Powercreep - Fact Or Fiction

[amysrevenge]

Just now, Forrix said:

I'm curious as to where people are getting sales information about specific armies? In my local meta Deepkin have been pretty well received and I remember them being on the best selling tab for quite a while. Totally anecdotal evidence but I'm surprised to hear they didn't sell well overall.

 

 It's just stuff that "everybody knows", based mostly on what certain loud people wish was true and repeat often enough and loudly enough as if it was true that people start to believe it is true.

[Cyberspidermancer]

I love deepkin! Their what got me into this game (just finished painting my first model! ) but I will admit their model range is very, very small and could certainly use some more options (swarms of sea creatures, or wild beasts led by their beast masters, Harpoon launchers, how about a giant angler fish creature that baits out charges! So many more things to do. )

[JPjr]

how about an endless spell covered in gold coins?

[Skreech Verminking]

52 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

 It's just stuff that "everybody knows", based mostly on what certain loud people wish was true and repeat often enough and loudly enough as if it was true that people start to believe it is true.

So the saying of the Alpha legion (or that German guy who’s name I don’t care knowing) is somewhat true.

Well never Expected less 

Alpharius out!

(😂)

[Kramer]

28 minutes ago, Cyberspidermancer said:

I love deepkin! Their what got me into this game (just finished painting my first model! ) but I will admit their model range is very, very small and could certainly use some more options (swarms of sea creatures, or wild beasts led by their beast masters, Harpoon launchers, how about a giant angler fish creature that baits out charges! So many more things to do. )

No it really isnt that small. Only factions with a tome that make them look small are combining old ranges and stormcast. Every faction made for AOS has roughly the same number of kits. 

[Bradipo322]

4 hours ago, The World Tree said:

Honestly the whole Stormcast book was just lazy. They made very little effort with most of the units. Compare it to the effort that visibly went into Gitz or even Skaven and it is embarrassing.

This is it.

I've played some games and read other battletomes (the newers) and the Stormcasts one is definitively one of the most boring ones. It's not bad, it's just boring.

On the spell lores 5 out of 9 spells deal between 1 and d3 mortal wound in some capacity.

The artifacts/traits are just weak or too strong (staunch defender is good, but the others are bad), and they are completly useless if you use a stormhost.

All of this while getting old units power-creeped by new ones.

[Cyberspidermancer]

 

2 hours ago, Kramer said:

No it really isnt that small. Only factions with a tome that make them look small are combining old ranges and stormcast. Every faction made for AOS has roughly the same number of kits. 

You're probably right, I'm still used to warhammer. Maybe I need to lower my expectation of variety.

[AverageBoss]

12 hours ago, King Taloren said:

I got one stronger. Sequitors. Sure they aren’t just plain battleline, but it’s not really that limiting and they outclass Liberators and Judicators with the reroll saves or hits. Or both if you take the one hero with the command trait. And with the number of Staves you can pile in they out damage Evocators.

I actually think Sequitors are fine on their own, and compare pretty evenly to the likes of Bestigors and Reapers. But like Reapers they are easily broken by 2ndary effects. For Reapers its the Legions suite of rules allowing them to be brought back after being wiped out and the support Arkhan and Nagash give them, for Sequitors its mostly teleport + Gav. Gav needs a pretty harsh nerf to that command ability, and Evocators need to go up 20-30 points.

Sequitors have quite a few things going for them that leads to how much they are spammed. Yes, they are much better than Liberators. But they are also much better, more interesting, and characterful models. They also have much more interesting and fun to play with rules.

But at the end of the day, there are two major things that need to happen on the Stormcast front that would easily see less Sequitor spam. Liberators need to be made better (as do Paladins). They have been considered a pretty poor unit outside completely broken things like Vanguard Wing for a couple years now, only taken when one does not have the points for Judicators, or needs some "cheap" filler. And more importantly there needs to be a reason to take other heroes as your general for Stormcast. Even ignoring that Sequitors exist, 9 times out of 10 I cannot think of a reason why you would take anything other than a mounted Arcanum or SD Stardrake as your general in a competitive list. They simply offer far too many important things Stormcast need in this edition (anti horde, support snipping, magic/dispelling), and the only other options that compete with them on that front are far too fragile and/or slow to hang the "I am the general" target on.

[Kramer]

6 hours ago, Cyberspidermancer said:

 

You're probably right, I'm still used to warhammer. Maybe I need to lower my expectation of variety.

There is a reason I know this... I thought the same thing a while back about the diversity in factions 😅. And it roughly compares after a quick count on the website. (It’s also part of the reason I now collect 1K to 1,5K armies, with 2000 points you either need to repeat a lot of kits or get a massive expensive centrepiece which I don’t tend to enjoy painting.)

[Ratcliff]

On 3/18/2019 at 5:51 PM, Ravinsild said:

Meanwhile over in the Age of Sigmar 2: Blades of Khorne discussion thread everyone seems to think we have gotten horribly nerfed and our whole book sucks. 🤷‍♂️ Hyperbole, but still, a lot of people have been pointing out that X, Y, Z were nerfed and this is worse and that's worse etc.. 

 

 

I play Clan Pestilens, and I think there's a case to be made that we got weaker. But regardless, some units undoubtedly got stronger, some new ways of playing have been opened to us, some old ways have been closed. It's too early to say for sure because there's a lot of things left to try.

There are always going to be armies with a higher ceiling than others, who are a lot better. But I think people who bemoan it need to get imaginative with their lists, there's infinite ways to play. I saw my friend take down a v competitive 2 day tournament with Gutbusters. It's playing the game on hard mode, you won't win as much as others, but what's wrong with that? Embrace the challenge imo

[The World Tree]

8 hours ago, Bradipo322 said:

This is it.

 I've played some games and read other battletomes (the newers) and the Stormcasts one is definitively one of the most boring ones. It's not bad, it's just boring.

On the spell lores 5 out of 9 spells deal between 1 and d3 mortal wound in some capacity.

The artifacts/traits are just weak or too strong (staunch defender is good, but the others are bad), and they are completly useless if you use a stormhost.

 All of this while getting old units power-creeped by new ones.

 

Yup. Still my favourite army and significantly better than the original tome in terms of playability. We've got reams of artifacts and traits nobody ever uses because of the Stormhosts (which I do like  the design on - several are good and not using one has its place), most of the units are boring to use (hello Lord Exorcist, my favourite model). Things like the Star Drake are strong but make little design sense - why is he still the best sniper around and an anvil. Shouldn't he be a rampaging dragon? Why has the majority of the Vanguard never been giving any love? You can say Evocators are too powerful but they play as they are described in the fluff - shock troops who literally shock you. 

[NurglesFirstChosen]

44 minutes ago, Ratcliff said:

 

 

I play Clan Pestilens, and I think there's a case to be made that we got weaker. But regardless, some units undoubtedly got stronger, some new ways of playing have been opened to us, some old ways have been closed. It's too early to say for sure because there's a lot of things left to try.

There are always going to be armies with a higher ceiling than others, who are a lot better. But I think people who bemoan it need to get imaginative with their lists, there's infinite ways to play. I saw my friend take down a v competitive 2 day tournament with Gutbusters. It's playing the game on hard mode, you won't win as much as others, but what's wrong with that? Embrace the challenge imo

Pestilence got weaker? 

[Karragon]

5 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

I actually think Sequitors are fine on their own, and compare pretty evenly to the likes of Bestigors and Reapers. But like Reapers they are easily broken by 2ndary effects. For Reapers its the Legions suite of rules allowing them to be brought back after being wiped out and the support Arkhan and Nagash give them, for Sequitors its mostly teleport + Gav. Gav needs a pretty harsh nerf to that command ability, and Evocators need to go up 20-30 points.

 

I cannot disagree with you strongly enough on the Evocators. Foot evocators are overcosted not undercosted. You get 1 turn of usefulness out of them then they're either dead or too far out of position to be useful any more. People are so fixated on the number of mortal wounds they can do they don't think about their lack of survivabilty and mobility or the fact you can get the same amount of destruction for less points elsewhere. I'd rather have 20 sequitors for the same price, they'll do as much killing and are far less likely to die. I've found much more success now I don't run them any more.

Gav should be limited to 1 use of his CA or better yet changed to a bubble of reroll charges imo.

[Skreech Verminking]

5 minutes ago, NurglesFirstChosen said:

Pestilence got weaker? 

Well they got weaker in one way and stronger in the other.

 

[NurglesFirstChosen]

7 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Well they got weaker in one way and stronger in the other.

 

Which way did they become weaker? Also when you compare that in relation to how they improved, did the faction really become weaker?? Sounds well off the mark - as a faction they became much much stronger. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all. I prefer power creep to faction killing nerfs. 

[Skreech Verminking]

30 minutes ago, NurglesFirstChosen said:

Which way did they become weaker? Also when you compare that in relation to how they improved, did the faction really become weaker?? Sounds well off the mark - as a faction they became much much stronger. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all. I prefer power creep to faction killing nerfs. 

Well they got a bit weaker in putting out mortal wounds (mostly plague monks), and have lost a bunch of rerolls for the wounding.

A pestilence only armie also lost the ability of taking any other Skaventide units as allies, meaning that weapon teams etc. Can’t be taken in such an armie (of course their are some exceptions where for example every Skaventide armie can take a Masterclan hero as the general without loosing their battleline.

but where pestilens got stronger is in dealing damage in total. Thanks to strength in number, Plague monks can now hit and wound their target on 3s and 3s (as long as they have 30or more models). Their knife got a change too meaning that you can reroll Hit roles and not just failed hit roles, which is great because it means we can literally choose what we want to be rerolled.

so all in all I would probably say that pestilence has well kept its strength in the game.

sadly your only really got unit’s a re the plague monks, meaning that somebody wanting to play pure pestilence on a tournament while wanting to have the highest change of winning is to go more or less out on plague monks.

But then again it wasn’t different before we had the book so yeah nothing really changed too much

ps: this is just my oppinion, like I sayed they technically got stronger in some sections and weaker in others.

 

[NurglesFirstChosen]

5 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Well they got a bit weaker in putting out mortal wounds (mostly plague monks), and have lost a bunch of rerolls for the wounding.

A pestilence only armie also lost the ability of taking any other Skaventide units as allies, meaning that weapon teams etc. Can’t be taken in such an armie (of course their are some exceptions where for example every Skaventide armie can take a Masterclan hero as the general without loosing their battleline.

but where pestilens got stronger is in dealing damage in total. Thanks to strength in number, Plague monks can now hit and wound their target on 3s and 3s (as long as they have 30or more models). Their knife got a change too meaning that you can reroll Hit roles and not just failed hit roles, which is great because it means we can literally choose what we want to be rerolled.

so all in all I would probably say that pestilence has well kept its strength in the game.

sadly your only really got unit’s a re the plague monks, meaning that somebody wanting to play pure pestilence on a tournament while wanting to have the highest change of winning is to go more or less out on plague monks.

But then again it wasn’t different before we had the book so yeah nothing really changed too much

ps: this is just my oppinion, like I sayed they technically got stronger in some sections and weaker in others.

 

So weakness is losing mw output, can’t take weapon teams, and rolling wound buffs. Strength is they can now easily inflict 100 wounds in a single combat (in one combat I took more than this number). I’d say that it’s safe to say on the whole they became stronger. 

Also if your unit variation/ally list is the issue - just go mixed skaven and you have more unit choices than a lot of factions. 

[Skreech Verminking]

24 minutes ago, NurglesFirstChosen said:

So weakness is losing mw output, can’t take weapon teams, and rolling wound buffs. Strength is they can now easily inflict 100 wounds in a single combat (in one combat I took more than this number). I’d say that it’s safe to say on the whole they became stronger. 

Well I think your misunderstanding me

I only said that there are a few areas where they got a bit weaker.

I never really said (or believe I haven’t said anything) of them beeing weak or weaker than before.

They are strong, and can definitely hold themselves against many army’s.

Hey the plague monks even got a 6+ save now, finally able to at least survive 1/6 of the time as long as the rend is zero.

[NurglesFirstChosen]

2 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Well I think your misunderstanding me

I only said that there are a few areas where they got a bit weaker.

I never really said (or believe I haven’t said anything) of them beeing weak or weaker than before.

They are strong, and can definitely hold themselves against many army’s.

Hey the plague monks even got a 6+ save now, finally able to at least survive 1/6 of the time as long as the rend is zero.

Yeah sorry I was more responding to the original post that implied that on the whole they’re weaker  

[The World Tree]

9 hours ago, Karragon said:

I cannot disagree with you strongly enough on the Evocators. Foot evocators are overcosted not undercosted. You get 1 turn of usefulness out of them then they're either dead or too far out of position to be useful any more. People are so fixated on the number of mortal wounds they can do they don't think about their lack of survivabilty and mobility or the fact you can get the same amount of destruction for less points elsewhere. I'd rather have 20 sequitors for the same price, they'll do as much killing and are far less likely to die. I've found much more success now I don't run them any more.

Gav should be limited to 1 use of his CA or better yet changed to a bubble of reroll charges imo.

You are right about Evocators. THere is a huge disparity in perspective between users and opponents of them. THe only thing I'd change with them is make the mortal wounds a weapon type so it uses the normal attack procedure rather than being an ability. Still 2 rolls and a 4+ = a mortal wound, but now you'd have to decide where those attacks go before rolling the normal attacks. It feels too precise at the moment for electric shocks.

 

Gav's command ability should just be done in the hero phase, not the charge phase. Boom. Fixed.

[Requizen]

2 minutes ago, The World Tree said:

Gav's command ability should just be done in the hero phase, not the charge phase. Boom. Fixed.

It used to be done in the Hero Phase and was complete garbage that nobody used. Granted there was no stacking then, but the fact that you had to be on the board to use it made it pointless for an alpha strike. It was basically only usable in edge cases where you would drop in close to where he was on the board, which is a pretty unreliable setup. If they changed it back to that, you'd never see him again, much like every other Named Stormcast Hero.

The only change that needs to be made is to not let it stack. +3" with a reroll is about the right setup for an alpha that I think would cause much less frustration than automatic charges.

[Ratcliff]

14 hours ago, NurglesFirstChosen said:

Which way did they become weaker? Also when you compare that in relation to how they improved, did the faction really become weaker?? Sounds well off the mark - as a faction they became much much stronger. 

Not that there’s anything wrong with that at all. I prefer power creep to faction killing nerfs. 

 

 

A couple of things. I still think they're very good, but they have been weakened in a few ways. The removal of wither and rabid frenzy is huge, and the replacement prayer for the Plague Priest means he's pretty much unusable in a competitive setting. He's a frail priest who offers no buffs or force multipliers to the rest of the army.

The Plagueclaws are as overpriced and ineffective as they have ever been. So Pestilens, in effect, have 3 usable units and they have no ally options among Skaven anymore, limiting them further.

Of the 3 good units, it was good to see the Corruptor get individually tougher, and his spell is incredible. But his command ability is useless to most Monk armies and he's still ****** in combat.

The Furnace became bonkers overnight, no complaint there (though movement is a pain)

Plague Monks became weaker. Blobs of 40 are still really good, but minned out units are ineffective now, so our hard hitting screens have taken a hit.

With gnawholes and endless spells,(and Warpseer general) there are still very good lists there, but a lot of the synergy is gone, and list options are very limited. We're a one trick pony that will get hockeyed by mixed Skaven. I think all the mono clans have endured something similar tbh

[Neffelo]

On 3/21/2019 at 3:22 AM, Karragon said:

I cannot disagree with you strongly enough on the Evocators. Foot evocators are overcosted not undercosted. You get 1 turn of usefulness out of them then they're either dead or too far out of position to be useful any more. People are so fixated on the number of mortal wounds they can do they don't think about their lack of survivabilty and mobility or the fact you can get the same amount of destruction for less points elsewhere. I'd rather have 20 sequitors for the same price, they'll do as much killing and are far less likely to die. I've found much more success now I don't run them any more.

Gav should be limited to 1 use of his CA or better yet changed to a bubble of reroll charges imo.

I have to agree with you, and I am hoping we do not see Sequitors and Foot Evocators nerfed with the new GHB. They were very scary at their initial release, but we are long past that at this point. 

I hope we see a lot of point drops in the GHB for SCE. So many cool units are just so lackluster at their current points cost. 

[King Taloren]

BYeah. Sequitors are kind of the main problem but only because they should have lowered points on Judicators and Liberators to make them slightly more viable, it was also the crazy number of abilities they got piled on with and almost stupid crazy survivability. Evocators can die fast when focused down. Sequitors take a lot more work and serious rend to do even the same amount of damage you can deal to a unit of Evocators. If you don’t have the mortal wound generators to wipe hem out.