AoS should encourage bigger lists to have more variety!

[yukishiro1]

The double turn probably worked ok before there were armies that could delete half the opposing army or more over the T1 to T2 double turn because they have so much glass cannon ranged dominance. 

Personally, I would try removing the double turn on T1 to T2 only. I think that would mitigate a lot of the issues with it, by making sure both players get two full turns before someone has the chance to get two turns in a row. 

 

[Charleston]

My experience:
Bigger games are not really a solution. It would put the game more in the spot in which whfb lost many beginners: When the entry point of an army is too high, people won´t jump as easy into the hobby.

What helps to really shake up the meta is playing smaller games instead. On 1k you really can´t assemble many deathstars. It does not allow you to play a list that can take it up against all opponents and forces you to play more reactive to your opponent. Playing 2-3 small 1k games in a match-setup can be really a nice refreshing experience that I like to repeat from time to time 

[Kramer]

On 1/14/2021 at 6:23 PM, yukishiro1 said:

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. 

 

Well great news then. If this now constitutes a faction that allows encourages you to build varied lists then there is indeed no reason to complain. And i'll bow out. 

But a couple of questions before then because I do enjoy this discussion with you, and i am very much not convinced. 

Mostly because while  you said before that a varied list uses '1-2 units of most warscrolls'. In the list I shared, which ended up doing great i think, still doesn't achieve that. 5 out of 14 warscrolls. And more importantly most of the lists I could find were more spammy towards the eels and still relied on doing the same trick as before. Except now they had turn 1 protection from the turtles and didn't need fight first across the board because fo the net launcher.  So for me Idoneth isn't 'fixed' when you look at it with the goal of this thread in mind. It's definitely better though. 
Even your list is 7 out of 14 and not most of the warscrolls, but yeah I would consider this varied even though it doesnt meet your own requirements  

But back to the questions, are we discussing different things? Because this whole conversation started when the conversation was about the game encouraging more varied lists. But to me it starts to read like you are more after more units being an option in lists. Not necessarily  being in the list at the same time. 
(I found it hard to explain the difference so for example Tzeentch not just being effective as mono daemons/mortal/tzaangor but being better off for being mixed. Hope this is more clear)

second question is what do you feel the new rules for Deepkin do to encourage you to take a bigger variety of warscrolls?  And how could that be applied to @Greybeard86's Gits for example. Because that's the tough one to fix. Idoneth, KO, DoK are relatively easy because they have a small amount of warscrolls. But for gits to get spiders, squigs, trolls and the actual gits to be able to mix is a lot harder. 

And I had a great third question but didn't get around to reply yesterday, and now i've forgotten it. I'll be back with that one hopefully. 

[Kramer]

13 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Personally, I would try removing the double turn on T1 to T2 only. I think that would mitigate a lot of the issues with it, by making sure both players get two full turns before someone has the chance to get two turns in a row. 

 

Yeah, I suggested the same in another thread. It's not only practical but also very thematic imo. Battles becoming more and more frantic and less organised as it goes on. Also allows some great scenario play.  But most importantly everyone gets 2 turns before there is a chance to get doubled, and by that time armies are so much reduced that it will also have reduced wait times.

[yukishiro1]

What I'd primarily like to see is more viability for lists that take a wide variety of units. I like seeing lists that have a mix of heros, infantry, cavalry, monsters, etc. I gave my list as a sample of that. 

To do that, you have to both improve bad scrolls and open up buff interactions. Gitz could be fixed easily by relaxing the keyword soup and letting at least some things from each sub-faction interact with one another. Unfortunately, GW went exactly the wrong direction on Gitz, instead giving them a bunch of WD allegiances that double down on splitting the book up into sub-factions even more than the base book does. This is an example of precisely what not to do. To give a concrete example of the right direction, the loonshrine should just let you respawn any sub-faction's battleline units, you shouldn't have to pick which sub-faction it applies to and lock yourself out of it applying to the others. There's no reason particular balance reason for it, it just serves to push you into specialized armies for the sake of it. You could also consider explicit cross-sub-faction synergies - not just "this buff from the gobbo hero works on trolls also" but "goblins get a bravery buff from nearby trolls and monsters" or "mangler squigs can eat a nearby model in the hero phase to get a buff depending on the type - a gobbo heals a wound, a spider rider makes 6s to hit do MWs instead of normal damage, another squig adds 2 to their run and charge rolls, a troll gives them a 5+ shrug for a turn." These are just random unbalanced ideas off the top of my head - the point isn't that they are balanced, it's just some examples of possible interactions you could have that would promote more varied lists. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 hours ago, Kramer said:

Even your list is 7 out of 14 and not most of the warscrolls, but yeah I would consider this varied even though it doesnt meet your own requirements  

 

It's probably fair to say that alternate assemblies should not be required for a list to be diverse. I don't think most people would expect to see both Eidolons, both Arkhelian Kings and both eels in a list before they consider it to properly represent what a Deepkin army is supposed to look like.

 

4 hours ago, Kramer said:

second question is what do you feel the new rules for Deepkin do to encourage you to take a bigger variety of warscrolls?  And how could that be applied to @Greybeard86's Gits for example. Because that's the tough one to fix. Idoneth, KO, DoK are relatively easy because they have a small amount of warscrolls. But for gits to get spiders, squigs, trolls and the actual gits to be able to mix is a lot harder. 

 

I believe the problem with Deepkin was fairly easy to fix: You didn't see most of their units for a long time because their warscrolls were hot garbage. They got buffed and now you see them. That's really all there is to it in this case. They never really suffered a lot from keyword gerrymandering that discouraged mixing units of different subfactions, like in the case of Gloomspite.

I think Gloomspite is not easily fixable if the goal is to enable balanced lists. While Gloomspite also has a bunch of bad warscrolls (Spider Riders...), but more than that the book excessively encourages you to only stick to a single subfaction through allegiance abilities. In my opinion, they need a new battletome. GW has done all they could to make every of the subfactions within Gloomspite playable in a pure list, but the tome just does not support mixing them without hamstinging yourself.

In the future, Gloomspite could follow the Cities of Sigmar model. Even though Cities has a bunch different subfactions, the synergies within those subfactions are usually limited to heroes buffing their subfactions troops and enabling "battleline if..." . There are also a few general buff units anyone can take and magic benefits everyone equally. The different sub-allegiances are also mostly keyword agnostic. All this combined make mixing subfactions easy.

[Greybeard86]

I honestly believe gits and other cases are not that hard to fix. Instead of rewarding buff stacking a single type of unit, give buffs to combinations of units. Examples were given in this thread. It is purely a design choice, that we see hyper focused lists, it really isn’t some feasibility issue. I mean, support heroes are already a thing, just make more support units. 

 

And that’s without fundamentally changing how the game is played at other levels. Personally, I’d favor bringing back specialized roles for units. But that is not how AoS is built right now.

 

The plus is getting more people to play, imo, since the gaming side is often at odds with the hobby. I do not want to paint 18 trolls because that is the only way to bring some trolls into a battle without them being terribad. I ll paint a bunch of trolls, some gobbos, some squiggs; that’s how I imagine most hordes would look like. Then, some day, instead of facing them off in a diorama against my dawi I’ll join a game. Hopefully without them being hot trash and still putting up a fight against a gaming list.

[Saxon]

17 hours ago, Charleston said:

My experience:
Bigger games are not really a solution. It would put the game more in the spot in which whfb lost many beginners: When the entry point of an army is too high, people won´t jump as easy into the hobby.

What helps to really shake up the meta is playing smaller games instead. On 1k you really can´t assemble many deathstars. It does not allow you to play a list that can take it up against all opponents and forces you to play more reactive to your opponent. Playing 2-3 small 1k games in a match-setup can be really a nice refreshing experience that I like to repeat from time to time 

Honestly this is why my group started on warcry..... 

[Kramer]

51 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It's probably fair to say that alternate assemblies should not be required for a list to be diverse. I don't think most people would expect to see both Eidolons, both Arkhelian Kings and both eels in a list before they consider it to properly represent what a Deepkin army is supposed to look like.

Oh I agree. But we were having this conversation and he/she referred to the list as having X out of 14 units. So I ran with that. 
just trying to figure out where those lines are because I genuinely find it fascinating. 
@yukishiro1 and me don’t agree on this subject but I do find the opinion interesting. So I’m not trying to convince anyone. Just riffing of what is argued. 

 

 

56 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

believe the problem with Deepkin was fairly easy to fix: You didn't see most of their units for a long time because their warscrolls were hot garbage. They got buffed and now you see them. That's really all there is to it in this case. They never really suffered a lot from keyword gerrymandering that discouraged mixing units of different subfactions, like in the case of Gloomspite.

Agreed. Which is why it wasn’t the best example of the game itself discouraging variety, the warscrolls made it the worst offender. (Or possibly the high tide ability overshadowing everything else but different side of the same coin I guess)

59 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I think Gloomspite is not easily fixable if the goal is to enable balanced lists. While Gloomspite also has a bunch of bad warscrolls (Spider Riders...), but more than that the book excessively encourages you to only stick to a single subfaction through allegiance abilities. In my opinion, they need a new battletome. GW has done all they could to make every of the subfactions within Gloomspite playable in a pure list, but the tome just does not support mixing them without hamstinging yourself.

In the future, Gloomspite could follow the Cities of Sigmar model. Even though Cities has a bunch different subfactions, the synergies within those subfactions are usually limited to heroes buffing their subfactions troops and enabling "battleline if..." . There are also a few general buff units anyone can take and magic benefits everyone equally. The different sub-allegiances are also mostly keyword agnostic. All this combined make mixing subfactions e

Oh Cities is quite good for variety and gitz  probably the worst. Don’t feel the game really encourages mixing of the 3 races in there if I’m honest. It’s just that humans have the best wizards and irondrakes the most output for example. But between cities and gits fall most bigger factions. No interaction between beastclaw and gutbusters. Very little between the mortal and daemon sides. You can mix warherd, brayhed  and thunderscorn but you don’t gain anything from doing so. Etc  

and in my mind that was what we were speculating about; how can the game encourage taking more variety? 

(and the tldr of my opinion was, that if you just create interaction where, for example, the lord of change command ability works on tzaangor, mortal and daemon, for competitive play people will still sniff out which combo is the strongest and hyper focus on that. Which would create new lists but no more variety. At least that’s what I feel would happen. 
it could be done through more through battalions or battlefield restrictions/reward but to me that would hurt themed list which I would find a shame. Again speculation on my part.) 

 

 

 

[yukishiro1]

IDK was more than just bad scrolls. The changes are actually really smartly done in ways that allow units to synergize, rather than just improving them. 

The Leviadon is the best example of this. They didn't just make it bigger and badder, they changed its buff from junk (cover in a faction that already gets it T1 automatically) to something - and this is the really clever bit - that benefits almost everything in the army (+1 save) but also benefits some cross-sub-faction units more than others (+1 to hit for Namarti, Leviadon is Akhelian). Thralls have always been extremely efficiently pointed offense on paper, but in game they struggle because they're so squishy that its hard to get value out of them before they die. But if you just repointed them and gave them more defense, or nerfed their offense and buffed their defense, they end up just being foot eels, both losing their flavor and their distinction in the army. 

The Leviadon changes, coupled with the base faction rules, very cleverly give you a way to take Thralls that doesn't involve reworking them to just be foot eels. The Leviadon protects them on the way in, and even gives them an additional offensive output buff that puts them far above the output of eels point for point. Suddenly you have an interesting choice to make. Eels still are the best target for the high tide command point buff (except if you're fighting 4+ wound models), but Thralls are far more points efficient offense generally if you're taking a turtle. 

You can go through the changes and point out similar things re: the other units. They didn't just make scrolls better, they distinguished them from one another and gave you synergistic ways to combine different scrolls instead of just spamming the one mathematically best unit. 

Edited January 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Maddpainting]

On 1/15/2021 at 6:25 AM, Malakithe said:

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. 

40k also has terrain that 100% blocks all LoS and you need 4-5 of those pieces on the table or its a terrible game. Then you have -1 to hit terrain b.c that still isn't good enough. Lists are also not as diverse though. Even though its a Ro3 many times its 4-5 Troops, 1-2 same HQ's 2-3 of the same Fast,  2-3 of the same Heavy, and 2-3 of the same Elite.

Every Sister player has 2-3 Repentia, 2-3 Retributors, 3 Troops, Canoness, Triumph, Imagifier, then the last 300-400pts might be Mortifiers or Exorcists. 
Every Marines is 3-6 Intercessors, 2 Vanguard Vets or Bladeguard, Capt, Chap, Lieu, to start. Then 600pts of "What color marines are you special units" 

They do have more units for sure that are being taken, but its always the same units for each army with marines having the most, but marines also has 200+ units to pick from. When you think about the Raito of picked units out of all viable units, AoS has more units being taken vs not taken b.c 40k has so many units. There are many armies with only 2-3 viable units right now b.c 40k is so skewed.

[Overread]

In my view AoS doesn't need to do this yet. Too many armies are too small in unit diversity. Flesheater players don't want to put just more ghouls down on the table, the army isn't doing anything different for those ghouls, its just repeating the same mechanic and theme at a larger scale. More models - more of the same models and a lack of diversity. 

What AoS needs is a steady period of growth in several key areas

1) More players

2) More models per army 

3) More unique unit types per army

4) Bigger collections per player

This latter one is where 40K has the edge. Right now AoS has troops, leaders, monstrous and artillery with a lot of armies having very few options in the latter two categories (often none in artillery and quite a few only have a large leader). The lack of specific niches means a lack of specific unit roles and themes and is an area AoS could do with expanding with new mechanics and ideas. 

Already we've a "soft" addition with Endless Spells in 2.0 and GW could easily break off Cavalry type models (and monster cavalry for armies that don't specfically have mounted units) into a themed group of their own with some unique properties etc... 

 

Creating more unit diversity and then more niches gives more units a space to fit into the army and have unique roles without simply repeating each other. Eg right now Daughters of Khaine have both Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter which function very similarly - they have differences, but essentially fill the very same roles on the tabletop. They are a subtle difference between the two. 

Creating more niches creates more questions for the army to perform which increases the need for diversity for opponents; it thus shifts the game away from simply spamming the same units over and over as the only viable tactic. 

 

 

However each of those 4 changes is going to take time, with the big limiter being the speed of growth of the game market wise and the speed of GW adding more models to the majority of armies. Once you've got those bases covered the game can expand. Ideally this happens slowly over time and its just how Old World and 40K and most other wargames expand. The trick is avoiding bloating the game to the point where new and established players have too big of an army gap creating a huge uphill struggle for new gamers. GW is covering this well right now with warcry, underworlds, meeting engagements etc.. Separate marketed game modes that offer features for new and established players alike and should be able to continue along those product lines. Heck Underworlds can get a new wave of life just with new card releases for all factions - no need for a new warband per army even. 

So right now only armies like Skaven, Seraphon, Stormcast etc.. would welcome bigger armies. However its not taking too long to get better; Slaanesh is already getting a big second update which will take it to quite a nice force of diverse models. Add in some kind of new big monster, a new type of artillery and such and you'll have a diverse force with a lot of unit variety where players will want to be able to put more models down on to the tabletop. 

[Malakithe]

9 hours ago, Maddpainting said:

40k also has terrain that 100% blocks all LoS and you need 4-5 of those pieces on the table or its a terrible game. Then you have -1 to hit terrain b.c that still isn't good enough. Lists are also not as diverse though. Even though its a Ro3 many times its 4-5 Troops, 1-2 same HQ's 2-3 of the same Fast,  2-3 of the same Heavy, and 2-3 of the same Elite.

Every Sister player has 2-3 Repentia, 2-3 Retributors, 3 Troops, Canoness, Triumph, Imagifier, then the last 300-400pts might be Mortifiers or Exorcists. 
Every Marines is 3-6 Intercessors, 2 Vanguard Vets or Bladeguard, Capt, Chap, Lieu, to start. Then 600pts of "What color marines are you special units" 

They do have more units for sure that are being taken, but its always the same units for each army with marines having the most, but marines also has 200+ units to pick from. When you think about the Raito of picked units out of all viable units, AoS has more units being taken vs not taken b.c 40k has so many units. There are many armies with only 2-3 viable units right now b.c 40k is so skewed.

Thats not entirely true now. Take a look at the new Death Guard book. One Lord, One Prince. 1:1 unit restrictions. Buffs that only affect certain types like CORE. The age of unit spamming is coming to an end. 

[Marcvs]

6 hours ago, Malakithe said:

Thats not entirely true now. Take a look at the new Death Guard book. One Lord, One Prince. 1:1 unit restrictions. Buffs that only affect certain types like CORE. The age of unit spamming is coming to an end. 

Sure those rules are great to address internal spamming (an army only uses one unit) but they do nothing for, and, in fact, make it more likely, external spamming (all Sisters armies are the same) because it's still possible that a clearly superior option emerges for a specific role.

Personally I would prefer to fight against spammy army A (say, pistoliers) and then spammy army B (eels), than fight not-spammy army A and not-spammy army B who are exactly the same army built around the same strategy.

[SorryLizard]

On 1/15/2021 at 5:55 PM, Charleston said:

My experience:
Bigger games are not really a solution. It would put the game more in the spot in which whfb lost many beginners: When the entry point of an army is too high, people won´t jump as easy into the hobby.

What helps to really shake up the meta is playing smaller games instead. On 1k you really can´t assemble many deathstars. It does not allow you to play a list that can take it up against all opponents and forces you to play more reactive to your opponent. Playing 2-3 small 1k games in a match-setup can be really a nice refreshing experience that I like to repeat from time to time 

I would love to see a 1k game style get widespread popularity alongside the normal 2k standard.

Mostly from the selfish PoV that painting a full 2k army is tough but 2 1k armies is much more interesting for me from a hobby perspective!

[Greybeard86]

13 hours ago, Marcvs said:

Sure those rules are great to address internal spamming (an army only uses one unit) but they do nothing for, and, in fact, make it more likely, external spamming (all Sisters armies are the same) because it's still possible that a clearly superior option emerges for a specific role.

Personally I would prefer to fight against spammy army A (say, pistoliers) and then spammy army B (eels), than fight not-spammy army A and not-spammy army B who are exactly the same army built around the same strategy.

Here is where we disagree strongly.
 

Yes, it d rather have good internal balance. But there is so much more variety in 40k armies than in many AoS ones. They feel more like an army, whatever that might mean in that dystopian future.

you could say AoS simply not having enough units plays a role, but then you get books like the gitz one where the designers actively work against variety.

[Kadeton]

Part of the problem when discussing "variety" is that different people want different kinds of variety.

Some people focus on what we might call "unit variety", where the number of unique choices within any army build is maximised. An army with one unit of Crossbowmen and one unit of Handgunners is "better" than an army with two units of Crossbowmen, for instance.

Some people focus on what we might call "build variety", where the number of viable alternative armies that can be built from the same battletome is maximised. A tome is "bad" if it can only produce one optimised list, regardless of whether that list has strong unit variety. A tome that can build multiple optimised lists is "better", even if those lists have poor unit variety.

These sometimes (but not always) coincide, and that's where the discussion can get derailed in miscommunications about preference and intent. Idoneth Eels (prior to Broken Realms: Morathi) had poor unit variety and poor build variety. After BR:M, it has better unit variety, but it's still up in the air as to whether it has better build variety.

The designers aren't immune to this division of focus either. A book like Gloomspite Gitz seems to me to focus on build variety at the expense of unit variety - they've done a reasonable job of ensuring that Gitz, Troggoths, Squigs and Spiders are all unique builds with strong internal synergies that more or less "work" (some more competitively than others). However, they've done so by removing any cross-thematic synergies, thus making "soup" armies (with greater unit variety) inherently less effective than "pure" armies. You could release Gitz as four separate mono-build battletomes that divided the faction between them, and lose almost nothing in the split. To my mind, this manner of build variety feels hollow and fake.

All of this obviously ties into discussions of balance. Those discussions often miss that units and armies can't be balanced in a vacuum, but are subject to context. Just as a rough example:

Unit A and Unit B are identical except that A has two attacks per model with 3+/4+ for 1 damage, and B has one attack per model with 4+/3+ for 2 damage. These units deal the exact same amount of damage on average, so it makes sense that they should cost about the same points.

However, if you have the option to take a support character who can cast a spell to give a unit +1 damage on melee attacks, then Unit A is always the better choice should you take that character in your army. If on the other hand you can take a character that can give a unit +1 attack, then Unit B is always the better choice. And that's just within your own army list - if you come up against a lot of Seraphon opponents running Coalesced, Unit B is straight-up garbage.

So as soon as you get beyond a comparison of basic profiles and start getting into the context in which those choices are made, it will pretty much never be the case that these two units represent "equal value". Players might find one or the other to be better in their own army (depending on their context), but it will never make sense to take one unit of each compared to two units of A or two units of B. The only way to avoid this is to give them a specific variety bonus: If you have both A and B in the army, you get an extra boost that's not available otherwise.

(This gets out of control fast, it's worth noting. If you've just got A and B, you only need one variety bonus to make this happen. If you've got A, B, C, D, E, F, G... the number of interactions you need to cover goes up combinatorially.)

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

51 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Part of the problem when discussing "variety" is that different people want different kinds of variety.

Some people focus on what we might call "unit variety", where the number of unique choices within any army build is maximised. An army with one unit of Crossbowmen and one unit of Handgunners is "better" than an army with two units of Crossbowmen, for instance.

Some people focus on what we might call "build variety", where the number of viable alternative armies that can be built from the same battletome is maximised. A tome is "bad" if it can only produce one optimised list, regardless of whether that list has strong unit variety. A tome that can build multiple optimised lists is "better", even if those lists have poor unit variety.

These sometimes (but not always) coincide, and that's where the discussion can get derailed in miscommunications about preference and intent. Idoneth Eels (prior to Broken Realms: Morathi) had poor unit variety and poor build variety. After BR:M, it has better unit variety, but it's still up in the air as to whether it has better build variety.

Good post. This is one of the reasons why I don't personally want extra restrictions on army composition. I think the point that some people have been making that the rules should be able to represent the lore is valid. We probably all want that to an extent. Battletomes should probably take care to make it so that a balanced list is buildable and somewhat strong.

Where I don't really follow is the idea that this list should also be especially encouraged above and beyond other lists (like through composition restrictions). If that list shakes out as valid naturally, through the advantage bringing a lot of different tools provides, then that's good. If it becomes mandated by introducing rules that force unit variety, I'm not that into it.

I also definitely agree with the point on build variety. I think in general, a balanced build lends itself to a kind of defensive, more reactive playstyle. That's where having a lot of tools is the most advantageous: You don't necessarily go in with a specific plan you are trying to force, but try to get an edge slowly over time from (hopefully) having some way to deal with whatever your opponent is trying to do. Of course, this gets flavoured by the warscrolls and allegiance abilities provided by your army. This type of army will probably be more offensive for Ironjawz and more defensive for Legions of Nagash. It will not, by it's nature, be as offensive, defensive, mobile or magic heavy as dedicated lists, though.

At the moment, I enjoy that different lists in the same army can play very differently. I think it's nice that we have rules that enable this. To me, which list turns out to be the best at a competitive level is not as important. Contrary to what some people in this thread have said, if the best lists all happened to be balanced, kinda defensive goodstuff lists, I think we would see people complain about that pretty quickly, as well. So, while I think that it's important to enable "a little of everything" lists, I really don't believe having them be competitively viable needs to be a priority.

[Greybeard86]

8 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Part of the problem when discussing "variety" is that different people want different kinds of variety.[...]

Some people focus on what we might call "unit variety", where the number of unique choices within any army build is maximised.[...]

Some people focus on what we might call "build variety", where the number of viable alternative armies that can be built from the same battletome is maximised. A tome is "bad" if it can only produce one optimised list, regardless of whether that list has strong unit variety. A tome that can build multiple optimised lists is "better", even if those lists have poor unit variety.[...]

The designers aren't immune to this division of focus either. A book like Gloomspite Gitz seems to me to focus on build variety at the expense of unit variety - they've done a reasonable job of ensuring that Gitz, Troggoths, Squigs and Spiders are all unique builds with strong internal synergies that more or less "work" (some more competitively than others). However, they've done so by removing any cross-thematic synergies, thus making "soup" armies (with greater unit variety) inherently less effective than "pure" armies. You could release Gitz as four separate mono-build battletomes that divided the faction between them, and lose almost nothing in the split. To my mind, this manner of build variety feels hollow and fake.[...]

Very nice post explaining the differences. The only thing I want to add is that lack of unit variety makes the hobby side of some armies more tedious (at least for me). I don't really want to pain dozens of the same units. The rest is more about how we envision the fluff of the armies and how much we care that it might be represented on the table top.

7 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Good post. This is one of the reasons why I don't personally want extra restrictions on army composition. I think the point that some people have been making that the rules should be able to represent the lore is valid. We probably all want that to an extent. Battletomes should probably take care to make it so that a balanced list is buildable and somewhat strong.

Where I don't really follow is the idea that this list should also be especially encouraged above and beyond other lists (like through composition restrictions). If that list shakes out as valid naturally, through the advantage bringing a lot of different tools provides, then that's good. If it becomes mandated by introducing rules that force unit variety, I'm not that into it.

[...] So, while I think that it's important to enable "a little of everything" lists, I really don't believe having them be competitively viable needs to be a priority.

The competitive viability is important to me. I like "wargaming" games, not "board games". Thus, I would like to see the lore more represented in how the armies are built. I do not think that army level battles (which I think is what 2k points are) should be dozens of demigryphs and 2 support heroes.

[Ggom]

11 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

Very nice post explaining the differences. The only thing I want to add is that lack of unit variety makes the hobby side of some armies more tedious (at least for me). I don't really want to pain dozens of the same units. The rest is more about how we envision the fluff of the armies and how much we care that it might be represented on the table top.

As someone who mostly paints but would like to play in the future, this is a big thing for me. I love painting different sculpts, and would prefer if the stronger lists in my army rewarded something besides 30 - 90 of the same kit.

Also, massive props to @Kadeton for verbalizing an excellent theoretical framework for this discussion

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

45 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

The competitive viability is important to me. I like "wargaming" games, not "board games". Thus, I would like to see the lore more represented in how the armies are built. I do not think that army level battles (which I think is what 2k points are) should be dozens of demigryphs and 2 support heroes.

I would agree if your statement was about viability in general, not just competitive viability. Or maybe I should have written tournament viability instead of competitive. Because in that context, I definitely stand by the point: I don't especially care if not every army has a balanced list that is good enough to go up against the Kroaknado, Shootcast or Changehost. And while I don't think 2000 point lists should be be just Demigryphs, I also don't really think they shouldn't be.

But I can get behind the idea that every army should be able to support a balanced list of some sort. On the Stormcast podcast, one of the AoS rules designers said that they do think about possible playstyles a book should be able to support when they design it. I don't think it's too much to ask at all for the balanced list to be one of those in every book. I just don't think it should be pushed any more than other lists in terms of competitive/tournament viability.

[Greybeard86]

9 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I don't think it's too much to ask at all for the balanced list to be one of those in every book. I just don't think it should be pushed any more than other lists in terms of competitive/tournament viability.

That's a tricky one. Personally, I find it more immersive when we are all battling with lists that "make sense". But I do not want to dictate someone else's fun, so it is difficult. Again, from a personal preference standpoint, I like more games where there are multiple units representing multiple roles, and high skew armies are just fluffy gimmicks best left for narrative. But I would probably settle with "at least not worse", for balanced lists.

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, Ggom said:

As someone who mostly paints but would like to play in the future, this is a big thing for me. I love painting different sculpts, and would prefer if the stronger lists in my army rewarded something besides 30 - 90 of the same kit.

Also, massive props to @Kadeton for verbalizing an excellent theoretical framework for this discussion

Just need to find someone like @Greybeard86 or me to play against. And you never have to paint more than 20 of any model. 😄

20 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

They feel more like an army

I finally know why your posts in this thread occasionally grind my gears  

btw outside of COVID times I would say this with a smile on my face while handing you a drink. So please take it in the tone it’s intended in.

but this ‘invalidates’ like 90% of my lists as armies. 😂
 

Edited January 18, 2021 by Kramer

[Greybeard86]

28 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Just need to find someone like @Greybeard86 or me to play against. And you never have to paint more than 20 of any model. 😄

I finally know why your posts in this thread occasionally grind my gears  

btw outside of COVID times I would say this with a smile on my face while handing you a drink. So please take it in the tone it’s intended in.

but this ‘invalidates’ like 90% of my lists as armies. 😂
 

No offense taken, you kept it mostly to yourself 

But honestly, it is a matter of preference, so there isn't right or wrong.

Hey, as things stand, the status quo is more like what you prefer than my ideal.

That said, I am doing just fine mostly painting.

[Fairbanks]

21 hours ago, Ggom said:

As someone who mostly paints but would like to play in the future, this is a big thing for me. I love painting different sculpts, and would prefer if the stronger lists in my army rewarded something besides 30 - 90 of the same kit.

Also, massive props to @Kadeton for verbalizing an excellent theoretical framework for this discussion

I would feel better about getting 40 man units if a pack of 10 were $30 instead of $50, or there were a lot more Battleforce deals to go around to get more models for cheaper.

I too loathe unit spam in an army, but don’t mind it as much if it’s the Battleline choice.