What would you like for AoS 3

[Enoby]

3 hours ago, Causalis said:

Oh totally forgot:

Make dedicated close combat heroes USEFULL! I'm obviously biased since I play Blades of Khorne, but holy sh*t! With names like Exalted Deathbringer and being champions of the literal god of slaughter one would assume those guys to do damage in melee. But they hit like wet noodles! An example of some well-made CC characters would be the Darkoath Queen and the Chieftain. They are good against their intended targets (heroes and hordes) and have decent command abilities. 

So either up the damage of other dedicated CC characters or change their warscroll so that they fit a different role. But right now, playing Khorne heroes feels just sad...

Khorne's in a really weird place rules wise; I used to have a big army of them, but they just felt off to play. Like I was meant to be playing a huge tide of unstoppable warriors, but the army actually played more about buffs and synergy. Nothing wrong with that, but it didn't sit well with my that blood warriors and pretty much all mortal heroes were pretty bad at combat without their buffs.

[Neverchosen]

You know what left me feeling a little disappointed? When Fyreslayers went up to two wounds I remember people speculating that would be applied to Duardin across the board. I was really excited because the toughness mechanic was gone and missed dwarves being the most naturally hardy of the Warhammer races (at least the ones that would one day make up the forces of order).

Edited February 7, 2021 by Neverchosen

[MitGas]

1 hour ago, Enoby said:

Khorne's in a really weird place rules wise; I used to have a big army of them, but they just felt off to play. Like I was meant to be playing a huge tide of unstoppable warriors, but the army actually played more about buffs and synergy. Nothing wrong with that, but it didn't sit well with my that blood warriors and pretty much all mortal heroes were pretty bad at combat without their buffs.

Main problem with Chaos (especially Mortal Chaos) is that they've changed a small army of elite fighters into one with more models for monetary reasons. I think that also applies to SCE.

Hence the rules do not reflect the fluff properly anymore. And the Keyword-spam/synergy/buff requirements are too restrictive these days. If someone wnats to play a more mixed army, they're mostly out of luck. The new system basically forces players to min/max. Sorry, sounds like more of a rant than it is but I think it would be good to for AoS to counteract this trend a bit.

[dekay]

The thing I would want to see the most, honestly, is reducing the scale of the game. Just make every single unit more expensive, just like the 9th edition of 40k did. Or even more.

There's a limit how much you can reduce the cost of units before the game stops working, and I worry we're reaching this point, and given that tweaking costs is the balancing mechanism AoS seems to be going with, periodic increase of the costs is necessary. We're slowly running out of non-horde factions as it is, and a reset is in order.

And there's A LOT of space for the cost increase while the game remains reasonable size. Fun fact, Chaos Knights, that are now 160 per 5 used to cost 80 per 1 (and they were a single wound unit back then) in 5th edition WFB and no one claimed it was a skirmish game.

[overtninja]

I'd like a further emphasis on secondary objectives, because objective-based mission design promotes dynamic listbuilding that requires players to plan for various scenarios and needs in their lists. These sorts of things would also encourage people not to lean their list so hard in one focus whilst neglecting other aspects, which is part of what skews Tournament Balance so far to extremes.

I'd also like some more terrain considerations as well - I genuinely like having a terrain-dense board, and I'm glad warcry terrain is part of the advised terrain that can be randomly seeded on the table. Given how mobile most armies are these days, and how much ranged attacks impact the game, the table can really use more stuff that makes positioning important.

I also would love an expansion of the Anvil of Apotheosis rules to include custom units, because they are rad, though I fully understand why the rules were intended to be narrative-only. The more you let players make loadout choices and customize their models, the more moving parts you have in the balance considerations and the less likely for any sort of balance to occur. Still, I enjoy the rules set and it's fun to design new things and encourages people to hobby even harder than they'd otherwise do, even if it is narrative-only.

I'm not a fan of rules to make shooting not a thing in the way WHFB8e made shooting not a thing, or make magic not a thing, or basically change the game to heavily de-emphasize a certain phase or role, because the end result of that sort of design is that those units never see the table - in the same way that most shooting units that don't have at least a 3 to hit or wound on their attack profile don't see play currently. It is better to tone down the rules that accompany them - ranged power with mobility, ranged power ignoring line of sight, and ranged power with teleports or ambushes, which presents much of the problem currently.

As a corrolary to the above, do keep in mind that in tabletop wargaming, your cool dudes are going to die, a lot, and be removed from the table, and if this happens a lot it is as much a result of your decision-making as your opponent's, often inflated by whatever imbalances you percieve in the game. For example, if Karadron shooting is a problem for you where you play, you can generally mitigate a lot of it by designing a list to screen heavily. If Lumineth support sniping is a problem, you can bring lists with reduntant support to ensure it's there when you need to use it. Trying to get entire phases removed or nerfed into unfeasability is a non-starter, and really should be, because whiplashes of design are what sunk WHFB in the first place (along with the cynical pursuit of selling tons of models and rewarding huge collections, which alienated most newcomers entirely).

Anyway, I'd like more reasons to include well-rounded lists in matched play through secondary objectives and continued focus on objective-based play, additional terrain to make the battlefields more dynamic, visually interesting, and tactically satisfying, and I'd like more 'custom my-dudes' rules for narrative play, if only to give what many narrative players already do a bit of framework and legitimacy.

 

[overtninja]

39 minutes ago, MitGas said:

Main problem with Chaos (especially Mortal Chaos) is that they've changed a small army of elite fighters into one with more models for monetary reasons. I think that also applies to SCE.

Hence the rules do not reflect the fluff properly anymore. And the Keyword-spam/synergy/buff requirements are too restrictive these days. If someone wnats to play a more mixed army, they're mostly out of luck. The new system basically forces players to min/max. Sorry, sounds like more of a rant than it is but I think it would be good to for AoS to counteract this trend a bit.

I think in more recently released books you see a lot more micro-factions within factions, consisting of a unit or two with a hero that buffs them, and perhaps a battalion that further imrpoves them. This kind of arrangement encourages groups within your army that synergize well, which is pretty satisfying in play and also avoids the lynchpin hero problem, where your entire strategy relies on a few key buffs and your army ceases to work in it's entirety if those models bite it.

[MitGas]

5 hours ago, overtninja said:

I think in more recently released books you see a lot more micro-factions within factions, consisting of a unit or two with a hero that buffs them, and perhaps a battalion that further imrpoves them. This kind of arrangement encourages groups within your army that synergize well, which is pretty satisfying in play and also avoids the lynchpin hero problem, where your entire strategy relies on a few key buffs and your army ceases to work in it's entirety if those models bite it.

Didn't know that but I like the sound of that...A LOT! Would be a great solution to the problem. I just think that every battletome should be designed in such a way that you can mix and match different subgroups (e.g. arcanites, daemons and mortals) without crippling your army from the start.

[treeclimber]

I haven't been able to play a lot of games lately, so maybe that is why I don't entirely understand why so many people feel like shooting in general is a problem. Keep in mind, I play Skaven and in my local group, my army is the shooty one. Sure, you can shoot at targets without retaliation, but at the expense of only shooting once per round, and in the case of Skaven, to get the most of your shooting you have to take risks. Just this last game I had my Doomwheel and two bombadiers blow themselves up in one round of shooting...

In my experience the problem is not shooting in general, but specific opressive units. My brother plays Death, and man I HATE Mortek Crawlers. It's like they are designed to kill clanrats  . But in this case I feel like the problem is mostly the long range. 36" is an absurd range in AoS.... and you know, I could just not bring as many clanrats.

So rather than nerfing shooting overall, I would rather GW tweaked specific units/ unit combinations which feels a bit opressive. In paticular those with very long range attacks, since those are the hardest to do something about.

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, treeclimber said:

I haven't been able to play a lot of games lately, so maybe that is why I don't entirely understand why so many people feel like shooting in general is a problem. Keep in mind, I play Skaven and in my local group, my army is the shooty one. Sure, you can shoot at targets without retaliation, but at the expense of only shooting once per round, and in the case of Skaven, to get the most of your shooting you have to take risks. Just this last game I had my Doomwheel and two bombadiers blow themselves up in one round of shooting...

In my experience the problem is not shooting in general, but specific opressive units. My brother plays Death, and man I HATE Mortek Crawlers. It's like they are designed to kill clanrats  . But in this case I feel like the problem is mostly the long range. 36" is an absurd range in AoS.... and you know, I could just not bring as many clanrats.

So rather than nerfing shooting overall, I would rather GW tweaked specific units/ unit combinations which feels a bit opressive. In paticular those with very long range attacks, since those are the hardest to do something about.

Yeah, the shooting in total kinda went nuts.

certainly the skaven aren’t risk free of using their so called power (which I love a lot) but most armies that have some kind of shooting kinda got the same output, or a much better one without any risk.

Oh the range also seems to be doubling in every new battletome that comes out.

So here I am guessing that the slaanesh shortbows will be having a range of 56inches movement excluded 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[HorticulusTGA]

Late to the party. What I want to see in the 3rd Core Book is : 

- A MAP OF AZYR ( @KingBrodd knows )... I.e. a true conclusion of the worldbuilding started in AOS 1 with Seasons Of War (Seeds of Hope, Firestorm), the KO Battletome and Malign Portents, said worldbuilding almost achieved in AOS 2 with the Core Book, Soulbound, the maps in LRL and SOB Battletomes and Warcry and Broken Realms : Morathi. 

- Devoted Of Sigmar or properly AOSified / Azyritified Humans for CoS or as SCE Auxiliaries. Endless spells for Orruk Warclans.

In terms of rules ?

Not much. FAQ with points for everybody. Maybe a bit of inspiration from 40k 9th in terms of rules presentation (structure of missions ; glossary of rules terms). 

[Gistradagis]

1 hour ago, treeclimber said:

I haven't been able to play a lot of games lately, so maybe that is why I don't entirely understand why so many people feel like shooting in general is a problem. Keep in mind, I play Skaven and in my local group, my army is the shooty one. Sure, you can shoot at targets without retaliation, but at the expense of only shooting once per round, and in the case of Skaven, to get the most of your shooting you have to take risks. Just this last game I had my Doomwheel and two bombadiers blow themselves up in one round of shooting...

In my experience the problem is not shooting in general, but specific opressive units. My brother plays Death, and man I HATE Mortek Crawlers. It's like they are designed to kill clanrats  . But in this case I feel like the problem is mostly the long range. 36" is an absurd range in AoS.... and you know, I could just not bring as many clanrats.

So rather than nerfing shooting overall, I would rather GW tweaked specific units/ unit combinations which feels a bit opressive. In paticular those with very long range attacks, since those are the hardest to do something about.

Unfortunately, nerfing some units wouldn't help. This problem was always there, but it wasn't so easy to see because we didn't have stuff like KO, Seraphon or LRL to show us how problematic it can be. What is the problem? Well, mostly the free value of shooting and almost non-existing barrier to hero-sniping. You can nerf some key units here and there, but that will have minimal impact when these armies still exist, and heroes have no real protection.

[whispersofblood]

1 hour ago, Gistradagis said:

Unfortunately, nerfing some units wouldn't help. This problem was always there, but it wasn't so easy to see because we didn't have stuff like KO, Seraphon or LRL to show us how problematic it can be. What is the problem? Well, mostly the free value of shooting and almost non-existing barrier to hero-sniping. You can nerf some key units here and there, but that will have minimal impact when these armies still exist, and heroes have no real protection.

Let's deal with an underlying assumption here.

How is the ability for armies to kill heroes at range making the game worse?

Why is the solution to that problem making shooting non-viable?

Why are the problems an absence of viable range damage cause, less problematic than small heroes being killed?

[Gistradagis]

1 minute ago, whispersofblood said:

Let's deal with an underlying assumption here.

How is the ability for armies to kill heroes at range making the game worse?

Why is the solution to that problem making shooting non-viable?

Why are the problems an absence of viable range damage cause, less problematic than small heroes being killed?

1. Because it creates an oppressive playstyle consisting of denying the opponent the option to play with no real way (this is key) of countering or defending against it. There's a big difference between a shooting playstyle being viable and being overwhelming with little to no risk.

2. It's not. That's a ridiculous idea.

3. It's not small heroes, but any hero. Small heroes are simply used as an example because they actually have a protection in theory (Look Out Sir), which has become practically meaningless in the face of armies who either just fish for easy MWs or pump so many shots a -1 to hit does nothing. It's an outdated rule that does not cover the current state of the meta, where shooting offers a lot of value at little risk.

Shooting needs to be nerfed, not made unviable or garbage. It's not a coincidence that most of the current top armies pump out so much shooting, because the present core rules allow for this playstyle to get a lot of free value while offering little to no defence or counterplay to other armies. 40k, having a ton of both shooting and fighting, has made efforts in 9th to make sure that neither is too overwhelming, through scenery and rules. AoS does not have that currently, and it's mainly because we're using core rules that haven't kept up with the release of armies and changing meta.

[Melbar]

Hi all, long time not here, but the pandemic give me more time for fun stuff.

Shooting as such is not the problem; it’s the core rules that cause the issue. In games like the Lord of the Rings and Chronopia/Warzone or even 40k you can pick out Heros, but the main difference in those games is the rules and turn structure.

Lord of the Rings: Armies move, then both armies shoot and then both armies fight. Key in this game is the positioning. The cover rules for LotR are really good, as the shooting Unit has to consider intervening models/Units and Terrain. Hits are still likely, but much harder (okay, counts for all Models, not just heores).

In Chronopia and Warzone you cannot target the Hero (character model) if it’s in 4 Inch of a unit, as the hero counts for shooting as part of the Unit and you have to shoot at the nearest target (there are quite a lot more rules to shooting, but this is the simple version).

In 40k it’s that Heros cannot be targeted if they are within three inch of a unit and not the closest target to the shooter and unless the hero has just up to 9 HP and is not a Monster.

As much as I like LotR and Chronopia/Warzone I think that the 40k solution is better suited to AoS. It does not reduce the effectiveness of shooting too much, as the positioning of both heroes and ranged units become more important.

In my humble opinion AoS is a light hearted game with simple rules

Just a tweak here and there, like 40k Look out, Sir! and updated terrain rules.

The “double turn” is part of the game, but for the sake of the game makes it “optional”. People both like and hate it, and as an optional rule anyone will be happy.

For wishes: Just give AoS the turn structure of LotR. That would be great and it works quite okay in our small group.

[whispersofblood]

Just now, Gistradagis said:

1. Because it creates an oppressive playstyle consisting of denying the opponent the option to play with no real way (this is key) of countering or defending against it. There's a big difference between a shooting playstyle being viable and being overwhelming with little to no risk.

2. It's not. That's a ridiculous idea.

3. It's not small heroes, but any hero. Small heroes are simply used as an example because they actually have a protection in theory (Look Out Sir), which has become practically meaningless in the face of armies who either just fish for easy MWs or pump so many shots a -1 to hit does nothing. It's an outdated rule that does not cover the current state of the meta, where shooting offers a lot of value at little risk.

Shooting needs to be nerfed, not made unviable or garbage. It's not a coincidence that most of the current top armies pump out so much shooting, because the present core rules allow for this playstyle to get a lot of free value while offering little to no defence or counterplay to other armies. 40k, having a ton of both shooting and fighting, has made efforts in 9th to make sure that neither is too overwhelming, through scenery and rules. AoS does not have that currently, and it's mainly because we're using core rules that haven't kept up with the release of armies and changing meta.

1. The best armies actually do include small heroes. DoT, Seraphon, in particular. I would argue that the problem is that most small heroes don't provide very much value. Before they were being killed their low value wasn't a problem because they would at least survive. 

However now that they are vulnerable AND low value they are not very return. DoT are -2 to hit on the small stuff, and Seraphon are cheap with powerful abilities. 

2. Short of a few specific examples ranged damage remains quite low. Without Lambent light 80 Sentinels do about 25 unsaved dmg. Now it's all mortal wounds but that is still only 25 dmg for 1200 points, and 4 casts. (Sentinels could maybe go up 10 points to discourage max spam.) 

The question I have is this. There are very few examples where it isn't a better strategy to target units rather then kill these heroes. We are talking Warchanters, Skink heroes, fatemaster level heroes. Anything beneath that you are better killing units because shooting units don't take objectives. 

It's also ironic that we've spent 2+ years with "sHoOot ThE HeRoes" as a meme and as soon as we have factions that can actually do it. It's a problem.

I core rule that should change is the ability for shooting units to split attacks. Generally actually I don't think models should be able to split up individual attack profiles.

3. I'm not seeing it. Medium heroes have been terrible since launch, mainly because they all seem to hangout in the no utility, no dmg camp. The good stuff gets taken without complaint. I believe that the "anti-shooting" camp actually is an extension of the "most heroes have no use" camp and they are misidentifying the issue. 

KO and Seraphon shooting are a red herring. They actually are both skew mobility factions, in a game with severe mobility issues. I believe making the board smaller will go some way to resolving this problem. But I can't be certain. 

Further there is counter play to the vast majority of shooting, its strategic and tactical. Just because there isn't a die roll you get to do doesn't mean there isn't counter play.

40k is at a strategic level a much different game. Predominantly because a) short and midrange shooting do more dmg on average than long range shooting. And b) chargers fight first, and can only target units they have charged. Meaning that shooting units want to advance or more accurately take good positions early and fighting units are unlikely to take much dmg before they dmg their target but can be destroyed via clever movement and placement. Also many effects that are command abilities in AoS are just free persistent effects.  But still in that paradigm there remains a large segment of data slates which don't fit in.

[Causalis]

Let's just look at the tournament data: KO and DoT are THE top-tier armies for a while now. KO are extremely mobile and can just gun down your units. And DoT are so potent in magic that you can't defend against it, since most other armies have maybe 1 or 2 denials. Also Pink Horrors will just sit on those objectives and you won't get them off.

Again: I think the problem here is the extremely potent double turn. A KO army against a Khorne army will have a huge advantage since they can deal damage will ALL of their units on the double turn, without fear of retaliation. If the Khorne player has the DT he can activate ONE unit before taking the return hits. 

Right now the core rules simply heavily favour mobile and ranged armies, since shooting isn't subject to the "I go, you go" activation as close combat is. 

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

Further there is counter play to the vast majority of shooting, its strategic and tactical. Just because there isn't a die roll you get to do doesn't mean there isn't counter play.

There is screening and using LOS blocking terrain. But other than that there isn't really much counter play. 

[TheCovenLord]

On 2/7/2021 at 9:55 AM, dekay said:

There's a limit how much you can reduce the cost of units before the game stops working

Absolutely this. How much do Cygors/Ghorgons/Hydra/Kharibdyss need to be reduced before they're just such a bargain for the wounds chaff? This mostly needs GW to be unafraid of warscroll re-writes and not much to do with a new ED. though.

 

I have some hope though with the broken realms revealing pretty significant warscroll updates. However, the winter FAQ immediately reminded me it was GW at the helm.

[Keilerei]

Getting rid of Auto-xx.

eg. Teleports, casts/unbind, destiny die. This is a Dice game, Skaven and Gitz do This in a cool risk and reward way, everything That happens automatically without giving at least a chance of interaction or is without consequences is just unfun to Play against.

[mojojojo101]

7 hours ago, TheCovenLord said:

Absolutely this. How much do Cygors/Ghorgons/Hydra/Kharibdyss need to be reduced before they're just such a bargain for the wounds chaff? This mostly needs GW to be unafraid of warscroll re-writes and not much to do with a new ED. though.

 

I have some hope though with the broken realms revealing pretty significant warscroll updates. However, the winter FAQ immediately reminded me it was GW at the helm.

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.

[Eternalis]

26 minutes ago, mojojojo101 said:

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.

But if you make some BT "useless", they won't sell as well.
GW books are expensive (37.50€ for a 40k codex...) and they bring a lot of money to the company. IMO they're overpriced as hell, I may buy some Pen & Paper RPG books for the same price with twice as much content, a much better lore and better written rules...

Maybe If they want us to pay for the app, they should slightly increase the price and give us access to every BT without buying books.
 

Edited February 8, 2021 by Eternalis

[mojojojo101]

 

12 minutes ago, Eternalis said:

But if you make some BT "useless", they won't sell as well.
GW books are expensive (37.50€ for a 40k codex...) and they bring a lot of money to the company. IMO they're overpriced as hell, I may buy some Pen & Paper RPG books for the same price with twice as much content, a much better lore and better written rules...

Maybe If they want us to pay for the app, they should slightly increase the price and give us access to every BT without buying books.
 

I dont think it makes books any more useless than they are now? In all seriousness who is buying BTs to get the warscrolls, up to date or otherwise?

The 'value' in BTs comes from, firstly allegiance abilities, then all the other stuff they do like story, hobby stuff or just as a collectors item, being more aggressive with waracroll changes doesnt really change that.

[Eternalis]

7 minutes ago, mojojojo101 said:

The 'value' in BTs comes from, firstly allegiance abilities,

So from a player point of view, we are actually paying 32.5 euros for this. OK!
I'm sorry but I don't think that having 5 pages of pictures and the same lore about the same units again and again are actually worth that price tag. And for the hobby content, there are more usefull stuff for free on youtube.

And by changing warscrolls, the shiny warscroll cards would be useless too, but I guess that no one buys them to get warscrolls or w/e.

Edited February 8, 2021 by Eternalis

[yukishiro1]

So I came up with an actual list of specific changes I'd like:

1. Have to take a bravery test (on 2d6) to shoot at a target other than the closest, except for artillery. Shooting shouldn't be a reliable way to snipe out whatever you want, it should be unpredictable and risky, and not something you can build your entire strategy around. Units that are specifically supposed to be snipers (e.x. Jezzails, that stormcast hero, etc) could have an exemption from these rules as part of their special rules (and pay points for it, obviously). This might need some tweaking on the specifics (e.x. maybe let targets be chosen freely within 9" no matter what), but the basic idea is to make shooting both less reliable and more subject to positioning-based counterplay.

2. Meanwhile, for artillery, you should be able to choose targets freely, except that you shouldn't be able to target characters with their attacks at all if the Look out Sir rule would otherwise apply. No-scoping that one character out of a horde of 30 models with a cannon is a joke that shouldn't be in the game at all.

3. Tone down the effects of magical dominance - it is fine if the great spellcasters are very good at casting, but they shouldn't be able to totally shut down lesser ones, to the point where taking them is meaningless and nobody does it. My personal recommendation is to cap the + you can get on a unbind roll to the amount of + that was on the cast - i.e. if you try to unbind something cast at no bonus, your dispel doesn't have a bonus either, even if you'd otherwise have +2 to dispel. In other words, unbinding should never be reliable, except for one-use abilities.

4. Trend away from teleports, especially away from teleports that just go off automatically. Like shooting, teleports should be unreliable, risky things that you can't simply bank on. There should always be a chance with a teleport that something goes wrong, whether that's failing to go off, taking mortal wounds on the unit, or even letting your opponent scatter them d3" in the direction they want after they come down.

5. No double turn until T3. This keeps the unpredictability of the mechanic in the game, but makes sure both players have the chance to take two turns before it can kick in, thus significantly limiting the amount of games that effectively end at the start of T2 when one player gets a double turn and just clears the opponent off the board.

Edited February 9, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Doko]

9 hours ago, TheCovenLord said:

Absolutely this. How much do Cygors/Ghorgons/Hydra/Kharibdyss need to be reduced before they're just such a bargain for the wounds chaff? This mostly needs GW to be unafraid of warscroll re-writes and not much to do with a new ED. though.

 

I have some hope though with the broken realms revealing pretty significant warscroll updates. However, the winter FAQ immediately reminded me it was GW at the helm.

I dont know others behemot.

But war hydra have low movement,and only does around 6\7 damage.

To me even at 100 points would be a hard choice when for that cost others units have the same damage and havent degrading stats. But 170 seems a big joke

[yukishiro1]

Monsters are really tough to do right in a game with no strength and toughness stats, it takes away the most obvious niche for them to occupy.