What would you like to see for 3rd edition?

[Overread]

One of the worst things a company can do is open up armies to any other army for allies.

The only time it works is when the game has single unit types that are standard across all armies and when variation between armies is either very minor or only at the "army ability" level rather than the unit level. Which means that models are basically all the same within their type (all spearmen at the same - all swordsmen are the same etc...).

 

Otherwise its a nightmare. AoS has done really well in promoting the idea of being true to your own army and in restricting allies to a flavourful addition rather than dominating the meta and army building. Granted AoS has a lot of very small armies at present which are a bit dull to collect and rely on a lot of the same models. That said I'd far rather GW worked toward expanding those armies within themselves rather than go "well just take loads of allies." I don't want a Daughters of Khaine force that's more built of other armies than DoK models' even if it takes time I'd rather a DoK army made of DoK. 

 

I could see justification for fragmenting of the Grand Alliance system - I could see Order Fragmenting into different subgroups. That said its a fairly neat system and I do rather like the lore idea that its all a  bit up in the air. That you've got armies willing to raid and attack each other; but then willing to drop it all and defend against an outside invader. It gives a sense of the chaos of the era and setting that its rather like the end of WW2 - when the allies and axis were looking to ally to fend off a potential Soviet invasion. 

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, Kirby said:

Personally, if i wanted to shake up list building,  i’d start by getting rid of battleline requirements.  I mean, how do battleline requirements benefit players’ enjoyment?

I like the thought. But having played small games against new players without restrictions... it becomes boring pretty fast. The building of the army is only fun with restrictions. 

on the other hand at the dawn of aos I had a lot of fun with open play. So in that sense why not. 

[amysrevenge]

I basically agree that the Grand Alliance system is mostly just a lingering remainder of the early AoS days, and now that every extant faction has a battletome, it could be eliminated entirely (a handful of forgeworld beasties would either be dropped, or need new keywords).   Chaos units could still have the Chaos keyword without requiring a parallel opposing keyword for all units everywhere.  Skaven could be dropped out of Chaos without needing to find them a better faction to be shoehorned into.  Other factions could have just their faction keyword, or larger alliance keywords, or whatever. (eg. There could be a shared keyword between Cities of Sigmar and Stormcast Eternals - maybe they get to keep Order.  There already is a shared keyword between Kharadron and Fyreslayers [Duardin].  The Aelves all share their keyword.  And so on.)

The benefit of the GAs is tradition, as well as a very loose tie to the narrative. 

The cost of the GAs is that it prevents some lore-allowed allegiances (upthread Fyreslayers were mentioned as occasionally fighting alongside non-Order factions in the lore, but not in the game), allows some questionable allegiances (Nagash and Flesheaters is a bit... difficult), and also that it gives casual (and even not-so-casual) players a distorted view of the allegiances and enmities within the Mortal Realms.  Ultimately the GAs were a creation for game mechanics, with only a VERY loose link to the setting and lore.  But people continually are performing verbal gymnastics to justify lore-reasons for the positioning of various factions within various GAs.

Edited August 24, 2020 by amysrevenge

[novakai]

IDK i am pretty fond of the GA concept and i only find people on this forum disliking the concept about it but every where else people seem to like it. the GA are definitely done way better in AoS then in 40k where it just categorization (Imperium, Chaos, and Xenos)

its both a good narrative tool and give players a team that there army is on and root for. kind of like in MMOs where play a side and fight for them in the narrative (Alliance, Order) or (Horde, Destruction)

[Overread]

I can't see GW dissolving it any time soon - they've invested far too much in the lore and model and marketing background to just remove it. Like I said I could see a major event in the future cause riffs and breakups; but even they would have to be handled carefully. How many people own a few stormcast for allies for an Order army? What would happen if, say, the darker aelves split away - what about all those who built the battalions that let them take stormcast allies? 

 

 

 

 

As for Skaven I've never understood people saying they aren't a Chaos army - all their technology relies on warpstone and even in the Old World they are always described as a chaos army (with the debate being if they were rats born of chaos or rats corrupted by chaos). In AoS even more so as the Great Horned One is now the 5th Great God of Chaos. A point that doesn't get enough exposure, and might not until GW has a chance to do a big line revision and update for the Skaven and to focus the lime light on them once again both model and narrative wise. 

[Grimrock]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

I can't see GW dissolving it any time soon - they've invested far too much in the lore and model and marketing background to just remove it. Like I said I could see a major event in the future cause riffs and breakups; but even they would have to be handled carefully. How many people own a few stormcast for allies for an Order army? What would happen if, say, the darker aelves split away - what about all those who built the battalions that let them take stormcast allies? 

I think there is a misunderstanding here. Nobody is saying GW should get rid of the ally system, or the current allies for the existing factions, we just think the actual grand alliance mechanics should be removed. You don't need the grand alliances to have allies. No faction gets any positive benefit of extra allies from their alliance because the alliances don't really exist in the lore and it wouldn't make sense. All they get are restrictions and lose access to something that might actually be logical and fun like ogor mercenaries working for a chaos army. 

The alliances were originally introduced when there were no factions as quick and easy groupings, but at this point sorting factions into 4 arbitrary categories is just awkward and unnecessary. They don't accomplish anything positive in the lore or the game and really only lead to bitterness (ex. one alliance is getting more attention than another) and confusion. Having a group or sadistic murder elves hell bent on killing as many people as possible in a misguided attempt to revive a dead god of murder being called 'order' just because they build temples to said murder god makes absolutely no sense. 

Edit: actually now with some more thought, maybe allies should be reworked too. I really like the idea but with the game being so heavily skewed by allegiance abilities it's so rare to actually take allies. Maybe a universal system that would let allies benefit from their original allegiance abilities? Similar to battalions in 40k. Obviously you'd have to find a way to seperate out major things like summoning, but I'd be a lot more tempted to ally in tzeentch daemons in my slaves to darkness army if they kept their spell lore and locus ability. It'd definitely shake up the meta but I don't think it would actually break the game.

Edited August 24, 2020 by Grimrock

[SeanMaguire1991]

1. No more turn priority rolls. It sucks 

2. A damage system similar to 40k so units can more specialisations.

3. Terrain rules improved

4. Nerf shooting to oblivion because to hell with Clan Skyre.

[PlasticCraic]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

How many people own a few stormcast for allies for an Order army? What would happen if, say, the darker aelves split away - what about all those who built the battalions that let them take stormcast allies? 

They would come on here and have a moan about it, and get told it's time to move on. 

Then they'd have a moan in a Facebook group instead, and end up moving on anyway.

In a world where GW have thrown entire armies into to the sea, they're not going to let some invalidated Allies purchases stop them doing what they want to do.

[Doko]

Free sumon gone.

 

Again back to the balanced concept of everything free is umbalanced and back to sumons with point cost.

Also double turn gone.

The look out sir as 40k where heroes with less than 5\8 wounds cant be targeted if they arent closest unit(as we have seen any armys as bonereaper or new lumineths can kill many weak heroes each turn with 0 counterplay because they ignore vision)

[Enoby]

6 minutes ago, Doko said:

Free sumon gone.

 

Again back to the balanced concept of everything free is umbalanced and back to sumons with point cost.

Also double turn gone.

The look out sir as 40k where heroes with less than 5\8 wounds cant be targeted if they arent closest unit(as we have seen any armys as bonereaper or new lumineths can kill many weak heroes each turn with 0 counterplay because they ignore vision)

While free summons are very strong and very hard to balance (just look at 2019 Slaanesh for an example), I think summoning was too niche and boring when it cost to summon (it just felt like deepstriking but was usually of the time not worth the cost because of how easy it was to stop). Summoning was often forgot about when you needed to consider all of the factors that allowed you to summon in the first place (e.g. casting a specific spell successfully, generating some sort of points, or using a command ability), so making it cost would probably just make people not use it like it did before, and it would remove a lot of fun from the armies that revolve around summoning. 

I think a better approach would be to limit the number of points someone can summon in a game; to throw some numbers out there, maybe you can summon a number of free models up to the number of points allowed for allies in that game size (or maybe double this number).  This stops factions going crazy with summoning, but still gives a tangible advantage and reason to play towards it. Again, maybe the points would need fine tuning, but this is for the general idea. 

Personally, at the moment I don't think summoning is a huge issue, but this is more to prevent a Slaanesh 2 situation happening again. 

[Overread]

Enoby you're actually arguing for summons to cost points just in a different way. 

If a 2K army can summon 500 points worth of models in a single game then most players will expect:

1) For the points of the army to be adjusted so that that 2K is closer to 1500. 

2) Most players will aim to summon 500 points every game because that's their limit.

 

So its the same as if the player were to put down 1500 points worth of models and then summon in 500 points worth later. The army wide points would have to adjust the same amount either way.

 

Personally I think if summoning cost points to perform then the easy way to resolve it is to have summoning be a near guaranteed event so there's no risk in choosing to summon or not. Making it a FREE choice for the player to either deploy with some models held in reserve or to deploy it all to the table in one go. 

 

However its done I do think that summoning mechanics need a cap on them. Either per turn or per game so that there's an upper boundary. The other aspect is that if GW is going to create a "Summoning point value" then it needs to be a value that is generated that doesn't have wide variations. Eg Slaanesh can generate a lot more depravity against a multiwound heavy army than against a one wound heavy army. So a stormcast army has a much harder time (more summons) than a daughters of khaine army. All because stormcast are multiwound and witches are one wound. 

[PJetski]

Further to my previous post, I have some general rule changes I would want to see.

1. I don't want to see Strength/Toughness in the game, but I think big monsters should be a bit more difficult to hurt than an infantry unit. 

• Attacks against a unit with MONSTER have -1 to wound rolls. Units with MONSTER keyword ignore this penalty.
• Some units will have a Monster Slayer rule added to their warscroll. This ability allows them to ignore the penalty to wound rolls when attacking MONSTER units.

2. A maximum of +1 or -1 to any hit, wound, or save roll. I really like how this rule has worked out in 40k and I think it should be brought to AOS.

3. Command Abilities in general should not stack, unless specifically noted otherwise.

4. All abilities that allow you to "fight again immediately" should have their wording changed to allow them to be selected to fight a second time later in the phase, and only if an enemy is within 3" (even if you charged) rather than fighting a second time immediately.

5. The number of artefacts/mount traits/etc. your army can take is determined by the size of the game, not by the number of battalions you bring. You can take 1 at 1000, 2 at 1500, 3 at 2000, and 4 at 2500+. With the removal of Malign Sorcery I think it would be fine to allow more artefacts into regular matched play games, especially since subfactions generally require giving up your first artefact choice. This has a knockdown effect of making battalions less valuable, and therefore they can be made cheaper while still giving interesting effects.

6. Subfactions need to cost points, and  all subfactions that exist right now start at 0 points. This opens the door for adjustment through the regular pitched battle profile updates rather than through erratas. If a particular faction is overperforming (eg. Hagg-Nar, Petrifex Elite, Hermdar, etc.) then instead of errata buried in documents on the website they can be hit with a small point nerf which is easily understood and accessible to the general public since everyone gets the latest points from the GHB.

[Maddpainting]

2 hours ago, Doko said:

Free sumon gone.

 

Again back to the balanced concept of everything free is umbalanced and back to sumons with point cost.

Also double turn gone.

The look out sir as 40k where heroes with less than 5\8 wounds cant be targeted if they arent closest unit(as we have seen any armys as bonereaper or new lumineths can kill many weak heroes each turn with 0 counterplay because they ignore vision)

It went free b.c non free summon mean there is no summoning.  Summoning at this points is very balance and near perfect, the only change summoning needs is to count it against the player for tie breakers not helps them.

Summoning when used like a army mechanic is no more powerful than fighting twice. Yes you get more bodies but a unit killing twice the models say my summoning army can kill means i need to bring something just as good.

Then you also have healing, Healing a large model D3+1 is equal to summoning IMO, look at Mawtribes, if you take away summoning you need to take away healing.

Overall its not a bad system, it needs to be balance just like all other abilities.

[Skreech Verminking]

14 hours ago, Overread said:

 

As for Skaven I've never understood people saying they aren't a Chaos army - all their technology relies on warpstone and even in the Old World they are always described as a chaos army (with the debate being if they were rats born of chaos or rats corrupted by chaos). In AoS even more so as the Great Horned One is now the 5th Great God of Chaos. A point that doesn't get enough exposure, and might not until GW has a chance to do a big line revision and update for the Skaven and to focus the lime light on them once again both model and narrative wise. 

Well They are and aren’t chaos.

With the end times they were brought into the whole chaos thing,

but in truth they don’t really care who they’ll backstab next.

an Allegiance with the men of Order is basically the same to them with any other chaos faction.

doesn’t really matter with who they ally themself with, in the end that person or faction will end up backstabbed anyways.

skaven allying with orruks, Gobbos, Elfs, nagash or anything else really happens and happened in the past.

Sure the Great horned rat is considered a chaos god.

But truthfully, he doesn’t really fit , nor does the rest of skaven kind.

And considering that even Archaon doesn’t really consider them as a chaos faction, nor does Gw,

having mentioned an update for “every” single chaos faction in their so called great wrath of the everchosen campaign book, missing Skaven as well as some other chaos factions, that didn’t even get a mention in the book, I highly doubt that skaven can be seen as a chaos faction any more.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Skreech Verminking

[Ganigumo]

I really don't want to see a 3.0, but i'll make a wishlist anyways.

• Priority rolls remain: battles are unpredictable and so are games, it forces adaptation. Most of the "Problems" result from poor army/warscroll design and the idea of a double turn is largely fine in a game with a heavier focus on melee combat
• Strengthen look out sir: either make it a -2, pass off wounds on a 4+, or readjust line of sight rules so models can't be spotted as easily ("my archer can see your wizard's staff over your troll so I can shoot it") maybe something as as simple as larger bases block line of sight to smaller bases if they're 7 or less wounds.
• Points going digital: print them in battletomes/ghb if you want, but make them accessibly digitally for free and put more cool stuff like battleplans and Anvil of apotheosis in the GHB
• DO NOT POINT UNIT OPTIONS: I've been dabbling in 40k a bit since the new edition after dropping it for a few years and the way points is laid out is awful, a unit's weapons are not built into their cost, so in order to figure out the cost of something you need to reference: the warscoll, the unit points table, and possibly several equipment point tables. Its just too much,  and doesn't add anything of value, since different equipment has vastly different values on different units anyways.
• Keep the core rules as small as possible: 40k has way too many rules that should be moved from being keywords in the rule book, to information on the warscroll. This is something AoS already does that is great and hopefully won't change. The less things we need to reference the better.
• Reduced amount of bravery 10 and army wide battleshock immunity. I think battleshock immunity is fine if there are restrictions on it.
• Destruction to finally get some narrative focus (and characters, the entire GA only has 2 named characters with rules)
• return of gitmob (Rippa's snarlfangs are way too cool to be a one off)
• Proper rewrites of monster warscrolls, it seems that recently they've gotten the hang of it with the giant cows, and hopefully gargants follow suit.
• Clarity on what sources are matched play legal, and for how long, and which aren't
• New beasts of chaos models, Every "new" BoC model is amazing, but the line is so old. That new Slaangor looks amazing, I don't even play the army but I don't think I could resist if they had a few more newer sculpts like that, I've already got way too many Tzaangor for my Tzeentch army
• Anvil of Apotheosis built into new battletomes

 

[RedMax]

42 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

Anvil of Apotheosis built into new battletomes

Definitivelly would solve some abuse/strange stuff like Orruk beeing Etheral. Coul also open to really cool faction specific stuff. I really see it as a perfect way to complet the PtG in the Battle tome (and mabe give PtG new breath)!

I love the idea!

[Frowny]

49 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

I really don't want to see a 3.0, but i'll make a wishlist anyways.

• Priority rolls remain: battles are unpredictable and so are games, it forces adaptation. Most of the "Problems" result from poor army/warscroll design and the idea of a double turn is largely fine in a game with a heavier focus on melee combat
• Strengthen look out sir: either make it a -2, pass off wounds on a 4+, or readjust line of sight rules so models can't be spotted as easily ("my archer can see your wizard's staff over your troll so I can shoot it") maybe something as as simple as larger bases block line of sight to smaller bases if they're 7 or less wounds.
• Points going digital: print them in battletomes/ghb if you want, but make them accessibly digitally for free and put more cool stuff like battleplans and Anvil of apotheosis in the GHB
• DO NOT POINT UNIT OPTIONS: I've been dabbling in 40k a bit since the new edition after dropping it for a few years and the way points is laid out is awful, a unit's weapons are not built into their cost, so in order to figure out the cost of something you need to reference: the warscoll, the unit points table, and possibly several equipment point tables. Its just too much,  and doesn't add anything of value, since different equipment has vastly different values on different units anyways.
• Keep the core rules as small as possible: 40k has way too many rules that should be moved from being keywords in the rule book, to information on the warscroll. This is something AoS already does that is great and hopefully won't change. The less things we need to reference the better.
• Reduced amount of bravery 10 and army wide battleshock immunity. I think battleshock immunity is fine if there are restrictions on it.
• Destruction to finally get some narrative focus (and characters, the entire GA only has 2 named characters with rules)
• return of gitmob (Rippa's snarlfangs are way too cool to be a one off)
• Proper rewrites of monster warscrolls, it seems that recently they've gotten the hang of it with the giant cows, and hopefully gargants follow suit.
• Clarity on what sources are matched play legal, and for how long, and which aren't
• New beasts of chaos models, Every "new" BoC model is amazing, but the line is so old. That new Slaangor looks amazing, I don't even play the army but I don't think I could resist if they had a few more newer sculpts like that, I've already got way too many Tzaangor for my Tzeentch army
• Anvil of Apotheosis built into new battletomes

 

I agree. I'd add

1) priority for first turn (instead of by drops)

2) no psychic awakening style rules bloat.

Mostly age of sigmar just needs more of what it already does and balance within the existing system, rather than fundamental rules changes

[Saxon]

On 8/25/2020 at 3:55 AM, Kirby said:

Personally, if i wanted to shake up list building,  i’d start by getting rid of battleline requirements.  I mean, how do battleline requirements benefit players’ enjoyment?  

If we really do need battleline, GW could add a battleline keyword to warscrolls and incentivise their inclusion with something like command points.  An even easier solution would be to simply cut their point/monetary cost.  If they were cheaper players would be more likely, but not compelled to use them.

I dont think this would be game-breaking. 

I absolutely loath playing games against armies with minimum battleline. I think it provides more balance to games and needs to be improved to stop people running lists of 3 x 5 tree revenants and then treelords or the equivalent to fill the rest of the points. 

[Saxon]

On 8/26/2020 at 1:33 AM, Ganigumo said:

I really don't want to see a 3.0, but i'll make a wishlist anyways.

• Priority rolls remain: battles are unpredictable and so are games, it forces adaptation. Most of the "Problems" result from poor army/warscroll design and the idea of a double turn is largely fine in a game with a heavier focus on melee combat
• Strengthen look out sir: either make it a -2, pass off wounds on a 4+, or readjust line of sight rules so models can't be spotted as easily ("my archer can see your wizard's staff over your troll so I can shoot it") maybe something as as simple as larger bases block line of sight to smaller bases if they're 7 or less wounds.
• Points going digital: print them in battletomes/ghb if you want, but make them accessibly digitally for free and put more cool stuff like battleplans and Anvil of apotheosis in the GHB
• DO NOT POINT UNIT OPTIONS: I've been dabbling in 40k a bit since the new edition after dropping it for a few years and the way points is laid out is awful, a unit's weapons are not built into their cost, so in order to figure out the cost of something you need to reference: the warscoll, the unit points table, and possibly several equipment point tables. Its just too much,  and doesn't add anything of value, since different equipment has vastly different values on different units anyways.
• Keep the core rules as small as possible: 40k has way too many rules that should be moved from being keywords in the rule book, to information on the warscroll. This is something AoS already does that is great and hopefully won't change. The less things we need to reference the better.
• Reduced amount of bravery 10 and army wide battleshock immunity. I think battleshock immunity is fine if there are restrictions on it.
• Destruction to finally get some narrative focus (and characters, the entire GA only has 2 named characters with rules)
• return of gitmob (Rippa's snarlfangs are way too cool to be a one off)
• Proper rewrites of monster warscrolls, it seems that recently they've gotten the hang of it with the giant cows, and hopefully gargants follow suit.
• Clarity on what sources are matched play legal, and for how long, and which aren't
• New beasts of chaos models, Every "new" BoC model is amazing, but the line is so old. That new Slaangor looks amazing, I don't even play the army but I don't think I could resist if they had a few more newer sculpts like that, I've already got way too many Tzaangor for my Tzeentch army
• Anvil of Apotheosis built into new battletomes

 

- I would agree that battleshock has become a complete joke. Too many armies ignore it with abilities and silly CP generation. 

- Remove spells that affect the whole board/don't require line of site.

[Kasper]

• Priority roll stays - It is an overall fun and great mechanic. Im of the opinion that most who hate this rule are people that deploy and max move all units across the board with little to no thought and dont look at the bigger picture of a game. Just house rule it out if your club hates this.
• First turn isnt decided based on drops, but on a normal turn roll with whoever has the lowest amount of drops win ties. It means alpha armies cant just deploy knowing they will take first turn and armies that want to double turn you risks having to go first. Gives an overall more balanced apparoach imo. While drops is great, it seems too random who gets to have a 1 drop army, 5 drop army or 10+ drop army. There is no "choice" for many armies.
• Fix terrain/flying. It is an obnoxious rule that fly units can land wherever they want to and sometimes it creates confusion/disagreements when units are near wonky terrain and you cant measure properly because the model simply cant fit/sit on the desired spot. This game is a game of inches at times, being able to pile in 4" due to wonky measurements can make or break a fight in certain situations. Im perfectly okay that fly units can pass across models/terrain without issue.
• Maybe introduce a "flight mode" for flying units - Either they soar high above the battlefield and cant capture objectives/fight or they land on the ground and is treated in the same manner as normal units. Dunno, just fix the current wonky rule.
• Points are entirely digital.
• Look-out sir rule isnt good enough for 5 wound heroes when a lot of stuff can get down to really low to-hit numbers.
• Summoning is OK as it is. Slaanesh 2019 was beyond broken, but summoning armies arent winning every single tournament/TTS as it is, so clearly summoning isnt as OP as some make it out to be.
• Remove the majority of battleshock-immune mechanics. For OBR you could argue that their army begins to "crumble" when too many in a unit bites the dust.
• Either better balancing of subfactions or give them points (which is then balanced out by reducing the points for your models so the overall army stays the same) - Batallions already cost different points and offer a wide variety of bonuses for some armies.

[Kirby]

1 hour ago, Saxon said:

I absolutely loath playing games against armies with minimum battleline.

Don’t get me wrong.  I want to see balanced armies on the board too.   However,  the restriction bothers me. I’d rather incentivise than tax players.

Off the top of my head, you could argue that regular troops need more instructions than elites.  So, Battleline could generate cmd points, for example.    
I think some players would double down on battleline in order to guarantee a stream of cmd points, others may forsake them for a small band of elite heroes.

I feel similarly about the relationship about battalions, artefacts, and turn priority.  i believe they could be successfully unpacked.  

Artefacts could have a points cost.

Players could bid cmd pts for turn 1, rather than counting drops.

Battalions would then be left to provide flavor and their own abilities.

[EMMachine]

On 8/25/2020 at 2:21 AM, PJetski said:

6. Subfactions need to cost points, and  all subfactions that exist right now start at 0 points. This opens the door for adjustment through the regular pitched battle profile updates rather than through erratas. If a particular faction is overperforming (eg. Hagg-Nar, Petrifex Elite, Hermdar, etc.) then instead of errata buried in documents on the website they can be hit with a small point nerf which is easily understood and accessible to the general public since everyone gets the latest points from the GHB.

I think subfactions do have another problem.

Most of the time they are simply additional rules for an Allegiance with the only restriction stat command traits and artefacts are fix.

The subfactions were meant to give a little lore flavored rules. The problems are that there isn't much lore for some of the subfactions in the first place and it's not really flavorful that for example every Celestial Vindicators General has the the same Command Trait and each Army has the same Artefact.

Flesh Eater Courts has a interesting aspect that you either get the feast rule or the rule of your Grand Court or rules like with Cities of Sigmar or Hedonites of Slaanesh where every subfaction has his own set of command Traits / Artefacts maybe lore (but here you are mostly forced to take a subfaction)

3 hours ago, Kirby said:

Battalions would then be left to provide flavor and their own abilities.

 

5 hours ago, Saxon said:

I absolutely loath playing games against armies with minimum battleline. I think it provides more balance to games and needs to be improved to stop people running lists of 3 x 5 tree revenants and then treelords or the equivalent to fill the rest of the points. 

I would say, Battlelines as well as battalions are partly a medium of saying "an army of this faction / with this subfaction / with this general should be structured that way.

This way it makes sense having a Melusai Army when having a Melusai General or having Corsairs as battleline if the Fleet Master is Battleline. It gives the army flavor (which wasn't the case in WHFB for example where every army had there fix set of Battleline units).

If elite units can be used as battleline they often trait strength for numbers (you can have Grundstok Thunders as Battleline but 5 of them are more expensive than a 10 man Arcanaut Company. (so they have a disadventage when holding objectives)

But there are also cases were lore isn't even buildable (for example the Extremis Chamber, or that you need a Lord Arcanum to make Sequitors Battleline, while in the Lore there is often a Knight Incantors Leading because a chamber has more Knight Incantors stan Lord Arcanums.)

In case of the Tree-Revenants we would need the rest of the list because looking at the household for example 1 Household would be 1 unit of Tree Revenants, 1 Treelord and one branchwych, and a glade has most of the time 3 Households (but the battalion is actually a wierd one looking into the lore).

On 8/24/2020 at 3:49 PM, JPjr said:

this came up in another thread but it's relevant here, personally I hope they bin the Grand Alliance system. 

it's a vestigial organ that had a purpose at the dawn of AoS and does nothing for the game now but either confuses people narratively or create false, and frankly impossible to implement, ideas that each Grand Allegiance needs to be balanced in terms of factions and models.

I think the problem with killing of the Grand Alliance System is, that it is the only thing that partly keeps Legends und Compendium units alive that don't have the keywords to fit into the Allegiance Rules of the Battletomes, and it is basicly a mechanicsm to create your own faction with your own lore by combining warscrolls of different battletomes with the disadvantages of having weaker allegiance rules and only real Battleline units are useable.

[Icarion]

I'd like to see a removal of command traits and artefacts being forced on you for taking a specific subfaction. 

The books are filled with cool command traits and artefacts that will never be used because not aligning your force to a subfaction is handicapping yourself. 

[Overread]

12 hours ago, Athrawes said:

I'd like to see a removal of command traits and artefacts being forced on you for taking a specific subfaction. 

The books are filled with cool command traits and artefacts that will never be used because not aligning your force to a subfaction is handicapping yourself. 

Thing is some of those artefacts are not allowed with all subfactions because they might cause imbalance in the army. So if you made them universal you'd also result in them changing to be more bland. 
 

If a subfaction boosts close combat then the artefact that also boosts close combat a lot might not be allowed with it. IT looks really neat to have, but that's because its getting toward being a broken bit of balance. Instead its in the general pool so that the general army which doesn't have the close combat bonus, can have some close combat enhancement, even if its just on one model. 

 

[123lac]

No more rule books.

Like literally, no more printed rules. None.

The rules for 3rd should be via an app.