Ossiarch Bonereapers, hideously overpowered?

[zilberfrid]

11 minutes ago, smartazjb0y said:

It just seems weird to acknowledge that "we'd need about 20 matches for any sort of good data set" while simultaneously making sweeping claims off a single data point. 

If you know you don't have enough data points, you don't proceed to start making claims off said data points. It's like claiming a dice is weighted because it landed on a 6 the first time you rolled it. 

You are correct that my initial comment comes of as rather certain. I usually state things with at least a modicum of uncertainty, but that would have damaged the layer of sarcasm, I thought.

As to the situation: Since Slaanesh is so far outside the norm, and average armies have only a 20% win chance against it, I would say the single data point does point towards the hypothesis that it is not balanced to most of the armies.

I would even say that Slaanesh is not a relevant test bed, since it needs such a big nerf that losses against it does not really indicate anything. Wins against it do, however, indicate they could be equally wrong in balancing.

So, If Bonereapers would be balanced around 55% overall, losing some 7 or 8 matches out of 10 against Slaanesh would not indicate anything with regards to non-broken armies. Being on par or over, however, indicates the balance team has lost the plot (again), and now needs to apply huge nerfs to two armies instead of one.

Again, extrapolating from a single data point, so a substantial amount of reservation is needed. Slaneesh, however, is such an outlier, that fewer data points are needed to indicate balance in reference to the non-outliers being off. Do note that this just is a qualitative indication, and does not say where it is in relation to non-broken armies, just that it's outside of the desired range.

Or, of course, it is a hard counter to Slaanesh, and every word I just typed is irrelevant.

[smartazjb0y]

40 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

You are correct that my initial comment comes of as rather certain. I usually state things with at least a modicum of uncertainty, but that would have damaged the layer of sarcasm, I thought.

As to the situation: Since Slaanesh is so far outside the norm, and average armies have only a 20% win chance against it, I would say the single data point does point towards the hypothesis that it is not balanced to most of the armies.

I would even say that Slaanesh is not a relevant test bed, since it needs such a big nerf that losses against it does not really indicate anything. Wins against it do, however, indicate they could be equally wrong in balancing.

So, If Bonereapers would be balanced around 55% overall, losing some 7 or 8 matches out of 10 against Slaanesh would not indicate anything with regards to non-broken armies. Being on par or over, however, indicates the balance team has lost the plot (again), and now needs to apply huge nerfs to two armies instead of one.

Again, extrapolating from a single data point, so a substantial amount of reservation is needed. Slaneesh, however, is such an outlier, that fewer data points are needed to indicate balance in reference to the non-outliers being off. Do note that this just is a qualitative indication, and does not say where it is in relation to non-broken armies, just that it's outside of the desired range.

Or, of course, it is a hard counter to Slaanesh, and every word I just typed is irrelevant.

That's a fair clarification. I just think people are way too ready to jump on the "GW bad at balance, OBR are OP" train before any of us have gotten the models and book in hand and actually played games with them. I mean, this thread has a way overdramatic title and was made before we even got the points values (and the OP even admitted to purposefully making the title overdramatic). Can we not just like wait til we actually have all the information, play some games, and be rational about this? 

[zilberfrid]

17 minutes ago, smartazjb0y said:

That's a fair clarification. I just think people are way too ready to jump on the "GW bad at balance, OBR are OP" train before any of us have gotten the models and book in hand and actually played games with them. I mean, this thread has a way overdramatic title and was made before we even got the points values (and the OP even admitted to purposefully making the title overdramatic). Can we not just like wait til we actually have all the information, play some games, and be rational about this? 

This is fair as well. We'll see, but I am a bit cautious, and was so even before the batrep.

It can't be fun for the players of the outliers for certain builds to be hilariously broken, because it's basically playing with cheats enabled.

Which is fun sometimes in a computer game vs computer to do something rediculous (like MTW2 monster ribauldequin spam to see how many peasants you need to reach them), but not vs players (if only because the player pool will dry up quickly).

[AaronWilson]

I disagree about the whole "We need games played, you can't say anything about the balance of a army before it's released"

We all know the game, we all know what's good or not, we can all read warscroll, allegiance abilities and understand the synergies between them. I defintely think OBR are tier one from what we have seen and if Slaaanesh get the nerf I think they will be top of the pile.

[michu]

17 minutes ago, AaronWilson said:

I disagree about the whole "We need games played, you can't say anything about the balance of a army before it's released"

We all know the game, we all know what's good or not, we can all read warscroll, allegiance abilities and understand the synergies between them. I defintely think OBR are tier one from what we have seen and if Slaaanesh get the nerf I think they will be top of the pile.

And I will say that's not entirely true. There are many examples (in Warhammer and other games) of things that were badly rated - for MTG example, when Dark Confidant was released people thought it's a bad card. They were wrong.  So wrong. Yes, we can extrapolate from what we know but nothing beats actual data.

Edited October 31, 2019 by michu

[TheCovenLord]

I think we need more data points and of course time for the meta to develop a bit in response to the reapers (avoiding katakros actually sounds like the wrong option from what I have read).

 

However I believe anyone who thinks OB are going to be less than tier 1 (probably on par with skaven minimum) are likely incorrect. There are very obvious synergies and potent rules requiring the quick elimination of tanky buff pieces at range, as they are very very resilient in combat. This is just not possible for a large number of armies (funnily enough slaanesh is included in this and has actually been dominating DESPITE having no ranged capabilities) or the OB option is more powerful (those catapults are by far one of the best artillery pieces released in AOS and 36 inches out ranges most other options, maybe deepstrike ballista spam can handle them but otherwise they will likely eliminate most efforts to defeat OB at range before they even have a chance. I actually cannot think of a ranged attack off the top of my head that is further or even on par as most cannons I know of are 24 or less and likely to be at -1 to hit (or cast) from their frankly stupidly good terrain piece). 

 

tldr their weakness looks like sniping buff pieces. But their buff pieces look tough enough to survive multiple turns and options to eliminate them are slim with how weak the ranged game is in AOS. Hopefully the hivemind finds a way to handle them and I am proven wrong. I would overall prefer more tomes written like the mawtribes book.

Edited October 31, 2019 by TheCovenLord

[Panzer]

47 minutes ago, AaronWilson said:

I disagree about the whole "We need games played, you can't say anything about the balance of a army before it's released"

We all know the game, we all know what's good or not, we can all read warscroll, allegiance abilities and understand the synergies between them. I defintely think OBR are tier one from what we have seen and if Slaaanesh get the nerf I think they will be top of the pile.

Ah right, I forgot that Gotrek is wrecking whole armies and has essentially ruined the game like predicted by so many people.  

[Lord Krungharr]

Can the Contorted Epitome take an artifact?  Thought they were a unique hero unit.  Looks like the OBR are coming in strong.  And they certainly have some interesting looking units.  I might give them some more consideration when I see more paint jobs.

[Overread]

The key element we need with "we need games to tell" isn't always about how powerful an army plays. We can often see how that can, in theory,  happen just from an army rulebook. What we often need that only games can give is:

1) If other armies can adapt their play style to counter the power in the new army. It's all very well to have a powerful army, but if the opponent can snipe out key elements or weather attacks or just secure objectives fast enough that even a wipe-out doesn't win the reapers the day; then you can see not so much weakness in the army but means to tackle them. 

2) How practical the theory is when put into practice. It's all very well to see combos and links within the theory of an army; however it might be that when placed and played on the tabletop certain tactics become impossible or only very rare to actually take place. This isn't about dice roles and being lucky or not; but its about things like positioning and deployment and how effective things like auras are. Or buff/debuff spells etc... There's a lot of cogs that go into an army and Reapers has quite a few to make them powerful; but when they all come together what ones rise to the top.

So games are important, they bring context to the theory. 

[PlasticCraic]

Time shall tell where they sit in the meta - but I'd confidently predict that they'll cop a lot of heat.  Their strengths are in areas that people often hate playing against:

- Rerolling saves is boring / frustrating to play against, but also time-consuming and not "streamlined", and therefore easy to attack as a negative play experience.

- Generally having awesome saves, complete Battleshock immunity and rezzing units (including unit leaders) will annoy opponents and give a feeling of frustration / "what am I supposed to do against this" for a lot of armies.  Not a big problem for people with multiple armies or willing to churn, but people with a single / couple of armies who can't deal with it will get annoyed pretty quickly.

- They have excellent Hero sniping with their artillery.  This is the cherry on the cake for a grind army, and a powerful tool that a lot of similar armies just don't have.  People will hate having their Heroes sniped whilst lacking a similar option in their armies to return the favour.

- The terrain piece is huge and has janky placement rules.  In a tournament context it is likely to mean rearranging existing terrain, which is outside the scope of what any other army can (currently) do and janky by nature (get rid of / displace terrain you don't want there).  Slamming a huge phallus in the middle of the table and displacing everything else is a pretty confrontational way to start the game.

All of these elements are likely to give rise to significant heat against the army.  I personally believe that some of that is justified, because it arises from unnecessary design choices: rerolling saves seems like an odd one when Warclans moved away from all rerolls, and the terrain piece had no reason to be so large or to trump all other terrain.

But rightly or wrongly, all the ingredients are there for this army to be hated out of all proportion to its achievements on the table (which FWIW I would estimate to be strong, but not meta-defining; it looks like a "good matchups and bad matchups" army to me).

[Overread]

One thing that might stave off the hate is that reapers are unlikely to start most games swinging hard. Perhaps if you take 3 or 4 catapults you might; but otherwise they are nearly always going to take a turn or two to get up to speed. Even if they charge forward with abilities they can't move the whole army forward at that pace. 

 

So that might well, esp in objective missions, give opponents a feeling of a closer fight. Even if they might near always lose the actual combat, the objectives might be far closer and the Reaper player might actually feel the pressure more to get over an early advantage to their opponent in that regard. 

[PlasticCraic]

I don't disagree with how those kinds of games will play out @Overread, but I do think some people will still dislike that. 

Specifically I know from experience of playing BCR back in the day that if you can snipe their Heroes and win the punchup (but lose the match on what counts, i.e. objectives),  people will merrily complain about how OP your army is while they are actually beating you (hence why I think the negative energy will be disproportionate to their achievements).

 

[Overread]

True, but quite a few armies have access to hero snipers and with armies like Daughters of Khaine running around since the start of AoS 2.0 (pretty much); sniping heroes is a known tactic. Reapers have a good weapon for it, but they are by far not the only army which can achieve it. 

 

Though with quite a few close combat only (or mostly only) armies out there it might be something some region metas don't feel as often. Though I'd wager going up against Cities of Sigmar you could easily feel a lot more ranged pain! 

[Dolomyte]

at what point at the catapults scary? If someone takes one, at 200 points mind you, against most hero’s it has a 50 percent chance or worse to do any damage, against some armies it’s near useless, and against a rare few it’s very very good. 

if you take three your spending 600 points on them, which again could be worthless depending on matchup. I just don’t see them as threatening in the slightest. What am I missing?

[KK9T]

2 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

Slamming a huge phallus in the middle of the table and displacing everything else is a pretty confrontational way to start the game.

This made me laugh. 

[Sleboda]

20 hours ago, Overread said:

One thing that might stave off the hate is that reapers are unlikely to start most games swinging hard. Perhaps if you take 3 or 4 catapults you might;

For many, many ... many years I've attended tournaments with cruddy armies. I tried my best, and won a few here and there, but it was always a major uphill climb.

I'm soooooo planning to be "that guy" with this army. Not in terms of being an actual ******, looking for loopholes, etc. But definitely in terms of building the most powerful, one-sided, crushing army I can. I'm buying a minimum -minimum!- of 20,000 points of the army. I will be able to field full-sized units in multiples for all options.

I'm so totally in on the army.

For once. For one time in my Sigmar-forsaken GW tournament life, I wanna crush all who stand before me with an army that has a plan and mitigates chance. I hate chance so very much. Hate it.

This army speaks to my blackened, shriveled soul and I will embrace the That Guy of it.

Please, let the early evaluations be right. I freaking deserve it.

 

🙂

Edited November 1, 2019 by Sleboda

[Kasper]

Who would have guessed that the army performed well in a battle rep specifically made to showcase and create more hype around said new army.

[Kramer]

7 hours ago, Sleboda said:

or once. For on time in my Sigmar-forsaken GW tournament life, I wanna crush all who stand before me with an army that has a plan and mitigates chance. I hate chance so very much. Hate it.

Dice though

[Overread]

58 minutes ago, Kasper said:

Who would have guessed that the army performed well in a battle rep specifically made to showcase and create more hype around said new army.

And yet many times the new army in Twitch streams often loses. They even comment on it several times in the twitch. 

Also they went against a currently strong opponent, 3 keepers and summoning a 4th is a baptism of fire for many armies. If they'd wanted a sure victory then there are other combinations of units they could have used which would have been far weaker and sub-optimal. Honestly I think the twitch games are by and large how they are, I don't think they do a lot of nefarious things to try and tweak the results (asides for which they are live streamed games; if there were clear and unfair bias it would defeat the point of the marketing. 

[Dolomyte]

3 minutes ago, Overread said:

And yet many times the new army in Twitch streams often loses. They even comment on it several times in the twitch. 

Also they went against a currently strong opponent, 3 keepers and summoning a 4th is a baptism of fire for many armies. If they'd wanted a sure victory then there are other combinations of units they could have used which would have been far weaker and sub-optimal. Honestly I think the twitch games are by and large how they are, I don't think they do a lot of nefarious things to try and tweak the results (asides for which they are live streamed games; if there were clear and unfair bias it would defeat the point of the marketing. 

Well they did put them against an army they are a hard counter to. Let’s see how they do versus skaven or daughters 

[Overread]

Daughters would be interesting - a glass cannon army against a slow moving sledge hammer. 

Skaven will be very interesting because they are one army which can do a lot of ranged firepower. So it will be interesting to see how reapers do against an army that they might have trouble catching. Esp since Skaven can also screen with clanrats, that alone might be a viable tactic - slowing the unstoppable down with a tide of cheap nothing rats. 

[Beastmaster]

Ambush the catapult with frostsabers, maybe?

[Kasper]

31 minutes ago, Overread said:

And yet many times the new army in Twitch streams often loses. They even comment on it several times in the twitch. 

Also they went against a currently strong opponent, 3 keepers and summoning a 4th is a baptism of fire for many armies. If they'd wanted a sure victory then there are other combinations of units they could have used which would have been far weaker and sub-optimal. Honestly I think the twitch games are by and large how they are, I don't think they do a lot of nefarious things to try and tweak the results (asides for which they are live streamed games; if there were clear and unfair bias it would defeat the point of the marketing. 

I have never watched a twitch stream where the new army loses big time. Now it also helps that new armies tend to be quite strong, but it makes no sense to showcase a match where the new army is doing terrible. Not exactly setting themselves up for a good sale.

[michu]

@Kasper If you count "new codex" as "new army"then Orks lost during their twitch battle last year.

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, Kasper said:

I have never watched a twitch stream where the new army loses big time. Now it also helps that new armies tend to be quite strong, but it makes no sense to showcase a match where the new army is doing terrible. Not exactly setting themselves up for a good sale.

iirc DoK lost? Legions of Nagash lost as well, Gobbos lost, Idoneth lost.

they don‘t stage those battles, they just duke it out.

 

@Dolomyte hard counter? The way Ossiarchs seem to be they hard counter every faction. The only points you can say about Slaanesh which they‘re not the best at are armour saves and shooting. So I don‘t see how OBR are only a hard counter to Slaanesh which is a strong melee army in a melee game. Also note that most shooting is rather lackluster (or lacks sufficient rend to deal with OBR). I am rather certain that OBR will proof too resilient to be beaten at all. 

Edited November 1, 2019 by JackStreicher