Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[Skreech Verminking]

56 minutes ago, Burf said:

They're only barely worth taking now. The combination of lookout sir+no shooting out of combat makes them pretty much dead in the water at 180pts.

Yeah but still this look out sir, is mostly a waist, since those units which usually sniped a hero with less then  8wounds 

in the first round are probably going to do the same thing with ease,  by turn 1.

it would have been great if they made something like: “pass the wounds suffered to a nearby friendly unit within 3 of it” 

something like this would probably be a command point worth.

[Skreech Verminking]

And secondly, it doesn’t even give you any kind of protection against mortal wounds spamming spells.

 

[MightyMetro]

6 hours ago, DynamicCalories said:

 

6 hours ago, bsharitt said:

I was advocating for the roll to pass off a wound to nearby unit type of "look out sir", but this works too. 

I like the way this rule has been implemented.

GW has responded to community concerns re character sniping and added a little tactical depth. Importantly, they’ve done this elegantly, without slowing the game down with more dice.

As noted there may be some issues with powerful non-monsters, these issues could be balances with updated warscrolls or points values. So, no worries ? 

 

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

Blimey it feels like some are just flicking through the Warscrolls scrolls to find things to be outraged on behalf of others.  Jolly decent of them. 

Every new rule revealed has either directly nerfed, indirectly nerfed, or not effected my army so far

[CaptainNippon]

1 minute ago, stratigo said:

Every new rule revealed has either directly nerfed, indirectly nerfed, or not effected my army so far

Has there been a faction focus for your army yet?

[stratigo]

4 hours ago, Warboss Gorbolg said:

GW has said that a new GHB is on the way as well, which means points adjustments are coming. I truly can't understand a lot of negative conjecture about certain factions right now.

Because beastclaw raiders happened.

 

Like, this isn't just something being invented from a company that has never done wrong. GW has, in its past, made changes that nerfed armies extremely hard. If you are playing 40k, then at the start of 8th, it was all vanilla space marines all the time. Almost a year later, and vanilla space marines are not a good army any longer.

 

GW nerfs armies, and sometimes not even deliberately. What KO (and a few other armies) are worried about is that they are on the nerf chopping block.

[Aginor]

1 hour ago, Burf said:

Bastilidon is a hero? The 40k rule uses both 'character' and '10 wounds'.

The Celestant Prime tends to be an abberant in most things. Plus side, he's not very good in stormcast armies.

Please read the rest of my posts. I already admitted I had a brain ****** there.

Edit : also what is wrong with new warscrolls? It is a new edition, I would be more irritated if there were no changes, and frankly: there are SO many badly worded or generally bad Warscrolls out there, and still I could bet half of them won't change and stay that bad.

I am all for GW changing Warscrolls, they do it far too rarely.

[Aginor]

Ok, doublepost since this probably is worth a separate one:

Those Longstrike guys, they are practically artillery, and good one at that. In fact there are dedicated artillery units who do less damage.
If those are "dead" now by those changes then what is a Scraplauncher for example?

We know almost nothing about the great new stuff SCE will get very soon, and how the changes in total will affect them.
But what we know is this: they will be good. They will always be in the top tier, while there are armies in the game struggling even to win against mid tier armies, who have not received a single new model in half a decade.

Edit: argh... I am not happy with this post, it sounded too aggressive and still does to a certain degree. I changed the wording a bit. Not my day today...

[Rogue Explorator]

7 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Because beastclaw raiders happened.

 

Like, this isn't just something being invented from a company that has never done wrong. GW has, in its past, made changes that nerfed armies extremely hard. If you are playing 40k, then at the start of 8th, it was all vanilla space marines all the time. Almost a year later, and vanilla space marines are not a good army any longer.

 

GW nerfs armies, and sometimes not even deliberately. What KO (and a few other armies) are worried about is that they are on the nerf chopping block.

This is something to be taken as encouraging, not disheartening.

GW ruleswriting used to be, if you got a weak codex or armybook, you would be stuck with it for an entire edition of the game (very rarely less, very commonly more, sometimes even over two editions).

Now if you get a weak codex or armybook or get "nerfed" in a round of rebalancing, the next rebalance is one year away at the maximum. This is a huge improvement, except for the sort to buy the current "strongest army" and then expect to stay that way.

 

Is it as good as perfect balance? Of course not. But I have yet to see that one in practise in any game that does not give both players the exact same pieces.

Could GW hit the mark a bit more closely with they now rather frequent rebalances? Absolutely, but they are pretty new at this sort of effort.

Will launching a new edition (even the regular relatively minor changes kind, not the system changing kind) at the time as a complete rebalance of the game tested only with playtesters likely throw a wrench in here and there? I think so, but at least now we know GW will try to adress these quickly.

 

The best way to balance an asymetric game like a wargame is to make (sensible) changes as frequently as possible. That does not make for a perfect balance, but at the very least it ensures that everyone gets times of strength and times of weakness and usually it will get a closer aproximation to balance with every round.

[Burf]

17 minutes ago, Aginor said:

Please read the rest of my posts. I already admitted I had a brain ****** there.

Edit : also what is wrong with new warscrolls? It is a new edition, I would be more irritated if there were no changes, and frankly: there are SO many badly worded or generally bad Warscrolls out there, and still I could bet half of them won't change and stay that bad.

I am all for GW changing Warscrolls, they do it far too rarely.

I took longer to type than they did, sorry.

And the problem isn't so much new warscrolls, it's more about the rules getting spread out all over the place. Yes the app helps but if you're someone that uses a battletome you're going to need to keep every book you'd normall need, plus every GHB where the warscrolls change.

Let's say you play Ironjawz, and just for the sake of argument imagine no new ironjaws stuff comes out until after GHB 2020. Now let's say this GHB changes 'Ardboyz warscroll, the next GHB changes the Weirdnob's warscroll and the one after that changes Gordrak. That's now 4 GHBs you need to bring on top of the normal books armies need to be able to function.

It's good for the game, sure. But doing warscroll changes in the GHB is the most irritating way possible to do it.

Also they killed thunderers doing this so it should make people nervous just off of precedent.

[LLV]

Armies rise and fall in power level. It’s the nature of the beast. Unless you are competing at the highest level of play, it really doesn’t matter. 

[Aginor]

5 minutes ago, Burf said:

I took longer to type than they did, sorry.

And the problem isn't so much new warscrolls, it's more about the rules getting spread out all over the place. Yes the app helps but if you're someone that uses a battletome you're going to need to keep every book you'd normall need, plus every GHB where the warscrolls change.

Let's say you play Ironjawz, and just for the sake of argument imagine no new ironjaws stuff comes out until after GHB 2020. Now let's say this GHB changes 'Ardboyz warscroll, the next GHB changes the Weirdnob's warscroll and the one after that changes Gordrak. That's now 4 GHBs you need to bring on top of the normal books armies need to be able to function.

It's good for the game, sure. But doing warscroll changes in the GHB is the most irritating way possible to do it.

Also they killed thunderers doing this so it should make people nervous just off of precedent.

I accept that reasoning but I still think that just printing out the new warscrolls now and then can mitigate it so the advantages are worth it.

Browsing through the book for the warscrolls is cumbersome anyway IMO. I use warscroll cards (bought or homemade).

[Burf]

4 minutes ago, Aginor said:

Ok, doublepost since this probably is worth a separate one:

Those Longstrike guys, they are practically artillery, and good one at that. In fact there are dedicated artillery units who do less damage.
If those are "dead" now by those changes then what is a Scraplauncher for example?

It is really hard to keep up a positive attitude towards SCE and their players if they (yes, only some of them) act like that. We know almost nothing about the great new stuff they will get very soon, and how the changes in total will affect them.
But what we know is this: they will be good. They will always be in the top tier, while there are armies in the game struggling even to win against mid tier armies, who have not received a single new model in half a decade.

They're 'dead (ish)' at a competitive level(probably?), it's not about being stormcast or not, it's about competitive viability. What other units Stormcasts get is totally irrelevant.

The changes push Longstrikes away (though possibly not out of) competitive viability. The changes also make the scrap launcher suck even harder. Pick any shooting unit that rolls to hit and focuses on characters if the stormcast thing rubs you the wrong way so much. You could replace vanguard raptors with Kurnoth Hunters (though they're slightly less effected) or rock lobbas, or doom diver catapults, or Blood Stalkers, or The Khorne Cannon thing, any shooting unit that focused on characters with special mention to any that did stuff on 6s to hit got hurt.

The army being good SUPER isn't the point. The point is that specific unit isn't competitively viable. No one was saying 'Stormcast' won't be viable, or even overall better than they were. They were saying 'Vanguard Longstrikes' won't be viable/good. It's pretty hard to keep a positive attitude towards straw-man arguments.

[LLV]

The whole point of the AoS system was to be able to be fluid with rules updates and tweaks- hence why they are free and electronic. Complaining over changes is a bit counter productive. I for one do not want to go back to the days of waiting years for book updates.

[Aginor]

@BurfI think you are still getting it wrong.

Look Out Sir only affects heroes, and only those who are not monsters. Those Longstrike guys are still awesome and can shoot something else and do all their mortal wounds and stuff. The players just have to adapt their tactics.

And please stop accusing people of building straw man arguments when they aren't. It always rubs them the wrong way.

[adreal]

I like the look at sir rule, there is ways around it, but it offers some protection for the smaller hero's. 

 

I'm looking at starting Wanderers, already have 1k built, so shooting changes will effect me, but I say, bring them on, I much rather this way of doing things then a army book breaking the game in such a way that, not only was the author unapologetic, they had to make a new edition

[Aginor]

I doubt GW will outright break shooting armies, that would be dumb.

That rule isn't bad IMO, I just expected more. But I understand that people playing strong shooting armies (and cannot easily switch tactics because their army is focussed on that) will disagree.

Anyway, I guess we will get some new info tomorrow that will give us some more hints to speculate with.

Going to bed now.

[silentdeathz]

22 minutes ago, Aginor said:

@BurfI think you are still getting it wrong.

Look Out Sir only affects heroes, and only those who are not monsters. Those Longstrike guys are still awesome and can shoot something else and do all their mortal wounds and stuff. The players just have to adapt their tactics.

And please stop accusing people of building straw man arguments when they aren't. It always rubs them the wrong way.

 

I wouldn't really call them "awesome" to begin with, let alone "still awesome" - and suggesting that he's wrong because he isnt thinking of players "adapting their tactics" is just dismissive without any substance, imo.

Longstrikes were barely passable before, and were used as hero snipers (outside of aetherstrike). Now they are very noticeably weaker. That is not something that you "adapt tactics" for, that is just an objective fact.

 

Personally I think sometimes you need to break a few things along the way to a better future, so I'm not too concerned  - but if GW hasn't considered these things and doesnt have planned changed (eg warscroll changes or point adjustments) then thats a very poor oversight.

 

[mhsellwood]

4 minutes ago, Burf said:

I took longer to type than they did, sorry.

And the problem isn't so much new warscrolls, it's more about the rules getting spread out all over the place. Yes the app helps but if you're someone that uses a battletome you're going to need to keep every book you'd normall need, plus every GHB where the warscrolls change.

Let's say you play Ironjawz, and just for the sake of argument imagine no new ironjaws stuff comes out until after GHB 2020. Now let's say this GHB changes 'Ardboyz warscroll, the next GHB changes the Weirdnob's warscroll and the one after that changes Gordrak. That's now 4 GHBs you need to bring on top of the normal books armies need to be able to function.

It's good for the game, sure. But doing warscroll changes in the GHB is the most irritating way possible to do it.

Also they killed thunderers doing this so it should make people nervous just off of precedent.

To be fair mate you do seem to be going out of your way to make a case that is absolutely the most extreme example. In your example you are saying that potentially over the course of the next 3 years one army receives 3 separate changes and that at not point does Games Workshop makes these new Warscrolls available through the App, or on their website (n.b. outdated warscrolls have so far been updated on their website), or you don't just photo copy the old ones? Crikey.

Also, if warscrolls don't get updated then what is the alternative? The game cannot change if you never change the moving parts of it. Sometimes this will mean certain armies benefit or suffer in different proportions, and different units similarly. The changes will happen, some units will benefit more than others, some will suffer more than others, and there is nothing that can be done to prevent this short of stopping releasing new models, doing new rules or ever releasing anything ever again. Instead the approach should be in line with Games Workshop are doing: reviewing current warscrolls and updating where necessary, and a regular points rebalance mechanism in the GHB. So Longstrikes are not viable? Reduce their points and update their warscroll so they are able to ignore the Look Out, Sir rule - boom they are a good sniper unit.

Problem I have with a lot of what I am reading is that some of the reactions have more than a hint of hysteria. GW tell us something will change, and suddenly people know that this will make units completely unplayable, whole armies have been nerfed into oblivion, dogs and cats living together, the whole thing. But, we don't know points, we don't know warscroll changes, we don't know if there will be new battalions, so we have no real scope to make long term calls.

For me, what I am getting is the following:

• Games Workshop are aware of what is causing some people to not buy in. If you look around at other sites, my observation is the following issues stop people: The double turn (probably number 1 on most peoples lists), ability to shoot characters quite easily, units able to shoot in and out of combat with no penalty or risk (in general the potency of shooting is probably number 2 as it is not really possible to play well and mitigate)
• The changes we have seen are very minor nudges to affect these things: double turn stays but is less likely to happen, shooting is being nerfed a bit on a couple of different levels. The core of the game however is clearly not changing

[mhsellwood]

Just now, silentdeathz said:

Personally I think sometimes you need to break a few things along the way to a better future, so I'm not too concerned  - but if GW hasn't considered these things and doesnt have planned changed (eg warscroll changes or point adjustments) then thats a very poor oversight.

 

Just to quickly pick up on this point (and not taking a shot silentdeathz just that you happened to post) - do we all honestly believe that some of these issues are so difficult to pick up on that GW will have done nothing to mitigate the worst examples? (note that in a game with as many moving parts as AoS there will be things that slip through but that happens)

[silentdeathz]

1 minute ago, mhsellwood said:

 do we all honestly believe that some of these issues are so difficult to pick up on that GW will have done nothing to mitigate the worst examples? 

Probably not, since as I stated that isn't my opinion.  But its not something to be dismissed either way since more obvious things have been overlooked by both GW and other companies in the past.

I'm not sure why people seem to be so intent on pushing a discussion toward extremes and picking sides. Have a civil discussion, if someone is being a little bit sensational then just reply to the parts with merit and don't escalate further.

I think there's a fair concern from people that certain things may have been overlooked - and the drip feed info method GW is giving sneak peeks helps perpetuate those worries.  

At this point I doubt much can be done re. the books etc as they are likely all printed, but there's nothing wrong with an open discussion.

[Richelieu]

27 minutes ago, Aginor said:

I doubt GW will outright break shooting armies, that would be dumb.

That rule isn't bad IMO, I just expected more. But I understand that people playing strong shooting armies (and cannot easily switch tactics because their army is focussed on that) will disagree.

Anyway, I guess we will get some new info tomorrow that will give us some more hints to speculate with.

Going to bed now.

You were hoping for more?  You wanted characters to be invincible to shooting?  I am not a fan of lookout sir.  Surgically removing your opponent's synergies was one of the many strategies that made AoS so dynamic.  Now there is one less way to play the game.  I do not think this is a positive, nor do I think shooting armies were enough of a problem to warrant the change.

[Brightstar]

4 hours ago, Turragor said:

It's a reward for having less flexibility in list choice - like an extra artefact was since the introduction of matched.

That's what everyone* has said. And I've seen  you two scamps argue 'no one has explained why 1 battalion should grant 1 CP' in a few places. Where have you cooked up the claim that no one has argued this?

 

 

 

 

*Well, lots have said. Or at least some. If not some then a couple. And if not a couple then I just said it.

I am sorry.  I did forget the argument  that having less flexibility in list choice when I wrote the original statement.   But it is sort of a non-argument, isn't it?   As it stands (and will in 2.0) a player chooses to take a battalion or warscroll because the player believes it is points efficient or because they believe it is more optimum  than other choices.  If a war scroll remains more optimum, players will continue to choose it over other choices.  If battalions become a more optimum build we will see more players building off battalions instead of free choices.  Which, in the current meta, most battalions aren't chosen because they are not "worth the points" or "cost too much to take more then one."  Because the freedom of choice first begins with either to take a battalion or not take a battalion, doesn't it?

And the benefit of taking a battalion should be intrinsic to the battalion not the core rules.   If the incentive to take a battalion over free choices is not enough either improve the battalion, reduce its cost,or cut it as the game doesn't need it.  It's that simple. 

In a points driven, list dominated, game mechanic, model/rule efficiency generally trumps aesthetic.  We are always limited by what we gain mechanically for the points.  There is only the illusion of free choice.  Otherwise we wouldn't rank every army and every unit based on its efficiency or complain about its over all power compared to others.  Every list build would have an equal chance against each other and winning tournaments (which again, is not true).   We would all be playing the game without points as it was originally designed to be played. 

The only reason to give extra CP to battalions is to encourage people to build off battalions. 

I have mad respect for AOS and its' design team.  I am happy to see how the command point system plays out in the game.  I just don't think this improves the game in any way.    In fact, if 7th & 8th edition 40k are anything to go by, it will be the source of serious problems in the future.   

 

 

[Turgol]

It is really an impressive fact, but very telling of human behavior, that TGA very quickly became what it was created not to be: your usual Warseer or Dakka forum where you are very likely going to find mostly whining at how GW sucks big time because your army suddenly is the worst in the world (because of a minor tweak). This thread is the equivalent of Dakka’s 8th edition 40k thread or Warseer 8th edition WHFB one. A big achievement going from a small haven towards the mainstream forum, but it did come with a cost.

[Barkanaut]

That’s the downside of a quick growing community. Not much experience. Honestly with how balanced 8th is I think we’re good. I just hope that they make the rules a little distinct from each other as I don’t want to play a 40k clone. AoS should have its own nuances.