So what about DoK and Legions?

[King Taloren]

3 hours ago, ledha said:

Oh, and decrease the general resilience of the army, because a 5++ reroll is absolutely dumb, sorry. The problem of DOK isn't that they hit basically harder than anyone else while being super mobile, it's that the cheap cost combined with a mountain of defensive buffs make them way too resilient for what is supposed to be a glass canon.

That 5++ save is only within 7” of the Hag Naar General. It is the command trait you are “taxed” with when you choose that temple. The reroll is a prayer that can only be done once a turn on a single unit and goes off on a 3+ unless you take an artifact, or if your game is getting into turn 5 you can reroll 1s on your save roll.

Quit hyping something you don’t actually know. If your opponent is claiming different ask to see the Battletome cause you are getting cheated if someone is telling you different.

The real resilience of Witches is the battlebrew that stops battleshock tests. And that is only with a Hag Queen that is within 3” of the troops. 

[DantePQ]

Yep, it's not so easy as it looks. Keeping your units within really short ranges(3'', 7'') is quite hard to maximize it. I do agree that Hags and Witches are too cheap, but 100-120 for Hags and 120/300 for Witches is enough. Also there is only one possible General (Slaughter Queen) who has any kind of command ability. Hags and Witches are just too cheap and that's all - also DoK has quite bad match-up against LoN. 

[NurglesFirstChosen]

5 hours ago, ledha said:

Honestly, it's not even that hard to rebelance the DOK battltome. Put the Hag Queen at 140 pts (even at 120 she is better than any 120 pts hero), put all the "within" ranges in wholly within, up the cost of units like wytches aelves/blood sister of 20/10% and it's more or less done. Oh, and decrease the general resilience of the army, because a 5++ reroll is absolutely dumb, sorry. The problem of DOK isn't that they hit basically harder than anyone else while being super mobile, it's that the cheap cost combined with a mountain of defensive buffs make them way too resilient for what is supposed to be a glass canon.

Fighting a 2000 pts army of DOK always feel like fighting a 2500 pts because they have so many units on the board and each of their unit can more or less destroy 2 or 3 of yours, depending of how powerful your battletome is.

There’s so much misinformation running through this post sorry. 

They don’t hit harder than everything else. Plague monks are probably the hardest hitting unit in the game right now. Plus you have other seriously good hammers such as gristlegore, evocators, skullcrushers and enlightened on discs. Not to mention some bloodthirster builds that can put out an incredible amount of damage output. 

In regards to their durability, the 5++ is a single unit. The rest of the army can crumble if you screen and choose your targets effectively. 

[ledha]

Keeping big units within 7" of potentially a very big base such an altar (and saying this command trait is a "tax" is hilarious) is everything but hard. It's a bit harder to stay within 3" of a hag queen, but that's all (and every DOK player do it with ease). I didn't even talked of the 18" improved version of staunch defenders the DOK have access too.

Within, even a 0,1" within, offer an way too god

As for the others comparison... most of them a FEC gristelgore is one of the best and most damaging build of what is considered here and there as one of the best battletome right now, plague monks die in droves as soon as you watch them, evocators and enlighetened are some of the best unit of the game in point/cost efficiency (to the point of being considered broken by many people), the new skullcrusher don't have a third of the impact nor the mobility of wytch aelves, and the bloodthirsters (who are extremely fragile) were/are the most succesfull competitive khorne build.

The existence of others extremely strongs units (o be polite)  doesn't make the wytches aleves/hag queen/DOK less strong.

And yeah, maybe DOK have some bad match-ups against LON, guess what, everyone else does.

[AaronWilson]

It's much easier to make tomes that are on par with the most powerful stuff in the current meta then it is to nerf current ones

[DantePQ]

21 minutes ago, ledha said:

Keeping big units within 7" of a very big base such an altar (and saying this command trait is a "tax" is hilarious) is everything but hard. It's a bit harder to stay within 3" of a hag queen, but that's all (and every DOK player do it with ease). I didn't even talked of the 18" improved version of staunch defenders the DOK have access too.

As for the others comparison... FEC gristelgore is one of the best and most damaging build of what is considered here and there as one of the best battletome right now, plague monks die in droves as soon as you watch them, evocators and enlighetened are some of the best unit of the game in point/cost efficiency (to the point of being considered broken by many people), the new skullcrusher don't have a third of the impact nor the mobility of wytch aelves, and the bloodthirsters are extremely fragile. 

You can't control objectives being all the time within 7'' of an altar - and yes it's a tax as you can't choose other Command Trait so it's not like you got this ability for "free" .You clearly haven't played much with them- It's not that easy to keep units within 7'' or 3''. Bloodshield is wholly within 18'' (and yes you still can't keep it on two units guarding objectives). You can't guard objectiv and attack with another units as well - you won't be within 7'' of General. Also Cauldron Movement is 6'' (and it's when it's not damaged) so f you want to advance with run&charge you won't be in range of those ablities. Also Witches have extra attacks when they are withing 7'' of a hero. 

So you won't be able to use superior mobility (run and charge) along with Bloodshield and 5++. And then you got to keep your units within 3'' and 7'' of a hero to get extra attacks(and that hero is 5W wihtout any serious save in majority of cases) . I've played like 150+ competitive games with DoK and clearly you don't know what you're talking about unless you're playing only battleplanes like Knife to the Heart. People just tend to play badly against DoK  and then complain about how crazy overpowered they are - but to make them really work you got to think about every movement and positioning. not only of your units but heros, general, enemy threats to heroes etc its easier said then done considering some battleplans. In comparison Evocators, Enlighted, Gristelgore do not need to keep any ranges as they are crazy good on their own. 

Sure Hags should be 100-120 and Witches 120/300 but people tend to overeact about them mainly because they don't now how to exploit their weaknesses. 

[King Taloren]

Well you said they needed a tax, by being forced to take a command or artifact and I simply pointed out that this was exactly what you said they needed to be. I even used the quotation marks cause it isn’t really but that is how it is RAW in the book. 

It’s an 18” wholly within staunch defender that gives witches a 5+Save or a 4+ if they took bucklers. And 4+ for snakes. If you damage the cauldron the range starts to drop pretty significantly. It’s bigger than Leviadon’s cover Abilty but a 4+or 5+ Save doesn’t mean much if you have rend. Even then just throw more Dakka at the witches or units  who can’t reroll the 5++ and they will fold pretty fast. Learn to prioritize your targets. That save goes away once the cauldron dies. The reroll can only be on one unit at a time. Hit the soft spots. Don’t punch a wall and complain that you broke your fist cause the wall was too hard.

[SwampHeart]

I think a major part of the issue with both LoN and DoK is they create some serious NPE (FEC and Skaven are likely to as well). I do think both armies are a little too good right now, but I think most of that can be fixed with a few tweaks (points increase to Hags and change their buff to wholly within for example). But I think the thing you have to look at  (and this could could apply to the power creep thread as well) is how do these armies feel to play against. I'm a long time BoC player who does have success against many different armies. But I know when I first got involved with AoS (right around the start of 2.0) playing against either of those two armies always felt frustrating, and honestly it still does. Do I know how to manage grave sites and how to work around DoK buffs? Yes I do. Is it a fun game experience? No it really isn't. That said I don't think the correct or fair answer is to punish those armies because they aren't fun to play against - I just hope GW can look at those armies and make adjustments for the future to make armies more engaging to play with. 

TL;DR - Balance is different from play experience. DoK and LoN aren't fun to play against - GW shouldn't nerf the armies because of that but should instead use them as learning points to make strong armies that are fun to play against. 

[The World Tree]

55 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

I think a major part of the issue with both LoN and DoK is they create some serious NPE (FEC and Skaven are likely to as well). I do think both armies are a little too good right now, but I think most of that can be fixed with a few tweaks (points increase to Hags and change their buff to wholly within for example). But I think the thing you have to look at  (and this could could apply to the power creep thread as well) is how do these armies feel to play against. I'm a long time BoC player who does have success against many different armies. But I know when I first got involved with AoS (right around the start of 2.0) playing against either of those two armies always felt frustrating, and honestly it still does. Do I know how to manage grave sites and how to work around DoK buffs? Yes I do. Is it a fun game experience? No it really isn't. That said I don't think the correct or fair answer is to punish those armies because they aren't fun to play against - I just hope GW can look at those armies and make adjustments for the future to make armies more engaging to play with. 

 TL;DR - Balance is different from play experience. DoK and LoN aren't fun to play against - GW shouldn't nerf the armies because of that but should instead use them as learning points to make strong armies that are fun to play against. 

 

100% agreed and I think it should go further. By focusing on internal balance within factions, they can make sure that players don't have negative play experiences with their favourite units. For example, I love my painted Lord-Exorcist but the lad is terrible. I've lovingly painted him and brought him along but he does nothing. It is frustrating to hinder myself by bringing the units I love. Sylvaneth are a good example of this - pretty much every unit has a use (except a treelord, but Durthu/Ancients are just treemen with more). Not every unit is equally powerful but they can all work in a Sylvaneth army. 

 

One of the biggest advantages AOS has is that the units are on the app. This should allow more hotfixing of unit rules. Something theyve been reluctant to do.

[Forrix]

With Daughters of Khaine I feel like the issue is 60 point Hag-Queens and the Hag-Nar buffs to their save after the save. When you combo them you get a super strong blender unit that makes fun of Nurgle for being squishy.

Legions of Nagash is a more complicated problem. Nagash himself can basically shut down an opponents magic phase regardless of what they invested in it (though I feel there is real magic powercreep that is counteracting this) while spewing out enough debuffs to shut down entire armies.

The other big issue is the undying legions command trait combined with deathly invocations and the toughness of Nagash. Skeleton Warriors, Grave Guard, and most infamously Grimghast Reapers are very strong units that are effectively invincible as long as the general is alive. You can't wipe them out because they'll be back at the cost of 1 command point and you can't whittle them down since deathly invocations will raise anywhere from 2 to 5d3 models (in my experience and depending on their army build of course). Good luck holding objectives against an immortal block of 30 grimghast reapers. Also if Nagash is in play the whole army is immune to battleshock just to put a cherry on top of it all.

So your only option is to go hero hunting, especially general hunting. Only the general is Nagash, a 9 inch flying move, 16 wound, 3+ save, 4+ mortal wound save, 6+ save after the save, 6 +3 unbinds, self healing monster. Who is probably being screened by a block of one of the aforementioned invincible units.  So the only realistic way to kill him is with a large volume of high rend shooting which a lot of armies currently lack.

Obviously Nagash is a big issue but I think the real problem is the undying legions command trait. Limiting how much you could rez with it and/or limiting the strength of the units it brings back (though nerfing Grimghast might make them unusable in Nighthaunt which would be ridiculous) would break the combo. Nagash isn't as big a deal by himself since he wouldn't be able to hold objective points very well (in most scenarios) and would be vulnerable to getting charged by a bunch of high rend melee guys who are far more common than high rend shooting.

[InSaint]

No one has yet to mention how undercosted Khinerai Heartrenders are. I play them regularly and realised the strategic value they bring to the table is wayyyy above 80pts.

Reliable shooting, insane mobility with deepstrike. Puts pressure on the opponent and baits them into making poor decisions.

It is not difficult getting back the value on 80pts. Just pop them on turn 2/3 behind enemy lines and watch your opponent panic. Sandwiched between 30 Witches and 10-20 Khinerais is a rather scary situation. 

They won me so many games.

[Mutton]

39 minutes ago, InSaint said:

No one has yet to mention how undercosted Khinerai Heartrenders are. I play them regularly and realised the strategic value they bring to the table is wayyyy above 80pts.

Reliable shooting, insane mobility with deepstrike. Puts pressure on the opponent and baits them into making poor decisions.

It is not difficult getting back the value on 80pts. Just pop them on turn 2/3 behind enemy lines and watch your opponent panic. Sandwiched between 30 Witches and 10-20 Khinerais is a rather scary situation. 

They won me so many games.

I think they're exactly worth their points. Five models with a single wound each, 6++ save, poor combat stats. Their redeeming qualities are their deep strike and the -2 rend on the drop. I'll tell you that every game I've played, they drop in, grab an objective for one turn, maybe do a couple wounds, then get blasted out of the sky. It's actually a poor proposition getting a 5 wound unit for 80 points, but they have that mobility to make them useful. I wouldn't change them, they're fine the way they are, and I'd argue they aren't any better than other factions' units capable of teleporting around the field. Take a look at the prevalence of shooting as it makes a comeback. They get mowed down. They're good, but not amazing.

I'd agree with several of the posters above in saying DoK's main (commonly complained about) issues revolve around an undercosted Hag and Hagg Nar being unquestionably the best temple.

[AverageBoss]

People using the tournament data as a rallying point for nerfing Legion are flawed, because the data itself is flawed. Something that is being forgotten with the data is that Legions is not 1 army, it is 4 separate armies, each with their own unique army rules, artifacts, command traits, and characters. They also each perform different in the tournament scene. Legion of Night tends to run mid tier on the best days, and Legion of Blood are practically nonexistent at the competitive level.

And Grimghasts are not the problem on their own. If they were all 4 Legions would be doing fantastic, and Nighthaunt would be running away with everything having them as battleline. Rather it is the overall package of Grimghasts, realmspells, Nagash/Arkhan, and the Grand Host/Sacrament rules. Meanwhile, almost everything else all the Legions armies have access to (outside Dire Wolves, basic Skeletons, Vampire Lords, Necromancers, and Chainrasps) are middling or situational units at best. Death as a whole is honestly a mess of internal balance, with some units appearing across (and getting different mileage in) 6 different allegiances. And this just further encourages spam, despite the large selection of units.

[DantePQ]

3 hours ago, InSaint said:

No one has yet to mention how undercosted Khinerai Heartrenders are. I play them regularly and realised the strategic value they bring to the table is wayyyy above 80pts.

Reliable shooting, insane mobility with deepstrike. Puts pressure on the opponent and baits them into making poor decisions.

It is not difficult getting back the value on 80pts. Just pop them on turn 2/3 behind enemy lines and watch your opponent panic. Sandwiched between 30 Witches and 10-20 Khinerais is a rather scary situation. 

They won me so many games.

What ? Against some armies they are quite bad. Any good player won't panic because 10 Heartrenders (in two units I imagine so )are behind his lines. They die crazy fast to anything. There are no builds with more then 10 Heartrenders and unless you're playing Slaughte Troupe rarely anybody runs more then  one unit of 5. 

[Luzgurbel]

It's amazing how some people see the DoK maybe as weak as IJ or Fyreslayers xdd

 

If they are that weak, why are always hogging the top at almost any tourney they show up? Obviously, they are not unbeatable and yes, they have bad match ups. But stop saying "you have to do this and you have to pay that tax" because, though IT'S TRUE, is not that difficult. It's not difficult and is not a tax at all. The army is strong, with powerful combos, high damage output, good movement and quite easy to use. That's the reality, exactly as the LoN.

[King Taloren]

No one is saying DoK is weak but they are very fragile. 5+ Ignore wound can only carry so far.

But they are powerful glass cannons that are very good at running up the table quickly and hitting things like a tornado of glass. If they can’t get a bunch of kills in the first bit of combat to neuter their opponent it can seriously disable them if placement is bad in later turns.

[Luzgurbel]

Do you realize that the *5+ ignores ANY wound? And also, ignores rend. I mean, i play IJ (amongst other armies), and I play a 4+ armour save for all my models, which is quite good. But then, the mw spam appears and I can do NOTHING against that, and the -1 rend makes my armour a bit useless (and the -1 rend is quite common right now).

 

I know IJ are really old-fashioned, but my other armies have the same issue: no protection against mw spam as DoK army has.

 

* I know it's only Hagg Nar. I know it's only 7" within the general. But that is not a problem when Hagg is the best temple and your general has a HUGE base (hello Shrine).

[Rollcage]

Buffing and nerfing armies excessively will ruin the entire hobby for everyone in short order.

Just look at the responses to the recent Blades of Khorne changes, they change unit war scrolls and entire sections of the battle tome. This has the effect of ruining the enjoyment of a portion of the existing players because the models and armies they purchased no longer perform the functions they originally intended. The other side effect is that it rarely if ever attracts new players to an army, so the loss of players is higher than any perceived gains of players. 

I've seen this impact communities in many online video game categories, I will drop playing this hobby faster than hot lead if they start doing obsessive "balance" changes to existing battle tomes. Points cost adjustments are generally effective and minimal impact on the players, but Rules changes and war scroll changes are definitively dangerous and I know it ends in disaster within a few years. 

The recent battle tomes are already shifting the balance of power massively without any changes required of existing armies. Skaven and Flesh eater courts topping the recent tournament scene in Australia and this will filter to other tournaments easily around the world. No need to nerf legions of nagash or daughters of khaine and ruin the armies of those players in the process. 

EDIT: Perfect examples of this competitive "balance" improving the game for everyone is what happened to Disciples of Tzeentch and Kharadron Overlords. Reduced power of war scrolls and drastic increasing in points costs mixed with introducing new Army Battletomes. These armies representation fell of a cliff. 

[King Taloren]

Heck even before KO Beastclaw Stonehorns got wrecked just as badly and killed the faction as hard. All it was was a simple change of words.

 

A 5+ still doesn’t make the army a wall especially when base save is a 6+, any rend and it’s straight up to the 5+ if in range. 

 nighthaunt have unrendable saves on 4+ with a 6+ after big within 9” of any hero boy just the general.  Nearly same level of survival against regular attacks.

IJ has more than 1 wound per model and if you take a shield you have a 6++. As well as rend on units built in. DoK only get rend by deepstriking or a spell.

[Sartxac]

22 hours ago, Forrix said:

 

The other big issue is the undying legions command trait combined with deathly invocations and the toughness of Nagash. Skeleton Warriors, Grave Guard, and most infamously Grimghast Reapers

Grave guard is a poor unit in any army except (a bit) Grand host of Nagash. 30 Gg cost 420 points and do two melee attacks. They need a cp point for do 3 attacks and commander with lord of narghizzar for 1 extra melle attack. 4 attacts by turn of big cost.

Skeleton are good and Grimghast Reapers overpowered ok. For this, i don't use Reapers.

In any game i can't revive a entire unit of 40 skeletons or 30 gg (not even half), they need appear to 9" tomb and 9" or more of a enemy unit. If you has any unit 9" into a tomb i can't use well the cp that only can use the general of the army.

[Forrix]

14 hours ago, Rollcage said:

EDIT: Perfect examples of this competitive "balance" improving the game for everyone is what happened to Disciples of Tzeentch and Kharadron Overlords. Reduced power of war scrolls and drastic increasing in points costs mixed with introducing new Army Battletomes. These armies representation fell of a cliff. 

I generally agree with this and think its why GW had such a restrained Big FAQ back in September. Though I'll point out in the case of KO they really tanked the army's competiveness down to abyssal levels (some skew builds still do okay as shown at Cancon though)  with the Thunderers warscroll change fundamentally changing how people built the unit (the special weapons going from crazy good to absolutely worthless) in a game with a high emphasis on WYSIWYG. Tzeentch though I feel is still okay power level wise.  A part of me takes bitter amusement though in all players who played Tzeentch "Because they liked the lore and aesthetics and the power level is just a coincidence" who jumped ship as soon as the army got nerfed to mid-tier.   

14 hours ago, King Taloren said:

No one is saying DoK is weak but they are very fragile. 5+ Ignore wound can only carry so far. 

But they are powerful glass cannons that are very good at running up the table quickly and hitting things like a tornado of glass. If they can’t get a bunch of kills in the first bit of combat to neuter their opponent it can seriously disable them if placement is bad in later turns.

Ironically people will point towards Nurgle's easy access to 5+ Ignore wound as justification for the army's poor damage output and generally slow speed.

[Requizen]

16 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

People using the tournament data as a rallying point for nerfing Legion are flawed, because the data itself is flawed. Something that is being forgotten with the data is that Legions is not 1 army, it is 4 separate armies, each with their own unique army rules, artifacts, command traits, and characters. They also each perform different in the tournament scene. Legion of Night tends to run mid tier on the best days, and Legion of Blood are practically nonexistent at the competitive level.

And Grimghasts are not the problem on their own. If they were all 4 Legions would be doing fantastic, and Nighthaunt would be running away with everything having them as battleline. Rather it is the overall package of Grimghasts, realmspells, Nagash/Arkhan, and the Grand Host/Sacrament rules. Meanwhile, almost everything else all the Legions armies have access to (outside Dire Wolves, basic Skeletons, Vampire Lords, Necromancers, and Chainrasps) are middling or situational units at best. Death as a whole is honestly a mess of internal balance, with some units appearing across (and getting different mileage in) 6 different allegiances. And this just further encourages spam, despite the large selection of units.

There's nothing particularly powerful or broken about the 4 sub-Allegiances, that's why no one is talking about it. The issue is with Nagash (or potentially Ethereal VLoZD) + Grimghast + blob unit.  When you have the duality of a very hard to kill, killy unit, and a very hard to kill, buffy (and fairly killy) Hero, it's very frustrating to play against and for many armies, is impossible or relies on heavy luck. Either you commit everything to try to kill the Hero, and if you fail the game is basically over, or you commit and try to clear the unit out, and they either bring it back or you fail and they restore a bunch of models anyways. 

Returning units is a very interesting mechanic, but it only feels balanced when the units are mediocre combat units. If you're going to have a brutal combat unit like Grimghast in LoN, it can't also be unkillable. Or if they truly want that to be a thing, then the General can't also be so hard to take down that it's nigh impossible for many armies. The synergy between the two units is what takes it over the top.

At least, that's my take on it.

1 minute ago, Forrix said:

Ironically people will point towards Nurgle's easy access to 5+ Ignore wound as justification for the army's poor damage output and generally slow speed.

Well I generally agree, but Nurgle is way far from slow now with Wheel + Bell + Trees. They're faster than some cavalry armies. 

But Nurgle's durability also comes from multitudes of buffs/debuffs, returning models to units with Daemon banners, certain units having healing, etc. DoK have one aspect of that, and it makes them more durable than most other "horde" armies, but they're far from Nurgle defense with all the other tools.

[PJetski]

I think @AverageBoss hit the nail on the head. There is more to balancing the game than a small sample size of heavily biased data. Don't fall into the trap of believing that collected data is the same thing as a fact. 

Many factions seem incredibly powerful at first but once you learn the weaknesses of their gimmicks and how to exploit them then you realize they're just good factions and not overpowered. People thought the same thing about Sylvaneth (OMG 2+ saves and free spawn trees!?) and Stormcast (OMG you can deep strike your army directly into melee?!?) but neither of those armies are overpowered because they have distinct weaknesses and their strengths have limitations that can be played around.

There are a few outliers that need surgical fixes (Witch Elves and Hags need a small point increase, and Grimghast Reapers should be Allies for LON instead of a regular unit) but DOK and LON have never been overpowered - they are just strong factions with a powerful gimmick that became popular with tournament players partly because they were new & exciting releases and partly because they were among the first factions to get modern era battletomes.

 

[Requizen]

4 minutes ago, PJetski said:

I think @AverageBoss hit the nail on the head. There is more to balancing the game than a small sample size of heavily biased data. Don't fall into the trap of believing that collected data is the same thing as a fact. 

Many factions seem incredibly powerful at first but once you learn the weaknesses of their gimmicks and how to exploit them then you realize they're just good factions and not overpowered. People thought the same thing about Sylvaneth (OMG 2+ saves and free spawn trees!?) and Stormcast (OMG you can deep strike your army directly into melee?!?) but neither of those armies are overpowered because they have distinct weaknesses and their strengths have limitations that can be played around.

There are a few outliers that need surgical fixes (Witch Elves and Hags need a small point increase, and Grimghast Reapers should be Allies for LON instead of a regular unit) but DOK and LON have never been overpowered - they are just strong factions with a powerful gimmick that became popular with tournament players partly because they were new & exciting releases and partly because they were among the first factions to get modern era battletomes.

 

Like many things in this hobby, there's no hard definitions for some of these terms and everyone perceives them a bit differently. 

For some people, a "strong" or "overpowered" army means that it has at least one build that is really powerful. For others, it means the whole book is really strong and you can basically build anything out of it and go 5-0. 

How many builds have to be "top table viable" for a book to be considered OP? Or is it enough to have multiple 4-1 reliable builds and at least one 5-0 reliable build? Do the lists have to be as oppressive as Nagash + Grimghasts, or can they just be straight powerful but well rounded? 

I lean more towards the reading that a Faction is as strong as its strongest build. But then again, I'm a faction collector - I get basically every Stormcast unit that comes out so I can hop between builds. It's probably different for people that just buy a single 2000 point army for a faction only to find out that the units aren't "in the meta", so it's completely subjective.

[Ravinsild]

4 hours ago, Forrix said:

I generally agree with this and think its why GW had such a restrained Big FAQ back in September. Though I'll point out in the case of KO they really tanked the army's competiveness down to abyssal levels (some skew builds still do okay as shown at Cancon though)  with the Thunderers warscroll change fundamentally changing how people built the unit (the special weapons going from crazy good to absolutely worthless) in a game with a high emphasis on WYSIWYG. Tzeentch though I feel is still okay power level wise.  A part of me takes bitter amusement though in all players who played Tzeentch "Because they liked the lore and aesthetics and the power level is just a coincidence" who jumped ship as soon as the army got nerfed to mid-tier.   

Ironically people will point towards Nurgle's easy access to 5+ Ignore wound as justification for the army's poor damage output and generally slow speed.

Meanwhile I'm over here playing Ironjawz and Blades of Khorne because I like the lore and the aesthetic and I still don't think either armor is above mid tier 99% of the time except for a freak win at an event here and there at the top level.