AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[yukishiro1]

Well, I mean, it's only a natural and unavoidable result of the model GW uses, where it releases the new rules that overpower or gimp certain factions, without releasing rules updates to address what they've done at the same time, instead preferring to make some factions wait literally years to be brought into the new edition...on a model where editions last only 3 years. Meaning some factions will spend less time with the "intended" version of their rules than the "unintended" version. 

[yukishiro1]

1 hour ago, Reinholt said:

As in, if I could take Ogor Gluttons on 25mm bases I would pay more points for them than the same Glutton on a 40mm base and I think GW genuinely doesn't understand this.

I think it is super clear that GW either doesn't appreciate the consequences or doesn't really care about the impact of base size. They still to this day don't have an actual basing chart in 40k, instead just telling people to use whatever base the model came with...even though base changes over time mean you end up with some units with no less than three or more possible base sizes, all of which have quite significant and different impacts on the unit's strength. And now they've gone and released AOS 3.0, where base size has the greatest impact of any rules set they've ever released, without making any sort of statement about it to show they're even aware of the issue, and with points that don't seem to take the degree to which base size matters even more than it did before into account. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Kadeton]

5 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Well, I mean, it's only a natural and unavoidable result of the model GW uses, where it releases the new rules that overpower or gimp certain factions, without releasing rules updates to address what they've done at the same time, instead preferring to make some factions wait literally years to be brought into the new edition...on a model where editions last only 3 years. Meaning some factions will spend less time with the "intended" version of their rules than the "unintended" version. 

GW could release simultaneous updates to all the battletomes as well as the core rules, but again - that would be addressing individual battletomes, which is where game balance happens. It doesn't happen in the core rules, which only provide the framework within which the armies exist, balanced or not.

[yukishiro1]

I don't think anyone is disagreeing with you, just pointing out that there's no reason except GW's release model that people should have to live with having their factions made terrible (or overpowered) by a new edition's rules for what is literally years in many cases. It's a problem GW creates itself because they want to make more money by staggering release - and there's nothing illegal about that, to be clear. But the resulting imbalance is on them, it's a choice they make by the way they release stuff. It's not some unavoidable rule of the universe. 

[CaptainSoup]

37 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

There's a strong disconnect here. Your view is based on the idea that GW undertook an edition change specifically to improve game balance, and therefore screwed it up. I think that's entirely misguided.

The core rules don't control balance, they're about establishing the fundamentals of gameplay. The purpose of an edition change isn't to shift the balance of the meta, it's to make improvements to the basic infrastructure of the game.* That will obviously have a strong effect on balance, but not necessarily a leveling out.

Balance is then addressed in the individual army rules, as they interact with the core rules. To update the game's balance, GW will need to release new battletomes, or otherwise update them through FAQs or campaign books. There will always be a period of adjustment during an edition change, where some armies (including some strong ones) get stronger and some (including some weak ones) get weaker. That's not a failure of intent in the new edition, just a natural and unavoidable consequence of any change to the rules.

* Whether or not GW failed at their goal of improving the basic mechanics is definitely still open for debate.

I like to think of everything is playing its part to help construct as much of a balanced game as possible. The introduction of herohammer mechanics, monster "sub-phase" abilities, and shooting pure horde armies in the foot were all part of a larger goal to bring some sort "balance" to the new edition. Older GHBs also played a role in this during previous editions. Heck, its why GHB exists in the first place (though the latest upcoming GHB is more more a competitive companion booklet now).

Battletomes give us a glimpse into what GW is planning for the future of their games. They learn and adapt from their games and implement improvements into others, and the cycle repeats. FAQs are balance changes in its purest form. Everything plays its part in the overall balance of the game.

As far as my previous comment goes, with the first (admittedly knee ******) reactions of test games coming in from the community haven't been the most glowing receptions, at least as far as the coherency rules are concerned. Stack that with the seemingly blatant disregard for seemingly disregarded pure horde factions *hacks up haunting night ectoplasm* with new and adjusted rules that not all armies can use, and I begin to wonder if GW might have slipped up somewhere, and not just shrug it off with the "your faction sucks, oh well!" excuse.

It's early days still and I'll admit I'm a glass is empty and shattered kind of person. Things can could get better soon. Everyone is hoping for day one FAQs for their factions, while others hope their old and decaying battletomes of editions past will get an update sooner rather than later. Until that happens though, for some of us, the struggle to get a good game in will be real indeed.

[stratigo]

just gotta get used to giant pigs tokyo drifting into your lines. Way of the future.

[Andalf]

I don’t know, I’ve played about a dozen games with my Stormcast vs Soulblight and Lumineth with my fiancée to learn the ropes and I think every unit has its place like never before.  Anybody taking a dump all over cursed city/black knights/every point change, while circle jerking with Vhordrai or FotM endless spells are just looking to repeat the same cycle they’ve made themselves victims of for too long.  Have fun, eat chips, drink beers, smoke doobs, relax and actually play the game with the ****** units and find out what they do before you start heckling, Blood Knights are due to be 220+ points the way everybody is using them, and they aren’t THAT good?!

In old WHFB days units typically had a front of 5-7 models and fought in 2-3 ranks.  This game on the table looks just like it, you lose the swings of 4 models in a ten man squad on 32’s with good positioning but their saves/wounds makes up for it, while the smaller base units end up being just as easy to kill as most goblins.  You might be able to swing with 20 skeleton attacks twice, but that bounces of boosted 3+/4+ saves or units with any kind of inbuilt defence on their scroll.  The new layers of abilities give EVERYONE the SAME options to spike average probabilities with the Heroic Actions, Endless Spells and Enhancements, so everybody’s metric for measuring “average results from one unit activation vs 4+ saves” is COMPLETELY redundant.  I had a great time rolling out my 3 lord arcanum all foot sacrosanct army against Neferata Blood Knight Spam and slaughtered them quite unexpectedly.  Today Radukar the Wolf with Levitate and a horde of Zombies held the centre of the table against the same list, drawing in everything to lame combats with 6” pile ins while the Vargskyr Under the Killing Moon and everything getting +1A seemed like a fluke, but was actually planned and went to perfection.

Play the game pleeeease... your rhetoric is ruining it.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[Kadeton]

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

The resulting imbalance is on them, it's a choice they make by the way they release stuff. It's not some unavoidable rule of the universe. 

Nor have I stated as such. I've only said that core rule changes and balance changes happen separately, despite interacting with each other. The fundamental reason for changing the core rules is not to tweak game balance.

3 hours ago, CaptainSoup said:

I like to think of everything is playing its part to help construct as much of a balanced game as possible. The introduction of herohammer mechanics, monster "sub-phase" abilities, and shooting pure horde armies in the foot were all part of a larger goal to bring some sort "balance" to the new edition.

No, I don't think so. There's nothing inherently unbalanced about strong horde mechanics, or weak hero mechanics, or vice-versa. These changes are about altering focus, not balance. They've decided that heroes and monsters are more exciting and provide a more engaging experience, so the new rules are designed to emphasise the role of those unit types over others by giving them more ways to interact with various aspects of the game - more "screen time", to draw an analogy. How strong any particular hero or monster or horde unit becomes under the new ruleset is still entirely down to its unit warscroll and its matched play points cost, and can be changed accordingly.

Quote

I begin to wonder if GW might have slipped up somewhere, and not just shrug it off with the "your faction sucks, oh well!" excuse.

It's early days still and I'll admit I'm a glass is empty and shattered kind of person. Things can could get better soon. Everyone is hoping for day one FAQs for their factions, while others hope their old and decaying battletomes of editions past will get an update sooner rather than later. Until that happens though, for some of us, the struggle to get a good game in will be real indeed.

I hope beleaguered factions get balance improvements as soon as possible, and I'm not trying to suggest they shouldn't or to brush off concerns of people who feel their favourite faction is struggling. But we really don't know anything about the new state of balance in the game right now, because the only balance changes we've seen are points and we have no idea what else (if anything) is coming. And the core rules give no indication of what the future state of game balance will be, because that's not how they work.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Kadeton

[whispersofblood]

6 hours ago, Reinholt said:

In a very meta sense, this whole divergence that took multiple posts is actually an excellent demonstration of my feelings on the new coherency rules, as the amount of time we got sidetracked here is pretty much the same as sorting out that 9 Ogor Glutton charge. Where, I would add, after 10 minutes of tinkering, it was concluded that yes, about half the unit had no possible way to fight no matter how it was done and the Ogor 40mm base with a 1" reach for a foot unit does produce some super weird outcomes, especially in a case where I had deliberately compacted my unit down to a 5x2 on 25mm base footprint to minimize the frontage that he had to deploy against.

The issue is ultimately not the funky formations (that's silly and dumb but really that's GW's fault for just not adopting cloud coherency), but rather that one, it's way slower because you have to do a lot more work to sort out moves, and two, base size is an actual determinative factor of power and is something that should have a points cost attached to it. As in, if I could take Ogor Gluttons on 25mm bases I would pay more points for them than the same Glutton on a 40mm base and I think GW genuinely doesn't understand this.

It's also possible that the designers are communicating to you that they don't want people taking units of 9 gluttons. It is difficult to interpret why they don't want that, but it's quite clear by your demonstrated lack of success that it's not a choice the game rewards. And, maybe you should try something else?

[Kadeton]

8 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

It's also possible that the designers are communicating to you that they don't want people taking units of 9 gluttons. It is difficult to interpret why they don't want that, but it's quite clear by your demonstrated lack of success that it's not a choice the game rewards. And, maybe you should try something else?

In fairness, they did force Gluttons into units of minimum size 6, so there are definitely some mixed messages from the designers on that front.

[Boingrot Bouncer]

2 hours ago, Kadeton said:

In fairness, they did force Gluttons into units of minimum size 6, so there are definitely some mixed messages from the designers on that front.

It's like the Holy Hand Grenade (not 2, not 4 but 3). So 3 is not OK, nor 9. Only 6 shall be used as is told in the holy scriptures. 

[Legatus Seneca]

Returning to AoS after a loong time (WHFB actually). The the new rules seemed a good point to jump on. Came here to learn about the rules. So, here is my summary as the newbie of what I seem to get into (with an eye wink)

- Coherency Rules = wonky (+ imperial system beats decimal system 🙃) 

- Double Turn = still there, either loved or hated

- New Rules = serious fun; many ways to "peak" unit performance where and when needed

- New Points = everyone seems to hate something; which is the hallmark of a good compromise to me 😏

means I can buckle up and enjoy the ride. Now to paint my Sylvaneth (OMG, did I buy a "loser" faction? 🖖) and to decide which part of the Dominion Box (which is still available despite the calls of doom) to keep and which to gift to a friend.

[stus67]

8 hours ago, Andalf said:

I don’t know, I’ve played about a dozen games with my Stormcast vs Soulblight and Lumineth with my fiancée to learn the ropes and I think every unit has its place like never before.  Anybody taking a dump all over cursed city/black knights/every point change, while circle jerking with Vhordrai or FotM endless spells are just looking to repeat the same cycle they’ve made themselves victims of for too long.  Have fun, eat chips, drink beers, smoke doobs, relax and actually play the game with the ****** units and find out what they do before you start heckling, Blood Knights are due to be 220+ points the way everybody is using them, and they aren’t THAT good?!

In old WHFB days units typically had a front of 5-7 models and fought in 2-3 ranks.  This game on the table looks just like it, you lose the swings of 4 models in a ten man squad on 32’s with good positioning but their saves/wounds makes up for it, while the smaller base units end up being just as easy to kill as most goblins.  You might be able to swing with 20 skeleton attacks twice, but that bounces of boosted 3+/4+ saves or units with any kind of inbuilt defence on their scroll.  The new layers of abilities give EVERYONE the SAME options to spike average probabilities with the Heroic Actions, Endless Spells and Enhancements, so everybody’s metric for measuring “average results from one unit activation vs 4+ saves” is COMPLETELY redundant.  I had a great time rolling out my 3 lord arcanum all foot sacrosanct army against Neferata Blood Knight Spam and slaughtered them quite unexpectedly.  Today Radukar the Wolf with Levitate and a horde of Zombies held the centre of the table against the same list, drawing in everything to lame combats with 6” pile ins while the Vargskyr Under the Killing Moon and everything getting +1A seemed like a fluke, but was actually planned and went to perfection.

Play the game pleeeease... your rhetoric is ruining it.

This 100%. I've played six games now with the core rules pdf and GHB leaks with both Soulblight and Stormcast against Ogors, Behemat, and Slaves, and honestly I'm having way more fun with 3.0 than I thought I'd be once I actually played it. It feels like an actual fleshed out game compared to 2.0's paper thin coating over 1.0's nearly non-existent framework. There's still some wonky wording and interactions with certain factions, but the ruleset literally isn't even out yet and there's going to be a plethora of FAQs I'm sure. I don't know how thick the 40k players are here, but ya'll wouldn't have survived the jump from 7th to 8th.

[CaptainSoup]

8 hours ago, Kadeton said:

No, I don't think so. There's nothing inherently unbalanced about strong horde mechanics, or weak hero mechanics, or vice-versa. These changes are about altering focus, not balance. They've decided that heroes and monsters are more exciting and provide a more engaging experience, so the new rules are designed to emphasise the role of those unit types over others by giving them more ways to interact with various aspects of the game - more "screen time", to draw an analogy. How strong any particular hero or monster or horde unit becomes under the new ruleset is still entirely down to its unit warscroll and its matched play points cost, and can be changed accordingly.

But why did they decide now, coincidentally when everyone was complaining last edition that heroes and monsters were struggling, to give them a boost? Why alter focus now? It's my belief that the GW of today is not what they were 5-6 years ago. Tom Kirby is gone and so is his focus on just selling models. I think that GW realizes that if they want to sell their products, not just models, that they need to build a strong game and community around those products, and the results speak for themselves. So they listen to their community and make adjusts, improvements, and overall balance to their game and apply those changes to not only their battletomes and warscrolls, but their rules as well. I think this just a fundamental disagreement on how we think GW operates their games and that's okay, agree to disagree. It's all good. 

8 hours ago, Kadeton said:

I hope beleaguered factions get balance improvements as soon as possible, and I'm not trying to suggest they shouldn't or to brush off concerns of people who feel their favourite faction is struggling. But we really don't know anything about the new state of balance in the game right now, because the only balance changes we've seen are points and we have no idea what else (if anything) is coming. And the core rules give no indication of what the future state of game balance will be, because that's not how they work.

 

9 hours ago, Andalf said:

I don’t know, I’ve played about a dozen games with my Stormcast vs Soulblight and Lumineth with my fiancée to learn the ropes and I think every unit has its place like never before.  Anybody taking a dump all over cursed city/black knights/every point change, while circle jerking with Vhordrai or FotM endless spells are just looking to repeat the same cycle they’ve made themselves victims of for too long.  Have fun, eat chips, drink beers, smoke doobs, relax and actually play the game with the ****** units and find out what they do before you start heckling, Blood Knights are due to be 220+ points the way everybody is using them, and they aren’t THAT good?!

 

1 hour ago, stus67 said:

This 100%. I've played six games now with the core rules pdf and GHB leaks with both Soulblight and Stormcast against Ogors, Behemat, and Slaves, and honestly I'm having way more fun with 3.0 than I thought I'd be once I actually played it. It feels like an actual fleshed out game compared to 2.0's paper thin coating over 1.0's nearly non-existent framework. There's still some wonky wording and interactions with certain factions, but the ruleset literally isn't even out yet and there's going to be a plethora of FAQs I'm sure. I don't know how thick the 40k players are here, but ya'll wouldn't have survived the jump from 7th to 8th.

I'm happy that other, more recently updated factions are getting their time to shine so far, and like everyone's been saying its early days so its hard to say how the game will balance out once more games come rolling in. Maybe it is just doomsaying from those of us with only one faction that just happens to get little to no attention from GW. I've yet to see any of those said factions weigh in yet.

However, when you're someone whose faction has been struggling since release hoping that the edition will give them some help so you can finally play the game on a more even playing field, only to get egg thrown in your face again with everyone else saying "Yeah your faction sucks, just deal with it and stop complaining," it doesn't feel great.

But again ill reiterate it's early days and FAQs and a new battletome (whenever that will be) will finally fix things. Maybe this time GW will get things right. Until that happens though, from what we've seen so far, it ain't looking good, chief. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by CaptainSoup

[SentinelGuy]

On 6/21/2021 at 8:00 AM, Sleboda said:

That's a shame, really. I'm not saying the game won't be fun played this way, but I remember the days of Herohammer, where the army itself really didn't matter in many cases, only the general, a few monsters, and a cannon.

This feels like a move back toward "armies" where there isn't an army, just a collection of individuals with great power. Sons of Behemat for all in other words. 

I suppose this really just puts "this is not a wargame anymore!!!" in neon on the billboard. And that's ok. There are other games where armies fight armies, it just may be that AoS has decided to give up the pretense and embrace the ease of access of only needing 20 models to play.

Makes me wonder what place Warcry will have going forward, though. There's really no need for GW to maintain two low model count skirmish games.

Ah well. I'll have fun regardless!

If this is herohammer like 5th edition, then hopefully that means the next edition is like perfect 6th

[Enoby]

For those interested in a 3e battle report, I had a game VS Beasts of Chaos using Slaanesh yesterday

---

 

Just finished first game with HoS using our new points. Initially it was meant to be against Tzeentch, but unfortunately the player forgot their models so ended up proxying and playing Beasts of Chaos.

I think, if this is anything to go by, we are not the worst army in AoS 3 

Headonites of Slaanesh list: 

 

Lurid Haze (Invaders)

Heroes:

Lord of Pain (general), Lurid Haze trait and artifact (155 pts)

Syll'esske (general), Born of Damnation (210 pts)

Dexcessa (280 pts)

Sigvald (general) (265 points) 

Shardspeaker, Rod of Misrule, Ghost Mist (150 pts) 

Battleline

10 Twinsouls (370 pts)

5 Painbringers (160 pts)

5 Painbringers (160 pts)

5 Painbringers (160 pts)

Mesmirising Mirror (80)

Warlord Battalion (Dexcessa, Lord of Pain, Syll'Essque, Shardspeaker, all Painbringers)

Vanguard Battalion (Sigvald, Twinsouls)

Beasts of Chaos List (unsure on spells and artefacts)

Heroes:

Dragon Ogor Shaggoth 

Dragon Ogor Shaggoth

Monsters:

Ghorgon

Cygor

Chimera

Chimera

Cockatrice 

Battleline:

Dragon Ogor

Dragon Ogor

Dragon Ogor

Other

Tzaangor skyfires

Spells:

Wildfire Taurus

---

From the get-go, you can see my army looks pretty small on the table top (apologies for unpainted models, and that Dex is unbuild currently):

They had to proxy models as they had forgotten theirs, but from what I can recall, the Shaggoths were Shartor the Executioner and the other small blank base, the Magmadroths were chimera, the stonehorn was a ghorgon and the large blank base was the cygor. The chaos dwarf centaurs were the dragon ogors - a little confusing, but the best that could be done with what we had! 

They set up first as they had the one drop battalion.

Slaanesh Turn 1

I decided to play aggressively, using Sigvald to teleport in front of the Cygor and Syll'Esske in front of the chimera and cockatrice, with Dexcessa into their herdstone and dragon ogors. Everyone else moved up, with the twinsouls getting ready to countercharge should their army try take the left flank. 

Sigvald rolled and 8 to charge and did 12 damage to the Cygor, Syll'Esske did about 5 to the chimera, and Dex killed two of the dragon ogors (who had locus of diversion on them). Dex took one damage, Sigvald took 2, and Syll'Esske took two. Dexcessa broke the herdstone. 

I captured all objectives including the special one, besides my opponent's. I believe that was 4 VP. 

I gained 7 depravity points. 

Beast of Chaos turn 1

They decided to move up and punish my heroes who had in all likelyhood overextended in a bit of a gamble. They moved up both Shaggoths to Dexcessa, a unit of dragon ogors to Sigvald, and a chimera and more dragon ogors to the painbringers on the left flank.

The chimera and skyfires shot into the unit in the centre, doing 7 mortal wounds overall. They also did 2 MWs against Syll'Esske with the injured chimera's breath. The cockatrice failed to do its mortal wounds. 

The shaggoth, who was having their finest hour, only did 5 damage to Dexcessa, who killed the other dragon over before they could have the chance to attack. Syll'Esske was left on one wound after the chimera attacked, and they killed the cockatrice. The dragon ogors and Cygor did nothing to Sigvald, who killed the Cygor and didn't scratch the dragon ogors. The dragon ogors and chimera did 6 damage to the 3+ save rerolling painbringers, who did a damage or so onto the chimera. 

They captured one objective from me.

I gained 7 depravity points again, putting me on 14. 

I won the priority.

Slaanesh turn 2

I didn't take a picture here, but the rod of misrule backfired and gave the beasts of chaos a command point, and I failed to cast anything useful. However, the painbringers went up with their rerolling hits and Dexcessa healed 3 wounds, retreating to the skyfires next to the shardspeaker and painbringers. Syll'Esske retreated (deciding it wasn't worth the risk of getting them killed for no reason in combat). The painbringers in the dragon ogors retreated so the twinsouls could get in properly - it was a risk that did hurt in the end.

I summoned a KoS, but it failed the charge and didn't really do much for the rest of the game.  

The Chimera used their flame breath when the Twinsouls charged them and also stomped them, doing 9 mortal wounds - which was painful! Sigvald stayed chipping away at the dragon ogors, killing one of them. The shardspeaker had successfully targeted the chimera with the +1 to wound. 

The 6 Twinsouls got their revenge, doing 14 damage against the chimera and 8 against the dragon ogors, with a +1 to hit. Dexcessa fluffed and only killed a single skyfire, but continued to keep the centre. I think Sigvald killed a dragon ogor and put one on two wounds remaining. The dragon ogor next to the twinsouls fled. 

I spent a cp to keep the twinsouls around.

I kept all of my objectives. 

I think I got 4dp this turn, but I can't quite remember.

Beasts of Chaos turn 2

They didn't have much left at this point, but kept into Sigvald (who had still only taken 4 wounds) and charged a single dragon ogor, the chimera, and the shaggoth into Dexcessa. They also charged the ghorgon into the twinsouls. I used finest hour on Dex. 

The chimera did some mortal wounds, but not many - maybe like 1 into Dexcessa. The Shaggoth attacked and did about 3 damage, and then Dex struck back and killed the chimera. Sigvald killed the dragon ogors. The Ghorgon did nothing, but then managed to save 10/11 5+ saves against the twinsouls, which was quote funny. The single dragon ogor and skyfires did nothing. 

I think I got 2 dp this turn because most things just died. 

They captured the centre objective from me, but nothing else. 

They won the priority

Beasts of Chaos turn 3

Getting double turned did hurt, but it was hardly lethal. They mostly just continued their assault on Dexcessa, who did kill the dragon ogor and a skyfire (who they kept fluffing against). They only managed to put 5 wounds onto Dexcessa, leaving them on 1, but the lighting bolt from the shaggoth at the end finished them off. Other than that, not much happened or changed. 

By this point we called it, knowing the keeper could go in and probably clean house neatly, especially with the depravity I had saved up. 

This was their dead pile by turn 3 (not including Sigvald, though I'm sure he'd claim responsibility)

---

Overall, a very fun game and I think pretty much all units pulled their weight, especially Dexcessa. However, it should be noted that beasts of chaos are, well, they're not great. I think against most armies my brashness would have been punished harder, and that's certainly something to consider for next time. 

That said, I'm not sure how much Syll'Esske brought to the list - I don't think I had enough mortals to really make the most of them battleshock wise. I'm not sure if they would have been better used as another unit of painbringers or maybe even Synessa (losing the endless spell which I was struggling to cast anyway). 

Dexcessa - really fun to use throughout the entire game, and the healing was very useful being able to use it in both hero phases. They did pretty nice damage but I think they really helped the finesse army feeling, able to easily escape bad situations and charge to more advantageous positions.

Sigvald - he did good damage and tanked a lot, though he did have the issue of, once he was done, he took would take a long while getting back into the fight. I'd take him again, but probably only in Lurid Haze as his mobility suffers otherwise (though I think he may become more and more useful as ward saved become more common) 

Syll'Esske - they did okay damage, but their biggest utility is battleshock immunity, which is nice but didn't come up as often as I thought it would. I'm thinking, in a non-Lurid Haze list, I'd rather have Glutos than Syll'Esske and Sigvald as I think he would provide more utility. 

Lord of Pain - he didn't do anything except allow my army to be built. He guarded his objective valiantly

Shardspeaker - better than before as that +1 to wound was easier to reach with, and it does really help improve damage when you want something dead. Not 100% sure she would be a must take, but nice if you have a spare 150 points 

Painbringers - didn't bring much pain, but they were a really nice roadblock that did exactly what I wanted them to do. They did get a bit unlucky, but I liked them and they didn't let me down. 

Twinsouls - While the 9 mortal wounds to the face did hurt a lot, they also brought a lot of damage to the table when rerolling hits. If the Ghorgon hadn't passed 10 of the 11 5+ saves and had just rolled average, they'd have swept over that side of the board totally and would have dominated the game even further. 

Mesmerising Mirror - I couldn't manage to cast it so I can't comment much on it, besides saying that I normally wouldn't want an endless spell without having a more dedicated caster. Glutos would likely be such a caster. 

Overall, I really enjoyed the game even if we did feel very sparse on the ground. If you look at one of the final images, it looks like we are both running low on units, but in reality I only lost a single unit throughout the game (right at the end) and I just started with very little. 

I imaging this was a poor BoC list, but it certainly didn't inspire much confidence in their faction. I hope they get a new book soon - they need it! 

[Vaporlocke]

BoC is going to have a rough time for awhile unless we get a killer day 1 FAQ (we won't), but that's nothing new for us. We're already experimenting with potential builds so anyone playing us is going to see some really funky stuff. 

[yukishiro1]

8 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

It's also possible that the designers are communicating to you that they don't want people taking units of 9 gluttons. It is difficult to interpret why they don't want that, but it's quite clear by your demonstrated lack of success that it's not a choice the game rewards. And, maybe you should try something else?

But that's not really a satisfying answer, is it? "Just don't do that, it's supposed to be bad now for reasons nobody knows, do something else?" That's rather making his point for him re: the coherency changes not promoting fun gameplay...

 

[KrispyXIV]

41 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

But that's not really a satisfying answer, is it? "Just don't do that, it's supposed to be bad now for reasons nobody knows, do something else?" That's rather making his point for him re: the coherency changes not promoting fun gameplay...

 

Here's the issue though - if the coherency changes require you to make an unfavorable change in your play, its extremely easy to brand them as unfun immediately without real context or experience.  

That's not good faith decision making.  

Good faith decision making requires that you give them the benefit of the doubt and actually try playing the game without having already deciding you hate the new mechanic, so that you can legitimately determine if the game is better or worse for the change.  

Yes, the changes may not favor you or your faction.  But they aren't about you, personally.  Me either.  They're intended to change how units are formed on the tabletop, and to force them into more compact areas.

Theyre about establishing a new baseline for the game - which should be fun, hopefully, in play.  

But if you predetermine that anything which is unfavorable or different is inherently "unfun"... well, it's a recipe for a self fulfilling prophecy in any case where things are designed to be "reigned in" for the good of the game as a whole. 

Players need to try the game as it's now written, in the spirit which the new coherency rules were intended, and make decisions based on whether the changes are good for the game - not based on whether the changes are good for them, specifically.  

So far, a half dozen games of 3e in, things seem to play very well so far.  Coherency has been a consideration, but I've seen it cripple precisely zero units in reasonable play for practical purposes.  Some units are less good, for sure, but the game survives.  

Edited June 22, 2021 by KrispyXIV

[yukishiro1]

You're responding to an exchange about a guy who actually did play a game, and was posting his impressions of it. Nobody is saying that anything different is "predetermined" to be unfun. He was saying that having a unit that can't function because of the new coherency changes is not fun, it ends up being a lot of fiddling for no real gain, when they could have just done what most other game systems do instead and adopted cloud coherency, which fixes the issue of daisy chaining without requiring so much fiddling movement and without gimping larger base size models for no clear reason. Please give people the credit they deserve by actually reading what they write before telling them they're not acting in good faith. His post was the definition of a good faith effort at trying the new rules. 

"The game survives" really isn't the standard we should be judging a change on, IMO, especially when there were obvious alternatives to accomplish the same goal without gimping a bunch of units in the process for no apparent reason anybody can come up with. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by yukishiro1

[C0deb1ue]

14 hours ago, Kadeton said:

There's a strong disconnect here. Your view is based on the idea that GW undertook an edition change specifically to improve game balance, and therefore screwed it up. I think that's entirely misguided.

The core rules don't control balance, they're about establishing the fundamentals of gameplay. The purpose of an edition change isn't to shift the balance of the meta, it's to make improvements to the basic infrastructure of the game.* That will obviously have a strong effect on balance, but not necessarily a leveling out.

Balance is then addressed in the individual army rules, as they interact with the core rules. To update the game's balance, GW will need to release new battletomes, or otherwise update them through FAQs or campaign books. There will always be a period of adjustment during an edition change, where some armies (including some strong ones) get stronger and some (including some weak ones) get weaker. That's not a failure of intent in the new edition, just a natural and unavoidable consequence of any change to the rules.

* Whether or not GW failed at their goal of improving the basic mechanics is definitely still open for debate.

I guess the concern is that the already existing divide have been made worse by the new infrastructure and there are pretty long waits between points adjustments let alone FAQs or even worse, a battletome in 1.5 years.

so yeah its not a balance update but it affects balance, potentially has made it worse and it will only be fixed at a glacial GW pace.

[thundering]

Between Heroic actions, new default table size, unit coherency changes, unit-size changes, Monster Actions, Command Points, Elimination of army-specific battalions, and so on and so forth. AoS 3.0 is almost as substantial a change from 2.0 to 3.0 as the jump from WhFB to AoS was, in essence creating an almost new game entirely.

Given the level of change, coupled with the state of the world, I think it almost impossible to achieve any sort of 'balance' out of the gate. Radical, fundamental changes in gameplay functions coupled with an 18 month moratorium on large-scale in-person interaction/play testing would make releasing a 'balanced' new edition a challenge even for a company with heavily-codified rules to begin with, and GW doesn't have a great track record when it comes to codified, clear, consistent rules to begin with.

The end result is a very natural reaction from an established and entrenched playerbase.  AoS is very much a hobby, and everyone engages with it in different ways. A reasonable person can make a judgment on whether or not to see a movie from a trailer, or a judgment on whether or not to try a food item after reading the label. They do not have to watch the movie a minimum number of times, or purchase/consume the food item a minimum number of times in order to voice concerns/distaste and its a bummer to see this level of zeal in defending a company from the consumer on behalf of another consumer.

I think its perfectly valid for individuals who have seen a radical warping of their previously-enjoyed hobby to voice concerns, especially given that by-and-large, when a new edition of a GW game releases it becomes the de-facto edition du jour. When you enter a game store (if indeed you can given the pandemic) seeking a pickup game, the current edition of any given game is what the default operating assumption will be, and the comments that chime in to the effect of 'just play the old edition then' can't possibly be getting made in good faith. 

[Reinholt]

10 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

It's also possible that the designers are communicating to you that they don't want people taking units of 9 gluttons. It is difficult to interpret why they don't want that, but it's quite clear by your demonstrated lack of success that it's not a choice the game rewards. And, maybe you should try something else?

1 hour ago, KrispyXIV said:

Here's the issue though - if the coherency changes require you to make an unfavorable change in your play, its extremely easy to brand them as unfun immediately without real context or experience.  

That's not good faith decision making.  

Good faith decision making requires that you give them the benefit of the doubt and actually try playing the game without having already deciding you hate the new mechanic, so that you can legitimately determine if the game is better or worse for the change.  

Yes, the changes may not favor you or your faction.  But they aren't about you, personally.  Me either.  They're intended to change how units are formed on the tabletop, and to force them into more compact areas.

Theyre about establishing a new baseline for the game - which should be fun, hopefully, in play.  

But if you predetermine that anything which is unfavorable or different is inherently "unfun"... well, it's a recipe for a self fulfilling prophecy in any case where things are designed to be "reigned in" for the good of the game as a whole. 

Players need to try the game as it's now written, in the spirit which the new coherency rules were intended, and make decisions based on whether the changes are good for the game - not based on whether the changes are good for them, specifically.  

So far, a half dozen games of 3e in, things seem to play very well so far.  Coherency has been a consideration, but I've seen it cripple precisely zero units in reasonable play for practical purposes.  Some units are less good, for sure, but the game survives.  

So as a starting point, I played AGAINST the Ogors, not with them. I'm actually the ****** who took the MSU units of skeletons and Blood Knights and smashed the face of my opponent through the table, essentially.

 

What I am saying is that some of the design changes are going to promote some pretty material negative play experiences. First, taking Gluttons as an example, you CANNOT take them in a small enough unit that coherency is a non-issue (min 6!). Therefore, the only conclusion is literally never take them. I'm not sure if AoS 3 was intended to create a meta where a good 30% of models should not be taken at all and another 30% taken only in min sizes ever, but that appears to be what has happened. I doubt this was intentional.

Edit: also, hilariously, this buffs a lot of 5 strong or 3 strong hard hitting units, because Idoneth Eels needed the help, since their likely foes either are smaller and can get wiped on the charge or can't get everyone in to fight them.

 

Second, my main complaint is also the slowness. Now that tiny fractions of movement determine both coherency and ability to melee, sorting out basic moves is going to be way slower. And for those of you who say movement trays are a solution, that's only true if your opponent is a tool who doesn't understand if you lock formation, they can respond in kind with a different formation to cripple your ability to melee. Then you have to get off the tray to try to pile in while maintaining coherency next turn anyways. It's just slow all the way down. I'm not saying you can't change how you build an army (you can, sometimes, though some units like Gluttons you literally cannot and probably should not take them without further rules changes), but I am saying that unless everything is 5 or less, the game will be slower. Perhaps WAY slower, depending on circumstance.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Reinholt

[KrispyXIV]

16 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

So as a starting point, I played AGAINST the Ogors, not with them. I'm actually the ****** who took the MSU units of skeletons and Blood Knights and smashed the face of my opponent through the table, essentially.

 

What I am saying is that some of the design changes are going to promote some pretty material negative play experiences. First, taking Gluttons as an example, you CANNOT take them in a small enough unit that coherency is a non-issue (min 6!). Therefore, the only conclusion is literally never take them. I'm not sure if AoS 3 was intended to create a meta where a good 30% of models should not be taken at all and another 30% taken only in min sizes ever, but that appears to be what has happened. I doubt this was intentional.

 

Second, my main complaint is also the slowness. Now that tiny fractions of movement determine both coherency and ability to melee, sorting out basic moves is going to be way slower. And for those of you who say movement trays are a solution, that's only true if your opponent is a tool who doesn't understand if you lock formation, they can respond in kind with a different formation to cripple your ability to melee. Then you have to get off the tray to try to pile in while maintaining coherency next turn anyways. It's just slow all the way down. I'm not saying you can't change how you build an army (you can, sometimes, though some units like Gluttons you literally cannot and probably should not take them without further rules changes), but I am saying that unless everything is 5 or less, the game will be slower. Perhaps WAY slower, depending on circumstance.

I'm hearing you, but you keep suggesting you "cannot" take the unit in question (Gluttons), which is factually untrue.  

You can take them.  They're inconvenienced by the new conherency rules and likely all 6 can't fight.

...which is likely the point. 

There seems to be some sort of unwritten entitlement in your post that assumes all models in a unit are entitled to fight, when in fact the entire point of having coherency and limited reach is that sometimes models will be left out.  

The game is not designed such that only the most optimal choices will ever be made.  No game is - every last one game becomes a mess when played to that particular standard.  

Play the game, assume the assumption is that the intent is that you shouldn't be able to get 100% of large models to fight, and then lobby for a cost appropriate to the result.  

Your post presupposes that "not all models contribute in all combats" is a failure state for the game, as opposed to the design intent.  Try playing to that intent, and then look for adjustments after acclimating to the new normal.  

The slowness mentioned has the same root cause - you're trying to beat the system, rather than playing with it.  Hairline optimization almost always carries that sort of result.

Edited June 22, 2021 by KrispyXIV

[Laststand]

10 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

It's also possible that the designers are communicating to you that they don't want people taking units of 9 gluttons. It is difficult to interpret why they don't want that, but it's quite clear by your demonstrated lack of success that it's not a choice the game rewards. And, maybe you should try something else?

But when you look at the Ogors allegiance ability you see that their MW charge ability is on 6s unless the unit is a monster or the unit is 8 models or larger. Then its boosted to a 4+ and is actually useful and game impacting. 

Rewarding a larger unit with a faction bonus but then making it very very hard to field that unit is a bit odd.