points Points and Balance

[WoollyMammoth]

There is no balance.

War is chaos, and the dice gods rule supreme.

Many people, like myself, desire a sense of balance. We want AoS to be like a game of chess, with both sides on equal footing where your decisions will win games. Of course, Warhammer is not chess, and it can never be chess. The smartest player in the world could roll 1s all day and lose. So what is the goal? why do we even bother? Why are we using points?

The reason is that we want to get as close to balance as we can get, however unattainable.

The real balance comes in the idea that either side has an equal chance to win. In order to achieve this, we need to strive for balance.

CREATING BALANCE
Games of AoS are balanced by deployment.

With Open Play, what you are supposed to do is bring a bunch of fun stuff and show up at the store. Deployment is then balanced at the by the players and is done so with open communication. Before the game you tell your opponent you are bringing two Lords of Change and you explain what you are going to summon (summoning is just another form of deployment). In reaction, your opponent can deploy a much larger force in anticipation of what is going to be summoned, and build a game plan around how they are going to deal with this. The result is a certain level of balance.

As I've mentioned in other topics, this promotes playing with friends, because you know each other, you have open communication, and you are familiar with their forces and what they can do. If your opponent is hiding what they plan to do and/or if you have no idea what your opponents forces can do, you have no idea how to properly balance deployment and the result is often an imbalanced, one-sided game. 

The most blatant forms of non-balance have been systems which limit deployment without limiting summoning (such as using "wound count"). These systems only luck into balance when both sides are summoning or not summoning. Most comp systems figured this out and limit summoning as a form of deployment, which has been adapted into Matched Play because it is a necessity for balanced games.

With Matched Play, GW has pre-balanced deployment for us. Each unit has been given a points 'score' based on its usefulness on the battlefield. Playing standard 1000 or 2000 point games, certain factors like size and length of the game are predetermined, and no discussion is needed before the game. Deployment is also specifically limited in that, no summoning or bringing extra models is allowed. 

COMPOSITION RULES
Matched Play also comes with specific composition rules. Some players prefer the game to be more like a sport, and as such like the idea of operating within a set of shared restrictions. All sports have rules (such as how many players can be playing against each other at once). The players themselves however can have varying degrees of skill and are only very loosely balanced, not unlike how the models are only loosely balanced.

For this reason, it is the composition rules that mainly appeal to competitive players, and the composition aspects of the points, rather than the point values themselves. We understand that different models have different values and different strengths and weaknesses, and the points don't really matter so much as we are working to win within a specific set of rules. We want to create a "team" of models within the composition restrictions that will perform the best. You can then think to just take all of the "best" models but everything has some kind of counter, its never as simple as that.

GAME (SYSTEM) BALANCE
AoS is balanced in a somewhat of a rock-paper-scissors type of game. Shooting beats slow melee, melee beats low-armor units, Mortal Wounds (such as spells) beat heavily armored units, etc.  

With points being added there is now a lot of talk comparing AoS to 8th ed. or 40k. Despite that all these games have points, they are just incomparable. 8th ed. was a game built up by Army Books released decades apart by writers with all different ideas and vision for what the game should be. As a result, a rock-paper-scissors game was became a rock-paper-scissors-shotgun-grenade-missile-ICBM kind of game. GW decided to put an end to this arms race and blow up the world in order to rebuild it with a singular vision & with much better game balance. 40k has always been a much different dynamic given that 90% of the units have long range shooting, however it is also suffering greatly from an similar 'arms race'. Some armies have nothing but rifles and shotguns, while others have rapid firing super lasers that can disintegrate a tank.

AoS is less than a year old, and is built in contrast to the mistakes of the past. They made a new game in order to make a more balanced game from the ground up. With or without points, AoS has the potential to have more balanced games than ever before, and being regularly supported on a level we have never seen before from GW.

BUILDING A BALANCED LIST
However much we may want to just take whatever we like and just enjoy our models, there is always going to be a disconnect between making a "fun" list and a "competitive" list. There is no escaping this reality. AoS is a war game and to win a war you have to be able to kill your opponent or force them to retreat. You might really like smacking your opponent in the face with wet-noodle holding infantry - and that's fine, but they are not often going to win you games by themselves.

A real-life example is Ghengis Khan. Ghenghis Khan had some of the best calvary. Khan could have simply said "no I don't like calvary, they are not cool, I like my foot soldiers, so I am going to train more of those". If that was the case, Khan would have been wiped out in his early campaign, he would not have conquered most of Asia, the Great Wall of China never would have been built. Khan didn't just win because he had good cavalry though, lots of armies had calvary. He won because he used them in feigned retreats with horse archer attacks & he used siege warfare to cut off supply lines. He also made it a point to capture and learn from enemy generals to expand his tactics.

How this translates to AoS is that you need to have units that can win you a game, and you have to have tactics in mind to win them. If you have weak units deployed in tactical formations, you can win some games but sometimes get beat by superior units. If you have awesome units that you just plop down on the board with no tactics, you will lose a lot of games to better tactics. If you have a mix of units deployed and used with good tactics, you will win most of your games (or have really fun hard-fought games with similarly matched opponents) 

You can't think about the point values as one overall value and compare them all together. Units give your army value in different ways. Some units are expensive because they are extremely hard to kill - which is not going to help you much when you really need some offensive power. Some units have incredible melee potential but are not going to do anything if you are slowly walking into a gunline. You might have 2000 points of knives and your opponent has 2000 points of guns - obviously you are going to lose when you bring a knife to a gun fight.

Secretly your army may have 800 points of medium power ranged attacks, 700 points of hardy defense, 500 points of powerful melee. This kind of varied list has more potential to do much better against something like 2000 points of melee or 2000 points of all shooting.

STOP BLAMING POINTS
Frankly, I see many people using their units wrong. People just drop units in separate blobs, don't try to use any formations or tactics, shoot at the wrong things.  

A great example of this are Judicators with bows. Some players land critical rending attacks across the board on to enemy wizards or War Machine Crew and totally break their opponents lists. Others people shoot them into hordes and kill a few models, like skeletons who are just going to regen. This is called Target Priority, and you need to be good at this to win games. You need to identify the biggest threats and prioritize them, you have to use your attacks in a way that will be most effective. If youre just bleeding points by using your models wrong, its easy to blame the points - but the real blame is on you. 

You also need to try out different units. Maybe those Spearmen just don't work with your game plan, maybe a war machine is going to counter some of what you are lacking and provide better tactics to win games. I have a regular opponent who lost every game of AoS with hordes of free peoples protecting a gun line of 3 artillery with an engineer. Why is he losing games? Who can say. Maybe target priority, maybe army composition. Its easy to blame the points though.

Last week he decided to replace his artillery with some Bretonia Questing Knights, and won two games in one day. All he did was call his Empire Knights Questing Knights instead, and now he not only won, but won twice in a row. Is it because Questing Knights are better than Empire? Sure - but they also cost 40 points more. They are not particularly hardy they just hit harder on a charge, and he made sure to make his charges. Could you argue that 3 cannons with an engineer is bad? I don't think anybody would - but for him - his tactics and his list, the Knights just worked better.

So don't blame points, pay attention to why you are losing games, try new things and become a better player.

BATTLEPLANS & ADDITIONAL RULES
Battleplans & Time of War rules take a huge weight off of balance in general, and should never be skipped. Objective based scenarios have gone a long way toward alleviating a lot of 40k balance, which is why they are now being established in competitive play for AoS. Playing Battle Plans only makes you a better player, and at almost every future event will feature Battleplans, so take a few minutes before your games to set one up. 

Additionally, custom scenery can greatly change the dynamic of a game and alleviate the strain of the points. The unit rules were designed to have varying usefulness; some units that might not look great on paper shine in specific scenarios or in working with certain terrain pieces.

Keep your games fresh and take the time to add additional rules to your games.

CONCLUSION
You have to have a game plan - you need varied units, synergy, tactics. There is not really any unit you should "need" in your army, nothing completely optimal that you just HAVE to take. The point values don't mean anything other than to end up with a balanced deployment without having to figure it out on your own.

If you are among the people arguing what you need to take - please just stop. It's nice to help an opponent by explaining the necessity of a major first turn threat, or suggesting maybe to add some fast units to go with their hardy slow defensive units, etc. If you are telling people that they "cant take" something they want to take, frankly you are way off base. (There are a lot of dead generals who thought they were smarter than everybody else).

The points are a great entry place, but they are only needed as a way to balance deployment. Most players are going to be using them in order to keep the same footing as most people around the world - to learn to get better within the established comp system. As as a community we need to learn to make the most of them without over-stressing or over-emphasizing them. 




 
 

[mmimzie]

 A good amount of this might be a bit excessive.  I'd say point aren't necessarily balance, but a good approximation that provides nessary limitations to both sides to get an objective complete. I don't think its worth argue points or no points or whatever. If you want points fine just tell your opponent that's what you want. 

I'm quite confident points will be the go to way to play. Which is quite okay, it has lots of pros to it that make it easier to pick up, and protect people from arguments against opponents they never played against. When you go against that guy that keeps setting up models every time you try to set up stuff to balance out the game. It can be silly, but if that guy isn't very good he'll just assume he needs more than he actually does to have a shot.

2 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

STOP BLAMING POINTS
Frankly, I see many people using their units wrong. People just drop units in separate blobs, don't try to use any formations or tactics, shoot at the wrong things.  

A great example of this are Judicators with bows. Some players land critical rending attacks across the board on to enemy wizards or War Machine Crew and totally break their opponents lists. Others people shoot them into hordes and kill a few models, like skeletons who are just going to regen. This is called Target Priority, and you need to be good at this to win games. You need to identify the biggest threats and prioritize them, you have to use your attacks in a way that will be most effective. If youre just bleeding points by using your models wrong, its easy to blame the points - but the real blame is on you. 

You also need to try out different units. Maybe those Spearmen just don't work with your game plan, maybe a war machine is going to counter some of what you are lacking and provide better tactics to win games. I have a regular opponent who lost every game of AoS with hordes of free peoples protecting a gun line of 3 artillery with an engineer. Why is he losing games? Who can say. Maybe target priority, maybe army composition. Its easy to blame the points though.

Last week he decided to replace his artillery with some Bretonia Questing Knights, and won two games in one day. All he did was call his Empire Knights Questing Knights instead, and now he not only won, but won twice in a row. Is it because Questing Knights are better than Empire? Sure - but they also cost 40 points more. They are not particularly hardy they just hit harder on a charge, and he made sure to make his charges. Could you argue that 3 cannons with an engineer is bad? I don't think anybody would - but for him - his tactics and his list, the Knights just worked better.

So don't blame points, pay attention to why you are losing games, try new things and become a better player.



 
 

This however burns me up alittle, but it's my faults as i really can't find enough of a challenging high level play. Which is not a slant at my opponents as they probably aren't as competitively minded as i am.  Most see a list or a tactic as unfair... for no real reason. As i've said before i played against a guy who  deployed his judicators on the line, and then moved up so he could shoot me. Then summarily got them charged and slaughter by my slow zombies that also happend to take the initiative from him. He then conceded, and has been telling everyone he can find how terribly powerful my list is. Though until he deployed and moved i was honestly quite nervous of his judicators that threatened my heros.

Units like judicators have to be careful they make their points back over the course of the game and throw taking out targets who don't have a chance at taking them out in turn. 

[Turragor]

I like a couple of things in particular here:

1) Points are not balance.

So let's say 1 is from the perspective of a competitive player drawn back to the game by points. They know points give an idea of balance amongst equally tactically minded players. A unit's points cost reflects the impact that unit will have if used at its most efficient.

A good example was a mistake I made in my game on Sunday. I took a Lord Celestant on Stardrake to a 2000 point game. My opponent had a treelord and a wood elf lord on forest dragon but both these units (perhaps even together) would fall to a stardrake. However, I mistakenly granted too much weight to my opponents 3 repeater bolt throwers and chose to be cautious with my stardrake (I blame the fact I'm still getting used to his abilities - that and I'm stupid).

I flew behind a building on a flank in movement phase 1. Then I used the meteor shower ability and rolled okay. I was able to choose all 3 repeater bolt thrower crews and took a crewman from each. Now I was at least a turn or two from a charge and there was no real threat to my drake. I did my opponent a favour!

My opponent on the other hand ran his treelord and dragon straight down the middle into my protectors, liberators and judicators.

In the end the game was a draw (we ran out of time) but my Stardrake had managed maybe 20 mortal wounds to a chariot a large group of spearmen and the repeater bolt throwers. He had failed a charge into the spearmen holding the objective on the last turn.

My opponent took out all of the three units he reached with his treelord and forest dragon.

His 'big guns' cost the same as my 'big gun'! He got his 600 points worth, I got maybe 200 if that. Importantly, I can't say which 600 points choice is better between those two big gun options.

2) AoS mustn't become an arms race (my own edit: but it probably will at least in part).

I understand the potential damage of power creep/an arms race and I hope GW avoids it this time. I can see how AoS seems more balanced so far.

I can also see the (cold) logic behind it in 40k and WHFB. GW needs users to buy armies.

If those armies stay competitive/the best, why change? Mood, variety, a painting challenge and modelling fun would make some select a new army.

However, 2 of those factors just may not apply to some people. Some (maybe those who just want to win) might settle on Tau or Eldar for years. Maybe they don't like painting and modelling. That stuff is WORK. They like gaming competitively.

Incidentally, I think this is one of the surest methods for identifying the average pro-points AoS fan and the average anti-points AoS fan. Pro-points fans are, by and large, going to rate gaming over painting and modelling. Anti-points fans are, by and large, going to favour painting and modelling over gaming. Note, there are always exceptions (I'm kind of in the middle ground).

Anyway, the more game-centric user needs something else in order for GW to net more profit.

So if you release a new line you want it to be attractive to as many customers as possible. For the competitively minded the main attraction is unit strength. So the newest release or rerelease is (by and large) always a little stronger. This then builds up with each release and the release that is oldest becomes the weakest/most stale army.

What I like so far about AoS is the attraction really seems to be in the amazing new models. There's time for that to change though. And with points we have gotten an influx of more users who, perhaps, favour gaming over modelling or painting. GW might have to give them a reason to invest in a new range and that's where we get AoS moving towards the newest release being the strongest.

Further the new battletomes are already a different beast from the old. They've got more in. The first batch were equal. Now there is no equality.

But GW can fix this inequality for free. It's no problem if the points are updated more often than per new release or edition rework. It's no problem if older battletomes get supplements at a rather cheap cost that bring them in line.

But if GW take the foot off the gas and begin letting AoS tick over, we'll start seeing an issue in matched play when old and new armies line up.

So you've got to have faith GW keeps it balanced. To be fair (or unfair maybe) they have a history of breaking that faith. Currently they're on a roll but I think most doubt they'll keep it up for the lifespan of AoS.