GW is asking for advice on GHB 2019

[froo]

19 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

Maybe coupled with the venom being unmodified 6s (unmodified 5s with the CA) and a drop on the Spider Riders.

My points values were basically

Big Boss - 120 - rerollable decent saves, more wounds than Moonclan bigbosses on foot for the same cost? Yeah give that badboy a points boost.

Arachnarok + Shaman - keep at 280. It feels fine for the points cost as it is. It's pricey, but not ridiculously OP.

Arachnarok with nothing on it - 200 (since other grot shamans are 80)

Arachnarok with Flinger - 260. Lobba's are 100, the Flinger isn't anywhere as good as a Lobba, but a downward point change would still make them a meaningful choice rather than Shaman's all day everyday.

Spider Riders - 90/480 to make them in line with Grot Wolf Riders. Wolf Riders move faster, have better saves, pile in better and the riders themselves hit harder on the charge, Spider Riders have rend on 6's.

My thoughts were assuming that warscrolls don't change.

 

[MacDuff]

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I have to laugh at so many of the posts on this thread. GW asked for what unit points to adjust, how much, and why. They're not going to rewrite Warscrolls or revamp  Battletomes. They're going to adjust points, as they did before. Come on, class, and focus on the homework assignment to help get what you want to make things better. Any other blue sky wishes will be ignored, because that's not what they asked for.

[CaptainSoup]

12 minutes ago, MacDuff said:

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I have to laugh at so many of the posts on this thread. GW asked for what unit points to adjust, how much, and why. They're not going to rewrite Warscrolls or revamp  Battletomes. They're going to adjust points, as they did before. Come on, class, and focus on the homework assignment to help get what you want to make things better. Any other blue sky wishes will be ignored, because that's not what they asked for.

I mean aside from a few jabs and some generalizations I'm pretty sure we've stayed on topic throughout most of the thread, that is about point changes. What kind of point changes would you be interested in seeing?

[MacDuff]

I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm just encouraging folks to keep requests on target, concise, and actionable by GW. You know what they want. I just want you guys to get what YOU want.

[Aeryenn]

1 hour ago, MacDuff said:

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I have to laugh at so many of the posts on this thread. GW asked for what unit points to adjust, how much, and why. They're not going to rewrite Warscrolls or revamp  Battletomes. They're going to adjust points, as they did before. Come on, class, and focus on the homework assignment to help get what you want to make things better. Any other blue sky wishes will be ignored, because that's not what they asked for.

Not necessarily. There is a ton of requests in GW's topic about total Kharadron overhaul. Like 1 in 10 posts is about it. And I'm sure GW won't ignore that. Either by new battletome or in GHB19. If there are other things that people point out en masse they will get what they want. 

[BobbyB]

One problem that's immediately obvious is people with strong armies asking for point reductions on units that aren't regularly taken just because everything else is so good.  I wish GW had asked for points changes compared to a yardstick unit like liberators, otherwise how do you tell if a unit is over or undercosted when everything is up for review

[Kirjava13]

I know it's just points being talked about, but it wouldn't be a stretch to get things like allegiance abilities for GHB armies to get another pass. I don't know about any others but Skryre really need theirs looked at- they can hardly use that Strength In Numbers rule as only Acolytes can take advantage of it, and they are going to be either conversions or ludicrously expensive or both! Plus, y'know, the rest ain't great.

[Johann]

I still don’t get the concept of the horde bonus (most units have better Abilities with increasing models), so I would get rid of that. 

 

[Kyriakin]

6 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

I'd hate to be in a bad place!

BCR are in that place. It's cold and lonely, and the cats look retarded.

---------------------------------------------

I don't know enough about KO to know if they are in a worse spot than us (BCR). I know KO is our best matchup, but which one is thought to suck more in general?

[RuneBrush]

Must be honest it does amaze me how many comments are wishlisting about warscroll and battletome changes, when that's not what's been asked!  It's like asking somebodies opinion on the colour to paint a wall for them to tell you they don't like your sofa

In all seriousness though, I think people forget that it's the community team who look after Facebook - so they'll be the ones collating all of the comments.  I would imagine ranty comments or ones that are completely out of the scope of the question may well be put to one side for this exercise

[christophe]

For Idoneth Deepkin, maybe :

-Allopexes, 120 pt instead of 140 (hard to justify taking them except for the super cool model)

-Reavers 120 instead or 140. No real qualities for their prices, allies do their job better. (or at least make them BL without conditions. I would like to have a Eels and reavers list please...)

-And increase the cost of  both eels units by 20 pts. They are soooo good, but Guard spams is no fun... (or don't make them BL, but you will received lot of hate...)

any other idea ?

[Jetengine]

37 minutes ago, Kyriakin said:

BCR are in that place. It's cold and lonely, and the cats look retarded.

---------------------------------------------

I don't know enough about KO to know if they are in a worse spot than us (BCR). I know KO is our best matchup, but which one is thought to suck more in general?

I'm not a KO player (Dispossessed and Spiderfang are my forces) but their problems are afaik....

 

They have one battleline unit and no  "Stay in faction and this becomes battleline" unit. Which coupled with how few kits the faction has is an issue.

Their ships are overcosted for what they can do and are disturbingly weak, their heavy hitter having a 4+ armour save ?

They were designed with a specific playstyle in mind that hasnt held up in AOS 2.0

[cofaxest]

2 hours ago, MacDuff said:

Sorry to be Debbie Downer, but I have to laugh at so many of the posts on this thread. GW asked for what unit points to adjust, how much, and why. They're not going to rewrite Warscrolls or revamp  Battletomes. They're going to adjust points, as they did before. Come on, class, and focus on the homework assignment to help get what you want to make things better. Any other blue sky wishes will be ignored, because that's not what they asked for.

As KO player i can say only one thing. You can't fix KO with points only. First of all because KO are out of concept right now. They was designed with one idea in mind but can't play like this because they deal too much dmg turn1. So now it's not about points alone... it's about theirs playstyle concept.

[Ollie Grimwood]

It’s tricky to suggest points changes without knowing what else the GHB will bring.  For Destruction and it’s pants allegiance ability drops across the board would be fair however if the ability is changed this may not be the case. 

Points don’t exist in a vacuum it’s difficult to give accurate figures without context. 

It’s nice GW have asked though. 

[Yoshiya]

46 minutes ago, christophe said:

For Idoneth Deepkin, maybe :

-Allopexes, 120 pt instead of 140 (hard to justify taking them except for the super cool model)

-Reavers 120 instead or 140. No real qualities for their prices, allies do their job better. (or at least make them BL without conditions. I would like to have a Eels and reavers list please...)

-And increase the cost of  both eels units by 20 pts. They are soooo good, but Guard spams is no fun... (or don't make them BL, but you will received lot of hate...)

any other idea ?

That's in line with what I said though I kept ishalean at the same points and brought the eidolons and leviadon down 20pts each too.

Deepkin feels like it's supposed to be a combined arms finesse army with ishalean tying things up, Narmarti taking on the bulk of the army and morsarr/Allopexes acting as precision strikes whilst they are supported by heroes/leviadon but right now the eels (in particlar the morsarr) are just stealing the show.

[HollowHills]

Interesting a lot of IDK players seem to be giving the same feedback; that it's a shame to have so many possible options but eels outshine them all.

My big feedback:

1) Lotann, what is the point of this guy? Fantastic model, totally useless rules. All he does is give a small bravery buff with an extreme range restriction and a way for Nemarti to reroll hits of 1 with an extreme range restriction. He's even worse because there are so many other ways to reroll hit rolls of 1 in the army. I think 3 enclaves give hit rerolls? Nautilar reroll all failed if they were charged, Fuethan reroll 1s on turn 2 and 4 and Briomdar (?) reroll if they charged. He can't cast spells, use artefacts and doesn't have a command ability. He is literally pointless. Which I could understand for a really old model in a huge range, but for a brand new kit and a named character it's criminal. He needs a rework and I doubt we'll get that, but I asked for him to reduced to 50 points. 

2) Both types of eels are too good, we all know this. At the same time their warscrolls are pretty cool rule wise and we need to be careful not to put them at the point where they drop out of usage. They should fill the elites slot. 20 Point rise for both.

3) Reavers and Thralls are both basically unplayable at a decent level currently. I actually believe that thralls are fairly good if you could get them to the point where they suit the role of cheap glass cannon horde infantry, once they get into combat you can put some really great damage output. This is slightly hampered by their base size, I think they are very similar to Bloodletters in terms of damage output and survivability. As such I suggest 120 points with a 30 unit costing 300 points. This would reward those who go for the horde approach with a point reduction that makes up for the fact they are likely to struggle to get all into combat + suffer bravery losses.

Reavers are fine warscroll wise, but even at their best range they are only putting out around 3.5 wounds through a 4+ save. If you want a ranged unit you're much better bringing in a variety of allied units. 100 points / 270 points for a discount.

4) Allopex are just lackluster for their points cost. It upsets me that their only rule is a reroll to charges. I personally believe they are similar to Khorgorath's which are much cheaper. 120 points.

5) Eidolons are both over costed. They are similar to greater daemons who are significantly cheaper across the board. AotSea suffers especially from not having any innate bonuses to casting coupled with a short range on spells. Very easy to shut down a 440 point model with one much cheaper than might have access to a 1+ or 2+ to unbind. 380 for Storm 400 for Sea.

6) Soulscryer is probably too cheap because of the power of Deepstrike. Allows you to keep your best guys off the board, drop them down with a charge bonus and then go to town with the eel spam. 140 points for deepstrike tax.

7) Battlions the deepkin battlions are all bad. Royal council is hypothetically cool, but requires such a degree of set up to make it undesirable. I.e having to take the soulscryer but not being able to use him for the reason you would take a soulscryer. I suggested 100 point reduction to all battlions.  

[Jetengine]

1 hour ago, cofaxest said:

As KO player i can say only one thing. You can't fix KO with points only. First of all because KO are out of concept right now. They was designed with one idea in mind but can't play like this because they deal too much dmg turn1. So now it's not about points alone... it's about theirs playstyle concept.

Similar to Dispossessed. You can make them as cheap as you want but a ludicrously big horde wont make up for their mediocre warscrolls and lack of mobility.

[Aeryenn]

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Must be honest it does amaze me how many comments are wishlisting about warscroll and battletome changes, when that's not what's been asked!

In that case it might be not the answers to be wrong - it is the question. People have much wider expectations of support than it was offered to them. Both sides will benefit and learn from this community feedback. 

Edit:

People no longer want to wait 5 years for their army to be fixed and playable. It doesn't have to be repaired with grand flashy battletome /codex to be done. General's handbook is the right place for allegiance and warscroll changes, not only points. If you ask me update once a year is even too rarely and it should be done ad hoc via FAQ online. Don't ask people who spent their time and money for Kharadrons to sit in the corner and wait for somebody to kindly address their imbalance issues. They have like A LOT time before GHB19 to figure out how to fix them and implement this info in the book. 

[PlasticCraic]

2 hours ago, Ollie Grimwood said:

It’s tricky to suggest points changes without knowing what else the GHB will bring.  For Destruction and it’s pants allegiance ability drops across the board would be fair however if the ability is changed this may not be the case. 

Points don’t exist in a vacuum it’s difficult to give accurate figures without context. 

It’s nice GW have asked though. 

 Couldn't agree with this more. The main issue with Destruction is the lack of modern tech.

The points costs in general are currently not reflective of the lack of allegiance abilities, deep striking, rerolls, prayers, critical mass of allies, redeploying, summoning, deployable scenery, "skyports" or battalions.

It's everything that's *not* on the warscrolls that is the problem, which makes pointing it appropriately quite the moving target. 

If we don't get a lot of that stuff, significant points drops would be reasonable. If we do, everything changes. 

For example: Gutbusters are only a good Allegiance kit away from being competitive (in my opinion).

Which could happen on literally the same day that points change, via GH19. Or could not. 

[PlasticCraic]

And yeah, it's definitely good that they have reached out!

I personally need to wrestle with it a bit, if I aim to give a good answer though. 

[syph0n]

I agree. If it's literally only about points, then for a big swathe of models you won't fix their balance by making them cheaper. 

The question may as well have been "how much more should a Hag Queen cost" because unless it's a more modern army, the points aren't necessarily the issue. 

Edit: I should be clear. I understood the question as it was, gave good reasoning and it is something for the team to address if they feel appropriate. If nothing happens, it's still my decision to play with older models and I won't be chucking my toys out of the pram. I just still feel part of the particular range I'm interested in stands toe to toe miniature wise with some modern stuff easily. I just don't think a horde army is the way a Corsair based force is, which is the only thing that can happen by reducing cost. Who wants to wait for me to move 100 25mm bases! 😂

[Rachmani]

I think there are 2 types of armies and you need different approaches for each of them. 

First type are those that are merely hampered by points or just need some point cost finetuning. Idoneth are a good example of an army that has all it needs but that gets pigeonholed into a specific way by pointcosts. Needs fixing - but it‘s easy to fix.

Second type are those armies (and specifically the AoS releases) that are actually hampered by their ruleset or lack of options. Those cannot be fixed in a meaningful or just working way by means of point reductions. Those need new releases and probably even a new battletome along point cost adjustments. 

Now some might say that GW hasn‘t asked for ideas on how to balance stuff but merely what needs adjustments, but I‘d argue that even stuff that goes beyond the scope of a generals handbook needs to be mentioned (and repeatedly) so that player voices are to be heard.

Kharadon Overlords, Fyreslayers, Ironjaws all need more options and/or overhauls beyond the scope of GH19.  And with that being voiced it‘s more likely to happen.

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, Aryann said:

In that case it might be not the answers to be wrong - it is the question. People have much wider expectations of support than it was offered to them. Both sides will benefit and learn from this community feedback. 

21 minutes ago, Rachmani said:

Now some might say that GW hasn‘t asked for ideas on how to balance stuff but merely what needs adjustments, but I‘d argue that even stuff that goes beyond the scope of a generals handbook needs to be mentioned (and repeatedly) so that player voices are to be heard.

Just to put my own opinion in.  I think you're completely right on saying that some armies do need warscroll / battletome changes - my Khorne (Bloodbound) army would love to receive a bit of love as there are some pretty big issues with it.  However, I don't think that a post where GW have asked a specific question is the right place to post that.  It's only going to make their life harder than necessary, trying to sort out the information that they specifically want.

I get something similar a lot in my job as a Web Dev.  I'll get half a dozen people to test out a new function I've added on a website.  Out of all the feedback I get, I can guarantee that around 60 to 70% of the comments will be completely unrelated to that new function.  They're valid comments don't get me wrong, but it's not what I'm working on so they have to either be put aside for later, or more likely chucked.  Worse still is when people end up commenting on something that's going to be changed as a future project.

[zedatkinszed]

As a DOK player what I'd say for POINTS changes are:

• Death Hag = 90
• Witch Aelves 10 = 110 and 30 = 310
• I'd also make Sisters of Slaughter the same cost as Witch Aelves.
• Morathi should be 450 pts
• I'd suggest something for Blood Stalkers but I honestly don't think points are the real issue.

For Order more generally:

• I'd also drop the points on the Mistweaver and Tenebrael shard to 90
• The 2018 Loremaster point increase is also too much it should be the same as the Archmage not higher
• Evocators need a points increase too.
• I'd also drop the cost of Liberators.

[PUFNSTUF]

15 hours ago, El Syf said:

Celstar ballista point increase seems to be a recurring theme! Only played one game against it myself and it missed every shot...

That seems odd to me because I feel if you increase their cost none will be taken. Maybe 110 but more than that it's probably better taking 5 man units of something.