Powercreep Illusion - Petrifex

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

If you include Teclis in your army a LRL is probably capped at about 80-90 models. Despite the power of their magic it's still an objective game at the end of the day. 

This is essentially the same arguments we had about the game as a forum when HoS were at the fore. The game is interesting because there is a radar of strategies that each faction has spikes on, and we get sucked in trying to nerf individual steps on the path to a relatively complete game. 

The armies at that spike at extremes exist but ultimately they are playing the same game and as a player you need to be able to modulate how you play that game in a match up. 

HoS at launch would have been an excellent counter play to LRL forcing certain concession at the build phase. But, as they are HoS are basically a dead faction, too fragile to play the objective game and insufficient combat to even take people off objectives. As a LRL player I can fully lean into maxed range dmg or essentially target priority choices because there isn't an army with enough tactical depth to cause second thought. 

Then we compound this by ignoring the social and economic forces that make certain armies appear more powerful than they should. While releasing new armies into a wonderful rod they weren't tested in. Essentially I hate the tinkering we are doing with AoS and I don't think changes should be made outside of GHB. I believe it is making the game worse for the average gamer, and having the opposite effect on the game. 

Your opinion is definitely interesting, and you are right in your own way.

although I personally disagree with you at some level, but that is what makes each and every single person in this forum or better said in the world  different from each other.

anyways, I personally think that nerfs are sometimes necessary, I agree with you that we are probably over exaggerating about how powerful the lumineth realm lords are, considering that only a few people have the rules and it hasn’t been played yet at all.

But Nerfs are sometimes necessary.

your right when you mentioned Hos, they could have been a great army against the lumineth,  but at a certain point we do have to agree that their summoning just got ridiculous, at a point where you just disliked playing against them.

and if we don’t change certain rules or nerf certain things, the game can end at a point where only a single army sees play.

At that point  we may see a possible change in the world where, Events may get cancelled, because they are missing enough participants, Which then ends in certain factions being Banned from the scene, like it almost happened with certain 40k events.

 

[whispersofblood]

20 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Your opinion is definitely interesting, and you are right in your own way.

although I personally disagree with you at some level, but that is what makes each and every single person in this forum or better said in the world  different from each other.

anyways, I personally think that nerfs are sometimes necessary, I agree with you that we are probably over exaggerating about how powerful the lumineth realm lords are, considering that only a few people have the rules and it hasn’t been played yet at all.

But Nerfs are sometimes necessary.

your right when you mentioned Hos, they could have been a great army against the lumineth,  but at a certain point we do have to agree that their summoning just got ridiculous, at a point where you just disliked playing against them.

and if we don’t change certain rules or nerf certain things, the game can end at a point where only a single army sees play.

At that point  we may see a possible change in the world where, Events may get cancelled, because they are missing enough participants, Which then ends in certain factions being Banned from the scene, like it almost happened with certain 40k events.

 

The problem is that the vast majority of players have no idea what is coming, and only an even as far I can tell only a small minority have any idea of how the interactions between forces and strategies impact each other. The list that was tormenting the world doesn't work against, OBR, doesn't work again DoT, doesn't work again Seraphon and doesn't work against LRL, and already didn't work against DoK, was struggling against Hallowheart, and was an iffy prospect against Orruks. So we have no idea what HoS would have become in the face of those pressures, but we do know two things, that they are terrible right now. And, that they would have been unbearable for about what at the most 7 months? Its plain short sighted thinking, and had we all just collectively not lost our cool, the whole game would be in a different place right now as we prepare for GHB and I think better. This isn't WHFB AoS is in a constant state of becoming, meta-states are much smaller than the HWG stats provide for, and at best show what the game was not what it is. 

I don't generally like reacting to people getting the "feel bads", because as humans we actually tend to a) overreact, and then b) either institutionalize our feelings, meaning that they will just be a deeply held belief (not opinion) regardless of their basis in fact, or move the hell on pretty quickly.  I'm still pretty sure most the the noise about HoS came from people who never played a single game against them. All this to say that in a lot of situations doing nothing is the right thing to do. Having 2 Faqs a year has lured people into the idea that they don't have the intellectual power to come up with solutions or to copy + paste another persons ideas or that there should be an expectation to update your army build as new things come out. 

I don't think HoS summoning was in effect that bad, it was quite easy to kill or zone the heroes in the places you don't want people to summon into and if you can't it is probably a result of being outplayed. More often then not by turn 3 summoning more heroes wasn't a winning strategy anyway. The only change that HoS needed was taking the KoS locus of diversion bonus down to +1 instead of +2 and seeing how that played out. Now I understand many people just play the game to kill the opponents army, but frankly that's maladaptive and if that is the case you're playing the game poorly from the onset and we as a community should not be encouraging that mindset generally speaking because it doesn't allow for a diverse strategic approach among factions.  

If we have real diversity some strategies will just be easier to play, easier to collect, cheaper to play, have models that are more appealing to more people, or strategies that are more appealing to certain personalities. The combination of these attributes is probably more impactful than the power of a factions rules or points generally speaking, and over reacting because the loudest faction of players want to line up their models and duke it out I feel diminishes the quality of the game and the depth of the AoS world.

[Yondaime]

3 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Yes for example teclis.

seems a bit cheap for what he can do, considering how he wasn’t that much better then thanqoul in the old world

After some playtesting i can assure you teclis is seriusly overpriced for what he does

If you think about it hes only about magic, hes shooting is mediocre at best, and in melee he dosnt hit hard enought

Eltharion is the one that is undercosted actually

If you look at katakros at 500 points, he does so much more (better save/wounds gets stronger as hes wounded, better cqc, steal CP, buffs entire army and debuffs enemys, ress models etc)

[Skreech Verminking]

8 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

After some playtesting i can assure you teclis is seriusly overpriced for what he does

 

I was mostly just joking, Afterall there aren’t many models that do not need a roll for casting magic.

As for teclis, that is good to know, I’m also guessing that he has the same problem as many heroes like him (for example thanqoul).

he will probably be easy to kill with some good ranged shooting

Edited July 1, 2020 by Skreech Verminking

[Yondaime]

17 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

I was mostly just joking, Afterall there aren’t many models that do not need arm roll for casting magic, as for teclis, that is good to know, I’m also guessing that he has the same problem as many heroes like him (for example thanqoul).

he will probably be easy to kill with some good ranged shooting

Yeah since also this year is the shoot meta

 

EDIT: Typo

Edited July 1, 2020 by Yondaime

[Laststand]

2 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

The problem is that the vast majority of players have no idea what is coming, and only an even as far I can tell only a small minority have any idea of how the interactions between forces and strategies impact each other. The list that was tormenting the world doesn't work against, OBR, doesn't work again DoT, doesn't work again Seraphon and doesn't work against LRL, and already didn't work against DoK, was struggling against Hallowheart, and was an iffy prospect against Orruks. So we have no idea what HoS would have become in the face of those pressures, but we do know two things, that they are terrible right now. And, that they would have been unbearable for about what at the most 7 months? Its plain short sighted thinking, and had we all just collectively not lost our cool, the whole game would be in a different place right now as we prepare for GHB and I think better. This isn't WHFB AoS is in a constant state of becoming, meta-states are much smaller than the HWG stats provide for, and at best show what the game was not what it is. 

I don't generally like reacting to people getting the "feel bads", because as humans we actually tend to a) overreact, and then b) either institutionalize our feelings, meaning that they will just be a deeply held belief (not opinion) regardless of their basis in fact, or move the hell on pretty quickly.  I'm still pretty sure most the the noise about HoS came from people who never played a single game against them. All this to say that in a lot of situations doing nothing is the right thing to do. Having 2 Faqs a year has lured people into the idea that they don't have the intellectual power to come up with solutions or to copy + paste another persons ideas or that there should be an expectation to update your army build as new things come out. 

I don't think HoS summoning was in effect that bad, it was quite easy to kill or zone the heroes in the places you don't want people to summon into and if you can't it is probably a result of being outplayed. More often then not by turn 3 summoning more heroes wasn't a winning strategy anyway. The only change that HoS needed was taking the KoS locus of diversion bonus down to +1 instead of +2 and seeing how that played out. Now I understand many people just play the game to kill the opponents army, but frankly that's maladaptive and if that is the case you're playing the game poorly from the onset and we as a community should not be encouraging that mindset generally speaking because it doesn't allow for a diverse strategic approach among factions.  

If we have real diversity some strategies will just be easier to play, easier to collect, cheaper to play, have models that are more appealing to more people, or strategies that are more appealing to certain personalities. The combination of these attributes is probably more impactful than the power of a factions rules or points generally speaking, and over reacting because the loudest faction of players want to line up their models and duke it out I feel diminishes the quality of the game and the depth of the AoS world.

Good points and entirely possible that 5 or 6 armies can happily deal with HOS but the other 18 suffer and thats an issue. People like to play with their toys and shout if they feel they can't.

There is also a question of balance with all summoning. The idea that armies are costed to factor it in doesnt really seem to carry much weight when you see an extra 500pts plus arrive during a game and often summoned to go for an objective. Sure you can screen but if you are heavily outnumbered or lose your screen and cant replace it you are at a genuine disadvantage. I find in smaller games the impact is higher due to the smaller number of units in an army that need to cover the board.

You are correct that lots of people dont play the objective game. They play to wipe out the opponents army with objectives as a sideshow. I have seen that happen and very much been guilty myself of this at times. Changing the mindset will definitely win a player games that before they would have lost. 

[Heijoshin]

3 hours ago, Yondaime said:

After some playtesting i can assure you teclis is seriusly overpriced for what he does

If you think about it hes only about magic, hes shooting is mediocre at best, and in melee he dosnt hit hard enought

Eltharion is the one that is undercosted actually

If you look at katakros at 500 points, he does so much more (better save/wounds gets stronger as hes wounded, better cqc, steal CP, buffs entire army and debuffs enemys, ress models etc)

May I ask what you did to playtest this? I'm always hesitant when anyone says something as loaded as "seriously" or "I can assure you" with regards to some assessment of balance. 

I think you're employing double standards in the comparison to Katakros. You reduced Teclis's capabilities to essentially "he's only about magic", whilst listing Katakros's capabilities specifically. If I were to flip this around I could say this: If you think about it, Katakros is "only about combat",  with no shooting,  mediocre movement and absolutely no magic. If you look at Teclis, he does so much more (Autocasts up to 4 spells, has two fantastic warscroll spells - Either a 5+ FNP to the whole army and 18-20 mortal wounds to the enemy army- , gets an auto unbind for free, can do as many unbinds as he wants, +1 to cast, dispell and unbind as well as a 4+ ignore spell whilst bouncing back mortal wounds. He also has fly, decent movement and most importantly can project direct damage potential much easier because he is ranged). It's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. Would you compare a Bloodthirster to a Lord of Change?

And Katakros at 500 points (and this is more of an open question to be discussed): At 0 wounds taken he doesn't give out 500 points worth of buffs / debuffs and deals out a bit more damage than Light of Eltharion when at that profile (who's at 220 points, and whilst good for his points, also has better save potential). At his lowest profile he gives minimal buffs and debuffs, but ain't fighting like a 500 point hero (have to thank Gotrek  for making everyone seem weak as cheese for that 500ish point cost). The beauty of Katakros's cost is that he is not worth 500 points if you leave him as a buff piece, and he's not 500 points worth of a pure fighter (he's also pretty fragile at his lowest profile in comparison to someone like LoE or Gotrek). To get the most out of him you need to be doing both, which is a delicate balance at any given time, as you may need that -1 hit debuff, which is the first buff you lose and perhaps you took too many wounds even after healing. You may need to ensure you steal those command points because your opponent relies on them, or you need that 36" reach because you army is so spread out. There is a lot of delicate play there I feel which underpins a lot of his power and capabilities. 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Heijoshin

[Yondaime]

2 hours ago, Heijoshin said:

May I ask what you did to playtest this? I'm always hesitant when anyone says something as loaded as "seriously" or "I can assure you" with regards to some assessment of balance. 

I think you're employing double standards in the comparison to Katakros. You reduced Teclis's capabilities to essentially "he's only about magic", whilst listing Katakros's capabilities specifically. If I were to flip this around I could say this: If you think about it, Katakros is "only about combat",  with no shooting,  mediocre movement and absolutely no magic. If you look at Teclis, he does so much more (Autocasts up to 4 spells, has two fantastic warscroll spells - Either a 5+ FNP to the whole army and 18-20 mortal wounds to the enemy army- , gets an auto unbind for free, can do as many unbinds as he wants, +1 to cast, dispell and unbind as well as a 4+ ignore spell whilst bouncing back mortal wounds. He also has fly, decent movement and most importantly can project direct damage potential much easier because he is ranged). It's a bit of an apples and oranges comparison. Would you compare a Bloodthirster to a Lord of Change?

And Katakros at 500 points (and this is more of an open question to be discussed): At 0 wounds taken he doesn't give out 500 points worth of buffs / debuffs and deals out a bit more damage than Light of Eltharion when at that profile (who's at 220 points, and whilst good for his points, also has better save potential). At his lowest profile he gives minimal buffs and debuffs, but ain't fighting like a 500 point hero (have to thank Gotrek  for making everyone seem weak as cheese for that 500ish point cost). The beauty of Katakros's cost is that he is not worth 500 points if you leave him as a buff piece, and he's not 500 points worth of a pure fighter (he's also pretty fragile at his lowest profile in comparison to someone like LoE or Gotrek). To get the most out of him you need to be doing both, which is a delicate balance at any given time, as you may need that -1 hit debuff, which is the first buff you lose and perhaps you took too many wounds even after healing. You may need to ensure you steal those command points because your opponent relies on them, or you need that 36" reach because you army is so spread out. There is a lot of delicate play there I feel which underpins a lot of his power and capabilities. 

Sure, we have a group of competitive players, heres one of the list i tryed

Teclis
Stonemage
Avalenor
15 stoneguard
10 stoneguard
10 stoneguard
Alarith warscroll

i am comparing the weight of the models on the table, and katakros wins hands down

Problem is, teclis at 660 should weight so much more in the game, his spells surely are strong, but after all of that magic, then? 660 for 5+ fnp (wholly within 18, not whole army) i didnt see all those MW (d3 mortals within 18, d6 if you roll a 6) i dont know where you bring those numbers, but i can assure you katakros weights SO MUCH more than teclis (+1 tho hit -1 to hit, ress and others shenanigans that i dont call minimal by a large margin)

i sayed that Teclis's capabilities to essentially "hes just magic" because it really is, if you dont have the first turn he's a dead weight

Also, he is made of wet paper16w and 4+ save, made a game vs kharadron and i learned he is so easy to gun down , katacross has 20w and 2+ save 6++, and heals 3 wounds a turn

1 ranged hit at 18" is not so good, and his melee profile dosnt hit hard as it should

For max effectiveness you have to keep all in a 18" bubble, and in a objective game is useless

also yes the dispels, you have 1 auto dispel a turn, if the opponent doesnt use magic? (see kharadron)

 

EDIT: forgot to mention that Kata can also move 7" with one of MANY discipline points you have, that is not slow by a large margin

Edited July 1, 2020 by Yondaime

[Ravinsild]

Funnily enough I've seen quite a few battle reports saying "Oh I guess we freaked out over nothing" regarding Lumineth Realm Lords and they actually aren't that good.

However only half their range is out so you're only playing with half an army ATM.

[Yondaime]

7 minutes ago, Ravinsild said:

Funnily enough I've seen quite a few battle reports saying "Oh I guess we freaked out over nothing" regarding Lumineth Realm Lords and they actually aren't that good.

However only half their range is out so you're only playing with half an army ATM.

God's knows when we will get tyrion's part

I remember when Slaves of darkness tome release and everyone called op nd broken

 

[Nizrah]

Why you guys are testing such a weird stuff? My competive group is testing entire range with proxies and oh god. This army is bonkers.

List:
Teclis Cathalar Eltharion 10x sentinel 10x sentinel 20x warden 20x warden Batalion Twin stone Spellportal

You can take even more archers, with 36 TR and ez mortals they will delete anything.
Teclis with autounbind every turn and nearly global 5+ ward is bonkers also. The value he bring to the table is so big.

[whispersofblood]

3 hours ago, Laststand said:

Good points and entirely possible that 5 or 6 armies can happily deal with HOS but the other 18 suffer and thats an issue. People like to play with their toys and shout if they feel they can't.

There is also a question of balance with all summoning. The idea that armies are costed to factor it in doesnt really seem to carry much weight when you see an extra 500pts plus arrive during a game and often summoned to go for an objective. Sure you can screen but if you are heavily outnumbered or lose your screen and cant replace it you are at a genuine disadvantage. I find in smaller games the impact is higher due to the smaller number of units in an army that need to cover the board.

You are correct that lots of people dont play the objective game. They play to wipe out the opponents army with objectives as a sideshow. I have seen that happen and very much been guilty myself of this at times. Changing the mindset will definitely win a player games that before they would have lost. 

How many hard counters does a play style need before the people playing it change? Any change very likely require players to give up some advantage in a strong match up to minimize a weakness in a bad match up. Also HoS basically lose in almost every 2019 battle plan to no less than 9 factions, those mentioned, GSG and KO. We are approaching half the field at this point.

I get it seeing an opponent put new models on the board makes people feel bad. The solution is to grow up a bit and appreciate the differences in armies. Not shout down differences in the approaches factions take to playing the game. 

The reality is right now if a player asked me how to play HoS, I would tell them to choose a different faction. There is no way that is preferable to otherwise grown men getting the feel bads because their opponents put new models on the board. 

[Yondaime]

2 minutes ago, Nizrah said:

Why you guys are testing such a weird stuff? My competive group is testing entire range with proxies and oh god. This army is bonkers.

List:
Teclis Cathalar Eltharion 10x sentinel 10x sentinel 20x warden 20x warden Batalion Twin stone Spellportal

You can take even more archers, with 36 TR and ez mortals they will delete anything.
Teclis with autounbind every turn and nearly global 5+ ward is bonkers also. The value he bring to the table is so big.

Why all keep calling wholly within 18" global?

Well, different players, different experiences. gonna see tournaments win % and lists and then we can have a more seriuus conversation

[Sonnenspeer]

Yea! A more serious conversation about plastic soldiers, baby! 😂

[Yondaime]

12 minutes ago, Sonnenspeer said:

Yea! A more serious conversation about plastic soldiers, baby! 😂

Yes, you know, this is a forum about plastic soldiers, if you want to talk about more seriuos topics there are many forums out there

Edited July 1, 2020 by Yondaime

[Heijoshin]

 

1 hour ago, Yondaime said:

Sure, we have a group of competitive players, heres one of the list i tryed

Teclis
Stonemage
Avalenor
15 stoneguard
10 stoneguard
10 stoneguard
Alarith warscroll

i am comparing the weight of the models on the table, and katakros wins hands down

Problem is, teclis at 660 should weight so much more in the game, his spells surely are strong, but after all of that magic, then? 660 for 5+ fnp (wholly within 18, not whole army) i didnt see all those MW (d3 mortals within 18, d6 if you roll a 6) i dont know where you bring those numbers, but i can assure you katakros weights SO MUCH more than teclis (+1 tho hit -1 to hit, ress and others shenanigans that i dont call minimal by a large margin)

i sayed that Teclis's capabilities to essentially "hes just magic" because it really is, if you dont have the first turn he's a dead weight

Also, he is made of wet paper16w and 4+ save, made a game vs kharadron and i learned he is so easy to gun down , katacross has 20w and 2+ save 6++, and heals 3 wounds a turn

1 ranged hit at 18" is not so good, and his melee profile dosnt hit hard as it should

For max effectiveness you have to keep all in a 18" bubble, and in a objective game is useless

also yes the dispels, you have 1 auto dispel a turn, if the opponent doesnt use magic? (see kharadron)

 

 

It's an interesting list, and one that I have also tried, but it doesn't bring out Teclis's strengths in my opinion. As someone mentioned, using Teclis with Sentinels can do a lot of damage T1 without ever having to really move. 

With regards to the spells, flinging out Storm of Searing White Light through a spell portal is brutal. It's D3 on a 2+ and D6 on a 5+. How many units does the average army have? 7-10? Lets just say this spell does 2 wounds per unit on average, that's 14 - 20 wounds. It also has the potential to wipe out 5 wound heroes like nothing.  Again, I know you said "he's just magic", but you CAN get your points worth from Teclis just on spells alone. Let's say your average point per wound is 9 points for the sake of this example). What's 14 wounds per round over 5 rounds? 630. Obviously this will fluctuate and / or degrade and I know he may die sometimes and you won't get a full five rounds. My point being that just from one spell (autocasted might I add - Will come back to this). Teclis has the potential to basically earn his points back. 

32 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

Why all keep calling wholly within 18" global?

Because it's not just 18" in radius. Given the size of his base, you basically have a a 40" diameter on this spell (36" for the spell and I am just going with 4" for his base size. Might be bigger or small, I dunno). That is about 104 Inches squared. The table size of a typical AOS game is 288 inches squared. So almost half the board covered. Obviously we're not talking Katakros level 72+" diameter on his abilities, but for all intents and purposes (especially if you play on tighter scenarios like focal points - and the fact LRL are a smaller army) it's basically board wide.

I also don't think it can be overstated how good a 4+ ignore spell or endless spell is either. This is something which few warscrolls have. Archaon has it on a 4+, and Varanguard have it on a 5+ for example. Teclis gives it in a 16" (not wholly within) bubble. Also flinging back D3 when you do it? This truly is crazy. 

Sure, the 5+FNP is wholly within 18". If you're outside of that, well your unit champ or other hero can cast the same same (at reduced range). 

I know your counterpoint is "but he gets shot easily" and of course that is true. 16w on a 4+ that can be 3+ for a turn isn't the best but my answer is: and? There has to be a weakness somewhere. Also, it's not like this is a unique weakness to him only.  T1 alpha shooting against a Katakros, where he's also 3+ (as he doesn't get his command ability off until his first turn) would also kill him. He does get a "Look at sir!" however but the difference isn't as big as you think. At the end of the day If someone wants to shoot off either of these heroes and can... they will. Even if you take him down to almost dead, he is neutered from them on and you can easily finish him off whenever you want. If your argument is "but T1 alpha shooting", then isn't that an issue with the way T1 shooting is, rather than Teclic himself? 

My last point about the Kharadron is realistic probablities. Let's say you walk up to a 60 player tournament with a LRL list and you are worried about T1 shooting from KO or DoT or something. If you put both of those at 5% of the turnout, you can expect 3 from each to be at the tournament. Ok, but how many of those are going to bring the 1 drop T1 list? Maybe two of them? Really, in the end, what is the likelihood that you would face them? To use your own phrasing for a minute: I can assure you, people had the same worries about OBR and they did just fine in the competitive scene. As I mentioned in my first comment in this thread, what about the average Joe? Honestly, In this situation Teclis has a lot more potential to be killing others without any answer more so than a lot of other heroes. 

All in all your point seems to be that against something like KO, then Katakros would be better, therefore he is just better than Teclis full stop. At the end of the day I don't really know if Teclis is pointed properly. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I just think it's a bit pointless to compare him to Katakros, simply because there are differences which allow one to perform better in a small segment of situations better than another. 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Heijoshin

[Yondaime]

3 minutes ago, Heijoshin said:

 

It's an interesting list, and one that I have also tried, but it doesn't bring out Teclis's strengths in my opinion. As someone mentioned, using Teclis with Sentinels can do a lot of damage T1 without ever having to really move. 

With regards to the spells, flinging out Storm of Searing White Light through a spell portal is brutal. It's D3 on a 2+ and D6 on a 5+. How many units does the average army have? 7-10? Lets just say this spell does 2 wounds per unit on average, that's 14 - 20 wounds. It also has the potential to wipe out 5 wound heroes like nothing.  Again, I know you said "he's just magic", but you CAN get your points worth from Teclis just on spells alone. Let's say your average point per wound is 9 points for the sake of this example). What's 14 wounds per round over 5 rounds? 630. Obviously this will fluctuate and / or degrade and I know he may die sometimes and you won't get a full five rounds. My point being that just from one spell (autocasted might I add - Will come back to this). Teclis has the potential to basically earn his points back. 

Because it's not just 18" in radius. Given the size of his base, you basically have a a 40" diameter on this spell (36" for the spell and I am just going with 4" for his base size. Might be bigger or small, I dunno). That is about 104 Inches squared. The table size of a typical AOS game is 288 inches squared. So almost half the board covered. Obviously we're not talking Katakros level 72+" diameter on his abilities, but for all intents and purposes (especially if you play on tighter scenarios like focal points - and the fact LRL are a smaller army) it's basically board wide.

I also don't think it can be overstated how good a 4+ ignore spell or endless spell is either. This is something which few warscrolls have. Archaon has it on a 4+, and Varanguard have it on a 5+ for example. Teclis gives it in a 16" (not wholly within) bubble. Also flinging back D3 when you do it? This truly is crazy. 

Sure, the 5+FNP is wholly within 18". If you're outside of that, well your unit champ or other hero can cast the same same (at reduced range). 

I know your counterpoint is "but he gets shot easily" and of course that is true. 16w on a 4+ that can be 3+ for a turn isn't the best but my answer is: and? There has to be a weakness somewhere. Also, it's not like this is a unique weakness to him only.  T1 alpha shooting against a Katakros, where he's also 3+ (as he doesn't get his command ability off until his first turn) would also kill him. He does get a "Look at sir!" however but the difference isn't as big as you think. At the end of the day If someone wants to shoot off either of these heroes and can... they will. Even if you take him down to almost dead, he is neutered from them on and you can easily finish him off whenever you want. If your argument is "but T1 alpha shooting", then isn't that an issue with the way T1 shooting is, rather than Teclic's capabilities? 

My last point about the Kharadron is realistic probablities. Let's say you walk up to a 60 player tournament with a LRL list and you are worried about T1 shooting from KO or DoT or something. If you put both of those at 5% of the turnout, you can expect 3 from each to be at the tournament. Ok, but how many of those are going to bring the 1 drop T1 list? Maybe two of them? Really, in the end, what is the likelihood that you would face them? To use your own phrasing for a minute: I can assure you, people had the same worries about OBR and they did just fine in the competitive scene. As I mentioned in my first comment in this thread, what about the average Joe? Honestly, In this situation Teclis has a lot more potential to be killing others without any answer more so than a lot of other heroes. 

All in all your point seems to be that against something like KO, then Katakros would be better, therefore he is just better than Teclis full stop. At the end of the day I don't really know if Teclis is pointed properly. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't. I just think it's a bit pointless to compare him to Katakros, simply because there are differences which allow one to perform better in a small segment of situations better than another. 

I understand your points and i agree to some degree, time will tell, i just dont think that this tome has this powercreep everyone is calling out

I am curious to see they performance in the competitive meta

[Forrix]

I've only been playing loose attention to this forum lately but why do people think Lumineth is a good counter to OBR? Seems like the reserve to me at least against the Teclis list:

Don't use command points so don't care about the Total Eclipse spell

Don't take battleshock so don't care about the bravery shenanigans. 

If in Null Myriad (thought I suppose maybe people forgot that existed :P) can ignore spells on a 5+ and pump it to a 2+ (though I'm not sure on the exact wording of that ability so timing might be a problem). 

I can see Lumineth archer spam being a problem but if you can unbind their spell (+2 unbind for Arkhan or +3 for Nagash) they're only doing 5 mortals which still stings but OBR has enough healing it isn't really a big deal. Nagash also has a 4+ mortal wound save if you go that route. Also army wide 6+ save helps a little.

[RuneBrush]

1 hour ago, Yondaime said:

Also, he is made of wet paper16w and 4+ save, made a game vs kharadron and i learned he is so easy to gun down , katacross has 20w and 2+ save 6++, and heals 3 wounds a turn

Having listened to a few podcasts about the new army they've all said that some builds of Kharadron will simply remove Teclis if they get first turn.  In fairness this is the way Kharadron work though, so don't think it should necessarily be a big surprise.

[Heijoshin]

20 minutes ago, Yondaime said:

I understand your points and i agree to some degree, time will tell, i just dont think that this tome has this powercreep everyone is calling out

I am curious to see they performance in the competitive meta

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you too with some points. Competitively I have no idea what they will be like. I think the army has a high skill ceiling and many potential synergies. In the middle tables and for average gamer, it has some serious NPE possibilities which people will not like. 

Edited July 1, 2020 by Heijoshin

[whispersofblood]

59 minutes ago, Forrix said:

I've only been playing loose attention to this forum lately but why do people think Lumineth is a good counter to OBR? Seems like the reserve to me at least against the Teclis list:

Don't use command points so don't care about the Total Eclipse spell

Don't take battleshock so don't care about the bravery shenanigans. 

If in Null Myriad (thought I suppose maybe people forgot that existed :P) can ignore spells on a 5+ and pump it to a 2+ (though I'm not sure on the exact wording of that ability so timing might be a problem). 

I can see Lumineth archer spam being a problem but if you can unbind their spell (+2 unbind for Arkhan or +3 for Nagash) they're only doing 5 mortals which still stings but OBR has enough healing it isn't really a big deal. Nagash also has a 4+ mortal wound save if you go that route. Also army wide 6+ save helps a little.

I think the argument is that OBR don't necessarily hard counter LRL weaknesses, which I suppose is a decent argument I guess.  They do have catapults though and LRL don't have a natural counter to those. I think structurally OBR are a good counter since they don't really rely on their heroes, in fact they are probably better without them once you get enough RDP. 

Nagash is a pretty good counter to Teclis as he is significantly tougher and plays especially the same game with less need for support pieces and can be pushed forward into the opponent's army.

On the other hand random Sentinels can easily rock a +3 to cast, I don't think being immune to total eclipse and immune to BS help them much through, I think Teclis drops to 2 casts and forces the spells that do something through. I'm not sure Teclis is the long term future for LRL he just lets them bash armies they are probably good enough to beat anyway. Time will tell of course but LRL might actually be a home-run in regards to getting the power curve right.

Edited July 1, 2020 by whispersofblood
Clarity

[Scurvydog]

Some of the very strong lists right now is Tzeentch, Nagash and Kroak spamming spells out. You can't tell me Teclis who has a 16" bubble to not only ignore these spells on a 4+ but then also gun back d3 MW to a target of his own choosing is not worth it, he alone can completely shut down 3 of the major top spot lists right now.

Gunned down easily? He has access to +1 save at least 1 turn, he has access to 5+ ignore wounds, and an etheral spell and as mentioned will more likely kill you if you attempt to hurt him with spells.

I will believe he will be far less impressive in some matchups, he has a lot of value in shutting down other wizards, so an enemy army with close to 0 investment will probably be better of than for example Sylvaneth with Alarielle or something, who will get nothing going against Teclis at all and be dead weight.

Katakros can steal a CP on a 4+, well Teclis can guaranteed cast a spell to make all enemy commands cost 2 CP, shutting down a lot of strategies in play right now. He also has aetherquartz to bump up his save in a pinch, you can auto cast sanctum endless spell for +1 save and -1 to be hit on top of that. Or instead auto cast ethereal saves, Yes I can see him shot down by a 1st turn KO all out shooting phase surprise party, but that can ruin almost any single model that needs removed.

I will not say he is overpowered, but I think he will have a major impact on the current meta which has evolved a lot in TTS for obvious reasons. He is not as much power creep as he can be a gatekeeper, like massive shooting taking down HoS and lists depending in small buffing heroes, like DoK and Ironjawz, with armies being able to snipe out hags and warchanters etc with ease. Now Teclis will be a possible matchup and absolutely shut down Nagash lists for example, so who knows what the next 5 out of 5 armies will be with all these hard counters...

[Indecisive]

On 6/30/2020 at 11:16 PM, LuminethMage said:

Is he? You can have Lord Kroak, a Slann and a Skink Priest on the field. Or a Gaunt Summoner, a Lord of Change and the Balewind Vortex. Or play Hallowheart and  go with a Luminark (/w Battlemage), a Celestrial Hurricanum (/w Battlemage) and a Battlemage. Each for the same points. How about at least waiting until a faction or model is released and see how it plays out before complaining they are too cheap? 

To the general point of "spellcreep": There are some factions which dominate the shooting phase, some which dominate charging or combat. If we want diverse armies with different play styles that cater to different people and tastes, you have to allow for these. Of course, some abilities can be too strong and have to be brought in line (and one spell in the Lore of Hysh might be like that for example), but that's not specifically a problem of armies that are strong in the magic phase. 

Magic is a little trickier since with spellcasting bonuses and more importantly, unbind ability you can not just dominate the phase but cripple the opponent's chance to do anything. Factions that shoot well tend to be more efficient or superior firepower rather than stop you from shooting at all.
Excess unbinding strength is more of an annoyance if I had to pick. Teclis only has a small unbind bonus, but infinite unbinds.

Edited July 2, 2020 by Indecisive

[Kasper]

21 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

The problem is that the vast majority of players have no idea what is coming, and only an even as far I can tell only a small minority have any idea of how the interactions between forces and strategies impact each other. The list that was tormenting the world doesn't work against, OBR, doesn't work again DoT, doesn't work again Seraphon and doesn't work against LRL, and already didn't work against DoK, was struggling against Hallowheart, and was an iffy prospect against Orruks. So we have no idea what HoS would have become in the face of those pressures, but we do know two things, that they are terrible right now. And, that they would have been unbearable for about what at the most 7 months? Its plain short sighted thinking, and had we all just collectively not lost our cool, the whole game would be in a different place right now as we prepare for GHB and I think better. This isn't WHFB AoS is in a constant state of becoming, meta-states are much smaller than the HWG stats provide for, and at best show what the game was not what it is. 

I don't generally like reacting to people getting the "feel bads", because as humans we actually tend to a) overreact, and then b) either institutionalize our feelings, meaning that they will just be a deeply held belief (not opinion) regardless of their basis in fact, or move the hell on pretty quickly.  I'm still pretty sure most the the noise about HoS came from people who never played a single game against them. All this to say that in a lot of situations doing nothing is the right thing to do. Having 2 Faqs a year has lured people into the idea that they don't have the intellectual power to come up with solutions or to copy + paste another persons ideas or that there should be an expectation to update your army build as new things come out. 

I don't think HoS summoning was in effect that bad, it was quite easy to kill or zone the heroes in the places you don't want people to summon into and if you can't it is probably a result of being outplayed. More often then not by turn 3 summoning more heroes wasn't a winning strategy anyway. The only change that HoS needed was taking the KoS locus of diversion bonus down to +1 instead of +2 and seeing how that played out. Now I understand many people just play the game to kill the opponents army, but frankly that's maladaptive and if that is the case you're playing the game poorly from the onset and we as a community should not be encouraging that mindset generally speaking because it doesn't allow for a diverse strategic approach among factions.  

If we have real diversity some strategies will just be easier to play, easier to collect, cheaper to play, have models that are more appealing to more people, or strategies that are more appealing to certain personalities. The combination of these attributes is probably more impactful than the power of a factions rules or points generally speaking, and over reacting because the loudest faction of players want to line up their models and duke it out I feel diminishes the quality of the game and the depth of the AoS world.

Your assumption seems to be that it is OK for X army to run wild and smash a majority of armies into the ground without a fight because certain other armies hardcounter army X. I dont believe in this idea that armies should be balanced around a 2 dayer 5 game tournament event. Rock paper scissors is somewhat OK if it is done in a soft way, but when Slaanesh hardcountered pretty much every single melee army and only lost to armies that shot them off the board before they could do anything, it is a ****** design that needed to be reeled in. It effectively created a situation where the game was decided right there and then when you saw what you were up against.

[whispersofblood]

15 minutes ago, Kasper said:

Your assumption seems to be that it is OK for X army to run wild and smash a majority of armies into the ground without a fight because certain other armies hardcounter army X. I dont believe in this idea that armies should be balanced around a 2 dayer 5 game tournament event. Rock paper scissors is somewhat OK if it is done in a soft way, but when Slaanesh hardcountered pretty much every single melee army and only lost to armies that shot them off the board before they could do anything, it is a ****** design that needed to be reeled in. It effectively created a situation where the game was decided right there and then when you saw what you were up against.

That isn't my assumption... If I have any assumptions its the following.

Using HoS as an example, I've already detailed that the specific list that people took issue with is functionally dead against at least 9 factions, which leaves 15? factions that it works against lets say. That the whole HoS faction is now dead, and that is not a desirable outcome. That by the time GW could do anything about them, they already were reverting to the mean.

You misunderstand how HoS worked if you think they hard countered every melee army in the game. HoS worked by making alpha strikes a non-functional strategy in that specific match up, and people refused to accept it. They were also an extremely easy army to start requiring building and painting about 20 models, and were released into a game that was dominated by the alpha strike at the time. Of course they were going to do well, its like releasing a Killer whale into a seal pen.

I'm not suggesting that the game should or can be balanced around 2 day events. However with the number of factions available assuming we want these factions to be legitimately different, and not just re-skins of some dominant combat strategy, then I suspect that if a closed community has less than 5 players you will see huge amounts of imbalance. The game just can't be balanced on that scale and the factors which most predicates success at that level are intellectual ability, money, time and effort. Rules are a distant 5th, we can suppose this because there are many examples of players reaching out to the internet about their friends supposedly "unbeatable" Maggotkin of Nurgle army. In that environment players are going to be rank order by some combination of those factors again we can suppose this because new players aren't generally buying models they like. Its the same with a faction like KO with can dominate a local group or be at the bottom of a local group. But is actually pretty decent in the competitive environment. 

You feel very strongly about this I can see. But your feelings aren't born by facts, by the time HoS got nerfed in that errata they were already losing games to Orruks and needed to make changes to their list to deal with the pressure if they wanted to remain capable. Those changes included taking a lot more models, and fewer heroes specifically the KoS because of their fragility in the face of a competent melee unit like Ard Boyz. 

HoS actually weren't crushing non-alpha based combat armies, but you would need meta-data (such as actual scores) to know that. They didn't just run over Khorne if they Khorne player didn't try and alpha, and Khorne has never been a big player in the game. The reaction and continued opinion on HoS is in lockstep with normal reactions about confrontational facts. People were used to the game as it was, and couldn't come to grips that a faction any faction could or should change the norm. Personally I think the alpha meta was a boring game, and not really interesting or intellectually stimulating. Interestingly basically every army since HoS (discounting CoS) have been strongly anti-alpha in their own way and the game is better for it.