how many warscrolls in an army?

[Neverchosen]

I have a new answer, as many as necessary to get Kangaroo Cavalry!

[NinthMusketeer]

Codex  Space Marines has nearly 100 warscrolls, that is too many. 40-50 seems like a good number to aim for. I would point out that Fyreslayers, probably the lowest warscroll count army besides Sons, have 23 warscrolls. 15 of those are units. As of now some 75% of you think armies should ideally be smaller than Fyreslayers!

To answer your question, 80  (not counting White Dwarfs), and 117 (50 of which are the SCE units) respectively.

Edited January 19, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[Kramer]

17 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

As of now some 75% of you think armies should ideally be smaller than Fyreslayers!

 

Reading the fyreslayers threat, I came away with the impression most people didn’t mind the number but that they are visually too similar. 
which I personally agree with and would add that there is too much competing between the same roles as well. On the flip side I also think that at tabletop level more AoS armies have this problem and more could be done with the paint scheme. 

[Kadeton]

53 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

As of now some 75% of you think armies should ideally be smaller than Fyreslayers!

I think there's something to that, honestly. Once you have "enough" "good" warscrolls to make the army or armies you want to play, every other warscroll in the book is basically chaff and you don't even think about them. The actual number for "enough" will obviously vary from person to person, but it doesn't surprise me at all that a majority of people would be happy with 15 or fewer unit choices for an army... as long as they were all good choices. (A good choice might be a unit that's strong, has interesting mechanics or great synergy, is really thematic, or is aesthetically cool, depending on the player's priorities.)

Are there battletomes out there that people feel realistically present significantly more than 15 good unit choices? Not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious.

[Kramer]

5 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Are there battletomes out there that people feel realistically present significantly more than 15 good unit choices? Not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious.

Ogors are the only one for me. That book is super well done. Partly because it has no game breaking faction rules that several units take more advantage of then others (like Slaanesh depravity forces you into multiple keepers even if the ability is thematic) 

all in all there are 5 warscrolls that have no either good role or fulfil the same role as another in the army IMO. Which still leaves 16 warscrolls. And you don’t auto lose for bringing the other 5 😂

 

[Kadeton]

4 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Ogors are the only one for me. That book is super well done.

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I've always felt Mawtribes offered an unusually high number of solid choices.

(Even though the Ogor armies I've run use a maximum of 4 warscrolls, haha.)

[Kramer]

31 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I've always felt Mawtribes offered an unusually high number of solid choices.

(Even though the Ogor armies I've run use a maximum of 4 warscrolls, haha.)

Really? You must be on the beastclaw side then? 
I almost always start with either the goremand or butchers battalion. That’s 4 warscrolls right there for a general list. 

although as often go with a theme and then it’s going to be a less. But that’s a conscious choice. Currently trying to get a Frostlord into a underguts list. And I’m leaning more and more to 2 big units of leadbelchers, 2 thundertusks, Frostlord. But I’ll doubt it will ever move beyond the pixels on TTS 😂

[Beastmaster]

39 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Yeah, I totally agree with that. I've always felt Mawtribes offered an unusually high number of solid choices.

(Even though the Ogor armies I've run use a maximum of 4 warscrolls, haha.)

My current Ogor build uses around 7 for 1500 points. I still like the choices, though. Still much to explore.

Edited January 19, 2021 by Beastmaster

[Kadeton]

37 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Really? You must be on the beastclaw side then?

Yep, livin' that Beastclaw life. My (2000 point) tournament lists are either:

2x Frostlord on Stonehorn, Huskard on Stonehorn, Stonehorn Beastriders, 2x Mournfang Cavalry (Eurlbad Battalion); or
2x Frostlord on Stonehorn, Huskard on Thundertusk, 3x Stonehorn Beastriders.

I love the simplicity and directness of such a focused list. It's easy to remember what all your units do and how the game plan fits together, even at the end of a gruelling day of tournament games. And (at least to me) it feels thematic and not particularly spammy - just a proper little band of Ogors and their beasts trying to stay ahead of the snowstorm and find things to eat. Plus the collection of big monsters looks great on the table!

I guess these lists technically also include a warscroll for the Great Mawpot, but I realised I made an assumption for this thread that we were just talking about units, and not scenery, battalions, endless spells and so on even though they also have warscrolls.

[PraetorDragoon]

Personally I think that having 8-10 unit warscrolls, and about 4-5 Hero warscrolls. Once you go over that you end up with doubling up on roles, and thus decrease diversity as people are surprisingly good at picking out the "best" options.

But what is more important is that a battletome has the tool to make different lists. FEC for example don't have many warscrolls, but can focus on a single aspect of their army and make different lists as result.

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, Kadeton said:

for the Great Mawpot, but I realised I made an assumption for this thread that we were just talking about units, and not scenery, battalions, endless spells and so on even though they also have warscrolls.

Good point. Didn’t think about that either. In my mind it was without as well. 

 

2 hours ago, Kadeton said:

just a proper little band of Ogors and their beasts trying to stay ahead of the snowstorm and find things to eat.

Yeah sure, yeah. That’s how people in the mortal realms describe them 😂

 

52 minutes ago, PraetorDragoon said:

But what is more important is that a battletome has the tool to make different lists. FEC for example don't have many warscrolls, but can focus on a single aspect of their army and make different lists as result.

Excellent point. 

[Enoby]

Personally, the more the merrier, but mostly because I like converting things and want a variety of things to convert into. For example, I'm glad I have access to a lot of beasts of chaos warscrolls in Slaanesh because I've enjoyed converting models to look like BoC wendigos. Similarly, before Slaanesh mortals, I was very glad to have S2D because there were many different conversions to make. For example, if I had a an idea for a huge monster in Fyreslayers, I really only have the magmadroth to use warscroll wise (Anvil of Apotheosis nonwithstanding as I do like to be able to use the model in tournaments too), whereas in S2D I can choose between Archaon or a manticore or slaughterbrute or mutalith vortex beast. Same idea for wanting to make some two handed heavy weapon troops - I have a few warscrolls to use in S2D, but couldn't manage it in Lumineth (yet). 

It might be a bit of a niche reason to want a large number of models, but I do really like the freedom to be able to create a variety of conversions who all have valid warscrolls.  

[Greybeard86]

Shouldn't we talk about models, not warscrolls?

I don't consider the two squig varieties or eel types to be fundamentally different models.

That said, I'd prefer factions to have "redundancy" and support multiple full playstyles. I do not consider gitz to be a good example of that.

What I mean is several armies with a variety of models (besides support heroes), all supported at all levels of play.

[Overread]

Thing is if you go by Warscrolls Daughters of Khaine have:

Morathi snake
Morathi aelf
Hag Queen
Hag Queen on Cauldron
Slaughter Queen
Slaughter Queen on Cauldron
Avatar of Khaine
Bloodwrack
Bloodwrack on Shrine
Witch Aelves
Sisters of Slaughter
Khinerai Heartrenders
Khinerai Lifetakers 
Blood Sisters
Blood Stalkers
Khainite Shadowstalkers
Melusai Ironscale

17

That looks like a lot right, quite a big range of models and diverse options. However when you look at the number of kits suddenly it drops 
Morathi
Cauldron kit
Melusai 
Khinerai
Doomfire
Witch Aelves
Shadowstalkers
Ironscale

8

And the thing is many of the multi-part kits are not vastly different. The two queens are very similar and when on the cauldron its only one small difference between the two models; the army lacks any big monsters or big non-leader models. The cavalry is purely an elite skirmisher kind; the khinerai and aelves differ only in a head and one weapon arm; melusai in the same but with duel handed weapons.

Basically the army has a lot of duel and multi-build options which help bulk it out on paper, but don't bulk it out model diversity wise. If you compare to 40K then most of those "duel build" are actually mono-builds with just a different weapon option and decorative head choices. In fact compared to 40K most of the weapon swaps are actually very few since most 40K models will have several different weapons and one or two specialist weapons in a set often as not.

Flesheaters are much the same, they've a lot of warscrolls, but many are simply head/arm swaps on existing models which bulks out the paper side but not the actual model side. Now don't get me wrong I don't mind GW using a different warscroll for different weapons, I don't think we need to go into 40K levels of things. But at the same time I do want to see far more diversity within the armies in terms of model appearances and sculpts. I think most fans want that, they don't just want 120 witchaelf models every game with the only difference being if they have a knife or whip. They want to see additional diversity as an option within the army. 

So I don't look at warscrolls, I look at kits, because kits are what we build, what we paint and what define appearances on the table. Unless GW shifts toward doing super complex multipart kits that allow huge amounts of free-form posing (which sounds neat, but at the model scale such things can be insanely difficult to put together, esp if you don't want big ball and socket joints everywhere) then the best thing is if we get more weapon options then even if they are on the same units they can vary sculpts. If DoK were to get a sneaky stealth elite style of melusai weapon uses, perhaps twin daggers or such; then instead of it being and option on the current kit, having a separate kit with sneaky stealth like poses is the best option. 

 

And like any army fan I could sit here and list a dozen ideas off the top of my head for units and models that could be added; both from the game and the lore and imagination. We've already seen 2 kinds of artillery in use in the new expansion book during the siege of her fortress. We've got spear wielding aelves on the cauldron kit that could easily be used as basis for an elite or common fodder style band of spear users; we could have witchaelves riding cavalry as either an elite heavy hitter or a close combat fast harrassment unit; Morathi has often been seen to summon shadow demons to her air and we could go down that pathway for endless spells or beasts or monsters. Khinerai could get a leader model for themselves, we could get named Khinerai and Melusai leader models.

 

 

As for the question on where the limit is on warscrolls, I'd say there isn't one. However I would say that each army does best when it can offer a full range of options (cavalry - infantry - ranged infantry - ranged cavalry - artillery - named and generic heroes - monsters/beasts/machines etc...) with multiple build options ranging from niche armies that spam a few units through to combined arms forces. Diversity is a key cornerstone both in terms of appearance of the army, but also in helping to keep a hold of our interest in our armies beyond just adding more of the same. 

[Fairbanks]

Everything seems to fit in a neat little box these days:

3 foot heroes, 1 mounted Hero, At least one Centerpiece Hero, and a slightly smaller but otherwise=Centerpiece Hero.  Core Battleline unit. Non-Battleline Unit that’s a ranged version. Cavalry unit. Elite Infantry Unit (Usually a Dual-Sculpt). Big Dude (Usually a combo kit with the smaller Centerpiece). And maybe one more unit. Endless Spells. Terrain Piece.

I don’t know if I’d like to see the older armies get split and updated though. From what I have seen, Hedonites would be a good option for splitting up (Mortals and Daemons).  That’s mostly due to getting two new centerpieces in Sigvald and the Fat Guy. I haven’t seen anything that strikes me as battleline in similar fashion to Daemonettes though. Maybe new Marauders or an equivalent (Like Kairic Acolytes or Bloodreavers).

 

[Kramer]

4 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Shouldn't we talk about models, not warscrolls?

 

I thought about that as well.  
the main reason is that while some armies have a lot of dual kits, others don’t  so you get a skewed comparison. 

The second reason I was more curious about warscrolls is because for some boxes it’s just a weapon swap. For others it’s a different role. Occasionally a model is either even a ranged unit or a melee unit.  (Khinerai, hearthguard, melusai, stonehorn, ironbreakers. Just top of my mind) 

just to explain the reasoning behind the choice. But I get where you are coming from. 
 

3 hours ago, Overread said:

However I would say that each army does best when it can offer a full range of options (cavalry - infantry - ranged infantry - ranged cavalry - artillery - named and generic heroes - monsters/beasts/machines etc...) with multiple build options ranging from niche armies that spam a few units through to combined arms forces.

I think we might have had this conversation before.

It’s such a core difference in how we experience. I really disagree. For me an army that has acces to everything becomes bland. give an army a theme and stick with it, and bring variety through the rules (like FEC was used as an example earlier). 
but don’t give, for example, ironjawz artillery and  ranged units and ranged cavalry. Don’t make them lose their flavour of a combat army. 

but no right or wrong. Just taste I think. 
But this is one 

[Overread]

Just now, Kramer said:

I think we might have had this conversation before.

It’s such a core difference in how we experience. I really disagree. For me an army that has acces to everything becomes bland. give an army a theme and stick with it, and bring variety through the rules (like FEC was used as an example earlier). 
but don’t give, for example, ironjawz artillery and  ranged units and ranged cavalry. Don’t make them lose their flavour of a combat army. 

but no right or wrong. Just taste I think. 
But this is one 

For me its not so much about access to everything, but that each army has a high amount of variety and niches (eg artillery, monsters etc..) are niches within the game. An army can certainly just have a limited range of artillery. Eg an Aelf army might have one whlist a dwarf army might have four or five options. The trick is to introduce real variety within the game rather than giving one aelf faction 10 different close combat glass cannon style models that are all sort of the same and only visually/mechanically different in subtle ways. 

Also I think most like to think of their armies as "armies" which means the ability to deal with multiple different situations. That means they will all share some core similar elements to deal with similar problems. 

[CommissarRotke]

If I could be slightly different-

I voted 11-15 but I think that number shouldn't include heroes, or at least not named characters (which I think deserve any amount of space to grow)

10-15 unit choices with an additional 4-6 heroes seems like a good army spot to me, it gives you the ability for different themed armies (elite or horde, cav or behemoths, etc) but not too much like Stormcast where one bad Battletome can put half your range out of commission until the next BT.

[Kramer]

3 hours ago, Overread said:

That means they will all share some core similar elements to deal with similar problems

Oh I understand.  But this is what I would be against. 
ironjawz should not have the same core similar elements as kharadron overlords to deal with the same problems. 
they should find different solutions within their options. 

so for example an occupied objective requires a different solution for both. Which is interesting and usually thematic.

I don’t know. But I always loved that even the main poster boy army didn’t have acces to all tools. Not a lot of bodies, no magic, limited mobility after the initial ambush. Now they have magic, multiple ways of redeploying during the battle, acces to +3 to charge. The only thing they still don’t have is access to a lot of bodies. (Outside of allying them in) 

3 hours ago, Overread said:

giving one aelf faction 10 different close combat glass cannon style models

Which is why I voted for a small number of warscrolls  

[NinthMusketeer]

14 hours ago, Kadeton said:

I think there's something to that, honestly. Once you have "enough" "good" warscrolls to make the army or armies you want to play, every other warscroll in the book is basically chaff and you don't even think about them. The actual number for "enough" will obviously vary from person to person, but it doesn't surprise me at all that a majority of people would be happy with 15 or fewer unit choices for an army... as long as they were all good choices. (A good choice might be a unit that's strong, has interesting mechanics or great synergy, is really thematic, or is aesthetically cool, depending on the player's priorities.)

Are there battletomes out there that people feel realistically present significantly more than 15 good unit choices? Not a trick question, I'm genuinely curious.

You nailed the problem; most warcrolls in a given army will not be good. Note that "warcrolls" includes battalions, terrain, and endless spells, so if we are talking just units the numbers are 30-40% smaller. But more to the point; of those 15 units for Fyreslayers, about half are good.

The reality is that if someone wants an army with, say, 10 good unit choices that probably needs to be a 30+ warscroll army. Yes, it would be better if they made a larger portion of battletomes viable instead but that is a separate discussion and we are likely to remain in the current state for the foreseeable future.

As for the last question, there are some. All the mono-god armies come to mind, because their lineup is bolstered by markable units from both Slaves to Darkness and Beasts of Chaos. Stormcast, Cities of Sigmar, Gloomspite Gitz, and the various Legions of Nagash as well.  Beyond that I would have to go and do a specific count but I am sure there are others.

I am reading 'good' as 'reasonably viable without caveat'. If we are only counting tournament-viable units the answer is probably none.

[Overread]

3 hours ago, Kramer said:

Oh I understand.  But this is what I would be against. 
ironjawz should not have the same core similar elements as kharadron overlords to deal with the same problems. 
they should find different solutions within their options. 

so for example an occupied objective requires a different solution for both. Which is interesting and usually thematic.

I don’t know. But I always loved that even the main poster boy army didn’t have acces to all tools. Not a lot of bodies, no magic, limited mobility after the initial ambush. Now they have magic, multiple ways of redeploying during the battle, acces to +3 to charge. The only thing they still don’t have is access to a lot of bodies. (Outside of allying them in) 

 

I think we are sort of agreeing, but just fighting over subtle variations in interpretation. I'm all for armies not having all the "tools" or having fewer or worse once and having benefits in other areas and negatives in others. Done right it doesn't just give variety in play style, but can make an army feel like their core themes. Compare Ossiarchs to a Skaven clanrat army and you can feel the difference; one is a huge swarm of fearful 1 wound weak rats that wins by swamping you with rats and then letting a few big elites smash you whilst protected by the screen of rats; the other grinds on you with fewer elite troops that are hard to kill; hit hard and can come back from the dead with a harvester nearby. 

For me its more that I look at niches within armies as options to provide concepts to expand upon. Eg I look at the artillery tab and the monsters tab; or at anti infantry or anti magic etc.... For me those are ideas and concepts that provide niches for units to fit into. So I'm basically looking at easy questions the army doesn't answer and hoping that they might get something that fills that role. It doesn't mean it has to fill it well or that every army has to fill every slot; just the hope that when GW adds models that they've got a purpose within the army. 

 

Take the new Warcry Warbands for Slaves to Darkness, because of how GW did the stats for them in Slaves ot Darkness they don't actually have a slot. They basically do the same as maruaders, but because they don't get the same synergies and buffs they can't achieve the same result for the same points. So what you end up with are some fantastic sculpts and a huge amount of fantastic creativity, that on paper isn't really all that interesting to take for many of them. They are great models, but they lack a slot and place. 

The reverse of that are armies like Fyreslayers who are missing a lot of tools and make up for it by having generally really good niche units. However the result is that, in theory, they don't "need" other stuff. So you have to build those needs into them so that you can expand and add more models and more variety. 

[Greybeard86]

16 hours ago, Kramer said:

I thought about that as well.  
the main reason is that while some armies have a lot of dual kits, others don’t  so you get a skewed comparison. 

The second reason I was more curious about warscrolls is because for some boxes it’s just a weapon swap. For others it’s a different role. Occasionally a model is either even a ranged unit or a melee unit.  (Khinerai, hearthguard, melusai, stonehorn, ironbreakers. Just top of my mind)

I understand. Still, from a hobby perspective, this is quite critical. Fyreslayers is the obvious example.

In any case, I do think that painting 60+ models across 2 variations, plus a few heroes, is dreadful (for me).

I understand why, from a business standpoint, GW insists in representing 1 to 1 models in units. But many other systems either go full skirmish when they do that (so far fewer models), or they do abstract representations (those archers are 10 models representing 100). In that sense, squares offered room for that because what mattered was the footprint.

 

[NinthMusketeer]

I think on the StD warcry cultists they should simplify all the 'extras' a bit. A basic profile for all of the humans/humanoids, give one specialist model something, plus something for a 'beast' model if the unit has one. That's it. None of this like with Scions where there are four different sub-types within the unit I need to keep track of.

Splintered Fang, for example; the trueblood getting an extra attack just amounts to extra bookkeeping. The charmer-snakes interaction is an example where the design has been done well in that it adds a unique mechanic.

Spire tyrants have it bad. 1 in 9 models gets 2 extra attacks. A different 1 in 9 models gets 2 extra attacks. And a different 1 in 9 models gets 1 extra damage. So now a player needs to keep track of where those models are so they can be in melee range and allocated wounds last, plus one of them needs to be rolled separately to boot. They could have easily given the base profile 2 attacks and skipped the special callouts.

But go to the Unmade. One of their special guys is just a bonus attack bro who doesn't need a rule. But the blissful ones, who very obviously stand out as different, have their own weapon profile. THIS is where a distinction is good; the model obviously stands out at a glance and intuitively looks like it would not use the same profile as the others.

Maybe I'll whip up some simplified cultist rules for people to try out.

[yukishiro1]

Those warcry units are only endurable because nobody actually plays them. Can you imagine what a freaking nightmare it would be to play or play against someone whose whole army was made up of that junk? 

[NinthMusketeer]

Eh, that isn't something to really be worried about on most counts. To start, you wouldn't make an army with the majority of points in cultists any more than you would make an army with the majority of points in clanrats. Beyond a certain point they just fill up the board and cause a traffic jam without serving any purpose. At their core, cultists are cheap wounds plus a gimmick. For about half the gimmick is enough to make them viable. But regardless almost all the cultist units are best run at maximum size--that way you slap all the special dudes in front and use the normal dudes to eat damage while the majority of offensive power remains intact. But what people own, for the most part, is minimum size units they use for Warcry with maybe some extra to double-up on certain models in a warband and running them that way is rarely a viable strategy save as cheap battleline for Idolators who were only recently introduced.

Cultists also do not have marks, not even undivided, which means they do not benefit from a huge chunk of their army's allegiance abilities. This alone would ensure that they do not occupy the majority of an army since they will always be relegated to the 'expendable tarpit' role and tarpits only work when they are a minority of the army's points and there are hammers around to whack whatever is pinned down. 

And perhaps even more important than the other two; marauders are OP. Really, disgustingly OP. They do the same thing cultists do, only they CAN take marks, they have decent damage output, their gimmick is far stronger than those of cultists, and they are innate battleline. Even if cultists did not have the issues above, marauders would still outshine them by a huge margins.

Edited January 21, 2021 by NinthMusketeer