Meeting Engagements

[angrycontra]

I think one way to somewhat balance this mode would be to introduce (house) rule that no unit in the army can exceed 400 or more points. I feel that 400+ is a "magic" point value where things get too broken for 1k games (thanquol, fec gristlegore general, morathi, vlord on z.dragon, 10 evocators, 6 stormfiends etc.). It would limit army building but then again, I don't see much fun in steamrolling opponents with op units.

[soak314]

4 hours ago, angrycontra said:

I think one way to somewhat balance this mode would be to introduce (house) rule that no unit in the army can exceed 400 or more points. I feel that 400+ is a "magic" point value where things get too broken for 1k games (thanquol, fec gristlegore general, morathi, vlord on z.dragon, 10 evocators, 6 stormfiends etc.). It would limit army building but then again, I don't see much fun in steamrolling opponents with op units.

I get a feeling they'll try to curb this with the battleplans meant to go with the mode. It'll probably be very objective holding heavy, based more on positioning and holding ground with a very limited amount of units, as opposed to the efficiency in murder approach we see in most meta lists. I'm also hoping they do a static turn limit of 4, as opposed to the standard 5 for matched play. Give any of the faction wrecking balls 2 turns and they'll easily mop up most of what can be brought in at 1k, especially if they come in fresh at the start of turn 3.

There was a comparison to Kill Team in the very first post in the thread, and I'd like to make that as well. But I'm making mine to Kill Team Arena  specifically, especially in terms of the rigid design. KT Arena (not counting the elites option) is IMO GW's most balanced system. It has a heavy focus on positioning, holding ground, stalling your opponent, and squeezing every last drop of utility from each and every model you bring onto those 22x30'' boards. It's like 40k chess, which I absolutely adore.

Don't get me wrong, I still very much like the current meta and how AoS behaves at 2k, but man I'd love to see something as tactically robust as KT Arena, but with my Gitz and at a more impressive scale. 

[Dead Scribe]

8 hours ago, eekamouse said:

The post JUST prior to yours did it pretty effectively and efficiently.

That was a wishlist post.  There hasn't been anything released officially that curbs summoning and houseruling for a lot of people is never going to be allowed.

[Sadysaneto]

11 hours ago, soak314 said:

Great points, this in particular. First thing that came to mind after I mulled over the article was how nasty certain options could become as a turn 1 choice. Troggoths for example could spend turn 1 moving into position relatively unthreatened, with a trogboss (not a behemoth!) and 3x2 of the rockguts/felwaters. There's a very select group of min size units that can confidently deal with that many trogs.

Summoning might be curbed by tying it to the mode's set rules.

For example, if you summon some ghouls with your archregent you'll only get 10 of them, and you won't be able to call them in if you already have two units of ghouls elsewhere on the list. The archregent could hold off and summon them turn 2, therefore getting the full 20 stack.

Alarielle could come in as a behemoth choice in turn 2, but she wouldn't be able to call in a free treelord on that turn. If she comes in turn 3, she wouldn't be able to summon a treelord at all.

thats how we worked summoning with path to glory

[tripchimeras]

10 hours ago, angrycontra said:

I think one way to somewhat balance this mode would be to introduce (house) rule that no unit in the army can exceed 400 or more points. I feel that 400+ is a "magic" point value where things get too broken for 1k games (thanquol, fec gristlegore general, morathi, vlord on z.dragon, 10 evocators, 6 stormfiends etc.). It would limit army building but then again, I don't see much fun in steamrolling opponents with op units.

I might go a step further then that even on max pts per game, but yes I think this would help a lot.  I generally dislike house rules, but then again my favourite  WHFB edition  was basically unplayable competitively without comp, which is little different then house rules, so I'm not really sure why I draw a distinction between them.  I think hard exclusion lists are going to be the only way to truly balance 1k, short of rule rewrites.  and a hard per unit pt cap is probably the most elegant way to do that.  Not sure what the exact pt cap would best be, 400pt sounds reasonable as the models you mentioned are definitely some of the ones that immediately come to mind as still extremely problematic at the lower pt level, but like with everything a cap will have unintended consequences.  Like you are essentially removing some of the counters for the fighty sub 400pt behemoth/heroes.  So finding the right unit pt cap might take some testing. I am almost inclined to go extreme and say no singular unit can account for over a 25% of the army total in meeting engagement, but there very well may be some elite armies that are completely crippled by such an extreme, things like the under-costed Skaven heroes, which are unfortunate but still can be dealt with at 2k seem like the problems are much amplified at 1k, especially with a pt cap.

That being said, and not to be a broken record, but if GW really wants this to be a viable tournament pt level (viable means competitive, not that it shouldn't exist at  all) they are going to need additional rules, like this one.  And they are in a much better position to do things like test point caps to find the appropriate balance point.  But having said that and given that they are having difficulties retaining balance at 2k, I'd honestly just prefer for them to continue to focus the time they can devote to competitive play wholly on that pt level, and keep anything they do in 1k games surface and geared towards fun/semi-casual as it seems they did with this first rules release for meeting engagements.  I just wish they would keep the advertising for it realistic...

[HammerOfSigmar]

Probably just ban summoning in the engagement.

[eekamouse]

5 hours ago, soak314 said:

I get a feeling they'll try to curb this with the battleplans meant to go with the mode. It'll probably be very objective holding heavy, based more on positioning and holding ground with a very limited amount of units, as opposed to the efficiency in murder approach we see in most meta lists. I'm also hoping they do a static turn limit of 4, as opposed to the standard 5 for matched play. Give any of the faction wrecking balls 2 turns and they'll easily mop up most of what can be brought in at 1k, especially if they come in fresh at the start of turn 3.

There was a comparison to Kill Team in the very first post in the thread, and I'd like to make that as well. But I'm making mine to Kill Team Arena  specifically, especially in terms of the rigid design. KT Arena (not counting the elites option) is IMO GW's most balanced system. It has a heavy focus on positioning, holding ground, stalling your opponent, and squeezing every last drop of utility from each and every model you bring onto those 22x30'' boards. It's like 40k chess, which I absolutely adore.

Don't get me wrong, I still very much like the current meta and how AoS behaves at 2k, but man I'd love to see something as tactically robust as KT Arena, but with my Gitz and at a more impressive scale. 

Exactly this. Besides... having an "elite force" of anything outside of Order or Destruction would just feel... odd to me.

[Equinox]

52 minutes ago, HammerOfSigmar said:

Probably just ban summoning in the engagement.

I would prefer it was limited to 1 unit can be summoned during the game.  I feel like that would be a better compromise over just completely removing it from the game.  

As a side note, it seems like the issue would be FEC and Seraphon when it comes to summoning.  Other factions that can summon (like Hedonites, Tzeentch, etc...) seem like they would be a bit limited in the format.  Could be wrong however, so curious what others think.

[DrDemento]

On 6/11/2019 at 11:51 PM, Kramer said:

That seems  like extremely wishful thinking. 😂 (And kind of looking to break the game already) 

I had the same questions about behemoth leaders in the spearhead, and I'm not a break the game type of player.  I'll be fine either way, but this, like many other aspects even in full 2k AoS will need some clarifications and FAQs. 

[DrDemento]

My group is super excited about this as we play mostly 1k games (and have been doing 1 battleline as well).  

I'm not happy about one endless spell limitation but it's not a deal breaker - mostly a way to fill in points to make 1k but I think also balances some lists, but could also be abused at 1k.  Triumphs are fine too though. 

I think breaking into 3 deployments will also be much faster than 1k already is compared to 2k.  At least for our group, with lots of different armies we own and like to play, everyone seems to be on constant learning and lookup to confirm mode, plus always trying to bring in new players (who can get overwhelmed easily).  Plus, we'd be more likely to get to turn 5 as we mostly seem to be only able to complete Turn 2 and part of Turn 3 on weeknights.

Really hoping we also get multi-player game support at this level, as that is also what our group mostly does - four to six players on the table at 1k each.   

[prochuvi]

If they dont bann the free sumon of this mode that gonna be a faill.

 

Gonna be stupid play 1k points vs 1600-1800 points of fec.

 

Free sumon is umbalanced at 2k as the tournament dats show,but at 1k points gonna be umplayable

[frostfire]

Agree with that...It's so urgent for GW to put some serious restriction to summoning if they do want 1k game to be playable.

[pseudonyme]

If summoning is banned, pink horrors could not be fielded as the summoning mechanix is included in their points.

I am sure they thought about rules / contraints about summoning. Just by limiting the size of units or their cost.

Stop dramatizing everything, 10 days before the release

[Kramer]

57 minutes ago, pseudonyme said:

 

Stop dramatizing everything, 10 days before the release

Why not? You know if this fails they might  as well blow the worlds up and start with a new setting.  

[Gecktron]

So, I had a quick 1K points game with the rules we know so far yesterday. I enjoyed building a list around Spearhead/Main Body/Rearguard. This added a lot of depth without making it that much more complicated. Only having to field one Battleline is also a plus in my books. 

I play 1K games quite regularly and this one game took more or less the same amount of time as the others. 

 

Im curious to see what the Meeting Engagement Battleplans bring to the table but the basic premise looks very solid to me. 

[Drib]

Spoiler

1 hour ago, Gecktron said:

So, I had a quick 1K points game with the rules we know so far yesterday. I enjoyed building a list around Spearhead/Main Body/Rearguard. This added a lot of depth without making it that much more complicated. Only having to field one Battleline is also a plus in my books. 

I play 1K games quite regularly and this one game took more or less the same amount of time as the others. 

 

Im curious to see what the Meeting Engagement Battleplans bring to the table but the basic premise looks very solid to me. 

 

Well, there is no indication that the Battleline requirements for 1k games have changed. I would be surprised if the limit will be droped to 1.

[EMMachine]

49 minutes ago, Drib said:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Well, there is no indication that the Battleline requirements for 1k games have changed. I would be surprised if the limit will be droped to 1.

For standard matched play it hasn't changed (but we don't know yet if there will be changes for standard matched play), but for meeting engagements they have another chart, that was showed on warhammer community:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/11/the-generals-handbook-2019-meeting-engagementsgw-homepage-post-2/

[JPjr]

Whilst you could well be right, the thing about that chart is it only tells you what you can bring in with each wave of your army, but it's not actually proscribing what you have to bring. Now maybe they're not using the normal requirements for this but tbh I suspect they are.

So as it stands, and as I read it, you have to include at least one battle line unit in the main body of your army (1+), but in the Spearhead & Rearguard it's left at 0+ so you can choose to place your other other legally required Battleline unit in any of the 3 sections.

Otherwise they'd have to put 1+ in either or both of the other sections and you end up with less flexibility or a min requirement of 3 BL units.

Edited June 14, 2019 by JPjr

[Drib]

Spoiler

5 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

For standard matched play it hasn't changed (but we don't know yet if there will be changes for standard matched play), but for meeting engagements they have another chart, that was showed on warhammer community:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/11/the-generals-handbook-2019-meeting-engagementsgw-homepage-post-2/

 

I have seen the chart, but that's only for setup. There is no information on listbuilding yet. And as I said, I am certain that the requirements stay the same, as GW stated "[Meeting Engagements are] focused and generally based around the core Battleline units of your army".

[RuneBrush]

4 hours ago, frostfire said:

Agree with that...It's so urgent for GW to put some serious restriction to summoning if they do want 1k game to be playable.

Probably a bit soon to say that, bearing in mind the new handbook isn't even out and nobody has seen the entire meeting engagement rules!

[frostfire]

Yeah...Desperately to see more preview of GHB2019, just want to see some actual changes for some guys in my local just keep conveying negative info about the balance of AOS, which is quite depressing... 

[Dead Scribe]

We have that here as well.  A lot of our community is negative on the balance, because well... the balance is not that great.  You have to either accept the balance is bad and enjoy it anyway or find a game that you enjoy more that puts more effort into balance.

[tripchimeras]

27 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

We have that here as well.  A lot of our community is negative on the balance, because well... the balance is not that great.  You have to either accept the balance is bad and enjoy it anyway or find a game that you enjoy more that puts more effort into balance.

Why must it be all or nothing?  No GW game has ever been great on balance, but they do offer a lot of other things that in my opinion make up for it.  Pretty much the best and most diverse model range, great and detailed lore, diverse and very customizable army lists (something that is usually directly in opposition to balance in general), and most importantly massed battles with huge armies.  That last point is something very few game systems offer, and only GW offers it in quite so epic a fashion.  I think diversity in list development and balance are a tricky... for lack of a better term balancing act, where for the most part the more list diversity and army diversity you have the worse the balance is going to become.  I think a prime example of this is KoW, which (while I am not familiar with how the current state is) has traditionally been an extremely balanced game, however it is not a game with very much flavor or list diversity. 

What this long winded post is building to is that imo GW doesn't NEED to have an extremely balanced game, What it does need to do is have enough balance that competitive play is still fairly diverse and skill intensive.  I think since 2.0 that has mostly been true at 2k, though the recent books have definitely been stretching it.  I don't think its balance is completely broken yet, but competitive play is definitely getting dangerously homogenized, which is why so many have huge hopes on this GHB to fix a lot of that.  The increasing need for 2k balance fixes is also why I am not really concerned with balance in meeting engagement.  GW has enough on its hands keeping balance strong at its "ideal" point level, to be trying to make a completely new tournament level work at the same time.

[Kramer]

7 minutes ago, tripchimeras said:

Why must it be all or nothing?  No GW game has ever been great on balance, but they do offer a lot of other things that in my opinion make up for it.  Pretty much the best and most diverse model range, great and detailed lore, diverse and very customizable army lists (something that is usually directly in opposition to balance in general), and most importantly massed battles with huge armies.  That last point is something very few game systems offer, and only GW offers it in quite so epic a fashion.  I think diversity in list development and balance are a tricky... for lack of a better term balancing act, where for the most part the more list diversity and army diversity you have the worse the balance is going to become.  I think a prime example of this is KoW, which (while I am not familiar with how the current state is) has traditionally been an extremely balanced game, however it is not a game with very much flavor or list diversity. 

What this long winded post is building to is that imo GW doesn't NEED to have an extremely balanced game, What it does need to do is have enough balance that competitive play is still fairly diverse and skill intensive.  I think since 2.0 that has mostly been true at 2k, though the recent books have definitely been stretching it.  I don't think its balance is completely broken yet, but competitive play is definitely getting dangerously homogenized, which is why so many have huge hopes on this GHB to fix a lot of that.  The increasing need for 2k balance fixes is also why I am not really concerned with balance in meeting engagement.  GW has enough on its hands keeping balance strong at its "ideal" point level, to be trying to make a completely new tournament level work at the same time.

But aren’t you agreeing with @Dead Scribe? You both agree on he not being the best at balance. And as a result accept it and enjoy the things that make the game fun for you. Else there is little point in the hobby if you don’t enjoy it. 

[tripchimeras]

4 minutes ago, Kramer said:

But aren’t you agreeing with @Dead Scribe? You both agree on he not being the best at balance. And as a result accept it and enjoy the things that make the game fun for you. Else there is little point in the hobby if you don’t enjoy it. 

I think my disagreement is over whether we should be expecting GW to even try to improve it.  I accept GW is never going to have the best balance, doesn't mean I don't expect them to fix the most glaring issues and continue to support a matched play system that works at a moderately competitive level.  I do not prescribe to the "just accept your lot in life and be happy" or don't play. 

Edit: the balance is never going to be the best.  But maybe I am parsing his wording too much, but I don't want to just accept the game we have in whatever state its in.  Understanding what a GW game is, is different then not expecting them to attempt to make that game the best version of itself it can be.  The best version of AoS is still never going to be the most balanced game out there, but it will have balance.

Edited June 14, 2019 by tripchimeras