AoS 2 - Disciples of Tzeentch Discussion

[Sinfullyvannila]

1 hour ago, Dollface said:

Permanent and stackable with subsequent casts. Yikes.

Stackable with Mutaliths too.

[Sinfullyvannila]

2 hours ago, The_Dudemeister said:

Can someone sell me on the spell Parchment Curse that is granted by Tome of Eyes? A Casting Value of 8 seems really high for what it does. And it's made much worse by having a 1 and 2 after that doing absolutely nothing AND you also don't want to end up with just a 1 on your third dice roll for damage. That seems pretty nuts.

Mathematically, rolling an 8 with reroll (thanks to Tome of Eyes) has a 58% chance, I think. Then needing a 3+ and wanting at least 2 damage means that even if we disregard denying, we're looking at a 26% chance to deal 2MWs and subtracting bravery by 2.

Not necessarily gonna sell it to you but I am going to point out that any time you can reroll casting rolls, you can use Destiny Dice on the reroll.

[Freejack02]

3 hours ago, The_Dudemeister said:

Can someone sell me on the spell Parchment Curse that is granted by Tome of Eyes?

I can't sell you on it, but I can tell you that your initial response to the spell was correct - it's garbage. Let me elaborate why (I think that):

Bravery debuffing in AoS has a history of being ignored for 2 reasons. One, because ~50% of the targets you would want to use your spells/resources on are single models (Monsters, Heroes, Etc) where debuffing bravery will have next to zero effect. Two, because for years now, GW has been moving away from making the battleshock phase impactful. The incredible number of ways to straight up ignore battleshock (which is supposed to be an important core mechanic used to keep horde units balanced and in-line) in my opinion further relegates bravery-bomb abilities to the bin. So if you:

1. Get your fragile casters within range of something that is actually useful to target with this spell

2. Make the 8+ casting roll

3. Don't get dispelled

4. Roll the "confirmation" 3+ for some absurd reason

... you will be rewarded with 1-3 damage and stripping away 1-3 Bravery from the target. This is an Endless Spell btw, this costs points. Of course for that to matter at all, the opponent needs to not be playing with some sweeping "ignore Battleshock" ability, not be near a hero, and/or have no available CPs to protect their (presumably important) unit. Off the top of my head, all the things that will laugh at seeing this: EVERY Hero, EVERY single-model Monster or Greater Daemon, ANY unit in a Nagash list, ANY Bonereaper unit, Damn near any Skaven unit, half of SCE units, etc... the list can go on and on.  

For being one of (if not THE) most prevalent magical caster factions in Warhammer lore... this makes me a bit sad. 

Edited January 3, 2020 by Freejack02

[Brad999]

4 hours ago, Grimrock said:

I assume it's worded that way because the opponent might get to control it like normal endless spells. Super risky if you're up against a combat army. 

Same with the simulacrum. Since the vast majority of the tzeentch army will be wizards it'll be super risky to have on the board. You get 3 mortal wounds on an enemy unit, then the opponent turns it around next turn and puts 5 into the wizard that cast it. Kind of like a chaos player bringing the quicksilver swords actually. 

I dont think it is predatory so wont move and wont be controlled by oppo it will just pulse the ability in your phase.

[The_Dudemeister]

17 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

Bravery debuffing in AoS has a history of being ignored for 2 reasons. One, because ~50% of the targets you would want to use your spells/resources on are single models (Monsters, Heroes, Etc) where debuffing bravery will have next to zero effect. Two, because for years now, GW has been moving away from making the battleshock phase impactful. The incredible number of ways to straight up ignore battleshock (which is supposed to be an important core mechanic used to keep horde units balanced and in-line) in mu opinion further relegates bravery-bomb abilities to the bin.

Tell me about it!

My main armies are Nighthaunt/Legion of Grief. A LoG general can have an automatic -3 bravery aura, -4 with Skeleton bodyguards. We're talking just being in proximity here so no dice rolling involved and unpreventable. And then there are quite a few abilities and spells to bring it down even further. The best I can use that for is for our MW attacks that are rolled against bravery. It's almost completely inconsequential for battleshock.

[Satyrical Sophist]

The warscroll links are broken, but both pink and blue/brimstone pages now link to one horror scroll. So pretty sure you can no longer take blues or brims on their own.

[Pestilens]

20 minutes ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

The warscroll links are broken, but both pink and blue/brimstone pages now link to one horror scroll. So pretty sure you can no longer take blues or brims on their own.

Hope they will update soon, I'm so curious!! 

[Malakithe]

Looks like ill need more Spawns. All these spells/abilities that pump out Spawns will be fun. On top of the summoning of the new Horrors. Thats going to cost some $$$. 

New thought...anyone have any ideas about how the Ogroids spell might be changed? It used to set up a unit of Brimstones but now...who knows...

[Dollface]

Spawns are like the cheapest models though, you just use spare bits and green stuff.

[Malakithe]

Warscroll links are still broken fyi

[AverageBoss]

I have 6 counts as Spawns via Wyrds Stalking Portals. Great option for anyone looking to add to and diversify their spawn models imo.

 

[PONCHOGRANDE]

I can't believe those are the first time I've seen those, absolutely perfect little manifestations of madness and mutation. Got a box in the mail now, so thanks for the suggestion!

[Sinfullyvannila]

3 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Looks like ill need more Spawns. All these spells/abilities that pump out Spawns will be fun. On top of the summoning of the new Horrors. Thats going to cost some $$$. 

New thought...anyone have any ideas about how the Ogroids spell might be changed? It used to set up a unit of Brimstones but now...who knows...

I don’t see any reason for it to be changed.

[Kilhan]

2 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

I have 6 counts as Spawns via Wyrds Stalking Portals. Great option for anyone looking to add to and diversify their spawn models imo.

 

Does the bases for each of them have the same size as the GW Chaos Spawn ones?

[Carnelian]

18 hours ago, Sinfullyvannila said:

I’m just talking about KA’s.

You’re overvaluing Rend compared to To Hit on a model with 1 damage.

Hit is a better stat the same modifier increment because it affects more dice rolls. Rend affects the least amount of dice rolls because your rolls already went through 2 steps of elimination.

Rend gains value when the damage for an attack is greater than 1 because each attack that gets eliminated from a successful save counts for at least twice as much as one eliminated from a failed hit or wound roll.

This is why I said they are worse in a vacuum, because that’s solely based on the unit’s warscroll.

I'm afraid this is not how maths works. Hit is not a better stat because it affects more dice rolls (unless you're comparing abilities that trigger on a certain dice roll such as mortal wounds on a six). For a normal attack, hit, wound and save rolls are all equally vital in determining damage. 

For example, the chances of damage going through when hitting on 4s (50%), then wounding on 3s (66.66%) followed by a 3+ save (33.33% for an unsuccessful save) is the same as the chance of damage going through when hitting on 5s (33.33%), then wounding on 4s (50%) and then saving on 5s (66.66% chance of unsuccessful save). 

In both attacks, there is an 11% chance of the attack being successful - the order of operations does not matter. 

Rend does not increase in value if damage goes up. Both rend and hit and wound all remain exactly the same in determining the chance/percentage of the attack going through, no matter what the damage that is being applied at the end is. In the above examples, there is an 11% chance of the attacks going through whether they are damage 1 or 2.

Whether it is better to be buffing hit or buffing rend is dependant upon all that stats involved, so we'd need to see the full hit, wound and save  to know whether it was better to buff hit or rend. 

For example, if you buff a hit stat from 4+ (50%) to 3 plus (66.66%), then you are increasing the chance of damage being successful by about one third (33%).

If however you were reducing a save from 2+ (16.66% of unsuccessful save) to 3+ (33.33% unsuccessful save) then you've increased the chance of damage going through by double (100%).

If you buff something by one point, then because AoS uses a D6 system, you're always adding one point out of six. In general it is better to chose to buff a weaker stat (like 6+) rather than a strong stay like a 3+(especially given that a 1 is always a fail so no need to buff 2+ stats). 

Of course the different factor with rend is that you don't know what save your opponent's army will be and sometimes rend will be useless if the opponent has no save. However, that is balanced out by the fact that within the meta of the game you do need a way of dealing with high armour save units, particularly when they can re-roll their saves and rend is v valuable in doing this. 

Edited January 4, 2020 by Carnelian

[Sinfullyvannila]

1 hour ago, Carnelian said:

I'm afraid this is not how maths works. Hit is not a better stat because it affects more dice rolls (unless you're comparing abilities that trigger on a certain dice roll such as mortal wounds on a six). For a normal attack, hit, wound and save rolls are all equally vital in determining damage. 

For example, the chances of damage going through when hitting on 4s (50%), then wounding on 3s (66.66%) followed by a 3+ save (33.33% for an unsuccessful save) is the same as the chance of damage going through when hitting on 5s (33.33%), then wounding on 4s (50%) and then saving on 5s (66.66% chance of unsuccessful save). 

In both attacks, there is an 11% chance of the attack being successful - the order of operations does not matter. 

Rend does not increase in value if damage goes up. Both rend and hit and wound all remain exactly the same in determining the chance/percentage of the attack going through, no matter what the damage that is being applied at the end is. In the above examples, there is an 11% chance of the attacks going through whether they are damage 1 or 2.

Whether it is better to be buffing hit or buffing rend is dependant upon all that stats involved, so we'd need to see the full hit, wound and save  to know whether it was better to buff hit or rend. 

For example, if you buff a hit stat from 4+ (50%) to 3 plus (66.66%), then you are increasing the chance of damage being successful by about one third (33%).

If however you were reducing a save from 2+ (16.66% of unsuccessful save) to 3+ (33.33% unsuccessful save) then you've increased the chance of damage going through by double (100%).

If you buff something by one point, you're always adding one point out of six, but always best to buff the worst characteristic. In general it is better to chose to buff a weaker stat rather than a 3+ result (especially given that a 1 is always a fail so no need to buff 2+ stats). 

Of course the different factor with rend is that you don't know what save your opponent's army will be and sometimes rend will be useless (of the opponent has no save). However, that is balanced out by the fact that within the meta of the game you do need a way of dealing with high armour save units, particularly when they can reroll their saves and rend is v valuable in doing this. 

Well, you’d better explain that to the people who write the dice calculators; because 10 attacks with the +1 to hit buff does 1.67 damage while the Rend buff does 1.39(both against 5+ saves).

I did mess around with the calculators after your post and you are right about Hit and Wound being interchangeable, but Rend does not return at the same rate. -1 Rend is worse on 4-6+ saves, marginally better on 3+ and like 25% better at 2+.

Thank you for correcting me on my erroneous claim, but despite that, the Rend is still a downgrade.

Edited January 4, 2020 by Sinfullyvannila

[Carnelian]

1 hour ago, Sinfullyvannila said:

Well, you’d better explain that to the people who write the dice calculators; because 10 attacks with the +1 to hit buff does 1.67 damage while the Rend buff does 1.39(both against 5+ saves).

I did mess around with the calculators after your post and you are right about Hit and Wound being interchangeable, but Rend does not return at the same rate. -1 Rend is worse on 4-6+ saves, marginally better on 3+ and like 25% better at 2+.

Thank you for correcting me on my erroneous claim, but despite that, the Rend is still a downgrade.

I'm not sure what inputs you are using but in principle the rend is another D6 chance outcome, just like to hit and to wound, so if you adjust the outcome of the rend D6 from 1/6 to 2/6, it will effect the damage outcome in exactly the same way as if you adjust the to hit or to wound from 1/6 to 2/6.

If you think of it like that, it should be easier to see that dice modifiers work in exactly the same way for each statistic. 

The complexity comes from the fact that rend interacts with your opponent's armour statistics in a way that to hit and to wound do not. The result of this interaction means that there are different outcomes via different enemies and so there is not nornally going to be a single stat which it is better to buff in ALL circumstances. 

I'm not sure which stats you are using to get those damage outputs, but if you are using attacks that hit on 4s, wound on 4s with 0 rend, then yes I agree that if the opponent had a 5+ or 6+ or no armour save, then you'd be better off with a hit buff rather than a rend buff. 

If your opponent has 4+ save, then it won't make a difference which you buff - your increasing the chance of success by the same amount either way. 

If your opponent has a 3+ or 2+ armour save, you're better off with the rend buff. 

Because 1s always fail, you're also better taking a to hit buff over a rend buff against a 1+ save using those attacks. 

Whatever is most useful will depend on the game meta, i.e. which units will you most likely face, which units pose the most difficult problems for your particular army, which statistics can get buffed and in what way etc. 

[Carnelian]

I should add that these outcomes would of course change if you were not using a 4+/4+/rend 0 attack. 

If you're attack was 6+ to hit/3+ to wound/-4 rend, then it would almost always be best to buff the hit role.

 

[Clan's Cynic]

GMG review is up.

 

[angrycontra]

Man, those kairic acolytes are great now. 4+ 3+ ranged attacks by default (3+ 3+ in pyrofane cult) and +1 to wound rolls on melee and 2 dam with big blades (still kinda terrible in melee but nowhere near the level they used to be) and all this + casting for only 100p for 10. Oh yeah and 5+ sv now. I knew buying 50 of them at launch would one day pay off.

[GutrotSpume]

Out with the little one so can’t watch the video. Anyone got any info on how enlightened and skyfires changed? Please and thank you x

[MitGas]

Great, the whole kit with dice is no longer available. Great job, GW. Dolts.

[MitGas]

1 minute ago, GutrotSpume said:

Out with the little one so can’t watch the video. Anyone got any info on how enlightened and skyfires changed? Please and thank you x

Enlightened on disc cost 20 points more, apart from that absolutely nothing changed.

[Mr_Caterin]

khairos and tzaangor enlightened points?

[Clan's Cynic]

2 minutes ago, MitGas said:

Great, the whole kit with dice is no longer available. Great job, GW. Dolts.

The amount of dice they produce seems to get worse every run. The Isengard dice sold out from the GW site in literal seconds.