Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[Mayple]

3 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

That is very good to hear. I have have had some really bad expiriance with +2 re-roll 1s nagash floating on an objective, and am probablly not the only one.

IMO one of the main strenghts of AoS was that no matter what nothing was unkillable in the game. Or at least till nagash and stardrakes started being played. Being able to kill everything adds a lot to the game. Not only is there fewer auto lose situations, but makes the game more "dangerous" to play. Few things are worse then a game, where you play soliter or your so tough that you just don't care.

I feel your pain

I regularly have to fight a bastilladon with 2+ save, re-rolling 1s, ignoring rend, and a 4+ save versus rend. While Kroak laughs maniacally in the background atop his gosh darn Balewind. Dropping D3 mortal wounds across my -entire- army every round, plus another batch of D3 mortal wounds to select targets, and an arcane bolt to finish things off. 

I wake up screaming during the night, I tell you! 

[Drib]

Now that the Lord of Change is no longer required to be the general, I am going to give my Gaunt Summoner the Arcane Sacrifice Command Trait to ensure a more or less free re-roll&9" to spellcasts.

Quote

Arcane Sacrifice: At the start of your hero phase, you can inflict D3 mortal wounds on a friendly unit within 3"of your general. If you do so, then you can re-roll any failed casting rolls for your general for the duration of that phase, and increase the range of any spells they cast by 9".

 

[blueshirtman]

yeah, man that new balewind and wound limitation on casters floating on it, how well it combos with a dude that has no wounds
 

Quote

Arcane Sacrifice: At the start of your hero phase, you can inflict D3 mortal wounds on a friendly unit within 3"of your general. If you do so, then you can re-roll any failed casting rolls for your general for the duration of that phase, and increase the range of any spells they cast by 9".

 

I think they are going to have to change wording on that one, because if you take two summers, there is nothing in the rules that says you can't use the rule twice and give the general 18" extra range ?

[Gotrek]

35 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

Its 4 units, from what I have seen most slyer lists their vulkits in 20-30 man sized squads so 120 would be 4 units, plus heros and riggers or some sort of ally to dispel stuff.  And yes I do play beastclaws, but I said while it hurts and army with 4-5 units really hard, it hurts everything else too. You won't see stuff like paladins, or any other slower elite units in lists, if there is a chance someone will "kill" them with one spell.

Also as I mentioned it before, the spell doesn't even have to be cast to affect the game. Suddenly planting an anvil on on objective no longer works. So either you have to double the number of such units, or anvil units fall out of favor, unless they are really cheap or really fast. But even really fast won't help you if your opponent kicks you off an objective in the last turn of the game. In fact vs tough strong casters late game banish is more of a problem then turn 1-2. Because in the later turns your unbind dudes maybe dead, your "scroll" maybe used up. So there maybe no one there to stop the spell from being cast. Add to this a possible a double turn, and you a very uninteractive game play.

And even if all of this happens in random games, when you randomly roll a realm, this may end up with people droping the realm rules, same as they did with terrain rules etc And I don't want people to remove stuff from the game. Specially when the non banish stuff looks cool, and no where near comperable in power.

I forgot vulkites are 30 max, I'm so used to my skeletons with their max of 40, apologies.

As for it not needing to be cast to affect the game, that literally applies to EVERYTHING. Deepstriking units affect deployment and movement even if they never come on to the enemy side. Teleporting units do the same. The existence of a big stompy monster will affect the course of the battle even if it never sees combat simply because it is an additional variable on the field and a potent variable at that.

 

[chord]

25 minutes ago, Ahn-ket said:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/06/10/next-week-the-soul-wars-begin/

New Infos prices for soul wars box is the same as the dark imperium box 

Malign sorcery is at the price of a start collecting 

Hmmm the GHB16 and GHB17 were different prices here stateside.  So which will it be

[blueshirtman]

Yes, but how many spells do you know that can remove a unit of any size,  number of wounds etc from the game with a succesful cast? that is the problem. of course if the unit is 40 skinks, that probablly cost like 200pts or something crazy like that, it hurts less, but some of the objective siting units cost 300pts or more. Sometimes they require support characters that are suddenly sitting in the middle of no where. Also it has HUGE problems with scalling. I know, the normal game is 2000pts, but some people 1000-1500pts. Imagine losing 1/3 of their army because someone got a spell off.  There are very few moments worse then that, and most involved bad social interaction or cheating. Also lets not forget that when playing 1500 or less points, then non LoN/tzeench army may not have a dedicted dispel machine.

But man just play it yourself a few times, it is really unfun when it happens, and gives a very cheap win to one person based on a single roll. And lets not forget the double turn interaction here. Imagine it is turn 4-5 you get double turn, you kill the opponents dispel dude, or maybe he is out of range and you remove 2 of your opponents units with 2 spells, that is for most armies a dead side of a table, unless they are very fast or have teleport mechanics.

[Absolution black]

13 minutes ago, chord said:

Hmmm the GHB16 and GHB17 were different prices here stateside.  So which will it be

I would guess the most expensive of the two!

[Captain Marius]

Im gonna bet Banishment is not even the scariest spell out of this new batch. Im also gonna bet it doesnt ultimately impact whether we see less slow stuff like Retributors. In fact, with Hammerstrike likely getting a tasty points decrease my paladins will be right there for wizard murdering duty!

I wonder if you have to choose between taking a spell from your battletome or one of the realm spells - thatd limit the impact right there.

[AlphaKennyThing]

3 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

Yes, but how many spells do you know that can remove a unit of any size,  number of wounds etc from the game with a succesful cast? that is the problem. of course if the unit is 40 skinks, that probablly cost like 200pts or something crazy like that, it hurts less, but some of the objective siting units cost 300pts or more. Sometimes they require support characters that are suddenly sitting in the middle of no where. Also it has HUGE problems with scalling. I know, the normal game is 2000pts, but some people 1000-1500pts. Imagine losing 1/3 of their army because someone got a spell off.  There are very few moments worse then that, and most involved bad social interaction or cheating. Also lets not forget that when playing 1500 or less points, then non LoN/tzeench army may not have a dedicted dispel machine.

But man just play it yourself a few times, it is really unfun when it happens, and gives a very cheap win to one person based on a single roll. And lets not forget the double turn interaction here. Imagine it is turn 4-5 you get double turn, you kill the opponents dispel dude, or maybe he is out of range and you remove 2 of your opponents units with 2 spells, that is for most armies a dead side of a table, unless they are very fast or have teleport mechanics.

I think in that case you'd lose mate. Kill their casters! And they will stop casting. Banishment requires 12" from your target, that's solid kill range for Destruction armies. Go and beat it to death.

In a game where I'm up against backfield casters spamming ****** spells, I'll be sending Gore-gruntas back there quicker than you can say Tzeentch. Bob the Necromancer will be forced to make the difficult choice of banishing one of my objective units, or banishing the gore-tusk firmly lodged in his pooper.

Arkhan the Black in a 1,000 game is half the army. He'll find it tremendously difficult to cast anything, with any modifier, if he's in several pieces under the hoof of a Stonehorn. He's not a Challenger II main battle tank, he's a flimsy skeleton in a dress on a giant skeleton unicorn. Go full caveman on it and it will definitely die. Give your army some credit, bud!

[Jamopower]

I don't think basing strategies around the realm spells is too relevant. Most of the time that they're in use, it'll be in very casual games as the rules seem to be designed for that kind of gaming. Putting 40 extra spells to a game where everyone doesn't have wizards doesn't really work in sort of competitive environment. There has been plenty of examples in this thread why. It's also good to remember that the spells are narrative content in a game expansion. 

[Gotrek]

1 hour ago, blueshirtman said:

Yes, but how many spells do you know that can remove a unit of any size,  number of wounds etc from the game with a succesful cast? that is the problem. of course if the unit is 40 skinks, that probablly cost like 200pts or something crazy like that, it hurts less, but some of the objective siting units cost 300pts or more. Sometimes they require support characters that are suddenly sitting in the middle of no where. Also it has HUGE problems with scalling. I know, the normal game is 2000pts, but some people 1000-1500pts. Imagine losing 1/3 of their army because someone got a spell off.  There are very few moments worse then that, and most involved bad social interaction or cheating. Also lets not forget that when playing 1500 or less points, then non LoN/tzeench army may not have a dedicted dispel machine.

But man just play it yourself a few times, it is really unfun when it happens, and gives a very cheap win to one person based on a single roll. And lets not forget the double turn interaction here. Imagine it is turn 4-5 you get double turn, you kill the opponents dispel dude, or maybe he is out of range and you remove 2 of your opponents units with 2 spells, that is for most armies a dead side of a table, unless they are very fast or have teleport mechanics.

Banishment. Does. Not. Do. That. Moving a unit != removing it from the game. Yes, I play at 2,000 and here's my list to give insight as to why I don't care about banishment:

Legion of night

Vampire lord on zombie dragon (held in reserve)

3 vargheists (held in reserve)

3 vargheists (held in reserve)

40 skeletons 

40 skeletons

10 dire wolves

Necromancer

Vampire

Vampire

Wight king

-----------

Go ahead, banish something. I got 5 more units that will eat that wizard for lunch. Hide the wizard? Cute. I'll kill whatever is protecting him while you banish a second unit and I still have 4 to kill you with (btw, the only character I ever send into combat is the dragon so I'm ignoring the Wight king and foot vamps for this).

Yeah, at lower point levels things can get bent because you can't fit the bodies into a list. That doesn't make the spell itself busted, just busted in a certain situation. Like Kroak-nado, his spell is just fine until he gets thrown on a balewind with an astrolith bearer.

[Skabnoze]

1 hour ago, chord said:

Hmmm the GHB16 and GHB17 were different prices here stateside.  So which will it be

The higher cost one.  I think they are going to be done with softback books for Age of Sigmar.  It looks like GW is moving back to all hardback books lately.

[Skabnoze]

1 hour ago, Captain Marius said:

I wonder if you have to choose between taking a spell from your battletome or one of the realm spells - thatd limit the impact right there.

That’s where I am putting my money.  I expect that wizards still get the exact same amount of non-warscrolls spells but they will simply have more options for what lore to select those extra spells from.

I think the endless spells may be in addition to all the other spells though - because it sounds like you purchase those with points in army creation.

[Skabnoze]

22 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

I don't think basing strategies around the realm spells is too relevant. Most of the time that they're in use, it'll be in very casual games as the rules seem to be designed for that kind of gaming. Putting 40 extra spells to a game where everyone doesn't have wizards doesn't really work in sort of competitive environment. There has been plenty of examples in this thread why. It's also good to remember that the spells are narrative content in a game expansion. 

I don’t think there is a single allegiance that does not have the option to bring a wizard with allies if they wanted.  It may not fit a theme someone is working with, but the option seems to be there for everyone.

[chord]

14 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

The higher cost one.  I think they are going to be done with softback books for Age of Sigmar.  It looks like GW is moving back to all hardback books lately.

Bummer. I like the soft cover.

[Karol]

41 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

Banishment. Does. Not. Do. That. Moving a unit != removing it from the game. Yes, I play at 2,000 and here's my list to give insight as to why I don't care about banishment:

Dude no offense, but A your army is undead.you saying you don't worry about banishement  is like  a tzeench player said he doesn't worry much summoning. Of course you don't have to worry, your faciton is the one that benefits the most from spells like banishment. Because you both can easier cast or unbind it, and you have grave stones summoning to go around pushback.

And as it not killing stuff. If it puts a non free unit for 2-3 turns out of range of doing anything, it is as good as killing. You know it is the same with melee armies getting slowed.

32 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I don’t think there is a single allegiance that does not have the option to bring a wizard with allies if they wanted.  It may not fit a theme someone is working with, but the option seems to be there for everyone.

yes, we get it. play one of the top 4 armies. Or ally them in. I think the idea behind having a battle tome army is for it to work without ally. Otherwise why give it a battletome and not just keep it just in the General Handbook?

 

47 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

Yeah, at lower point levels things can get bent because you can't fit the bodies into a list.

For my army the difference between 1500 and 2000 is something like 2 models.

[Waiyuren]

45 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

The higher cost one.  I think they are going to be done with softback books for Age of Sigmar.  It looks like GW is moving back to all hardback books lately.

That seems a bit of a waste, given the ghb is a yearly throw-away... i never got 16, but my 17 is paperback, and was still $60. ?

[Skabnoze]

9 minutes ago, Karol said:

yes, we get it. play one of the top 4 armies. Or ally them in. I think the idea behind having a battle tome army is for it to work without ally. Otherwise why give it a battletome and not just keep it just in the General Handbook?

Top 4 armies?  What on earth are you talking about?  I play Destruction and mainly grots at that.

And what do you mean by “work without ally” - every allegiance that can field a hero and a battleline unit “works”.  Some are better at certain things than others and some have more toys than others.  That is always the way that games like this worked.  You don’t NEED a wizard for your army to “work”.

Some armies are designed to play without wizards.  Who knows what changes they have or have not made to those forces. We done have the full new rules in hand yet.   But if you choose to play an army that is well known to be weaker in a particular aspect of the game then you can either deal with it and learn to work around that weakness or you can look for allies to fill in that gap.

Nothing at all has changed from 1st edition to 2nd edition in regards to playing an army without wizards vs one that has them.  The same issues exist right now that exist in the next edition from what we can tell.  The only difference is that the generic spell pool is larger.  People are acting like the sky is falling when all we know are just small teasers.

[Mayple]

44 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

Top 4 armies?  What on earth are you talking about?  I play Destruction and mainly grots at that.

Don't think I don't see you hanging out over there with your top-tier hardcore netlist Grot army! 

I see you! 

[Bellfree]

 

3 hours ago, Gotrek said:

Banishment. Does. Not. Do. That. Moving a unit != removing it from the game. Yes, I play at 2,000 and here's my list to give insight as to why I don't care about banishment:

Legion of night

Vampire lord on zombie dragon (held in reserve)

3 vargheists (held in reserve)

3 vargheists (held in reserve)

40 skeletons 

40 skeletons

10 dire wolves

Necromancer

Vampire

Vampire

Wight king

-----------

Go ahead, banish something. I got 5 more units that will eat that wizard for lunch. Hide the wizard? Cute. I'll kill whatever is protecting him while you banish a second unit and I still have 4 to kill you with (btw, the only character I ever send into combat is the dragon so I'm ignoring the Wight king and foot vamps for this).

Yeah, at lower point levels things can get bent because you can't fit the bodies into a list. That doesn't make the spell itself busted, just busted in a certain situation. Like Kroak-nado, his spell is just fine until he gets thrown on a balewind with an astrolith bearer.

 Banishment is BETTER than killing units outright a lot of the time. Especially against a LoN. It actually fully removes skeletons from the game, they can't even be resummoned?

Your list is horrendously weak to banishment. I would feel guilty using it against you tbh. Turn 1, I use USP to banish 40 skeletons to the back table edge, they're out of the game. You bring in your VLoZD, he eats the screen I put in front of my wizard. Turn two I banish the second unit of 40 skeletons and kill your VLoZD. Considering the VLoZD is the only meaningful threat in your entire army I can afford to put everything I have available into it and kill it in one turn.  If I go second it's even easier because I'll be on the double turn. After that it's just mopping up a couple of 'meh' 5 wound characters, 10 dogs, and 2 of the worst unit in the entire LoN book.

You don't have enough chaff clear to free up space for the VLoZD to land cleanly in range of the caster, you don't have enough damage in the rest of your units for them to draw attention away from the VLoZD. If I kill that and keep the skeletons on the back board edge, you just don't have enough else to beat my entire army. If you unbind USP after the first banishment I can just Banish the VLoZD and that would by me 2 turns even with his 14" movement, or just ignore the skeletons and banish them after they've moved closer to the wizard. If you try to hold it off the table you give me complete board control and will likely lose just on objective points in most missions.

You could still win if you get the double-turn at the right time or if you successfully unbind both banishments(although considering that you've sort of bet the farm on the VLoZD it would be an uphill battle even then), but either way this is a massively easier game for me than it is for you, just based off of banish.

[Mayple]

@Bellfree As I noted earlier:
Banishment is not the problem; 12" range is not a problem - I can not see anyone ever running into any issue with it by itself that doesn't fall back on "Made a horrible tactical blunder" - Which as far as I'm concerned, is exactly the kind of situation where a unit -should- be wiped out. 

Umbral spell portal might -make- it a problem, sure, but that's an Umbral spell problem issue, and not a Banishment issue. 

[tolstedt]

How has everyone found banishment to play in their games so far?  I haven't played any games with banishment yet.

[Bellfree]

15 minutes ago, Mayple said:

@Bellfree As I noted earlier:
Banishment is not the problem; 12" range is not a problem - I can not see anyone ever running into any issue with it by itself that doesn't fall back on "Made a horrible tactical blunder" - Which as far as I'm concerned, is exactly the kind of situation where a unit -should- be wiped out. 

Umbral spell portal might -make- it a problem, sure, but that's an Umbral spell problem issue, and not a Banishment issue. 

It's absolutely a problem so long as banishment is available to everyone. Umbral spellportal doesn't make spells powerful it makes them longer range. If using spell portal makes a spell an issue that's because the spell is powerful already.

And your arguments mostly assume that the opponent using banishment isn't very skilled. Good players will be able to counter every single one of the counters you suggested, or otherwise take advantage of the hoops you have to jump through. Sure, you can stay outside of 12"...but that's good for the banishment player and bad for you. It means THEY control where your units go and you get basically no say. It also means that they can absolutely wreck you on the double turn. Your mistakes are not the only thing that can be utilized by an opponent to get the most out of this spell and other exceptionally powerful abilities.  That's what makes OP things OP usually. It's not that an OP rule instantly wins the game for you, it's that it makes winning the game much easier for you than it is for your opponent.

People said the same type of stuff about pre-nerf Vanguard Wing, pre-nerf Skyfires, pre-Nerf BeastclawGrots, Pre-Nerf Tomb Kings and Pre-Nerf Warrior Brotherhood  and look how that turned out. Those all had 'counters' too.

 

And to put my final word in, the biggest problem with Banishment is not the fact that it's the most powerful spell in the game(which it is. Whether or not you think it's a problem it IS the most powerful single spell in the game ATM), it's that it's accessible to every single army that ends up in Hysh, regardless of how well or poorly they can make use of it. If it was an Ironjawz specific spell, no it wouldn't be an issue. It would be very strong but it wouldn't be an 'issue'. The combination of unequal armies having equal access and the randomness associated with the realm specific rules is what makes it as powerful as it is. Now I've said my piece, take it or leave it up to you; I'm gonna go back to pokemon.

[Mayple]

37 minutes ago, Bellfree said:

It's absolutely a banishment issue. Umbral spellportal doesn't make spells powerful it makes them longer range. If using spell portal makes a spell an issue that's because the spell is powerful already.

And your arguments mostly assume that the opponent using banishment is totally brain-dead. Sure, you can stay out of 12"...but that's good for the banishment player and bad for you. It means THEY control where your units go and you get basically no say. It also means that they can absolutely wreck you on the double turn. Your mistakes are not the only thing that can be utilized by an opponent to get the most out of this spell and other exceptionally powerful abilities.  That's what makes OP things OP usually. It's not that an OP rule instantly wins the game for you, it's that it makes winning the game much easier for you than it is for your opponent.

Range is a very notable thing that decides whether something is powerful or not; or adjusts the power curve one way or another if you will. 

To put it like this: With a range of 12" - a player has absolutely no way of taking the spell to the enemy, i.e: No way of using it offensively. Without movement shenanigans, like teleportation, umbral portals, balewinds and such, by itself it is impossible to "get the drop on" an enemy unit. In other words, the spell is a defensive, reactionary spell. You mostly get to use it when the opponent waltz into your zone of control, and then usually as a -reaction- to what they're doing. Excluding a double-turn, which is unlikely, but even then, something an opponent should have planned for.

What does this mean for the player up against a banishment wizard? They know exactly what they're walking into, what to expect, and how to deal with it. If things get out of hand, and something super valuable gets banished, then the -attacking- player messed up. The ball is in their court, not the other way around. 

For example, let's say the banishment user wants to use it offensively. -IF- he gets a double-turn, he has a threat range of his normal movement + 12. Let's say he has movement 6 for the sake of argument, so he has a threat range of 18. That means that if the enemy plans accordingly, and puts his -valuable- units at 19" away this particular wizard, there's absolutely no way for him to banish the unit, even with a doubleturn. More realistically, you could expect the player making the risk assesment to figure that there won't be any double-turn, or depending on turn priority -knows- there won't be, to place his unit 13" away. At that point, he is still completely safe, or potentially in a risky spot if victim of a double-turn. If the wizard moves forward to get in range, he still has to wait for his next hero-phase to actually cast the spell, with a risk of getting run down because he's -way- out of position. A wizard who ends his turn within 12" of an enemy unit is either a sacrifical pawn in some elaborate baiting gambit (whoop ) or about to get brutally murdered for existing. 

 

Now, defensively, it's a bit difficult to deal with, because at that point you're going to want to run -into- the threat range of the wizard; but the question at that point becomes: What exactly is he defending? With 12" range, he's going to have to do some running if he wants to threaten any midfield objectives, and even then the enemy can usually get away with standing along the edge of the line, and capturing the objective anyway (for sure if it's one of the rare 6" objectives) - The wizard will then be either out in the open, or closely protected/bubblewrapped by another unit, meaning less resources spent to actually -take- the midfield objective. If we assume that all resources are spent on taking the objective, then he is by himself out in the open; vulnerable to sneaky counter attacks if the opponent even bothers (he's already fighting for the objective at that point, and the wizard is no more in range then than he was before) 

 

Where I think it will shine, is protecting objectives on your own side of the map. Getting flanked? If the wizard survives, and manages to cast it, then you get to remove some pressure without diverting some serious firepower away from your front lines, which is neat. 

 

Now, the umbral spell portal, balewind, and other methods of extending the 12" range will alleviate the shortcomings of the spell (noted above) by removing the primary weakness of it. Turning it into a tool that -can- be used offensively; proactively. "I see you're looking to flank//bubblewrap//block with that unit of yours, how about no." - Which can be an interesting type of second-turn alpha-striking. But this is something that is only possible by utilizing external utilities, and not something available to the spell itself. The spell itself is, as noted, incredibly easy to work around - but steps can be taken to make it much, much more difficult. 

 

Edit:

tl;dr: (Just in case) - with 12" range on a spell, it will only ever hit units who knowingly walk into range of it - The tactical choice lies in the receiving party, not the owner of the spell.

 

37 minutes ago, Bellfree said:

People said the same type of stuff about pre-nerf Vanguard Wing, pre-nerf Skyfires, pre-Nerf BeastclawGrots, Pre-Nerf Tomb Kings and Pre-Nerf Warrior Brotherhood  and look how that turned out. Those all had 'counters' too.

Not sure what point you're making here? Is it "You're saying this is not broken, and other people said other things were not broken in the past, and those got nerfed, so you're probably wrong about this."? If so, uh, no? I'm not "people"

Feel free to elaborate if (as I probably did ) I missed your point at the end there. 

 

[Gotrek]

@Bellfree you seriously think 2 sets of 10 attacks at 3+/3+ rend 1 and 2 damage is bad??? You seriously think they cant kill most wizards? Pass whatever is in your pipe.