 3 types of tier (1000 point games, 2000 point and 2500 point games)

Anyway in your tier list you need drop beastclaw to tier 2 and up skyre to tier 1 (in 2500 point games). put bonnesplitters on tier 1 also.

If you want go more deep you can put the combo or batallion, for example changuehost is more stronger than skyfire spam, and they are from the same army.

yeah there is the option to add battalions later on, but for now I'm blocking out a rough list. This is assuming a standard 2000pt game, for matched play scenarios from GHB 17. ie for a standard 5/6 game tournament.

yeah I get what you're saying, you can, but usually its an outstanding player who gets a win at an event with a lower tier army, whereas a less outstanding player can get a win with a higher tier army without trying as much. If you look at results of events all across the world and make an average, then that starts to show, as the anomalies even out, and the consistent scorers are more prevalent.

[Double Misfire]

I'm not a massively competitive player, nor do I pretend to be, but this is a terrible idea.

 

Forget what @Iradekhorne said about different game sizes (good point though), a tier list works in Blood Bowl because each team has a relatively fixed roster and composition - some of them are even purposely written to be underpowered and hard to play with (go Halflings!). You've got too much disparity between lists from the same allegiance to do this in AoS.

Why should a Stormcast player who's taken a comparatively soft nice, fluffy Vanguard Chamber themed list be smacked on the wrist with the same wooden spoon as the player who's taken whatever the latest Judicator/Fulminator/Lightning Chariot spam combo is? Non Kunnin Rukk Boneplitterz? How on earth do you even factor in something like mixed Order?!

Current AoS for all its foibles is easily the most "balanced" incarnation of Warhammer ever put out. It's not perfectly balanced and never will be. There will always be marginally better units for the points and list "builds" that people tend to gravitate towards, but if you start imposing a layer of "comp" on top of this you're ultimately only restricting people's freedom in what they want to do and forcing them towards a limited set of builds - you'd have the same amount of all powerful units and combos that had slipped the net, just a different set of them, you'd be moving the goalposts but keeping the game the same.

If somebody wants to win without much effort and practice they'll probably take a Changehost and Skyfire list or whatever the latest hotness is; If somebody wants to win with Ironjawz they'll get damn good at winning with Ironjawz. Look at the Dragon Lord/Double Phoenix list that took the last GT final - not the most powerful list on paper, but the guy knew it inside out and kicked ass with it. If @Chris Tomlin or another skilled player with a lot of practice podiums with Ironjawz  a few times should they be bumped up to  tier one?

AoS is never going to be perfectly balanced, but imo each successive incarnation of the GHB will do a much better job of bringing the year's most egregiously under/overpointed stuff in line with everything else that bolt on enforced comp will. If you want a game with a much stronger line on fixed lists living in community inputted balance harmony, it's probably worth checking in on the 9th Age, they're all lovely guys who do an absolutely sterling job developing the game they want to play.

tl;dr AoS is fine for balance and doesn't need an extra layer of it really wouldn't help. Wait for the GHB and FAQs to smack down anything too easy to use.

 

Also if you think post GHB2017 Beastclaws are a tier one army and that pure Slaves to Darkness equate to anything less than Halfling tier you're obviously an even less competitive player than me... How are you supposed to hand out tier one placings to Legions of Nagash and Daughters of Khaine when they're too new for anyone to have any proper competitive experience of them yet?! 

[Slayerofmen]

On 05/03/2018 at 10:05 PM, Double Misfire said:

Current AoS for all its foibles is easily the most "balanced" incarnation of Warhammer ever put out.

Strongly disagree 6th edition has to be the best edition for balance ever put out.

 

As for the tier system instead of extra points you should be looking at a scoring handicap of some kind, no idea what the tiers would look like or what that handicap would be but yeah

[someone2040]

So I think it's important to make some distinctions between Bloodbowl and Age of Sigmar:

1. Bloodbowl teams are a lot smaller in model count and variety. It's a lot easier to predict what a strong list would look like (generally filling out most positionals), as opposed to a weak list from the same race (probably an all lineman style list). Additionally, it has 1 win condition, score the most touchdowns (in contrast to the different types of Warhammer scenarios).

2. Most Bloodbowl teams in lower tiers were explicitly made to be more for the casual/fun side. They are explicitly mentioned as being more for fun or for people who want more of a challenge in game.

3. Bloodbowl teams have not been modified a lot in the past 10-15 years (apart from some specific teams for LRB6/CRP when that was being tested). In theory, Age of Sigmar factions are changing every year with the points updates. That's ignoring any erratas, FAQs or whatever other rules are introduced in the next iteration of the GHB.

4. Bloodbowl has over 10-15 years of data collated between leagues and tournaments. Basically, there is data backing the win percentages and tiers that races fall into.

So overall, I think it is much easier for Bloodbowl to put races into tiers, and then give out advantages to the teams in lower tiers (generally extra skills). It is not so clear cut in Age of Sigmar when the goal posts are moving every year and there's a lot more variety in builds you can make when it comes to your armies.

 

That being said, I think you can in fact put things into tiers. But I think the rewards for taking a 'lower tier' need to be well thought out. You don't want to just 'move the goalposts' where something else becomes broken because they get like an extra 200 points and they're not that much worse than the upper tiers or something. 

Personally I think I'd just be trying something like:

If you are playing an army that is in a tier higher than your opponents, you cannot benefit from Triumphs.

If your army is 1 or 2 tiers below your opponents, you gain 1 or 2 Triumphs.

Essentially something that gives a little 'leg up'.

 

As for the tiers themselves... personally I think there's probably around 4-5 tiers (Although the 5th tier is really just the dumpster tier) which I drummed out before Legions of Nagash came out. This would be based on the 'top tier' lists, and not necessarily on a random assortment. Essentially if you're making a tier list, you have to make it assuming people are taking the toughest stuff available.

If I was to consolidate it into 3 tiers for simplicity, it'd probably look something like this:

Spoiler

Tier 1: Nurgle, Tzeentch, Stormcast, Kharadron Overlords, Fyreslayers, Seraphon

Tier 2: Chaos, Khorne, Clans Skryre, Clans Pestilens, Order, Sylvaneth, Daughters of Khaine, Free Peoples, Dispossessed, Wanderers, Destruction, Ironjawz, Bonesplitters, Moonclan Grots, Legions of Nagash, Flesh-Eater Courts, Nighthaunt

Tier 3: Everything else

That being said, that's just my gut feel based on army popularity, where I've seen them being played and placing in competitive events, etc. It's possible that some of the items in Tier 2 should move up or down (as Tier 1 is basically my S tier, while Tier 2 is a combination of my A and B tiers).

 

Overall though, I'm not sure the game really needs tiers for 'comp' at events. If you're looking for making people interested in bringing less known races or whatever, you can perhaps give incentives in other ways.

So just spitballing, but you could have rules such as: you gain a triumph if your grand alliance is the least popular grand alliance at the event. You gain a triumph if your faction was taken less times than your opponents faction to the event. 

This way you give an incentive to players to take something different rather than just another Stormcast army.

[Double Misfire]

37 minutes ago, Slayerofmen said:

Strongly disagree 6th edition has to be the best edition for balance ever put out.

I have no clue why people always say this; rose tinted glasses?

6th edition was a great refinement of the game (with a few glaring exceptions - fear causing autobreak I'm looking at you), but the army books were largely terrible, and that's before you get to some of the variant lists that turned up in Storm of Chaos.

Skaven SAD, Tzeentch power dice spam, Vampire Counts autobreak from outnumbering making elite armies based around high leadership like Dwarfs and High Elves unplayable, High Elf intrigue at court (what the hell was that about!?), the Dark Elf book having to be rewritten after publication with special points adjustments you were supposed to print out and stick in your army book because it was that underpowered... I could keep going all night.

If anything 4th/5th edition played with the suggested tournament restrictions Jervis provided in White Dwarf (no magic items over 50 points, special characters, allies, power level 3 spells, total power card and unridden monsters) was easily a more balanced version of the game, just a much less smooth/fun one.

 

6th edition did have the best background and nicest looking art/books GW's ever produced mind.  

[Slayerofmen]

What can i say of all the editions olive played 5th ed + 6th was the only one where i could show up to a pick up game and there was a fair chance that the game would be close and lists would be pretty even.

 

But this is an AoS forum and thread so peoples thoughts on tiers GO 

[rokapoke]

Is Seraphon listed in the top tier almost exclusively because of the Kroak/Balewind Vortex combo? I can tell you that I play non-Kroak Seraphon and nothing seems outlandishly powerful. I hear good things about the Thunderquake battalion, but otherwise...?

[someone2040]

1 hour ago, rokapoke said:

Is Seraphon listed in the top tier almost exclusively because of the Kroak/Balewind Vortex combo? I can tell you that I play non-Kroak Seraphon and nothing seems outlandishly powerful. I hear good things about the Thunderquake battalion, but otherwise...?

So the that's part of the problem with trying to allocate factions to tiers, some factions have quite a diverse range of models and hence can make quite a diverse range of lists.

If you're trying to make a tier list for use in a competitive environment, then you should make some assumptions about the quality of lists people are going to take. In this case, you have to err on the side of 'Kroaknado' because otherwise you may give an advantage to those players who actually take a Kroaknado list.

For example, if Kroaknado was Tier 1, and all other Seraphon lists are Tier 2. Then if you Seraphon in Tier 1, the other Seraphon players will take a handicap they don't deserve. If you put them into Tier 2, then Kroaknado lists get an unfair advantage against not only other Tier 1 lists, but Tier 2 lists as well.

Anyway! It's a good example as to why it's very hard to just categorize factions into tiers. Other examples are like Vanguard Stormcast and the like, they're clearly not as strong as Vanguard Wings or Stardrake lists in general.

A lot easier to categorize an army like Greenskinz with not a huge amount of warscrolls or any battalions to speak of, so their game plan is quite straight forward compared to something like Seraphon which could take 1 of 10 different types of list.

Overall though, Seraphon I think are actually quite strong regardless of Kroaknado or not.

[James McPherson]

yeah TBH my main way of looking at it was who had the latest books and who has the latest rules support in the form of battle traits, artifacts, custom spells, prayers etc, and then looking at what armies are regularly seen in the top ten at events over the last year or so in the UK, putting those in the top tier, then putting the less seen armies in the middle, then the ones we never see at all in the bottom. It was less about list design or battalions and more of a broad categorization and small benefit/advantage.

It was never meant to be an exact handicap balancing / hard comp thing,  just a little sweetener or encouragement to make those who feel like they are fighting an uphill struggle feel less so.

I like the idea of giving triumphs instead of a points increase @someone2040