6 Nations take aways

[InvalidUsername]

Just now, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

I don’t think they are that much of an issue, the poeople who take these lists normally want to win badly, but due to the reasons I mentioned before they normally don’t. So after this initially silly abuse period everything stabilises and more traditional lists become the norm again. 

The problem is that these lists persist for a very long time because they win dramatically and they're usually fairly easy to play. Skryre fyre was still kicking around long after it was relevant on the top tables and running into that list when you weren't in a position to counter it was 20 minutes of pulling teeth.

Sure, if you're in the top 16 you probably won't have to deal with them but 17-50 lists like this are always fairly prevalent.

[InvalidUsername]

4 minutes ago, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

I’ve seen this said about many different gongs now ?

its a very specific medium range defensive item. It’s quite coubterable by a balanced list as it only affects spells.  

It’s probably in there to make sure the magic heavy lists like Tzeentch don’t become OP. Just the threat of having this item available is enough to change lists. 

Because THAT'S healthy game design. Leaving army balance up to OP neutral relics. And how are you going to counter that if your opponent counters your counter and all you have left is spells?

Sure, it's beatable. So was pre-nerf Vanguard wing and pre-nerf skyfires and pre-nerf balewind Changehost, that doesn't mean they aren't out of line with the rest of the powercurve of the game.

[ianob]

Regarding Kroak, EotG, and command point stacking, these were all things that were called before 6N, saw in the 6N lists, and then happened at 6N. We'd already FAQ'd them for our upcoming local event because they are *so* egregious that I would be incredibly surprised if they're not fixed in the first FAQ. Anyone who thinks that these things are all fine is frankly in denial; these are game killers, they will ruin the competitive scene absolutely, but it’s not that big of an issue really - it’s a simple fix! Changehost/Skyfires/KO/whatever were not on the same level as this but they were tougher, army design problems. I hope GW can FAQ this asap, with a firefighting fix if nothing else (RO1 Kroak back to one celestial deliverance and make EotG generate summoning points or once per game and then decide later if they're the right fixes).

First turn should be changed, but not as a result of 6N - it should have been changed in V2 anyway. As we talked about on our podcast, it's not achievable for every army to 1-drop as a choice, it's not a fair mechanic, and as such it should not be a mechanic that exists as it simply pushes out whole swathes of army types because they are not "low drop enough". Guaranteed first turn should never be a thing.

Portal is fine as is. I'd have liked to have seen it also allow you to measure dispel range to the portal used to measure from so it doesnt also avoid the new unbinding minigame, but whatever. I would probably prefer if it’d never existed but I don’t think it ruins anything in a game of deepstrikes and long ranged shooting, no reasons why spells can’t also have reach (as long as the spells themselves aren’t celestial deliverance kevelcproblematic)  I also dont see a problem with Dreadwood Wargrove myself, other than being 1-drop. It would be nice if the game had 0 alpha strike armies as I dont think it's conducive to good gameplay at either casual or competitive levels, but unless you're going to remove all alpha strikes from the game I dont see why you'd nerf this one just because it might be the best.

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

13 minutes ago, InvalidUsername said:

Because THAT'S healthy game design. Leaving army balance up to OP neutral relics. And how are you going to counter that if your opponent counters your counter and all you have left is spells?

Sure, it's beatable. So was pre-nerf Vanguard wing and pre-nerf skyfires and pre-nerf balewind Changehost, that doesn't mean they aren't out of line with the rest of the powercurve of the game.

I’m almost certain that one 12” circle can’t cover more than 1 objective. Just concentrate on the rest of their army and objectives. 

And skrye never did that well as far as I remember. One of my regular opponents plays them  and I still enjoy beating them most of the time. 

[Paul Buckler]

The first turn roll is a good mechanic, I like it personally.  BUT it cant be dropped straight in now as a lot of points, abilities etc are based around how it actually works now.  A complete repoint of batallions etc would be needed.  Maybe next GH, but prob AOS3 would be the only way to introduce that going forwards.

 

[The Jabber Tzeentch]

7 minutes ago, ianob said:

Regarding Kroak, EotG, and command point stacking, these were all things that were called before 6N, saw in the 6N lists, and then happened at 6N. We'd already FAQ'd them for our upcoming local event because they are *so* egregious that I would be incredibly surprised if they're not fixed in the first FAQ. Anyone who thinks that these things are all fine is frankly in denial; these are game killers, they will ruin the competitive scene absolutely. Changehost/Skyfires/KO/whatever were not on the same level as this.

First turn should be changed, but not as a result of 6N - it should have been changed in V2 anyway. As we talked about on our podcast, it's not achievable for every army to 1-drop as a choice, it's not a fair mechanic, and as such it should not be a mechanic that exists as it simply pushes out whole swathes of army types because they are not "low drop enough". Guaranteed first turn should never be a thing.

Portal is fine as is. I'd have liked to have seen it also allow you to measure dispel range to the portal used to measure from so it doesnt also avoid the new unbinding minigame, but whatever. 

I don’t think many people are arguing against you. Tbh I’m not sure  GW meant for command ability’s  to be stacked anyway I fully expect that to be changed. 

I disagree with the first turn thing, it’s an important part of list design and list sacrifice notable amounts out raw output to get one drop lists. There’s also many negatives to having your whole army deployed before the enemies. 

[ianob]

Just now, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

I don’t think many people are arguing against you. Tbh I’m not sure  GW meant for command ability’s  to be stacked anyway I fully expect that to be changed. 

I disagree with the first turn thing, it’s an important part of list design and list sacrifice notable amounts out raw output to get one drop lists. There’s also many negatives to having your whole army deployed before the enemies. 

They've already started the command point stacking fixes to be honest. Nurgle Greater Demons and Freeguild Generals (yeah they were high on the fix list clearly!) were changed. I'm confident they're intending to do it to other models too, which is why I'm happy that comping it for our event is simply doing now what GW might take a while to get round to.

Neither Seraphon nor Sylvaneth really sacrifice much in the way of raw power to be one drop, thanks to "any number of <faction> units" in their super-battalions. Some stuff does, sure (for example, First Cohort is hot garbage), but I highly doubt that "number of drops" has ever been something that has been widely tested much less accounted for in points values. This is probably not the right place to have this discussion though as it's wildly off topic and I'm sure we both know this is a topic without a clear majority on either side of the argument!

[Vextol]

17 minutes ago, ianob said:

First turn should be changed, but not as a result of 6N - it should have been changed in V2 anyway. As we talked about on our podcast, it's not achievable for every army to 1-drop as a choice, it's not a fair mechanic, and as such it should not be a mechanic that exists as it simply pushes out whole swathes of army types because they are not "low drop enough". Guaranteed first turn should never be a thing.

I completely disagree.  If we remove something because all armies don't have it we're going to have an extremely boring game. 

Spell casting is a huge portion of this game now.  Khorne and KO are extremely underpowered because of it.  Sure, we can take some allies like SCE wizards to help but basically the KO army is no longer viable on its own.  I don't believe this means we should "remove magic" from the game because of it.

First turn drops are simply an element of some armies. 

[ianob]

1 minute ago, Vextol said:

I completely disagree.  If we remove something because all armies don't have it we're going to have an extremely boring game. 

Spell casting is a huge portion of this game now.  Khorne and KO are extremely underpowered because of it.  Sure, we can take some allies like SCE wizards to help but basically the KO army is no longer viable on its own.  I don't believe this means we should "remove magic" from the game because of it.

First turn drops are simply an element of some armies. 

That is absolutely not the same thing, but sure, this is why I didnt want to derail the thread into a first turn argument because it's been going round in circles forever and won't stop now. So maybe let's not continue this

[Vextol]

9 minutes ago, ianob said:

That is absolutely not the same thing, but sure, this is why I didnt want to derail the thread into a first turn argument because it's been going round in circles forever and won't stop now. So maybe let's not continue this

I wasn't trying to derail.  Take away from 6N would be that one turn drops should be changed-disagree ?

As others have pointed out, there would need to be dramatic changes to the game as a whole and some armies would need serious cutbacks if they did that.

Death can't shoot, tzeentch has no command abilities, KO has no magic, SCE have bad mortal saves.  There are a bunch or armies that can't setup off the table and a WHOLE bunch that can't summon.

There are a lot of armies that can one drop, there are a bunch that cannot.  Truth is, unless you are battalion free you CAN one drop.  You end up hurting your power potential a lot in some cases.  You just have to decide what's important. 

Command stacking is tricky with models like Kroak because he's not targeting anything. Most of the current fixes say once per unit.  You'd basically have to completely rework kroak or make a special exception. 

[Karol]

16 minutes ago, The Jabber Tzeentch said:

I don’t think many people are arguing against you. Tbh I’m not sure  GW meant for command ability’s  to be stacked anyway I fully expect that to be changed.

In the faction focus it was said more then once that this is the thing cool about 2.0, and the thing to do. So unless the GW did some false advertising it is hard to judge.

 

9 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Spell casting is a huge portion of this game now.  Khorne and KO are extremely underpowered because of it.  Sure, we can take some allies like SCE wizards to help but basically the KO army is no longer viable on its own.  I don't believe this means we should "remove magic" from the game because of it.

It does create problems though, and it is not like it is just those two armies. Whole destruction has rather meh casters, so even allying stuff in helps a lot.  Plus the points adjustments to some armies, mean that armies like slyers don't have free points to buy casters.  I am not saying that removing magic is the way to fix problems, but the problems are there, and will only get bigger the more armies get battle tomes and more streamlined the already good magic armies like LoN get.

[ianob]

6 minutes ago, Karol said:

In the faction focus it was said more then once that this is the thing cool about 2.0, and the thing to do. So unless the GW did some false advertising it is hard to judge.

The faction focus said that Prophet of the Waaagh could be stacked, which they immediately fixed upon the v2.0 erratas (along with Vhordrai) so I wouldn't take Warhammer Community articles as read, they certainly aren't in sync with the rules and FAQ team.

Also remember that Warhammer Community articles are not necessarily about matched play. 

10 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Command stacking is tricky with models like Kroak because he's not targeting anything. Most of the current fixes say once per unit.  You'd basically have to completely rework kroak or make a special exception. 

Sure. But "no command abilities stack" pretty much fixes most of the issue for the time being whilst they test/brainstorm something better. The odd specific change to fix things like Kroak command would be fine  going forward. Again, they've done it already with multiple warscrolls in the 2.0 faqs so no reason why not to continue - the only question is whether they can do it fast enough for events not to be silly.

Unless you think goblins dealing 200 damage is preferential to not incidentally taking away Kroak's ability to use his command ability a few times in terms of maintaining short term integrity, of course.

[Andreas]

17 minutes ago, Vextol said:

I completely disagree.  If we remove something because all armies don't have it we're going to have an extremely boring game. 

Spell casting is a huge portion of this game now.  Khorne and KO are extremely underpowered because of it.  Sure, we can take some allies like SCE wizards to help but basically the KO army is no longer viable on its own.  I don't believe this means we should "remove magic" from the game because of it.

First turn drops are simply an element of some armies. 

Our Khorne list won 4 out of 5 games at 6 Nations (only losing due to a guy arguing that he could score on arcane power even when his heros where killed due to how the wording on how you lose control of the objectives are written right now.)

[Karol]

4 minutes ago, ianob said:

The faction focus said that Prophet of the Waaagh could be stacked, which they immediately fixed upon the v2.0 erratas (along with Vhordrai) so I wouldn't take Warhammer Community articles as read, they certainly aren't in sync with the rules and FAQ team.

Also remember that Warhammer Community articles are not necessarily about matched play. 

That is stupid, what if someone bought models because official GW articles told him he could do something, like buying a water resistent watch and finding out the hard way that it isn't.

[Vextol]

11 minutes ago, Andreas said:

Our Khorne list won 4 out of 5 games at 6 Nations (only losing due to a guy arguing that he could score on arcane power even when his heros where killed due to how the wording on how you lose control of the objectives are written right now.)

Congrats! 

Glad Khorne can still compete, but that does help the case that just because some armies don't have access to certain things does not mean they are at a disadvantage. 

[Donal]

The event was hilarious, and was a first time for many people playing the scenarios. 

I think it was a good place to stress test lists. The damage grot list would rarely do well in a tournament because the heroes can be killed. 

I played the khorne list and he definitely deserved to win, nice list and probably as balanced as a khorne list can be. I made 2-3 mistakes in the game which cost me dearly and he capitalised. However I do feel like it will struggle. On that note @Andreas I've asked Ben J about this in terms for an FAQ. I can understand both sides of the argument.

[Donal]

23 minutes ago, ianob said:

Unless you think goblins dealing 200 damage is preferential to not incidentally taking away Kroak's ability to use his command ability a few times in terms of maintaining short term integrity, of course.

i dont think anyone things that Damage 64 grots is ok. I'm just disappointed I was too chicken to go up to 128 in case I failed the charge... 

[Andreas]

4 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Congrats! 

Glad Khorne can still compete, but that does help the case that just because some armies don't have access to certain things does not mean they are at a disadvantage. 

Yes I agree with you. If all armies can do everything the game would become boring. I realise I just read the later part of your post and wanted to put some perspectives on how good or bad khorne is.

[Andreas]

13 minutes ago, Donal said:

On that note @Andreas I've asked Ben J about this in terms for an FAQ. I can understand both sides of the argument.

Yes it will of course get fixed and he was probably right RAW. 

It was just to point out that he in reality won all his games with a Khorne list at 6 Nations.

[ianob]

37 minutes ago, Andreas said:

Our Khorne list won 4 out of 5 games at 6 Nations (only losing due to a guy arguing that he could score on arcane power even when his heros where killed due to how the wording on how you lose control of the objectives are written right now.)

That is exactly how it works as written though. Which also sucks right now (units dying in BPoV and you still own the objective is similarly bent). The general change to "you keep stuff once you've moved away" leads to bad game states imho, but we'll see how that plays out going forward I guess.

[Andreas]

5 minutes ago, ianob said:

That is exactly how it works as written though. Which also sucks right now (units dying in BPoV and you still own the objective is similarly bent). The general change to "you keep stuff once you've moved away" leads to bad game states imho, but we'll see how that plays out going forward I guess.

On arcane power you lose control if you move away, just not if you die. ?

[ianob]

1 minute ago, Andreas said:

On arcane power you lose control if you move away, just not if you die. ?

Yeah. Unambiguously so to the point where it feels like it was intended.

My second sentence was referring to BPoV, sorry if that was confusing, my point was that holding objectives is generally a little bit bent in a lot of situations

 

[ledha]

can someone explain to me why dreadwood is suddenly ultra powerfull ?

As for kroak, guys, we don't need more game. You need ZERO playtest to know that Kroak able to bypass the rule of one is ****** and will lead to hilariously stupid results, and command ability stacking is unfair

[Solaris]

3 hours ago, murphs said:

It's so overwhelmingly the best magic item in the book. Why would they do it? Was it play tested?

Actually, it's not at all the "overwhelmingly best magic item in the book". There are many armies that benefit tremendously from other magic items and don't take a second look at the lens.

[HollowHills]

One thing I don't like about AoS 2, you can argue which artefacts are best for which armies but the malign sorcery relics are almost universally better than the faction specific ones. For example the weapon that gives you a flat +1 to hit and wound.