The heavy hand of GW balancing returns...

[Myrdin]

There are other gaming systems. Some of which became pretty damn big considered how dense the GW community and reach is.

Now both of these are skirmish style games. No huge armies marching in the field slamming into each other. Rather warbands and gangs of specialist who challenge each other in different scenarios.

A Good example would be Corvus Belli and Infnity. That game is absolutely amazing. The rules are layerd upon rules which are layerd upon rules, but once you learn the first layier it becomes so much easier. Models are stunning and the rules are provided for free online. You buy the beatiful fully colored book only if you really want it.

Another example I personally had the pleasure to play was Malifaux. Very very nice looking miniatures, each unique in their own way. No dice, instead you use a deck with cards that represent your rolls. Fairly unique system, and a bit confusing at first but the game was swift and fun  and I ceratinly want to get more of that.

Warlords of Erehwon is a  Warlords Games game.... with all the pros and cons that it entails. If you like stuff like Anthares or Bolt Action, you will be right at home. I tried two games of Anthares and one of Erehwon. Its fairly easy to get in and learn the ropes. It uses a different dice system than D6 which is also quite interesting in its own right. The miniatures for Anthares are your 80/90 Scifi, and Erehwon is built in a way where you can use whatever miniatures you have, as long as they at least partially look the part.

Erehwon does feel similar to the older iteration of Warhammer. The units are not as big as 8th ed Fantasy, but they are still more chunky for it to not be considered just a Skirmish game of 10 or so miniatuers. Unfortunately for me the people who play Warlord games stuff in our club are ..... "unpleasant" at the very minimum in order to avoid cussing. This killed my interest in the game completely as my free time is limited and I am not keen on spending it with a bunch of A*holes. 

These are the 3 main example that come to my mind that have been growing fairly quickly in our local community and manage to attract decent amount of stable players to keep them going. I tried each of these and had plenty of fun as all of them feel familiar in one way or another but each does its its own thing and they do it well.  With Anthares I was 50/50 at first but after two more I bought a small army and got ready to get in. With Infinity my army is growing constantly as I invest more time and effort into it, and Malifaux is something I need to give another try or two, but so far I am pretty interested and the whole Miniatures with deck of Cards  system is quite unique and engaging.

I would strongly recommend at least trying few games of these if you have the option to do so and community to play with. The first two games tend to be chaotic, but after 3 games you should have pretty good idea if you like it or not. 

[XReN]

2 hours ago, Myrdin said:

A Good example would be Corvus Belli and Infnity. That game is absolutely amazing. The rules are layerd upon rules which are layerd upon rules, but once you learn the first layier it becomes so much easier. Models are stunning and the rules are provided for free online. You buy the beatiful fully colored book only if you really want it.

Another example I personally had the pleasure to play was Malifaux. Very very nice looking miniatures, each unique in their own way. No dice, instead you use a deck with cards that represent your rolls. Fairly unique system, and a bit confusing at first but the game was swift and fun  and I ceratinly want to get more of that.

It's very unfortunate that both of those are skirmishes, I own models for both but don't have the drive to play any games (also our Malifaux community is dying since the new edition) low model counts just don't cut it.

[Myrdin]

1 minute ago, XReN said:

It's very unfortunate that both of those are skirmishes, I own models for both but don't have the drive to play any games (also our Malifaux community is dying since the new edition) low model counts just don't cut it.

Its interesting how the tide of different gaming formats is like the ebb and flow of the local community. 
When Infinity came to our humble parts, what 6-8 years ago, the overall reception was lukewarm at best. But in the last year and half it picked up a lot of steam and more people started getting into it. Me included.

As for Malifaux, I`ve always had a mild interest regarding the game, but no one ever played it here. Only recently I met a guy who is trying to jump start it in our local community, by bringing his gangs to the club, borrowing and teaching new players who showed interest.  I had one box of the Oiran/Kunoichi I picked up years ago just for the miniatures. It seems that the tide changed a lot with the new edition, and some new people are getting more interested into it as well.

Honestly, the more I play these skirmish game the more I enjoy them. Its refreshing to not have to lug around 2-3 bags filled with hundreds of miniatures, and spending 30 minutes unpacking and packing your army.  

To bad I already invested so much into 3 different AoS armies, both time and money wise, but as someone mentioned above: If you wanna play, you have to play what others are playing. Thankfully in our local club bunch of non AoS/40K games are getting more support than they used to, so there is finally something else to choose from and shake things up a little, when you are like me and grew kind of a fatigue with AoS as it is now.

[Dead Scribe]

6 hours ago, 123lac said:

Yeah I figured.

Gotta play what the majority play otherwise no games 4 u.

Well actually its more that I'm not going to drop $500 or so on an army that has next to no players that I have to hunt down to get a game in and whose only tournaments will be once a year at Adepticon.  Thats not something I find enjoyable.  I like regular games with different people and regular tournaments, at least two a month.

[Dead Scribe]

4 hours ago, schwabbele said:

I don’t think they are truly competitive then, as a competitive player I wouldn’t care , just buy roflstomp netlist and try to win. And competitive players should know  broken combos could be subject to a faq and be able to adapt.
 

I think it stings way more for the casual crowd. You field this awesome army, cool models , nice theme but get mowed down every game. No fun 😀

Well believe it or not there are competitive tournament players that also collect armies based on what fits them the best and would rather run those armies than a netlist they have no attachment to.

[schwabbele]

54 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Well believe it or not there are competitive tournament players that also collect armies based on what fits them the best and would rather run those armies than a netlist they have no attachment to.

Kinda sounds beer and pretzels competitive  but i get your point

[Dead Scribe]

Well they will totally collect a netlist to be competitive, they'd just rather the army that call to them be competitively viable.   We have a couple guys that really love chaos in general and were hoping the new chaos book would be competitive, so were highly disappointed when they saw that it was just a middle tier book and then on top of that it got nerfed right out of the gate when other armies are obviously more powerful and stay that way.  

[Forrix]

Infinity is fairly popular in my area but I really dislike metal miniatures. Malifaux is pretty good having played it and I like the miniatures about as much as GW ones. There's just not much of a scene (by which I mean any). The Other Side looks interesting to me but it doesn't seem to have caught on either. Its one I'm keeping an eye on though since the minis look nice and its a mass combat game too.

[JackStreicher]

Once you‘ve been in the hobby as long as some of us you‘ll realize that GW and carefully crafted and reflected upon rules and or balance don‘t work together  at all: for a lack of trying and also no interest. The rules are nothing but a way to promote their miniatures. Just think about how often they forget a „once per phase/turn“ phrase for command abilities, they‘re just sloppy and uncaring.

I am also shocked by the sudden stomping of the good S2D rules but I am not surprised.

[Kirjava13]

18 hours ago, Kramer said:

What a daft response. 🤷‍♀️
you have a conversation about rules being changed for the sake of balance. The people for whom it’s most important are those for who it defines the hobby. And one of them speaks up from that section of the player base and you dismiss it. The only reason it reads daft is because my first choice of word would be auto corrected 😉

For anyone below ‘I want to win a tournament’ the nurgle thing hardly matters. Because most wouldn’t play it if it hurts their opponents enjoyment. Because that would hurt their enjoyment. At least that is my experience. 

and I know, I know. I’m only interested in both narrative nonsense and competitive nonsense. So carry on. 

I don't dismiss the competitive section- indeed, I believe I was actively speaking up for the people who were cross about it, and explained very carefully why. But the person I quoted is manifestly (and self-confessedly) happy with and more interested in broken and overpowered things, because they win games. That is what is nonsense (do I really need to add a pathetic little "in my opinion" to this?). As such, I don't understand your post in the slightest outside of either an accidental or a deliberate misreading.

[Kasper]

38 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

I am also shocked by the sudden stomping of the good S2D rules but I am not surprised.

What good S2D rules were "suddenly stomped"? You could predict pretty much all of them quite easily. And many of them were good changes.

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

@prochuvi

With marks you do have to have a Hero with the same mark to activate them.  So that 180 points does also mean another 110+ points as well which has to also keep up so they are wholly within 12".  I personally think Nardirite weapons are often more potent than a Mark of Khorne.  As for the Sorcerer Lord's Daemoic Power spell, CV 6+, can be unbound, only one attempt a round and target unit must be wholly within 18".  That is a long ways from a sure thing.  On top of that Sorcerer Lords only have 5 wounds so they aren't exactly challenging to snipe.  I will agree well worth trying to make use of.  I have a couple Sorcerer Lords in my current army.  I think you are dramatically overstating their power though.  Every game I have had the Sorcerer Lord and Daemoic Power helped but never once allowed me to steam roll over anything except maybe some Pleaguebearers my knights were probably going to stomp anyways.

As for damage, I run 10 man blocks of knights and every fight so far they get bogged down.  I don't think they hit as hard as you think they do.  Again, I think many of the Bonereaper units naturally kit harder point for point.  Even buffed up, I have real concerns of how I am going to re-match OBR players since their units seem just as tough but hit harder than mine.  Clearly banging shields and breaking lances is probably not the best way to fight them, as I said; I think they hit harder.

I find it difficult to see the new Slaves to Darkness battletome as stupidly broken having played it.  I bet my opponents that have played me after getting it would agree.  I haven't played enough games to say with any confidence what tier the battletome does feel like, but I don't see any reason to not place in Mid tier.  From my games, I find my army tougher than average but not the toughest, kinda slow, lacking any real ranged attacks, expensive in points, limiting area control and lower than average offensive power.  As for the nerfs, other than the Varanguard battalion one,  not really that unexpected.  I also don't think it radically changed the overall power of the battletome itself just a few armies.

[TheCovenLord]

26 minutes ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

@prochuvi

With marks you do have to have a Hero with the same mark to activate them.  So that 180 points does also mean another 110+ points as well which has to also keep up so they are wholly within 12".  I personally think Nardirite weapons are often more potent than a Mark of Khorne.  As for the Sorcerer Lord's Daemoic Power spell, CV 6+, can be unbound, only one attempt a round and target unit must be wholly within 18".  That is a long ways from a sure thing.  On top of that Sorcerer Lords only have 5 wounds so they aren't exactly challenging to snipe.  I will agree well worth trying to make use of.  I have a couple Sorcerer Lords in my current army.  I think you are dramatically overstating their power though.  Every game I have had the Sorcerer Lord and Daemoic Power helped but never once allowed me to steam roll over anything except maybe some Pleaguebearers my knights were probably going to stomp anyways.

As for damage, I run 10 man blocks of knights and every fight so far they get bogged down.  I don't think they hit as hard as you think they do.  Again, I think many of the Bonereaper units naturally kit harder point for point.  Even buffed up, I have real concerns of how I am going to re-match OBR players since their units seem just as tough but hit harder than mine.  Clearly banging shields and breaking lances is probably not the best way to fight them, as I said; I think they hit harder.

I find it difficult to see the new Slaves to Darkness battletome as stupidly broken having played it.  I bet my opponents that have played me after getting it would agree.  I haven't played enough games to say with any confidence what tier the battletome does feel like, but I don't see any reason to not place in Mid tier.  From my games, I find my army tougher than average but not the toughest, kinda slow, lacking any real ranged attacks, expensive in points, limiting area control and lower than average offensive power.  As for the nerfs, other than the Varanguard battalion one,  not really that unexpected.  I also don't think it radically changed the overall power of the battletome itself just a few armies.

Having played against them a few times in a few variations and flavors these past few weeks (~8 games) I do not think they are particularly high tier whatsoever, even with the stacking nurgle DP ability (Which was busted, but, variations of it such as plague monks saves of 6's reflecting a mortal to the attacker have existed forever and are free so it did not particularly bother me as I already account for similar effects in my playgroup). 

Compared to the usual semi-competitive Petrifax/Slaanesh/Skaven/Orruk Warclans they lack really really heavily on damage. They suffer from 1 spell casters (see skaven grey seers for similar cost 2 cast units with the possibility of rerolls and boosts from terrain) with few ways to boost (beyond the cultist thing which is a ****** version of the darkling covens sacrifice ability) so against certain armies (tzeentch, my own covens, all flavors of death even khorne) they just do not get spells off regularly.

The warriors are tougher than they appear and they have access to a few ways to gain shrugs (shrines/nurgle stuff/prayers from khorne to boost saves) but their damage is abysmally mediocre and my opponents regularly have to ally in extra support units to try and bump the damage up (seeing a lot of bloodsecrators for bonus attacks with a lord for the double pile in/nurgle sorcerers for blade of putrefaction) as the warriors get stuck in and just sit in that combat for 3+ turns.  The knights are slightly punchier but do not compare to hammer units in any other faction (plague monks/KoS/Witch Aelves/kurnoths). The faction has overall low rend and few ways to dish mortals beyond spells (which are absolutely counterable and highly conditional).  The faction takes punishment which is good for scenario but can't dish it. Good thing they have that teleport spell to dump blocks of warriors onto objectives. 

 

 

 

Edited January 15, 2020 by TheCovenLord

[NinthMusketeer]

On 1/14/2020 at 1:02 AM, Eevika said:

Its a CP for d3 mortal wounds right now. Thats pretty bad seeing CP is hard to get. 

Fortunately it is much stronger. It is a potential for d3 each time a unit attacks in melee. It lasts until the next hero phase, so that is two combat phases, and it should be used on a unit that engages multiple targets. It wouldn't be difficult to put it on a big unit and have it charge three different enemy units. When it's dealing 6d3 MWs for one CP the ability is a lot better. What it needs now is proper tactical application to be good.

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

they‘re just sloppy and uncaring

I've also been in it for a long time (34 years + now), and while I have seen what could be called sloppiness here and there over the decades, I think calling them uncaring is just plain unfair. Both as an employee and as a players, I've encountered the designers, played with them, had beers with them, etc.   The overwhelming majority of them are highly passionate. You can call them lots of things, but uncaring doesn't make the list.

[Gaz Taylor]

+++ Mod Hat On +++

Just a reminder - when participating in this topic, just be mindful how you reply. I know some of you are quite passionate about it but just make sure how you are replying is not offensive. 

Ive just had to tidy this topic up after some reports and a review. So however you like to play, just bear in mind other people may see it very differently. 

[Kurrilino]

45 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

I've also been in it for a long time (34 years + now), and while I have seen what could be called sloppiness here and there over the decades, I think calling them uncaring is just plain unfair. Both as an employee and as a players, I've encountered the designers, played with them, had beers with them, etc.   The overwhelming majority of them are highly passionate. You can call them lots of things, but uncaring doesn't make the list.

Not saying anything like uncaring is true but how do you explain this S2D book?

It reads like someone wrote the rules who never ever heard about S2D before. How can this happen if everyone is incredible passionate about books and rules?

Edited January 15, 2020 by Kurrilino

[Eldarain]

8 minutes ago, Kurrilino said:

Not saying anything like uncaring is true but how do you explain this S2D book?

It reads like someone wrote the rules who never ever heard about S2D before. How can this happen if everyone is incredible passionate about books and rules?

Unfortunately there are outside influences beyond creativity and gameplay. We know that meddling created the Wraithknight insanity during 7th.

 

Wouldn't be at all surprised to learn ranges with divisive aesthetics get the OP treatment from on high.

Slaves is just an obligatory update for an old range. 

[Captain Marius]

I dont get the fuss, GW significantly buffed all of the warscrolls AND the ghb allegiance abilities. Chaos warriors actually feel like a decent threat now before you even taje into account the improved auras, sorceror, lord and warshrine buffs.

Nerfing the clearly ridiculous nirgle DP ability was a good move, it was a horrible rule that skewed Slaves armies towards always taking it. Similar to plague monks, which were ridiculous to include in the skaven book with their original warscroll and at 70pts for 10, both of which have finally been fixed. Hopefully this indicates GW will fix egregious stuff like keeper spam and petrifex rules more promptly, altho ill concede theres not really any other indication of this.

The only bit that i found annoying was how mixed weapons in chaos warrior units got into the book in the first place. The wording was deliberately changed and then changed back, with a potential real impact on how customers will have assembled their models, or even changed their existing ones. Perhaps these slapdash errors are an outcome of rushing out all the battletomes so fast?

[JackStreicher]

3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

I've also been in it for a long time (34 years + now), and while I have seen what could be called sloppiness here and there over the decades, I think calling them uncaring is just plain unfair. Both as an employee and as a players, I've encountered the designers, played with them, had beers with them, etc.   The overwhelming majority of them are highly passionate. You can call them lots of things, but uncaring doesn't make the list.

I didn't mean it in general but concerning new rules and their effects on the game (also balancing)...

Edited January 15, 2020 by JackStreicher

[Kurrilino]

1 hour ago, Captain Marius said:

I dont get the fuss, GW significantly buffed all of the warscrolls AND the ghb allegiance abilities. Chaos warriors actually feel like a decent threat now before you even taje into account the improved auras, sorceror, lord and warshrine buffs.

Nerfing the clearly ridiculous nirgle DP ability was a good move, it was a horrible rule that skewed Slaves armies towards always taking it. Similar to plague monks, which were ridiculous to include in the skaven book with their original warscroll and at 70pts for 10, both of which have finally been fixed. Hopefully this indicates GW will fix egregious stuff like keeper spam and petrifex rules more promptly, altho ill concede theres not really any other indication of this.

The only bit that i found annoying was how mixed weapons in chaos warrior units got into the book in the first place. The wording was deliberately changed and then changed back, with a potential real impact on how customers will have assembled their models, or even changed their existing ones. Perhaps these slapdash errors are an outcome of rushing out all the battletomes so fast?

Did you actually read the book?

They mostly downgraded  the warscrolls if you take points into consideration.

You have to take multiple chariots to buff 1 and the Gorebeast chariots have massively downgraded.

Same with warriors, they are roughly the same but cost way more. The whole range got more expensive because of buffs that are not even guaranteed. 

[whiskeytango]

5 minutes ago, Kurrilino said:

Same with warriors, they are roughly the same but cost way more. The whole range got more expensive because of buffs that are not even guaranteed. 

It's like Slaves is the first book to actually have it's Allegiance Abilities baked into their points cost, while at the same time, like you said, not having them guaranteed. 

[AdamR]

5 minutes ago, Kurrilino said:

Did you actually read the book?

They mostly downgraded  the warscrolls if you take points into consideration.

You have to take multiple chariots to buff 1 and the Gorebeast chariots have massively downgraded.

Same with warriors, they are roughly the same but cost way more. The whole range got more expensive because of buffs that are not even guaranteed.

Warriors went up a whole 10 points. That's hardly "way more". 

They also get +1 to wound with hand weapons +1 attack on the champion and reroll saves rather than reroll 1's coming in at 10 models rather than 20...

[Captain Marius]

Warriors got a +1 in their melee profile, to wound in the case of hand weapons, and reroll saves of 1 at 20+ went to reroll saves at 10+. I think this is way better and worth the originall 100pts they were on par with liberators. And this before all the enhanced buffs they can get!

I agree with the chariot nerf, but then it was dumb having a load of individual chariots all with exalted charioteer stats - why take a unit of more than one at all?

One thing i dont get is the removal of the massive regiment discount. This doesnt make sense when the KO and Tzeentch books still have them...

[AdamR]

1 minute ago, Captain Marius said:

 

One thing i dont get is the removal of the massive regiment discount. This doesnt make sense when the KO and Tzeentch books still have them...

KO doesn't have them either.