Argument for Strength and Toughness in Age of Sigmar

[Beliman]

17 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Things need to have a role to be fielded. But that just doesnt need to be S/T. It could be anything from the Decimators 'attack per enemy', could be due to roles like the protectors are better vs Monsters. 
Add MOUNTED as a keywords and give units with spear +1 damage vs. MOUNTED.

I jsut personally wouldnt be for that kind of rock paper scissor approach. Because that's where I image it ending up. 

100% agree with that. Just don't push this to far because people don't like to see 1500 points of their army throwing paper-balls to an X unit because the other player just killed your 500 points that could deal with it.

[Greybeard86]

6 minutes ago, Beliman said:

100% agree with that. Just don't push this to far because people don't like to see 1500 points of their army throwing paper-balls to an X unit because the other player just killed your 500 points that could deal with it.

It is a matter of degrees. Should dragons be totally impervious to grots? Or perhaps just not as vulnerable to witches?

Also, is the game more fun if we reward seeking the proper engagements (each unit attempts to target its natural prey) or if we simply spam "bestamest" units (hearthserkers are good against most things, is it fun to see eel spam)? Without bringing it hyperbole, it seems that having "universally good" options leads to lower diversity. If a unit is good against everything, and the codex has poor internal balance, we see those very spammy lists.

That's my take as a rookie to AoS, with more experience in other GW systems.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Greybeard86

[Beliman]

1 minute ago, Greybeard86 said:

It is a matter of degrees. Should dragons be totally impervious to grots? Or perhaps just not as vulnerable to witches?

Also, is the game more fun if we reward seeking the proper engagements (each unit attempts to target its natural prey) or if we simply spam "bestamest" units (hearthserkers are going against most things, is it fun to see eel spam)? Without bringing it hyperbole, it seems that having "universally good" options leads to lower diversity. If a unit is good against everything, and the codex has poor internal balance, we see those very spammy lists.

That's my take as a rookie to AoS, with more experience in other GW systems.

The game has already that in the form of battleplans. I lost my last game in my second round because the enemy targeted my Battlelines and I didn't have enough points to compete (my fault, he found a 2" break in my frontline and his pile in just engaged my battleline).

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in with (S) vs (T) or just new abilities to stop any spam, but as @Kramer said,  I really don't see rock, paper & scissor to be good for AoS. No unit should become useless because some type of missplay  (talking about doing dmg, not because you teleported your evocators to a corner with nobody near...) but units should excel in their role too.

[Greybeard86]

3 minutes ago, Beliman said:

No unit should become useless because some type of missplay  (talking about doing dmg, not because you teleported your evocators to a corner with nobody near...) but units should excel in their role too.

It is hard to make that happen without stronger differentiation between units.  Which then opens the door to players getting better engagements and winning through that. You can make it more or less punishing (I lose my anti monster, I can't kill a monster or alternatively maybe I can't kill it as "efficiently"), but specialization does logically imply that getting worse trades means getting a disadvantage.

An example of specialization: hearthguard berserkers with poles seem good against high saves, whereas axes are better against lower saves.

Some questions:

• Is it enough of a difference to matter in real play (for hearthguard and others)?
• Do other armies have a sufficient degree of specialization across units, or do more suffer from the "eel disease"?

And more generally:

• Are the current saves enough to make behemoths feel trully "epic" or are they still too vulnerable to hordes with rend?
• Should hordes get easy access to rend (e.g. chaos marauders), or should horde buffs be related to other things (e.g. more leadership)?

 

[Mattrulesok]

I'm seeing a lot of discussion about balance and the relative strength of hordes and in my opinion changing the way the game system works doesn't fix balance it just means balance has to be adjusted differently and switching to S/T it's entirely possible balance would be worse if done badly. We could just end up back in 1998 with my chubby 10 year old ass winning most of my games becuae all I had to do was charge overpowered vampires for the win. 

Monsters and a lot of elite infantry don't feel right but honestly in most cases would be fixed with adjustments to the warscrolls taking into account the inherent deficiencies these low body count units have. In most cases extra attacks/save/wounds would be all you need to do to make these units usable. 

 

Take the Stardrake for instance, is it good? Not really. What if we take this massive dragon that has 16 wounds and the same armour save as all the other heroes (3) and just make it 20 wounds on a 2+. It will feel way stronger, large hordes with no rend will have a much tougher time but it's still eminently killable and probably still won't be the 'competitve' choice but can still put in work for casual games. 

[Beliman]

13 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

It is hard to make that happen without stronger differentiation between units.  Which then opens the door to players getting better engagements and winning through that. You can make it more or less punishing (I lose my anti monster, I can't kill a monster or alternatively maybe I can't kill it as "efficiently"), but specialization does logically imply that getting worse trades means getting a disadvantage.

An example of specialization: hearthguard berserkers with poles seem good against high saves, whereas axes are better against lower saves.

Some questions:

• Is it enough of a difference to matter in real play (for hearthguard and others)?
• Do other armies have a sufficient degree of specialization across units, or do more suffer from the "eel disease"?

And more generally:

• Are the current saves enough to make behemoths feel trully "epic" or are they still too vulnerable to hordes with rend?
• Should hordes get easy access to rend (e.g. chaos marauders), or should horde buffs be related to other things (e.g. more leadership)?

I think that AoS has still some margin to work around but it needs to be done surgically: Monsters with 1+ saves, ignore "horde bonus", save after save... Yes, a lot of work that maybe (S) vs (T) could fix a bir more easily, but still, there are some options.

But my point is that an  horde of goblins should still do dmg (or even kill) big monsters but not as easly as other units.

Edited October 6, 2020 by Beliman

[Greybeard86]

4 minutes ago, Beliman said:

I think that AoS has still some margin to work around but it needs to be done surgically: Monsters with 1+ saves, ignore "horde bonus", save after save... Yes, a lot of work that maybe (S) vs (T) could fix a bir more easily, but still, there are some options.

But my point is that an  horde of goblins should still do dmg (or even kill) big monsters but not as easly that other units.

Yep, I think we "converged". Is this possible in a public forum discussing something that might involve competitive play?

[Zeblasky]

While the idea behind the post is quite valid, I do agree with the rest that 1) this is too big of a change, 2) che current system is quite more convenient and easier to use, 3) problems described in the post can easily be fixed by other means. 

 

The main question you have to ask is why hordes are much more dominant in current meta? Take basic skinks for example – unlike marauders they are a very decently balanced unit by themselfs, but add all of those Seraphon active buffs and their cost efficiency can almost triple for a battle round. And that’s where the main problem lies – buffing hordes is much more cost efficient than buffing elite units. Adding +1 to hit and wound to 3+/3+ statline is usually less impactfull then adding it to 5+/5+ horde. And, unlike the former, you can buff the latter much further, up to adding 3 to hit and/or wound. Where stacking such buffs is possible it creates uber hords that are punching way above their weight. add “mortal wounds on 5/6” buff in addition on a horde with numerous attacks and there is almost nothing in this game within the simular price range that this horde cannot kill within a turn. The fact that hordes dominate and screen objective with ease also does not help. 

 

So the first and most obvious answer (that already has been suggested a lot) would be to adopt another 40k rule – the buffs/debuffs cannot go further than + or – 1 to hit and wound stats. This would stop extreme cost efficiency from hordes, while opening a road to “unifiying” certain buffs as well (like, for example, making most + hit and + wound buffs in Cities of Sigmar available for each Cities unit, instead of being locked by a faction keyword; and just making a lot of simular buffs across a lot of factions (like a lot of simple +1 to hit buffs) into a single named buff that is available to a lot of units and does not stack with itself). We will need a lot of new types of buffs or debuffs though. 

 

Another thing that needs to be done is probably a rework of those “mortal wounds of 5+/6+” abilities (only talking about buffs from one unit to another here, not abilites that are in units warscrolls by default). May be make them work worse/not at all on units with more than 20 models. Or something, I don’t really know. But it does not need to be such a huge force multiplier.  

 

If that’s not enough, well, just rebalance the current elite and monster warscrolls, give some of them better rend and armour. May be add “Elite” keyword, give Elite and Moster units defensive or offensive buffs versus non Elite or Monster units. Make each elite model coundt as 2 for controlling the objective. The possibilities are endless here.

[Kadeton]

3 hours ago, Enoby said:

I also want to turn this question around and ask if it's fun in the current game to have monsters and elites die without feeling monstrous or elite? 

The fact that a lot of the monsters in the game seem designed to be underwhelming definitely isn't fun. I think the Ghorgon is perhaps the most emblematic of these - looks absolutely terrifying, but plays completely pants. (It's worth noting that all the Anvil of Apotheosis options are also underpowered by design.)

That said, there's no reason that monsters can't work in the current AoS system. I play Beastclaw Raiders, and to me a Frostlord on Stonehorn gives a more or less perfect feel for what a monster "should" be. They're tough as hell, hit like a freight train, and will delete any horde unit in the game in the blink of an eye. If you're unhappy with the state of monsters in general, try putting six Stonehorns on the table (two Frostlords and four Riders - a totally valid 2000-point list!) and see if you still feel the same way after.

Of course, a Frostlord is four hundred points - and that's about what I feel most scary monsters should be. I was shocked at how useless a Ghorgon was when I first encountered one on the table, but then I realised they're only 160 points... and still too expensive at that reduced price! If they were similarly in the region of 400 points, with a profile to match, then they could actually be as terrifying as their model suggests they should be. Most of the monsters in the game just need to be a lot more expensive, and a lot more powerful, in order to properly feel like monsters.

[Kramer]

6 hours ago, Kadeton said:

The fact that a lot of the monsters in the game seem designed to be underwhelming definitely isn't fun. I think the Ghorgon is perhaps the most emblematic of these - looks absolutely terrifying, but plays completely pants. (It's worth noting that all the Anvil of Apotheosis options are also underpowered by design.)

That said, there's no reason that monsters can't work in the current AoS system. I play Beastclaw Raiders, and to me a Frostlord on Stonehorn gives a more or less perfect feel for what a monster "should" be. They're tough as hell, hit like a freight train, and will delete any horde unit in the game in the blink of an eye. If you're unhappy with the state of monsters in general, try putting six Stonehorns on the table (two Frostlords and four Riders - a totally valid 2000-point list!) and see if you still feel the same way after.

Of course, a Frostlord is four hundred points - and that's about what I feel most scary monsters should be. I was shocked at how useless a Ghorgon was when I first encountered one on the table, but then I realised they're only 160 points... and still too expensive at that reduced price! If they were similarly in the region of 400 points, with a profile to match, then they could actually be as terrifying as their model suggests they should be. Most of the monsters in the game just need to be a lot more expensive, and a lot more powerful, in order to properly feel like monsters.

I think this might be the most sensible solution. Regardless of core rules. 

Let the Monsters be monsters. good point. 

[Popisdead]

I would prefer to keep it as it is, and get rid of the S/T table in 40k and just give weapons like Melta, Lascannons, etc +1 to Wound vs infantry but set values.  

The bigger issue is WAY more obvious.

Alarielle is 600 points and hits on 4s where as goblins are probably dirt cheap (3-4 ppm?  maybe 5?) and hit on 5s.  (this is a current and historical issue for me as a long time Elf player).

To-hit has LONG plagued the game of Warhammer as a broken mechanic of dice spiking* and moving away from the napoleonic archetype helped tremendously but needs to continue.

Str had along reigned as the most important stat in the game as it effected both to-wound and armour.  I do not want to see the return of that in AoS which fixed those issues.

 

I do however,.. highly value your opinion about S & T.  I just really see it differently.  Hope that's clear

 

* to clarify when the game was 4-wide goblins would have 5 hits for 3 PPM and loaded a +4 combat res.  Elves could be 18 ppm and with dice spiking could lose that combat.  W... T... F... how did that last for nearly 30 years?!?!?!?!!??!  

[amysrevenge]

Ultimately it comes down to the attack sequence, and two factors therein: 1) how many steps are there and 2) whether the steps are opposed or unopposed.

Currently in a typical attack sequence there are 4 basic steps, three unopposed and one opposed (unopposed - only relies on one warscroll; opposed - relies on both warscrolls).

• To Hit - an unopposed roll based on the attacker's To Hit stat
• To Wound - an unopposed roll based on the attacker's To Wound stat
• Save - an opposed roll, based on the defender's Save stat and the attacker's Rend stat
• "Ignore Unsaved Wounds" roll formerly known as "Ward Save", colloquially referred to in some communities as "Shrug" or "Invul Save" - an unopposed roll based on the defender's special abilities.

So as it stands now, the only place where the matchup matters at all is the Save step - otherwise who is battling whom never comes in to it.  For context, in the latest versions of WFB, the first three of those were opposed - WS/WS, S/T, armour piercing/armour save - and only the last one was unopposed.

4 rolls gives a fairly good granularity of results for D6s (don't get me started, I'd love a D8 or D10), but I think you could make the argument that one more insertion of an opposed roll could work.  Opposed rolls for either the To Hit or the To Wound step could account for the effects the OP is looking for.  I think going for both would be overkill of the "oh boy let's consult the table again" variety, but one could be effective - even throwing 2s and 6s for doubled stats out the window and making it lower/3+, equal/4+, higher/5+.

[trolemon]

On 10/6/2020 at 3:31 PM, Kadeton said:

That said, there's no reason that monsters can't work in the current AoS system. I play Beastclaw Raiders, and to me a Frostlord on Stonehorn gives a more or less perfect feel for what a monster "should" be.

The fact that they count for 10 models holding objectives is nothing to shake at. Between the ogre behmoths counting for 10, mancrushers counting for 10 and mega gargants counting for 20 I feel like behemoths in general need sweeping changes. Why does a thundertusk/stonehorn/mancrusher count as 10, but an aleguzzler/mawkrusha/carnosaur only count as 1?

[Beliman]

8 hours ago, trolemon said:

The fact that they count for 10 models holding objectives is nothing to shake at. Between the ogre behmoths counting for 10, mancrushers counting for 10 and mega gargants counting for 20 I feel like behemoths in general need sweeping changes. Why does a thundertusk/stonehorn/mancrusher count as 10, but an aleguzzler/mawkrusha/carnosaur only count as 1?

That's just one side of the same coin. Thundertusks count as more than one model too but the main consensus is to play with Stonehorns just for their durability, dmg output, etc...

Imho, the whole pack is needed.

[Kadeton]

10 hours ago, trolemon said:

The fact that they count for 10 models holding objectives is nothing to shake at. Between the ogre behmoths counting for 10, mancrushers counting for 10 and mega gargants counting for 20 I feel like behemoths in general need sweeping changes. Why does a thundertusk/stonehorn/mancrusher count as 10, but an aleguzzler/mawkrusha/carnosaur only count as 1?

Yeah, that's certainly made the Ogor monsters enormously more viable than in their previous battletome, all other changes aside.

I was actually pretty surprised that Mancrushers counted as 10 and Megas 20 - that's a significant jump in objective-holding power even over the Ogor monsters, given their relative costs. But I think it's also (hopefully) indicative that GW is acknowledging the problems with monsters more generally, and taking steps to slowly shift the balance closer to neutral. Mega-Gargants sure cost a lot of points, but I think they will really deliver the goods even at that price. If future monster releases are adjusted upwards along similar lines, I think that will be great.

[yukishiro1]

Seems like you could accomplish something similar by just allowing for more negative modification of the wound roll. For example, monsters (or behemoths, or whatever keyword you wanted to key off) could either reduce wound rolls against them by 1 against non-monsters/behemoths/etc or they could, for example, never be wounded on better than a 4+, or something along those lines. Or they could have some rule that all positive to-wound modifiers are ignored, so no more goblins that wound dragons on a 2+. 

I guess my point is there are simpler ways to get the same benefit going back to S/T would bring. 

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Seems like you could accomplish something similar by just allowing for more negative modification of the wound roll. For example, monsters (or behemoths, or whatever keyword you wanted to key off) could either reduce wound rolls against them by 1 against non-monsters/behemoths/etc or they could, for example, never be wounded on better than a 4+, or something along those lines. Or they could have some rule that all positive to-wound modifiers are ignored, so no more goblins that wound dragons on a 2+. 

I guess my point is there are simpler ways to get the same benefit going back to S/T would bring. 

I recently played another war-game (well, it was an skirmish game). The thing is that the  "attacks" in the warscrolls had some nomenclature that interacted with the whole game:

Name of the attack [element]:
Cost of the attack (LoS, target, number that you need to bit if it's an spell or prayer, cost if any, triggers if any, etc...).
Resolution of the attack.

The [element] had the same feeling of the old "imnune to fire, frost lightining" and, because it's a pseudo-keyword, could be used in the whole game to help monsters too (defense vs X elements).

 

[azdimy]

Toughness does not exist as a stat in AOS and the to wound roll is not really related to the unit Strength either. (Varies with weapon profiles, grots can wound on 2+ ...)

I personnally prefer when less dice are rolled and I would welcome the change if to hit and to wound were to be combined in a single roll but lets face it, gw has too much baggage to implement this in their main games

As previously mentionned they are other ways, using modifier /re rolls /losing dice/etc that could affect the results to reflect something is hard to hit or hard to wound without going back to the old S vs T table