I feel there is a vicious cycle in rules writing currently.

[Laststand]

56 minutes ago, Ironbreaker said:

@TheCovenLord

"They shall be my finest warriors, these rats who give of themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them and in the furnace of war I shall forge them. They shall be of iron will and steely sinew. In dirty rags I shall clad them and with the crudest weapons shall they be armed. They will be touched by plague and disease; sickness shall blight them. They shall have such tactics, strategies and machines that no foe will best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the storm-things. They are the Defenders of the Skaven Empire. They are my Clan Rats...and they shall know no fear."

- The Horned Rat

You could of course just kill the heroes so they cant use a CP. 

It also fits the lore quite well. Clan rats are much less scared of the 8ft tall stormcast or blood soaked khorne berserkers than the 25ft tall physical embodiment of their god stalking across the battlefield. 

I bet dwarfs would run into battle a bit faster if Grungi or Grimnir was waving them on. 

[Ironbreaker]

31 minutes ago, Laststand said:

You could of course just kill the heroes so they cant use a CP. 

It also fits the lore quite well. Clan rats are much less scared of the 8ft tall stormcast or blood soaked khorne berserkers than the 25ft tall physical embodiment of their god stalking across the battlefield. 

I bet dwarfs would run into battle a bit faster if Grungi or Grimnir was waving them on. 

How am I supposed to kill the rat daemon with a re-rollable save and a 5+ feel no pain?

For Grots, the guy I play with runs his warlord with the negative to hit trait and I think something else so It's impossible to snipe him more or less.

Edited September 26, 2019 by Ironbreaker
Misread a rule

[SwampHeart]

1 hour ago, TheCovenLord said:

(how god awful vanilla is skaven/gitmobs when you remove the randomness, the cowardly foot soldiers, the backstabbing or the bloodlust of the daughters of khaine forcing them into fights with minimal armor *cough except hag narr cough*? They all become slightly funny looking space marines with no character of their own)

Every single one of these rules was terrible. Animosity was the single worst rule GW ever wrote and continue to belabor an army with ever. Gimmicky rules that prevent a player from being able to control their armies are bad for the game and have no place in design. 

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Myrdin said:

GW is known for their Rulebooks having Power Creep or regular basis. 

If by "known for" you mean "assumed without actual facts to back up" then sure.

[Kasper]

14 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

If by "known for" you mean "assumed without actual facts to back up" then sure.

If you don't believe in power creep, I think you should go back and look at some of the first AoS books and compare the rules to freshly released armies.

[Dead Scribe]

54 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

Like I said, this attitude is just utterly, incomprehensibly alien to me and sounds like not just a different game but a different existence.

I can understand that.  The alternative is getting attached to my armies, then when they get nerfed and I am at a disadvantage, I can no longer be viable or competitive, and I don't enjoy myself.

[Dead Scribe]

50 minutes ago, Moldek said:

I think AoS tournament play is a different game than narrative, open or even casual matched play. It's probably futile to hope to reliably score high in tournaments with a single army that you've kept for 10 years, true. But a lot of people still have great fun games with "low tier" armies, and a lot of people are able to have decent win rates with fluffy unoptimized lists. Most people who stick to the hobby do so because they enjoy the visual spectacle, the social interaction and the craft of painting and building. It takes a lot of investment to have even one fully painted army.

So while I have zero problems with the way you approach it, I think you're part of a tiny minority. Changing armies twice a year to place at tournaments and not having any attachment to the miniatures is pretty far from what most player's experience of AoS is.

I think one of the problems is people have different expectations and they don't often match. If you main regular opponent enjoys cheesy "broken" lists and you only play unoptimized compendium wanderers or pure dispossessed, you're gonna have a bad time. The rarest, most precious resource in wargaming is not books, minis or terrain : it's a good gaming group that match your playstyle, that you like and are available!

What I'm reading a lot is people complaining that the game is not balanced and that their armies are getting flattened by the armies that are strong.  That problem will be present in tournament play, pick up play, narrative play, or even open play.

[sandlemad]

2 minutes ago, Kasper said:

If you don't believe in power creep, I think you should go back and look at some of the first AoS books and compare the rules to freshly released armies.

In its most unthinking, cynicism-masquerading-as-insightful "lol GW just makes every army stronger than the last one" form commonly repeated in the community, power creep is provably not real. Idoneth Deepkin were not more powerful than preceding armies. Neither were Gloomspite, Slaanesh or Sylvaneth. There's 40k examples too and have been for decades.

Talk about larger patterns of design, breaks between editions, or shifts in how free GW is with allegiance abilities or summoning or subfactions, then there's a broader (if not guaranteed consistent) trend of power creep with occasional 'resets'.

[Ironbreaker]

9 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

In its most unthinking, cynicism-masquerading-as-insightful "lol GW just makes every army stronger than the last one" form commonly repeated in the community, power creep is provably not real. Idoneth Deepkin were not more powerful than preceding armies. Neither were Gloomspite, Slaanesh or Sylvaneth. There's 40k examples too and have been for decades.

Talk about larger patterns of design, breaks between editions, or shifts in how free GW is with allegiance abilities or summoning or subfactions, then there's a broader (if not guaranteed consistent) trend of power creep with occasional 'resets'.

I don't personally believe in intentional power creeps, but I  do think GW might sometimes take ideas and goes too far with them. One example right now is how generous they are with mortal wounds. It seems everyone and their mother are able to dish out mortal wounds somehow. I guess the game isn't fun or engaging if models aren't being constantly removed from the table. What's the point of painting if they won't be on the table longer than a turn?

Edited September 26, 2019 by Ironbreaker

[amysrevenge]

16 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

In its most unthinking, cynicism-masquerading-as-insightful "lol GW just makes every army stronger than the last one" form commonly repeated in the community, power creep is provably not real. Idoneth Deepkin were not more powerful than preceding armies. Neither were Gloomspite, Slaanesh or Sylvaneth. There's 40k examples too and have been for decades.

Talk about larger patterns of design, breaks between editions, or shifts in how free GW is with allegiance abilities or summoning or subfactions, then there's a broader (if not guaranteed consistent) trend of power creep with occasional 'resets'.

This is more or less true - taken as a whole, AoS2 armies are objectively better than AoS1 armies.

But the notion that, within those broad groups, there is a definite trend of increased power tied to release date is either subjective at best, or provably false at worst.

[Future]

25 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

What I'm reading a lot is people complaining that the game is not balanced and that their armies are getting flattened by the armies that are strong.  That problem will be present in tournament play, pick up play, narrative play, or even open play.

This is my experience. I stopped playing casually long ago because I’d show up to a casual game with a fluffy army only to fight a round five ****** stomp list the opponents swears is casual. At least in tournament play there is an equal expectation of what you will see across the table.

[Kasper]

24 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

In its most unthinking, cynicism-masquerading-as-insightful "lol GW just makes every army stronger than the last one" form commonly repeated in the community, power creep is provably not real. Idoneth Deepkin were not more powerful than preceding armies. Neither were Gloomspite, Slaanesh or Sylvaneth. There's 40k examples too and have been for decades.

Talk about larger patterns of design, breaks between editions, or shifts in how free GW is with allegiance abilities or summoning or subfactions, then there's a broader (if not guaranteed consistent) trend of power creep with occasional 'resets'.

If you really don't believe in it, then compare the new Ironjawz/Bonesplitterz (once they are out) with their old version. They will 100% be stronger. Slaanesh is also significantly stronger than before their recent tome. To say otherwise is flat out silly.

[Charleston]

In my opinion it´s now even the existance of thoose rules but how gw happily spreads them among battletomes.

Let´s compare it to, f.e., Magic the Gathering. The gamedesign has a quite simple base which ties several rules to colors. A white deck is great at destroying enchantments but lacks carddraw, meanwhile black is quite good at drawing but not so at removing enchantments.

GW missed this approach. They could´ve tie some powerfull rules to factions or even GA´s. F.e. Chaos with Fight Twice, Destruction with "Ignore Aftersaves" and so on. Or at least tie the more powerfull rules to certain sub alligiences, like in the Khorne-Tome. But they simply didn´t. I strongly belive that GW yet doesn´t have the rules designers working together on a single system but instead on many smaller projects (Tomes), where once again lack of communication leads to such issues. On the other side, it really looks like gw tries to design new rules to make the books look diverse, and copies thoose which were received well into the next books. This could´ve been prevented by simply "predesign" a concept sheme for all the AoS Tomes in advance before starting writing them. This would decrease the ammount of copypasta between releases.

Meanwhile, I expect GW rather to adress this issue either by the next update on thoose factions, having nerfs in the new tomes (which won´t satisfy the community) or by adding general resilience to thoose effects for matched play via GHB. Command Abilities that f.e. allow to restore "normal" fightning order for a single unit, that provide a general, unstackable Aftersave against Mortal Wounds and so on. This way, each faction could do anything in some way, which would decrease diversity on the competetive scale even further. 

[Moldek]

49 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

What I'm reading a lot is people complaining that the game is not balanced and that their armies are getting flattened by the armies that are strong.  That problem will be present in tournament play, pick up play, narrative play, or even open play.

I agree, but my point was that that problem is exacerbated by people's expectations. If you bought a 2000 point army over time, based on the models you like, and go to the store to play against who enjoys list building, and has spent a lot of time studying synergies and weighing his options before buying his units, this guy is gonna crush you. You're going to feel like the game isn't balanced, because after all you both had the same point values.
GW has to balance both ends of this spectrum when designing their games, which is pretty hard I think. It's easier for a MTG player to toss their weak cards in a shoebox and get a new deck. When you see someone complaining that there's power creep, it's sometimes hard to tell if that person is salty after losing to a better player, is actually disavantaged in their local meta, plays an old Legends army or is just parotting what they've been reading on competitive forums while their last game was in 2017 😁

So the conversation is hard to pin down because everyone's ways to play are so varied, and their expectations so different.

[sandlemad]

57 minutes ago, Kasper said:

If you really don't believe in it, then compare the new Ironjawz/Bonesplitterz (once they are out) with their old version. They will 100% be stronger. Slaanesh is also significantly stronger than before their recent tome. To say otherwise is flat out silly.

I didn’t say that. I said that assuming that every new tome/codex is stronger and moreover intentionally stronger than the tome before, the most common way that folks talk about power creep, is dumb and provably incorrect. Idoneth is weaker than DoK. Sylvaneth is weaker than FEC.

You’re talking about new battletomes for specific factions, which often are stronger than their previous versions but by no means always.The new orks almost certainly will be stronger than before, but look at tyranids or chaos space marines. They had multiple codices where they got weaker or stayed approximately the same despite folks sagely repeating that power creep is a universal and things always get stronger because GW just wants to sell more models. Half the time newly introduced models aren’t even the stronger choices in books.

Power creep definitely exists but is not consistent or universal.

Edited September 26, 2019 by sandlemad

[Undeadly]

Lets put it this way; I honestly only found Slaanesh and Skaven to be on the far end of whats strong, and thats mostly due to Slaaneshes summoning and Skaven having the best of both worlds of battleshock resistant hordes and powerful ranged options. Once Slaanesh gets a double look at its summoning process, and Skaven gets some price increases, I think we'll be in a decent level of balance.

[Kasper]

2 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

I didn’t say that. I said that assuming that every new tome/codex is stronger and moreover intentionally stronger than the tome before, the most common way that folks talk about power creep, is dumb and provably incorrect. Idoneth is weaker than DoK. Sylvaneth is weaker than FEC.

You’re talking about new battletomes for specific factions, which often are stronger than their previous versions but by no means always.The new orks almost certainly will be stronger than before, but look at tyranids or chaos space marines. They had multiple codices where they got weaker or stayed approximately the same despite folks safely repeating that power creep is a universal and things always get stronger.

Power creep definitely exists but is not consistent or universal.

DoK is an extreme example of an old tome still being good, but that is due to extremely silly written rules.

My point is not that EVERY new book is objectively better than the previous book, but there is a pretty clear trend that new books are stronger than older ones. Just because you find an outliner doesn't mean it isn't true. It makes sense from a business point of view, and it also makes sense from a player perspective.

[Sleboda]

2 hours ago, Kasper said:

If you don't believe in power creep, I think you should go back and look at some of the first AoS books and compare the rules to freshly released armies.

The whole game itself is different. Comparing the Seraphon book to the Hedonites book is not much different than comparing Warhammer Armies: Empire to Codex: Necrons.

Different games.

That said, yes, sometimes a new thing ends up being better. But sometimes an old thing is better than the new thing.

The two problems with saying there is power creep are:

1. If it were, then each new book (not some here and there) would be demonstrably better than the previous one. This simply is not true.

2. It implies deliberate action by GW, which, if proven true, would kill their business. If we knew each new book was designed to outclass the last one, we (as a whole) would simply stop buying.

People leap in the creep idea without really thinking it through (and without looking inward).

One other thing that rarely gets discussed is that we see books that supposedly were better at release get figured out and folded in to the overall environment in time. That tells me that it's more about just having to learn how to handle new things than it is about new things being inherently better.

[Myrdin]

15 hours ago, Forrix said:

I particularly hate fighting Legions of Nagash as Nurgle as I'm supposed to be the tanky faction that trades damage  for its tankiness (in a nutshell) but here's an army that's tankier than me and hits harder than me. And has better spell casting and arguably better mobility too.

Its super annoying to look at a rule like Deathly Invocations and be like "Okay, I guess I need to focus fire units down". Then they have Undying Legions so its like "Okay, I guess I shouldn't just pour all my attacks into one unit". So its like "I guess my only hope is to kill the general". Then the general is Nagash or otherwise effectively impossible for your battletome to kill (I get that powercreep and a points increase has dethroned Nagash from his previously absurd level) and you're just screwed.

Seems to me that you  are in dire need of some Beastmen allies my friend

How about  80 ungor archers with Blades of Putrification on them. Watch them murder everything and anything as they empty insane amount of shots into the big gribbles and with blades turn them into rotting mincemeat!

Or maybe you`d fancy bunch of Bestigors with a shaman in tow. Again buff them a little and watch them pay double their points in gory offerings.

Its funny how BoC allied via the God batallions to have the God keyword and not use Ally limit are so much better with the other God armies than within their own.... Khorne BoC are crazy, and I wont even start about Slaanesh with BoC in their armies...

And meanwhile BoC cant take anything else the StD allies for their own. Makes my furry heart weep manly (goatly) tears

+++ MOD EDIT +++ Removed profanity - watch your language, this is a family friendly forum

Edited September 27, 2019 by RuneBrush
Removed profanity

[Kasper]

20 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

The whole game itself is different. Comparing the Seraphon book to the Hedonites book is not much different than comparing Warhammer Armies: Empire to Codex: Necrons.

Different games.

That said, yes, sometimes a new thing ends up being better. But sometimes an old thing is better than the new thing.

The two problems with saying there is power creep are:

1. If it were, then each new book (not some here and there) would be demonstrably better than the previous one. This simply is not true.

2. It implies deliberate action by GW, which, if proven true, would kill their business. If we knew each new book was designed to outclass the last one, we (as a whole) would simply stop buying.

People leap in the creep idea without really thinking it through (and without looking inward).

One other thing that rarely gets discussed is that we see books that supposedly were better at release get figured out and folded in to the overall environment in time. That tells me that it's more about just having to learn how to handle new things than it is about new things being inherently better.

This has been discussed in multiple threads already so I feel like it is beating a dead horse at this point. Yes, there are outliners, but there is a pretty clear trend that new books are invading the meta and tournament players chasing the ladders are often selling their old army and investing in the new. New rules are being printed, allowing new armies to beat the activation wars and now the DPR craze etc.

I dont see it "killing their business" at all. It is a pretty common business practice in many games. This is the same in card games where new cards are slowly being printed better. It makes sense that they want you to invest in new stuff rather than sitting on your old army for years on end.

There is obviously a fine line between directly pay-to-win and getting a small advantage from playing a recently released army.  A new army should never be so powerful that any army that is more than half a year old has no chance. But to claim that there is ZERO power creep happening is rather silly imo.

[Neffelo]

6 minutes ago, Kasper said:

This has been discussed in multiple threads already so I feel like it is beating a dead horse at this point. Yes, there are outliners, but there is a pretty clear trend that new books are invading the meta and tournament players chasing the ladders are often selling their old army and investing in the new. New rules are being printed, allowing new armies to beat the activation wars and now the DPR craze etc.

I dont see it "killing their business" at all. It is a pretty common business practice in many games. This is the same in card games where new cards are slowly being printed better. It makes sense that they want you to invest in new stuff rather than sitting on your old army for years on end.

There is obviously a fine line between directly pay-to-win and getting a small advantage from playing a recently released army.  A new army should never be so powerful that any army that is more than half a year old has no chance. But to claim that there is ZERO power creep happening is rather silly imo.

Nighthaunt is a pretty great example of power creep, IMO. The army was pretty good when I got into it about a year ago, but now a days it's clearly one of the weakest, if not the weakest, 2.0 tome army. We are now getting a special rule for an army that completely invalidates NH as well. 

[Myrdin]

3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

If by "known for" you mean "assumed without actual facts to back up" then sure.

If you dont mind me to ask... How long you`ve been around this hobby ?

If you`ve been with it longer then me (about 10+ years) and need "actual fact to back it up" then you are either blind, ignorant or have an agenda to push.

Two examples right out of my head:

*7th ed Demons

*Matt Ward Grey Knights

Nuff said....

Not looking for an argument, but that comment of yours is a factually dishonest. I am sure people will be able to count more examples, heck even trying out Googling this stuff will yield plenty of results then the two I have provided. There is no "authority figure" in 40/WFB/AoS wargaming to tell you "this and that is OP" with undeniable absolute assurance. As such going by the mutual consensus of the community on the most agreed upon points is the best indication.

ETC and other large tournament event placing restrictions on certain units/combinations and such is also a very solid indication. The burden of proof does not lie with me on this one.

EDIT: Just to clarify myself, because people love to get offended easily these days. I am not attacking you,  I am challenging your opinion from a personal experience perspective. Been there, seen that, done that. I dont have beef with you but, telling me GW books dont have power creep in them after 10 years in this hobby is like trying to persuade me that the blue sky isnt actually blue, and an apple is not actually an apple, its a tuna sandwich. I might be a crazy goat person, but I am not that crazy (BAAAAH ?)....yet

 

Edited September 26, 2019 by Myrdin

[Enoby]

5 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Its actually not that expensive. 

I chase the meta, but I don't pour a ton of money into chasing the meta.

When I sell my current army I try to do so before it is fully nerfed, thus getting a pretty high sell value out of it.  That money does not fully cover buying the new army unless the new army is second-hand, but it covers a good portion of it.

The key is not getting attached to anything.  You don't play armies you like the look of, you play armies you know are statistically powerful.  When it comes time to sell them, you sell them. You don't hang on to them.  

Out of curiosity, what army do you currently play?

[Sleboda]

56 minutes ago, Myrdin said:

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

If by "known for" you mean "assumed without actual facts to back up" then sure.

If you dont mind me to ask... How long you`ve been around this hobby ?

If you`ve been with it longer then me (about 10+ years) and need "actual fact to back it up" then you are either blind, ignorant or have an agenda to push.

First off, thanks for changing the tone from civil to insulting. For a moment there I thought the internet was surprising me. Turns out nah. Same old same old. 

Second, I've been in it for 34 years, give or take a few months. This includes a time as a playtester (can be verified by checking credits in several older books) and a nearly 12 year stint as a GW employee, some of which was spent in trade sales, where I was involved in meetings where we strategized our sales plans, and another stretch in IT where I had access to all US sales data.

I've also been a winning GT player with a range of armies that were usually not the New Hotness.

I have no agenda. I'm not blind. I'm not stupid.

I'm experienced and have insight.

 

[Eldarain]

What's worse intentionally ramping up the power to sell new kits (which they don't partake in as many of the new kits have dreadful rules) or being incompetent and letting rules out of the stable which are bad for the game and the communities it fosters? ( 7th Daemons, 5th Grey Knights, Eldar Scatbike Troops, FEC during their recent reign of terror, Slaanesh in modern AoS, potentially these new Marine snowflake books)