Were Jabberslythes considered too powerful?

[themortalgod]

I recently picked up a pair of Jabberslythes for my Tzeentch army as I thought they were pretty cool models and also seemed interesting on the battlefield. I didn't particularly feel they were super powerful, though they did offer some interesting tactical options which I kinda liked. I just read the new Beasts of Chaos book and GW smacked em with the double nerf bat by cutting their MW output from Bile Blood in half while also making them more expensive. Kinda feeling frustrated as it sort of feels like I just burned $150 as they are starting to feel less worth taking at all now... 

 

[kenshin620]

Well it is GW, they kind of stumble through balance. Just ask SCE and their paladins!

 

I think the line of reasoning was "whoa 140pts for a MW machine is crazy! lets tone it down!"

Either that or its once again the unfounded Conspiracy that they're trying to ween people off finecast purchases.

[themortalgod]

Yeah maybe, I kinda feel its like, the pts nerf OR the MW nerf would have been fine if they felt it was a little over the top but the double nerf is pretty harsh. 

Its rule as it was before made it something your opponent had to really think about engaging. It had plenty of counterplay but it could be used effectively. I don't think that will be the case anymore. Now people will engage it like any other monster. Sometimes the aura of madness will cause some havoc but the rest of the time it will just be a low damage output monster, 

[decker_cky]

They did lose the declining monster profile, which is a bit of a boost. 

[themortalgod]

5 minutes ago, decker_cky said:

They did lose the declining monster profile, which is a bit of a boost. 

Thats true, though, they dont hit very hard, regardless. if you compare one to equal pts in say Tzaangor the Tzaangor are far tougher and do more damage. The Jabberslythe's value was the blood and the aura. Both of which took a nerf. 

[Skreech Verminking]

Well even with the cut of the mortal wound output a jabberslythe could do,

doesnt really mean that it is bad.

if I were you I would charge him into the biggest and meanest block your foe has (like 40Stormvermin, Brutes, a unit of snake girls or 30witches)

you now that his rule says that every wound inflicted by an attack will do a mortal wound on a 4+.

30wiches  or Stormvermins etc. Will definitely kill your jabberslythe, and mostly with an extra 30-80wounds overkill. This would mean that you now have the chance of rolling 30-80 dice which all do a mortal wound on a 4+ back.

well that elite unit which just attacked you will probably be dead or very badly wounded.

i would say that even with his mortal wound cut, he will be massively great, since there is no other monster or big thing, that costs almost no points and can do tons of damage at exactly the time when he dies.

 

 

[themortalgod]

3 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Well even with the cut of the mortal wound output a jabberslythe could do,

doesnt really mean that it is bad.

if I were you I would charge him into the biggest and meanest block your foe has (like 40Stormvermin, Brutes, a unit of snake girls or 30witches)

you now that his rule says that every wound inflicted by an attack will do a mortal wound on a 4+.

30wiches  or Stormvermins etc. Will definitely kill your jabberslythe, and mostly with an extra 30-80wounds overkill. This would mean that you now have the chance of rolling 30-80 dice which all do a mortal wound on a 4+ back.

well that elite unit which just attacked you will probably be dead or very badly wounded.

i would say that even with his mortal wound cut, he will be massively great, since there is no other monster or big thing, that costs almost no points and can do tons of damage at exactly the time when he dies.

 

 

True, though I would expect most opponents to avoid piling in with so much overkill, simply pile in enough to have decent odds of killing it, maybe median 12 or 13 wounds, take the 6 or so MW and move on.

That said I hadn’t considered the impact of overkill if I run it into something like a maw crusher or archaon. 

[decker_cky]

^{Jabberslythe chooses its engagements unless your opponent double turns.}

[Carnith]

So you would only role 10 dice max for the jabberslythe. It can only take 10 damage, regardless if you overkill it. So at best, it's doing 10 MW back to your opponent.

[jackmcmahon]

Aura is now "any jabberslythes" meaning you can only roll once if you have a pile of three jabberslythes chilling by nagash.  I don't know if I should throw in garbage now or wait a decade for a complete rework.

[Kevlar1972]

That's the chance you take buying into a model widely considered overpowered.  It deserved the nerfs and was pretty much expected to get them.  At least you didn't dump $150 into skyfires.  They really took a drubbing.

[XReN]

IMO they were really stupid since there are not that many armies that can just deal with them via shooting and quite cheap of a fire magnet agains shooty lists. 
Also with AoS 2 forcing you to fight it had to be changed

But wasting money on that is really sad, have the same thing with 2 hellstorm rocket batteries that I used with ordinator and bless weapon deleting 60 wound units by casualties+bravery in a single turn that now just catch dust on the shelf

[Lord_Skrolk]

This thread is a great example of why I think you should buy Sigmar models you love for the model's sake and would enjoy using more than buying models for rules. Buying something because it's stupidly good at the current moment and you want to crush opponents is a recipe for heartbreak. Anyone that didn't expect a big hit from the nerf bat hasn't been paying attention to how GW does things. 

The Jabberslythe is still fine, people are overreacting in this thread. It's just no longer a must-add to certain lists

"have the same thing with 2 hellstorm rocket batteries that I used with ordinator and bless weapon deleting 60 wound units by casualties+bravery in a single turn that now just catch dust on the shelf"... no one is forcing you to keep them on the shelf. Not being able to insta-delete stuff with Lord Ordinator shenanigans isnt stopping you from playing them. Bringing units that you know aren't amazing in the current meta but know you'll have fun with their models and rules is pretty liberating

[XReN]

1 hour ago, Lord_Skrolk said:

have the same thing with 2 hellstorm rocket batteries that I used with ordinator and bless weapon deleting 60 wound units by casualties+bravery in a single turn that now just catch dust on the shelf"... no one is forcing you to keep them on the shelf. Not being able to insta-delete stuff with Lord Ordinator shenanigans isnt stopping you from playing them. Bringing units that you know aren't amazing in the current meta but know you'll have fun with their models and rules is pretty liberating

You see, the problem here is that I got them for tournaments where they won't be as good as I'd like, whille being just too good for most casual games with my friends, where I will anyway bring underperforming SCE units I love with all my hearth - paladins and prosecutors.

[Marc Wilson]

2 hours ago, carnith said:

So you would only role 10 dice max for the jabberslythe. It can only take 10 damage, regardless if you overkill it. So at best, it's doing 10 MW back to your opponent.

Yes. Though now it's average 5 MW back.

[Kramer]

3 hours ago, carnith said:

So you would only role 10 dice max for the jabberslythe. It can only take 10 damage, regardless if you overkill it. So at best, it's doing 10 MW back to your opponent.

No, at least how they GW played it in the stream, it was all wounds allocated (so everything past it's save).

So you do still force your opponent into an interesting choice, how far does he pile in, because you must attack if within range. I'll see if I can find a FAQ or something that confirms it.

[Domowoj]

7 minutes ago, Kramer said:

No, at least how they GW played it in the stream, it was all wounds allocated (so everything past it's save).

So you do still force your opponent into an interesting choice, how far does he pile in, because you must attack if within range. I'll see if I can find a FAQ or something that confirms it.

I'm with carnith on this one.

According to the core rules under "combat phase," wounds are allocated one at a time until a model dies.

[themortalgod]

35 minutes ago, Kramer said:

No, at least how they GW played it in the stream, it was all wounds allocated (so everything past it's save).

So you do still force your opponent into an interesting choice, how far does he pile in, because you must attack if within range. I'll see if I can find a FAQ or something that confirms it.

Quoting from the AoS rules:

Quote

When inflicting damage, if you allocate a wound to a model, you must keep on allocating wounds to that model until either it is slain, or no more wounds remain to be allocated.

1

I don't think FAQ is really needed, that seems pretty clear to me, you stop allocating wounds once the model is slain. The Jabberslythe's new wording specifically refers to wounds allocated.  Sounds like the stream simply played the RAW incorrectly.  Likely because the old wording was "wounds inflicted" not "wounds allocated" and they forgot about the wording change or didn't notice it. 

The more I dig into this the more I realize this was an even bigger nerf that I thought. We went from a monster that was perhaps a bit to strong to "nerfed to the floor":

- Aura nerfed to disallow stacking

- D3 MW shrunk to 1 MW

- No overkill MWs

- Points hike. 

Only upside was the removal of a scaling damage profile but really, given how low his damage output is, that doesn't make a big deal. I think the comment that GW is making a concerted effort to make resin models inefficient seems accurate. One of my biggest pet peeves is when nerfs/buffs are a huge swing. They could have nerfed it a bit to bring it back in line with desired power, but no, instead they hit it so hard that the model becomes a poor choice. 

[Mikester1487]

I suppose it's worse but 140 points for a speed bump that works better than gors and hits harder seems kind of nice to me. I'd summon one just to see what it can do. 

[themortalgod]

12 minutes ago, Mikester1487 said:

I suppose it's worse but 140 points for a speed bump that works better than gors and hits harder seems kind of nice to me. I'd summon one just to see what it can do. 

It is 160pts now so the same pts as 20 gors. 

For that 160pts you get 20 wounds of Gor vs 10 wounds of Jabberslythe. (Gors = way tougher)
 

The Gors make 40x 4+/4+ attacks at rend - and damage 1, so about 10 wounds before armor saves.
The Jabberslythe does 2.66 wounds at rend -2, damage 1, and 0.33 at rend -1 and damage D3.

(Granted the Gors likely won't often by all striking and they get weaker as they take casualties)

Gors also have a much bigger footprint so can screen a greater area of the board. They are also battleline and don't use up a precious Behemoth slot. 

I'd say if the goal is as chaff that Gors do the Job far better than a Jabberslythe. (Though I'd argue Ungors are even better at that job) The Jabberslythe is meant to be a suicide bomber that makes space and zone control, but it is now not so great at that anymore.

[Mikester1487]

3 minutes ago, themortalgod said:

It is 160pts now so the same pts as 20 gors. 

For that 160pts you get 20 wounds of Gor vs 10 wounds of Jabberslythe. (Gors = way tougher)
 

The Gors make 40x 4+/4+ attacks at rend - and damage 1, so about 10 wounds before armor saves.
The Jabberslythe does 2.66 wounds at rend -2, damage 1, and 0.33 at rend -1 and damage D3.

(Granted the Gors likely won't often by all striking and they get weaker as they take casualties)

Gors also have a much bigger footprint so can screen a greater area of the board. They are also battleline and don't use up a precious Behemoth slot. 

I'd say if the goal is as chaff that Gors do the Job far better than a Jabberslythe. (Though I'd argue Ungors are even better at that job) The Jabberslythe is meant to be a suicide bomber that makes space and zone control, but it is now not so great at that anymore.

Ah, I'm just seeing it as 140 in azyr so I assumed. For me i was just gonna line up gors for the herd stone summon points because that's all I see them for. I have 2 units of 10 ungor raiders for chaff as well. 

I admit I didn't consider a jabber at all, but the discussion here had me take a look at some initial considerations if I were to take it. 

[Domowoj]

Yeah, this is the Jabberslythe's second points-hike this year. At 120, they would always be worth their points, but including one in your army was tricky before allies rules came around. IIRC, allies rules were implemented during the 2017 GHB, and at that point, the Jabbers became great. 2018 GHB bumped them to 140 without a warscroll change. I think that was a good place for them to be. The problem now is that they are better incorporated into a broad faction, so they had to be re-balanced within a larger spectrum of army-selection. But the interactions are very complex and I think GW has overcompensated here for sure.

Jabberslythes went from...

1) too good but hard to include (Chaos allegiance only)

2) too good and easier to include (Most chaos subfaction allegiances can include as ally)

3) points hike to 140 - I think this was a good balance.

4) GW overcompensates during BoC release. I don't know why they think Jabbers needed to be nerfed so hard; they were good, but definitely LESS of an auto-include with the full BoC range available to choose from.

[kenshin620]

Well in the end gw works in mysterious ways.

As another example

"we repacked Warhounds!"

Cool!?

"well they're not battleline, only have 1 wound, have very poor bravery, have to be fielded in units of 10 despite their cavalry size base, and cost as much as centigors in points who can do their job with better stats and with less spacing issues and can be part of battalions"

Oh.?

 

Also *tinfoil hat time* they want people to buy Chimeras!

[themortalgod]

6 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

Also *tinfoil hat time* they want people to buy Chimeras!

 

They do hit pretty hard for their pts.  

[Domowoj]

Yeah, the chimerae are great. They were already hard-hitting with a +2 to charge rolls, a variety of rending attacks, and a reliable MW-dealing shooting attack. Their warscroll got a big boost: ALL of the melee weapons get more attacks than they did before the BoC release.