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Would cities be broken with universal access to buffs?


Frowny

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So my biggest frustration with the cities tome is that everything doesn't generalize. The dwarf heroes only buff dwarves, the general only helps humans. It makes it hard to actually field diverse lists since as soon as you commit one way, you are rewarded for committing more. Handgunners with access to a generals command ability are better than branching out into dark shards for example.

So in thinking about opening up the field I'm left wondering, would it actually be broken if dwarves could buff elves with their command abilities and auras etc.?

So I'm asking the hive mind to see what the most broken thing you all can come up with.

The worst I can imagine:

dwarflord +1 attack command ability on numerous blocks of fearless greatswords.

Runelords giving rend to crossbowmen or darkshards (usually their weakness).

Sorceress sacrificing humans for slightly more flexible +casting making battlemages obsolete.

Longbeards grumbling about everything. They would definitely be slightly stronger.

Sisters of thorn providing cover to ironvreakers for a 2+save wall.

I think mostly this isn't broken though, and could've fixed just by increasing the cost of these specific units by 10 to 20pts or so or by capping benefits at +1 (like no stacking rune Lord rend).

What are your thoughts? Broken? Better balanced? I kinda like the image of a free guild general on griffon charging into battle with a bunch of dwarves and elves with a command ability to match. That being said might actually reduce build diversity with it being even easier to just max out on the most efficient options.

 

 

 

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Traits and artefacts that target friendly units should be more diverse and compatible.  More 'cool abilities' than we have now, which is essentially re-roll X,Y orZ.

- target units piles in 6'' rather than 3''

-target unit fights first

-target unit withdraws and can still charge

-nominate a unit of 10+ models, while the unit consists of 10+ models any friendly wizard whole within 6'' gets +1 to cast and unbind.

-a hero unit with this artefact chooses a friendly unit within 6'' in the hero phase. Return slain models worth of D3 wounds, a hero unit with this artefact loses one wound, it cannot be negated. This artefact cannot be used, if hero unit has only one wound remaining on his profile.

 

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I think it would be strong but certainly not broken, certain restriction could be imposed regarding the stacking of command abilities and such. (for example: no single ability can be applied more than once on unit for example. And possibly a unit can be affected by 2 command abilities at a time at max.)

Its not like many armies out there dont have bunch of Rend -2 units, so as long as particular abilities could not be stacked it should be fine.
I really like this army, the theme the concept, and the wide variety of units and possible customization and theme oriented build options. However just as much as I like it, honestly there are 2 thing I hate about this army the most:

Stupidly limited Battalions > This should have never been like the way it is. The limitation should have been imposed on the City itself, but not on the units. The battalions are so restrictive in what you can bring.  We have around 60 something units profiles, and yet the battalions take into account the only 3-4 very specific units even further limited by OLD FACTION KEYWORDS! This doesn't feel like unified City, this feels like the broken mess of AoS 1 and I truly hate this. Even more so the selection of those units you are forced to bring (The Wanderers Battalion ? Thats hot garbage, no sisters of either type, 0-1 Wild riders, but 3 units of Rangers ? Get out of here with that nonsense!).

Second thing that I truly abhor is the banishment of ALL normal cavalry heroes. We have the most cavalry units in a single army out of all the armies, and yet we don't have a single mounted hero who isn't Monster key worded with a 300pts price tag slapped onto it.

Where is the General on war horse ? Where is the Dreadlord and Sorceress on Cold ones ? Where is the damn Nomad Prince riding a Deer ?

Where are the mounted support heroes to tag along with your cavalry units of which we have abundance, and confer upon them buffs they so badly need ? Nope, none of that. Here take this M5/6 hero and let him chase your cavalry unit because it makes absolute sense. The decision to remove ALL of these cavalry heroes is baffling to no degree to me and makes absolutely no sense, none whats so ever.

I love this army, and wish the whole concept of the mini factions integrated and intermingled into a single factions was better done, with more inner army synergy in between individual units, rather than Mini faction by Mini faction. And I hope some person who works on the next version of this Book realizes that having so many mounted units and not a single hero to tag along is a major oversight and they release something like "Mounted Commanders" box with all the old mounted heroes in one box with appropriate warscrolls accordingly.

...Uff sorry went on a tangent there :D But no I dont think breaking the artificial barriers in between the factions would turn this army into a broken OP mess. The power level would certainly increase, but as long as some sort of limitation was imposed I think the intermingling of individual command abilities in between mini factions keyword would actually be a good step forward.

Edited by Myrdin
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I prefer the hard borders between factions. It prevents it from becoming true soup, which I dislike. I much prefer the modicum of structure it gives. Personally, I never stopped playing Freeguild, just because they got rolled into a book with others.

There's more than enough generic buffs in the book as it is, primarily in the city rules. I don't want to see everything blend together.

Realistically speaking, a Freeguild General shouldn't be versed in the tactics of Wanderers and vice versa. That really makes no sense. I know they share a city, and GW says you can do what you like in theory, but it's pretty clear that each city promotes one of the factions and in essence is a replacement for their allegiance abilities. Freeguild in Hammerhal, Wanderers in Living City, Dwarfs in Greywater, Dark Elves in Anvilguard, Phoenix Temple in Phoenicium, and with Tempest's Eye and Hallowheart being more mixed.

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On 7/30/2020 at 8:51 PM, Dankboss said:

I prefer the hard borders between factions. It prevents it from becoming true soup, which I dislike. I much prefer the modicum of structure it gives. Personally, I never stopped playing Freeguild, just because they got rolled into a book with others.

There's more than enough generic buffs in the book as it is, primarily in the city rules. I don't want to see everything blend together.

Realistically speaking, a Freeguild General shouldn't be versed in the tactics of Wanderers and vice versa. That really makes no sense. I know they share a city, and GW says you can do what you like in theory, but it's pretty clear that each city promotes one of the factions and in essence is a replacement for their allegiance abilities. Freeguild in Hammerhal, Wanderers in Living City, Dwarfs in Greywater, Dark Elves in Anvilguard, Phoenix Temple in Phoenicium, and with Tempest's Eye and Hallowheart being more mixed.

My problem with this is that for some stupid reason all my humans forgot how to use bows and horses and my dwarfs, masters of technology that they are, can't operate crossbows etc.

I think all of the differences for the races should have been removed and replaced with a generic stat line. Then the flavour should have been added back to the units with their abilities and hero buffs. 

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3 hours ago, SentinelGuy said:

My problem with this is that for some stupid reason all my humans forgot how to use bows and horses and my dwarfs, masters of technology that they are, can't operate crossbows etc.

I think all of the differences for the races should have been removed and replaced with a generic stat line. Then the flavour should have been added back to the units with their abilities and hero buffs. 

I bet almost nobody would complain if you do some pretty heavy counts-as as long as it's logical. For example, a unit of quarrelers or thunderers should absolutely be fine as freeguild crossbows/handgunners respectively.

Empire archers/huntsmen would make great Shadow Warriors.

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There's a limit.

 

I absolutely do think giving fast CoS units access to all the buffs on demand would be OP. CoS already has, barring no faction, the absolutely best gunline in the game. It just lacks in ways to translate that onto getting onto objectives for points and can struggle pointing their static guns at the enemy. But if you could stack, say, all the buffs on a unit of pistoleers so that they're rocking 2 plus hit and wound with rend of 2, extra charge and move, run and shoot and charge, and the ability to do their shooting twice, it'd be kinda nutbars. You'd be launching stacked units of pistoleers like homing missiles out of your deployment zone and into the enemy's. 

 

But CoS clearly does need some way to translate their already existing and quite solid buffing line into more mobility, which is, in my estimation, what holds CoS back from competing at the top.

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2 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

@stratigo but that combo would need 5-6 CP? So you could do that once per game which seems fine to me. :)

 

:P A lot of AoS ends up won on turn 1 by an army dumping a huge amount of CP into a decisive knock out. And it's not a particularly fun way of interacting with the game. And a bunch of those buffs are CP less.

 

 

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15 minutes ago, stratigo said:

There's a limit.

 

I absolutely do think giving fast CoS units access to all the buffs on demand would be OP. CoS already has, barring no faction, the absolutely best gunline in the game. It just lacks in ways to translate that onto getting onto objectives for points and can struggle pointing their static guns at the enemy. But if you could stack, say, all the buffs on a unit of pistoleers so that they're rocking 2 plus hit and wound with rend of 2, extra charge and move, run and shoot and charge, and the ability to do their shooting twice, it'd be kinda nutbars. You'd be launching stacked units of pistoleers like homing missiles out of your deployment zone and into the enemy's. 

 

But CoS clearly does need some way to translate their already existing and quite solid buffing line into more mobility, which is, in my estimation, what holds CoS back from competing at the top.

I dont agree with the first paragraph. Why ? Because you are putting all your eggs into one basket > a unit that is not a "one shot one kill" type of unit. Yes you will have a unit of super buff pistoleers. Thats great and all but what can that one unit do ? Even if you ran a unit of 20 to get the maximum millage out of them, at best they delete one unit, two if they multi charge, but at that point its more like "what is it, that they are charging".

Just like with any units of this type, its not hard to counter since essentially your opponent is burning through all their CP, spells and what not to get this one unit out there. You lock that unit down with something tough, or annoying and then you clean house and send their entire back line into their model case. And there are absolutely armies that can alfa charge turn one without any issues.

Another factor is the footprint of such huge unit of pistoleers. Very easy to lock down and swarm with chaff. On the other hand doing it the way you suggested, running MSU pistollers, buffing them up and shooting them out like suicide kill squads, is honestly extremely turn and energy (CP, spells, artifacts) consuming. You might surprise an enemy with it for the first time you do it, but those small units lack to punching power to outright murder units designed to counter this type of shenanigans.

I do however agree with your second paragraph fully. The army is too static, many abilities require a unit to stay put. And as mentioned before, without fairly priced cavalry heroes to run support the strength of our mobile core is not being utilized to its fullest potential.

Edited by Myrdin
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1 minute ago, Myrdin said:

I dont agree with the first paragraph. Why ? Because you are putting all your baskets onto one unit that is not a "one shot one kill" type of unit. Yes you will have a unit of super buff pistoleers. Thats great and all but what can that one unit do ? Even if you ran a unit of 20 to get the maximum milleage out of them, at best they delete one unit, two if they multi charge, but at that point its more like "what is it, that they are charging".

Just like with any units of this type, its not hard to counter since essentially your opponent is burning through all their CP, spells and what not to get this one unit out there. You lock that unit down with something tough, or annoying and then you clean house and send their entire back line into the afterlife. And there are absolutely armies that can alfa charge turn one without any issues.

Another factor is the footprint of such huge unit of pistoleers. Very easy to lock down and swarm with chaff. On the other hand doing it the way you suggested, running MSU pistollers, buffing them up and shooting them out like suicide kill squads, is honestly extremely turn consuming. You might surprise an enemy with it for the first time you do it, but those small units lack to punching power to outright murder units designed to counter this type of shenanigans.

I do however agree with your second paragraph fully. The army is too static, many abiliies requrie a unit to stay put. And as mentioned before, without fairly priced cavalry heroes to run support the strength of our mobile core is not that impressive.

I mean, there's been a basic list paradigm that has plagued AoS ever since it got points. Stacking up one super unit, slamming it into the enemy, absolutely annihilating what it can get to and then going "Right, now try and fight through it". The Change host was this, par excellence. But pistoleer bombs would be quite effective at it. Even if you aren't immediately trashed by the unit, you're now playing from behind as the opponent scores behind the units it just slammed into your face that is taking you several turns to clear out. 

Alpha strike armies are kind of crummy to play against. And AoS pushes them quite hard since they are one of the few paradigms that controls effectively for a double turn.

 

But how many of the best armies in AoS have been doing just this? I don't want CoS to be another army where you just hurl a couple stacked units into the enemy lines turn one and win, even if you don't completely demolish the enemy.

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I don't see how universal access would help this worried pistoliers bomb. I guess you could give them a lot of rend with runelords, but there is nothing in cities to give extra shots or damage. Even 80x shots at 2+/2+ with rend 3 is hardly broken when it costs 1000 points of buff pieces and like 3 cp. 

You can already basically do that in hallowheart with 30 Irondrakes, bridge, A runelord and some wizards. Certainly strong but I don't think that would be the thing that breaks it.

Honestly I'm more worries about the efficiency of charging Wildriders with an extra attack or demigryphs in the battalion with lances and an extra attack. Or maybe darkshards with rend removing their biggest weakness. 

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