AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[Andalf]

He’s trying to tell you that the rules don’t reward fiddly movement anymore.  Because they don’t.  You’re right, even with my 25mm bases, when I try to string into a combat I end up exposing the unit to too many charges, 3/6/9 monsters and even 10/15 model cavalry units still work just fine because people are still trying to wrap around units and are rolling 10 and 15 wide infantry squads.  10 man cav can have a 7 man front.  15 should be able to get 9~.  I think I understand your arguments because I felt like things were really fiddly my first couple games.

The math required to figure out the maximums your unit can do have nothing to do with numbers/equations.  It actually really flows quite well on the tabletop when you’re actually playing games.  Also, get a combat gauge?

  It’s “does it fit like this?”  Those minutiae interactions in combat have always been there, it has a restriction now that requires TACTICS, not Strategy.  It’s a thing in war games that Warhammer, and in particular AoS has been in very short supply of.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[SentinelGuy]

1 hour ago, yukishiro1 said:

When someone says "the new coherency rules don't work" they aren't saying they literally don't work as in you cannot play a game with them. They're saying they don't add something positive to the game, and worse, add something negative.

Even in WHFB, you could fight in two ranks baseline (albeit with less attacks for the second rank). A coherency system that forces some models into a position where they have to be in multiple ranks yet cannot fight in more than one rank seems like a very odd choice, as evidenced by the fact that (to my knowledge) no other edition of either 40k, AOS, or WHFB has ever adopted such a system. I don't think it's unreasonable to say "wow, this is super restrictive and it's not clear why because we have been provided zero explanation" when it is super restrictive by any prior standard. 

It also seems super weird in a system where the units most likely to be impacted must be taken in size intervals that are extremely unfriendly to the new rules. Why is the break point 5 models, when so many of the models most seriously impacted are 3 or 6 model units that cannot be taken in 5 mans to mitigate the harshness of the system? This suggests either remarkable carelessness, or a deliberate choice to make units on 40mm and larger (and even 32mm and larger to some degree) bad, which is difficult to understand. 

In 6th edition Fantasy, units could only fight in 1 rank unless they had pikes or spears, and 6th was the best edition. The way I see these new coherency rules, is that it's GW realising that they probably should have just stuck with square bases and some semblance of unit formations.

[Frowny]

1 hour ago, KrispyXIV said:

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.

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.  

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.

These are all reasonable thoughts but also seems to miss the mark slightly- The question at hand is how they did as game designers. To try to answer some of your points, 

1) I don't want to be inconvenienced when playing a fun hobby game. If that is the answer, they designed it wrong. It is a critique of design. 

2) I agree that maybe you should assume large models should just be pointed appropriately. The problem is that they DIDN'T do that. Gluttons saw the same increase as everything else. Indeed, they consistently underestimate how good being on a 25mm base is relative to even a 32mm. Until they meaningfully decide that base sizes need to be incorporated into the actual game (because they matter) this will remain an issue. For example, Infinity does this well, where every model has a silhouette size which determines their visibility. 

3) Trying to beat the system IS the game. Maximizing models getting into melee, putting the right units into the right counters, trying to flank pin long strings. This literally is how the game is played. If the rules reward a lot of hairline optimization, then that is what people do. As an example, any engine building game like 'terraforming mars' or 'power grid', 'race for the galaxy' has lots of interacting systems where you are trying to optimize performance within the games systems. One of the key aspects of gameplay in AOS as well is optimizing systems- that's what we like about them. The challenge of game design is making it so optimizing the system is itself fun. 

Here is where the coherency rules fail- They try to improve fun in one way, by making less spagetti string armies and getting better immersion/apperance, by failing in another, favoring 'hairline optimization' to get things in range terms of pile ins.

That being said, my overall impression of the rules is solid. I like making heroes more heroic and monsters more scary. I think the reactions will be interesting. Overall, I think its an improvement. They just dropped the ball on the coherency stuff, by adding only one part of 40k's system. If they'd given us the 40k engagement range system, I 'd be very very happy ('within base to base of something within 1 inch etc.') and it would immediately remove the finickyness of piling in

[Andalf]

I can’t think off the top of my head, a 25mm base unit that I’m really scared of except Grave Guard right now... and that’s normally after a bunch of support anyway.  I’m not seeing this problem sorry guys.

[SentinelGuy]

Just now, Andalf said:

I can’t think off the top of my head, a 25mm base unit that I’m really scared of except Grave Guard right now... and that’s normally after a bunch of support anyway.  I’m not seeing this problem sorry guys.

Phoenix Guard can be a pain in the butt with their ward.

[Frowny]

3 minutes ago, Andalf said:

I can’t think off the top of my head, a 25mm base unit that I’m really scared of except Grave Guard right now... and that’s normally after a bunch of support anyway.  I’m not seeing this problem sorry guys.

Historically, Sisters of Slaughter and Witch Elves were also to be feared. I think they still can be with the right buffs. 

Slaves to Darkness Marauders are also quite strong, or at least were in AOS2. 

And a big part of the reason they are strong is their 25mm bases- fighting easily in 2 ranks is just that good. In contrast, Sylvaneth Spite Revenants, Namarti Thralls and Bestigores are mathematically just as strong per point. Some of this is the buffs you can stack on them within the alleigance, but a big part is that ~1/3rd can't fight most of the time if you go with any more than 10, even in AOS2. 

The reason you can't think of them is that the rules have already made them weak. The challenge, is that these coherency rules don't actually fix that problem and instead make it slightly worse.

[Laststand]

57 minutes ago, Andalf said:

This isn’t complex geometry... like really.  It’s to stop strings of 30+ models and incentivize taking more smaller units and a balanced TAC approach to your list building.  Units of 15 Blood Knights without coherency is NPE.

A good aim. But no-one ever tried to string out 30 models on 40mm bases across the board. In fact you can still put 30 models on 25mm bases into a long 15" line without any problem. The rule hasn't fixed this. What it has done is make some elite units far less appealing to use. I cant take 3 gluttons anymore because the base unit size is now 6. Taking 12 is a huge waste of points v combat ability because 7 or 8 wont be able to fight and are just a wound and points soak. To compensate for this oddity the points went UP. This is not elegant design. 

Coincidently I will still use one unit of 6 gluttons because I like the models and I have them painted but I known using them is playing on hard mode because they cant use their trampling charge allegiance ability effectively below 8 models and piling in will be odd. If trampling charge switched to mw on a 4+ at 6 models (from 8 models ) in an FAQ that WOULD be a compensation. 

Edited June 22, 2021 by Laststand
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[KrispyXIV]

The rules would be a lot more consistent if 25mm bases were replaced with 28mm.  25mm bases are currently annoyingly exceptional, and definitionally better than all other base sizes. 

...can you imagine the rebasing uproar though?

[Andalf]

7 upfront, 5 in the back isn’t a waste.  That unit is impossible to delete in a turn for most armies and that, in itself, is major.  Anyways, I apologize some of my remarks are a bit OTT.  I understand the unit by unit case is going to come up with situations that aren’t obvious.  I’m trying to say that the tactics people are espousing should work this way aren’t even present in the game anymore so why not figure it out?

[Eldarain]

Would have been an excellent time to switch to a 40k within/within system to avoid all these base inequities. If you want certain units to have exceptional reach/depth of formation have it as an increase to within/within on their scroll.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Eldarain

[SentinelGuy]

3 minutes ago, KrispyXIV said:

The rules would be a lot more consistent if 25mm bases were replaced with 28mm.  25mm bases are currently annoyingly exceptional, and definitionally better than all other base sizes. 

...can you imagine the rebasing uproar though?

Don't even suggest it. I had enough problems getting over the absolutely stupid base size GW chose for Sisters Repentia in 40k. For some completely unfathomable reason, they had to be on a different size to the rest of the army.

[Sprues&Brews]

Hey guys! We may not have had it in time for all the points excitement, but our full review and deep dive of the new General's Handbook 2021 is now live, and it really is an excellent release from GW!

https://spruesandbrews.com/2021/06/22/generals-handbook-pitched-battles-2021-review-age-of-sigmar-3rd-edition/

[Reinholt]

37 minutes ago, Andalf said:

7 upfront, 5 in the back isn’t a waste.  That unit is impossible to delete in a turn for most armies and that, in itself, is major.  Anyways, I apologize some of my remarks are a bit OTT.  I understand the unit by unit case is going to come up with situations that aren’t obvious.  I’m trying to say that the tactics people are espousing should work this way aren’t even present in the game anymore so why not figure it out?

So here is my counterpoint:

I play a shooting army that only melees when I have a decisive advantage, and I win a lot of games without getting into melee combat at all with anything other than my screens and one or two key pieces. I'm speaking specifically about shootcast but there are Tzeentch, Kharadron, Lumineth, DoK, and Seraphon armies that would say similar things (edit: hat tip to magic flying eels which are the exception that prove the rule). If you look closely, these are also mostly the armies ultimately dominating the tournament scene and that are the most competitive. The melee units these armies use are largely not going to care about the coherency changes, except in that it makes their opponents even less able to fight them (Archaon in the corner laughing madly right now).

In my local gaming group, I have had to all but stop playing my Stormcast because nobody can beat them. It's not for lack of trying; their armies, excepting the one monster mash Ogors player (who has a super fast hard hitting stonehorn list and can sometimes double turn me), just don't have the tools. They aren't fast enough or durable enough to get to me before I take them apart. High volumes of long distance mortal wound inflicting shooting really DGAF about the profile they are shooting at. In many ways, the tougher the better, and bigger units are fun because I have less wasted wounds to overkill if I roll well.

Therefore, in response to this shooting meta, GW has responded to balance things out by reducing their army sizes via points increases, making it harder to get units into melee, and making shooting relatively more efficient because rank issues with melee output don't matter to things that were just going to shoot you anyways. Also, as a side benefit, they've dramatically slowed the game down without really fixing the spaghetti string screen issues (because you just do it anyways as if a unit was intended to be wiped in one turn, who cares if they die to coherency breaking when a key model dies vs. getting absolutely tanked in melee because it was 10 gribbly dudes who were never going to live to begin with?).

I get the whole idea of "bring back rank fighting" and that ranks were the traditional behavior in WFB. That's cool. But then, bring back rank fighting rules and points appropriate to fighting in ranks? Doing that halfway with the current coherency rules is just going to dramatically enhance the NPE aspect of the game and make things like trying to fight the Lumineth Kangaroo Boys even more annoying for other armies; you already could barely touch them and now it's way harder, and to boot, slower?

This is why I am confused. The rule change hurts things that needed help and helps things that were already too good. Who was really running around saying "you know what is causing trouble in AoS? Large units of large base 1" range melee". Nobody.

But now I can stand and shoot with Vanguard Raptors for a command point and you have to lose half your output in melee to fight in ranks.

Who's up for a game!?

Edited June 22, 2021 by Reinholt

[yukishiro1]

Yeah. The rules don't actually stop daisy chaining with trash, and they penalize units that don't feel like they needed penalizing. Putting aside whether "the game survives," to borrow someone else's phrase, it's tough to see how this results in a better game than using cloud coherency - which actually would stop daisy chaining, and also wouldn't nerf units that don't need to be nerfed in the process.

But again, this is all because GW won't tell us what their intent is. Maybe they really did implement this rule because they thought Ogors were too good at fighting stuff (lol), and maybe they really don't care if you can still daisy-chain. We're all speculating because GW has a policy of not explaining the rationale behind the changes it makes. 

[Andalf]

CP’s can be pretty scarce.  Often by the charge phase.  You can save it to unleash hell with 6 hurricane raptors but then everything else is prone.  Quite a few, if not all, armies can get around this.  Not to mention anybody toning down their unit sizes probably won’t care if you smack down one of 3 5 man squads.  The smaller no man’s land makes a huge difference.

I’m not trying to say you guys are wrong, I just haven’t seen it show up in any games, my units are basically in the exact same places as they would’ve been in AoS2, there’s just some restrictions involved that Everybody has to make the Same adjustment for.

Those extreme shooting armies are no fun to play against because it was 3 x 9 of the worst offenders getting pushed through the roof.  You can’t do that anymore either.

Edited June 22, 2021 by Andalf

[yukishiro1]

18 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

This is why I am confused. The rule change hurts things that needed help and helps things that were already too good. Who was really running around saying "you know what is causing trouble in AoS? Large units of large base 1" range melee". Nobody.

 

I mean, the only thing I can think of is that if we take that supposed playtester's word and they've been testing this thing for 18 months...18 months ago was before they made ranged armies top dog. Back then, stuff like hearthguard or ardboyz or FEK horrors/flayers were a bigger deal (not the biggest deal, mind, but bigger relatively speaking), in a way they aren't any more. Maybe this was a change they made a decision on very early in the design process and then just refused to reconsider. It would be just like GW to create a new edition for the meta 2 years before the end of the prior edition, and then ignore everything they knew was coming next. 

In fact, things like unleash hell make a lot more sense in the game as it existed two years ago, too...

[BigNStinky]

Personally. I believe the coherency was introduced to limit a lot of factions from going full murder blob. It has been a big complaint circling my old AoS group that AoS was becoming too lethal. Units that did not immediately cripple or evaporate what they charged into were "pillow fisted" and units rarely stuck around for more than a turn (exceptions like HG beserkers and some characters etc.).

 

I think the coherency is to stop full frontage wraps (rather than limit screen efficacy as it really doesn't stop that from happening) and make people shift their mindset to treating the backlines as more "replacement warriors" to retain efficacy after a few losses or "extra ablative wounds" over pure damage improvements like it was in the past.

 

Obviously this didn't really hit the 25mm based units which is a bit troublesome but that base size is already basically a super power so maybe it was something they compromised on. Who knows. But this is my feelings on this.

 

(obviously I am a bit removed from the emotion of the coherency change as I previously played 3 mega 3 mini gargant list and now am building my 4th mega for maximum meganess).

[yukishiro1]

And yet they only made murder blobs of ranged units even more powerful. 

The problem with murder blobs is the amount of buffs you could stack onto one unit. And guess what...you can now stack more buffs on one unit than ever before, and then use that one unit even more efficiently than you could before...as long as it's a shooting unit. 

That's the weird thing about the whole thing. All this fiddly work to nerf melee in a game that has been dominated for the last year by ranged combat. Meanwhile, ranged combat only got deadlier. 

[novakai]

maybe in the end they just want to start another arms race where every new battletome either get better range options (I.E making Leadbelchers and Skullcannons actually good or give army new range units) or they give armies lacking in range options more anti range tech like Idoneath deepkin has

[zilberfrid]

2 hours ago, KrispyXIV said:

The rules would be a lot more consistent if 25mm bases were replaced with 28mm.  25mm bases are currently annoyingly exceptional, and definitionally better than all other base sizes. 

...can you imagine the rebasing uproar though?

I'd sooner have them drop inches as a unit of measurement. It's better suited to 1800's and earlier than now.

[SentinelGuy]

31 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

I'd sooner have them drop inches as a unit of measurement. It's better suited to 1800's and earlier than now.

There's currently talk here in Britain of reverting back to imperial measurements for everything, so it seems fitting that (imagine Al Murray voice for the next bit) traditional world beating superior British wargames have the finest most excellent archaic British measurements. 

Yep. I wish i was joking.

Edited June 22, 2021 by SentinelGuy

[zilberfrid]

28 minutes ago, SentinelGuy said:

There's currently talk here in Britain of reverting back to imperial measurements for everything, so it seems fitting that (imagine Al Murray voice for the next bit) traditional world beating superior British wargames have the finest most excellent archaic British measurements. 

Yep. I wish i was joking.

"From the writers of the success story* of Brexit comes a new movement: Move back to the glory days** of the 1800's with the Imperial measurement!"

*In the category political tragic comedy with a runtime og three years or more. Certainly not in another category.

**No guarantees of actual glory days, or if we did promise that, don't put it in writing so we can more easily deny it later. Also, either it's going to be Amarican Standard, or the idea is even worse.

[Rachmani]

I‘m a bit baffled how old army books, written for 2.0 are used as an argument to determine if 3.0 is good or bad.

If anything there is an argument to be made what old stuff should be FAQd on day one. 

[Fred1245]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

I'd sooner have them drop inches as a unit of measurement. It's better suited to 1800's and earlier than now.

Dice have 6 sides. Inches function in multiples of 6. Whether you like imperial or not, it's very convenient for this one specific thing.

[Fred1245]

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

And yet they only made murder blobs of ranged units even more powerful. 

The problem with murder blobs is the amount of buffs you could stack onto one unit. And guess what...you can now stack more buffs on one unit than ever before, and then use that one unit even more efficiently than you could before...as long as it's a shooting unit. 

That's the weird thing about the whole thing. All this fiddly work to nerf melee in a game that has been dominated for the last year by ranged combat. Meanwhile, ranged combat only got deadlier. 

It's not even just the core rules either:

The DoK battletome was basically an across the board nerf to the post BR:Morathi army(which the Morathi 20 stalkers with full reroll lists were absurd so fair enough) but the thing is, they put just as much effort into making sure Witch Aelf and SoS builds were reigned in by the same amount.

Problem is, WE and SoS builds are very vulnerable to heavy shooting(especially character sniping) and thus had already been falling off since at least KO. 

The hard, HARD nerf to witchbrew in the early turns exacerbated this issue to point where a big unit of Witch Aelves is so easy for shooting units to kill in the early game that Lumineth, for example, don't even need to go after the characters, they can just trash the unit and let them kill themselves to battleshock.

This has the Knock-on effect of pushing competitive DoK lists EVEN FURTHER into the Morathi+Stalkers builds they were doing before, despite losing their hero phase TP, their Hero phase shots going first, all Non-CP rerolls, and a fair bit of their defensive bonuses.

 

TLDR they seem to be just as worried about melee getting out of control as shooting, while totally overlooking that shooting is the much bigger issue right now.