AOS tier list!

[Dead Scribe]

Some of the ppl at our club play against each other over and over. And  we had a orruk player that always lost to his friends khorne army. Now that the new book is out he is starting to win. Not because they learned something,  No just because in a straith up smackdown the orruks just got a little better whit the book

I would like everyone to remember this quote the next time someone says that GW balance is acceptable and u just need to learn to play better.

[The_Dudemeister]

2 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

I would like everyone to remember this quote the next time someone says that GW balance is acceptable and u just need to learn to play better.

Yeah, reminds me of all those well-meant tips that you just need to play for objectives better and whatnot. As if the other army's general cannot do that too on top of having an army that easily tables you or is nigh unkillable for you. 😅

Edited December 18, 2019 by The_Dudemeister

[Televiper11]

I wish players would accept an army going 3-2 as ideal, rather than 5-0. 

[CommissarRotke]

5 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

I think its up to the players to do research before investing, and I think its also up to the community around them to warn them about the trap armies instead of letting them spend a lot of money on an army that is horrible.  As much as people like to tout hobby and all, most people I have been exposed to really do want to not get crushed simply because of army choice (i'm not referring to tournament level I'm referring to the base store for fun level).

How much can you expect someone new (or young) to research before choosing though..? Because really, you should also be picking an army based on what you'd like to build and paint, and the lore that resonates with you the most--not just the capacity to win. I understand the "rule of cool" only takes you so far, but if someone abso-f!@#ing-lutely loves the idea of Steampunk dwarves, why should they be punished when they find out the cool models they made do poorly against others?

More than the current meta frontrunners should be coming off the shelves, and new players shouldn't need to feel like they wasted money (which would take them out of the hobby entirely) because everything about the army is awesome aside from the table play.

[Dead Scribe]

Quote

why should they be punished when they find out the cool models they made do poorly against others?

Because we the gw fans that play their game continue to shovel money their way regardless of the quality of the balance or the rules.  They are punished because they buy the models anyway and we the fans shrug and continue to go on buying as well.

At our store we make sure that new players are made aware of what is garbage tier and what are competitive armies so that players that want to actually play the game don't stumble onto sky dwarves or up until recently slaves to darkness.  We unfortunately lost a few people this year to that (having armies that weren't competitive).  So we are more aware of that when new players join us. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Dead Scribe

[Kadeton]

Yeah, that's basically the heart of the problem. It's all very well for us, as players, to lament the fact that GW doesn't balance the game very well, but unless that results in a shift in purchasing habits (the only meaningful metric for a profit-driven company) then nothing will change. 40K is even worse for this - the game is a boring shambles, and yet players consistently spend a lot of money on it. Wishing the game was better doesn't make it happen.

Given that a significant change to GW's design habits is unlikely, @Dead Scribe's approach makes a certain kind of sense. It's the "if you can't beat them, join them" strategy... idealistically bankrupt, totally pragmatic. If you don't have any power to change the system, you can either reject it, or work with it. If your goal is to win games, the easiest path to achieving that is to pick whichever army GW have given the greatest advantage to. People often react badly to that, because they still hold some idealistic notions about the game - there's nothing wrong with that either, of course! There's just a natural tension when it's clear the system is broken: some people will cry "Fix the system!" while others will say "I can use this to my advantage."

I think it will be really interesting to see how the tweaks in the latest round of FAQs affect tournament results going forward. Balance is a very delicate thing, and can swing dramatically and unpredictably based on seemingly minor changes.

[JackStreicher]

The issue with the stats is that they don‘t speak for the entirety of an army. Since those stats represent tournament lists you must expect that the lists are min-maxed which means they could include any number of units from the book - meaning the table shows the power of certain lists/ unit combinations but not of an entire army/Battletome.
there‘d need to be a weighting of army list variance that matches the powerlevel with the amount of (different) units used. This way you could distinguish a bad Battletome/Army (only 30% of all units are effectively playable) From a great army/Battletome (<50% of the units are playable).

Currently the table shows which army has the most effective unit + player combination.

 

Edit: for example might Idoneth Derpkin be a bad Battletome  they only ever field 30% of their army while having a lower winrate. CoS might be good since they field an average of 80% of their Battletome while having a 45% winrate.

Edited December 19, 2019 by JackStreicher

[Dead Scribe]

I would say the min/max is what is going to be fielded the majority of times, even in store environments.  

It doesn't matter if 90% of a battletome is garbage, as long as the 10% that it can legally field is hot and competitive, because thats all most people will field anyway.

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

The issue with the stats is that they don‘t speak for the entirety of an army. Since those stats represent tournament lists you must expect that the lists are min-maxed which means they could include any number of units from the book - meaning the table shows the power of certain lists/ unit combinations but not of an entire army/Battletome.
there‘d need to be a weighting of army list variance that matches the powerlevel with the amount of (different) units used. This way you could distinguish a bad Battletome/Army (only 30% of all units are effectively playable) From a great army/Battletome (<50% of the units are playable).

Currently the table shows which army has the most effective unit + player combination.

 

Edit: for example might Idoneth Derpkin be a bad Battletome  they only ever field 30% of their army while having a lower winrate. CoS might be good since they field an average of 80% of their Battletome while having a 45% winrate.

This is why I disagree with people stating CoS is a bad battletome. The warscrolls are mostly balanced, and the Cities are not too bad as well. Win rates are not yet 50%, but that may in part be people trying to use one sub allegiance, in part the lack of faction terrain, and in part a reflection of badly balanced armies (Skaven, Slaanesh, Ossiarch). I think the book itself is quite allright.

[Naem]

13 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

Because we the gw fans that play their game continue to shovel money their way regardless of the quality of the balance or the rules.  They are punished because they buy the models anyway and we the fans shrug and continue to go on buying as well.

At our store we make sure that new players are made aware of what is garbage tier and what are competitive armies so that players that want to actually play the game don't stumble onto sky dwarves or up until recently slaves to darkness.  We unfortunately lost a few people this year to that (having armies that weren't competitive).  So we are more aware of that when new players join us. 

That is a fair point, but as you said regarding StD, this stuff changes - and fast sometimes. Another example would be the Space Marines in 40k, who were not to great and a suddenly top tier, because for once they got a decent codex. 

So when choosing an army that you want to play for years I maybe wouldn't rely to much on the contemporary meta. An army that might be unplayable bad, could be the most overpowered army with the next upgrade.

On a more general note: I also would love to have a more balanced game. But we should give GW a break sometimes, as balancing a strategy game is a hell of a job and the more factions and armies you have the more difficult it gets. I remember an early interview with blizzard regarding Starcraft, where they were asked why only just 3 races. And the answer was that there is only so much time and money and balancing three races while making them also unique to play was the absolute maximum that this huge company could handle. While balancing an RTA might be different from balancing a round based game, just imagine how complex it must be to even approximately balance 12+ different armies. I would even dispute that it is at all possible to balance that many armies, if you don't want so simply clone units like other RTS do (Age of Empires for example, where everybody has the same units with different skins except for a couple of special units). 

[JackStreicher]

4 hours ago, Dead Scribe said:

I would say the min/max is what is going to be fielded the majority of times, even in store environments.  

It doesn't matter if 90% of a battletome is garbage, as long as the 10% that it can legally field is hot and competitive, because thats all most people will field anyway.

It‘s still not representative of a entire faction, it‘s representative of one or two combos and units. ^^

[Dead Scribe]

Thats technically correct, but as far as a lot of people are concerned, that one or two combos and units are representations of the entire faction because you will rarely if ever see the other ones.

[Thamalys]

On 12/18/2019 at 8:12 PM, Televiper11 said:

I wish players would accept an army going 3-2 as ideal, rather than 5-0. 

So very true! I'd say the 5-0 philosophy is kind of a vicious cicle, in  that it's the end result of broken mechanics and the like: if the crazy OP thing razes everyone 5-0, everyone is sort of forced to embrace new levels of filth, which in turns makes for more 5-0... some would say is part of the competitive processo - I, am not sure. 

The thing that I really don't quite understand is how come that some mightily OP stuff doesn't get spotted (and thus rectified) at the playtesting stage: I don't think it would have taken a genius to realise how to transform things such as Slaanesh summoning or the Ardboyz battalion into devastating lists.

In any case: I very much agree, 3 - 2 should be everyone's goal!

[Dolomyte]

I agree with most people that the healthy win rate for armies is in. The 45 to 55 percent range. The issue is in a  miniature game this big there are bound to be hits and misses Battletome wise. It has happened in every edition of Kings of war, malifaux, warmahordes, flames of war, 40k, warhammer fantasy and age of Sigmar. Even d&d has haves and have nots. Unless you are playing chess you won’t get perfectly balanced, and if you don’t get perfectly balanced the more variation the likelier for something to break the game. 
 

My change that I would love to see made is a more ala carte starting box. So you pick two start collectings and get the rule book for free. 

[armisael]

47 minutes ago, Thamalys said:

So very true! I'd say the 5-0 philosophy is kind of a vicious cicle, in  that it's the end result of broken mechanics and the like: if the crazy OP thing razes everyone 5-0, everyone is sort of forced to embrace new levels of filth, which in turns makes for more 5-0... some would say is part of the competitive processo - I, am not sure. 

The thing that I really don't quite understand is how come that some mightily OP stuff doesn't get spotted (and thus rectified) at the playtesting stage: I don't think it would have taken a genius to realise how to transform things such as Slaanesh summoning or the Ardboyz battalion into devastating lists.

In any case: I very much agree, 3 - 2 should be everyone's goal!

I think they already know at the play testing stage. but they just ignore it because it is good for their profit.

It is GW style, good at launch for selling and then nerf later.

[Dead Scribe]

1 hour ago, Thamalys said:

So very true! I'd say the 5-0 philosophy is kind of a vicious cicle, in  that it's the end result of broken mechanics and the like: if the crazy OP thing razes everyone 5-0, everyone is sort of forced to embrace new levels of filth, which in turns makes for more 5-0... some would say is part of the competitive processo - I, am not sure. 

The thing that I really don't quite understand is how come that some mightily OP stuff doesn't get spotted (and thus rectified) at the playtesting stage: I don't think it would have taken a genius to realise how to transform things such as Slaanesh summoning or the Ardboyz battalion into devastating lists.

In any case: I very much agree, 3 - 2 should be everyone's goal!

3-2 will never win you a tournament, so I think in that regard knowing that so many of us play to win tournaments, that striving for a standard that has no chance at winning tournaments will never fly or be accepted or agreed upon.

[Kirjava13]

You might have to actually be good at the game that way, and not rely on playing something inherently overpowered! 

[Overread]

Also if everyone at the tournament takes the armies with the same win ratio chance it in effect becomes an even win chance because you're all using the same army. An army with a greater chance of winning has only an equal chance when fighting against itself or other armies of the same average when matched against all races.

 

The target should be that ALL races have the same chance to win with several army combinations within each battletome. 

[The_Dudemeister]

1 hour ago, Dolomyte said:

Unless you are playing chess you won’t get perfectly balanced, and if you don’t get perfectly balanced the more variation the likelier for something to break the game.

White has a 52-56% win rate in chess 😂

[Zappgrot]

On 12/18/2019 at 4:23 PM, Dead Scribe said:

 

 

I would like everyone to remember this quote the next time someone says that GW balance is acceptable and u just need to learn to play better.

Well don't take me out of context.  The point is was trying to make is that if you play very casually and not use much tactics you will suffer more at the hands of unbalance. Skill can certainly help you a lot. Skill is still a  factor. its just not the  only factor. And the less skilled you are the more army balance becomes a factor. 

[Dead Scribe]

I don't fully buy that.  If that was an absolute, then the dudes that win tournaments regularly I'd expect to be also using weaker armies, and most I know or see are always using top powered armies too.

[RuneBrush]

Creating tier lists is always going to pose a challenge.  Generally we tend to refer to the tournament stat lists over the past handful of months to work them out.  This is normally great for identifying the top and bottom tiers because regardless of composition some battletomes produce the same rough tiering of army list.  The middle tiers is where things start to go a lot more skewy.

One of the core reasons for this is that tournament stats only contain a limited amount of information for us to analyse.  You need a pretty large amount of data to remove "blips" (things like grudges and hangovers can result in a win/loss that wouldn't have otherwise).  The nature of battletomes also compounds analysis of data because we know that each battletome will produce multiple distinctly individual armies - at the most basic a daemon army is going to be different to a mortal one, but we then have some really complicated battletomes that contain multiple flavours of specific allegiances (I'm looking at you Legions of Nagash and Cities of Sigmar!).

I'll be honest - I can't actually remember where I was going with my post (it's been a quiet day at work), however I'm glad I've put something together that does highlight some of the pitfalls with working out tiers 🥴

 

[Ointagru]

4 hours ago, The_Dudemeister said:

White has a 52-56% win rate in chess 😂

Chess is perfectly balanced because you alternate playing with whites and blacks, so it ultimately comes down to the skill. 

[Saodexan]

50 minutes ago, Ointagru said:

Chess is perfectly balanced because you alternate playing with whites and blacks, so it ultimately comes down to the skill. 

Chess have it limit, most grand master game end up in DRAW nowdays.

[whispersofblood]

1 hour ago, Ointagru said:

Chess is perfectly balanced because you alternate playing with whites and blacks, so it ultimately comes down to the skill. 

This isn't true, White always goes first, that's isn't balance neutral. Also the stat you quoted is true. White has between a 5-10% higher win rate.