Always Posts First

[Mephisto]

Hey y'all! 

It seems GW is REALLY excited about the Always Fights First or "Fights at the Start of Combat" mechanic these days. Seems each new army or new tease for an army needs it without any off-set for existing armies. If you're an old melee army, per IJ, you just gotta pray for an update or die in the meantime effortlessly to these new armies (guess what their massive update to IJ will be in the future? A bunch of AFF stuff I bet!) Isn't it great they're introducing this mechanic? How do you feel about it? 

[Thebiggesthat]

Its like putting hot sauce on everything. It sort of defeats the point if everything has it. 

Warhammer: Age of Nuance this is not. 

[Chikout]

Giving it to lots of armies is fine. It's just another element of design space that they opened up by seperating out the combat phase. 

It is also a way of representing high initiative units.

I agree that some old armies will suffer in comparison. Hopefully we will see most of the old armies updated this year. 

The only real problem is gristlegore which gets to go first twice. All the others can be dealt with to an extent. 

 

[Zanzou]

Age of Sigmar's growing pains particularly when it comes to "old" armies has been ridiculously rough.  Here we are  4 years later with numerous products on their shelves not having "full AoS" support yet.. But we are way better off than we were January of last year.  IMO updating their old stuff should have been priority number 1 from the get go but we may be seeing things start to change.

[King Taloren]

Fight first is not that rampant... There is one faction that gets it for all units on battle-round 3 (or 2 with a Tidecaster General but then you are losing out on part of the high damage and unable to run eel battleline.) 

All other factions have most of the time a single model or unit that can fight first, and most of them are restricted to the general. Slaanesh might be the only other exception.

[InSaint]

ASF may help to tip the scales against horde armies with the current alternative combat activation. This resolves the problem of only wanting to charge only 1 unit into close combat.

For example, if you are facing a large blob of 30+ whatever that is acting as a meat shield, there is little benefit of charging 2 or more units unless you can hit different targets which is difficult. Any decent player will likely bubble wrap  all their fragile units and if possible, still keep them in/out of 3" of the wrap according to their strategy. There will be nobody else to charge except the huge blob. You activate the 1st unit and unless you have an ultra-hard hitting unit, your opponent is likely to retaliate with the remainder 20+ models that will likely wipe out your 2nd or 3rd unit even before they get the chance to fight.

With ASF, you can plan to charge an ASF unit in with a non-ASF unit, both gets to fight before the opponent has the chance to wipe anything out.

[Kramer]

12 hours ago, Thebiggesthat said:

Its like putting hot sauce on everything. It sort of defeats the point if everything has it. 

Warhammer: Age of Nuance this is not. 

Haha that’s the best analogy so far. Feel the same about endless spells and terrain. 

[Mephisto]

5 hours ago, Kramer said:

Haha that’s the best analogy so far. Feel the same about endless spells and terrain. 

If everyone has it. Nobody has it.

[heywoah_twitch]

18 hours ago, Mephisto said:

Hey y'all! 

It seems GW is REALLY excited about the Always Fights First or "Fights at the Start of Combat" mechanic these days. Seems each new army or new tease for an army needs it without any off-set for existing armies. If you're an old melee army, per IJ, you just gotta pray for an update or die in the meantime effortlessly to these new armies (guess what their massive update to IJ will be in the future? A bunch of AFF stuff I bet!) Isn't it great they're introducing this mechanic? How do you feel about it? 

I hate it.

It was okay when it was only IDK as their main 'thing', and only on one predictable turn (that you tended to retreat during because there wasn't a way not to lose all those fights unless way ahead oh board). But now that it's just 'on' a bunch of stuff, it creates melee haves and have nots <-- and I don't like using that term because I think it's overused. Now every single army needs either great shooting or ASF for themselves or they will get hard-countered in combat. Maybe the world will look different when everyone has a 2nd ed battletome, but this is making the wait for those of us without one all the more painful.

I used to include clever 6" pile in tricks in that group as a neat way to get around ASF, like yhetees or sisters of slaughter, but they nerfed that interaction . If you don't have excellent shooting, you pretty much just have to run away from anything with that mechanic, and that feels bad.

It's fundamentally different than hero phase attacking, as that mechanic only worked in long combats left over from last turn - ASF is instant and aggressive.

I can say that glass cannon melee's stock is plummeting if more and more people can just stand there and get charged - but still wipe out their attackers before activation. Those are the kind of mechanics I really don't like: "If I charge something I'll win, and if they charge me because I positioned poorly who cares? I'll just strike first and win anyway."

[azdimy]

2 hours ago, Mephisto said:

If everyone has it. Nobody has it.

Then why bother creating it in the first place?

[Barbossal]

To be honest - I really just wish we'd have something in place to encourage charge maneuvers, ala Charging enemies go first. Even as someone who tends to be on the receiving end, it feels so weird that I get to attack your charging Orruks with my shield wall before they get any sort of impact.

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, Barbossal said:

To be honest - I really just wish we'd have something in place to encourage charge maneuvers, ala Charging enemies go first. Even as someone who tends to be on the receiving end, it feels so weird that I get to attack your charging Orruks with my shield wall before they get any sort of impact.

Yeah I get what you mean. Although you then do lose some of the tactical choices when charging multiple of your own units. Or do you delay a turn etc. 

[mmimzie]

2 hours ago, Barbossal said:

To be honest - I really just wish we'd have something in place to encourage charge maneuvers, ala Charging enemies go first. Even as someone who tends to be on the receiving end, it feels so weird that I get to attack your charging Orruks with my shield wall before they get any sort of impact.

I don't like it. AoS has good back and forth that makes each turn more interactive than 40k. If opponents all charge than you lose a lot of your engagement in your opponent's turn.

 

Edit: there is enough tactics in picking who should or should not charge, and where to charge, and what is even worth charging. 

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

How many units even have AFF? I rarely see it in my gaming group and when I do it's because I'm running slaanesh and my daemon prince likes to crash the party.

[Chikout]

I think if it wasn't for gristlegore,  people wouldn't be complaining. If we look at the units that have it so far.

Bloodthirster- hits like a truck but pretty fragile. Can be neutered pretty easily.

Idk. Can only do it on a single turn. 

Hearthguard -  reliant on low wound squishy heroes to get off,  slow movement.

Tree Revenants.  Can only do it on a 3+.  Makes them pretty unreliable 

Fantatics.  Can do some damage but 1 wound 6+ save means they aren't going to hanging around.  

Gristlegore gkot. Good attacks, good movement,  can be made pretty tough and can fight twice- broken. 

That's six units in the game that have the ability, and they all use it differently.  Slaanesh will probably get something like this too. Only one of these is really a problem. 

Almost every army has either decent, destructive magic or good shooting. 

Screens are useful against all of them, though screening effectively against gristlegore is difficult. 

 

[BrocknerTheBear]

As a mechanic in and of itself I think it's fine. 

The only reason we see it being complained about I feel is because of the additional mechanic of multiple activations.

Either of them in isolation is fine. 

Both of them together at the same time with no penalty or "tax" as it were is not.

[Killax]

It might be a set up for AoS3 where Iniative is brought back. I'd personally like that. But at the same time, I'm still not a fan of Battalions being unrestricted in terms of quantity but still cost points and I also don't really like the double turn this game has currently.

So it just might be GW is just setting things up so people will get used to certain units fighting before others. It doesn't hurt the game that much either, it's just new for AoS.

[JackStreicher]

I dislike it. For example: you can‘t fight a gristlegore Abhorrant on Terrorgheist, he will kill anything he touches and fight twice before you can harm him.

the only way to get rid of them is shooting. Tbh most armies lack shooting except Kharadron and Stormcasts... which leaves most armies helpless.

also the rising amount of MW output is getting absurd and unfun (hearthguard, Khorne prayers etc.)

 

[Chikout]

28 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

I dislike it. For example: you can‘t fight a gristlegore Abhorrant on Terrorgheist, he will kill anything he touches and fight twice before you can harm him.

the only way to get rid of them is shooting. Tbh most armies lack shooting except Kharadron and Stormcasts... which leaves most armies helpless.

also the rising amount of MW output is getting absurd and unfun (hearthguard, Khorne prayers etc.)

 

As I said before, it is that particular combo that is broken , not the mechanic itself.  As I also said before, almost every army has a way to deal damage at range using magic. 

[Arkiham]

remember when mortal wounds were rare? 

they were super effective as not many things had them to use effectively, game feels now like if you're not doing mortals or summoning endless amounts why even bother turning up..

same with -1 to hit, used to be rare and nurgle was super effective as of it. now nurgle isnt able to consistently use it as avg spell cast, while others get it less than avg and nurgle is a bit eh.

always fights is now the new hot 💩💩and will be spammed loads and youll be forced to take redundancy beyond normal amounts to deal with it 

[BrocknerTheBear]

3 hours ago, Chikout said:

As I said before, it is that particular combo that is broken , not the mechanic itself. 

Exactly. Fight at the start of the combat phase is fine in isolation. 

[Neffelo]

7 hours ago, Chikout said:

I think if it wasn't for gristlegore,  people wouldn't be complaining. If we look at the units that have it so far.

Bloodthirster- hits like a truck but pretty fragile. Can be neutered pretty easily.

Idk. Can only do it on a single turn. 

Hearthguard -  reliant on low wound squishy heroes to get off,  slow movement.

Tree Revenants.  Can only do it on a 3+.  Makes them pretty unreliable 

Fantatics.  Can do some damage but 1 wound 6+ save means they aren't going to hanging around.  

Gristlegore gkot. Good attacks, good movement,  can be made pretty tough and can fight twice- broken. 

That's six units in the game that have the ability, and they all use it differently.  Slaanesh will probably get something like this too. Only one of these is really a problem. 

Almost every army has either decent, destructive magic or good shooting. 

Screens are useful against all of them, though screening effectively against gristlegore is difficult. 

 

I think you hit the nail on the head here. This mechanic is not widespread at all, and it's not problematic either. We have a single case where it is an issue, and you already pointed it out.

 

[FlatTooth]

Whole lot of hyperbole being tossed around here. 

[JackStreicher]

4 hours ago, Chikout said:

As I said before, it is that particular combo that is broken , not the mechanic itself.  As I also said before, almost every army has a way to deal damage at range using magic. 

„A way“ as in one mage firing one spell for D3 MWs which can be ignored on a 6? That‘s just not working imo.

[prochuvi]

Its horrible and i hate it.

 

As something special was cool,a ultra glass cannon unit as goblins with 6save and one wound with it is cool.

A full army having it as idoneths was too strong in my opinion,but only was one turn.

 

But have a behemoth almost inmortal,with insane move,insane damage allways going first and attacking twice(flesh eater dragon) is way way umbalanced and tournaments data show it,flesh eater is rigth now the best army due to this

 

https://thehonestwargamer.com/april-16th/

 

Rigth now is out of hands how broken flesh eaters is,they are winning every tournament.

It is due to how broken is the new hero,a 200 points mini with two spell that sumon free 200 points of units,so the hero is free

Also due to this dragon deleting all who come to melle.

 

The problem is this wont change and gonna be worse,pretty sure that when new  real elfs come they gonna have it,as old high elfs had it