Quality over quantity?

[Bloodylips]

Hej

Im back again with some beginner thoughts. So in general is it better to load up an army with fewer expensive units/models or is more of a middle of the road.

For example trading out evocators (5) and down grading seqs to libs to fit a cel prime. In general does prime out weight the overall weakening of the backbone forces. This would be a small 1000p army so prime makes up a 1/3 of the total.

 

In general, usually heavy investment pays out in most games, how is it in aos?

 

[Nos]

The meta shifts but generally speaking AOS is a game of objective holding which is determined by number of models.

To use your example, for roughly the same  cost as 5 Evocators you can get 40 Moonclan Grots. Even if the Evocators kill 20 of them and lose one, which would be a good return for the SC player, that's still a turn of objective points lost, in all likelihood two turns.

On the other hand if those 5 Evocators are primed with a command ability or a dual charge or concentrated shooting they would be able to kill probably all the Grots, and then the Moomclan's ability to get that objective back would depend entirely on units able to get there in the next turn.  AOS is usually won by the player who best uses the synthesis of their army to hold objectives and clear and take someone else's. It rarely comes down to points  vs points. 

Outside of list building the skill is to arrange your units so they avoid bad match ups and create unfavourable ones on the key objective points, which almost entirely comes down to movement  and depolyment of reserves. Those are the aspects of AOS least decided by the dice and the areas to master. 

But it's worth remembering that AOS is  not remotely balanced in its armies or elegant in its systems and the best armies (Tzeenth in particular at present, Slaanesh last time out) usually win by virtue of either not having to abide by these rules or making it impossible for their opponent to do so. Especially in the more competitive areneas, the aim in AOS is to win  before the game even starts, and it absolutely facilitates this as a system.

If you want to learn the rules, its crucial you and your opponent have the same objective for play beforehand, ie to learn how rules, armies,  scenarios etc work, or for narrative purposes because If you as a beginner turned up to a club and asked me for a game without that caveat and I fielded my best list, I would absolutely beat you before you the game even started, because my best list is designed to beat other peoples best lists before they start  to stop them playing.

Not just that, but so much of AOS' rules are unavailable to you unless you have each army book. If you had only played say STD, LON and SC before and I just played my Sylvaneth without explaining their rules to you you simply would have no idea what to do because you wouldn't know what to expect or what my army could do. 

Honestly, go slow and just learn how your army works and ask questions on here and ask people you trust and respect, because there are a lot of hidden but perfectly legitimate things if you play with people who are over competitive or not transparent and they will leave a nasty taste in the mouth if you dont know it's coming. It's not a level playing field like a sport. You can turn up to a game of five and side and know your skill at football is pretty much all that counts. But AOS in unsupportive or uncommunicative circles is like turning up to that game and learning that some players are also on steroids, some others have three feet and one or two are invisible and can also fly, and that all this is totally in the rules.

Edited February 5, 2020 by Nos

[Doko]

Horde allways is better than elite

[Kramer]

56 minutes ago, Doko said:

Horde allways is better than elite

Which is why all games and tournaments are won by gloomspite gits  

 

[Phasteon]

I‘d say as a general rule of thumb take elites to clear objectives, take hordes to hold objectives. 

Its of course much deeper than that, but I prefer my elites/ monsters for a reason 😉

[Phasteon]

AoS is also very rock, paper, scissors, so the following (simplified) summary might help: 

hordes beat low volume of attacks*

low volume of attacks beats elite**

elite beats hordes

*Low number of high rend, high damage attacks, mortal wounds.

**Units with good saves and high points costs where every lost wound hurts. 

In reality you want to search for units that combine 2 or even all 3 of those qualities, those are typically the competitive choices.

Example: Hearthguard Berzerkers (HGB). While being expensive they have a reasonable model count, high wounds count (a 20–man unit has effectively 60 wounds due to 4+ wound ignore) and high volume of strong attacks. And they can potentially fight twice and be buffed to a 2+ save. Top–Tier unit

Now take Retributors in comparison. They are expensive, have a low wounds count for their cost and a mediocre number of attacks. They can be buffed and comboed as well but will get outperformed by HGB every single time. „Bottom–Tier“ unit

Now lets look at Evocators. They have the same kind of defense as Retributors but deal a lot more (and reliable) damage but are more expensive and still lack in defense. But they scale very hard when buffed and are able to delete most units on the charge. Still less efficient than HGB but definately better in the elite role than Retributors. „Mid–Tier“ unit. 

This example showed 3 different units with the same role, but with different „Tiers“ of power. 

 

So long story short: You can absolutely play „quality“ over „quantity“ but if you want to be competitive you need to find units that can fill more than 1 role (rock, paper, scissors) or your „paper“ gets „scissored“ by the wrong opponent. 

Hope this helps

 

Edit: 

To answer the original question. Its definately worth to change Sequitors to Liberators and leave Evocators out to take the Celestant Prime in a 1000pts game. 

At this points level he can drop 2nd turn, kill the one unit thats able to kill him outright and then he has pretty much free reign. If played as a unit of 5 Sequitors are just a little bit better at everything than Liberators, so its not a real loss if you need to save those points. 

Evocators are also very strong at 1000 points but can easier be alphastriked than your Celestant Prime. And they are slow. 

Edited February 5, 2020 by Phasteon

[Kramer]

I’ll throw in my two cents to why there is no black and white answer. 
in addition to @Phasteon comparison of units there is also the role in the faction. 

a clear example would be Ogors. Before the new tome I absolutely had to bring 2x20 gnoblars. They did nothing damage wise but they screened the units that did. And more importantly that allowed me to capture objectives. 
then the new tome drops. Now suddenly every ogor counts as two for objectives. Currently you can see players switching from gnoblars to sabretusks because you don’t need the numbers anymore and the sabretusks don’t delay the ogors that much if they are running indrong of hem as a screen. 
 

so I would also add to all the above tips. Look at the role a unit plays within the factions. Do you need the bodies for objectives? Or is the elite options good enough to clear and hold it? 

[Skreech Verminking]

Considering that there are a few many factions/army-lists out there, that mostly consist of elite rather then hordes.

I’m not sure if we can call the hordes in any way overpowered.

sure there are some units that seem to be a bit too cheap (Plague monks and any DOK infantry etc. in most cases) but I wouldn't call them all too strong.

And with the last few releases Monsters and certain elite units are able to destroy whole units of infantry with ease.

Look at flesh eaters, Ironjaws, Hedonites, heck even some skavenplayers are going more out on elites then hordes.