What would you like for AoS 3

[Skreech Verminking]

7 hours ago, Saxon said:

Wait the game is balanced? I'd love to see a nighthaunt list that can last 3 turns against Lumineth Realm Lords with the potato autocast spells and MW from shooting. 

I also dislike using tournament stats to define how balanced or broken an army is. Those are mostly cheese lists that are designed to be unfun and WAAC. 

Also the skaven guys haven’t even used a doomwheels list.

no wonder skaven are considered bad.

they should have at least played 2Doomwheels.

and at least have 140bodies on the board.

The time of Storm-fiends os over, let the season of big driving doom bringing (either side) hamster wheel begin!!!

 

[Nostrammo]

Integrate shooting in to the Combat phase ... 

 

1)More interactive play because now shooting is also part of the I go you go...

2)Less down time

3)No more shooting while in CC

4)No problem from playing two consecutive turns because both players will get to play half the Turn anyway

[Ragest]

11 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Did you read what I wrote? Win rate isn't a useful metric with so few games played. It's as likely to show the caliber of players (i.e. lots of bad players play LRL) than it is to show actual power. You need a much larger sample than what's on offer to make any conclusions based solely on win rate. Based on that win rate data, Beasts of Chaos is one of the strongest armies in the game, which presumably we all know is not the case.

Fyreslayers and Chaos Ascendent are clearly a rank down from the above factions based on that data - they don't have anywhere near the same records of actually topping events. They're at the top of the fat middle, with Maggotkin and STD being the wobblers between top-tier and middle. 

Three of the four top factions on that chart are ranged-focused armies, and the fourth is the only faction in the game that hard-counters ranged armies. That's not some big coincidence. 

If you consider top four what you want, even if data says another thing, you can easily see coincidences.

[Ragest]

11 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by Ragest

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, Nostrammo said:

Integrate shooting in to the Combat phase

Not sure how it could work but I like it!

[Enoby]

On the topic of these new "tiers" that seem to be decided by win percentage.

I don't think win percentage is the best way to tell if an army's "tier". If we take a notoriously weak army (BoC) and have them lose the first match of the tournament, they are likely to go against a weaker player in the next round and if they're a very strong BoC player they could well go 3/2 (60% win rate). If there are only 5 BoC players in the data, and BoC players are unlikely to be meta chases and more people who know a lot about the faction, then you won't have BoC top any events but it will have a high win rate because they'll face less knowledgeable players. 

Is an army that can't win a tournament but consistently gets 3/2 a top tier army? Or does a top tier army need to consistently come in the top 3 of large tournaments regardless of win rate? If loads of new players played Seraphon because they're cheap and have a good theme, is it not right to consider that them entering a tournament for the first time might skew win rates? Stormcast must also suffer from this. 

Would you say old Slaanesh (as in 2018 pre battletome Slaanesh) was top tier as it had a 66% win rate? It never topped a tournament and was played by about 3 people, but it had one of the highest win rates in the game.

To give an even more ridiculous example, imagine if the best Legions of Azghor player in the world got 4/5 in a tournament with them, and they were the only LoA player in any tournament.  LoA would have an 80% win rate. If this happened, would you consider Chaos Dwarves the most powerful army in the game?

Basically, all I'm saying is that win rate doesn't show much especially when a faction is played by a small dedicated group of players and that data is compared to a massive group of players that may consist of 'meta-chasers', new players, and very skilled players. There's too much extraneous data to draw a conclusion.

[Nostrammo]

18 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Not sure how it could work but I like it!

Hero Phase (same)

Movement Phase (same)

Charge Phase (same)

Combat Phase (same)

If you pick a unit to fight that has a ranged weapon and is NOT engaged in combat it can shoot...

[EMMachine]

2 hours ago, Nostrammo said:

Integrate shooting in to the Combat phase ... 

 

1)More interactive play because now shooting is also part of the I go you go...

2)Less down time

3)No more shooting while in CC

4)No problem from playing two consecutive turns because both players will get to play half the Turn anyway

@Beliman

I had seen this point some pages before.

The problem is, it kills of short range shooting (units that already struggle with shooting because they only have 7"-9" Range), Throwing Axes, Javelins, Pistols etc.

Those weapons are balanced in a way, that if you can take either a weapon like this or only close combat, that the ranged weapon is basicly the second attack.

Black Arc Corsairs for example:

They either have 1 Attack with 4+/4+ + 1 Attack with 4+/5+ when armed with meleeweapons only or they have 1 Attack 4+/5+ in Melee and 2 Shots 9" Range at 5+/4+ (but only once each round).

With the rules we have at the moment you have a decition to take. Either having 4 Attack each Battleround melee only or having 2 Melee Attacks and 2 Ranged Attacks each Battleround.

For units like these it would completly take away the decition.

And long range will become better in the game because instead of only shooting you once or twice with the Sentinels that were often used, these will shoot you 3 to 4 times in the same timeframe because you still only move once per game. It would be a strate buff for long range shooting

Edit:

It would most likely make more sense to change the turnorder to:

• Hero Phase

• Shooting Phase

• Movement Phase

• Charge Phase

• Combat Phase

• Battleshock

That way, everything that is ranged would have to be in position in the turn before (like it is with Wizards)

 

Edited February 18, 2021 by EMMachine

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

19 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

words

Let me start by saying that this will be my final post in relation to this comment thread. Partially because I believe that I have made my position sufficiently clear at this point. Partially because the discussion is getting pretty far off topic at this point. But mostly because I don't find my posts to be having any effect, and it is becoming frustrating. The irony given the subject of this discussion is not lost on me.

I will sum up my position one more time. Feeling like your choices matter is important in games. In the current state of shooting, you feel like your choices matter less and less. Regardless of other concerns like balance, that warrants taking a look at the direction of shooting in AoS once the new edition rolls around.

It's getting tiring to have to keep laying this out again and again just to be met with responses that completely fail to engage with the point. It's tiring having to clarify that I don't hold positions like "all shooting should be weakened", "I want the metagame to be static" or "you should be able to just throw random models to gether and win against top lists".  The same goes for being hit with statistics about tournament win rates again, after already explaining several times why I don't think they are pertinent to my position. Similarly, I don't appreciate being told that I just don't know what shooting units can do or that capturing objectives wins games. Or, indeed, that I am deny the objectivity of truth because I think people's enjoyment of a game matters (seriously?).

This latest thing about agency really examplifies what I think is going wrong in this discussion. I lay out why I think interactivity matter. I receive a reply talking about agency. I formulate my response by picking up that term. And finally I am told that I am wrong because agency is not reduced by the current state of shooting, only interactivity is. When my point was only ever about interactivity in the first place. Like I seriously believe the current shooting mechanics (or indeed the mechanics of any game) could reduce your potential to exercise your free will. Plus, an extra, unnecessary insinuation that in talking about interactivity I am performing a "slight of hand trick", like I am somehow arguing in bad faith.

So yeah, that's as far as I am willing to engage in this discussion. Since you seem to be into philosophy, I advise you to pick up the habit of charitably reading literature, and not to assume that authors are incompetent, dishonest or deluded as your default position.

[Koala]

Yeah, i had the same Idea. Turns out it does not really help reducing ranged power at all.

Because now the melee army is also getting shot at on its own turn, even when they are noh yet in combat xD. Riddiculous board control!

 

It is an interesting Idea, however

 

The current - simple - rules for ranged combat only work if shooting is not the focus of the game. With KO, DoT, LRL (and to an extend Seraphon) getting these strong range focused battletomes we need deeper rules for ranged attacks. Because the Battletomes will not go away. It is that simple ( and yes, i both love DoT flamers AND believe it was wrong to give them this much ranged power).

[zilberfrid]

37 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

@Beliman

I had seen this point some pages before.

The problem is, it kills of short range shooting (units that already struggle with shooting because they only have 7"-9" Range), Throwing Axes, Javelins, Pistols etc.

Those weapons are balanced in a way, that if you can take either a weapon like this or only close combat, that the ranged weapon is basicly the second attack.

Black Arc Corsairs for example:

They either have 1 Attack with 4+/4+ + 1 Attack with 4+/5+ when armed with meleeweapons only or they have 1 Attack 4+/5+ in Melee and 2 Shots 9" Range at 5+/4+ (but only once each round).

With the rules we have at the moment you have a decition to take. Either having 4 Attack each Battleround melee only or having 2 Melee Attacks and 2 Ranged Attacks each Battleround.

For units like these it would completly take away the decition.

And long range will become better in the game because instead of only shooting you once or twice with the Sentinels that were often used, these will shoot you 3 to 4 times in the same timeframe because you still only move once per game. It would be a strate buff for long range shooting

Edit:

It would most likely make more sense to change the turnorder to:

• Hero Phase

• Shooting Phase

• Movement Phase

• Charge Phase

• Combat Phase

• Battleshock

That way, everything that is ranged would have to be in position in the turn before (like it is with Wizards)

If you change the basis of the game, warscrolls will also need to be adjusted.

Say Arkanauts. They can no longer shoot in melee, but maybe they can get a shot off before a unit moves into melee with them?

Maybe there is a penalty, or even impossibility for powder/crossbow weapons shooting over infantry in front of them that does not apply to bows (who do not already have a hand weapon available)?

That's a lot of work, but changing the basis of the game in a new edition will neccessitate a lot of work.

GW changes the basis of the game with many new armies (battleshock and command points for Ossiarch, Everyone's a wizard and some other stuff for Luminarch etc). They should not shy away from doing so for a new edition.

[Beliman]

@zilberfrid It sounds awesome!!

Conquest have "hand weapons" (low-range weapons) that can be thrown after you charge,  something like that or an "overwatch" weapons could work.

[whispersofblood]

48 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Let me start by saying that this will be my final post in relation to this comment thread. Partially because I believe that I have made my position sufficiently clear at this point. Partially because the discussion is getting pretty far off topic at this point. But mostly because I don't find my posts to be having any effect, and it is becoming frustrating. The irony given the subject of this discussion is not lost on me.

I will sum up my position one more time. Feeling like your choices matter is important in games. In the current state of shooting, you feel like your choices matter less and less. Regardless of other concerns like balance, that warrants taking a look at the direction of shooting in AoS once the new edition rolls around.

It's getting tiring to have to keep laying this out again and again just to be met with responses that completely fail to engage with the point. It's tiring having to clarify that I don't hold positions like "all shooting should be weakened", "I want the metagame to be static" or "you should be able to just throw random models to gether and win against top lists".  The same goes for being hit with statistics about tournament win rates again, after already explaining several times why I don't think they are pertinent to my position. Similarly, I don't appreciate being told that I just don't know what shooting units can do or that capturing objectives wins games. Or, indeed, that I am deny the objectivity of truth because I think people's enjoyment of a game matters (seriously?).

This latest thing about agency really examplifies what I think is going wrong in this discussion. I lay out why I think interactivity matter. I receive a reply talking about agency. I formulate my response by picking up that term. And finally I am told that I am wrong because agency is not reduced by the current state of shooting, only interactivity is. When my point was only ever about interactivity in the first place. Like I seriously believe the current shooting mechanics (or indeed the mechanics of any game) could reduce your potential to exercise your free will. Plus, an extra, unnecessary insinuation that in talking about interactivity I am performing a "slight of hand trick", like I am somehow arguing in bad faith.

So yeah, that's as far as I am willing to engage in this discussion. Since you seem to be into philosophy, I advise you to pick up the habit of charitably reading literature, and not to assume that authors are incompetent, dishonest or deluded as your default position.

If you feel singled out and attacked that wasn't my intent, perhaps in trying to respond to the entirety of the arguments presented by yourself and the survey that continues to be brought up. I've never argued that people's enjoyment doesn't matter to the contrary it matters very much, however, I would argue the first step should be determining if people's expectations are inline with reality. I've not asserted that you believe these things, I responded with likely outcomes, based on the history of the game. My position is mostly about trade offs what is worth it, what is better, what is probably worse and supplying evidence of such. Its unfortunate that the alternative can only rely on a survey of what people feel, but the question I'm fundemntally asking is what is the alternative and why is it better at making people feel good about the game as a whole. Which is why I asked the slightly obnoxious question. "Shooting is uninteractive" so what?

Agency vs interactivity is from the WHW show, not specifically you. I would have quoted you if that was the case, I'm not shy if I thought you were being disengenious I would have said so. Again this is an open forum like I said before while a post is nominally a responce to yours it also is done in a way that anyone can read it and gain some insight and perhaps think about their own games in a new way. Either way you are free to bow out, as the larger conversation about interactivity seems intractible, between it doesn't feel good and the alternatives create a game people have said they don't like.

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

To take a completely different angle, as someone who is an active AoS evangelist (have brought close to a dozen people into game at this point) what I want is for the factions they choose to be in the start collecting kits to be good for the life span of 3.0.

For 2.0 the easiest and cheapest (except for the BCR SC exception) armies to build were Stormcast Eternals and Nighthaunt, which dominated the start collecting battle boxes coming out of Soul Wars and the cheap easy build kits (as well as being the focus of the paint sets for that matter).  But for a large chunk of 3.0 they were armies with severe battletome issues in comparison to most other armies.   This a real barrier to converting someone I taught to play into an actual army owner.

Not saying they have to be top tier for all of 3.0.  Just want a commitment that those cheap entry points will give new players a fun & viable start throughout.

[TheCovenLord]

On 2/8/2021 at 6:04 PM, mojojojo101 said:

I think thats something it I'd definitely like to see, GW being more aggressive with warscroll changes outside of major book releases.

 

They have the app so I dont think they have to be particularly careful about making sure the books have up to date scrolls, hell, the app seems much more accessible than the standard way of delivering FAQs.

You know I think this may be my biggest wish for 3.0. Ditch the books for printing warscrolls and provide the scrolls/faction/subfaction rules via the app. Sell the books as lore/narrative/scenario pieces and I would still probably buy them.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Beer & Pretzels Gamer said:

To take a completely different angle, as someone who is an active AoS evangelist (have brought close to a dozen people into game at this point) what I want is for the factions they choose to be in the start collecting kits to be good for the life span of 3.0.

For 2.0 the easiest and cheapest (except for the BCR SC exception) armies to build were Stormcast Eternals and Nighthaunt, which dominated the start collecting battle boxes coming out of Soul Wars and the cheap easy build kits (as well as being the focus of the paint sets for that matter).  But for a large chunk of 3.0 they were armies with severe battletome issues in comparison to most other armies.   This a real barrier to converting someone I taught to play into an actual army owner.

Not saying they have to be top tier for all of 3.0.  Just want a commitment that those cheap entry points will give new players a fun & viable start throughout.

Not to mention the weird situation where the starter sets are not balanced by points and contain lots of under strength units. I certainly would not want a repeat of that for 3.0.

[Skreech Verminking]

Considering that we are talking about start collection, I would actually like seeing start collections with the amount of models they ones had in the old warhammer fantasy battailon boxsets.

although I’m not sure if this will ever happen

[Beer & Pretzels Gamer]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Not to mention the weird situation where the starter sets are not balanced by points and contain lots of under strength units. I certainly would not want a repeat of that for 3.0.

That would be great but I didn’t want to get “greedy”😁

Consistent with what @Skreech Verminking pointed out it would be nice if more of the faction specific start collecting sets  were closer to actual list requirements.  Not sure how true the new 40K Combat Patrol boxes are to the concept of having a ready to play force out of box but the concept gets me hopeful that it is a direction AoS can go towards.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

14 hours ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Considering that we are talking about start collection, I would actually like seeing start collections with the amount of models they ones had in the old warhammer fantasy battailon boxsets.

although I’m not sure if this will ever happen

It's hard not to be in favour of more minis for cheaper, but when I got my first Battalion Box back in the Fantasy days it kind of broke my spirit. There were just too many skeletons to handle (Tomb Kings). Having those 50 or so skeletons staring me down with their grey, plastic faces was just too much.

What I would like is a redo of Start Collecting boxes with the goal to make them somewhat playable and balanced against each other out of the box. I think putting the contents around 500 points or so and having them all contain something similar to a battleline unit, a hero and a centerpiece (with some room for variation) would be pretty nice.

I still find that there is no good off-the-shelf way to just try out AoS for a reasonable amount of money. I think the game could bring a lot more new players in if there was. It would be nice if two new players could just pick up Start Collecting boxes for their armies and have a game. Of course, ideally, the minis in those boxes would be staple units from which you can grow your armies, as well. The same goes for the next two player starter box.

[Orchid89]

I think 44"x30" for 1000 point and 44"x60" for 2000 point games (like what 40k has done) would be a cool new system for AoSv3.

Thats would be 1 Warcry board for Warcry.....2 Warcry boards for 1000 and 4 for 2000 points.

[stratigo]

On 2/17/2021 at 5:33 PM, Saxon said:

Wait the game is balanced? I'd love to see a nighthaunt list that can last 3 turns against Lumineth Realm Lords with the potato autocast spells and MW from shooting. 

I also dislike using tournament stats to define how balanced or broken an army is. Those are mostly cheese lists that are designed to be unfun and WAAC. 

As balanced as its ever been. Or, damning with faint praise because AoS is not and has never been actually a balanced game. There's always been an army stomping in the meta. Once upon a time it was even BCR, who don't even exist separate from other ogors now :D.

 

AoS has never had great balance. Indeed it can't until the double turn is ejected. There's a lot of things AoS could do after that for balance. Overarching shooting nerfs would NOT be one of them. And wouldn't make Seraphon, or tzeentch, or even LRL care at all. Seraphon are an army that does everything, the nerf cycle will have to go hard to reign them in. Skinks aren't even their worst offender, that's Kroak. But istused to be sallies. Nerf skinks, it'll probably be something else (indeed the stats I linked didn't have the skink teleport specialist faction at the top, it was I think more monster rumbly one). While LRL are literally just crit fishing. Sentinel rules largely override any suggested shooting nerf. Tzeentch is a magic army, any time you nerf their shooting phase shooters, they just lean harder on the magic. And, like, how BS horror splitting is.

 

The only boogeyman that would be dumpstered is KO. Who don't look like they need to be that much any more. Competitive KO have been pretty one dimensional, and have some easy hard counters (Like, you can't even with a shooting war against Khalibron, and this is what people essentially want all shooting to face all the time. Khalibron and the IDK anti shooting rules are giant mistakes of their own)

 

And when challenged people shout NPE! NPE! like there isn't literally a game that has shooting at all levels that is deadlier and more popular than AoS. The NPE is people with a grudge bitching about it. I mean, you ever play a game and there's the guy on the sidelines rolling his eyes every time you roll the dice that you just want to go away? This is the NPE. Make it unpleasant enough to talk about or think about shooting in a not entirely negative manner and drive out anyone who disagrees.

 

On 2/17/2021 at 3:22 PM, yukishiro1 said:

Did you read what I wrote? Win rate isn't a useful metric with so few games played. It's as likely to show the caliber of players (i.e. lots of bad players play LRL) than it is to show actual power. You need a much larger sample than what's on offer to make any conclusions based solely on win rate. Based on that win rate data, Beasts of Chaos is one of the strongest armies in the game, which presumably we all know is not the case.

Fyreslayers and Chaos Ascendent are clearly a rank down from the above factions based on that data - they don't have anywhere near the same records of actually topping events. They're at the top of the fat middle, with Maggotkin and STD being the wobblers between top-tier and middle. 

Three of the four top factions on that chart are ranged-focused armies, and the fourth is the only faction in the game that hard-counters ranged armies. That's not some big coincidence. 

Luckily there's an entire video where what these stats mean is explained.

The range focus of in every seraphon army is magical (and ignores IDK and every suggested shooting nerf to far. I mean, I never see anyone suggest a n overall magic nerf). Skinks are just one (and not the favored in this dataset) to build the rest of the army competitively. 

 

 

Reign in movement shenanigans (for everyone), and shooting will have less an impact for almost every annoying shooting army, and the two big outliers just need their own nerfs. You really don't need to ****** handgunners and kurnouths to get at sentinels and kroak. But people want to do it because they aren't sure what interactive means and have been psyching themselves up to hate shooting for all sorts of silly reasons. I mean, shooting didn't exactly emerge from the ether in the last year when the armies doing good had it, but man to hear people talk now you'd think there was an oppressive grip on the meta for all time. When shooting dominates, it's always for the same reason melee does. GW made some units too damn strong with too many special abilities. 

[Saxon]

1 minute ago, stratigo said:

As balanced as its ever been. Or, damning with faint praise because AoS is not and has never been actually a balanced game. There's always been an army stomping in the meta. Once upon a time it was even BCR, who don't even exist separate from other ogors now :D.

 

AoS has never had great balance. Indeed it can't until the double turn is ejected. There's a lot of things AoS could do after that for balance. Overarching shooting nerfs would NOT be one of them. And wouldn't make Seraphon, or tzeentch, or even LRL care at all. Seraphon are an army that does everything, the nerf cycle will have to go hard to reign them in. Skinks aren't even their worst offender, that's Kroak. But istused to be sallies. Nerf skinks, it'll probably be something else (indeed the stats I linked didn't have the skink teleport specialist faction at the top, it was I think more monster rumbly one). While LRL are literally just crit fishing. Sentinel rules largely override any suggested shooting nerf. Tzeentch is a magic army, any time you nerf their shooting phase shooters, they just lean harder on the magic. And, like, how BS horror splitting is.

 

The only boogeyman that would be dumpstered is KO. Who don't look like they need to be that much any more. Competitive KO have been pretty one dimensional, and have some easy hard counters (Like, you can't even with a shooting war against Khalibron, and this is what people essentially want all shooting to face all the time. Khalibron and the IDK anti shooting rules are giant mistakes of their own)

Having watched a Daughters of Khaine battle report at the gym today where a keeper of secrets was killed in the hero phase (15 mortal wounds!) I feel like balance is getting much much worse. 

I think you've nailed my pet hate with AOS. The meta changes so frequently. What broke me was by the time I'd painted my legions of nagash army, they were woefully underpowered once command point spam became a thing. Certainly impacted my future investment in the game. It is extremely disappointing that several armies are so very poor unless you build specific builds. 

[Brother Mayhem]

2 hours ago, Saxon said:

Having watched a Daughters of Khaine battle report at the gym today where a keeper of secrets was killed in the hero phase (15 mortal wounds!) I feel like balance is getting much much worse. 

I think you've nailed my pet hate with AOS. The meta changes so frequently. What broke me was by the time I'd painted my legions of nagash army, they were woefully underpowered once command point spam became a thing. Certainly impacted my future investment in the game. It is extremely disappointing that several armies are so very poor unless you build specific builds. 

I think you have to be careful regarding the meta - my local meta doesn't really have a lot of the boogeymen lists, so it makes it enjoyable, even with meta changes / points, it doesn't change that much. Even living near Element Games in the UK where I've been to a couple of tournaments, I've never felt that my list has never had a chance, and I played almost starter set Hammers of Sigmar. It's ALOT better than 40k (although I must admit I haven't played 9th yet!).  Yes, the balance does need to improve but I've never felt that it was literally unplayable. But again, probably depends on your local meta. 

[stratigo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JKtSI_AUwY

I just want to highlight this game as, well, the real problem with the game. Shooting did fairly little, but even in combat all the 'shooting' units of the seraphon dominated hard in combat.

 

The problem isn't shooting, it's buffapalooza. You can't beat skinks and sallies by being a combat army and getting to them, they can still outfight you if they get all those buffs up. It's insanity.  

[yukishiro1]

I don't think anybody is arguing that Seraphon are oppressive solely because of shooting. It's because they do magic better than anybody...and they shoot better than just about anybody...and then you get to melee, and they beat you up there too, because they're buffed into the stratosphere.

People who don't like how shooting works in AOS aren't saying it's only because of the current powerful factions. You're constructing a massive straw man there. And the argument that "other games have more shooting" is again simply ignoring what other people in this thread have said. The issue isn't the amount of shooting per se, it's the way that in AOS - unlike every single one of those games - there is very little you can do to limit shooting. Line of Sight is essentially irrelevant with the terrain the game is intended to be played with, Look out Sir does little to nothing, you can shoot into combat and units in combat can shoot (albeit here with the small caveat that they can only shoot what they're engaged with). And then they can double turn you and just delete more than half your army with nothing you can do. 

I don't think people would complain about AOS shooting if you had to obey the same restrictions as 40k, even if everything then shot like sallies. 

Edited February 23, 2021 by yukishiro1