AoS should encourage bigger lists to have more variety!

[Kramer]

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

There would absolutely not be the same resistance to IDK if the most powerful list was a balanced list that took 1-2 of most units in the book. You would not hear people say "oh god, not that balanced IDK list again with a bunch of different unit types! that's so boring to play against! why can't we have 27 eels + volty instead?"

But there is a reason why it doesn’t happen. Because when you compare those units in the list there will always be advantages to taking most. 

Armies with a small model line are the only examples that I can think of where the happens. KO kinda do 1-2 repetitions of units. But it still ends up being the same list over and over. And you’re right people don’t say: ‘oh that’s that balanced KO list with a bunch of different units.’  
they say, ‘oh that’s that boring ziflin vortex list’. 
because thats what happens. 

and if you get rules enforcing that you can’t build all mounted lists (eels/pistoleros/demography/deathrider, scourgerunner chariots, goregruntas), or no all monster lists (beastclaw, squigs, trolls), or herohammerring (Nagash with a mortach, 3/4 greater daemons, 3 mawcrushers) or within cities can’t build all human, aelf, duardin lists then of course people will complain as well. 

In my mind it boils down to this:

you can argue that you want more mixed lists and that the current game is worse off for not encouraging that more.

I see that as you having a very specific vision of what is thematic and finding it disappointing that it isn’t good enough to compete. 

And I’m realistic/cynical/experienced enough to be convinced that you can’t create that vision without limiting other people building their vision. 
mat least now we can build, play and have fun with pretty much everything we want as long as you find an opponent with the same vision. 

[Eldarain]

The interesting thing is from what I understand a kit sees it's greatest sales immediately upon release. However we also see older kits go out of stock after receiving a boost in a new book or FAQ.

It just baffles me that they allow certain units and even sometimes factions to languish for long periods of time when it's clear bringing them closer to the upper tiers increases sale. Maybe there are just enough Marine whales that it's not a big deal to them?

[Maddpainting]

On 1/12/2021 at 3:26 PM, yukishiro1 said:

Battalions need a fundamental rework. They shouldn't give CP, they shouldn't give extra artefacts, and they shouldn't reduce drops - or rather, having lower drops shouldn't impact whether you go first or not, except maybe to let you break ties or something like that. You should take a battalion because of the ability it gives, whereas right now in a lot of cases the ability is more of an afterthought compared to the incidental benefits. Obviously this would mean drastically reducing the point costs of most battalions, which is just fine. Then just let people buy an extra artefact and CP directly, if they want them. 

A lot of the fundamental problems with list-building in AOS come from battalions and they way they funnel you into restrictive lists if you want to be competitive. The remainder of the problems come from overly restrictive buff interactions - Gitz being the prime example of this. It's basically four mini-armies none of which have much if any synergy with the others. That's terrible book design. 

Well, then there's units that are just bad, of course. But that's always going to be a problem to some degree. 

Then give us more ways to get Artifacts or if every army is limited to just 1 then make them 2-3x as strong as they are now. 

Personally I think ost battalions are fine and do what they are suppose to do. They are supposed to push you into restrictive lists. Thats literally the point of them.

[yukishiro1]

1 hour ago, Kramer said:

you can argue that you want more mixed lists and that the current game is worse off for not encouraging that more.

I see that as you having a very specific vision of what is thematic and finding it disappointing that it isn’t good enough to compete. 

And I’m realistic/cynical/experienced enough to be convinced that you can’t create that vision without limiting other people building their vision. 
mat least now we can build, play and have fun with pretty much everything we want as long as you find an opponent with the same vision. 

That's a very weird take. The fact that 27 eels + volty was the only competitive IDK list was not the consequence of some fundamental philosophical point of principle, it was just bad faction design. We know this to be true, because GW just released something that remedies the issues by addressing the internal balance of the codex so that a greater variety of builds are competitively viable. 

You are arguing that it isn't possible to do something that GW just did. That's not a very convincing argument. More broadly, you keep arguing against this straw man that anybody is saying there'll ever be a point where all lists are equally viable. That's not what people are asking for. They're asking for changes to the game to make the gap between the gimmicky "spam all this unit" lists and the more well-rounded "take a bunch of different stuff" lists smaller, such that you can realistically take such a list without feeling like you're throwing away the chance at winning in a competitive setting. In other words, what they did in Morathi for IDK. If they can do it for IDK - the worst spam list offender in the entire game - they can do it for other factions too. 

It's really weird to have staked out a position premised on the idea that it is impossible to do what GW has just done. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by yukishiro1

[yukishiro1]

31 minutes ago, Maddpainting said:

Then give us more ways to get Artifacts or if every army is limited to just 1 then make them 2-3x as strong as they are now. 

Personally I think ost battalions are fine and do what they are suppose to do. They are supposed to push you into restrictive lists. Thats literally the point of them.

Well but that's the question, isn't it: why should the game push you into restrictive lists? What is gained by rewarding people for taking less diverse armies? This would only make sense if having a diverse army was an advantage. But in AOS, it by and large is a disadvantage due to the restrictive buff stacking model most factions operate on. So why do you need to be rewarded for doing something that is already stronger to begin with? Shouldn't it be precisely the opposite? Why reward the strong with more strength? That's not very good game design.

It seems to me that the original idea with battalions was to give themed forces special abilities to help distinguish them on the battlefield. Which is fine. But the problem is that the system doesn't actually do that. Instead, the main use of battalions is the secondary perks of CP, artefacts and drop count. People don't look for a battalion to make a themed army around, they look for the battalion that they can squeeze the most units they want to take anyway into to lower drop count and take advantage of the other side benefits. So in effect, all it ends up doing is rewarding people even more for spamming the best units. And it's hard to believe that's what GW set out to do with the battalion system. 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Greybeard86]

1 hour ago, Kramer said:

you can argue that you want more mixed lists and that the current game is worse off for not encouraging that more.

I see that as you having a very specific vision of what is thematic and finding it disappointing that it isn’t good enough to compete. 

And I’m realistic/cynical/experienced enough to be convinced that you can’t create that vision without limiting other people building their vision. 
mat least now we can build, play and have fun with pretty much everything we want as long as you find an opponent with the same vision. 

But of course, isn’t that obvious? The rules dictate what is competitive, and that in turn determines lists.

Some of us want the rules to encourage you to bring a variety of units, in a way that better resembles what the fluff would have you expect of an army. Then, WD releases could offer some support for special thematic armies, such as a troll horde or the only slayers army. But those shouldn’t be more powerful than the balanced armies.

Will it please everyone? I don’t know, I guess not. But in any case I do believe it is what makes the most sense. I think someone at GW got to carried away but the idea of supporting gimmicky lists (wouldn’t an all slayers army be fun?)  and battalions and mire restrictive lists are too central to competitive armies nowadays.

To those arguing go play narrative instead, I ll answer that narrative supports everything. I d prefer a game were gimmicky lists are the ones people bring to narrative. The game, imho, should try to deliver that balanced army experience via rules and not via people ignoring what’s good and bad and playing pre arranged scenarios. The rules are supposed to simulated the AoS world and its battles!

As to whether this is possible or not, GW has done it for 40k, so yeah it is possible. You just have to write the rules accordingly. 

[Greybeard86]

10 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Well but that's the question, isn't it: why should the game push you into restrictive lists? What is gained by rewarding people for taking less diverse armies? This would only make sense if having a diverse army was an advantage. But in AOS, it by and large is a disadvantage due to the restrictive buff stacking model most factions operate on. So why do you need to be rewarded for doing something that is already stronger to begin with? Shouldn't it be precisely the opposite? Why reward the strong with more strength? That's not very good game design.

I have said this elsewhere, but I have my theories. To an extent, I think part of it is GW overdoing the idea “wouldn’t it be fun to have an all slayers army?” Much like they overdid those gimmicky rules that went “if you yell waaagh you get +1 to hit”.

Then, I also think GW wants to:

1) control what miniatures are popular at a point in time, and then rotate those over time: instead of having multiple viable models at the same time.

2) wants people to collect multiple armies, and not just have a large force for one.

And I think it is profit seeking behavior. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Greybeard86

[Kadeton]

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

That's not how GW works, though. They make the minis first, then come up with rules for them afterward. The rule are just an excuse to sell the miniatures. They have no incentive to release fewer miniatures in order to make sure the rules for them are better. 

Actually there's a bunch of other reasons to release fewer miniatures, including tooling costs, stock management, and SKU bloat in limited shelf space. If they could shift the same volume of product by selling more copies of the same product, they would absolutely do so. The main reason they can't is because a lot of customers want a greater variety of units.

3 hours ago, Saxon said:

This is covering old ground and is very harsh but at the price point we pay which is greater than any other company i have bought miniatures from, this is no excuse.

I don't really understand this viewpoint. GW isn't offering any excuses. They just do what they feel makes the most business sense. They don't care whether you or I are happy with it or not.

It seems really unlikely that they'll suddenly decide to throw a mountain of money at the problem of insufficient playtesting - that's a huge risk. To me, that suggests two options: either they keep the current level of playtesting quality, or they focus the playtests on a smaller number of units to improve quality. Yeah, we can all raise our voices and demand they put more resources into playtesting, but complaints on the internet rarely translate into business decisions.

[Saxon]

51 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

I don't really understand this viewpoint. GW isn't offering any excuses. They just do what they feel makes the most business sense. They don't care whether you or I are happy with it or not.

It seems really unlikely that they'll suddenly decide to throw a mountain of money at the problem of insufficient playtesting - that's a huge risk. To me, that suggests two options: either they keep the current level of playtesting quality, or they focus the playtests on a smaller number of units to improve quality. Yeah, we can all raise our voices and demand they put more resources into playtesting, but complaints on the internet rarely translate into business decisions.

They do care about their bottom line though. Poor rules can lead to dissatisfaction and people either curbing their investment or divesting completely. 

Whilst they don't care that I am dissatisfied and fair enough they're making record profits, if enough people get tired of it they generally get forced into a major rework (i.e. a new edition). 40k has just had one. 

AOS probably isn't in such a bad state with rules but it is a very complex game with a lot of mechanics. People seem to eye roll how good khadron overlords have become overnight. 

[Kramer]

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

That's a very weird take

right back at ya

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

That's a very weird take. The fact that 27 eels + volty was the only competitive IDK list was not the consequence of some fundamental philosophical point of principle, it was just bad faction design. We know this to be true, because GW just released something that remedies the issues by addressing the internal balance of the codex so that a greater variety of builds are competitively viable. 

You are arguing that it isn't possible to do something that GW just did. That's not a very convincing argument. More broadly, you keep arguing against this straw man that anybody is saying there'll ever be a point where all lists are equally viable.

But this to me isn't a strawman. Or at the very least, I never implied 'anybody is saying there'll ever be a point where all lists are equally viable.' as far as i'm aware. sorry if it came across like putting words in your mouth.  But hey, I was writing in a very sleep deprived state with a 4 week year old on my chest this morning. Blame her  

But I'm happy to admit then when I reread my post I did skip a step in my argumentation. which is maybe the reason why we are misunderstanding eachother. Just didn't want to keep beating the same drum. But here it is: 

The general conversation in this thread, as I understand it, is that a group of people argue that they can't build/don't see enough varied lists and still feel like they are competing with that. And that this is a direct result by bad game design by GW.

Which you defined later as: 'There would absolutely not be the same resistance to IDK if the most powerful list was a balanced list that took 1-2 of most units in the book.' Which was the post I replied to. (and as I side note I still maintain that if that was the only IDK list for the next four years you would definitely see the same resistance)

My argument is that this is only possible by increasing restriction to list building. Which can be implemented through battalions, battlefield roles etc, but the how is a bit besides the point. Because if you don't restrict it, players will figure out which warscroll is the best in its role and take that warscroll over others, exactly what's happening now. I don't see a solution that achieves that in this thread so far. But if it's there happy to hear it. 

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

They're asking for changes to the game to make the gap between the gimmicky "spam all this unit" lists and the more well-rounded "take a bunch of different stuff" lists smaller, such that you can realistically take such a list without feeling like you're throwing away the chance at winning in a competitive setting. In other words, what they did in Morathi for IDK. If they can do it for IDK - the worst spam list offender in the entire game - they can do it for other factions too. 

It's really weird to have staked out a position premised on the idea that it is impossible to do what GW has just done. 

The way I see it they didn't achieve that at all. The Deepkin lists as I see them now, in the threads here and in TTS tournament coverage, it's a bit more varied, sure. But its not 1-2 of most units in the book either. Still very noticeably no Namarti or foot heroes. The only reason that turtles and (mainly) sharks are now taken is because it makes the eels even better. 

Again it's more varied, and i'm all for that, of course I am. The Turtles and sharks are amazing models.
This btw was the most varied I could find, from the Hammerlist TTS tournament . And usually it's one turtle and more eels as I understand it. Not sure if the Mathlan is often taken. But still a bit better I agree, but not to the definitions of varied that have been used in this thread.

And let me just throw up some examples of what I mean when I say it is possible through restrictions. 

Through Battalions could be a good way to encourage more varied lists. The vanguard stormcast battalion springs to mind. The units itself aren't great, but because of the battalion in combination with the stormhost they become a very fun, strong and varied list (still 3x raptors and 3x birds but still counts as varied in my mind). It's very fun to play, and great selection of heroes, infantry, cavalry, shooting and movement tricks. But it's super limited in what you can take. The three support heroes you can switch around but that's it. that's what you're taking.

Another way could be through battlefield restrictions or rewards. minimum and maximum numbers of a battlefield role vs. Score extra with leaders/battleline/behemoth etc. And to be fair to GW, they do that a bit already. I think it could work but they need to up impact of both to do so. But in return that would limit list building too much for me. Then that last ride of the Rohirrim eel list could suddenly become unworkable if you really need a behemoth to win games. Regardless if I take it because the unit is great or because I love the theme of an all cav list. 

The only army, out of 25?, that is varied by those standards is Kharadron Overlords. Which is absolutely fine btw. It's a great army now, but it's noticeably smaller in warscrolls, which is a limit in and of itself. Which I personally don't mind, but this thread feels kind of a spin off, of the Fireslayers model variation thread so i'm curious to hear if people who want more variation agree with KO as an army being varied enough.

TLDR, I think the varied lists as discussed in this thread is unachievable without too many restrictions in list building for my taste. And I haven't seen a solution for that problem suggested. If there is a solution that dives deeper than, GW needs to design armies better, I genuinely love to hear it.

But having said all that, I still feel the solution is inside of the rules already. The flexibility and open structure allow you to build (close to) whatever list you want. And if you talk to your opponent before making your lists you can go from Waac to soft narrative and everything in between. At least that's how I experienced the game over the last few years.

[Kramer]

Because this might spark a whole different conversation I've put it in a different post. 
But there is a great thing happening in the TTS community. They recently did a 'fat middle' tournament, where all the top dogs where banned. Now they have voted for doing either a competitive tournament or a fun tournament (their distinction not mine 😂). Results came in 50/50. 

Now this is what I'm talking about when I argue that player contact is more important than the rules themselves. Everybody in the competitive tournament knows exactly what they are signing up for and they'll have a great time with one sided lists, gimmicks, and generally smashing face. And anyone who is looking for something different simply can skip that tournament because...

the next day, the Titans of Ghur starts. Every battle takes place in Ghur realmrules and all. All armies must bring a Mega Gargant. And no warscroll can be taken more than twice in an army. That looks like a blast, I had just planned a warcry session for that day and I genuinely considered postponing it for this tournament.  (my girlfriend thinks we're going because it's the guys birthday but we know better). 

But that last rule is of course really relevant to this conversation. So maybe some people here would like to join it. 

 

Hammertime: Titans of Ghur: https://tabletop.to/hammertime-titans...

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Kramer

[Enoby]

A bit to the side, but I'd prefer it if battalions no longer offered a single drop, an extra cp, or an artifact (which becomes buyable for points like the extra CP, limited by the number of battalions you have) and became considerably cheaper and more about the ability they give. 

This ties more into the thematic element of battalions (a 'narrative' force that's tied together with extra rules to show their tactics) but stops people taking samey battalions just to reduce their drops (and get the extra bonuses). I'd like battalions to be a niche way to play a niche playstyle more effectively; for example, a cavalry battalion that makes their attacks better to allow you to run a more effective cavalry based army, rather than a cavalry battalion that you take so all three battleline fit in one drop (e.g. Seeker Cavalcade before Shadow and Pain).

I think making battalions cheaper and more niche would help diversify lists a little bit as it would stop players taking specific battalions (and so specific models) just to dictate turn order. Cheap niche (and small) battalions would theoretically let people take a 'detatchment' style army where they have a battalion of fast attackers, a battalion of anvils, some heroes, and some troops to capture objectives.

[Greybeard86]

12 minutes ago, Kramer said:

But there is a great thing happening in the TTS community. They recently did a 'fat middle' tournament, where all the top dogs where banned. Now they have voted for doing either a competitive tournament or a fun tournament (their distinction not mine 😂). Results came in 50/50. 

Now this is what I'm talking about when I argue that player contact is more important than the rules themselves. Everybody in the competitive tournament knows exactly what they are signing up for and they'll have a great time with one sided lists, gimmicks, and generally smashing face. And anyone who is looking for something different simply can skip that tournament because...

In table top simulator, where you don't need to buy the minis, so people vary their lists just for fun as much as they want. I mean, it is a different beast altogether, I am not sure TTS tournies mean that much in that regard.

As for solutions, mimic better what 40k is doing for army composition. Even after removing a lot of the restrictions in army building in 9th you see lists that have plenty of variety. True, there are some restrictions (rule of 3), but people simply choose to bring variety anyway to fulfill different battlefield roles.

Edited January 14, 2021 by Greybeard86

[Kramer]

17 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

In table top simulator, where you don't need to buy or own the minis, so people vary their lists just for fun as much as they want. I mean, it is a different beast altogether, I am not sure TTS tournies mean that much in that regard.

 

the player interaction and the communication between the players before the game can ben exactly the same. Sure not everybody has a mega gargant, I know I will never get one. But that doesn't mean you can't have that conversation beforehand and adjust to your opponents vision. 

If we both like cycling, but you've been doing it for 6 years and I just started. We can still go for a lovely ride. But expecting me to keep up with you is unrealistic. 

To me Wargaming is similar. If we have a game and you want something different from it, then we will either adjust so we can go on that ride together. If I have the bigger collection i'll bring a matching list. Or if I can't or don't want to, then I'm going to look for a different opponent. No hard feelings but that way we can both have fun. 

(and to go further with the analogy, on our cycling ride do we stop at every bar for a beer, or do we push ourselves. Because I play a lot of the first players  )

17 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

As for solutions, mimic better what 40k is doing for army composition. Even after removing a lot of the restrictions in army building in 9th you see lists that have plenty of variety. True, there are some restrictions (rule of 3), but people simply choose to bring variety anyway to fulfill different battlefield roles.

Yeah, it might. I haven't played 40k 9th so it's hard for me to judge. My mate told me a bit about the changes and I never really like the 40k rock-paper-sciccors aspect and it seems to not have changed. That always felt like you were obligated to take specialized units/weapons or otherwise you couldn't realistically kill the thing they were supposed to kill. But i'm hesitant to judge without having played a few games of 40k 9th. But I don't see that happening any time soon, as I feel AoS is in a really good and creative place. not to mention my current Warcry obsession.

 

But can I ask you a question? Do you enjoy playing AoS? Or more specific when do you? What kind of games, lists, opponents are they?

Edited January 14, 2021 by Kramer

[Greybeard86]

10 minutes ago, Kramer said:

the player interaction and the communication between the players before the game can ben exactly the same. Sure not everybody has a mega gargant, I know I will never get one. But that doesn't mean you can't have that conversation beforehand and adjust to your opponents vision. 

There is a very important consideration here. One is, the opponents want to bring some narrative list, you want to bring a competitive list, that's not going to be fun and can be sorted out beforehand. The other, which is some of us, I think, are trying to discuss is:

The "competitive" lists do not have enough variety of units; and, my personal take is that they fail at promoting armies that reflect the fluff adequately. For example: while there could be rules for a "cavalry battalion", certainly I would expect most freeguild armies to be a combination of missile pieces, infantry, cavalry, and magic. 

10 minutes ago, Kramer said:

If we both like cycling, but you've been doing it for 6 years and I just started. We can still go for a lovely ride. But expecting me to keep up with you is unrealistic. 

To me Wargaming is similar. If we have a game and you want something different from it, then we will either adjust so we can go on that ride together. If I have the bigger collection i'll bring a matching list. Or if I can't or don't want to, then I'm going to look for a different opponent. No hard feelings but that way we can both have fun. 

(and to go further with the analogy, on our cycling ride do we stop at every bar for a beer, or do we push ourselves. Because I play a lot of the first players  )

 That always felt like you were obligated to take specialized units/weapons or otherwise you couldn't realistically kill the thing they were supposed to kill.

That is certainly one way to get variety on the table. Why did armies have a variety of units? Because they fulfilled a variety of roles, and spamming one type of unit would get you butchered. If you remove that from the game, of course armies slim down to "the best choice". But that's because you shot yourself in the foot

10 minutes ago, Kramer said:

 

But can I ask you a question? Do you enjoy playing AoS? Or more specific when do you? What kind of games, lists, opponents are they?

Sure! I enjoy, first and foremost, painting and collecting. But I like fooling around with the gaming side as I like wargaming and the applied stats side to it. As for my opponents, old buddies, but I would like to dabble more into competitive once that is possible (and I do not like TTS :P).

[Kadeton]

3 hours ago, Saxon said:

They do care about their bottom line though. Poor rules can lead to dissatisfaction and people either curbing their investment or divesting completely.

People often say this, but constant releases of bad rules never seem to make much of a dent in GW's success. It's one of those things that feels self-evident and true, but in practice just doesn't properly represent how human behaviour works in the real world. GW certainly churns customers, but doesn't seem to be reducing their customer base overall - quite the opposite.

3 hours ago, Saxon said:

Whilst they don't care that I am dissatisfied and fair enough they're making record profits, if enough people get tired of it they generally get forced into a major rework (i.e. a new edition). 40k has just had one.

New editions come out primarily to generate a spike in sales. Sure, they might also address some rules deficiencies (and usually introduce a bunch of new ones) but the edition doesn't change because people are "tired of it". New editions are released on a business-driven schedule, planned years in advance.

AoS 2.0 is a perfectly fine ruleset that could last for several years more if they wanted it to. But there will most likely be a new edition this year anyway, because releasing it will boost profits.

[Sleboda]

8 hours ago, Eldarain said:

The interesting thing is from what I understand a kit sees it's greatest sales immediately upon release

FWIW, based on my actual, multi-year experience with having actually run the sales data numbers (I installed the POS systems, harvested the polling data, and ran the reports at GW USA for a number of years), I can verify this. It's been a long time since that was my role, so I don't recall the specific numbers, but yes, by far the largest chunk of sales of an item (in the overwhelming numbers of cases) comes in the very early days of its release. 

Going back and tweaking an item may result in a small, temporary boost in sales for that item, but that boost is nowhere near the sales of a totally new item.

It makes little business sense to tweak the old when you can put your resources into something new and get a comparative avalanche of sales on the new item.

Edited January 14, 2021 by Sleboda

[yukishiro1]

5 hours ago, Kramer said:

The way I see it they didn't achieve that at all. The Deepkin lists as I see them now, in the threads here and in TTS tournament coverage, it's a bit more varied, sure. But its not 1-2 of most units in the book either. Still very noticeably no Namarti or foot heroes. The only reason that turtles and (mainly) sharks are now taken is because it makes the eels even better. 

Again it's more varied, and i'm all for that, of course I am. The Turtles and sharks are amazing models.
This btw was the most varied I could find, from the Hammerlist TTS tournament . And usually it's one turtle and more eels as I understand it. Not sure if the Mathlan is often taken. But still a bit better I agree, but not to the definitions of varied that have been used in this thread.

 

I assume that's an Eidolon of the Storm on top? I think this list proves my point for me. There are zero zappy eels in that list. Not a single unit. 

Pre-Morathi: Volty + soulscryer +zappy  eels is the best list, hands down. Nothing else is really playable without gimping yourself. Maybe you take 3-6 defensive eels, but that's it. Maybe Aetherings for support, but that's not even an IDK unit. 

Post-Morathi: Turtles, sharks, defensive eels, and Eidolon of the Storm are all highly competitive in addition to the above three. Eidolon of the Sea, Akhelian King and Thralls are playable competitively (Thralls admittedly only with a turtle), albeit probably not the absolute strongest picks. You'd only take a Tidecaster if you want to reverse the tides. Reavers and Soulrenders are marginal and not really competitive. Lotann is still terrible.

So IDK went from a book where the  competitive lists had at least 50% of their points tied up in a single scroll to a faction where 7 out 14 units are properly competitively, with another 3 that are usable competitively, and another hero usable in a niche build. There's only three units in the book - two hero, one non-hero - that you'd really struggle to use in a competitive list.

Going from 3/14 to 11/14 is a massive difference in the options for building diverse lists. But maybe most critically, these units aren't subject to the same restrictive buff-stacking that most AoS tomes are built around, so you can actually see all of them in the same list, and you can mix and match with a fair degree of freedom. There are now at least 10 IDK warscrolls that are competitively viable, and they're all usable on their own merits, not only because of buff interactions, except Thralls which do require a Leviadon to work. 

My competitive IDK list is now:

Volty

Soulscryer

Eidolon

2x Thralls

2x Defensive Eels

1 unit of 2 Allopexes

1 Turtle

2 units of 3 aetherwings

That's surely a diverse and balanced list by anyone's reckoning. If every battletome got a rework like IDK in Morathi that made more than 2/3s of their scrolls usable competitively and allowed you to take diverse lists like the one above (whether or not it's very slightly worse than a spammier list), you wouldn't see me complaining, and I don't think you'd see other people complaining either. 

 

Edited January 14, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Maddpainting]

13 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Well but that's the question, isn't it: why should the game push you into restrictive lists? What is gained by rewarding people for taking less diverse armies? This would only make sense if having a diverse army was an advantage. But in AOS, it by and large is a disadvantage due to the restrictive buff stacking model most factions operate on. So why do you need to be rewarded for doing something that is already stronger to begin with? Shouldn't it be precisely the opposite? Why reward the strong with more strength? That's not very good game design.

It seems to me that the original idea with battalions was to give themed forces special abilities to help distinguish them on the battlefield. Which is fine. But the problem is that the system doesn't actually do that. Instead, the main use of battalions is the secondary perks of CP, artefacts and drop count. People don't look for a battalion to make a themed army around, they look for the battalion that they can squeeze the most units they want to take anyway into to lower drop count and take advantage of the other side benefits. So in effect, all it ends up doing is rewarding people even more for spamming the best units. And it's hard to believe that's what GW set out to do with the battalion system. 

 

"why should the game push you into restrictive lists?" its not, some of the battalions are, you can still make a full army without them and many comp lists don't take them or takes 1 and adds more. They are "Fluffy" options to make your army feel a certain way. Just like how you can change your units to Battleline. Its the same purpose. 


You are almost not being rewarded, you are paying points to bring certain units to gain a buff.  IMO the problem is many battalions are too weak. Why would I take my Thunderscorn battalion (Beast of Chaos Dragon Ogres battalion) as it literally does nothing for me, i would only take it if i wanted CP and more Artifacts. Taking DO's in the God battalions is just better b.c it actually helps them more so. 

The second problem is just MANY units are bad, and i mean REALLY bad, its why IDK spamed the same 2-3 units, its why BoC spams the same 3-4 units, its why many armies spams the same 2-3 units. 

For IDK their Akhelian Corps is one of my favorites and now it is finally playable. That has a lot of diversity in it and is becoming more and more popular. Before it was just spam Eels and Kings. Well now there are sharks, Leviathans, etc..

Over all they are doing what they should be doing, making you choose a fluffier lists for bonuses for take the most OP units over and over again to forgo the bonuses. 

Edited January 14, 2021 by Maddpainting

[Saxon]

12 hours ago, Kadeton said:

People often say this, but constant releases of bad rules never seem to make much of a dent in GW's success. It's one of those things that feels self-evident and true, but in practice just doesn't properly represent how human behaviour works in the real world. GW certainly churns customers, but doesn't seem to be reducing their customer base overall - quite the opposite.

New editions come out primarily to generate a spike in sales. Sure, they might also address some rules deficiencies (and usually introduce a bunch of new ones) but the edition doesn't change because people are "tired of it". New editions are released on a business-driven schedule, planned years in advance.

AoS 2.0 is a perfectly fine ruleset that could last for several years more if they wanted it to. But there will most likely be a new edition this year anyway, because releasing it will boost profits.

Probably because people buy models even when they aren't enjoying some of the rules. GW is a hard drug, you can't stop 😄

Everything i heard about 8th edition 40k was that it was broken and there was almost relief that 9th seemed to clean up a lot of the mess. 

AOS is fine in general, their problem is internal mechanics within armies which seem to be either super powerful (Slaanesh summing for example before the nerf) or just awful to play against (Petrifix before the nerf). 

[yukishiro1]

I saw something a while ago from a reliable source that most purchases of GW products are made by people who don't even play the games on anything but an extremely irregular basis (and this was from before the pandemic, obviously).

The rules are very much a sideshow for GW. The core business is selling people plastic. The rules just need to be playable enough to give people an excuse to buy the plastic, they don't need to be and GW doesn't aim for making them actually great. 

 

 

[Malakithe]

For me I would like to see double turns removed, roll to see who goes first instead of drops, and reduce points across all factions by 30ish%. That would put less incentive in battalions for drops, drops in general, and allow more actual units on the board. Of course play time might go up a little...oh darn...

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

6 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

I saw something a while ago from a reliable source that most purchases of GW products are made by people who don't even play the games on anything but an extremely irregular basis (and this was from before the pandemic, obviously).

I'll 100% believe that.  There was a thread on here about people's habits in regard to collecting miniatures, and there were definitely a lot of posts of people who don't play at all. A lot of people also just buy one of every kit of an army they collect, which means that even if they do play regularly with their armies, the rules don't influence their buying habits. And this is on a AoS-specific forum, where I'd expect people to be more into the game than the average GW customer.

On the other hand, I don't think that GW would be in the position that they are now if there were no games attached to their model lines. It seems like the presence of a game in some way adds to the perceived value, even for people who don't play (much).

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

For me I would like to see double turns removed, roll to see who goes first instead of drops, and reduce points across all factions by 30ish%. That would put less incentive in battalions for drops, drops in general, and allow more actual units on the board. Of course play time might go up a little...oh darn...

Not to say that you are wrong to want this, but those are just about the changes I would least like to see. More point reductions would mean a higher barrier of entry to playing, especially for horde factions that already frequently put 100+ models on the table.

Like it or not, one function the double turn fulfills is to mitigate the advantage of going first. This makes alpha strike lists less effective. By removing it and also removing the ability to control who gets first turn, I think what we would effectively be doing is to encourage a metagame full of alpha strike lists, where the game is decided (or at least severely influenced) by a die roll before the first move is even made.

I'd really not want the game to move in that direction, personally.

[Malakithe]

3 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

mitigate the advantage of going first.

Thats why I said roll to see who goes first. Im not the only one that wants double turns removed or rolling for first turn instead of who makes the cheesier lists with fewer drops. 40k doesnt have double turns and is doing fine on the core rules part. And has way more shooting then AoS with larger and more diverse lists. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 minute ago, Malakithe said:

Thats why I said roll to see who goes first.

I understand. But I believe that change would not actually weaken alpha strike builds, just front load the randomness a bit.

8 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

Im not the only one that wants double turns removed or rolling for first turn instead of who makes the cheesier lists with fewer drops.

I also don't like the change if other people suggest it

9 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

40k doesnt have double turns and is doing fine on the core rules part. And has way more shooting then AoS with larger and more diverse lists. 

I don't play 40k, but it's hard to deny that going first is a significant advantage in most games. There are plenty of armies in AoS that can charge or shoot you turn 1, so how much shooting there is in 40k compared to AoS is neither here nor there. Early losses also have a snowball effect in terms of the disadvantage they bring, due to Lancaster's Law.

 

I don't want to say that rolling for turn 1 is necessarily a bad idea. But I don't really think removing the one aspect of control we have in regard to turn order (which is hugely significant in AoS, since a single turn is very impactful) is the way I'd like to see the game go. If anything, I would like turn order to be more controlable in general in some way, where you can take in-game actions to control initiative or deny it to your opponent.

For what it's worth, I would not be against removing the drop advantage battalions currently give. I think that would make going low drops a bit more of a strategic choice with actual downsides (even if it incentivizes huge blobs of models).