The Big Community Survey 2019

[themortalgod]

16 minutes ago, Mayple said:

Yeah, that certainly tends to be the weakness of lists like that. Absolutely murders certain type of armies, while auto-loosing versus others by the one-sided nature of its construction. Beastclaw Raiders comes up as a fitting comparison to having that kind of problem, I think. 

I assume the Stormcast player is running the shooty Stormcast chamber with full assortment of ballistas and such. If you don't mind indulging me; what kind of things are his opponents bringing? Just the jist of it. Purely out of curiosity

Correct, and a max size unit of Raptors with Longstrike crossbows that get to shoot twice per turn. That unit shooting 4 times in a row tends to do the most damage. It is pretty common for them to pump out 40+ wounds on their own during a double turn. It is a 500pt unit but that is still a lot of damage coming from a unit with 30" range. He also sometimes allies in Drycha if he feels he is likely to face giant horde units. In our last game drycha killed about 60 models during the double turn herself.  (For those who don't know, she has a shooting attack where you roll a D6 for each model in an enemy unit within 10", every 3+ is a MW. 50% of the time, she gets to re-roll 1s for that). Thus on average, a 40 model unit turns into a 4 man unit from a single shooting phase from her.

I mainly play Slaanesh and Tomb Kings. 

When up against my Slaanesh, he knows how fast I can move and just deploys slightly out of my longest potential charge on turn 1. (which is usually well within range of his shooting). Thus the earliest I can threaten him is on my turn 2. He makes a point of sending MWs at my heroes to deny me depravity while the normal shooting attacks go into all my units which fold like paper. 

For Tomb Kings (I know they are pretty weak relatively speaking), he knows my only real threat that can quickly threaten him are necro knights so he just focuses them down first and then starts picking away at everything else which he knows will take at least a turn or two to get through his battleline which forms a nice chaffe line.

Now one weakness he has is that his drop count isn't super low. Unfortunately, though, neither of my armies have access to much in the way of battalions right now. I think the Slaanesh book will change a lot for me. That said, even when he is forced to go first, it isn't game breaking for him, he just doesn't get the opportunity to auto-win with a double turn.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 2019 by themortalgod

[Mayple]

@themortalgod Ouch! You'll feel that sting for sure, yeah

In an effort to avoid derailing the thread, I'll continue that particular conversation in a PM, as I have some additional thoughts and questions, but I think you're pretty on point with your assessment that you're.. eh, heavily on the backbone under the circumstance where he gets a single doubleturn//gets to decide the order of things. Not to say nothing can't be done, as there are always ways, but y'know, I agree with the difficulty. 

[Qaz]

12 minutes ago, themortalgod said:

Correct, and a max size unit of Raptors with Longstrike crossbows that get to shoot twice per turn. That unit shooting 4 times in a row tends to do the most damage. It is pretty common for them to pump out 40+ wounds on their own during a double turn. It is a 500pt unit but that is still a lot of damage coming from a unit with 30" range. He also sometimes allies in Drycha if he feels he is likely to face giant horde units. In our last game drycha killed 60 models during the double turn herself. 

Do you guys play realms or realm magics? 

[Vextol]

On 4/17/2019 at 10:51 PM, themortalgod said:

I played fantasy for 20 years. I never once felt that turn by turn was a problem. There were times I felt certain armies could alpha strike too powerfully but the solution to that was tuning the alpha strike, not introducing a mechanic that flips the problem in a much worse way. The double turn was the first time where I encountered games where I felt that I was losing (or in other cases winning) simply because of a priority roll which allowed one of the armies to blow their opponent off the board.

Unquestionably the #1 complaint I heard from every person I ever played with (for the considerable amount of time I also played fantasy) was that the player who went first had a huge advantage. 

In the situation where a 30 inch ranged unit is "blasting you to pieces" on a double turn, what would you be doing to survive that if they didn't have the double turn?  Hiding?  Buffing saves or getting heroes away?   Running toward them at full speed! 

That army you describe (longstrikes) is not uncommon.  It's a potent army because it's fast, hits hard and has enormous range.  It is however low on wounds and models and is expensive.  I've personally played against it a ton.  It was tricky to deal with at first, especially given the very natural "bubble" desire of AoS but I found it didn't matter how the turns went.  If my army couldn't handle it, that's all there was to it.  If you are worried about getting shot to death, take the endless wall spell.  It's usable by all!  Force them to be somewhere they don't want to be.

I think the double turn gets blamed for a lot of evils it's not responsible for.  Getting blasted to pieces by shooting (especially long range shooting) is an inevitability and your opponent pays a high price for that capacity.  For the longstrike double shoot they give up staunch defender.  That's a big sacrifice.   Double turn or no there are 5 rounds of being shot and you're almost certainly going to take 2 of them to the face.  Whether that happens turn 2 and 3 or 2 and 4, the problem isn't going away.

On 4/17/2019 at 11:40 PM, Qaz said:

Do you guys play realms or realm magics? 

We do!  Realms of beasts is really fun because I actually have a reason to use a carmine dragon 😁

Edit: Removed nonsense.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Vextol

[Mayple]

3 minutes ago, Vextol said:

I find it interesting that the people advocating against the double turn are almost always in the camp "Roll for first turn initiative"  So...the double turn ruins everything so we should switch back to igougo go because it's way more fair but we really need to roll off for who goes first because its a really big deal to go first.......😵 Get your meta together!

Meh. Assumptious of you. I'm on either side of the first turn subject. Don't mind it as it is, wouldn't mind it as it could be. People are already breaking their back trying to be the one to decide who goes first, and I've always let them do just that. It's very punishable. They pay a price for that capability, they're showing their whole hand. Freeing up battalions from being so directly tied to that little arms race could be a good thing though, so I'm open to it. 

I trust you intend to respond to the previous conversation

[King Taloren]

So to pose an idea for people arguing about IGUG vs current vs alternate activation. 

What if I posed a different alternative to turn taking. Initiative alternating activations.

anyone who played  X-wing might know where I am about to go with this for a tldr.

Go back to initiative values, each  individual unit has a value that corresponds to how fast and easy to react to the changing battlefield  each unit is.

In the Hero phase the higher number goes first (representing the ability of the hero to react and get in the first spell or commands)  in case of potential ties players roll to see who goes first each turn.

Then in the movement phase with this all units starting with the lowest (slowest like common foot soldiers and hordes)  initiative and going up from there having each unit make their moves before starting the next rank. Letting the chaff make their initial blocking moves and positioning while the elite and heroes can react after seeing the changing battlefield progress.

Shooting and combat return to the High to Low initiative letting heroes and elite units get their combats I first as you would expect a quick and strong soldier to do.

I could see arising abilities that allow a unit to fight sooner or later from a hero ability or even switch places with a different unit when needed.

Edited April 18, 2019 by King Taloren

[Vextol]

On 4/18/2019 at 12:15 AM, Mayple said:

Meh....

...thing though, so I'm open to it.

I think the initiative system is the worst part of AoS.  Makes it really hard for me to evaluate my play sometimes because I can't tell if I did anything wrong.   I don't think the argument should be over which system is better.  Picking either one alone is the wrong decision. 

It's such an important part of the game there needs to be SOMETHING else involved.  A way to allow players to determine or alter turn order tactically/randomly and not purely randomly.   

I don't understand the previous conversation bit.  Sorry.  Must be a little daft 😲

Edit: Removed nonsense.

Edited April 23, 2019 by Vextol

[froo]

On 4/16/2019 at 8:55 AM, novakai said:

So what did people suggest for new Warhammer underworld warbands, I voted for Ogors or Seraphon

I said that they should dig into the edges of lore for things that sound like they could be cool but probably won't make a full release.

For example, Grotbag Scuttlers is a cool idea. Probably something they could explore in the underworlds first and see what the community reaction is. If it resonates, then you've made players pay you to give you feedback. If not, then hey - you've got an interesting game that is its own thing.

Similarly, I think that not every Underworlds warband needs to have AoS warscrolls. I think it's OK that they're their own thing sometimes.

[Mayple]

@King Taloren
I like it Might get a bit confusing if they throw too much complexity (exceptions to the rule and such) on top of it, but I wouldn't personally be opposed to it if they went for something like that. I originally thought Kill Team was going to work like that, and was a bit disappointed when it didn't, since I had hyped myself up for the kind of strategies it would require. I'm an absolute rookie at X-Wing though, so outside of a good vibe, I can't say I have much insight on how well it works in action.

Didn't 40k have a similar thing for a while, at least tied to their close combat? How did that work out? Did people like that? 

1 minute ago, Vextol said:

I wouldn't call it assumptions!  I'd at least give me presumptuous 😆

Touche!  Well played.

2 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Point is, I think the arguments again the double turn are weaker than the arguments against an Igougo.  Don't get me wrong, both of them are bad.  I think the initiative system is the worst part of AoS.  Makes it really hard for me to evaluate my play sometimes because I can't tell if I did anything wrong. 

It's such an important part of the game there needs to be SOMETHING else involved.  A way to get players to be able to determine or alter turn order tactically/randomly and not purely randomly.  

I don't understand the previous conversation bit .  Sorry.  Must be a little daft 😲

We agree on the overall state of it then. I'm also not very strongly opposed to doubleturns (I'm hardly a victim of it), but I see it as the worse option out of the two. In my eyes, it is negatively affecting the enjoyment people have in the game. Regardless, the addition of SOMETHING is probably something we both want, yes. 

I was reffering to the previous points I made (previous page), which was lacking for the need to know what shooting army you were reffering to when you spoke about shooting armies becoming stronger with the loss of doubleturns. Unless I misunderstood you, which you may correct Either way, to be overtly clear, I need to know what faction you had in mind, or if I misunderstood your statement, need to know that I misunderstood you.  

[King Taloren]

7 minutes ago, froo said:

Similarly, I think that not every Underworlds warband needs to have AoS warscrolls. I think it's OK that they're their own thing sometimes.

Well the main (only) reason is to try and pull people who play Shadespire into playing Sigmar, some people might find the $X00 buy in a little too daunting to start but a small game is easier to get involved in and if they like the models hey you can play skirmish with them! Want it play bigger well they work in the big games as well... Oh you have 2000 points now? Awesome welcome to the club!

[froo]

2 minutes ago, King Taloren said:

Well the main (only) reason is to try and pull people who play Shadespire into playing Sigmar, some people might find the $X00 buy in a little too daunting to start but a small game is easier to get involved in and if they like the models hey you can play skirmish with them! Want it play bigger well they work in the big games as well... Oh you have 2000 points now? Awesome welcome to the club!

Right but the limiting factor with warbands at the moment is that they're trying to tie them into an individual army. With the current design of many warbands being a representation of that army as a whole (eg Zarbags having a shaman, some shootas, a fanatic, some squigs and a netter) - eventually there is going to come a time where they're more or less recovering old ground once all armies are represented well in a way. It might be several years away, but that's going to be an oncoming issue.

Perhaps the solution is have these individual warbands as not being army specific. Perhaps tie them to one of the major 4 factions so that they can be utilised as allies and it would give GW more artistic freedom to explore the edge cases within their lore, create new lore and generally just make cool stuff.

[themortalgod]

41 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Unquestionably the #1 complaint I heard from every person I ever played with (for the considerable amount of time I also played fantasy) was that the player who went first had a huge advantage.   Different groups I suppose, though I wonder why they did away with it...🤔

It's why fantasy sports drafts don't go 123, 123 they go 123, 321.  Going first is a big deal.  Heck, we're locked on the "Double turn" part of the survey and totally skipping the "First finish goes first" part of the survey.  I find it interesting that the people advocating against the double turn are almost always in the camp "Roll for first turn initiative"  So...the double turn ruins everything so we should switch back to igougo go because it's way more fair but we really need to roll off for who goes first because its a really big deal to go first.......😵 Get your meta together!

In the situation where a 30 inch ranged unit is "blasting you to pieces" on a double turn, what would you be doing to survive that if they didn't have the double turn?  Hiding?  Buffing saves or getting heroes away?   Running toward them at full speed! 

That army you describe (longstrikes) is not uncommon.  It's a potent army because it's fast, hits hard and has enormous range.  It is however low on wounds and models and is expensive.  I've personally played against it a ton.  It was tricky to deal with at first, especially given the very natural "bubble" desire of AoS but I found it didn't matter how the turns went.  If my army couldn't handle it, that's all there was to it.  If you are worried about getting shot to death, take the endless wall spell.  It's usable by all!  Force them to be somewhere they don't want to be.

I think the double turn gets blamed for a lot of evils it's not responsible for.  Getting blasted to pieces by shooting (especially long range shooting) is an inevitability and your opponent pays a high price for that capacity.  For the longstrike double shoot they give up staunch defender.  That's a big sacrifice.   Double turn or no there are 5 rounds of being shot and you're almost certainly going to take 2 of them to the face.  Whether that happens turn 2 and 3 or 2 and 4, the problem isn't going away.

We do!  Realms of beasts is really fun because I actually have a reason to use a carmine dragon 😁

Personally, I feel a lot more armies can deal with ~20 wounds -> opportunity to take action -> then if fail take another ~20 wounds than ones that have to take that ~40 wounds from a single unit with no chance to respond. Also, that loss of staunch defender is far more of a weakness when your opponent actually has units that reach your line.  

Even such though, power aside, even when the game doesn't go one-sided, I still don't enjoy not really taking part in the game for two turns in a row so even best case where the double turn isn't adversely impacting game balance it is still leading to a negative play experience.

Edited April 18, 2019 by themortalgod

[King Taloren]

12 minutes ago, Mayple said:

Didn't 40k have a similar thing for a while, at least tied to their close combat? How did that work out? Did people like that? 

There was something like it back in 5th and I think 6th edition. Initiative was a value that was used exclusively for the combat phase, excluding units that charged it was how you determined who went first in combats. Eldar were very fast at 6 or even 8-9 on certain heroes, marines were 4-5, necrons  were 2,   and then you had power fists and certain super heavy sluggish weapons fighting at initiative 1.

It went alright and made sense in places. Faster units should fight first and slower tankier ones fought second. 

The one big part of the mechanic was that it went into the old work of determining “sweeping advance”. If the enemy failed their morale check back then the whole unit “broke” and began to retreat. So you could attempt to rout them and roll against initiative values plus a d6. If you were higher you automatically destroyed the entire unit. That was before they went to the just lose models as difference in the leadership failure and your leadership. Which is quite better overall in that regard though I did like the older style fighting.

 

I would be very careful about messing with such a turn order if one was implemented, of course some artifacts, abilities  and spells would need to be adjusted. Would also mostly making it fairly limited about what could be done about altering the turn orders, like perhaps an ability that makes goblins fight 2 as though they were 6-7 instead of 4 for a combat round, rousing them into fury.

Edited April 18, 2019 by King Taloren

[RuneBrush]

+++ MOD HAT +++

We're doing a really good job on keeping this focused on the survey folks, but running very close to turning it into a "Double Turn" thread.  It sounds like you've all made it really clear on what you feelings are on the survey, which is going to have a much bigger impact than on here

*gentle nudge*

[Mayple]

On the topic of the survey; it was mentioned a few pages back that some of you were having some troubles with the final screen (myself included) - Does it mean the survey failed to send? Should I redo the whole thing? 

[Jator]

52 minutes ago, Mayple said:

On the topic of the survey; it was mentioned a few pages back that some of you were having some troubles with the final screen (myself included) - Does it mean the survey failed to send? Should I redo the whole thing? 

 Yep. Those who express that same problem in the FB page were told to please repeat the survey. Which I'm not really eager to do.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Jator

[TristanGray]

On 4/17/2019 at 5:21 AM, Thiagoma said:

I am a simple man, i see TK i give it a like.

I also am a simple man, this is how I discovered there’s a cap on reactions for a day. 

Really pleased to see how many other people love Tomb Kings as well! I love those newer kits and would love to see them back in production. 

I asked for Katophranes for Underworld as a reworking of Tomb Kings. Feel like with the lore they’ve developed they could slot into that story easily. 

[Skreech Verminking]

48 minutes ago, Jator said:

 Yep. Those who express that same problem in the FB page were told to please repeat the survey. Which I'm not really eager to do.

😳oh god no.

one more time

[Ravinsild]

I feel like hind sight is 20/20 and there were a lot of things I forgot to ask for. ONE THING I did ask for though was a general "get rid of resin". I know a LOT of death heroes are still resin, at the very least, and this is true for 40k as well. Khorne has a fair bit of resin models too (*cough* Lord of Khorne on Juggernaut, Valkyia, Aspiring Deathbringer of 1 variety, Skullmaster, etc...) and so for just literally every army to get a nice clean remake of important leaders in plastic. :shrug: 

[Mayple]

Hahaha... I did the survey all over again. 

Guess who got the same error again. Oh boy. Punish me more, Slaanesh. 

 

Edit: I think it triggers either by pressing the "I'm already signed up" option, or if you fail to press every single "OK" button along the way. Probably the latter, and it might just be tied to -one- of them, but that's the repeated pattern, so I figured it was worth a mention.

Edited April 18, 2019 by Mayple

[Belper]

16 hours ago, Qaz said:

Do you guys play realms or realm magics? 

So that the slaanesh player can get fecund quagmire and insta lose? Or so that the stormcast can get the 6" shooting restriction so it's completely pointless for him to even try? Which one we looking for here?

It's interesting that the realm of battle rules came up in the survey. I truly wonder what the numbers come out as, because as far as I can tell a large amount of NA players don't use the realmscape features or spells, though relics are pretty ubiquitos.

I hope the number is low enough that they rejigger the system. It could be fine if they got rid of the 'you brought x army? You lose' realmscape features and limit it to 2 extra spells per caster (the brb one and one realm spell. Having high cast number characters actually suddenly having a huge library of spells to choose from makes them crazy strong out of nowhere. With balewind small form morathi is worth that 520 without transforming. 

Edited April 18, 2019 by Belper

[Ravinsild]

4 minutes ago, Belper said:

So that the slaanesh player can get fecund quagmire and insta lose? Or so that the stormcast can get the 6" shooting restriction so it's completely pointless for him to even try? Which one we looking for here?

A simple no would suffice 👀

[Tropical Ghost General]

I don't understand this hatred for the double turn. Yes it sucks sometimes when you are on the receiving end but glorious when you are the one benefiting, it's that added random factor in. 

If you remove it to copy 40k, then it becomes which army can build a better low drop build. I know that my ghosts suck plums when going for low drop, I can't get the utility units needed in the list and the ghost battalions aren't very good, most of the heroes can't fit in them. So should I always be punished to always go 2nd for every round of every game because my army doesn't naturally fit into a low drop build. 

Sure you can argue that you remove the low drop system or have a seize like in 40k, but I play AoS because it's not 40k. Until they introduce a true alternate unit activation (which won't happen for a long time) removing the double turn would be the nail in the coffin to a lot of armies. 

Rant aside, I just asked for quicker fixes to obviously broken elements of the game, which tbf they are doing a lot more quickly than they used to. You can moan about unbalance or you can just get good. 

[Dead Scribe]

I don't understand this hatred for the double turn.

Its a combination of standing around for two turns in a row doing nothing, combined with the outcome of the game being way heavily dependent on the dice turn to see who goes next.  That there is a lot of hate for it indicates something... its a controversial mechanic that is not super popular.

[froo]

1 hour ago, Tropical Ghost General said:

If you remove it to copy 40k, then it becomes which army can build a better low drop build. 

I actually think that the low drop builds should only affect ties for first turn and that priority should be in effect from turn one.

That way, the armies that have less effective battalions aren't punished vs the people that take must-have battalions, and yet battalions still have an effect on the flow of the game.