Powercreep - Fact Or Fiction

[Azamar]

2 hours ago, King Taloren said:

It’s the same as in if the spell is dispelled they just reloaded you endless spell casting gun.

And so far Khorne has no way that they have shown to be able to remove an endless spell once it is on the table so they have the same problem as you with the prayers.

Blood priests can on their new warscroll. The Duardin player in me is rocking in the corner weeping at the moment. 

From what I understand (based on info elsewhere, tbc I suppose)  the judgements disappear at the end of the battle round unless the khorne player roll a 5+, with +1 to the roll if a slaughter priest is nearby.  So I don’t think they stick around for long most of the time. 

[JackStreicher]

2 hours ago, King Taloren said:

It’s the same as in if the spell is dispelled they just reloaded you endless spell casting gun.

And so far Khorne has no way that they have shown to be able to remove an endless spell once it is on the table so they have the same problem as you with the prayers.

Except they can ban spells with pretty nice bonuses (mostly +2 for bronze-collars?)

yep they‘re spamming MW-Gun has an auto-reload button. And if those prayers remain guess what: the opponent can‘t move them.

they‘re purely positive with no drawback for Khorne and you can‘t do anything against them. That‘s the main issue apart from the absurd MW amounts. They should have a mechanic in which they go rampant and start slaughtering the Khorne Troops for more skulls.

[Nos]

8 hours ago, jaebird said:

I feel like GW doesn't need rules to drive sales, at least these days. I'm not sure either of the new 40k armies in the Shadowspear box are going to light the tournament world on fire, but there sure seems a lot of hype about the designs and character of the models. I've seen people want to play Wood Elves in 7th Edition, so I really think model preference and design drive sales the most.

Exactly, GW has posted two successive record years of profit in which time it’s also produced an unprecedented amount of cheap beginner friendly options to collect or create an army or unit.

Their business model now appears to be the opposite of what people are saying; make the most essential units cheap to encourage people to actually buy a full army and get pulled into the hobby that way.

And while they’re doing that they’re investing in ways to encourage people to paint their models faster and make painting less of a specialised thing , ditto with assembly of kits with the snap fit stuff.

They’ve invested massively in the experience of new players far more than they’ve tried to appeal to established tournament players or people bothered about matched play and they’ve benefited massively from doing so.

[King Taloren]

58 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Except they can ban spells with pretty nice bonuses (mostly +2 for bronze-collars?)

yep they‘re spamming MW-Gun has an auto-reload button. And if those prayers remain guess what: the opponent can‘t move them.

they‘re purely positive with no drawback for Khorne and you can‘t do anything against them. That‘s the main issue apart from the absurd MW amounts. They should have a mechanic in which they go rampant and start slaughtering the Khorne Troops for more skulls.

The drawback is that it’s a 5+ that can only be rerolled if the priest is wholly with 8” of the altar. And then it can be set wholly within 8” and move 8”. So it’s max effectiveness is 24”, 27” for the d3 mortals. Still a good bit of the table but if he wants to keep it I wouldn’t be surprised if the priest has to be within 8” to get the +1 if that is the rule. And then it’s. 50/50 or if the priest isn’t in range 66% chance it goes away until his next turn. And this cannot be rerolled. It’s not really that spammable cause even with a reroll it’s only 43% he gets it on the table in the first place. And I’m more afraid of the skulls minus 2 cast (which are much more reliable to summon at 3+ reroll for 72% success) and the minus 1 to hit from the axe than the mortal wounds. 

Most endless spells base are about 65% chance of being summoned with a 6+ on two dice. 

Bloodboil is a prayer so much easier to spam and it is d6 mortals within 16”. That is rerolled as well and can be prayed with every priest.

 

[Thiagoma]

Maybe i can bring a new perspective on power creep .

Since i started with AoS i play mixed Order (so i can field my high elf).

At first it was competitive, but somethings were released that older armies (including some 1.0 tomes) do not have avaiable.

 

Spell/prayer lore:  Older Armies only got acess to their warscroll spell. Lack of customization out those armies in disavantage.

Traits: This is a heavy one. Traits gave some really impressive boosts to several armies. Phoenix Temple, for example had their biggest Strenght on their save after save, and DoK receive it (along many other benefits) from traits.

Army artifacts: Again, customization options.

 

Note those arent exactly a power creep, considering every army should have those tools avaiable once they get their 2.0 army, but it shows how much more powerfull the armies are on the new Edition. 

 

On 1.0, Order Draconis was a viable Alpha Strike, for example, but nowadays it is waaaay behind Idoneth, for example.

[Sleboda]

8 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

they‘re purely positive with no drawback for Khorne and you can‘t do anything against them. That‘s the main issue apart from the absurd MW amounts. They should have a mechanic in which they go rampant and start slaughtering the Khorne Troops for more skulls.

Or, you know, within the context of a Khorne army, they are a tool that works in concert with others to make the army as a whole viable.

It's overstatement/reactions like the quoted text above that give rise to the idea that the myth of power creep had validity.

It doesn't.

[EMMachine]

11 hours ago, King Taloren said:

It’s the same as in if the spell is dispelled they just reloaded you endless spell casting gun.

And so far Khorne has no way that they have shown to be able to remove an endless spell once it is on the table so they have the same problem as you with the prayers.

Many Warscrolls have been updated in the shop and the app today. The units that can dispell, can also try to dispell Endless spells in there own herophase right now.

8 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

Except they can ban spells with pretty nice bonuses (mostly +2 for bronze-collars?)

Only +1 for Flesh Hound units with at least 10 models. The collars mostly only gave the chance to dispell in the first place.

 

And after seeing the Warscrolls, it is often more some sort of 2.0 nerfs ("wholly within", differenting between companions, mounts etc and "unmodified rules", (even I wouldn't say that the last thing isn't a complete nerf after debuffs can't remove the trigger of the abilities anymore. )

[prochuvi]

Yes the powercreep is a fact,every army in the top 5 are armys with new codex.

Aos1 had some problems as vanguard wing or tzenth,but in general every army was playable.

 

A example, dispossesed in aos 1 had around 45% win rate. Now in aos2 they have 20% win rate.

 

I dont know who in gw is doing the playtesting but they are useless doing their job

[ChaosUndivided]

6 hours ago, EMMachine said:

Only +1 for Flesh Hound units with at least 10 models. The collars mostly only gave the chance to dispell in the first place.

Karanak has +2 unbind and does d3 mortal if success. I think a thirster might have a +2 as well? And the hounds get to reroll unbind if near a daemon hero.

This new Khorne book is deff not a power creep despite some first impressions tho. Its more like a reshuffling of power, they where nerfed in some ways and made up for it in others. The debate is still out.

[Sleboda]

14 hours ago, prochuvi said:

Yes the powercreep is a fact,every army in the top 5 are armys with new codex.

I'm not sure what "top 5" even means or how you define it*, but no. It really is, in my opinion, based on newness and lack of experience creating counters.

Frankly, at the risk if treading on slightly provocative ground, invoking power creep just comes off as an inability to accept personal responsibility for poor performance in most cases.

Also, we have Battletomes, not codices in AoS.

 

*BTW, this thread would benefit from a more clear definition of power creep. 

[King Taloren]

1 hour ago, prochuvi said:

Yes the powercreep is a fact,every army in the top 5 are armys with new codex.

Aos1 had some problems as vanguard wing or tzenth,but in general every army was playable.

 

A example, dispossesed in aos 1 had around 45% win rate. Now in aos2 they have 20% win rate.

 

I dont know who in gw is doing the playtesting but they are useless doing their job

Take a deep breath and repeat after me. “It’s only a game and it will never be as balanced as Star Craft or any other Real time strategy game.”

The big reason Dispossessed is in a bad place is that they haven’t had an update yet. They are stuck in 1.0 rules without a battletome. Just as bad as Aelves and Many other Grand Alliance book only armies. They are working their way through everything right now. The last new army was Idoneth and right now they are updating all the old books. Grots was just a combination of Spider and Moon-clan and Troggoths who all needed an update and better support structure. 

Hold your horses people and let’s wait until we have some more updates to the rest of the 1.0 armies before we start calling power creep at this level.

 

And by definition for people:

Power Creep; the slow increase of power in successive armies and enemies and stakes, where each new rendition is slightly to greatly  more powerful and world shaking than the last.

See Dragonball and Dragonball Z villains for comparison 

[angrycontra]

I don't think there's been any real power creep. Power creep (as far as I know) means that factions are slowly but surely getting stronger and stronger with every release and I honestly don't see that happening. Now yes, aos 2.0 books (maggotkin being first) have been stronger than the books that came before yes, but after that it's been a rollercoaster of power levels. Let's look closely at them:

- Nurgle. Nurgle is still chugging along pretty nicely, even if it doesn't make it regularly to top 3 tourney spots. Even if there are some overpriced units in the army, it's overall very competetive army.

- LoN. When lon was released it wasn't that strong of an army at all. I'd even say it was slightly underpowered. Problem was the release of aos 2.0 and the free summoning and nighthaunt that came with it. But even with that, this army has gone up and down the ladder in tourneys and there are counters to it.

- DoK. Dok is still one of the best armies in game. If power creep was real, they'd be out by this point. 

- Idoneth. When it comes to Idoneth, there's only one really strong list type (eel spam) and that's more or less it. Because of their strong allegiance ability Idoneth are difficult to balance but I don't think this faction is in any form powercreep over previous. I mean when people are asking for point drops for over half of the units in battletome, can you truly call that power creep?

- Sce. Another case of powerful units (such as evocators) mixed with underwhelming units (paladins). It's no mystery that stormcast are in weird place right now. Their battletome is quite a mess but even then, I would hardly call them op or better than the 2 previous factions.

- Nighthaunt. I think pure nighthaunt is overall a well balanced army (with some small inner balance issues). The problem is that LoN is simply better, but I wouldn't call nighthaunt useless or underpowered. Most certainly not power creep though.

- Beasts of chaos. Can anyone truly claim that Boc is overpowered or clear evidence of power creep? The only really strong unit is tzaangor enlightened and those guys are glass cannons. Army has done well in tourneys but mostly because of its wonderful objective capping game, not because of its power level.

- Gloomspite gitz. As many here have pointed out, gloomspites are quite well balanced. Calling them power creep or over powered would be silly.

- Skaven. Skaven are strong yes-yes but power creep? Sure plague monks, furnaces/screaming bells and that one endless spell are super nasty but the faction as a whole doesn't feel too broken if you ask me. Problem with these big factions is that it's too easy to mix really good and really bad units in them. At least Skaven have minimal summoning and generally weak abd easy to kill units. Only time will tell if this is one of the top tier factions of the game (and no, one tournament is not enough, else we'd call nighthaunt top tier because they won that first big aos 2.0 tournament).

- Flesh eater courts. I still don't understand why people call this faction power creep. Because they have one good new hero? Sure arch-regent is great but I'd argue he is only great when he is taken the first time, second arch regent is good (since summoning pays some of those points back) but the real power is that one spell, which you can only attempt once per turn so extra arch-regents feel redundant. Fec have limited rend, limited mortal wounds, somewhat overpriced units (summoning balances this) and mediocre spell casting ability (you can take casting boost allies but honestly, try to squeeze them in Fec lists, not easy I can tell you that). That new command ability is fantastic but it's just that, a command ability. You don't have infinite points available to you and fec are lacking command point generators (if fec could take skaven warpseer in their army, I'd call them op sure). And that gristlegore general is strong, but it's just a single hero. You tie it up in melee, shoot it down or focus the rest of the army.

- Khorne. Obviously it's way too early to call this faction anything at this point, but based on early reviews, people seem to be more concerned these guys being underpowered rather than overpowered.

So yeah, ultimately I'm going to conclude that there is no systematic power creep going on. Sure op units sometimes get past gw's radar but that's basically it. Of course I do know that even a single op unit when spammed can break the balance, that is an issue sure, but that can be fixed in ghb future editions (look at skyfires for an example). Ever since aos 2.0 (and slightly before that), I think gw has done reasonably good job of keeping the new books relatively close to each other in terms of power level.

[Mayple]

2 hours ago, angrycontra said:

Beasts of chaos. Can anyone truly claim that Boc is overpowered or clear evidence of power creep? The only really strong unit is tzaangor enlightened and those guys are glass cannons. Army has done well in tourneys but mostly because of its wonderful objective capping game, not because of its power level.

Important to note that objective capping ability is as much of a factor in determining a faction's power level as pure combat strength (if not more so) - so on that account beasts of chaos are doing very well for themselves

[JackStreicher]

The first BoK preview battle is out on Miniwargaminh. Khorne Slaughters his opponent (1500 pts game) without taking considerable dmg. The axe alone killed a unit of Dragon ogors... 

well, time will tell

[Deadkitten]

On 3/14/2019 at 1:08 PM, JackStreicher said:

🤷🏼‍♂️

Dunno, they just complained that the MW Spam put them off too much also they see it as a lack of creativity that each and every spell deals a multitude of MWs instead of more interesting effects.

That I can see.

[Deadkitten]

On 3/15/2019 at 2:13 PM, Wraith01 said:

It's always happened. That's part of the game.

Just wait till they circle back to your army and then you'll have a much more powerful force.

I feel like that's a valid answer only if you get locked into an army for life or had to go through some insane application process to switch armies.  I feel like the current set of affairs punishes players that are married to an army for whatever reason and don't jump onto a new thing at the drop of a hat.  "Just wait your turn" is disingenuous and it's unfair to expect those players to take maybe years of beatings before they finally get their day in the sun.  Even the most outdated Battletome should have the tools to beat the brand new book a reasonable % of the time, all else being equal.  I'm not sure that's the case ATM but I'm hopeful for some corrections come GH2019. 

[JackStreicher]

Judgements points:

axe: 60

the other two: 40 each 

every priest can try to summon a judgement once per turn (basically if you have 3 priests they each get a rerollable try to summon the axe)

and each priest can do two more prayers in addition though you can‘t pray the same prayer more than once per turn

 

[Bululu]

10 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Judgements points:

axe: 60

the other two: 40 each 

every priest can try to summon a judgement once per turn (basically if you have 3 priests they each get a rerollable try to summon the axe)

and each priest can do two more prayers in addition though you can‘t pray the same prayer more than once per turn

 

false, each judgment can only be "tried once per phase" so only 1 try of axe per turn even if you have a thousand priests

[JackStreicher]

1 minute ago, Bululu said:

false, each judgment can only be "tried once per phase" so only 1 try of axe per turn even if you have a thousand priests

Miniwargaming claimed the opposite 🤷🏼‍♂️

[Bululu]

On 3/16/2019 at 9:36 AM, King Taloren said:

It’s the same as in if the spell is dispelled they just reloaded you endless spell casting gun.

And so far Khorne has no way that they have shown to be able to remove an endless spell once it is on the table so they have the same problem as you with the prayers.

Nope, now slaughther priest, and most items/heros that could unbind can dispell 1 endless too

[Bululu]

Just now, JackStreicher said:

Miniwargaming claimed the opposite 🤷🏼‍♂️

I have the book since friday

[JackStreicher]

1 minute ago, Bululu said:

I have the book since friday

=} then I guess you are right, I‘ve got my infos from book reviews  (they said there was nothing stopping your other priest from trying to pray for the same judgement as well) - that was the info I had ^^

[Bululu]

No problem mate!, if you need some more info i have been pushing some of it the last 2 days on the khorne thread!

[JackStreicher]

2 minutes ago, Bululu said:

No problem mate!, if you need some more info i have been pushing some of it the last 2 days on the khorne thread!

I‘d like an estimation of how much stronger BoC have become compared to before (since that would fit into this thread rather well) =}

[Bululu]

I cant tell mate, they have nerfed loads of things, removed important things, but the judgements, altars, etc seems nice. I think overall is a "raw power" downgrade but now we have loads of things like the "clans" artifacts, etc. So if you apply everything im sure we can get good combos. Overall i would say we will see variation and no longer all in on gore pilgrim spams. Now we can deal with endless spells, i havent spent too much time on the battletome, but unless someone discovers a broken combination, i would say its a pretty balanced battletome.  Only things i dont really like is that summoning/blood tithe table are still linked so you cant do both, and that you still waste all bloodtithe on 1 use.