New Stormcast... sweet baby jesus this is powerful stuff.

[blueshirtman]

4 hours ago, chord said:

There had to be power creep for the new units, otherwise existing stormcast players wouldn't buy the new units.   (see Vanguard chamber whom many of us did not buy)

Well, not saying that aint true, but imo it is kind of a bad for people that started AoS 6-12 months before the new edition started. Those people invested money in to a ton of stuff that does no longer work or/and the new stuff is just plain better. It is good that GW keeps stuff from becoming stale by adding new stuff. But stuff like the new Liberators+ should have been something else. Some sort magic casting unit, maybe the horrors/summoning tool for SCE. Making them just better then liberators in every way, and nerfing everything old, seems like an unneeded kick in the balls. Having good units is not bad, but making them invalidate everything else is a bad thing to do.

To use your example, Vanguard stuff was different, but did not have good enough stats and formations.  But then again sometimes I think that GW write their rules by rolling on a random table.

15 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

Sequitors cost 20 points more and are only battleline with a specific general. Even if they are better, there is a cost to getting them above that of Liberators.

The 20 pts is nothing, because unlike liberators, sequitors do more stuff then being objective campers or suicide tarpits. They have relealy nice damge , and having a magical general in an edition that puts focus on mages, seems like an odd complain to me.

[Skabnoze]

10 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

I wish I could agree with you here (I really do), but other games show no such thing. big titles like Hearthstone or League of Legends practically live on power creep, and sales don't really decline.

I don't think this is a very good comparison.  Historically tabletop games and video-games do not line up in a number of ways.  Powercreep is annoying in any game, but it is easier to stomach in games where the cost of adapting is not too high.  If a new patch changes which characters are great in a Moba or similar game then all someone has to do is learn to play one of the currently better character types and possibly make a small purchase or two.  Hearthstone is effectively a CCG and those have a completely different model.

Dealing with large power-creep in a tabletop game usually requires a larger amount of money spent and then the time and effort investment spent to get the unit assembled & painted for playing.  It also has a cost in that something you previously used and spent time building is no longer as useful and sometimes not even relevant at all.  Most miniature games that I have seen cannot operate heavily on power-creep for long.  The ones that do end up having to reset much more often than others.

[Sleboda]

18 minutes ago, Freejack02 said:

your perception of power creep being fictitious leads to an air of superiority in your views - competitive players all seek power and efficiency in their lists; but they are chasing it because they've been duped by Big Power Creep?

That is not my intention, and if anyone is getting that vibe, I'm sorry.

Competitive players (and I have been one at various times - most of the time tbh) do of course look for the best stuff.

I'm just saying that maybe what makes a good player good has waaaay more to do with them being good (finding synergies, executing plans better, understanding math and psychology better, and so on) than it does with there being a clearly superior choice, or an Easy Button of sorts.

If the two units were identical in every way (point cost, base size, equipment, special rules, battlefield role, etc.) but one of them had, say, 2 more attacks on their profile than the other then yeah, power creep.

That's simply not the case here, nor is it ever, really. Have there been occasional design misses over the decades*? Sure! But what's the old adage about malice vs stupidity? I think it's far more likely that enthusiasm or a missed trick would result in a unit having an advantage than designed power creep would.

Plus, with the new GW, if a mistake (or a "mistake") did make it through, it will be corrected much sooner than ever before.

Tournament players are not being duped. They are just more able to capitalize on the effect of new items being injected into the environment (note the word choice) before others catch up and figure them out. Let's give those players some credit! 

Hearthstone. Yeah. Ouch. I pre-ordered the $80 pack for Boom. Why? Because the cards are powerful? Nope. I had very little idea what the cards could do when I ordered. I just wanted the cool emotes of Mecha-Jeraxxus (like, now!) and had seen some of the art and fun videos. I have no clue if my Odd Paladin will improve, but I'll have some fun new things to play with, and that's why I got them.

 

* The entire final TK book was one huuuuge design fail. I mean, yikes, just on an epic level. Worst army book in the whole time from 3rd ed to 8th. It's also the army book responsible for the most money I have every spent on a single release.

[Skabnoze]

10 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

* The entire final TK book was one huuuuge design fail. I mean, yikes, just on an epic level. Worst army book in the whole time from 3rd ed to 8th. It's also the army book responsible for the most money I have every spent on a single release.

It was the first of the 8th edition Army Books if I remember correctly.  I think the issue there was partly that they swapped directions shortly after that Army Book.  They should have taken it back to the drawing board but sadly never did.

[Lord_Skrolk]

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

The thing with stormcast is that I don't think they will rule the competitive scene, but I can see how they can dominate casuals.

Thank you for perfectly putting into words what I felt about the new SCE!

The news units are so good in *obvious* ways--like the ballista shooting 36", doing a ton of hits, and being extremely cheap points-wise and easy to boost--that among two people casually playing who dont know how to min/max everything, the SCE have a big leg up. High level players can use movement shenanigans and things to play back at them, but the baseline SCE units are so good that its tougher to produce a fair fight with them.

I think my Skaven list would do fine against SCE, but if I gave a new player my Skaven list and another new player the SCE list, the SCE new player would stomp and it wouldnt be a fun game for either player imo 

[Yokai]

33 minutes ago, Lord_Skrolk said:

The news units are so good in *obvious* ways--like the ballista shooting 36", doing a ton of hits, and being extremely cheap points-wise and easy to boost--that among two people casually playing who dont know how to min/max everything, the SCE have a big leg up. High level players can use movement shenanigans and things to play back at them, but the baseline SCE units are so good that its tougher to produce a fair fight with them.

So, SCE is the faction with training wheels, then? ?

[Skabnoze]

31 minutes ago, Lord_Skrolk said:

Thank you for perfectly putting into words what I felt about the new SCE!

The news units are so good in *obvious* ways--like the ballista shooting 36", doing a ton of hits, and being extremely cheap points-wise and easy to boost--that among two people casually playing who dont know how to min/max everything, the SCE have a big leg up. High level players can use movement shenanigans and things to play back at them, but the baseline SCE units are so good that its tougher to produce a fair fight with them.

That exact situation played out in Malifaux with the Guild Faction.  For a long time that faction did not have any really tricky crews with a lot of non-obvious synergy & scenario control.  They simply had mostly crews that had above average combat abilities.  When new players picked them up they seemed to be way stronger than the other factions, but what played out at the top of the competitive scene was usually the exact opposite and Guild was seen as not nearly as good. 

The faction had a very high skill floor compared to other factions.  They were easy to pick up and fairly straight-forward to play.  But Malifaux is a weird game and combat is usually not directly the way to win the game.  Other factions had crews which were a lot tougher to use but had much higher skill ceilings.  This means that the higher skill floor faction initially appears very strong until you encounter people who are well versed and quite good with the high skill ceiling factions.

As I said earlier, I have not fully read and digested the Stormcast battletome yet, but this could very well be what is happening here.  Having read the NightHaunt battletome I have to say that I found them to not be the most straight-forward of armies.  Very little in the NightHaunt army seems really individually powerful.  The army appears to have a lot of moving parts.  It seems to have a whole lot of mobility which can be really powerful in AoS and so I get the feeling that it will be a strong army once people become practiced at using it.  Stormcast have some tricks but they appear a lot more straight-forward to me so far.

[Richelieu]

27 minutes ago, Lord_Skrolk said:

Thank you for perfectly putting into words what I felt about the new SCE!

The news units are so good in *obvious* ways--like the ballista shooting 36", doing a ton of hits, and being extremely cheap points-wise and easy to boost--that among two people casually playing who dont know how to min/max everything, the SCE have a big leg up. High level players can use movement shenanigans and things to play back at them, but the baseline SCE units are so good that its tougher to produce a fair fight with them.

I think my Skaven list would do fine against SCE, but if I gave a new player my Skaven list and another new player the SCE list, the SCE new player would stomp and it wouldnt be a fun game for either player imo 

That's kind of the point of SCE though.  You can play them at any level, from beginner to Jack Armstrong.  And SCE are far from the only army that suffers from this.  There's a whole thread going on right now about a guy dominating a local tournament scene with Free Peoples.  Free Peoples are far from OP, but gunlines present a challenge to less experienced players.  

[Wraith01]

I played my first 1500p game of AoS 2.0 last night using my new Sacrosanct Chamber, Stormcast Eternals against NightHaunt. We played one of those 3 objective games with plenty of scenery on the table. A unit of 5 Sequitors and a Knight Encantor got destroyed by a Chainrasp Horde of 20 that had 3 buffs on them. Evocators are amazing! Specially cause of their Celestial Lightning ability. They basically won me the game, they killed a Spirit host, 2 units of Stalkers,  and 2 Nighthaunt heroes allowing me to gain the central objective. I had 2 Ballistas buffed by a Lord Ordinator and they missed most of the time (bad rolls) but intimidated the Nighthaunts so they didn't even try to get the objective the Ballistas where camping on. 2 units of Castigators weren't very effective either, underwhelming. Still learning how to use the new Chamber, but I wouldn't say the Stormcast are much more powerful than they've always been. Nighthaunt are scary, specially cause they keep respawning. We had fun and plan on having a rematch next week. 

 

I've been playing AoS for 2 years and my main army was Khorne.

[WindstormSCR]

Having read the battletome and played against normal and sacrosanct stormcast several times now with BCR and mixed destruction lists (mostly ogor mixes) I think the comment about training wheels is about right. Two people duking it out that give little thought to synergies, movement, and line of sight (play with more woods, people!) the stormcast will usually win, and armies that rely on frontal assaults without harassment units or at least some shooting will be vulnerable, as stormcast have the most "obvious" synergies as has been stated before.

Once you start to consider the wider picture, they fall off pretty hard, especially when you start to introduce things that give them headaches (casting a malevolent maelstrom from a NG shaman at them comes to mind) and figure out your own synergies.

The biggest advantage stormcast have right now over most non-battletome armies that could be considered "power creep" is a much wider array of usable battalions for extra command points and artefacts, as well as being spoilt for choice when it comes to said artefacts and extra bonuses like mount traits. The only one in the same general league is LoN right now, and perhaps Beastclaws purely on destructive brutality when run correctly.

[jaxom]

11 hours ago, MightyMetro said:

GW may have a bit of a problem with SC chambers each being self contained mini factions that contain units with little to distinguish them in play style and models. Libs/Seq,  Jud/Cast. 

I think Legions of Nagash was a test bed for this sort of thing. It seems like they're now structuring battletomes within a faction hierarchy depending on how different play-styles and/or themes are within it. I'd guess the Stormcast were always meant to be a combined arms force (so they could demonstrate all aspects of AoS as the posterkids) hence the mini-factions all in one book rather than split up like Clan Pestilens and the other Skaven. Otherwise Sacrosanct Chamber has enough versatility and unit choice to be an army on its own, unlike the Extremis Chamber.

 

[The World Tree]

3 hours ago, WindstormSCR said:

Having read the battletome and played against normal and sacrosanct stormcast several times now with BCR and mixed destruction lists (mostly ogor mixes) I think the comment about training wheels is about right. Two people duking it out that give little thought to synergies, movement, and line of sight (play with more woods, people!) the stormcast will usually win, and armies that rely on frontal assaults without harassment units or at least some shooting will be vulnerable, as stormcast have the most "obvious" synergies as has been stated before.

 Once you start to consider the wider picture, they fall off pretty hard, especially when you start to introduce things that give them headaches (casting a malevolent maelstrom from a NG shaman at them comes to mind) and figure out your own synergies.

 The biggest advantage stormcast have right now over most non-battletome armies that could be considered "power creep" is a much wider array of usable battalions for extra command points and artefacts, as well as being spoilt for choice when it comes to said artefacts and extra bonuses like mount traits. The only one in the same general league is LoN right now, and perhaps Beastclaws purely on destructive brutality when run correctly.

 

I don't disagree with most of this, but the battalion section is very disappointing for SCE. Nighthaunt's feels much more interesting. Cleansing Phalanx will be seen and maybe Soulstrike? Most are incredibly niche.

[Richelieu]

 

54 minutes ago, The World Tree said:

I don't disagree with most of this, but the battalion section is very disappointing for SCE. Nighthaunt's feels much more interesting. Cleansing Phalanx will be seen and maybe Soulstrike? Most are incredibly niche.

Agree.  I can see someone taking Vanguard Justicar in an Anvils list (I've been working on one myself), but the rest are pure entertainment value.  I've tried and tried to come up with something for Lords of the Storm, but can't make anything work.  

I did come up with the stupidest Tempest Lords list that takes advantage of the fact the Hammers of Sigmar named characters retain their keyword when you include them in a different Stormhost.  4 CP in your first hero phase with a 50% chance at another and then a 55% chance of getting one or two more CP every time you spend one.  Hammers all come down and wreck face while the cleansing phalanx foot slogs where it needs to be to mop up.  

[kozokus]

Don't forget that Sequitors are underpriced mostly because of the tax of the Lord Arcanum which is a little bit overpriced.

[Gotrek]

51 minutes ago, kozokus said:

Don't forget that Sequitors are underpriced mostly because of the tax of the Lord Arcanum which is a little bit overpriced.

"Tax" move 12, 7 wounds, 3+ save, good melee profile, can resurrect models, can drop a grenade, arcane bolt does d3 damage instead of 1, and can heal models with its spell. 240 points. 

He's solid, wouldn't call him a tax.

[EMMachine]

8 minutes ago, Gotrek said:

"Tax" move 12, 7 wounds, 3+ save, good melee profile, can resurrect models, can drop a grenade, arcane bolt does d3 damage instead of 1, and can heal models with its spell. 240 points. 

He's solid, wouldn't call him a tax.

After you're telling the stats of the Gryph-Charger variant (because of the healing), don't forget the command Ability that let's Evocators autocast Empower or that Castigators or Sequitors use both effects, instead of choosing one. (I have the feeling that this is the best variant of the Lord Arcanum).

I actually don't get, why this isn't the command ability of the Lord Arcanum on Foot, why the Gryph-Charger that would fit better with the Vanguard Auxilliary Chamber.

 

[RuneBrush]

+++MOD HAT+++

Hi Guys, I'm moving this thread over to the Order GA area as it's mostly order talk rather than general discussion

[blueshirtman]

13 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I'm just saying that maybe what makes a good player good has waaaay more to do with them being good (finding synergies, executing plans better, understanding math and psychology better, and so on) than it does with there being a clearly superior choice, or an Easy Button of sorts.

If that was true, people would be winning events with weaker factions, while what we saw in 1st edition of AoS was a group of power factions with powerful builds being adjusted to scenarios or scoring at a given event. The idea that there is no easy button only is a valid one, if we assume that the bad armies or bad factions are a non entity, and we take a power build as the "norm".

[Bradipo322]

4 hours ago, Gotrek said:

"Tax" move 12, 7 wounds, 3+ save, good melee profile, can resurrect models, can drop a grenade, arcane bolt does d3 damage instead of 1, and can heal models with its spell. 240 points. 

He's solid, wouldn't call him a tax.

He is a "standard" Stormcast hero, they all have 7 wounds if they have are riding a beast, they all have a save of 3+, all griph-chargers have a move of 12", he DOES NOT resurrect models, the grenade is situational and will likely kill the model, arcane bolt is good and the healing is useless except on other heroes and he can cast only one of these at a time.

He isn't bad but depending on the points that you're playing on he can be limiting.

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

If that was true, people would be winning events with weaker factions, while what we saw in 1st edition of AoS was a group of power factions with powerful builds being adjusted to scenarios or scoring at a given event. The idea that there is no easy button only is a valid one, if we assume that the bad armies or bad factions are a non entity, and we take a power build as the "norm".

And yet most tournaments had an 'outsider' army in the top 10. The Squig list being the most notable. 

I would also argue, that all these kinds of threads further the one sidedness. Imagine you're a player looking to end as high as possible. All the forums mention the same factions as being 'top tier'. How many of them will go... 'nah... I wan't to challenge that all with a different faction.' vs. the amounts of players deciding to go for one of those.

Not necessarily a bad thing though.   

[Nozdormu]

On 7/30/2018 at 4:55 AM, Matador said:

So my take away?  Holy ******! their is so much power creep in just this one thin book that it is going to impact the types of armies and tactics folks are going to have to employ if they want to keep up with their older armies. The sheer number of buffs and synergy build-in is staggering, and left me gobsmacked by the time I had read it all. 

It’s strange I have read this battletome and I saw mainly nerfs or lack of change where it was needed.

- wholy within and unmodified rolls everywhere (only for longstrikes it’s a buff)

- liberators and paladins still overpriced (paladins also got starsoul mace nerf)

- fulminators and tempestors nerf

- vanguard chamber is still bad

- batalions nerfs (only cleaning phalanx is good now)

- stormhosts have a tax (usually terrible command trait and artefact)

- named characters’ abilities are now limited to Hammers of Sigmar

- artefacts from battletome are often worse than those from Malign Sorcery book

I agree that Sequitors and Evocators are very strong, Scion of the Storm is useful now but saying that  all this battletome is incredible OP is exaggeration.

[Riavan]

18 hours ago, Richelieu said:

That's kind of the point of SCE though.  You can play them at any level, from beginner to Jack Armstrong.  And SCE are far from the only army that suffers from this.  There's a whole thread going on right now about a guy dominating a local tournament scene with Free Peoples.  Free Peoples are far from OP, but gunlines present a challenge to less experienced players.  

This is something I remember hearing in wow a lot. "Oh if you're good you can counter!". Nah the game needs to be balanced at a lower tier than the top ten of a tournament.

[Riavan]

2 hours ago, Nozdormu said:

It’s strange I have read this battletome and I saw mainly nerfs or lack of change where it was needed.

- wholy within and unmodified rolls everywhere (only for longstrikes it’s a buff)

- liberators and paladins still overpriced (paladins also got starsoul mace nerf)

- fulminators and tempestors nerf

- vanguard chamber is still bad

- batalions nerfs (only cleaning phalanx is good now)

- stormhosts have a tax (usually terrible command trait and artefact)

- named characters’ abilities are now limited to Hammers of Sigmar

- artefacts from battletome are often worse than those from Malign Sorcery book

I agree that Sequitors and Evocators are very strong, Scion of the Storm is useful now but saying that  all this battletome is incredible OP is exaggeration.

Having your key units be op as hell is enough though. Like if your main battleline choice is super strong you have a huge advantage against other armies.

[Richelieu]

2 hours ago, Kramer said:

And yet most tournaments had an 'outsider' army in the top 10. The Squig list being the most notable. 

I would also argue, that all these kinds of threads further the one sidedness. Imagine you're a player looking to end as high as possible. All the forums mention the same factions as being 'top tier'. How many of them will go... 'nah... I wan't to challenge that all with a different faction.' vs. the amounts of players deciding to go for one of those.

Not necessarily a bad thing though.   

Just take BOBO as an example.  Top three was Stormcast, then Khorne (wait what I thought they were garbage /s), then a list with four dragons...

It's pretty obvious that these are armies that each of the players had considerable experience with rather than being "power lists." 

Even at the height of Tzeentch "dominance" the guys who were winning with them played them religiously.  Certainly they were strong, but knowing your army is worth far more than the list itself.  

[Richelieu]

56 minutes ago, Riavan said:

This is something I remember hearing in wow a lot. "Oh if you're good you can counter!". Nah the game needs to be balanced at a lower tier than the top ten of a tournament.

Is not about "git gud" is about getting a bit of experience.  New things present new challenges to overcome.  There are many facets to the game, some more nuanced than others.  Magic is never going to be as straight forward as melee, which will never be as straight forward as shooting. 

The extreme variability of lists means you're bound to encounter things that are going to destroy you the first few times you play them.  What makes this game unique and appealing is the challenge of being less defined than traditional board games.  I feel like what you're asking for is.  "Buy army, put it on table, win 50% of games."   This game is never going to be balanced in that way, there are simply too many variables.