A Bad Rule for the Bad Moon

[Skabnoze]

At the end of the day most Gloomspite Gitz armies are going to be heavily composed of some form of Grot units - so I fail to see the big issue with a single rule here.

Grots are uniformly bad and only have the advantage of being cheap and plentiful.  Squigs are fun but the epitome of a glass cannon unit.  Trolls are much more durable, but they are traditionally expensive and have some sort of stupidity drawback (eating their magic items for example).  Goblin armies traditionally have had a lot of stuff that was fun, but not very great on the table unless you can engineer favorable situations.  They have generally always had a number of rules that can seem overly-strong or unfair when they work successfully and you are on the receiving end, but are usually not totally reliable and reside in an army that has a number of negatives to offset those.  In addition, in the past the designers have specifically mentioned that Orcs & Goblins were designed as a gamblers style of army.  Now, they may be moving away from that to a degree (we will have to see), but I don't get the feeling that Goblins will ever truly drop all of the gambler aspects.

In the past there have been tons of "unfair" mechanics.  There have been nets that reduce the strength of an enemy unit by -1 and can make big blocks of goblins absurdly durable.  That seemed unfair to many of my opponents - except when my unit accidentally got tangled in it's own nets and was butchered.  Or when my units failed animosity rolls and a battle plan completely fell apart.  Then there were times when random-movement units such as Pump Wagons would crush enemy units with tons of impact attacks and did not allow charge reactions.  But at the same time those things occasionally fell apart on their own, went the wrong way, failed to go far enough, or were flanked and destroyed with ease.  Giants could kill characters instantly, win combats against units and rout them without the enemy being able to fight back at all, or jump up and down all over infantry and inflict horrendous damage.  But they could also drunkenly just fall over.  Trolls could bypass armor and devastate heavy units, but they could also just be stupid and stand still and not do anything at all.  Doom Divers could reliably devastate monsters or characters better than almost any other warmachine in the game, but they also failed more spectacularly than other warmachines.  Fanatics could cause horrific damage that was almost impossible to prevent, but they could also randomly spin around the battlefield and crash into your own stuff.

For every game where these "unfair" things decimated my opponent and caused me to win I can recount a game where they all went horribly wrong and lost me the game.  The most spectacular example that sticks with me to this day was a game in 5th edition with my Night Goblin army where a canny opponent exploited the fanatic rules and forced them to be released randomly at a time when I did not want to release them.  One of the fanatics flew sideways out of my unit and crashed into my Giant - who was at full health.  Poor rolling on my part (or amazing - your call) resulted in that Fanatic killing the Giant outright.  The giant then proceeded to fall over on top of my Great Shaman - who happened to be my general.  The shaman failed his initiative test to dodge out of the way and he was instantly killed.  The death of my general caused an army-wide panic test which 80% of my army failed due to being goblins and no longer having a general.  So in one clever move and a hilarious rube-goldberg chain reaction my opponent caused my entire army to rout.  It was a total riot for both of us.  Personally, I love it and would have it no other way.

Edited January 3, 2019 by Skabnoze

[Skreech Verminking]

Yeah green-things in the old world were hilarious.

i always loved playing against them with my skaven forces .

well the randomness dealing damage of both of this armies was immense. But they could easily go wrong.

it even ones happened that me and my opponent loosed 75porcent of our armies just by trying to do stuff in the first turn. Never have we seen such glorious explosion and random goblins flying gross the board , which killed most the time our own units.

i would love to get some of this randomness back for both of these armies. And it seems like Gloomspite Gitz may have gotten it in some way.

[Zambo]

12 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

Personally , I love it and would have it no other way.

Scabnoze that post epitomises why I have loved my O+G armies ever since 3rd edition and brings back some fun memories of my own 

God they can be frustrating and I have tried other more predictable armies ( looking at you stunties ) but nothing gives you the satisfaction of the odd time it all goes perfect with the green lads 

hope this book continues the tradition of wacky, powerful and utterly unreliable madness 

[AaronWilson]

I think it's too early to be calling out rules as bad. 

[JPjr]

25 minutes ago, AaronWIlson said:

 

I think it's too early to be calling out rules as bad. 

 

But what if I’ve already burned all my other battletomes, rule books and models in protest?

[AaronWilson]

2 minutes ago, JPjr said:

But what if I’ve already burned all my other battletomes, rule books and models in protest?

RIP ❤️ 

[Rachmani]

2 hours ago, JPjr said:

But what if I’ve already burned all my other battletomes, rule books and models in protest?

You show them! Never cave, never give in!

[azoxystrobin]

I find damage reduction and invulnerable saving throws are much worse than the potential of a few mortal wounds from a supposed rule that we don't actually know how it works yet.

[IkedaT]

I can just see the conversations amongst Chaos Warriors... 

W1:  What is that?

W2:  I dunno, moon.. it's making my eyes water.

W1:  Yea but we have these shields.  Lets just hide under them

W2: Good idea

W3: Ahhhhhh we chose to dual wield and now we're melting.  They took Charlie!  Oh if only we had shields.  Curse you moon!

 

Honestly, my hackles raised when I saw them but then I realized that most other rules have some form of response.  Even the Nurgle Wheel has times when I'm mad that I didn't roll where I needed.  At least we know the moon goes from one corner, across the board diagonally, over 5 rounds so I know roughly where it's going to be and predict.

[King Taloren]

It appears that the moon moves random distances as well though only one direction. At least that is what I am getting infered from Skragrott’s warscroll Command ability. So could be a chance that the moon might not make it from complete corner to corner.

 

whichc for grots random movement just more par for the course.

Edited January 4, 2019 by King Taloren

[Nos]

The completley GW sanctioned randomness of multiple aspects of the Gitz mechanics should really spell out how intentionally poorly designed AOS is as a balanced game. As balanced rules they appear to be, well, chaotic, but as rules designed to simulate a tribe of moon worshipping lunatics they appear to have hit the ball out of the park. 

The grief some people will no doubt express over how their try hard netlist was decimated by a moon that isnt even on the board is a very exciting prospect to me in all honesty.

[grungolah]

I am reminded of my 1995 squig hopper list where they took out the favored chaos lord in one turn.  Changed the entire tournament,  and I didn't even place.   Nothing like good old fashioned lucky dice.

[Tizianolol]

Guys i wanna try a list on tts . What do you think is the correct location for nets on my 40 stabbas grots? Their  malus is for enemy model within 2", nets range for damage is 2". Im planning to put them on second line, can it be a good idea? Im planning to build 40 stabbas with stabba and Shield. What do you think? Thx all

[Slayerofmen]

Ignoring the massive threadomancy that question might be better placed over in the gloomspite thread