Balanced Path to Glory system

[DarrinTheOccult]

Hi everyone, we're  trying  a Path to glory campaign in our playing club.

After we played the first game and having selected the units with the given method. We just realise that it was just too much unbalanced. I play DoT and according to my battletome, if I choose for example a Gaunt summoner as my champion, I  get 5 units. These 5 units can be all pink horrors, tzaangors or even skyfires, while another guy with his Nighthaunt could have a couple of 10 chainrasps, 4 banshees, his champion and 3 spirit hosts.

If you are good enough at maths, that means I could start with like a 1000pts approx army, while he barely could reach 600pts. I think this difference can be produced because my book is much older and doesn't have the "that unit needs 2 rolls for getting it" thing. However, even if we try to adapt the older battletomes to that system, there are always unbalancing issues.

I have to say that we play with allegiance abilities, but we may not take artefacts or command traits (only spells and objects like the lantern of the guardian of souls) as we get objects for the champion while the campaign advances.

The problem of path to glory is the reward system. We all can agree, that is not really fair that someone can have an extra unit instead of an extra ability for the champion or for some unit. If you play in the way of choosing your reward, no one will never get the last ones and it takes the campaign feeling away. But making it random is not much better.

So we thought a little system that can make it fun and balanced at the same time. When you face an opponent, you have to play with the lower amount of points total of the two armies (for example if you have in total 700 pts and your foe 900 pts, you play a 700 pts game), and the one with more points can choose from all his units which the ones that will participate in battle. That way the opponent has as much the advantage of having more units to choose, but doesn't swap you in the game. Besides that, if you get a unit ability reward, you can only give it to one that participated in the battle.

We of course preffer the random reward system as it makes it funnier, but what do you think about it? Have you thought a better balancing system?

[PensivePanther]

Hello DarrinTheOccult. I think your suggestion is a fine idea for bringing a modicum of balance to Path to Glory. Unfortunately I think a group that plays Paths to Glory just need to be able to find the fun in throwing two unbalanced armies at one another (something I'd wager most gaming groups find difficult). 

My only other suggestions would be to allow the player with the smaller point value pick the terrain or even setup the table to give them a different kind of advantage. Or ally in x number of points from a buddies list who is also playing in the same grand alliance. Or switch it up every time! Its all about the story right?

Happy gaming.

[DarrinTheOccult]

37 minutes ago, PensivePanther said:

Hello DarrinTheOccult. I think your suggestion is a fine idea for bringing a modicum of balance to Path to Glory. Unfortunately I think a group that plays Paths to Glory just need to be able to find the fun in throwing two unbalanced armies at one another (something I'd wager most gaming groups find difficult). 

My only other suggestions would be to allow the player with the smaller point value pick the terrain or even setup the table to give them a different kind of advantage. Or ally in x number of points from a buddies list who is also playing in the same grand alliance. Or switch it up every time! Its all about the story right?

Happy gaming.

Yeah, you're right in the beginning, but if the campaign keeps being more and more unbalanced each battle, it is just not fun. No one likes not having even an opportunity to win hehe

I'd share all of that in my group, thanks!

[Greyshadow]

I think this is a great idea. The bigger army will have an advantage as it will have a larger roster to task organise from. Will be interesting to see how you get on.

That said, we are planning on throwing caution to the wind and playing some unbalance games. If I am greatly outclassed, I’ll just try and see how long I can hold out. We are planning a reduced length campaign of around four battles per army though.

[EMMachine]

When your Gaunt Summoner can have 5 Followers you are using an outdated table. (this is the case because it was for the Rules of the Generals Handbook 2016, where Elite followers didn’t exist yet.

In the last Path to Glory (May 2017) book has an updated list with elite followers (or in case of Tzaangors Beasts of Chaos had charged some stuff again).

Sadly for example Blades of Khorne copy & pasted the old list from the same time that has too many followers and no Elite followers.

[DarrinTheOccult]

11 hours ago, Greyshadow said:

I think this is a great idea. The bigger army will have an advantage as it will have a larger roster to task organise from. Will be interesting to see how you get on.

That said, we are planning on throwing caution to the wind and playing some unbalance games. If I am greatly outclassed, I’ll just try and see how long I can hold out. We are planning a reduced length campaign of around four battles per army though.

I'll report the results of the idea! With so few games probably you won't have many balancing problems, good luck!

2 hours ago, EMMachine said:

When your Gaunt Summoner can have 5 Followers you are using an outdated table. (this is the case because it was for the Rules of the Generals Handbook 2016, where Elite followers didn’t exist yet.

In the last Path to Glory (May 2017) book has an updated list with elite followers (or in case of Tzaangors Beasts of Chaos had charged some stuff again).

Sadly for example Blades of Khorne copy & pasted the old list from the same time that has too many followers and no Elite followers.

Oh, I didn't know that, I'll have to check it out.

Do you know by chance how is the tzeentch table? The friend that has the book is on vacation 😂😂

[Dead Scribe]

Quote

Unfortunately I think a group that plays Paths to Glory just need to be able to find the fun in throwing two unbalanced armies at one another (something I'd wager most gaming groups find difficult). 

Thats why no one near me plays it.  No one enjoys imbalance of that magnitude and we are heavily a no-houserule store.

Edited August 26, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[EMMachine]

49 minutes ago, DarrinTheOccult said:

Oh, I didn't know that, I'll have to check it out.

Do you know by chance how is the tzeentch table? The friend that has the book is on vacation 😂😂

Well, basicly all heroes have 1 follower less.

10 Tzaangors, 3 Tzaangors Enlightened and 3 Tzaangor Skyfires are Elite Followers (same ratio on D6)

3 Flamers and Burning Chariots are Elite Followeres (ratio 2:1 on the D6)

next to the 10 Acolytes there are now 5 Tzaangors as regular followers (ratio 2:1 on D6)

Brimstone Horrors and Blue Horrors are doubled, Pink Horrors have 2 Spots in the table and Exalted Flamer instead of Burning Chariot.

Ogroid Thaumasturge is a Champion now, removed from the Hero Follower Table, and the list has 2 entries for Gaunt Summoners (one with Familiars) instead of the Ogroid and one Tzaangor Shaman.

Those are basicly most changes the Path to Glory book had made.

The funny thing is after points had changed in 2018, the Tzaangor Shaman has less followers in Beasts of Chaos than in the Tzeentch list.

The main problem is, that lists aren't updated when points were changed (so the path to glory Book lists are basicly made with points from the Generals Handbook 2016 in mind while all later lists with the points of there own book) and when looking at the point differences the champions have in case of followered these are partly overlapping.

I had this in my thread here:

 

Edited August 26, 2019 by EMMachine

[DarrinTheOccult]

2 hours ago, EMMachine said:

Well, basicly all heroes have 1 follower less.

10 Tzaangors, 3 Tzaangors Enlightened and 3 Tzaangor Skyfires are Elite Followers (same ratio on D6)

3 Flamers and Burning Chariots are Elite Followeres (ratio 2:1 on the D6)

next to the 10 Acolytes there are now 5 Tzaangors as regular followers (ratio 2:1 on D6)

Brimstone Horrors and Blue Horrors are doubled, Pink Horrors have 2 Spots in the table and Exalted Flamer instead of Burning Chariot.

Ogroid Thaumasturge is a Champion now, removed from the Hero Follower Table, and the list has 2 entries for Gaunt Summoners (one with Familiars) instead of the Ogroid and one Tzaangor Shaman.

Those are basicly most changes the Path to Glory book had made.

The funny thing is after points had changed in 2018, the Tzaangor Shaman has less followers in Beasts of Chaos than in the Tzeentch list.

The main problem is, that lists aren't updated when points were changed (so the path to glory Book lists are basicly made with points from the Generals Handbook 2016 in mind while all later lists with the points of there own book) and when looking at the point differences the champions have in case of followered these are partly overlapping.

I had this in my thread here:

 

Wow those are important changes. Now I can't use my ogroid (what has no sense, ogroid thaumaturges are something like mercenaries on Tzeentch lore after all...)

It's really funny to see how GW keeps writting pages on battletomes for path to glory but at the same time they don't take care of the system at all 🤣

Thank you very much!

[EMMachine]

24 minutes ago, DarrinTheOccult said:

Wow those are important changes. Now I can't use my ogroid (what has no sense, ogroid thaumaturges are something like mercenaries on Tzeentch lore after all...)

I think the reason in case of the ogroid is because he is a 3 follower Champion and would be a 2 Followers choice (and maybe in case of heroes GW didn't wanted 2 follower Hero choices.

24 minutes ago, DarrinTheOccult said:

It's really funny to see how GW keeps writting pages on battletomes for path to glory but at the same time they don't take care of the system at all 🤣

Yeah, that buffles me too.

I mean, I have made this list here in the other thread by looking at the pointcosts the models had during that list time:

On 6/17/2019 at 12:13 PM, EMMachine said:

Follower

• 1 Slot
  • 80/140
• 2 Slots
  • 140/260
• 3 Slots
  • 250/360

 

Champions

• 0 Follower
  • 460/560
• 1 Follower
  • 320/520
• 2 Follower
  • 260/340
• 3 Follower
  • 140/240
• 4 Follower
  • 70/160
• 5 Follower
  • 40/80

There are huge parts where points are overlapping (mostly if you compare lists from 2016/17 and later once)

And for example I have thought that the Arch-Revenant of the Sylvaneth would get 4 followers because it costs 100 points, but it got 3 followers in the table.

So is this guy too cheap in AoS or what happened here?

Also Sylvaneth has a Elite follower Table but forgot to wrote the "2 slots or 1 slot + 1 Glory Point".

 

Especially in case of Path to Glory I have the feeling that it has to be either a yearly update release like the patched play points.

Or a online only pdf release that is updated if something changed.

I think others have already tried fanmade versions like this:

Or the Path to Glory Draft Rules Miniwargaming made:

Rules, Lists

[DarrinTheOccult]

1 hour ago, EMMachine said:

I think the reason in case of the ogroid is because he is a 3 follower Champion and would be a 2 Followers choice (and maybe in case of heroes GW didn't wanted 2 follower Hero choices.

Yeah, that buffles me too.

I mean, I have made this list here in the other thread by looking at the pointcosts the models had during that list time:

 

There are huge parts where points are overlapping (mostly if you compare lists from 2016/17 and later once)

And for example I have thought that the Arch-Revenant of the Sylvaneth would get 4 followers because it costs 100 points, but it got 3 followers in the table.

So is this guy too cheap in AoS or what happened here?

Also Sylvaneth has a Elite follower Table but forgot to wrote the "2 slots or 1 slot + 1 Glory Point".

 

Especially in case of Path to Glory I have the feeling that it has to be either a yearly update release like the patched play points.

Or a online only pdf release that is updated if something changed.

I think others have already tried fanmade versions like this:

Or the Path to Glory Draft Rules Miniwargaming made:

Rules, Lists

I'm totally agree with you. Hopefully (maybe sometime) in the future Path to Glory has decent attention it deserves by GW. It's indeed a great and easy way to introduce new players to the game.

[InterrogatingTheCat]

Good luck on balancing it as GW certainly didn't pay any attention to it. A Beasts of Chaos army can start with a beastlord and 5 Jabberslythes if they want, or a Legion of Blood can take 1140 points with Blood Knights and a Vampire Lord. Meanwhile a Nighthaunt army is getting 620 points at best. 

[DarrinTheOccult]

1 hour ago, InterrogatingTheCat said:

Good luck on balancing it as GW certainly didn't pay any attention to it. A Beasts of Chaos army can start with a beastlord and 5 Jabberslythes if they want, or a Legion of Blood can take 1140 points with Blood Knights and a Vampire Lord. Meanwhile a Nighthaunt army is getting 620 points at best. 

So with my system if the beasts of chaos player plays against the nighthaunt one, he would only be allowed to play with 620 pts of jabberslythes+beastlord, I think it works

[EMMachine]

6 hours ago, InterrogatingTheCat said:

Good luck on balancing it as GW certainly didn't pay any attention to it. A Beasts of Chaos army can start with a beastlord and 5 Jabberslythes if they want, or a Legion of Blood can take 1140 points with Blood Knights and a Vampire Lord. Meanwhile a Nighthaunt army is getting 620 points at best. 

In case of the Jabberslytes it's basicly strange that it isn't a 2 Follower option pointwise. (And the same goes for Blood Knights.

I think if we don't care about the "random choose" mechanic with the tables (I don't know how many people really use the random mechanic), we could just make tables which points need how many followers. Like GW made with Skirmish, where now the Matched Play points are used.

[Travis Baumann]

I was hoping that Warcry and Path to Glory were going to become one awesome skirmish/campaign thing or that Path to Glory would somehow build upon a descent Skirmish rules set and allow expansion up to 1000 then 2000 point armies but it seems like it is all about Narrative and the players really have to take the balance in to their own hands.    

This type of thing screams for a GM/DM type role to manage a campaign but they don't have enough to do to occupy/entertain them unless they introduce NPC type armies/characters that have no self serving will to "win" the campaign.

Funny that GW has not really spent a ton of time figuring out the Path to Glory stuff when it occupies a good chunk of precious pages in every new Battletome released.