AoS 2.0 Winners and Losers

[Chris Tomlin]

1 minute ago, Gotrek said:

I refuse to be happy until preorders go live. And that will only last until i read the BRB and GHB at which time i will be overcome with soul crushing disappointment.

The vicious cycle of a wargamer!

I think it's hard to consider disappointment just yet though, I can't get past how awesome the new Stormcast and Nighthaunt are! Defo painting some Sacrosanct in my Phoenix Temple colour scheme!

That said, my biggest excitement is actually for seeing the kind of armies people bring to BLACKOUT and how different they are due to the new edition. I also have literally everything crossed for Ironjawz to gain even just a little traction...perhaps this is where my disappointment will come in haha!

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, Sheriff said:

Winners are battletome armies. Shocker. 

I don't agree. Imho, armies with battletomes have (gameplay wise):

1-Army wide abilities (allegiance abilities).

2-Magic.

3-Customization (traits and items).

4-Battalions

From what we know, all armies will have 7 realms to chose, with 6 weapones and 6 artifacts to customize heroes. That opens alot of new options to armies without battletomes. At the same time, the endless spells seems to have name-tags of their realm, so maybe, we are going to recieve some new spells for every realm, meaning that all armies will have point 2 and 3 (well, general traits will still be chosen from the GA, that sux). Armies without battalions will still be a bit handicaped and will lose a bit of the new multi-Command Abilities mechanics. Of course, battletome armies will still have an edge but this new "chose your realm" seems to be an awesome features to help old armies.

The new/tweaked mechanics are:

1-Endless/New spells (magic users).

2-Shooting nerfed (-1 to heroes and 3" targets).

3-Free summons using new mechanics.

4-Multi-Command abilities (CPs).

Maybe we need more information, but the main armies that will be handicaped are the ones that don't use magic (Khorne, Dwarfs), armies that their main power is shooting (Ironweld, KO and "some Wanderers" lists), armies that don't have any summons (...) and armies that are low on Command Abilities (we need to see if  50points=1CP is going to help armies without battalions). But my point is still relevant, armies that don't have battletome are going to recieve some new tools to use (and I hope that this makes them better).

P.D: I main KO and I can't wait to play this new edition btw. I don't see any army being the "losers", just some armies that will not have any options to play with this new toys without allies.

[Sheriff]

1 minute ago, Beliman said:

I don't agree. Imho, armies with battletomes have (gameplay wise):

1-Army wide abilities (allegiance abilities).

2-Magic.

3-Customization (traits and items).

Battalions though

[Beliman]

Just now, Sheriff said:

Battalions though

Yep, my fault. Going to eddit with CP+battalions (I'm at work, I will edit the post in 10-15 mins).

[Jamopower]

I still believe that real winners (compared to situation now), concerning tournament type of gaming, will be some still unknown older armies that have some abilities that combined with multiple command abilities and the new artefacts (and maybe the endless spells), evolve to having a powerful combo. This is based heavily to the many current power armies being so good because of some combo of old and new rules. Like plaguetouched warband for example. Very likely these will be Grand alliance based. Grand alliances seem to be better in any case as the multiple command ability update is very good for them.

For other types of gaming, It's more or less that everyone are winners as far as the information we have available now. Everything will be bit different so that can be considered a win for everyone, but of course as a lot of things will change so there will also be some individual losses.

[Moonlightwolf]

Quite literally impossible to tell since the rules aren't released yet, also meta's don't get properly established until a month or 3 post launch when everyone fully understands the rules and has had a fair few games to test them. knee ****** reactions serve no-one.

[Chikout]

Winners - gw

Losers - my wallet. 

Seriously though :

Starter set, ghb,  Malign sorcery, nighthaunt battletome,  Stormcast battletome,  black coach,  new Mortarch, Stormcast battlecats,  and Shadespire 2; I want it all! I am absolutely dreading how much it will cost.

[AGPO]

1 hour ago, Jamopower said:

The main problem in my eyes is that it is introduced to some armies that are great even before it. Balancing that kind of ability with points is also bit of hit or miss, it's hard to get even if you can have variable focus to summoning in the list building phase. If you point it for "medium use" then going all-in can give you benefits and going without is a disdvantage. If you point it for the maximum use, then it just leads to a situation where to be competitive, you have to go all in. Because of that, the reinforcement points were in my eyes the best solution. A small points reduction for the summoned stuff (like it was in the SCGT comp) would have been a good offset to take in to account the uncertainties during the game. The problem with the summoning was more with the uncertainty of the spells and mechanisms, not so much that it wouldn't have been useful as it was. For example, many Tzeentch players leave reinforcement points for splitting horrors already. Of course there are units such as the Phoenix, where the reinforcement points don't work at all and the resurrection should be just included in the price with say 1,5 multiplier for the basic cost.

Seraphon are also a good example why I'm bit sceptic about the new mechanism. Seraphon are my "tournament army" as normally I play only casual games, and when I go to tournament, my other armies are typically not worth fielding in that kind of environment. Thus when I'm playing with my Lizardmen, I normally build my army to be more optimized. I have earlier left ~60 points for summoning some skinks, a priest or a salamander (as I don't have razordons) if needed. However, many times I had to leave them a side as it was more important to cast other spells with my Slann, or the spells failed / rarely got dispelled. Now in the new edition, I don't have as good spells to cast instead of summoning and I don't have to leave reinforcement points aside (I assume that the realm specific spells are not something you regularly use in tournaments, and don't believe the local scene is so interested in the endless spells either as the scene is still in quite early steps). Thus there are less limitation and more encouragement for summoning. In fact, there seem to be no point to not summon stuff with my Slann. Now of course the cost of Slann might be 500 points in the new edition, but that just leads to a case where if the price is too high, I don't use the Slann at all, or if I use it I have to go all in with summoning. I don't think this is a good direction for the game regards of competitive gaming. Note that in open or narrative, the free summoning doesn't make any difference to the current situation, so in that regard I think the new more interesting mechanisms are definitely a big plus.

For those who were confused in the other thread, this is a solid example of balanced constructive criticism.

 

For me the winners that have been less frequently highlighted are:

• Hobbyists: With the addition of endless spell minis, it's a great chance to paint something different. The fact that they can be used for every army is great too
• Khorne: Harder to snipe Bloodsecrators? Great news. Longer range on dispels? Even better! Flesh Hounds in particular got a real buff out of this. Free Daemons? Woohoo! Being able to take your Bloodthirster or Mighty Lord as general and still use that awesome Aspiring Deathbringer CA? Priceless.
• Your Dudes: One thing I really missed from WFB when AOS first arrived was the ability to customise my characters with magic items to make them feel a little more unique and 'mine'. With the new rules for fighting in and building armies from different realms it really gives achance for players to represent their army's background on the field.
• Non-Battletome armies: A wider range of common items and abilities is especially great for people who don't have a whole battletome to play with, since it's a proportionally greater increase in options.
• Beginners who don't want to play the goodies: As a Khorne player for several decades, I love the current starter set minis with all my heart, but I have to admit they're a hassle for beginners to paint compared to stormcast. The new Nighthaunt kits look far easier and I daresay sales f Nihlakh Oxide and Coelia Greenshade will be through the roof. 

As for losers, it's very difficult to say until we've seen the new points. Undoubtedly some combinations will become less viable, but generally with a new edition very little changes. Probably the biggest losers will be those lists which take advantage of loopholes or a single gimmick which will be closed off in the new edition. Everyone else may have to add the odd unit and adjust their tactics, but I doubt we'll see any sweeping changes.

[Twitch of Izalith]

I think Darkling Covens are likely to benefit from the new rules we have seen so far. They have access to cheap 80 point wizards who can get a +2 to cast by sacrificing some nearby chaff which could be very handy if you are trying to throw CV 8+ spells around. Also the Look Out Sir! rules make them a little less likely to get sniped.

Any real bonus for the DC will be based on the revised points value though - the biggest problems they have for competitive play is that the Sorceress on Dragon has a very high points cost compared to her contribution to an average game and the "chaff" infantry are too expensive to be chaff! Even if the points don't change the army will be more fun to play than it is now. Before it was an army where ALL its characters were wizards but it had only 1 decent spell to chuck around in the Magic Phase!

Hopefully all the minor factions will see their fortunes improving. Its fun to play with the latest stuff but its nice when some of the backwater armies get to shine. 

I know what you mean by "losers" but to me a bunch of new rules and models is always a good thing - I don't think any army will lose in the sense that it will be less fun to play but I guess some builds will probably not be as strong - usually the janky exploitation builds so hey, its a win after all

[Arkiham]

so with the book not out for nearly an entire month. 

 

this is utterly pointless currently. 

[Blueraven84]

Maybe wait for the actual rules and play couple or 10 games before making judgement which armies need buff?

[Sheriff]

As things stand, in Destruction at least, the winners are those with tomes as they have battalions. The battalions are key for both command points and the damage output potential with command combos. 

e.g. an Ironjaws battalion can now do about 100 damage in one charge, whereas the equivalent goblin units could expect to do is 50-60. 

[Sleboda]

8 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

If the Moonclan battletome rumors in the near future turns out to be true, and if that ends up bringing a variety of plastic squig kits, then ...

... my gf won't need me in order to feel that sense of elation she likes so much for at least a month. ?

Seriously, we can't wait for big plastic balls of teeth! Fingers crossed they don't look like the one on the fungoid dude, though. While adorable, he's too much of a departure for us.

 

[Jamopower]

Has anyone suggested that armies need buff? Isn't this more of playing with thoughts and speculation what we will see. No harm in it? 

Also it's not too hard to see what effects certain mechanisms will have for the game. For example, when 40k had similar hype time, it was quite clear from the rules tidbits they showed, that non-flying vehicles that need to get close to the enemy aren't going to be very good in the game, no matter what they cost. As it happened, fielding a land raider or rushing towards the enemy in rhinos is not a very good idea (or at least it wasn't, haven't played much afterwards and they have changed the rules a lot in between).

Similarly it's quite easy to say that free summoning will be a powerful mechanism in AoS2 and those armies that are already good because of variety of things that get free summoning on top of the good things they already have, will be quite good in the new edition as well. Will they be so good that it ruins the game, probably not, but they might very well be good enough that they require some amount of errata to keep them in check. As I presented above, they might also get so heavily overcosted, that they'll be completely rubbish in the new edition. In any case, the mechanism will have a strong impact for the game.

 

Edit: And as a whole, if the point of the whole thread is to speculate what could be good or what could not, I don't know why we should wait for the book to be released. The whole point of the speculation is lost at that exact point

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, AGPO said:

Khorne ... they're a hassle for beginners to paint compared to stormcast. The new Nighthaunt kits look far easier

Excellent point. I, too, love the new guys, but also have thought "boy, to do these justice I'm going to have to spend a ton of time painting them."

It's not just them, either. Many of the new kits are so gorgeous that it's a crime against the hobby to just slap paint on them (I'm looking at you, every new Nurgle model in both systems).

It's a blessing and a curse - a curse I gladly endure, but a form of curse nonetheless.

The night haunts really might be just the thing to encourage new players to play the Righteous and Just army in the starter instead of the Usurper Stormcast. ?

[kuroyume]

5 hours ago, Bellfree said:

Judging by this and other comments the winners so far seem to be 'people who wanted to say hateful things on TGA with no consequences, but never had an acceptable enough target before now.'

The "play nice" rules are (or at least are applied) lopsided. In general I've seen more ad hominems coming from the "GW is never wrong" side than from the "Maybe GW is making a mistake here" side, and yet only ever seen moderation applied to one side.

Now, on to the topic at hand, it's hard to make a full evaluation without having points in hand, but just from what's been announced, I would say winners are armies with strong magic and bonuses to cast/unbind that can also summon. So, Death and Tzeentch. Legion of Sacrament especially I can see getting big running the Lords of Sacrament Battalion (especially if the cost doesn't increase from the 70 points it costs now). Bunch of spells and bonuses to cast and unbind, plus lots of chaff that can revive to keep the casters alive.

As for losers (again, just going from what we already know, but points may make a difference), I would say armies whose defense to magic used to be sniping the casters stand the most to lose. Even if they get an artifact or the occasional unit that can unbind a spell, chances are they will still get overwhelmed by magic focused armies or at most get one shooting phase before their units get engaged by chaff and never get a chance to attack a big target again.

[Jamopower]

I don't in fact believe that the magic will be the key deciding factor in the new edition. With the basic rules, it looks to be worse than before due to changes for the bolt and shield and increased range for unbinding. With malign sorcery it's of course a separate thing, but if you slap on an expansion focused on wacky stuff for wizards, it would be quite of a failed expansion if it didn't make the wizards good and worth fielding.

The look out sir and changes to shooting will change the balance a bit though. The wizards and buffing characters are harder to take out with shooting, thus the value of wizards gets higher as they are better protected and they are better at taking out the enemy characters than shooting.

[mmimzie]

6 hours ago, Jamopower said:

The main problem in my eyes is that it is introduced to some armies that are great even before it. Balancing that kind of ability with points is also bit of hit or miss, it's hard to get even if you can have variable focus to summoning in the list building phase. If you point it for "medium use" then going all-in can give you benefits and going without is a disdvantage. If you point it for the maximum use, then it just leads to a situation where to be competitive, you have to go all in. Because of that, the reinforcement points were in my eyes the best solution. A small points reduction for the summoned stuff (like it was in the SCGT comp) would have been a good offset to take in to account the uncertainties during the game. The problem with the summoning was more with the uncertainty of the spells and mechanisms, not so much that it wouldn't have been useful as it was. For example, many Tzeentch players leave reinforcement points for splitting horrors already. Of course there are units such as the Phoenix, where the reinforcement points don't work at all and the resurrection should be just included in the price with say 1,5 multiplier for the basic cost.

Seraphon are also a good example why I'm bit sceptic about the new mechanism. Seraphon are my "tournament army" as normally I play only casual games, and when I go to tournament, my other armies are typically not worth fielding in that kind of environment. Thus when I'm playing with my Lizardmen, I normally build my army to be more optimized. I have earlier left ~60 points for summoning some skinks, a priest or a salamander (as I don't have razordons) if needed. However, many times I had to leave them a side as it was more important to cast other spells with my Slann, or the spells failed / rarely got dispelled. Now in the new edition, I don't have as good spells to cast instead of summoning and I don't have to leave reinforcement points aside (I assume that the realm specific spells are not something you regularly use in tournaments, and don't believe the local scene is so interested in the endless spells either as the scene is still in quite early steps). Thus there are less limitation and more encouragement for summoning. In fact, there seem to be no point to not summon stuff with my Slann. Now of course the cost of Slann might be 500 points in the new edition, but that just leads to a case where if the price is too high, I don't use the Slann at all, or if I use it I have to go all in with summoning. I don't think this is a good direction for the game regards of competitive gaming. Note that in open or narrative, the free summoning doesn't make any difference to the current situation, so in that regard I think the new more interesting mechanisms are definitely a big plus.

Literally nothing a generals hang book points balance couldn't fix. 

 

Which again is my whole point. All the matter when we looking at these rules right now should be army general balance. It should be, are these rules cool and interesting. Do these rules make the game seem more fun to play?? 

 

Looking st the rules for the slam for instance, and you saying there is no point but to summon withba slann??? 

 

For 6 celestial pts you get 10 skink or  a salamander, or Razerdone. All worth between 40 and 60pts. That's 2 slann spells or the slam intire magic phase. If your slann spend the whole game doing this  he will summon in a meager 300pts worth of stuff during the course of a 5 turn game... assuming he lives that long.  Noe that's maybe sorta worth it because you get a slann plus 300pts worth of stuff and get the power of setting them up in an interesting way. Hpwever.  It is also abit worse than 300pts worth of stuff because that 300pts worth stuff will miss 2-4 turns of the game before they are on the table. 

It's possible any change could be unbalanced. Heck any new army could be unbalanced. That's what points are for. 

 

So again best/worst and winners/losers are things we really can't judge right now at all. Also we for one don't know all the mechanics, and 2 pts could easily make things alot better or worse. What we should be looking at is:

 

Do I like free summoning if it is heavily gated mechanics?? For me yes.

 

Is it more fun to gave units thst can't shoot out of combat??? Yes, for me personally. 

 

Are long range dispels better or worse??  Meh for me here, as while it's more interactive it also takes away from the feeling of having the spell initiative.  

 

Are more power Spells that have a small pts price tag, and are also dumb edged cool??  Yeah i wanna collect em all like pokemon. 

 

More relics and play sceniaros?? Sounds great.

 

That's about the most we can do right now

 

[Jamopower]

13 minutes ago, mmimzie said:

Literally nothing a generals hang book points balance couldn't fix. 

 

Which again is my whole point. All the matter when we looking at these rules right now should be army general balance. It should be, are these rules cool and interesting. Do these rules make the game seem more fun to play?? 

 

Looking st the rules for the slam for instance, and you saying there is no point but to summon withba slann??? 

 

For 6 celestial pts you get 10 skink or  a salamander, or Razerdone. All worth between 40 and 60pts. That's 2 slann spells or the slam intire magic phase. If your slann spend the whole game doing this  he will summon in a meager 300pts worth of stuff during the course of a 5 turn game... assuming he lives that long.  Noe that's maybe sorta worth it because you get a slann plus 300pts worth of stuff and get the power of setting them up in an interesting way. Hpwever.  It is also abit worse than 300pts worth of stuff because that 300pts worth stuff will miss 2-4 turns of the game before they are on the table. 

It's possible any change could be unbalanced. Heck any new army could be unbalanced. That's what points are for. 

 

Did you read at all the text you quoted? Here are the main parts of the problem with pointing summoning other than by giving the units you are summoning a price:

-If you spread the cost to the units all around, it leads to a case that if you have a saurus army without any summoning, everything is overcosted.

-If you price the summoning model, in this case slann, so that the summoned units are included in the price, you have to summon with him, otherwise the model is heavily overcosted.

-If you price the summoning model, so that it pays some price for some summoning, if you go all in, it'll be undercosted.

Thus by balancing free summoning by adjusting the points costs, it'll very likely lead to a situation where the list building is limited if you are in any ways interested in the optimization of your army list. If you are not, then there is of course no problem at all, but you won't probably need the points either.

That's why reinforcement points were (and are) in my eyes the best mechanism to balance summoning. I would just add a slight reduction of price for the summoned units to take into account the uncertainities. I wouldn't be surprised at all, if a year from now, some sort of modified reinforcement point system will be a standard practice in tournament packs.

 

Also regarding the slann, if the option is to do a single mortal wound, give some unit a re-rolls of one to saves or roll the battleshocks with two dice (when you already re-roll them with bravery 10), I don't see why most of the time I wouldn't make at least two of those rituals netting me a free unit of skinks.

[Naflem]

Looks like BCR will be a winner from the new faction focus, although I'm not sure if it will be enough to pull them too very high from where they are in the basement right now.. 

[LLV]

12 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

If the Moonclan battletome rumors in the near future turns out to be true, and if that ends up bringing a variety of plastic squig kits, then I have won so much harder than anyone else could hope.

Not sure about a variety but You are the winner!

[KHHaunts]

This update isent even released yet and we are still getting updates.

And let us not forget the most important thing.

This isent the final interation of the game.

if something in the game is bad enough that it really puts enough people off it will be changed.

Maybe not straight away but GW will listen. its in there best interest to do so but to take time to make the changes properly and with consideration.

Which is exactly what this 2.0 is the culmination of feedback presented in a neat new package as opposed to a rules update everytime someone feels upset.

There are some truelly unique and radical ideas in this new version and if im being honest i would bet money on some of them not working out but we will keep whats good throw away whats bad.

Coninue to enjoy the game no matter watch version.

Express our oppinion to a now receptive GW

and look foward to AOS 3.0   ?

[Skabnoze]

52 minutes ago, LLV said:

Not sure about a variety but You are the winner!

This forum needs a :squeee: emoji response...

 

[heywoah_twitch]

So far I'm quite pleased that non-battletome and mixed armies seem to have scored at least a few important wins with the advent of command points and especially realm artefacts and lores (!) for their wizards.

It's simply way too soon to declare anything like winners and losers, and it would be irresponsible to do so - but that's no fun!

Let's get messy with just the teases so far and faction focuses, considering how strong they are now vs what everyone gets, and also considering how well the faction focus seemed to understand the armies and address what makes them work (or not work):

Winners: Tzeentch, Nurgle, LoN, DoK, Everchosen, Fyreslayers, Khorne, Nighthaunt

Losers: Beastclaw, Skaven, Free Peoples

Unclear: Sylvaneth, FEC, Beastmen, KO, Slaanesh, Ironjawz, Seraphon

There Could Be No Losers If: they announced plans to update/revise/overhaul allegiance abilities for certain armies.

'Unclear' Could Be Winners If: we learn the GHB point costs.

There Could Be No Winners If: a meteor strikes the earth.

[Skabnoze]

12 hours ago, Sheriff said:

Battalions though

I think that is offset by paying just 50 points for an extra command point.  I think that will be a discount beyond wherever the cost of battalions ends up and it will be a big consideration for every army - whether they have battalions or not.

But I could possibly be wrong .