GW is asking for advice on GHB 2019

[Tropical Ghost General]

Nice reading through the comments on this. It saddens me that my spooks are going to suffer, having so many grumbles this early on about grims (which are definitely under costed) and yet the fact that the general community attitude that bedsheets are better in LoN is not exactly good signs for such a new battletome. 😢

I think GW has put too high a tax on ethereal saves when the faction has such pathetic healing mechanics. That being said I think without making changes to warscrolls that most bedsheet units need a 20pt-40pt price drop, especially the named characters. Torments and grims need a point increase. Rasps, harridans, blades and the majority of the standard heroes are priced about right. 

[Jetengine]

1 hour ago, Jamopower said:

I'd like to see more of points increases than drops. Some of the stuff is already very low cost and still not worth taking in a big picture (stuff like freeguild guard for example). By always decreasing and decreasing, you'll be finally in a place where common grot costs one point per model.

Not to sound cynical but that DOES suit GWs buisness model.

[Overread]

5 minutes ago, Jetengine said:

Not to sound cynical but that DOES suit GWs buisness model.

It also suits gamers too. Just look how Warmachine, 40K and even old Fantasy all grew bigger and bigger over time in the number of models on the table. Basically the wider the range gets and the more established the more you've got gamers with larger collections who want to play with more toys on the table. 

AoS is, I think, a little high in points VS model count for many armies, so I'd expect to see GW steadily decrease points wholesale so that steadily larger and more varied armies can be played on the tables. OF course there are limits, very small and very big games need a subset of rule modifications to make them fun. Smaller games want more detailed rules per model; whilst larger require simplification, streamlining and means to effectivly control larger units. Heck GW could even do a really neat trick and bring out some square/rectangle movement trays with round slots on them to fit models (as they currently are on round bases) for an "apoc" style AoS game.

AoS Legions - all the fun of rank and file moverment and the chance for vast numbers of warriors on the table. Pit 300 Witches against 50 Stormcast, supported on both sides with flights of winged beasts; huge towering monsters and such .

[Jetengine]

GW could recycle the War Of The Ring trays maybe ?

I'm waiting for the Killteam AOS equivalent since Skirmish is ok but very light.

[Overread]

1 hour ago, Jetengine said:

GW could recycle the War Of The Ring trays maybe ?

I'm waiting for the Killteam AOS equivalent since Skirmish is ok but very light.

I figure we won't see it until GW has a lot more Battletomes out. Killteam is a gateway product designed to get people playing 40K for cheap. It gets around the "Oh gods this is expensive" mentality that can throw people when they see the costs of rules, codex, battleforces, heroes etc.... 

Once they've played a bit of Killteam with one box of troops many will branch out; getting a box of different troops, a commander, maybe a third box of troops - now they've got the beginnings of a 500 point army and all they need is a quick codex purchase and then perhaps the free rules online (or loaned from another at the club/group/store they are already playing at) and now they are well into the hobby without realising it.

 

This works for 40K because every army has a codex or an index that is clearly referenced. So there's no faction limits on what you can choose.

Right now AoS is messy, not everyone has a Battletome and if you don't have a Battletome its not always clear where the rules for your army actually are. Whilst each store page has a warscroll download, some armies have rules in various Generals Handbooks; others have them in very aged Grand Alliance books and some are nowhere to be seen as actual army rules. So its messy and not what you want if you're going to have a cheap gateway product. Give it a year or a year and half and when GW has cleaned up the listings then we can expect a cheap gateway product. Either its own Killteam or a rebuild of skirmish rules. 

[zedatkinszed]

16 minutes ago, Overread said:

I figure we won't see it until GW has a lot more Battletomes out. Killteam is a gateway product designed to get people playing 40K for cheap. It gets around the "Oh gods this is expensive" mentality that can throw people when they see the costs of rules, codex, battleforces, heroes etc.... Once they've played a bit of Killteam with one box of troops many will branch out; getting a box of different troops, a commander, maybe a third box of troops - now they've got the beginnings of a 500 point army and all they need is a quick codex purchase and then perhaps the free rules online (or loaned from another at the club/group/store they are already playing at) and now they are well into the hobby without realising it.

[...]

This works for 40K because every army has a codex or an index that is clearly referenced. So there's no faction limits on what you can choose.

Right now AoS is messy, not everyone has a Battletome and if you don't have a Battletome its not always clear where the rules for your army actually are. Whilst each store page has a warscroll download, some armies have rules in various Generals Handbooks; others have them in very aged Grand Alliance books and some are nowhere to be seen as actual army rules. So its messy and not what you want if you're going to have a cheap gateway product. Give it a year or a year and half and when GW has cleaned up the listings then we can expect a cheap gateway product. Either its own Killteam or a rebuild of skirmish rules. 

8

I take your point but I kinda disagree. If and when Slaanesh, Dark Oath and Moonclan (or Grots combined ala LoN or BoC) come out (which is likely to be 2019) the only messy faction will be Order. And the simple solution is only produced rules for existing battletome armies (e.g Kill Team has no rules for Sisters yet) and give GHB expansions to GHB allegiance lists.

Either way, I think we all agree that GW is missing a trick by not producing a skirmish scale, terrain heavy, game like Kill Team for AOS. 

[Ninelives]

21 hours ago, zedatkinszed said:

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.

I'd be interested in knowing the rationale behind this since I disagree with a lot of it. 

- Death Hag, grants automatic buff in attacks and immune to battleshock an army that benefits from deadly horde on small bases, on top of casting two prayers per turn which can be really disruptive and even if they can't fail, cannot be unbound in the way magic can be (I'd compare to Tzaangor Shaman for impact in game or some of the Skaven / Idoneth heroes for points vs impact ) and 90 does not even seem enough. 

- Witch Aelves, okay why not. 

- Sisters of Slaughter won the GT thanks to how good their 6" pile in is... do they need a reduction? 

- To my knowledge, only unit in the game that cannot be killed in one turn, and objectives favour holding objective (sometime has to be a Hero/Behemoth) , in an army that does not need Buff, should it be decreased? 

Mistweaver and Tenebrael should be able to ally in Aelves army before seeing a change in point. 

Not sure about Loremaster and Evocators.

Liberators, I think should remain at 100 for 5, the rest maybe should adjust accordingly (to have a reference point).

 

[Overread]

The way I see it making witches aelves and hags more expensive doesn't actually fix the central block of 90 aelves and queens supporting it. You still have that solid block, you just make the army even more dull because now the DoK player isn't bringing much else for support. Instead I'd rather see them adjust how bonuses work. For example limiting them so that witches can only benefit from one 1 or 2 spells/prayer bonuses at a time. 

[zedatkinszed]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

The way I see it making witches aelves and hags more expensive doesn't actually fix the central block of 90 aelves and queens supporting it. You still have that solid block, you just make the army even more dull because now the DoK player isn't bringing much else for support. Instead I'd rather see them adjust how bonuses work. For example limiting them so that witches can only benefit from one 1 or 2 spells/prayer bonuses at a time. 

I agree totally but GW are asking for points changes.

2 hours ago, Ninelives said:

- Death Hag, grants automatic buff in attacks and immune to battleshock an army that benefits from deadly horde on small bases, on top of casting two prayers per turn which can be really disruptive and even if they can't fail, cannot be unbound in the way magic can be (I'd compare to Tzaangor Shaman for impact in game or some of the Skaven / Idoneth heroes for points vs impact ) and 90 does not even seem enough. 

- Witch Aelves, okay why not. 

- Sisters of Slaughter won the GT thanks to how good their 6" pile in is... do they need a reduction? 

- To my knowledge, only unit in the game that cannot be killed in one turn, and objectives favour holding objective (sometime has to be a Hero/Behemoth) , in an army that does not need Buff, should it be decreased? 

Mistweaver and Tenebrael should be able to ally in Aelves army before seeing a change in point. 

9

I agree re: the ally option for Mistweaver and T.Shard but I don't think their price is justified at 120.

I disagree re: Death Hag. The only scenario in which they are broken is a Hagg Narr list and I wholly believe that that will be solved soon. But they are not up to the 100pts character mark in their current form. Now if there were different weapon options and better saves then sure but no, not currently.

I find SoS and WAs as equally good and I see no justification for the points difference. I could live with them both being 10 for 120 TBH. 

 

[kenshin620]

While not sure if it'll be taken into consideration, I'm curious what other changes GHB 219 will bring (2018 for example radically revamped summoning).

 

Do you think ALL armies will be changed to follow "wholly within [RANGE]" rules? I think thats one of the biggest schisms between 1.0 battletome and 2.0 battletomes/GHB allegiances. Though some ranges would have to be reevaluated.

(and also I suppose that would really hurt orruks!)

[Furuzzolo]

The bigger change I'd love to see would be no allegiance abilities in gh19! 

All the army-book out before August. 

[Jetengine]

52 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

While not sure if it'll be taken into consideration, I'm curious what other changes GHB 219 will bring (2018 for example radically revamped summoning).

 

Do you think ALL armies will be changed to follow "wholly within [RANGE]" rules? I think thats one of the biggest schisms between 1.0 battletome and 2.0 battletomes/GHB allegiances. Though some ranges would have to be reevaluated.

(and also I suppose that would really hurt orruks!)

Wholly within is a terrible idea imo and kills abilities in any kind of force that uses units bigger then 10 guys.

[RuneBrush]

15 minutes ago, Jetengine said:

Wholly within is a terrible idea imo and kills abilities in any kind of force that uses units bigger then 10 guys.

It's stopped daisy-chaining and encourages you to be a bit more aware with your model placement.  I regularly get a unit of 30ish wholly within 9" of a character if I move the character up within them.

[Click5]

I think trying to create internal army diversity by adjusting model points is almost always doomed to failure, especially in the Warhammer systems where there isn't enough nuance in the point cost scale.

Everyone agrees Sequitors are better than Liberators right now, but if Sequitors become more expensive or Liberators too cheap, then the scale tips the other way.  And it doesn't actually take much to tip the scales in favor of the cheaper model because number of bodies and total dice thrown start to matter much more than a "stronger" profile or having a marginal ability. 

GW would be better served by adding abilities to subpar units that give them niche roles on the battlefield.  They should also play around with opportunity costs more, more heroes that give troops battleline in specific situations, or even go the other direction... design more heroes that are better when specific troop options are taken. 

Creating more interesting and cheaper Battalions would probably be an easy solution as well 

[Waiyuren]

6 minutes ago, Click5 said:

GW would be better served by adding abilities to subpar units that give them niche roles on the battlefield.  They should also play around with opportunity costs more, more heroes that give troops battleline in specific situations, or even go the other direction... design more heroes that are better when specific troop options are taken. 

Creating more interesting and cheaper Battalions would probably be an easy solution as well 

I agree somewhat. There seems to be some hangover still from fantasy that troops need to be boring... "they're just going to die anyway, so just make 'em cheap." And so we have the liberators vs sequitors problem, where one is an interesting toolbox unit, and the other is a pile of wounds and armour saves to shove in front of other things.

However those interesting abilities still need to be given a points value of rough equivalency to battlefield worth in relation to similar units, and more diverse ability interaction means more difficulty when balancing, not less.

[kenshin620]

21 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

It's stopped daisy-chaining and encourages you to be a bit more aware with your model placement.  I regularly get a unit of 30ish wholly within 9" of a character if I move the character up within them.

Yea to me it's silly that a bloodstoker can be in range of 3 bloodletters 12" away, and then make an entire 30 man unit affected by his whip.

 

Maybe it's not that I completely agree with wholly within in all situations, but it is bizarre that 2.0 books and 2.0 GHB allegiances are hamstrung by having to abide by it but armies like Khorne or Nagash Legions are fine and dandy with the old 1.0 range rules.

 

20 minutes ago, Click5 said:

I think trying to create internal army diversity by adjusting model points is almost always doomed to failure, especially in the Warhammer systems where there isn't enough nuance in the point cost scale.

Everyone agrees Sequitors are better than Liberators right now, but if Sequitors become more expensive or Liberators too cheap, then the scale tips the other way.  And it doesn't actually take much to tip the scales in favor of the cheaper model because number of bodies and total dice thrown start to matter much more than a "stronger" profile or having a marginal ability. 

GW would be better served by adding abilities to subpar units that give them niche roles on the battlefield.  They should also play around with opportunity costs more, more heroes that give troops battleline in specific situations, or even go the other direction... design more heroes that are better when specific troop options are taken. 

Creating more interesting and cheaper Battalions would probably be an easy solution as well 

Unfortunately GW isn't willing to change warscrolls outside of battletome updates (and maybe that khorne vs slaanesh thing, lets see)

So SCE would then need a 4th battletome to fix their myriad issues (cough stormhosts vs staunch defender). And I dont think a 4th battletome so soon would go well with the community

 

Would be nice if Dracoth riders were battleline if you took a stardrake general (I think a dracoth general might be a little too inexpensive).

Unless they reintroduce the idea of "single unit may be core/troops" they used to have in older editions of fantasy and 40k. So a Dracoth general may take 1 unit of dracothian guard as battleline.

3 minutes ago, Waiyuren said:

I agree somewhat. There seems to be some hangover still from fantasy that troops need to be boring... "they're just going to die anyway, so just make 'em cheap."

To be fair you have armies like Bonesplitterz where almost all their units are Battleline. So Battleline becomes a complete non issue.

 

[PJetski]

6 minutes ago, Click5 said:

Everyone agrees Sequitors are better than Liberators right now, but if Sequitors become more expensive or Liberators too cheap, then the scale tips the other way.  And it doesn't actually take much to tip the scales in favor of the cheaper model because number of bodies and total dice thrown start to matter much more than a "stronger" profile or having a marginal ability. 

I dont think this is true. There are other factors to consider, like battlefield role and unit sizes.

Liberators are primarily a screening unit and battleline tax. Sequitors are an expensive screening unit but they can do a lot of damage. There is a finite amount of space to fit models in melee combat, especially with only 1" weapons on 40mm bases, so 10 Sequitors will deal more damage than 15 Liberators and probably live longer.

At 100 vs 120 the difference becomes so small that Sequitors are seen as a no-brainer choice over Liberators. In this case the units could be differentiated further into their roles by reducing the cost of Liberators, leaving Sequitors as an expensive elite version. 80pt Liberators wouldn't stop Sequitors from being played, but it would further push Liberators into their niche.

If they drop Liberators to 80 they should also reduce their max unit size to 20 models.

A better comparison is Evocator vs Retributor. Both units do very similar things, but Evocators are better in every way and cost less points. Even if you swapped their point costs (Retributors 200, Evocators 220) you would just end up with the same situation that Liberators and Sequitors are in now - the difference in power is not worth 20 points.

You can differentiate unit roles through unit synergies and battalions, but the stormcast battletome fails to do that. 

[Skreech Verminking]

25 minutes ago, Click5 said:

I think trying to create internal army diversity by adjusting model points is almost always doomed to failure, especially in the Warhammer systems where there isn't enough nuance in the point cost scale.

Everyone agrees Sequitors are better than Liberators right now, but if Sequitors become more expensive or Liberators too cheap, then the scale tips the other way.  And it doesn't actually take much to tip the scales in favor of the cheaper model because number of bodies and total dice thrown start to matter much more than a "stronger" profile or having a marginal ability. 

GW would be better served by adding abilities to subpar units that give them niche roles on the battlefield.  They should also play around with opportunity costs more, more heroes that give troops battleline in specific situations, or even go the other direction... design more heroes that are better when specific troop options are taken. 

Creating more interesting and cheaper Battalions would probably be an easy solution as well 

I would love to see something that’ll allow me to take giant rats or Night runners as battleline in a mixed skaven army if taking model x as your general.

but since Gw is mostly asking in point chances, I’ll just be saying that the Celeste’s ballista needs a big point increase or every other artillery piece in aos a massive points reduction.

as for any specific units I’d like to see to have some points reduction, would be:

Clanrats:100/160-180

Stormvermin:120/420 

Hell pit abomination: 200p

Doom wheel:110p

Screaming bell:180p

Gors:70p

Bullgors:140-150p

 

and any unit’s needing some points increases are:

plague monks:80p

as a skaven player I really must say that even if they don’t have any save at all, they would always slay the double amount of points of them.

Death Haag: 80p

increasing the points of witch Aelves won’t do anything greatly. In my oppinion the source of the buff giving unit should get an increase in cost. And I believe that 80p May be fine.

the rest of my worries would go to stormcast but since they  have too many units who either need a points increase or reduction   I won’t be taking them into my list.

 

 

[Waiyuren]

12 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

To be fair you have armies like Bonesplitterz where almost all their units are Battleline. So Battleline becomes a complete non issue.

I honestly like this, and would like to see the game evolve past tax-units and sacrificial chaff.

If even battleline are interesting and situationally important for more than just their ability to screen other units or cap objectives, then I feel like that could create more meaningful choices in-game; do i protect or sacrifice this unit vs this other one? Which one will be more useful in two turns?

Some armies are already like this; ironjaws for example because everything is battleline anyway, and  slaanesh because everything is made of very sharp glass hammers. 😅

[Lemon Knuckles]

2 minutes ago, Waiyuren said:

I agree somewhat. There seems to be some hangover still from fantasy that troops need to be boring... "they're just going to die anyway, so just make 'em cheap." And so we have the liberators vs sequitors problem, where one is an interesting toolbox unit, and the other is a pile of wounds and armour saves to shove in front of other things.

However those interesting abilities still need to be given a points value of rough equivalency to battlefield worth in relation to similar units, and more diverse ability interaction means more difficulty when balancing, not less.

I agree somewhat as well.

I've been spending time thinking about and actually trying to model unit points values, and what I've come to is this:

There should be three levels to point costing:

1. Vanila universal.  This only considers a war scroll on its own, as a self-contained set of stats.  This is foundational.  Every single unit should be able to get it's baseline points value calculated through this formula.  This includes all abilities that directly influence core stats, like units that have a different profile "on the charge," or a save bonus against rend 0 attacks, or do extra damage against a certain keyword type.  If it's on the war scroll and its quantifiable in terms of the universal stats, it's included here.  
2. Synergistic.  Consideration for context.  This could be the introduction of modifiers to the output of step 1 based on allegiance abilities, faction synergy, etc.  (an example might be units with the SUMMONABLE keyword in a LoN army, or changing the value of a certain variable for an entire faction, etc.)
3. Unique special abilities.  This would be costing for abilities that are completely tactical in nature and don't necessarily fit into step 1 because you can't directly quantify their influence on the universal stats.  Like Waiyuren says, "these interesting abilities still need to be given a points value," however these values are almost always going to be a case more of trial and error versus mathematics.

The problem that I see is that step 1 today is completely broken.  There is no conistent and functional Vanila Universal foundation to unit points costs.  And so all of these discussions about changing points based on subjective comparisons between different units is operating on 3 levels simultaneously, which is horribly confusing and complex.  And in this context, it seems dubious that periodic and quasi-random points adjustments to some units will ever materially improve the situation.

[Waiyuren]

33 minutes ago, PJetski said:

80pt Liberators wouldn't stop Sequitors from being played, but it would further push Liberators into their niche.

If they drop Liberators to 80 they should also reduce their max unit size to 20 models.

There are knock-on factors from re-pointing when you compare units across factions; liberators are basically chaos warriors that trade the ward save for a slightly better armour save, so if you re-point liberators to 80, do you do the same for warriors? If so then what about tzaangors, which are meant to be a higher-damage, lower save unit on the same power tier (elite infantry). And then acolytes (medium infantry) which are 80, do they become 70?

As someone else said earlier there needs to be a floor, but otherwise i agree that 20pts isn't enough to make the decision difficult. 😅

[Jetengine]

45 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

It's stopped daisy-chaining and encourages you to be a bit more aware with your model placement.  I regularly get a unit of 30ish wholly within 9" of a character if I move the character up within them.

I'm probably just looking at this from my faction then, since a Spiderfang Big Boss ability reaches 8. That will never be wholly within a unit bigger then 5 wide.

[CentralKarma]

1 hour ago, Waiyuren said:

There are knock-on factors from re-pointing when you compare units across factions; liberators are basically chaos warriors that trade the ward save for a slightly better armour save, so if you re-point liberators to 80, do you do the same for warriors? ...

This is what I was coming here to say.  Liberators at 100 points makes perfect sense when compared to other factions units that serve a similar purpose.  Sequitors should be more expensive, probably 140 points.  Huge ripple effect if liberators get a point decrease.

3 hours ago, zedatkinszed said:

I disagree re: Death Hag. The only scenario in which they are broken is a Hagg Narr list and I wholly believe that that will be solved soon. But they are not up to the 100pts character mark in their current form. Now if there were different weapon options and better saves then sure but no, not currently.

 

The hag queen is easily a 100 point hero, if not more.

Very strong buff, has prayers that either buff her damage, or deal straight mortal wounds.  4 attacks with rend.  A lot of heroes only have a 5+ save and are more then 80 points

1 hour ago, kenshin620 said:

Maybe it's not that I completely agree with wholly within in all situations, but it is bizarre that 2.0 books and 2.0 GHB allegiances are hamstrung by having to abide by it but armies like Khorne or Nagash Legions are fine and dandy with the old 1.0 range rules.

 

Unfortunately GW isn't willing to change warscrolls outside of battletome updates (and maybe that khorne vs slaanesh thing, lets see)

That's not the case though.  I play fyreslayers and legions of nagash.  Both have abilities that are wholly within and abilities that are just within.  Fyreslayers allegiance abilities are wholly within, same with the command abilities on the runefather and runeson.  Battlesmiths ability is within. 

In the case of the runefather/ runeson, and even the vulkite, there warscrolls have been changed by FAQ's.  There original warscrolls are not the same as the ones in the app, which were updated on the summer.  I think July 

[Fulkes]

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

It's stopped daisy-chaining and encourages you to be a bit more aware with your model placement.  I regularly get a unit of 30ish wholly within 9" of a character if I move the character up within them.

On the flipside, it basically killed Namarti as an army concept for Deepkin because you'll want to run large units to make sure you can enjoy your buffs while you take longer to get to combat than the eels do, but because of the wholly within clause it's basically impossible to support more than one unit at a time leading to deathstar style nonsense for no reason other than a limitation that was implemented poorly.

If they're going to move everything to "wholly within" the auras need to be larger to allow bigger units to keep a place in the game and allow us to support more than a single unit we put all of our characters next to.

[PJetski]

I do not agree that units need to be balanced across different grand alliances. It's a bad comparison because there are different buffs and unit synergies to consider.

Liberators are not worth their points in a Stormcast army and they are not worth their points in an Order army. They can't be used in a Chaos army, so why does it matter how they compare to Chaos Warriors?