What would you like for AoS 3

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

 

Basically what I am saying is that it feels like there is a problem, but there hasn't been an actual example of where these things are true.

 

What turned me around on this point was Warhammer Weekly's recent episode on negative play experience. On that episode, a lot of participants (though not all) of their survey identified shooting armies as an example of NPE. And of all those that did, around half rated having to play them as the most or second most egregeous form of it, way ahead of any other mechanic. At that point, there needs to be some kind of design tweak no matter what the numbers say. Perception of a problem is a problem in it's own right when it comes to games, where an enjoyable play experience is part of the goal.

[whispersofblood]

25 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

What turned me around on this point was Warhammer Weekly's recent episode on negative play experience. On that episode, a lot of participants (though not all) of their survey identified shooting armies as an example of NPE. And of all those that did, around half rated having to play them as the most or second most egregeous form of it, way ahead of any other mechanic. At that point, there needs to be some kind of design tweak no matter what the numbers say. Perception of a problem is a problem in it's own right when it comes to games, where an enjoyable play experience is part of the goal.

I 100% agree that some section of the player base feels shooting is a NPE. That doesn't mean necessarily it is bad for the game or balance. And, I would say that the Warhammer Weekly survey actually really points to players feeling a lack of agency. But, I would temper that feeling with players not being willing to engage fully with their choices in the game for any number of reasons. To me it said people don't align their expectation with their preferences. 

[stratigo]

7 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

AoS by design has as few restrictions of players actions as possible, so general changes to shooting are unlikely.

That being said there are no armies which rely on shooting to win the game, nor is it a solid general strategy. If that was the case CoS would be the undisputed and statistically obvious dominating faction in the game.  No army can put out the ranged power that CoS can, period. LRL isn't one of them statistically regardless of how people feel about Sunmetal weapons. People are acting like LRL are putting out monstrous and unseen levels of dmg, my original concern about LRL was that as an army their dmg arch was too low! Its difficult to balance for all levels of gameplay, because 80 Sentinels (Keep in mind  80 sentinels cannot include Teclis) don't worry a competitive player the second time they see it, its just not good enough at most missions. 

The problem really isn't "shooting", per se. The real problem is the extreme generosity and disparity in the spread of that generosity some factions possess. The object of this generosity is maneuverability. Ranged attacks are a poor substitute for being highly mobile, the factions that consistently do well are one that are (subjectively)highly mobile. This has been true since the original GHB. The Battleplans are all a race, to hold a position other than the place you started before but at least longer than your opponent. Killing your opponents models and suffering as little damage yourself can go some way to helping keep them off objectives but it doesn't get you onto the objectives yourself. Mobility+Shooting now there is a challenge. Extreme Mobility alone can win the game, HoS are perfect use case of this. No one would have cared about HoS, locus and depravity if they were a Mv4 faction, without the ability to apply those rules where they want and need them they are useless in the game. 

I think the Fly High rule on KO vessels was a mistake, it allows for too perfect a game plan. I think KO have bad match ups, I also think there is game play against them. I just think it creates too wide a gap between the type of game most people in this hobby are capable of playing and what a person of average intelligence can do after some practice with KO. Also I think the book is almost completely unaffected by its absence, from the perspective of being able to fully enagage in the game.

I think Skinks are a similar problem, but far less difficult to deal with. Dealing with skinks just takes some preparation and diversity in your armylist. I think most people think about AoS the way Ironjawz play, and prefer the game to be like that. Personally I would find that shallow and constraining and prefer the clash of personality we currently have, but need to keep our eye on how disparate we let mobility get faction to faction.

KO wouldn't be  a viable army without fly high. And man, they already spent a year living in the trash like goblins, let them sooooar now, in a time when almost no one can actually play them regularly before they get nerfed to dwell in the trash with goblins once more. Changing fly high is something for a new book. I'm not entirely sure how you could change it and make the army playable though. It'd have to be a rewrite from all levels. 

 

Honestly I think if you took the knees out from under the primary abusive tools in the KO list (Out of sequence teleport and the bottle), the army would go down to good, but not the top. There really is a lack of damage that the WLV easily compensates for, and without the out of sequence port, you can't put your biggest guns in a position to maximize their firepower first turn. You have to play a much cagier list than the current all in alpha strike allows for.

 

7 hours ago, Kadeton said:

There's a thousand miles of nuance separating "tone down shooting" and "nerf shooting to irrelevance". Stop talking about them like they're the same thing.

Lumineth are extremely close to having no need for positioning (of their Sentinel units).

The main complaint about shooting as a core mechanic is not that it doesn't require positioning, it's that there is little to no positioning-based counter-play. Against melee units, you can counter-play them by manoeuvring your units to force them into engagements on your terms. The only way to limit a shooting-focused unit's freedom of engagement is to stay outside of their range, which is not a feasible tactic in an objective-based game.

KO is at the top only because it can teleport and has overwhelming firepower. If KO were a melee-focused army, they would not dominate the meta regardless of their ability to teleport - again, this is because melee can be counter-played, and shooting basically cannot. KO would still be an extremely competitive army even if they lost the ability to Fly High.

I'd like to see it change to 100% of armies, but that's somewhat of a tangent.

Hedonites and DoK dominated a meta that had nothing like the shooting we see in the game now. In particular, Hedonites were egregious because they broke the primary balancing factor of melee, alternating activations (on top of insanely low summoning costs).

A problem exists in which all the top meta armies are shooting armies, and you can approach that in two ways.

The way you seem to be advocating for is to nerf the top armies. That's a perfectly reasonable approach to balance, but it doesn't address the core problem with a lack of counter-play to shooting.

The way I'm advocating is to address shooting's basic problem, and then buff any armies for whom the impact of that change puts them below par.

Is your reluctance to even countenance that approach due to a fear that GW will neglect the "buff the weak ones" part of that process? In that case, why do you have any confidence that they would follow through with the "nerf the strong ones" part of yours?

Your entire post is pretty much "I just don't like shooting" in so many words.

 

I mean, where do you think the shooting came from? I can tell you, on a pure DPP level, the last KO book was VASTLY stronger than the current one. Like double shooting skyhooks and double attacking riggers dramatically out damage anything the KO can do now. And they were STILL in the trash. Because they had no way to deliver damage without dying or failing on objectives.

 

If you, in some big brain move, removed all the guns from KO, but gave them back double attacking riggers (and allowed a max squad to teleport), you better believe KO would still be stomping people's gonads in in almost the same way as now (albeit the only viable list would be the zilfin drop period, like it was before the zilfin drop was nerfed to poop in the last battletome). 

 

It isn't raw damage that's the problem, nerfing the damage numbers just makes far more units nonviable. Which is a terrible idea. Shooting units are not remotely more dangerous than melee units as some sort of rule. Indeed, you do a dpp of KO units with buffs and compare it to most melee hammers with buffs, and you'll see which comes out ahead (hint, it's dramatically a melee hammer. Like triple to four times the damage).

 

The problem is not shooting. People just don't like losing and so want a big ol' overarching easy nerf to make those armies wot they lose to go away. The problem is GW made shooting units overtuned with ways to deliver a bunch of mortal wounds (LRL and seraphon) or concentrate their armies easily at any point on the battlefield(KO).

 

Also, how do all these shooting nerfs matter, if the some of the primary source of shooting damage is crit fishing or from spells (LRL and seraphon)?

 

And the funny thing is, IDK is, right now, probably the strongest army. Without much shooting.

 

7 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

 

I have been thinking about how to balance shooting for under the assumption that we still want ranged-focussed armies to be viable, but don't want the playstyle to be dominant. Plus, there are some armies around that basically have no shooting, so we have to take this uneven distribution of the mechanic into account as well.

Currently, this uneven distribution makes it hard for core rule changes to help balance the mechanic. Something like a simultaneous, alternating shooting phase does nothing for armies that don't have access to shooting. To the contrary, depending on the implementation (like if you could shoot back on your opponent's shooting phase), it would just make things worse for them.

For what it's worth, I think there are some restrictions that made shooting weaker than melee that have been in the game for a long time, they were just not part of the core rules:

• Shooting units did less damage than melee units on average (even if they get to shoot and attack in melee in the same turn).
• Shooting range was usually low enough so that a fast melee unit would be able to charge a shooting unit on their turn even from max range.
• If you had long range shooting, those pieces were immobile, fairly weak and frequently had a minimum range.

I think for a moment last year we had an army that could do strong shooting, but was not oppressive: Cities of Sigmar.

If you compare Cities shooting to current top shooting armies, the difference in power becomes pretty clear. Cities shooting is mostly mid range, around 18". Anything above that is either no rend or artillery. Definitely no 30" mortal wound bombs. Cities still has some of the strongest shooting in Irondrakes, but they you need to jump through a lot of hoops to make them work. You need to keep buff heroes around them and not make a move with them maximize to their damage, need to use Soulscream Bridge to get them where they need to be and need to properly screen them to prevent a counter charge.

Compare that to Lumineth Sentinels: Basically self-sufficient (they need magic to buff their moral wound output, but they can cast the spell themself), and can reliably take out a 5 wound buff hero turn 1 from anywhere on the board with their 30" range, and for a fairly small investment. Even if you are not planning to spam them, a unit can basically go into any army an be great value.

This is why I think fixing shooting is hard. I think the problem is not with the core shooting mechanics, but that we have several overtuned armies that can put out too much damage at too high ranges. Which is way harder to fix. I for one am hoping for a bunch of warscroll rewrites, but it seems like GW is going the opposite way and just giving everyone good shooting.

 

Yes, there are several overtuned shooting units.

 

That said, even the overtuned shooting units generate less damage than melee hammers usually do.

 

7 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Considering the last few posts about shooting this are my thoughts on containing the shooting:

1. Look out sir. Has to change -1 has basically no affect to units that hit on  +2-3 can reroll everything. Having the rule from 40k for look out sir seems like a nice Idea.

2.rework some warscrolls that are currently dominating the  table. For example changing the rule for scryhawk lantern to maybe being able to reroll 1s to hit against the chosen unit.

Seraphons on the other hand are in dire need of many points and warscrolls changes.

for example skinks, how exactly is a skink with a blowpipe able to hit a target, that is basically just in range of being hit by a bow or musket.

and why exactly is a unit that can throw out 80shots, doing mortals on 60s, able to have a 3+ save, and having a move of 6-9 inches move, while also being able to hit pretty hard with a few buffs, so terrible cheap.

if they are meant to be meatshields, they shouldn’t be able to do all of that.

if we wanna chance their warscroll we definitely would have to give them a keyword that would hinder the ability to take many of those buffs mentioned before, as well as having to reduce their shooting range from 18 to “12”.

If we are talking about points, i’d say that an additional 20-30 points per 10 models seems kinda fair.

as for kharadron overlords, just please make a restriction of only being able to take non faction endless spell in a bottle, or at least have them take a risk of taking mortals wounds or have the character be instantly killed on a roll of 1 when casting Warplightning vortex, because no Skaven spell should be risk free.

and that would be it with KO, considering that they would be unable to snipe off those support heroes turn one, if we chance look out sir.

3. Units that were clearly meant to be able to snipe heroes, should maybe get some kind of sniping rule.

although I would like to keep the numbers of units very low per book that can do so.

Now I don’t know if this will truly chance the shooting meta to be well more likable, but it just might.

I don’t really want to see too many nerfs that could destroy an armies playability, but something like mentioned before might not be a bad idea.

any thoughts??

the answer is that there are too many support heroes.

 

Honestly, I'd actually like support heroes to be dramatically scaled back. Heck make em more vulnerable. GW keeps pooping them out cause they easy and profitable and it breaks the game when you can take your 6 different skink heroes and buff your 80 skinks to the moon. Less support characters GW, please.

 

 

[Sleboda]

4 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Yes Shooting has less risk, but remember crucially they don't take board space, you would be more correct if the game was about killing models. But, its not. The game is about killing specific models in specific places and taking control of those places. Shooting units don't do that.

QFT.

Something was bugging me about these shooting discussions, and this was it. Thanks for the reminder and for putting it well.

I think (and have thought) that when WFB transitioned to AoS, a lot of old thinking stuck around. In the before times, the game was actually designed around kills. It was only at the invention of the Watch Tower scenario (a sort of a preview of AoS, as it turns out) that objective play became a thing in Warhammer. Until then, it was just kill, kill, kill. My old Tomb Kings were a miserable failure of rules writing because they didn't play the kill game very well at all. Watch Tower actually gave them a chance to compete!

When we tested 6th edition, we were even given specific direction to only test 4x6 (or maybe it was still 4x8 at the time?), 2000 points, Pitched Battle (old meaning). Win/lose on VPs only. That's all the studio wanted to know from us. Again, the game was centered around kills.*

Then we got AoS. I think a huge amount of the complaining then, as now, came from people playing with the WFB "kills" mindset as opposed to trying to achieve the conditions in the Battleplans.

As you say, shooting is nice, but not well suited to objective play.

 

*Interesting side note -

Folks used to complain that certain WFB armies were too powerful. That huge monsters and heroes would win most games. If you investigated, you'd almost invariably find that players were playing "to the last man" instead of the proscribed six turn limit. Duh! Of course monsters/heroes ruled the day. They were only supposed to be able to get into a few fights, cast a few powerful spells, etc. because they didn't have endless opportunity. Remove the limits and they got better. 

In other words, when you ignore the conditions that balance the game, some things *seem* too good.  Shock!!!

 

 

 

 

[yukishiro1]

4 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

I 100% agree that some section of the player base feels shooting is a NPE. That doesn't mean necessarily it is bad for the game or balance. And, I would say that the Warhammer Weekly survey actually really points to players feeling a lack of agency. 

But that's the point: being shot at in AOS is not a fun experience, because there's no agency involved. Lumineth Sentinels are the ultimate example of this, because they literally remove any possible counter-play. You can't hide, because they can ignore LOS. You can't stay back, because this is an objective game and their absurd 30" range effectively covers the entirety of the board that matters. LoS and other to hit debuffs do nothing. To wound debuffs do nothing. Armor save does nothing. Being shot at by Sentinels is an entirely non-interactive experience. You don't roll any dice or anything, you just remove whatever model they point at, assuming they're not terrible at math. 

This is terrible game design, whether or not it's overpowered in the sense of winning games. People play wargames to have fun, not just as a test of strategy, and Sentinel-style shooting is not a fun experience to be on the receiving end of. That in and of itself makes it a bad game mechanic.

And it's not only Sentinels. There is extremely limited agency involved in being shot in Aos, period. Consider the comparison to 40k. In 40k here are ways you can avoid being shot:

1. Terrain.

2. Look out Sir.

3. Engage in melee with a different unit.

4. Engage in melee with the shooting unit itself.

Now some specialized units can ignore one or more of these normal limitations. But nothing ignores all of them. There's always something you can do to feel like you have some control over the experience. 

None of this exists in AoS. Terrain and LoS technically do, but they do not function with even 25% of the same impact they have in 40k. Engaging in melee straight up does nothing in AoS (well, except restrict the shooting unit to shooting what it's engaged with). 

Again, this is poor game design, whether or not the numbers balance out. People don't like game mechanics that make them feel like they're a spectator to the opponent playing the game, and that's how AoS shooting feels. No amount of "just suck it up, it won't actually win them the game" - even when true - refutes the "feels bad" involved. 

Edited February 15, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Vasshpit]

@yukishiro1

I just went back and re-read the sentinel warscroll. It's not easy but if you can remove the high sentinel that effectively removes them being a wizard AND  the skyhawks lantern ability. 

Again not easy but it is an option. 

I'm also not sure how effectively most armies can even do that though...

They are a nasty ranged unit for sure. 

[yukishiro1]

It's not really an option, though. The amount of mechanics in the entire game that allow you to pick and out and target a single model within a unit can probably be counted on one hand, and almost none of them have any significant range on them (e.x. the IDK spell is 12" range IIRC, aside from never being taken, so good luck on getting an IDK spellcaster within 12" of some sentinels alive, and good luck getting off a cast against one of the strongest magic armies in the game). And even if you somehow manage it...it's only reducing the output of one unit. 

Literally the only thing I can think of that is realistic is the once-per-game ability on the Mortek Crawler, which itself is the kind of non-interactive, "feels bad" ability that people don't like (and also wouldn't be worth forgoing the shooting on a 200 point model just to have a ~85% chance of removing a wizard on a single sentinel unit, statistically you'd almost certainly be better off just shooting the catapult in the normal mode and reducing their firepower that way). So you're basically saying "fight fire with fire," which is kind-of the point.

 

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Vasshpit]

Drop a Dank Troggboss and put the squeeze on the lil fella!!!✊🤔

[yukishiro1]

I so want to play a game where that could happen. 😄

[Lord Krungharr]

Now I understand why ppl are fearful of the Lumineth archers.  Didn't know they could ignore LOS, which means a Prismatic Palisade or Nightmare Chasm wouldn't help.   Units like that are a good reason to bring something that can outflank....or shoot and ignore LOS (I have some Stormfiends with Windlaunchers; sad that the Hellcannon is now only in Legends).

For shooting I'd like to see a penalty to hit if the unit has moved (any kind of move) previously in the game turn....then the units that can make enemies move like the Bray Shaman or Bloodbing Prayer from Khorne could also affect their hitting, aside from just them moving.  Some special units like fancy pants mounted archers could ignore that.  

 

[Doko]

Every shooting unit must get the city of sigmar deal,very short range(16\18). only do the 50% of damage if moved or in melle and does 0 damage in melle.

 

That would balance the game,and not these shooting 35+" ignore visions spam mortal,or teleport where they want each turn with0 penalty and ignore units in melle.

[Kadeton]

7 hours ago, stratigo said:

Your entire post is pretty much "I just don't like shooting" in so many words.

Your entire post is pretty much "I can't do reading comprehension" in so many words.

See how reductive and dismissive that sounds? Try engaging with the actual points raised instead.

Quote

It isn't raw damage that's the problem, nerfing the damage numbers just makes far more units nonviable. Which is a terrible idea. Shooting units are not remotely more dangerous than melee units as some sort of rule. Indeed, you do a dpp of KO units with buffs and compare it to most melee hammers with buffs, and you'll see which comes out ahead (hint, it's dramatically a melee hammer. Like triple to four times the damage).

Nowhere have I said that raw damage is the problem, or that damage from shooting units should be reduced.

To reiterate: the problem with shooting is the freedom to apply that damage to any target within range, with no trade-off and no counter-play.

Quote

The problem is not shooting. People just don't like losing and so want a big ol' overarching easy nerf to make those armies wot they lose to go away. The problem is GW made shooting units overtuned with ways to deliver a bunch of mortal wounds (LRL and seraphon) or concentrate their armies easily at any point on the battlefield(KO).

I don't mind losing games. I don't like low-interactivity games where I can't force my opponent to make difficult choices. I don't like having no tactical options to disrupt or interfere with my opponent's game plan beyond "Hope they roll badly". I don't like being bored.

Quote

Also, how do all these shooting nerfs matter, if the some of the primary source of shooting damage is crit fishing or from spells (LRL and seraphon)?

That's a great question, and I'm open to the idea of changes to those specific mechanics too. But that's a discussion of individual unit power level and balance, which is separate to the discussion of tactical interactivity that I'm pursuing.

Quote

And the funny thing is, IDK is, right now, probably the strongest army. Without much shooting.

Deepkin, hmm? You mean the army with a central mechanic that completely restricts freedom of targeting for shooting? So like, the exact thing that I've been suggesting would be a good way to reduce the dominance of shooting armies, except taken to its furthest extreme? And they're doing well, you say? What an amazing coincidence.

Edited February 16, 2021 by Kadeton

[yukishiro1]

Yeah, that was a pretty silly statement. One of the biggest reasons IDK is good right now is that they are the only faction that actually has real counter-play against shooting, because of their special rule that enables you to actually interact with the opponent's shooting by forcing where they have to allocate shots. 

Also, IDK actually have a decent amount of shooting now between the turtles and the sharks. You're not gonna be gunning down whole units at range or anything, but the turtle will take about 2-3W off a standard 5W hero depending on buffs, armor saves, etc, which is not irrelevant. If you run a turtle + 2 sharks, that's actually enough to snipe out a 5W hero most of the time if you want to devote your shots to it.

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[stratigo]

2 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Your entire post is pretty much "I can't do reading comprehension" in so many words.

See how reductive and dismissive that sounds? Try engaging with the actual points raised instead.

Nowhere have I said that raw damage is the problem, or that damage from shooting units should be reduced.

To reiterate: the problem with shooting is the freedom to apply that damage to any target within range, with no trade-off and no counter-play.

I don't mind losing games. I don't like low-interactivity games where I can't force my opponent to make difficult choices. I don't like having no tactical options to disrupt or interfere with my opponent's game plan beyond "Hope they roll badly". I don't like being bored.

That's a great question, and I'm open to the idea of changes to those specific mechanics too. But that's a discussion of individual unit power level and balance, which is separate to the discussion of tactical interactivity that I'm pursuing.

Deepkin, hmm? You mean the army with a central mechanic that completely restricts freedom of targeting for shooting? So like, the exact thing that I've been suggesting would be a good way to reduce the dominance of shooting armies, except taken to its furthest extreme? And they're doing well, you say? What an amazing coincidence.

 

I did address your points, you just seem to wanna whine.

 

Shooting's advantage is more freedom in targeting. Its disadvantage is lower DPP. It's not really comparable for most shooting units. The one where it is are candidates for nerfing, because shooting shouldn't have the dpp of melee. Which, again, it largely doesn't. But just like when the best armies (and again, hedonites were THE BEST ARMY the game has ever had) were melee based, the problem was not that melee was too strong and we needed a nerf to melee mechanics. These overarching hammers to entire mechanics are almost always a bad idea.

 

A 40k look out sir would make a worse game. Heck, it made a far worse game in 8th edition with all the stacking of auras. They've trimmed back a lot of the aura nonsense, but, man, support characters are still t0o darn meta warping in 40k. Stack a FNP, stack a reroll, stack another reroll, this guy lets you do mortal wounds. It's this nonsense that hurts the game more than shooting ever could. How the heck do you balance a combo that is 4 moving parts and turns a mediocre unit into a nearly unstoppable one? Just make the models involved unviable outside the combo with point nerfs? Or do you take away the combo (hint, do the second. This would fix KO) 

 

This talk of interactivity makes me want to post a princess bride meme. Like it's hard to talk about it because I'm not sure you know what the word means. What make a melee alpha strike more interactive than a shooting one? You can, in fact, screen both.  What other interactions are you looking for? No really? Is it literally just alternating combats?

 

[yukishiro1]

When your own example is wrong in precisely the way that illustrates the point, it's kinda telling. No, you can't screen out shooting the way you can screen out an alpha melee strike, because shooting, by definition, has longer range. How do you screen out a unit that can shoot 30" without LOS? Even something with a more reasonable range  is by its very definition harder to screen out than something that has a 1-3" range. It's extremely easy to protect characters or small key units from a melee alpha strike; it varies from "difficult" to "completely impossible" to protect characters or small key units from ranged shooting in AOS. 

The logical equivalent to screening for melee is using terrain to prevent shooting. But that essentially doesn't exist in AOS as it's clearly intended and actually played (even if the rules technically would allow for it if tables were set up in a completely different way than GW wants you to, with lots of 5" tall solid walls). 

And yes, the fact that you get to do stuff in your opponent's combat phase is a fundamental difference that completely changes how interactive the phase is. Again, by definition, getting to do stuff in a phase = interactivity, not getting to do stuff = no interactivity. 

You have defeated your own point by illustrating two key ways in which shooting is non-interactive. 

 

 

 

Edited February 16, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Kadeton]

This discussion is making me think of all those classic archery scenes in blockbuster movies. You know the ones:

Two great armies are arrayed against each other on the field of battle. The hero's just given his big speech to get the troops fired up about their specific casus belli. The horns are sounded, the cavalry spur their mounts, and the infantry lower their spears and charge.

On the opposing side, a commander dramatically holds up one hand, and the archers nock arrows and draw their bows. As the hand drops, they loose, and the sky is blackened by a cloud of whistling death...

... all of which converges invariably on the lone hero, a thousand arrows turning his body into fresh salsa. Not a single arrow falls anywhere other than his immediate vicinity - even the soldiers advancing shoulder-to-shoulder with him remain unscathed.

Because that's how missile weapons have always been used in warfare, right? Inevitable tightly-focused death for anyone in a position of command.

[Beliman]

Remember that ranged attacks already have some handicaps:

• Lower dmg output per point vs Melee dedicated units.
• Attack in your turn (5 attacks in the whole game).
• Look out sir
• If engaged, can only attack a unit within less than 3"
• Line of Sight, terrain and Overgrown.

Of course there are things that have "better" dmg output than other ranged specialsits (280p Lumineth Sentinels can do 7 wounds at 30" without LoS, that's really good)  but that's not the norm.

Btw, I'm not saying that shooting is fine, but after reading the whole post, I have the feeling that everybody  is playing with Shoota Grots and killing everything just because "shooting is broken".

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

4 hours ago, stratigo said:

Shooting's advantage is more freedom in targeting. Its disadvantage is lower DPP.

 

4 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Remember that ranged attacks already have some handicaps

Shooting, by it's nature, has some big advantages over melee.

• Shooting phase is before combat

In melee terms, that translates to "always strikes first on your turn".

• If you are out of range, you can't get attacked back

That's as if a melee unit could not be targeted after attacking.

• Long attack range

This means that you don't have to make charge rolls to attack. You also don't have to do a lot of positioning like you would have to if you had to actually charge. We could view it kind of like a melee unit teleporting in and out to attack. But without even having to have room to stand like that would require.

Natural drawbacks are that you only get to shoot on your own turn, and that you have to deal with line of sight and Look Out, Sir! Everything else is warscroll dependent (minimum ranges, lower damage). Not being able to shoot units outside of 3" when attacked is not a drawback. That's just what melee has to always deal with in the first place.

In theory, good warscroll design should be able to balance the benefits and drawbacks against each other. That's why I think the currenty shooting problem is a problem of overtuned units and factions. In the past, GW has managed to strike that balance fairly well. I think nobody would seriously argue that Cities of Sigmar shooting is unbearably noninteractive, for example. But some recent units have a bit too much going on. People bring up Lumineth Sentinels, not necessarily because they are the strongest shooting unit (although I want to stress that contrary to what some people in this thread say, I think they are very strong), but because they bring together all the worst non-interactive aspects of shooting with another non-interactive mechanic, dealing their damage as mortal wounds.

Imagine them as a melee unit, see if that helps understand why they are frustrating: We are talking about a unit that can charge from 30" away, does not need to roll to charge, teleports back to safety after, strikes first, can't be attacked back and does their damage as mortal wounds. The drawback is that their damage is comparatively low for their points. I think that just sounds insane.

Personally, I think it's worth adressing the overtuned shooting units that exist (here's hoping that BR: Teclis moves the mortal wound damage of Sentinels to their aimed shots only). But due the natural advantage of shooting over melee and the natural non-interactivity of shooting mechanics, I think tweaking the core mechanics to make them a less negative play experience would also be worth trying.

[Beliman]

@Neil Arthur Hotep  Don't get me wrong, I already know the advantages of shooting (playing KOs), and that's why I pointed out that with all this advantages, I still can't see people stomping with Shoota Grots nor Thunderers castle, nor any other strategy that resolves around shooting with just "shooting units". You need something more, same as any melee-centered army that needs a buff to charge or to survive enough to charge.

As you said, it's all because some "combos" and/or  "overpowered" units are not fun to play. But don't blame my specialist shooting unit (240 points of thunderes) that can't even kill your 5 wounds   4+ saves Look out sir support hero!!

[Enoby]

I think shooting on its own is fine; I think ranged mortal wounds, in a vacuum, can also be fine. For example, no one would give serious complaints to current arcane bolt. Nor would anyone complain about freeguild handgunners. But as others have mentioned, high numbers of MW at range - especially that ignore LoS (all ignore cover and look our sir) - is a negative experience for the player regardless of how mathmatically good it is.

To give a comparison, back in the day of old AoS, the Thundertusk had an 18" shooting attack that did 6MW on a 2+. The thundertusk itself was quite quick too and so it was very very difficult to hide your heroes away from its deadly breath. These were the bane of casual games, with players having their heroes blown to kingdom come for daring to show the tip of their sword while a thundertusk was about. 

And the competitive reality was that thundertusks and Beastclaw Raiders performed poorly. They didn't have the bodies for an objective based game and they melted to focused fire. 

So evidently, the 6 MW at 18" range on a 2+ (basically a small character deleter) could be played around and wasn't really much of a concern competitively (except right at the beginning).

And yet, I'd still say it's a good thing it changed to be more specialised against killing hordes. Why? Because on a casual matched play level, people hated having their heroes plinked off on a 2+. It just wasn't fun and it felt non-interactive. 

Personally, I don't think it's the shooting rules that need to change but rather high numbers of MWs at range that is the bigger issue. This could be tackled in a few awkward ways with ward saves against MW for heroes near units or giving a MW cap. 

In general I think MWs are too common and much prefer them being a rate occurrence; I think high rend should replace a good number of MWs.

[Nostrammo]

Just with these small changes I woud be ecstatic

Units starting a normal move within
3"(6") of an enemy unit can either
remain stationary (charge) or retreat. If a unit
retreats, it can move within 3" of an
enemy, but must end the move more
than 3" from all enemy units. Models
in a unit that retreats can’t shoot or
charge later in the same turn.

A unit can shoot when it is within
3"(6") of the enemy, but if it does so it
can only target enemy units that
are within 3" (6") of it with its shooting
attacks. A unit can shoot at an enemy
unit that is within 3" of another
friendly unit without penalty.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 minute ago, Beliman said:

@Neil Arthur Hotep  Don't get me wrong, I already know the advantages of shooting (playing KOs), and that's why I pointed out that with all this advantages, I still can't see people stomping with Shoota Grots nor Thunderers castle, nor any other strategy that resolves around shooting with just "shooting units". You need something more, same as any melee-centered army that needs a buff to charge or to survive enough to charge.

As you said, it's all because some "combos" and/or  "overpowered" units are not fun to play. But don't blame my specialist shooting unit (240 points of thunderes) that can't even kill your 5 wounds   4+ saves Look out sir support hero!!

 

That's all completely fair, of course. I actually believe that the shooting units in most armies could actually use a bit of a buff, if anything. If we get ranged attacking to a more equal position between armies first, I think the argument to make core rule changes becomes stronger, because then we are not trying to fix the outliers with a nerf to the mechanic in general. For what it's worth, I can't even come up with a core rule change that would fix the problems that the top shooting armies cause without destroying the viability of shooting in general. So my stance is that we should fix the outliers with warscroll changes/errata and tweak the core rules just for a more positive experience (without decreasing power).

 

2 minutes ago, Enoby said:

I think shooting on its own is fine; I think ranged mortal wounds, in a vacuum, can also be fine. For example, no one would give serious complaints to current arcane bolt. Nor would anyone complain about freeguild handgunners. But as others have mentioned, high numbers of MW at range - especially that ignore LoS (all ignore cover and look our sir) - is a negative experience for the player regardless of how mathmatically good it is.

To give a comparison, back in the day of old AoS, the Thundertusk had an 18" shooting attack that did 6MW on a 2+. The thundertusk itself was quite quick too and so it was very very difficult to hide your heroes away from its deadly breath. These were the bane of casual games, with players having their heroes blown to kingdom come for daring to show the tip of their sword while a thundertusk was about. 

And the competitive reality was that thundertusks and Beastclaw Raiders performed poorly. They didn't have the bodies for an objective based game and they melted to focused fire. 

So evidently, the 6 MW at 18" range on a 2+ (basically a small character deleter) could be played around and wasn't really much of a concern competitively (except right at the beginning).

And yet, I'd still say it's a good thing it changed to be more specialised against killing hordes. Why? Because on a casual matched play level, people hated having their heroes plinked off on a 2+. It just wasn't fun and it felt non-interactive. 

Personally, I don't think it's the shooting rules that need to change but rather high numbers of MWs at range that is the bigger issue. This could be tackled in a few awkward ways with ward saves against MW for heroes near units or giving a MW cap. 

In general I think MWs are too common and much prefer them being a rate occurrence; I think high rend should replace a good number of MWs.

I think you make two good points here, which are that we need to remember that AoS needs to be balanced non only for tournament play, but all levels of play. Arguably, it should even be balanced with more weight given to casual play, since that's how most people actually play the game.

The other point is about mortal wounds being too common. I believe that the function of mortal wounds in AoS is to be the damage type that you use when you want to avoid putting too many die rolls on an attack. Magic, for example, would be a bit weak and feel kind of bad if there was the possibility of the target getting a save after you win both the casting and unbinding rolls. It makes sense that magic deals it's damage in mortal wounds after that. Same with incidental damage effects. I still generally like mortal wounds on 6s to hit/wound, because it's just less of a hassle compared to extra damage or extra hits.

But in general, mortal wounds are a very strong mechanic. The only thing that holds them back from being the best way to deal damage in the game is that mortal wounds attacks are usually low damage.  So once we get into the territory of mortal wounds being able to take out units on their own, especially at range, I think mortal wounds are starting to be misused as a design tool. Of course, it's hard to exactly put a finger on where the line is. I don't think making use of bunch of 1d3 mortal wounds abilites from like five different sources in your army to fairly reliably take out a 5 wound hero is a problem. But being able to include a unit in your list that can just do this on it's own with little opportunity cost does not seem ideal.

[OkayestDM]

4 hours ago, Kadeton said:

This discussion is making me think of all those classic archery scenes in blockbuster movies. You know the ones:

Two great armies are arrayed against each other on the field of battle. The hero's just given his big speech to get the troops fired up about their specific casus belli. The horns are sounded, the cavalry spur their mounts, and the infantry lower their spears and charge.

On the opposing side, a commander dramatically holds up one hand, and the archers nock arrows and draw their bows. As the hand drops, they loose, and the sky is blackened by a cloud of whistling death...

... all of which converges invariably on the lone hero, a thousand arrows turning his body into fresh salsa. Not a single arrow falls anywhere other than his immediate vicinity - even the soldiers advancing shoulder-to-shoulder with him remain unscathed.

Because that's how missile weapons have always been used in warfare, right? Inevitable tightly-focused death for anyone in a position of command.

Seems legit.

[whispersofblood]

39 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

 

That's all completely fair, of course. I actually believe that the shooting units in most armies could actually use a bit of a buff, if anything. If we get ranged attacking to a more equal position between armies first, I think the argument to make core rule changes becomes stronger, because then we are not trying to fix the outliers with a nerf to the mechanic in general. For what it's worth, I can't even come up with a core rule change that would fix the problems that the top shooting armies cause without destroying the viability of shooting in general. So my stance is that we should fix the outliers with warscroll changes/errata and tweak the core rules just for a more positive experience (without decreasing power).

 

I think you make two good points here, which are that we need to remember that AoS needs to be balanced non only for tournament play, but all levels of play. Arguably, it should even be balanced with more weight given to casual play, since that's how most people actually play the game.

The other point is about mortal wounds being too common. I believe that the function of mortal wounds in AoS is to be the damage type that you use when you want to avoid putting too many die rolls on an attack. Magic, for example, would be a bit weak and feel kind of bad if there was the possibility of the target getting a save after you win both the casting and unbinding rolls. It makes sense that magic deals it's damage in mortal wounds after that. Same with incidental damage effects. I still generally like mortal wounds on 6s to hit/wound, because it's just less of a hassle compared to extra damage or extra hits.

But in general, mortal wounds are a very strong mechanic. The only thing that holds them back from being the best way to deal damage in the game is that mortal wounds attacks are usually low damage.  So once we get into the territory of mortal wounds being able to take out units on their own, especially at range, I think mortal wounds are starting to be misused as a design tool. Of course, it's hard to exactly put a finger on where the line is. I don't think making use of bunch of 1d3 mortal wounds abilites from like five different sources in your army to fairly reliably take out a 5 wound hero is a problem. But being able to include a unit in your list that can just do this on it's own with little opportunity cost does not seem ideal.

I've figured out the problem with your position. You have a knowledge gap, it doesn't seem you know what most shooting units do in terms of damage in an army. Which follows because I don't think most people actually understand how much unsaved damage armies have to deal with during the course of an average game.

For 300 points in CoS army 20 Freeguild Crossbows and a general put out 11.1 unsaved damage against a 4+ save target, at 29" with 1 CP spent.  

For 280 20 Sentinels do 7.08 dmg at 36" with 1 spell cast, or 4.72 dmg without the spell cast. In the bracket I will put 2 units of 10 Sentinels, with two spell casts (6.71/4.49)

For 320 20 Sisters of the Watch do 10.56 dmg at 24" (If you take 2 units you actually gain 1 attack but for simplicity sake I'll do them as 1 unit)

Against a Hero (4+ save)

The crossbows do 8.4 unsaved damage for the same spend, and CP

The Sentinels do 6.27 dmg with 1 spell cast or w/o 3.8 unsaved damage (5.95/3.71)

Sisters of the Watch do  7.135 unsaved dmg

MW, rend, no rend, damage is damage. You need to sort out your feelings, and deal with meat and bones of the naked mechanics

MW on ranged units are mostly used so that ranged units have a predictable damage curve over the course of their game. It means you can take a unit of Sentinels or Blood Stalkers and have a reasonable expectation that regardless of the match up they will do some damage over the course of the game. Because here is what happens if you if you put that hero in cover.

Crossbows: 5.54 unsaved dmg

Senintels: 6.27 Dmg with spell, 3.54 dmg w/o (5.95/3.46)

Sisters of the Watch 6.44 dmg

Do you notice how swingy the the Crossbows are? They go from being the best unit to the worst unit. So here is your interactivity, put your heroes in cover, and dispel the spells you think harm your ability to win the battleplan the most. 

People are getting freakout by super fring corner cases and wind-up merchants, the reality is that there is no problem and people are getting swept away by their feelings. 

If we believe that combined arms strategies have a place in the game then shooting has to be able to carry its weight in the game that we actually play not the game inside people's heads.

In WHFB plink shooting had a place, the game was about manipulating your opponents movement with fast cheap units, units of 5 or 10 wounds with lowish Leadership and poor saves. In that context 10 shots, 4+/4+ no armour modifier could play a role. Kill two warhounds and there was a very good chance they would run away. But, even that became points less when units like Dark Riders showed up with 4+ saves and High Leadership. 

The way you and seeming the people in this camp want to place shooting into AoS doesn't exist. It would be better if you aligned your expectations with the reality of the game we play and this idea of NPE could be used to focus on more relevant problems. Things like factions which can't effectively play a range of battleplans, due to no flexibility in movement, and deployment or an inability to kill models and take objectives. 

Your intent is in the right place but your analysis is flawed. If your hypothesis was correct you would see Spike type players maxing out on shooting. What is happening is the opposite,  even in the most egregious examples of "NPE" Sentinels are being maxed at 20/30 in a list by some of the most competitive and skilled players in the community. Because they know what I've been trying to communicate to you, Battleplans are won by movement and combat, full stop. Factions with reasonable shooting add them in to improve the delivery and reliability of their combat units, not to deal the damage that wins the game. So unless you are going to change the argument to that having shooting makes being your combat too effective, but in that case it would show up in the winrate, and without adjusting for player skill it seems the factions with these shooting units and without shooting units are equally distributed across tiers. There are only two factions that fit into this narrative that represent with over a 50% winrate. Seraphon, and DoT, neither are winning games because of their shooting. They win games because they have shooting units they can drop on an objective that either obliterate the holding unit, or also have a lot of hard to remove bodies themselves.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

13 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

I've figured out the problem with your position. You have a knowledge gap, it doesn't seem you know what most shooting units do in terms of damage in an army. Which follows because I don't think most people actually understand how much unsaved damage armies have to deal with during the course of an average game.

No, that's not correct. I am aware of the math, I just come to different conclusions from you. I think this is because I value high-rend or mortal wounds higher than low rend damage. As a heuristic, I view a mortal wound to be about twice as good as a no-rend wound. That's just my quick rule of thumb. That is because that's their value when calculating against a 4+ save. If you take the average relative value against all armour saves, it's more like 2.5 no rend wounds per mortal, but since saves are not equally distributed, that's not a very useful number. Of course I am aware they will perform better per wound against high armour and worse against low armour units. That's basic stuff.

But mortal wounds a lot more valuable in some respects. For example, you can't really hope to overwhelm 3+ or 2+ armour with no rend in AoS as it is currently, with the amounts of damage units deal and how much that damage can be buffed. But you can hope to deal with a low-armour unit in a pinch if all you have is mortal wound spam. That makes me value mortal wounds higher than no rend wounds. As such, even though in some situations Sentinel damage output is low, I think because it is high quality it should be valued highly.

I do not believe that I have claimed that it was the damage of Sentinels that makes me think they are overtuned. What I actually believe is that they are overtuned in other ways. To pick up your comparison with Freeguild Crossbows, I think the difference is pretty clear.

Crossbows have a shorter range, can't move and need to stay above 10 units to get their extra attack, and need a command point and support hero to reach their full potential. To be fair, though: You'd probably bring a Freeguild General anyway if you have other Freeguild units, and you can in theory replace him with 10 more crossbows and get similar numbers if you don't. Crossbows have to deal with all the usual counter play options to shooting, like cover, line-of-sight and Look Out, Sir!

Lumineth Sentinels, by contrast, have higher range, are self-buffing and have no additional rules they need to watch out for to reach their full damage potential. The range difference is significant, at 24" with no movement Crossbows can only hope to hit units deployed right at the line turn 1, while Sentinels have a much easier time hitting high value targets at 30" with the possibility to move 5". A 24" circle is only about half the area of a 35" one, if you want to put it in terms of area control. And as a bonus, Sentinels don't care about line-of-sight due to their warscroll ability, and don't care about cover and negative to hit modifiers due to dealing their damage as mortals on unmodified 6s.

I can tell you that if I was building a competitive Cities list, if allying in 20 Sentinels was an option, I'd probably go for it every time over Freeguild Crossbows. Given that Crossbows are a native unit with synergies in the army, I think that's fairly telling. I already view the damage output of Sentinels as competitive compared to Crossbows, and all their other upsides just push them even further into the lead. If you think Crossbows are not the right comparison, try Hellstorm Rocket Batteries, which have a 36" threat range and are therefor a closer comparison in terms of their role in the army. They will end up looking even worse, head to head.

Even in the post you quoted, I was not talking about the problem with Lumineth Sentinels being that they can shoot up most of an opposing army. I don't think that is what they do. Instead, I think they make it too easy to remove high value targets, such as the Freeguild General you included to buff the Freeguild Crossbows in your comparison. In that role, reliably removing or at least highly damaging high value targets every round, they are exceptionally good. And I am not surprised tournament lists take 20 to 30 of them. That's what I would expect. Dedicating 420 points to deal with any hero problems you might face seems like a super good deal.

And that brings us to the point I am actually arguing: The really egregious thing about Sentinels is not just that they are extremely good in their role, but also that they are extremely non-interactive, which is what causes negative play experience. @Enoby made a good point that Sentinels are a lot like old Thundertusks, which were also not overpowered in the sense that they were winning tournaments, but still bad for the game in the sense that everyone hated playing against them. I find that when we look at the data, and it says that of everyone who thinks shooting in it's current form is a problem, over half of them think it's the worst or second worst problem in the game, we need to take that seriously regardless of whatever other metrics you want to look at. And I think responding to that very real concern with just "git gud" or "you don't know what you really want" is not good enough.