Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[Lemondish]

5 hours ago, Redmanphill said:

Interesting that the Beastcaller Bones don’t specify enemy monsters. So you could enthrall yourself with that item as you would count as being within 3” of yourself...

I’m probably biased as I’m very eager to see AoSII come out and I’m possibly also misremembering the 40k hype cycle. This cycle seems very long and very scattershot. As an example we’ve  had various articles about magic and artefacts. Each one gives tidbits which while very welcome are not informative. The faction focus articles are practically useless and only the last paragraph usually gives information.

Now I can’t say I would do it any better but I would do things differently. 

As someone who is jumping in with 2e, I'd like to just share that I feel the faction focus articles and rules previews are very well done. You may feel like there's been very little information, but for me and others like me it's ALL new information. The faction focus articles in particular have been my favourites since they do a great job of summarising each faction, where they come from, a bit about how they play and how to be successful, and some new rules that seem neat (though I wouldn't know their impact). That's enough to get me hooked and I check back every day.

I fear that a deeper post with a boatload of information aimed at current players wouldn't be all that useful for me - a prospective new addict.  Longtime players may not like the lack of info, but you'll ultimately get every detail you want with the book's inevitable release. I, on the other hand, would have tuned out on the first complex rule breakdown post when it became clear I don't have the knowledge to gauge the effect of these changes. The way they present them now, with loads of build up and exposition, is perfect.

Just a noobs perspective. 

[BURF1]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

@Karol, what heroes do you have? The artifact I mentioned can be added to any hero to give you an extra unbind, and there will probably be other items that will be useful. I understand the frustration, but khorne has gained some pretty good command point combos. Did you use command points? What about terrain? The banishment spell requires line of sight.

Edit - if you are playing with a veto rule, how about vetoing a spell?

 

Terrain won't really help you considering that banishment is only 12" range for most armies(obviously umbral spell portal would get around that and LoN can do 18" and DoK can do 24") and the ability to unbind the spell is going to be largely irrelevant against the armies best capable of using it. This spell right here is the single most terrifying thing about this edition. The rest of it I've sort of just shrugged and moved on from at this point, but this right here is absolutely the most brutal spell GW have ever made for AoS. This makes  8th edition's 'Dweller's below' and 'The Dreaded Thirteenth' look like the new Arcane Bolt.

Now, caveat. Any and all of this could change with all kinds of other factors, but as it stands, under a specific set of assumptions this spell could wreck entire factions by itself.

To illustrate the idea, I'm going to be using the following assumptions(any of these could be wrong, this is theoretical. Even small changes to the rules could make this completely different.

):

No major warscroll/faction changes are coming to the units most capable of abusing this(Morathi, Nagash, Arkhan, LoC).

There are no additional costs associated to the spell.

The realms are usable in matched play and there will be no method to 'ban' specific realms.(The method to selecting the realms will be irrelevant if there's no way to make sure you DON'T get a specific one.

Auto unbind relics/abilities will be incredibly rare and very expensive.

This is the exact, correct wording of the spell.

The spell is usable by any wizard playing in the realm, obviously if there's a ban list or w/e that changes the power of it a bit.

No other significant changes to the mechanics of how spells and unbinds interact occur.

The spell is usable with Umbral Spellportal.

This is just meant to demonstrate a  how powerful an effective usage of the spell is and why it has the potential to create problems in matched play, please don't but what about ______ this, I am aware there are things you can do to mitigate these effects AND that this might be how the rules end up working. It's a thought exercise I'm hoping someone involved in the process will see and say either 'Oh, didn't think of that' or 'HA, this chump(me in this case) is like 6 months behind us.'  Assume Arkhan with his battalion(not a weak choice by any means) with a Mortis Engine and a Unholy Lodestone for +5 to cast on 3 spells at +6" alongside 2 Necromancers at +3 to cast at +6". With Umbral Spell portal this means that Arkhan will be able to hit anything within 18" of him OR the spell portal(total 36" range) at +5 to cast. This means unboosted unbind is unlikely to stop him and even +1 or +2 is unlikely to help much. Even without this, any one of the things you can do with banishment is so powerful that fishing for it with weaker casters could easily win you the game on its own, especially against opponents that can't banish you in return.

First problem you run into, not one word of that spell suggests the unit has to transported in coherency. RAW you can put a different model in each corner of the board and the unit can't do nothin' for the rest of the game but move towards coherency. Obviously this isn't going to be RAI and will likely get fixed before release even, but it's there right now. 

If the banishment cast goes off, Vanguard wing loses right there. You pin the only part of the army that matters to the back board edge on a 5 inch move and leave all their valuable support characters out in the open. I know people don't like vanguard wing but a spell so powerful it beats what is arguably the best list in the game by itself is probably a bit much.

Nurgle, Grab the bell GUO and hurl it to the board edge so you don't even have to deal with his movement buff anymore. This works with any short range buffing character like every single Daughters of Khaine character except Morathi or a Khailebron General, the Eidolon of Mathlann, the celestial hurricanum, most wizards, and almost all the 'command point combo' characters. Even just hurling a character away from a squad that would have gotten inspiring presence otherwise is huge.

Then you have the obvious tossing slow units into the corners(which is as good as killing the whole unit in a lot of cases) but also far more sinister things like dropping a big unit of Skeletons in a half circle around their  VLoZD in such a way that the only chance it has of getting it's whole move is if your opponent moves the skeletons backwards. Trapping quick, nonflying cavalry behind slow moving units(Bubblewrap a Demigryph knight squad with Great swords, wrap up unit of Fulminators with your opponents 10 man liberator unit, completely stonewall the movement of a thundertusk with grots, etc.

Gain massive objective control just by hurling your opponents stuff away.

Because you cast the spell through the Umbral spell portal you only have to be 24" away from the other side of the portal, which means that you could totally do stuff like grab Archaon first turn and drop him 9" away from all of your big melee hitters(who haven't moved yet) and just mulch their most important character before they have a chance to do anything. Imagine Grabbing Gordrak or Allarielle, or Durthu, or The Eidolon, or Volturnos, or a Slaughter Cauldron, or a LoC(least likely) or a GUO, or a High elf dragon, or any of the other big important centerpieces, before your opponent even had a chance to buff them and killing them in complete isolation in your first combat phase. 

Banishment(and by extention all of the realm specific stuff) seems to be even riskier to the balance of the game than summoning at the moment.

[Sigwarus]

12 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

Terrain won't really help you considering that banishment is only 12" range for most armies(obviously umbral spell portal would get around that and LoN can do 18" and DoK can do 24") and the ability to unbind the spell is going to be largely irrelevant against the armies best capable of using it. This spell right here is the single most terrifying thing about this edition. The rest of it I've sort of just shrugged and moved on from at this point, but this right here is absolutely the most brutal spell GW have ever made for AoS. This makes  8th edition's 'Dweller's below' and 'The Dreaded Thirteenth' look like the new Arcane Bolt.

Now, caveat. Any and all of this could change with all kinds of other factors, but as it stands, under a specific set of assumptions this spell could wreck entire factions by itself.

To illustrate the idea, I'm going to be using the following assumptions(any of these could be wrong, this is theoretical. Even small changes to the rules could make this completely different.

?

No major warscroll/faction changes are coming to the units most capable of abusing this(Morathi, Nagash, Arkhan, LoC).

There are no additional costs associated to the spell.

The realms are usable in matched play and there will be no method to 'ban' specific realms.(The method to selecting the realms will be irrelevant if there's no way to make sure you DON'T get a specific one.

Auto unbind relics/abilities will be incredibly rare and very expensive.

This is the exact, correct wording of the spell.

The spell is usable by any wizard playing in the realm, obviously if there's a ban list or w/e that changes the power of it a bit.

No other significant changes to the mechanics of how spells and unbinds interact occur.

The spell is usable with Umbral Spellportal.

This is just meant to demonstrate a  how powerful an effective usage of the spell is and why it has the potential to create problems in matched play, please don't but what about ______ this, I am aware there are things you can do to mitigate these effects AND that this might be how the rules end up working. It's a thought exercise I'm hoping someone involved in the process will see and say either 'Oh, didn't think of that' or 'HA, this chump(me in this case) is like 6 months behind us.'  Assume Arkhan with his battalion(not a weak choice by any means) with a Mortis Engine and a Unholy Lodestone for +5 to cast on 3 spells at +6" alongside 2 Necromancers at +3 to cast at +6". With Umbral Spell portal this means that Arkhan will be able to hit anything within 18" of him OR the spell portal(total 36" range) at +5 to cast. This means unboosted unbind is unlikely to stop him and even +1 or +2 is unlikely to help much. Even without this, any one of the things you can do with banishment is so powerful that fishing for it with weaker casters could easily win you the game on its own, especially against opponents that can't banish you in return.

First problem you run into, not one word of that spell suggests the unit has to transported in coherency. RAW you can put a different model in each corner of the board and the unit can't do nothin' for the rest of the game but move towards coherency. Obviously this isn't going to be RAI and will likely get fixed before release even, but it's there right now. 

If the banishment cast goes off, Vanguard wing loses right there. You pin the only part of the army that matters to the back board edge on a 5 inch move and leave all their valuable support characters out in the open. I know people don't like vanguard wing but a spell so powerful it beats what is arguably the best list in the game by itself is probably a bit much.

Nurgle, Grab the bell GUO and hurl it to the board edge so you don't even have to deal with his movement buff anymore. This works with any short range buffing character like every single Daughters of Khaine character except Morathi or a Khailebron General, the Eidolon of Mathlann, the celestial hurricanum, most wizards, and almost all the 'command point combo' characters. Even just hurling a character away from a squad that would have gotten inspiring presence otherwise is huge.

Then you have the obvious tossing slow units into the corners(which is as good as killing the whole unit in a lot of cases) but also far more sinister things like dropping a big unit of Skeletons in a half circle around their  VLoZD in such a way that the only chance it has of getting it's whole move is if your opponent moves the skeletons backwards. Trapping quick, nonflying cavalry behind slow moving units(Bubblewrap a Demigryph knight squad with Great swords, wrap up unit of Fulminators with your opponents 10 man liberator unit, completely stonewall the movement of a thundertusk with grots, etc.

Gain massive objective control just by hurling your opponents stuff away.

Because you cast the spell through the Umbral spell portal you only have to be 24" away from the other side of the portal, which means that you could totally do stuff like grab Archaon first turn and drop him 9" away from all of your big melee hitters(who haven't moved yet) and just mulch their most important character before they have a chance to do anything. Imagine Grabbing Gordrak or Allarielle, or Durthu, or The Eidolon, or Volturnos, or a Slaughter Cauldron, or a LoC(least likely) or a GUO, or a High elf dragon, or any of the other big important centerpieces, before your opponent even had a chance to buff them and killing them in complete isolation in your first combat phase. 

Banishment(and by extention all of the realm specific stuff) seems to be even riskier to the balance of the game than summoning at the moment.

This. Enough reason for banning banishment and umbra in tournaments like the vortex was banned in our area. 

[BURF1]

1 minute ago, Sigwarus said:

This. Enough reason for banning banishment and umbra in tournaments like the vortex was banned in our area. 

Maybe. Like I said, there are potential mitigating factors, FAQs etc that could easily make this a non-issue. Since we don't know any of those yet, I went with an extrapolation of what we do know that may or may not be representative of the final product.

Interestingly, a spell VERY similar to this one(although not as restricted) existed in 40k and it was banned outright at just about every event in the world. I think(not 100% sure though) even ETC ended up banning it, and they don't ban anything.

[angrycontra]

I agree that banishment is easily one of the more concerning things in this edition (along with any other possible broken spells). You cast that on a unit of 30 liberators, gratz you basically just did 60 mw to that unit, because that unit is out of the game. Gw is however pretty fast to faq stuff these days and I'm sure that this spell is likely already in their radar for nerfs.

[Chikout]

It is certainly a powerful spell, but the text says 'set up'. This suggests that you have to follow the set up rules as they are described elsewhere. 

That said, it feels like the most obvious case of 'needs a FAQ' so far.

[SaJeel]

We don't even know how taking banishment works other than you only use it when battling in hysh.... seems like people doom saying when they don't even know anything relevant 

[Sheriff]

 can't see this spell being allowed so not worried about it. Seems more op than gaunt dude deleting 30 models per turn. 

 

[NurglesFirstChosen]

2 minutes ago, BURF1 said:

It's not a rant, I'm pointing out things you'll be able to do  with the spell if nothing more significant changes, and the fact that that makes me nervous. Several people have stated they were happy about the realm relics and endless spells, and all these other things without knowing the full story of how they'll affect the game. Why is that more valid? These things make you happy, and they make me anxious.  Both emotions can be justified with the previews we've seen so far. Why is one okay but the other one so wrong? 

In my post I pointed towards the fact that this year, there have been lots of people jumping to negative conclusions about new rules. Each time the full rules have hit the board they have been balanced. This for me is evidence that jumping to negative conclusions about the balance of future rules is miss placed . 

That being said, some people’s views will always be negatively skewed no matter the evidence. 

[BURF1]

6 minutes ago, NurglesFirstChosen said:

In my post I pointed towards the fact that this year, there have been lots of people jumping to negative conclusions about new rules. Each time the full rules have hit the board they have been balanced. This for me is evidence that jumping to negative conclusions about the balance of future rules is miss placed . 

That being said, some people’s views will always be negatively skewed no matter the evidence. 

This same year I've also seen people super excited about new stuff only to find out that it was so brokenly OP that they can't use it around their friends anymore or made their army so subpar that they had to start entirely new forces just to be able play decent games.  Ask any Kharadron player who was super excited about Thunderers how good the GHB 2017 was to them. I've also seen peoples entire armies rendered unusable without massive new inclusions due to rules changes.  The boat rows both ways and it's best to be prepared to deal with either.

[Gotrek]

I wasnt trying to be confrontational so if i came off that way i apologize. When i was listing emotions i didnt mean for that to be specific to you or any user but applied to team Doom and Gloom overall. 

For the banishment thing: casting banishment has its own costs even aside from its casting value.

You are giving up bolt, shield, and other spells. Some of which may be better (more killy,  moves your own units, etc). Example: you could use the gaunt summoner to banish a unit, or use his innate spell to just kill them. 

Take into account that it is completely wasted against seraphon with their ability to teleport (to a lesser extent this also applies to sylvaneth and wanderers)

Taking it into account with other rules, like summoning. You bounce a unit of dryads so life goddess (not even going to attempt to spell her name atm) just uses her once per game ability and puts a new unit right where she wanted the other unit to be. Or Legions with units stuck in the grave. Or Stormcast actually using their allegiance ability and dropping in dudes outside of vanguard wing.

The spell is near useless against an MSU army. "Oh noes! One of my 4 identical units got moved to block a 5th unit." That kind of thing.

Remember, wizards that use banish are squishy  (in 99% of situations. There are very few units that my VLoZD would banish over just killing them) and thus susceptible to sniping. Even with lookout sir.

 

[Jamopower]

17 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

 

You are giving up bolt, shield, and other spells.

I wouldn't consider the new bolt and shield exactly something that you "give up". After all, they were made worse, just so that almost any other spell is better than them.

[Chikout]

It will be interesting to see how things turn out. There are certain spells and items that we have seen do far, which may be considered overpowered. These items may prove to be fine in the context of the wider game,  or they may need a FAQ, or limited to narrative play. 

It is easy and very tempting to get into the weeds on this stuff while we wait for aos2 to drop. For example I have seen a lot of people worrying about big blocks of 40 skeletons, well here is an answer to that.

The problem is that there is still SO much we don't know. Have the rules for set up and line of sight been changed? Can you run a little screening unit to prevent the enemy wizard targeting your strong  unit in the back?

Is Banishment a deliberate ploy by GW to counteract the strength of massive regiments? 

Are spells tied to the location of the game. So if you are playing in Hyish, do both players get access to it? This obviously raises the question of what non magic armies will do. Do they get some other kind of perk?

Why, of all the spells they could have chosen to show off first, did they choose this one?

Maybe the GW team were worried about it  and wanted feedback ,  or maybe all the other spells are equally powerful,  and the poor Duardin players are going to be off crying in the corner! 

We should get answers to a couple of these questions later this week.

 

 

[Gotrek]

10 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

I wouldn't consider the new bolt and shield exactly something that you "give up". After all, they were made worse, just so that almost any other spell is better than them.

Depends on the situation. For example, a unit with a 3+ save with the new mystic shield has a 77% chance to save vs the old one giving it an 83% chance. Not a huge difference at the high end. And thats not counting the warscroll spells (like the gaunt summoner in that example), or other realm spells and battletome spells, etc.

[Chris Tomlin]

Another day, another morning of coming into a bunch of fresh reports for this topic....

Come on guys, please!

[Jamopower]

3 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

Depends on the situation. For example, a unit with a 3+ save with the new mystic shield has a 77% chance to save vs the old one giving it an 83% chance. Not a huge difference at the high end. And thats not counting the warscroll spells (like the gaunt summoner in that example), or other realm spells and battletome spells, etc.

Yes it's highly situational. After all 3+ save is reasonably rare in the game (and for a good reason). I used mystic shield most often for Kurnoth hunters and Freeguild guard. For both of them it doesn't add much (anything) anymore. Making the one, maybe by luck d3, mortal wounds with bolt on the other hand has very little use if you have anything else to cast. Other spells can be better than what you're getting, but I was talking just about the basic spells. And even then, if you're getting even better spells than Banishment, I don't know if it's any better for the game as whole.

[stato]

9 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

Depends on the situation. For example, a unit with a 3+ save with the new mystic shield has a 77% chance to save vs the old one giving it an 83% chance. Not a huge difference at the high end. And thats not counting the warscroll spells (like the gaunt summoner in that example), or other realm spells and battletome spells, etc.

I particularly like how everyone claims re-roll 1's for saves is worthless.... unless they are building liberators, or are a treelord, or many other examples.

[Jamopower]

 

5 minutes ago, stato said:

I particularly like how everyone claims re-roll 1's for saves is worthless.... unless they are building liberators, or are a treelord, or many other examples.

It's not worthless of course, but it's not universally great either. 

[Sigwarus]

2 hours ago, SaJeel said:

We don't even know how taking banishment works other than you only use it when battling in hysh.... seems like people doom saying when they don't even know anything relevant 

To suggest that a spell could need banning ain't doom n gloom in my book. Rather an example of a creative solution provided by the community if necessary. I don't think the game is destroyed by the spells (banishment and umbra) but rather that it's in need of fixing. Together we can give GW the feedback needed to make sure a FAQ solves the issue. 

[Olincay]

9 minutes ago, Sigwarus said:

To suggest that a spell could need banning ain't doom n gloom in my book. Rather an example of a creative solution provided by the community if necessary. I don't think the game is destroyed by the spells (banishment and umbra) but rather that it's in need of fixing. Together we can give GW the feedback needed to make sure a FAQ solves the issue. 

Logic, i like it. 

[Gotrek]

15 minutes ago, Sigwarus said:

To suggest that a spell could need banning ain't doom n gloom in my book. Rather an example of a creative solution provided by the community if necessary. I don't think the game is destroyed by the spells (banishment and umbra) but rather that it's in need of fixing. Together we can give GW the feedback needed to make sure a FAQ solves the issue. 

We physically can't *know* if it needs fixing until we see it in full context. We can make half cocked guesses and assumptions but to truly *know* we need the full rules. It may very well need to be FAQ'd into uselessness (RIP grundstok thunderers) or it may be perfectly fine as it is or it may be oppressive in 2 or 3 skew builds and meh in most builds so it just needs a little tweaking instead of a ban (like, off the top of my head, "set up the unit anywhere on the table that is wholly within 24" of its previous location and 3" away from any other models". No more dropping them into a tiny forgotten corner but still able to put them out of position)

31 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

 

It's not worthless of course, but it's not universally great either. 

No change ever is. As it stands i think most units will see little change between the 2 versions. Some will suffer more than others (units that could already reroll saves or units with a 5+ or 6+ natural save), but i think overall its still useful in *most* situations and where its not, odds are the old version was borderline oppressive (looking at you stormcast and sylvaneth with your 2+ rerollable BS).

[Jamopower]

2 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

 

No change ever is. As it stands i think most units will see little change between the 2 versions. Some will suffer more than others (units that could already reroll saves or units with a 5+ or 6+ natural save), but i think overall its still useful in *most* situations and where its not, odds are the old version was borderline oppressive (looking at you stormcast and sylvaneth with your 2+ rerollable BS).

Yes, I agree, but my point wasn't initially that it was worthelss, but it's very rarely a better option to cast the mystic shield than any other spell you have available. Thus forfeiting the ability to cast the mystic shield (or arcane bolt) to cast Banishment, or a warscroll spell, or whatever, is not a huge loss. And if the case is such that it is better to cast the mystic shield, again, you don't lose anything by using it.

Now in a larger context, I don't think the realm specific spells are to be used very widely (as they are already in the game, and very few use them now) and I believe the endless spells are also something that is not included in every game. Combined  with the longer dispelling range, just considering the basic rules , the magic in the new edition actually looks to be a little less important factor than before. Also those factions that have spell tables and good warscroll spells will benefit. My current view is that I don't think I bother to have a wizard at all for my mixed Living city / Order army at all with the new rules. Especially as I'm playing mostly against armies that don't have wizards, so pushing in those powerful spells just to benefit myself would feel bit rude.

[Gotrek]

3 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Yes, I agree, but my point wasn't initially that it was worthelss, but it's very rarely a better option to cast the mystic shield than any other spell you have available. Thus forfeiting the ability to cast the mystic shield (or arcane bolt) to cast Banishment, or a warscroll spell, or whatever, is not a huge loss. And if the case is such that it is better to cast the mystic shield, again, you don't lose anything by using it.

</snip>

I dunno about that. I'll still pick mystic shield for my VLoZD/bastiladon over anything ive seen so far (exception: if VLoZD is injured and already in combat I'll try for vile transference). Granted, most of what i have isnt afraid to get into combat (and those that are, are either bubble wrapped or are capable of moving out of the way like the seraphon teleport)

[Ollie Grimwood]

I don’t think using the Thunderers example in this scenario works. It was somthing that wasn’t working as intended and a little bit broken that was fixed very quickly. If anything it is an example that should something go awry with the new spells GW is fully capable of fixing it effectively.  It may be that the GHB18’s release is timed with this in sort of fix in mind  

[Enoby]

The Chaos Sorcerer Lord has become much better relatively; he's got a spell that is just better (new) mystic shield that casts on a 5, as well as a free shorter range mystic shield that can't be dispelled. I'm hoping his points don't increase as he's pretty expensive already.