6 Nations take aways

[blueshirtman]

45 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

If you will primarily be playing heavily competitive games, and losing a large majority of your games bothers you then you need to be aware that you will potentially have to spend more money.  You will need to do more investigation into how the different armies play, how much the competitive scene has been changing lately, and you have to be willing to regularly spend more money because it is highly likely that you will either need to change the units in your army and in extreme cases change your army entirely.  If you want to play very competitive then that is just going to be a fact of life or else you probably won't really enjoy the investment.

Ok, lets say you pick destruction as your faction or worse BCR, no amount of money, research is going to help you. As both the grand alliance and the specific army are horrible. And 2.0 did not change that.  I mean I guess there is still something wierd like narrative or open, but few people play that.

 

Quote

  It is the reason that direct point comparisons across different armies does not always work.  We all do it when evaluating things.  Ball-park point comparisons (relatively the same within a reasonable difference) are decent, but in most well designed tabletop games the points for units are a combination of the general overall game, and then internal comparisons.  Two things that are similar should not differ too greatly in cost, but they will fluctuate based upon the design of the full army.  What matters more is the big picture of armies and less so the small parts.

I don't agree with that. If you make lets say a LoN army, and you have your tarpits, casters, screening stuff all of it costs points. You can compare those to that of other armies, same with the mentioned before Kroak build, with stuff other lists can do. If another army can't do the "same things" aka claim objectives, support them, have units to counter stuff etc or it can do the same but it would cost the army 3000pts, then you have the difference in efficiency.

you can of course make a list that doesn't care what the opponent does. swarm objectives turn 1-2 with 150 vulkits, and math told you that with a bit over avarge rolls almost no army could shift you from objectives. But that also has it roots in points.

But the best example of it is tzeench. It was nerfed, changed as an army 3 or 4 times, maybe more. And it was the best army whole 1st edition, because the rules for the points were that good. a "simple" point cost fix, and suddenly tzeench is no longer the god mode army.

 

[Skabnoze]

12 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

I don't agree with that. If you make lets say a LoN army, and you have your tarpits, casters, screening stuff all of it costs points. You can compare those to that of other armies, same with the mentioned before Kroak build, with stuff other lists can do. If another army can't do the "same things" aka claim objectives, support them, have units to counter stuff etc or it can do the same but it would cost the army 3000pts, then you have the difference in efficiency.

As I said, comparing specific costs across armies does not always pan out.  Comparing the whole is much better.  In a game where you can build your army from a buffet of choices then it is always going to be possible for one army list to be a rock and another to be scissors.  There will always be uphill battles.  But the key is to design both armies in such a way where strong forces from each can be fielded and neither one has too much of an uphill battle.  GW has never been that great at doing this for all armies in a game.  It sucks to say that, but I have not seen an edition for any game where they managed to get most armies onto a relatively even playing field.

To use your example, if you are making a LoN army then you won't really be able to accurately compare the individual costs of your tarpit against most other tarpits.  The differences between the armies and units means that those comparisons are only going to be accurate to a fairly low degree.  Your units are going to have a lower model count than a unit such as grots.  You will probably have less total wounds than a unit like Savage Orcs.  You will have lower combat stats than a unit like Fyreslayers.  Another army might have more buff potential.  But most likely your tarpit is going to be better at replenishing casualties than most others.  And the interactions between your units will be different.  

Armies should be evaluated against each other at the large macro level where you compare the average and best builds for the army.  Can this army field a 2k list that stands a good chance of defeating this other army?  Less important are the costs of unit A in one army versus unit B in another.  An example of this is comparing Witch Elves to Savage Orc Morboys in regards to cost.  Those two units are very close to each other in regards to what they do.  But the army that they fit in and the ability of those armies in regards to support is quite different.  The point costs of the two units are not going to be the same or compare exactly against one another.

[Skabnoze]

23 minutes ago, blueshirtman said:

Ok, lets say you pick destruction as your faction or worse BCR, no amount of money, research is going to help you. As both the grand alliance and the specific army are horrible. And 2.0 did not change that.  I mean I guess there is still something wierd like narrative or open, but few people play that.

Research could possibly have led you to select a different army.  It would also have led someone looking to play highly competitively to figure out that to continue to do that in a GW game would likely involve playing more than one army.  Money would help you to do this.

In an ideal world you should be able to pick any army because you think it looks cool, or for whatever other reason you like, and be able to play competitively with it.  In an even more ideal world you should be able to collect a single 2k army and not have to change it to keep being able to play games against anyone else with a good chance to win any game against an equally skilled opponent.  But in this case we are playing Games Workshop games and that ideal world I mentioned has never existed that I can recall.  I wish that was not the case, but history indicates it is.  All we can do is try to figure out how to adapt to reality or stop playing the game.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

I mean I guess there is still something wierd like narrative or open, but few people play that.

So 66% of the ways to play are 'weird'?

I play almost exclusively open and narrative. Of the 6 tables playing AoS at my club last night (3 completely separate groups of people BTW, many of whom had never met) I think 4 were playing some version of open or narrative play. I think you vastly overestimate the appeal and ubiquity of pure matched play outside of tournaments and internet forums.

[Bellfree]

13 hours ago, AaronWIlson said:

So I played a 1500 point game with a fairly heavy MW Tzeentch list (Lord of Change, Gaunt Summoner, Tzaangor Shaman,Blue Scribes) & Portal. I played against Idoneth with Lens & allied Arcanum + Comet. I was able to use LoC 42" unbind to push Arcanum out of position and sniped him with portal, I was able to play around lens by picking at things that weren't in range / dealing enough MW in a spell to not worry about it. Was happy to see Lens isn't the end of Tzeentch lists completely, though it made things harder and target priority had to be on point. 

This is still problematic for 2 reasons.

1. A rather large amount of your gameplay strategy depended on outmaneuvering a single relic. What other relic in the game(pre-malign sorcery) can take control of a game like that? Mirrorshield is probably the closest and that only protects the stardrake.

2. Those same counterplays probably won't work again. Your opponent has now seen what you did to mitigate the effect of lens of refraction and will take steps to mitigate your mitigation.

I don't think anyone ever said the relic was unbeatable, but it is currently far too powerful. The fact that it's not an insta-lose for spellcaster armies is comforting, but it warps the gameplay space around it far too much while also forcing every other relic that comes out after it to either be stronger, or completely ignored.

There are actually a number of relics in the Malign Sorcery that I feel need to be nerfed, not because they're 'game changingly op' but because they will likely either end up reducing the design space of future relics, or creating a sort of relics 'arms race' with future battletomes having to come up with even MORE powerful stuff just for any of it to get taken.

Basically any of the relics that got taken in 6 nations should probably be reduced in power. Refractor Lens NEEDS to be changed to' wholly within'(don't have the book in front of me but I'm 95% sure it is only 'within'),  Ignax being a 4+ makes most existing mortal wound protection relics pointless, Ethereal Amulet should probably also set your save to 4+, gryph feather charm is fine, it's just clearly better than similar relics like armor of silvered sigmarite, I'm sure there are others that are either OP or make existing relics meant for a similar role irrelevant but I haven't spent a lot of time going through that book yet(it makes me sad every time I try).

[Nick in York]

2 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

Ok, lets say you pick destruction as your faction or worse BCR, no amount of money, research is going to help you. As both the grand alliance and the specific army are horrible. And 2.0 did not change that.  

Sure, but this wasn't always the case in AoS and I'm sure Destruction, or even BCR will have their time again. It wasn't too long again that this was the kind of thing that all Death players were saying (quite rightly).

2 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

But the best example of it is tzeench. It was nerfed, changed as an army 3 or 4 times, maybe more. And it was the best army whole 1st edition, because the rules for the points were that good.

Not for the whole of 1st edition - their battletome came out, what, halfway through? 

Again, the point I'm making is that they've had (or are having) their time in the sun but this will change.

[blueshirtman]

11 minutes ago, Nick in York said:

Not for the whole of 1st edition - their battletome came out, what, halfway through? 

I don't really count the first part of AoS as being an actual game. Without points it was at best a beta test.

 

12 minutes ago, Nick in York said:

Sure, but this wasn't always the case in AoS and I'm sure Destruction, or even BCR will have their time again. It wasn't too long again that this was the kind of thing that all Death players were saying (quite rightly).

I don't know, look at the faction focus articles. For chaos or Legions they call on actual players, people that know the armies and have something to say. For something like BCR they call on a guy that started the army a month before, and whose advice to new and old players is buy 3 starter sets and charge. I don't know who in the studio is responsible for writing the ogor/BCR rules, but from the changes in the generals handbook it does not look as if the person plays BCR or even maybe the game, be it 1st or 2ed.   The will have they time argument seems strange to me. What if your army ends up like one of the legacy ones, am sure people were telling bretonians that one day their army is going to have a time of their own.

But again my problem with the non symetric design is not that is creates worse and better armies. My problem is with GW making bad armies. It is one thing to have a theme for your army, or even a handicap, as long as you get something in return for it. Undead don't have shoting, are dependened on their heroes etc but they get powerful magic, their heros are really powerful etc. No problems with armies like that. Problems start when, and I feel like am repeating myself, is when GW gives your army a set of rules that does not work.  A BCR army that could work, and not just in top tournament setting, exists. It probablly is fun to play too. It has only one problem it is a 2400pts list that has to play vs 2000pts list. The BCR just miss too much of the stuff which is essential to what makes armies good in AoS. No battalions, no command abilities, horrible relics, horrible at least ruleswise battle lines, and elite army with low resilience and weak offense. No magic unless they ally it in, and if BCR do the casters pool they got access to is the destruction one, which lets be honest isn't earth shattering good.

53 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

So 66% of the ways to play are 'weird'?

it maybe 66% of ways to play, but it sure is not 66% of games being played.

 

2 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

All we can do is try to figure out how to adapt to reality or stop playing the game.

Ok, so you play BCR, how do you adapt? Other then drop the army and start playing something like LoN, because I think we all do assume that lizardman and kroak in specific are going to get FAQ nerfed soon.

 

2 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

To use your example, if you are making a LoN army then you won't really be able to accurately compare the individual costs of your tarpit against most other tarpits.  The differences between the armies and units means that those comparisons are only going to be accurate to a fairly low degree.  Your units are going to have a lower model count than a unit such as grots.  You will probably have less total wounds than a unit like Savage Orcs.  You will have lower combat stats than a unit like Fyreslayers.  Another army might have more buff potential.  But most likely your tarpit is going to be better at replenishing casualties than most others.  And the interactions between your units will be different. 

You know am not a very good player, but even I know that if a unit of skeletons can kill a stonehorn worth 150 more points then itself, and that the unit can be resurected, buffed etc I can compare the worth good enough. Same way even the most new order players, knew that skins, I know it is no longer the case, are the screening battle line to get. the type of interaction isn't as important either, what is important is can the interaction be pulled off. Stoping a LoN player from using his skeletons or ressing them back requires luck, and it doesn't matter if it is double turns or the LoN player being new. Some stuff has or had 0 chance to fail. Slayers could in some scenarios charge the objectives and just sit on them till the game end with most armies being unable to kill enough of them to claim anything.

 

2 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

Research could possibly have led you to select a different army.  It would also have led someone looking to play highly competitively to figure out that to continue to do that in a GW game would likely involve playing more than one army.  Money would help you to do this.

And I did, when I started stonhorns where good. Then they got nerfed, everyone kept telling me to wait for the battle tome and General Handbook, that the nerf was too harsh and only happened because of K Rukk interaction etc. Nothing like that happened, everytime GW had the chance to fix BCR they either just didn't do it, or worse change it for something worse.

Can you imagine playing BCR in a scenario where wizards, BCR have 0 of those, and heros with relics can only claim objectives, and no battalions means BCR have exactly 1 such dude and their relics suck? If you get to play that scenario it aint even worth to set up the models as a BCR player.

[Gecktron]

7 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

I don't really count the first part of AoS as being an actual game. Without points it was at best a beta test.

DoT came out in Tzaanuary of 2017. So half way trough GH2016, half a year after points were introduced. 

[RuneBrush]

8 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

it maybe 66% of ways to play, but it sure is not 66% of games being played.

I don't believe anybody can actually make that claim as nobody has a clue how many of each game style is being played - you can perhaps say that for your own local environment, but I'll guarantee it'll be different to mine.  Competitive games do have more visual presence than the others but that's not really representative of what games are being played.

With all of the rules of 1 wrapped up into the core rules now, the differentiation is pretty much down to what battle plan you use and a few list building mechanics.  A lot of people use pitched battle profiles/points for their narrative & open game too so the various play styles are a lot less defined in the new edition.

8 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

Stoping a LoN player from using his skeletons or ressing them back requires luck

I think it depends upon the army being played against.  Even buffed, Skeletons don't have quality attacks - just a lot of them.  If you've got a unit with a decent armour save skeletons will simply struggle to damage it.

[AaronWilson]

9 hours ago, Bellfree said:

This is still problematic for 2 reasons.

1. A rather large amount of your gameplay strategy depended on outmaneuvering a single relic. What other relic in the game(pre-malign sorcery) can take control of a game like that? Mirrorshield is probably the closest and that only protects the stardrake.

2. Those same counterplays probably won't work again. Your opponent has now seen what you did to mitigate the effect of lens of refraction and will take steps to mitigate your mitigation.

I don't think anyone ever said the relic was unbeatable, but it is currently far too powerful. The fact that it's not an insta-lose for spellcaster armies is comforting, but it warps the gameplay space around it far too much while also forcing every other relic that comes out after it to either be stronger, or completely ignored.

There are actually a number of relics in the Malign Sorcery that I feel need to be nerfed, not because they're 'game changingly op' but because they will likely either end up reducing the design space of future relics, or creating a sort of relics 'arms race' with future battletomes having to come up with even MORE powerful stuff just for any of it to get taken.

Basically any of the relics that got taken in 6 nations should probably be reduced in power. Refractor Lens NEEDS to be changed to' wholly within'(don't have the book in front of me but I'm 95% sure it is only 'within'),  Ignax being a 4+ makes most existing mortal wound protection relics pointless, Ethereal Amulet should probably also set your save to 4+, gryph feather charm is fine, it's just clearly better than similar relics like armor of silvered sigmarite, I'm sure there are others that are either OP or make existing relics meant for a similar role irrelevant but I haven't spent a lot of time going through that book yet(it makes me sad every time I try).

Yeah sorry I wasn't trying to say "I won one game against Lens so the item is 100% okay" I was more trying to concede I was wrong about being a bit hyperbolic about lens. In my head it was unplayable against for Tzeentch and it was the death of  them, in fact using some positioning and game knowledge I was able to play around them. I 100% concede in other games I won't be able to and the game will be incredibly tough but for it was more re-affirming for my self it's not as bad as I though it would be. 

I still think the item is too good and I would either like to see the item to give a 6+ against MW from spells in a larger bubble, be changed to reduce MW from spells by 1 (against D3 MW spells that's still a 33% drop) or make it wholly within 6".

[Kamose]

On 7/10/2018 at 1:41 PM, Richelieu said:

I see people say similar things to this and it simply is not true.  Yes, the faction mega threads and whatever the latest tournament results thread happens to be are mostly about lists and competition. Why shouldn't there be a place for people who enjoy these things to talk about them?  However, a quick scan of this Forum reveals far more active threads about hobbying, lore, home brew rules, narrative play, etc.  Nobody is forcing anyone else to take part in a discussion that is explicitly about how a tournament will affect the future of the part of the game that some of us enjoy.

I agree with you 100% and I think those threads about hobbying, narrative play, home brew, lore, etc. are some of the many things that makes TGA unique and a great a place to discuss AoS. 

To be fair to Infeston, the situation he was describing was universal to all wargaming forums before this one.  Prior to AoS there was no such thing a forum that was not dominated by lists, points, and competitive discussion.  This is partly because, prior to AoS, there was no such thing as a widely played wargame that was not dominated by list-building, points min-maxing, and competitive play.  Whatever else GW did wrong with the AoS release, I am eternally grateful that they pushed and stuck with Open and Narrative play as fundamental and equally important parts of the game alongside Matched play. 

I will admit I'm sympathetic towards Infeston's point of view.  In the two weeks since the release of AoS 2, I've stopped listening to most of my favorite AoS podcasts.  This is because the vast majority of them boil down to complaining ad nauseum about the 1% of broken lists and combos that appeared at 6 Nations.  I get it, Brokenado is broken; Supergrot is broken, Dreadwood Wargrove is broken.  Anyone wanna discuss anything about the other 99% of the game? Realmscape rules?  New spells and artifacts other than that Lens?  Endless spells besides the mirrors?  Nope?  Well, I guess I'll check back in a month.

PS: On a related note, did the Hysh spell Banishment immediately lead to the collapse of enlightened, rational civilization as I was led to believe it would before the release?  I've heard nothing about that spell given all the wailing that was going on 2 weeks ago.  I'm still here but I'm fairly certain that America no longer qualifies as enlightened or rational and so might have escaped destruction.   

[AaronWilson]

I'm fairly sure 80% of events are playing that you can choose a realm for your army but aren't using Realm of Battles rules, hence why Banishment hasn't come up. 

[Karol]

6 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

 

I think it depends upon the army being played against.  Even buffed, Skeletons don't have quality attacks - just a lot of them.  If you've got a unit with a decent armour save skeletons will simply struggle to damage it.

I have seen 40 skeletons kill bloodthirsters, dragons, and they sure can kill stuff like my skullcrushers or blood warriors. Only thing they, I think, they can't kill is morathai or maybe something like a stardrake bouncing mortal wounds back.

 

34 minutes ago, Kamose said:

I get it, Brokenado is broken; Supergrot is broken, Dreadwood Wargrove is broken.  Anyone wanna discuss anything about the other 99% of the game? Realmscape rules?  New spells and artifacts other than that Lens?  Endless spells besides the mirrors?  Nope?  Well, I guess I'll check back in a month.

Non "broken" stuff doesn't get played, stuff that doesn't get played doesn't have an effect on the casual local meta, and if it does then it is in the worse way possible, like there not being many reports about playing BCR, and some person starting them at random and finding out post factum how good and fun to play they are. AoS is like any other sport, I mean you can technicly ignore the fact that opposing football team players are bigger and older then you, and claim your just playing for fun when they destroy you on the field, but it is hard to pull off. I can't and I have prescription medicin to do the exact that kind of stuff.

Quote

I don't believe anybody can actually make that claim as nobody has a clue how many of each game style is being played - you can perhaps say that for your own local environment, but I'll guarantee it'll be different to mine.  Competitive games do have more visual presence than the others but that's not really representative of what games are being played. 

How many open or narrative events were listed comparing to normal tournaments? We may  not get the exact number right, but we can get the idea about the size of both groups. Is it 1 in 2, or something like 1 in 5?

 

 

 

[Brad Gamma]

39 minutes ago, Karol said:

Non "broken" stuff doesn't get played, stuff that doesn't get played doesn't have an effect on the casual local meta

If non broken stuff doesn't get played, then do you actually have a casual local meta?

I don't play a huge amount, and the friends I do play against is rather casual, but I still hang out at GW every work day (go painting at lunch) and so far I have hardly ever seen a "broken" list get played. People are just playing with the armies they've been playing with for years, and occasionally the pretty new thing.

39 minutes ago, Karol said:

How many open or narrative events were listed comparing to normal tournaments? We may  not get the exact number right, but we can get the idea about the size of both groups. Is it 1 in 2, or something like 1 in 5?

I wouldn't be surprised if "events" are skewed towards matched play, but I'm faily sure @RuneBrush was responding to the claim about all games. I would not assume that events accounted for the majority of games, not even close. I would be suprised if they accounted for more than 5% of games.

So are we talking about tournaments, or the casual local meta? Which is it.

 

EDIT: To Add:

Quote

AoS is like any other sport, I mean you can technicly ignore the fact that opposing football team players are bigger and older then you, and claim your just playing for fun when they destroy you on the field, but it is hard to pull off. I can't and I have prescription medicin to do the exact that kind of stuff.

This is not true. Aos is not technically like every other sport. Its very different from almost all athletic sports. Its has a large element of hobby aspects like painting and building. It is an immersive recreation of a fantasy world. It has a huge diaspora of different armies that you can pick and choose and play. I can have discussions with my partners to tweak almost any game in any way we want. It has different and variable victory conditions.

And even if it were, I know a lot of people who aren't very good at football, but find ways to play and have fun. They aren't all throwing their hands up in the air because they aren't playing for Real Madrid. Because they seek out groups that play at their level. Theres nothing in football to stop 12 year olds playing 18 year olds, they just don't tend to because they self-manage performance differences.

[RuneBrush]

42 minutes ago, Karol said:

I have seen 40 skeletons kill bloodthirsters, dragons, and they sure can kill stuff like my skullcrushers or blood warriors. Only thing they, I think, they can't kill is morathai or maybe something like a stardrake bouncing mortal wounds back.

I've also had situations where I've rolled 80+ attacks and inflicted a couple of wounds on a unit.  Sure they can kill stuff - if you're rolling enough dice you can technically kill anything (death by a million cuts), but you have to pick your fights.  From a Khorne point of view you really want to chuck your Skullreapers or Bloodreavers into Skeletons

47 minutes ago, Karol said:

How many open or narrative events were listed comparing to normal tournaments? We may  not get the exact number right, but we can get the idea about the size of both groups. Is it 1 in 2, or something like 1 in 5?

@Brad Gamma is right, I was responding to the generalisation that more games of matched play are played than the others.  That's sort of the point too, AoS isn't all about events, although events do have a huge impact on the shape of the game going forward.

[AaronWilson]

One thing I think the community as a whole could do better with is realising how big the playerbase actually is. Yes, most of the time tournament people are most vocal in talk of events, lists, discussion of imbalance, asking for change, etc etc. I'm one of those players, I'm looking to compete at the game and I'm heading to my first AOS event in October with it being the Throne of Skulls at WHW. I'm very vocal on the forums about lists, what's good, what's bad etc.

I think that creates a impression that the majority of players are like minded and the game is more and more about events. What I actually think the community as a whole would do well to think about is that most likely tournament players are somewhat a minorty, maybe only by a small amount. Think of all the casual gamers that play once, twice a month and just like playing 4 hour silly games, families that play together, the after school clubs where kids are shown the game, the players that only meet players at the LGS to play together or those people that never play and just paint. A lot of those players won't feel the need to come on forums and post about lists, they'll buy models they want to build paint and play.

I don't think there's need to be this divide in mentality betwen the two sides either, we're all looking to achieve the same goal of having fun while we play the game and no one "needs" to play in a certain way. One team, one dream guys!

[Dead Scribe]

I agree with you in principal.  However in my store it would seem at least that the vast majority of all of the people that play AOS are tournament players.  There is a narrative guy that tries to push narrative but he struggles to get more than a couple of people interested in anything that is not a tournament preparation game.  I think that that is common for a lot of us, and that definitely marks our perspective into the game and the community overall.

Our group is about twenty five players and I think only a couple actually care about anything beyond tournament style gaming.  I don't know of any other than a small minority that play anything other than that so it can be easy for me to pass over any other way to play simply because it is not something that I really every see or have ever seen in public.

[Skabnoze]

16 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

And I did, when I started stonhorns where good. Then they got nerfed, everyone kept telling me to wait for the battle tome and General Handbook, that the nerf was too harsh and only happened because of K Rukk interaction etc. Nothing like that happened, everytime GW had the chance to fix BCR they either just didn't do it, or worse change it for something worse.

Can you imagine playing BCR in a scenario where wizards, BCR have 0 of those, and heros with relics can only claim objectives, and no battalions means BCR have exactly 1 such dude and their relics suck? If you get to play that scenario it aint even worth to set up the models as a BCR player.

I don't know what to tell you anymore other than to change your army or quit the game if the situation is that frustrating for you.  I don't like to have to tell that to anyone, but the majority of the posts I have read from you over the last few months are pretty much the same story about how awful things are.

First, I completely understand your situation and I sympathize with you.  No, I do not play Beastclaw Raiders - although I have considered it a couple of times because I like the models they split from Ogre Kingdoms and turned into Beastclaw.  In my opinion those were the best models in the Ogre Kingdom army.  But, I do play every allegiance in Destruction aside from the Ogre allegiances.  I own a greenskinz army with about 200 orc infantry alone - not counting heroes, cavalry, chariots, etc.  I have at least 4-8 of every type of Gitmob warmachine.  I have a 2500 point army of just pure Moonclan Squigs.  I have over 500 moonclan grots, 25+ fanatics, and more heroes than I could possibly ever put on the table at once.  I have a Spiderfang army, over 100 Ardboyz, 18 Troggoths, and a medium sized Bonesplitterz force that I am going to be upgrading soon.

None of those forces that I listed are really that great in Age of Sigmar, and they have arguably never been overly great in previous editions of Fantasy either.  I have been playing these forces for over 25 years.  When I say that someone should adapt to reality one part of that is to realize that historically it has taken Games Workshop VERY LONG to reissue army books.  How long?  Well, lets take a sec and look at when Warhammer Fantasy was published for various editions and when the Orc & Goblin army books were released:

Warhammer Fantasy:

• 4th - 1992
• 5th - 1996
• 6th - 2000
• 7th - 2006
• 8th - 2010

Orcs & Goblins army book:

• 4th - 1993
• 5th - skipped, they kept the 4th ed army book for this entire edition
• 6th - 2000
• 7th - 2006
• 8th - 2011

The shortest wait for a new army book at any point on those timelines was 5 years.  The longest wait there was 7 years as they simply did kept the same army book for 2 editions.  I played 40k during that time as well with both Orks & Chaos armies.  The Ork codex once had over 9 years between rewrites.

I can't make GW release books when I want them to.  We all have to wait for them to decide to do it and sometimes that can take a very very long time.  It sucks, but that is the reality of the situation.  We can't really change that.  If your army gets a strong book then it can be strong for quite a while.  If your army gets a book that is not very great then you can be stuck in that position for a long time.  Every army is prone to this issue.  It tends to happen to certain armies more than others, but every army goes through a weak period at some point that I have found.  Notice that every single time gap listed above is longer than Age of Sigmar has existed.

Waiting stinks, I get it.  But there is no way around it really.  I don't disagree with most of your complaints about your chosen faction and I don't really disagree about your complaints about GW.  But there is nothing any of us here can do about that.  You need to figure out what you need to do to enjoy your time - nobody can do that for you.  If your decision is that you want to play Games Workshop games then you need to understand that you may wait a long time for an army to be updated.  You also need to understand that good armies can quickly turn into mediocre or bad ones.  Beastclaw is not an unplayable army by any means.  You can functionally play the game with them.  They are simply not very good right now compared to most other armies and this disparity is very large at the more competitive levels.  If your enjoyment of the game relies upon having a very strong army then you either need to wait for Beastclaw to get updated with a new book (we have no idea when this may happen), or you need to purchase a different army.  Your only other options are to just deal with the situation where Beastclaw are not very good and play them anyways or else quit the game.

I decided years ago that I like Orcs & Goblins too much to stop playing them - even though I was fully aware that the army had some serious drawbacks (hooray for animosity rules!).  I was able to still enjoy the majority of games that I played with them and I got pretty good at winning with them in most of the areas that I played in.  But I even enjoyed most of the games where I lost.

Thats all you can do.  You need to decide how to best enjoy your time.

[Skabnoze]

2 hours ago, Karol said:

How many open or narrative events were listed comparing to normal tournaments? We may  not get the exact number right, but we can get the idea about the size of both groups. Is it 1 in 2, or something like 1 in 5?

Why does everything have to be an event?

Are the majority of your games played at events?  That could be true for some people, but I expect that the majority of players around the world play most of their games outside of an event.  I could be wrong about that, but my anecdotal evidence dating back to the last millennia points to that being the case.

[Dead Scribe]

Thats a good question!  Most of my games are played to prepare for an event, the rest of my games are played at the event.  So in essence, all of my games are about preparing for or playing at an event.

[AaronWilson]

12 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I agree with you in principal.  However in my store it would seem at least that the vast majority of all of the people that play AOS are tournament players.  There is a narrative guy that tries to push narrative but he struggles to get more than a couple of people interested in anything that is not a tournament preparation game.  I think that that is common for a lot of us, and that definitely marks our perspective into the game and the community overall.

Our group is about twenty five players and I think only a couple actually care about anything beyond tournament style gaming.  I don't know of any other than a small minority that play anything other than that so it can be easy for me to pass over any other way to play simply because it is not something that I really every see or have ever seen in public.

I can appreciate that but again, there's nothing wrong that. It's a shame for your local narrative players but if your local group is competitively minded it doesn't make the majority wrong for liking events, or the minority wrong for wanting to play narratively. There doesn't need to be any angst between the two grouos of players, all it needs is a bit of a comprimise from both sides to play a game they can both enjoy

[Gecktron]

5 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Thats a good question!  Most of my games are played to prepare for an event, the rest of my games are played at the event.  So in essence, all of my games are about preparing for or playing at an event.

I have never played a game to prepare for an event and most events I played at were more like larger game nights organized by my local gaming group so I wouldn't count them as "tournaments". 

[Dead Scribe]

Don't get me wrong I don't want to create any angst!  There is nothing wrong with people wanting to play narratively I don't think.  I don't want that to be the implication of what I posted   

I think angst can happen with the people trying to run things when they can't get players though.  I see that a lot.  They get very bitter and angry because one group has a lot of people and their group doesn't have hardly any.  I can certainly sympathize, I would probably not want to play in a group that only had a couple players either but I come from games like Magic the Gathering where we had over one hundred people at every event all the time so I may be a little bit spoiled.

But for me, as i only do tournament games, if a game I was involved in did not have a tournament crowd, I wouldn't play that game, so thats what I would tell those players as well.  Find a game that has people wanting to play narratively even if its only a couple and do your thing!

[stratigo]

24 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

Why does everything have to be an event?

Are the majority of your games played at events?  That could be true for some people, but I expect that the majority of players around the world play most of their games outside of an event.  I could be wrong about that, but my anecdotal evidence dating back to the last millennia points to that being the case.

It depends on your meta, with the caveat that most metas have that guy in it who power builds just cause he wants to beat everyone else. My meta is competetive. The players I usually played are competetive even though I don’t go to tournaments any longer(I have low ****** tolerance and there’s always a few guys that go to an event and are just complete asses to play, super nit picky and often more then a little cheaty) 

l want to be able to play and not feel like the army I am using had no chance from the second I set up. I no longer have that feeling and it makes me quite upset. 

 

I also know that gw takes into account people’s comments. If everyone who was upset about Kharadrons just shut up, then gw would never balance them as they’d never show up at the tournament meta since they suck

 

I also hold gw to a higher standard than the old “sorry your book sucks, see you in five years” that the company used to indulge in. Gw’s old management were, frankly, morons, and the company suffered under their management. The current company is vastly more responsive and willing to change things and communicate on a regular schedule. 

 

I think people who work at gw or people who communicate with those people read threads like this and incorporate them into their descisions for the development of the game. The fact that I am even willing to still engage with AoS is a testament to my faith in the company’s new direction. Under old GW, I’d simply leave the hobby again, and while that may satisfy a handful of posters on a forum who want nothing but affirmations and hate people disagreeing with the direction of the game, it doesn’t really do much good for a company that in the end is profit based

 

[Skabnoze]

19 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Don't get me wrong I don't want to create any angst!  There is nothing wrong with people wanting to play narratively I don't think.  I don't want that to be the implication of what I posted   

I think angst can happen with the people trying to run things when they can't get players though.  I see that a lot.  They get very bitter and angry.

But for me, as i only do tournament games, if a game I was involved in did not have a tournament crowd, I wouldn't play that game, so thats what I would tell those players as well.  Find a game that has people wanting to play narratively even if its only a couple and do your thing!

This is the thing that everyone needs to realize.

People play the game in different ways and for different reasons.  There can be a lot of overlap within those reasons, but the differences exist.  GW builds their games for the broad audience and not for a specific niche of players.  That said, in my experience they do lean a bit towards game design for the little Timmy in all of us (big exciting cinematic/thematic events), but most types of players can enjoy their games.

We should all stop arguing like there is a single correct way to play the game.  The core rulebook itself obviously says that is not the case.  The key is to make sure that you and your opponent understand what kind of game you both want to play and compromise in order to make the game as fun as possible.  Playing a game of little plastic soldiers in your spare time is just dumb if you are not doing it to have a good time.  It is also not very considerate if you are not trying to make sure your opponent is enjoying their time as well.  This is a social game and it is at it's best when everyone is enjoying it.

Nothing is wrong with being ultra-competitive.  Nothing is wrong with being ultra-casual.  Open, Narrative, Matched Play - all are equally acceptable ways for people to play the game and none are inherently better than the other.  People can prefer whichever ones they want and that is fine, but it does not make it better than another other than for that person.  The important part is to make sure that both players in a game understand the type of game that they are playing.