AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[Fred1245]

1 hour ago, Warfiend said:

People are exaggerating greatly and making up a lot of nonsense. Maybe try playing the game instead of talking about it as if the sky is falling. This thread has devolved into a sad mess. 

People said that at the start of AoS 2.0 when Kroak was doing 100 mortals per turn and Grots did 64 damage per swing, too.

How did that end again? Was it that everything turned out to be fine and there were no significant issues?

Oh wait, no. They FAQed it all away because it was stupid.

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

7 hours ago, Liquidsteel said:

20 with lambent light will generally kill off a 14 wound hero a turn no problem, said hero likely being nearly double their points cost, which just feels bad whichever way you try to justify it. Unleash hell giving them more opportunities to shoot is going to be so frustrating.

Can you kindly run me how this is accomplished?  Please don't leave out casting failure or total points used to accomplish it if you can.  I only request the breakdown of this as it really does sound like some Chaos Space Marine combos that would be devastating if everything lined up correctly, but for everything to line up it both required dice and the opponent work in one's favor.  Not exactly something to count on when playing, since is it basically requires laboratory conditions to pull off.

I can even help out where I understand it. Please know any mistakes or anything left out is not due to any malicious intent.  Rather, I don't play AoS exclusively nor all that often and hardly ever for highly optimized play.  Even as a Lumineth (Ymetrica Mountain Temple focused) player, I know little to nothing about wave 2 units or other Great Nations.  I am not trying to downplay this, though I will state that my hypothesis is that, 'This combo may be powerful but does include a lot of failure points where either luck, a wiley opponent and/or both could foil it before completing it.'

 

The Units

20 Sentinels (300pts)+ some Lore of Hysh Wizard such as Teclis (660pts old points) or Scinari Cathallar General with the Loremaster Command Trait (140 old points).  So somewhere around 350 at the low end with a lesser Hero (5 wounds) General or 1000+ with Teclis on the high end.

The Setup

During the Lumineth Hero Phase, Power of Hysh (casting value 6, 5 with Aetherquartz or re-rollable with Aetherquartz) allows Sunmetal Weapons cause MW on rolls of 5 and 6s. The Lore of Hysh Wizard then casts Lambent Light (casting value 5 possibly modified with Aetherquartz) is cast upon the Sentinels.

During the Lumineth Shooting Phase, the 20 Sentinels attack the said 14 wound Hero.  That's 19 attacks.  I am going to assume aloft to cover the opposing Hero being at distance or out of Light of Sight.  Aimed shots could certainly do a bit more damage.  So we are looking at something like 10 successful hits, 4 of them being MW right off the bat.  That leaves 9 dice that missed or 15 if the Lumineth player wished to fish for more MWs.  For ease, I will say the LRL player goes for the mortal wounds and pick up 3 more with 4 regular successful hits.  Those 4 successful hits become 2 successful wounds, Rend 0. Let's say 1 of those wounds does damage.  Total damage is 7 MW and 1 regular damage which takes 8 of those wounds off that opposing Hero and is down to 6.

For simplicity, we'll have to say that LRL do no more damage to that opposing hero nor tie them up to allow a charge.

During the opposing 14 (now 6) wound Hero turn, they [I don't know AoS 3 well yet] don't heal [that's something that Heroes can do right?]. Or they do, and roll poorly gaining 0-1 wounds back.  Either way, it doesn't return them to more than half.  Now that opposing hero makes a charge within the conditions to allow the LRL player to Unleash Hell.  And the Sentinels are likely to cause roughly the same amount of damage (7MW and 1 regular damage).

Which does indeed slay that 14 wound Hero.

Complications

I hope this break down reveals some of the cracks in why this combo is unlikely to be pulled off.  Please note, I am not saying that Sentinels are not powerful here. Delivering some 8 damage most of it MWs is going to be tough on a lot of opposing armies even if it isn't focused all into a 14 wound Hero. I just want to illustrate the journey to get there and  perhaps point out some failure points of this combo.

First and foremost, spells fail.  In AoS 3 spell can even harm the caster. Now the LRL do have Aetherquartz  to mitigate this one time a game.  With the Scinari Cathallar, they might even be able to turn the tables on the opposing army's Bravery. However, that doesn't completely make it safe.

Not going with Teclis (which becomes half the LRL army) leaves the Lore of Hysh Wizard potentially and viable sniping target. To be sure, not all factions have access to sniping units and Lookout, Sir! certainly can make it resource intensive to attempt. That doesn't leave it off the table [as much as even I would like it to be].  What's good for the goose is good for the gander when it comes to ranged combat if you have it. Just note, elves and aelves are known for their archery so trying to out do them there is going to be tough.

Damage is also an issue.  Sentinels have a limited amount of damage they can do. I am not going to argue about it being too much MW, and so I will just assume it is for sake of not wanting to argue about it.  Please note, Wardens can easily double the amount of MW that Sentinels can, and with the same sort of Lore of Hysh support can create easy charges (Like with Speed of Hysh). 

When talking about damage, what I really want to point out is the opposing 14 wound Hero had already taken more than half their wounds in the first volley. If the LRL opponent wasn't able to heal enough wounds back to cover this kind of damage or already weaken the Sentinels, why are they attempting a charge knowing Unleash Hell exists?  Surely that is folly. 

Conclusion

Yes, this combo is devastating. It is also resource intensive and wrought with failure points. Some of which are fully within control of the opponent.  This break down of the sequence of events is not to demonstrate that Sentinels aren't OP.  They can clearly lay down the hurt and a lot of if it is allowed to.  Nor was this to demonstrate that Unleash Hell isn't potent.  I am sure there will be games where the objective between a player and victory will have Sentinels and Unleash Hell standing between them.

This breakdown is more about dismantling the idea that pulling off such a powerful combo is fraught with issues, which in my opinion; make it not as scary to me because if my opponent needs that many things to go right to win, I don't they are going to.

 

I just would like everyone to consider the construction of these combos and any actual applied use in games.  Not something that has to go very right to pull off.  Which I feel is a sort of hyperbole, and while that will grab attention, it won't strengthen one's argument.

[Liquidsteel]

11 minutes ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

Can you kindly run me how this is accomplished?  Please don't leave out casting failure or total points used to accomplish it if you can.  I only request the breakdown of this as it really does sound like some Chaos Space Marine combos that would be devastating if everything lined up correctly, but for everything to line up it both required dice and the opponent work in one's favor.  Not exactly something to count on when playing, since is it basically requires laboratory conditions to pull off.

I can even help out where I understand it. Please know any mistakes or anything left out is not due to any malicious intent.  Rather, I don't play AoS exclusively nor all that often and hardly ever for highly optimized play.  Even as a Lumineth (Ymetrica Mountain Temple focused) player, I know little to nothing about wave 2 units or other Great Nations.  I am not trying to downplay this, though I will state that my hypothesis is that, 'This combo may be powerful but does include a lot of failure points where either luck, a wiley opponent and/or both could foil it before completing it.'

 

The Units

20 Sentinels (300pts)+ some Lore of Hysh Wizard such as Teclis (660pts old points) or Scinari Cathallar General with the Loremaster Command Trait (140 old points).  So somewhere around 350 at the low end with a lesser Hero (5 wounds) General or 1000+ with Teclis on the high end.

The Setup

During the Lumineth Hero Phase, Power of Hysh (casting value 6, 5 with Aetherquartz or re-rollable with Aetherquartz) allows Sunmetal Weapons cause MW on rolls of 5 and 6s. The Lore of Hysh Wizard then casts Lambent Light (casting value 5 possibly modified with Aetherquartz) is cast upon the Sentinels.

During the Lumineth Shooting Phase, the 20 Sentinels attack the said 14 wound Hero.  That's 19 attacks.  I am going to assume aloft to cover the opposing Hero being at distance or out of Light of Sight.  Aimed shots could certainly do a bit more damage.  So we are looking at something like 10 successful hits, 4 of them being MW right off the bat.  That leaves 9 dice that missed or 15 if the Lumineth player wished to fish for more MWs.  For ease, I will say the LRL player goes for the mortal wounds and pick up 3 more with 4 regular successful hits.  Those 4 successful hits become 2 successful wounds, Rend 0. Let's say 1 of those wounds does damage.  Total damage is 7 MW and 1 regular damage which takes 8 of those wounds off that opposing Hero and is down to 6.

For simplicity, we'll have to say that LRL do no more damage to that opposing hero nor tie them up to allow a charge.

During the opposing 14 (now 6) wound Hero turn, they [I don't know AoS 3 well yet] don't heal [that's something that Heroes can do right?]. Or they do, and roll poorly gaining 0-1 wounds back.  Either way, it doesn't return them to more than half.  Now that opposing hero makes a charge within the conditions to allow the LRL player to Unleash Hell.  And the Sentinels are likely to cause roughly the same amount of damage (7MW and 1 regular damage).

Which does indeed slay that 14 wound Hero.

Complications

I hope this break down reveals some of the cracks in why this combo is unlikely to be pulled off.  Please note, I am not saying that Sentinels are not powerful here. Delivering some 8 damage most of it MWs is going to be tough on a lot of opposing armies even if it isn't focused all into a 14 wound Hero. I just want to illustrate the journey to get there and  perhaps point out some failure points of this combo.

First and foremost, spells fail.  In AoS 3 spell can even harm the caster. Now the LRL do have Aetherquartz  to mitigate this one time a game.  With the Scinari Cathallar, they might even be able to turn the tables on the opposing army's Bravery. However, that doesn't completely make it safe.

Not going with Teclis (which becomes half the LRL army) leaves the Lore of Hysh Wizard potentially and viable sniping target. To be sure, not all factions have access to sniping units and Lookout, Sir! certainly can make it resource intensive to attempt. That doesn't leave it off the table [as much as even I would like it to be].  What's good for the goose is good for the gander when it comes to ranged combat if you have it. Just note, elves and aelves are known for their archery so trying to out do them there is going to be tough.

Damage is also an issue.  Sentinels have a limited amount of damage they can do. I am not going to argue about it being too much MW, and so I will just assume it is for sake of not wanting to argue about it.  Please note, Wardens can easily double the amount of MW that Sentinels can, and with the same sort of Lore of Hysh support can create easy charges (Like with Speed of Hysh). 

When talking about damage, what I really want to point out is the opposing 14 wound Hero had already taken more than half their wounds in the first volley. If the LRL opponent wasn't able to heal enough wounds back to cover this kind of damage or already weaken the Sentinels, why are they attempting a charge knowing Unleash Hell exists?  Surely that is folly. 

Conclusion

Yes, this combo is devastating. It is also resource intensive and wrought with failure points. Some of which are fully within control of the opponent.  This break down of the sequence of events is not to demonstrate that Sentinels aren't OP.  They can clearly lay down the hurt and a lot of if it is allowed to.  Nor was this to demonstrate that Unleash Hell isn't potent.  I am sure there will be games where the objective between a player and victory will have Sentinels and Unleash Hell standing between them.

This breakdown is more about dismantling the idea that pulling off such a powerful combo is fraught with issues, which in my opinion; make it not as scary to me because if my opponent needs that many things to go right to win, I don't they are going to.

 

I just would like everyone to consider the construction of these combos and any actual applied use in games.  Not something that has to go very right to pull off.  Which I feel is a sort of hyperbole, and while that will grab attention, it won't strengthen one's argument.

Appreciate your efforts in this post.

Let me clarify my position, I'm not simply talking just theory. Since being able to play games I've managed to get a decent number of games vs Lumineth under my belt, all of which were against one of my clubmates who is on the UK 6 Nations team (and a far better and more experienced player than I).

At the time I was playing FEC quite a lot, have also played Deepkin once and now Soulblight once against his lists.

Most of the time, Hyshian Twinstones is used, which you can almost guarantee by utilising the aetherquartz re-roll or +1 to cast with a support hero, or one of Teclis' casts. After this every other cast is at +2 minimum if you deplete it each cast, so spells rarely fail at this point. Using one of Teclis' casts is not his full points investment, let's be clear on that also.

I'm also not sure if your maths is correct. With power of Hysh, you are doing MW's on a 5+, or a third of the time. 19 shots / 3 = 6.33 Mortals so call it 6. You will reroll all the rest so 13 shots / 3 = 4 more mortals. That's 10 mortals plus a couple of saves. If you roll above average then you actually just kill the hero in one shooting phase, which has happened. This is actually what I was talking about. Unleash Hell now gives them even more opportunities to do damage, because you can park them behind a screen such as Wardens and fire at the unit that charges.

For me the biggest issue is that shooting is risk-free damage, you don't have to chance a charge, you don't have to worry about your opponent striking back, you just do the damage. Shooting in general should be less points efficient than melee damage because of this. Sentinels take it too far and are obnoxious and frustrating to play against and now they are even worse.

[Liquidsteel]

Something I would like to add, as a general note, is that it's not as simple as comparing the points investment for a unit or combo.

A large monstrous hero (435 VLoZD or 445 Mounted Ghoul King) may not always be in a position to effect the game in a significant manner on turn 1. Deployment being 18" or 22" or 24" apart plus the new redeploy mechanic can reduce the success of an early alpha and in fact may be a poor tactical choice anyway.

The same points investment in Sentinels gets you 30 of them, which can begin shooting from turn 1 with no danger to themselves thanks to their 36" threat range and other abilities. They can then fire again before being threatened with Unleash Hell.

If the monster hangs back, it dies. To successfully charge the player has a much higher burden of skill (is that even a phrase) to engineer a favourable outcome due to redeploy and unleash hell entering the playbook.

I should add that I don't think lumineth are unbeatable, I'm just disappointed with this one small area of the game that I had hoped would be curbed in the new edition, but ultimately got a significant buff.

[jhamslam]

Gonna put on my tinfoil hat and say whoever did the GHB points mixed up Sentinels and Wardens. Like they thought Wardens were the shooty ones, so the spears get a 25 pt increase and sentinels only get 10

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

I usually aim a little low on damage as a habit because counting on average can get you in trouble fast.  But yeah, what you have is the average. 

I do see in terms of LRL as melee being more efficient than ranged.  Wardens can produce double the number of MW as Sentinels for basically the same points cost. I don't hear much about how they are insane damage dealers.  With 3" range they aren't as likely to attacks as most melee, with similar support; they can reasonably charge anything with 18" of them.  The difference being that the opponent has a better chance of doing something about it.  Which I get the one-two punch of Wardens and Sentinels.  You got one unit feeding you MW far away, and then you got another feeding you even more up close.  Which if the thing isn't dead, it is certainly crippled to uselessness.

 

It is difficult for me to visualize.  On the one hand, my other, first AoS army is almost entirely has a +5 MW save and usually a 6+ damage save (FNP).  Facing an army that generates ton of MWs as their path to victory seems like a sure fire way they are going to lose no matter the range they can do it at even with me having none. I do know all too well the being chipped away at ranged thing.  I play far number of opponents that have ranged armies, and those ranged weapons often come with Rend -1 with takes more wounds than I would like before I can finally get to them. Maybe all Heroes should have a +5 MW save, I don't know.

Also, due to my attrition, often slow moving play style (with both my S2D and Alarith LRL), I am not sure how Wardens, Sentinels and Support cover ground to claim enough objectives to win.  Do slowly slog up the board dealing damage taking objectives late game from the now destroyed or hopelessly crippled enemy?  Wouldn't that leave their rear exposed for teleport or resistant flankers?  I could see such LRL being fine with static objective games, but moving ones they seem like they would still struggle like I have with my S2D army.  It just doesn't seem like they have the durability leaning heavy Vanari much of the time.

Don't get me wrong, there are a bunch of tweaks I think the Lumineth should have.  In general, I think their spell casting values are too low.  Especially with all the ways they can reduce them or Teclis not even caring.  Even being great archers, I think 24" is a much better range for aloft shots Sentinels and maybe can't move to fire.  Lambent Light probably should just be misses to prevent MW fishing.  I also wouldn't be bothered if Power of Hysh was radically altered to something like MW in addition to, as that would reduce the average MWs while potentially increasing the number total number of wounds, giving Vanari a bit better chance against horde units.  That's still probably too good though.

[Doko]

Gw is triying so hard push lumineth as the posterboys that you never gonna see a nerf for them,no other reason that sentinels are less than 150 when judicators cost 200 now lol

Also as son of behemats, the new edition have every new rule good for them(surprise)

I dont know how the starter box is stormcast and not lumineths at this point.

Any person that have played 2 games to aos know what sentinels must be nerfed hard or changed to mortals on wounds rolls but gw dont do nothing neither nerfing them or changing them 

[Andalf]

Keeping up with this rules debate and I gotta say that the focus is on the very outlying edge of units we can consider busted by the new changes.  The only thing I’ve heard repeated across the internet the last few days mechanically in regards to actual Rules griping, is Gluttons got bent and Sentinels, but also all MW on 6 shooting (probably still all shooting units to many people who liked AoS before shooting existed...) is OP because Unleash Hell.  From my perspective I think this means GW have actually done a pretty good job, not a lot of holes to be found so far despite a lot of us keyboard warriors pecking away at it the last couple weeks.

I think the reinforcement rules will have a much larger “butterfly effect” than people think.  A lot of the buffs that people used to stack don’t do it quite the same way anymore, or you can pull off that one great big buff/swing but that’s all your going to get for the whole turn.  You end up so focused on making those two/three stacking ability situations work that the rest of your moves after you’ve blown your load are super obvious and not just easy to work around but your responses are static so they can be read.  Not many people are just going to do exactly what you want them to because they have other choices to make with that unit now to score VP’s like, can I run to within 3 other friendly units running? or get into your deployment with 1 other unit, rather than charge into your MW’s for no reason.  Once you add battletome specific spells and character buffs you can’t gauge the new Command Abilities like you think, there’s no possible way to measure that we can’t play this game enough.

Ranges and the character bubbles have proven to be much more limiting so far IME at the tables.  Forcing us to keep our formations tighter and shrinking the board does make the game move a lot faster despite what I’ve heard about the new coherency problems.

Saturmorn spells it all out beautifully, everything takes a probability calculation at first, but if the games on the line a 90/10 option looks different than it does on your first activation turn one.  This game is a lot more focused on what’s about to happen next, then knowing exactly what your guys are going to get done per roll, than everybody is giving it credit for.  If these 30 sentinel squads are something that you play against regularly I would suggest it’s up to you to prepare for it at this point without getting into ad hominem remarks about it.  I expect to see them at tournaments and haven’t?  But I have a plan and whether it works is up to the dice/scenario/priority/do they have Teclis?/which great nation this time?/yadda yadda... sounds like half the folks are cool with coming up with new ways to play while others just want a bit of a nerf bat taken to a few units first?

Edited June 30, 2021 by Andalf

[Kadeton]

15 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

The problem with unleash hell is that it is very devastating and supremely easy to execute, yet there is little counterplay.

I still haven't managed to get a game of 3rd Ed in to see for myself, but... this just doesn't feel right to me at all.

First - "very devastating". Is it? People in this thread have run the numbers on arguably the worst scenario you're ever likely to face: 20 Sentinels with Power of Hysh, and your charging unit is affected by Lambent Light. And that's about 10 wounds, on average. That's enough to put a dent in something, for sure, but it's not going to wipe out a hammer unit.

Second - "little counterplay". It seems to me there's quite a number of obvious and simple counterplays to mitigate the effect of Unleash Hell. For instance: Charge with more than one unit. Bait out the Unleash Hell with less valuable skirmishers. Other tactics available will be more specific based on the army you're playing (use units with 6" pile-in moves, disrupt with the Geminids, and so on), but any army can do at least those two. Force your opponent to make difficult decisions about how and when they use Unleash Hell, and also carefully consider your own difficult decisions about how and when you invite its use. It's all on your terms!

"Counterplay" doesn't have to mean you nullify your opponent's ability to do something - in fact, I'd say that's generally the "bad" kind of counterplay, the Blue Deck control-based paralysis that Lumineth get a lot of stick for. Counterplay for Unleash Hell doesn't have to mean not getting shot, it can be as simple as forcing your opponent to Unleash Hell at any target other than the important one.

I do think the design of Sentinels is a mistake and GW seems hell-bent on doubling down, but that's a battletome-specific problem. In the general case, I think Unleash Hell is a good addition to the game, simply because it warrants careful consideration on both sides - anything that increases the amount of tactical decision-making in the game is a plus, IMO.

[Andalf]

I think Sentinels are going to cause more headaches as support character and chaff removers.  They aren’t an easy unit to setup to do the big damage people are saying, and Lumineth have no cheap counter chaff of their own and will rely on chip damage shooting in that regard.  Plus Sentinels are one of a few strategies in that entire battle tome actually reliable to help take out enemy wizards, which will be a priority to control magic phases without Teclis.  

I think Stormfiends are worse for Unleash Hell, Hurricane Raptors and Sisters of the Watch as well, more because the armies they come with generally support their warscroll better and I think get better mileage out of those units outside of just shooting stuff.  To a degree I believe all of those units kind of need the option to stay relevant, and at the cost of a CP it’s not going to be at hand in even the most well laid plans, really fun with my Mortis Engine I gotta say.

Edited June 30, 2021 by Andalf

[Liquidsteel]

Ultimately we're just venting on a forum, I don't think anyone believes it will lead to any nerfs or changes.

Sentinels, strong shooting and unleash hell are here to stay so yes of course you need to prepare for it.

We can go round in circles about how people feel about Lumineth in general, not just Sentinels. They are looking even better in AoS 3 and are going to be a serious threat, and they have another wave coming next year or so.

[RuneBrush]

+++ MOD HAT +++

Appreciate that people are concerned about Lumineth and Unleash Hell, but I think we're are at the point where we need to mark it down as an "area of concern" and see what the FAQ brings this weekend.  I'm sure there are other rules to discuss 😉

[Sonnenspeer]

16 hours ago, Enoby said:

I do wonder how Illithia will interact with unleash hell; from memory, you get to double up a command ability. Two units of 30 sentinels unleashing hell? I can't imagine much would survive that 

Yes, I think with Illiatha you can give unleash Hell to the second unit of sentinels, if they meet the requirements (in 3" to the first sentinel unit, outside of 3" of other enemy units, the charging unit in 9", no other command ability used)

 

 

[Laststand]

1 hour ago, Andalf said:

I think Sentinels are going to cause more headaches as support character and chaff removers.  They aren’t an easy unit to setup to do the big damage people are saying, and Lumineth have no cheap counter chaff of their own and will rely on chip damage shooting in that regard.  Plus Sentinels are one of a few strategies in that entire battle tome actually reliable to help take out enemy wizards, which will be a priority to control magic phases without Teclis.  

I think Stormfiends are worse for Unleash Hell, Hurricane Raptors and Sisters of the Watch as well, more because the armies they come with generally support their warscroll better and I think get better mileage out of those units outside of just shooting stuff.  To a degree I believe all of those units kind of need the option to stay relevant, and at the cost of a CP it’s not going to be at hand in even the most well laid plans, really fun with my Mortis Engine I gotta say.

Stormfiends are a bad points investment in a unit of 3 as they just dont do enough. At 6 they can be very powerful when buffed but that is dependent on getting mmmwp spell off for rerolls (casting 7) and using a spark to increase damage. The rerolls would stay until the next hero phase but you cant use a spark during unleash hell. Also, 6 stormfiends are 630pts + a 125pt warlock engineer for the buffs. 600pts would get you a unit of 30 and a unit of 10 sentinals. Stormfiends are very very dangerous and i love them but if mmmwp fails their shooting damage output is low compared to the points investment. Coherancy on their large bases means they cant effectively fight in melee in units of 6. 

[CeleFAZE]

I think the major flaw with unleash hell has more to do with the armies as they stand currently than with the ability itself. In a situation where every army had access to viable shooting options it would be just another strategic tool. The problem as it currently stands is that the armies that have decent shooting are already near the top of the pack in the meta (KO, Tzeentch, LRL, DoK, certain CoS builds, etc.) and as such it magnifies the power divide between the haves and the have nots, as it were. These already dominant factions have a new tool that serves to enhance their playstyle further with very little trade-off, while the other factions are left with the burden of finding a way to play around a new obstacle, adding a level of strategic complexity where the only reward is to break even at best.  

[Greybeard86]

5 hours ago, Kadeton said:

I still haven't managed to get a game of 3rd Ed in to see for myself, but... this just doesn't feel right to me at all.

First - "very devastating". Is it? People in this thread have run the numbers on arguably the worst scenario you're ever likely to face: 20 Sentinels with Power of Hysh, and your charging unit is affected by Lambent Light. And that's about 10 wounds, on average. That's enough to put a dent in something, for sure, but it's not going to wipe out a hammer unit.

Second - "little counterplay". It seems to me there's quite a number of obvious and simple counterplays to mitigate the effect of Unleash Hell. For instance: Charge with more than one unit. Bait out the Unleash Hell with less valuable skirmishers. Other tactics available will be more specific based on the army you're playing (use units with 6" pile-in moves, disrupt with the Geminids, and so on), but any army can do at least those two. Force your opponent to make difficult decisions about how and when they use Unleash Hell, and also carefully consider your own difficult decisions about how and when you invite its use. It's all on your terms!

"Counterplay" doesn't have to mean you nullify your opponent's ability to do something - in fact, I'd say that's generally the "bad" kind of counterplay, the Blue Deck control-based paralysis that Lumineth get a lot of stick for. Counterplay for Unleash Hell doesn't have to mean not getting shot, it can be as simple as forcing your opponent to Unleash Hell at any target other than the important one.

I do think the design of Sentinels is a mistake and GW seems hell-bent on doubling down, but that's a battletome-specific problem. In the general case, I think Unleash Hell is a good addition to the game, simply because it warrants careful consideration on both sides - anything that increases the amount of tactical decision-making in the game is a plus, IMO.

Thanks for the reasoned response.

Let me preface by saying that, combos aside, unleash hell is undoubtfully a bonus to shooting. Given that shooting was already meta and dominant (as well as heavily conducive to NPE), this just adds salt to the wound. I do not think that is up for debate.

The question is then how bad it is, as in how much in can hurt when utilized by powerful shooting armies. In that context is where we find the dreaded sentinels. In units of 30 that's 10 MW per shooting phase and, thanks to unleash hell, that means potentially several additional such phases.

Let's see what the rule does to melee units / armies mechanically. Since it allows for an extra round of shooting, it will heavily incentivize running screens + shooting. This means that any charging unit will potentially face the following sequence, before getting into combat: 1) charge screen and you get shot, 2) get shot in their turn, 3) get shot when charging. This is potentially 2 additional rounds of receiving shots, if the opponent chooses to do so, that are new to the game.

You mention as counterplay baiting it out or shenanigans. You can do this, and you could do this before too, it will just be more costly to you due to unleash hell. But we turn to the beginning of the discussion: this is simply an extra boost to shooting, and not a small one. Coming from the end of an edition dominated by shooting and with lots of complains surrounding the NPE due to shooting, further boosting shooting is an extremely bizarre design choice.

[Beliman]

7 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Coming from the end of an edition dominated by shooting and with lots of complains surrounding the NPE due to shooting, further boosting shooting is an extremely bizarre design choice.

Maybe I'm wrong, but Imho, the whole problem of ranged armies in 2.0  was not just "shooting is OP!!!!" it was combination of a lot of things:

• The most powerful ranged lists had low-drop batallions to siege the initiative roll (KOs, SCE)...
• ...and teleports to abuse a double turn.
• Combination of poor terrain rules (non existance LOS Blocking, non existance obstacles, transparent forests, etc...).
• Powerful stacking bonus (mainly double tap CAs, but we could see some 2+/2+ units with some rend too).
• MW on hit rolls.
• Re-rolls (Triumphs, CAs, etc...).
• Sentinels

I'm not saying that Unleash Hell is not strong or anything like that, but some of this points are already under control:

• You can't stack buffs (+1/-1) and a lot of powerful CAs can't be spammed anymore (still, I hope to see double-taps go the way of the Dodo).
• Everybody can have 1 drop (with just 1 artifact btw...).
• All forests can block LoS, and all terrain gives +1 to saves... 
• ...remember that you can stack some saves to remove that annyoing -1 rend from 70% of all ranged profiles.
• Re-rolls are going to be harder to get (at least, from Soulblight Gravelords and Triumphs/CAs). Time will tell if that's the case, but I'm a bit optimistic. Half of them were linked to a unique Batallion...
• ... but we sill have some rerolls for charge (CA & Triumph).

Maybe it's not enough for some units, I was just expecting that some problematic units and it seems that's the case.

Maybe I just want to see a glass half full of water, but 3.0 seems to be a lot more fun, and there are a lot of things going on that even a powerful shooting list will have a hard time if the player doesn't use all the tools that have on his/her disposal wisely.

And I can't say the same about 2.9...

Edited June 30, 2021 by Beliman
Grammar

[Kadeton]

4 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

You mention as counterplay baiting it out or shenanigans. You can do this, and you could do this before too, it will just be more costly to you due to unleash hell. But we turn to the beginning of the discussion: this is simply an extra boost to shooting, and not a small one. Coming from the end of an edition dominated by shooting and with lots of complains surrounding the NPE due to shooting, further boosting shooting is an extremely bizarre design choice.

It certainly allows existing shooting units to be stronger on paper, no question. But mechanically, I don't think "shooting" was ever the problem (other than the NPE of it being tedious and dull, and being far too deadly to small heroes). Specific armies were definitely over-tuned for it and encouraged into a non-interactive playstyle, and yeah, that sucked. But loads of other armies had shooting elements that were totally fine.

What Unleash Hell does add, which I think is important to acknowledge, is more interactivity and meaningful decision-making to the shooting aspect of the game for all armies. They certainly could have added more decisions to shooting in areas that would have impacted it in other ways - I would have loved to see a command ability that let a nearby unit tank hits for a hero who was being shot at, for instance - but at least it's a step in the right direction. The choice of exactly when to Unleash Hell is not a brainless one in the way that most AoS shooting is, and that's great to see. The threat of Unleash Hell also makes the decisions on when and where to charge less brainless too.

The relative strengths of shooting and melee are constructed on top of the core rules, in the battletomes. GW could snap their fingers and erase all the shooting armies in the game from the competitive scene instantly, just by giving them some unfavourable points changes. Unleash Hell wouldn't remotely save them. Or, GW could decide that shooting armies should still be the top of the meta, as they already demonstrated could be done without Unleash Hell towards the end of 2nd Ed. That's what I mean when I say that balance happens in battletomes, not the core rules. What the core rules are for is determining where the important decisions of the game are created, and that's the context in which I think Unleash Hell is a good thing - it creates moments of tactical decision-making for both players that didn't previously exist.

Times will probably be tough for melee-focused armies for a while, yes. But they were tough for us already, and would still have been tough without Unleash Hell. And when the balance shifts again and times get better for melee, Unleash Hell will still be an interesting addition to the rules. I get that it's "salt in the wound", but maybe worry about the actual wound, you know? The salt hurts, but it's not why you're bleeding.

[Lior'Lec]

We’re about three days away from the new General’s Handbook I know, but do we have any info on what the limits are for reinforcements under the new rules yet? Planning out what I may need to buy (if anything) before I go grab my copy this weekend so I can get it all in one trip. 

[KrispyXIV]

5 minutes ago, Lior'Lec said:

We’re about three days away from the new General’s Handbook I know, but do we have any info on what the limits are for reinforcements under the new rules yet? Planning out what I may need to buy (if anything) before I go grab my copy this weekend so I can get it all in one trip. 

You mean, like the 4 reinforcement limit at 2000 points for matched play, with a maximum of one reinforcement for non-battleline and two for battleline units?

The entirety of the GHB is spoiled online, main unknown at this point is the FAQs. 

[Greybeard86]

40 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

It certainly allows existing shooting units to be stronger on paper, no question. [...]

The relative strengths of shooting and melee are constructed on top of the core rules, in the battletomes. [...] The salt hurts, but it's not why you're bleeding.

It might surprise you, but I agree with you 99%.

Where I disagree is about the current emphasis in the process of crafting the core rules. I feel that the core rules are part of the problem with shooting (e.g. sniping heroes), and designing more rules to make shooting better but not more rules to protect against shooting is a bad move.

[Greybeard86]

2 hours ago, Beliman said:

Maybe I'm wrong, but Imho, the whole problem of ranged armies in 3.0  was not just "shooting is OP!!!!" it was combination of a lot of things[...]

Maybe I just want to see a glass half full of water, but 3.0 seems to be a lot more fun, and there are a lot of things going on that even a powerful shooting list will have a hard time if the player doesn't use all the tools that have on his/her disposal wisely.

And I can't say the same about 2.9...

In some regards it does sound more fun! I am very glad of that.

In others, I think they could have made more effort to integrate shooting better into what was designed to be a mostly melee game.

That is why shooting is so oppresive, the game does not have the core elements to counter it (terrain, anti sniping, better rules for what and when you can shoot).

[Liquidsteel]

So overall I do think that Redeploy and Unleash Hell are interesting mechanics, and definitely add something extra to the game, particularly for the non active player.

It's clear though that it has reduced the effectiveness of melee and boosted shooting, but here we are.

I would like to have seen some bonuses to melee as well, perhaps a command point to gain +x" to charge, or +1 attack if you successfully charge a unit that redeployed, or redeployed units cannot receive command points until their next movement phase.

[tripchimeras]

With all the focus on unleash hell, I think the rend/armor mod situation shouldn't be lost sight of.  I think its mostly been discussed as a point of confusion rather then concern, but I think its going to exacerbate the mortal spam issues. 

It creates a situation where rend is significantly devalued and the more durable units in the game, most of whom were already very competitive, become incredibly more powerful.  This causes even more emphasis in the competitive game on mortal wound generation as the only way to effectively combat these units, and just contributes to the shooting spiral 2nd had already started, and that unleash hell potentially makes worse. 

+1 armor cap feels okay imo, but given the prevalent interpretation of the rend rules, and the seeming confirmation of it working that way in the Khorne article today, it seems that things  in the 3+/2+  save or re-rollable save categories, can easily become neigh impervious to non mortal attacks.  It just feels so backwards in a game that was already suffering from a heavily shooting/mortal focused meta to compound it by making combat armies that much less effective.  

Rend 2 is common enough that a little added survivability feels like a good thing, and units that had 3+/2+ saves can still be notched down enough by the more combat focused armies that killing them feels feasible at +1 armor cap.  But with the modifiers able to cancel rend it just feels too much to me.   

Now most of the time for most armies this really isn't that abusable.  You can only start abusing it once per game per character most of the time.  But in chaos?  Lots of sources of + saves in those books, and lots of high armor/rerollable armor models to complement it.  Its not everywhere, but the places that can abuse it can really abuse it.

This could easilly be one of those things that sounds scarier then it is, and turns out I'm way overreacting too.  Just in light of the Khorne article confirming it works that way, and thus clarification in the FAQs against this being all the more unlikely, I'm feeling bad about it in the moment.

PS  In a vacuum I think this is actually a great fix to shooting.  But since shooting armies that didn't spam mortals weren't really the biggest oppressive issue in AoS, shooting that spammed mortals was, I feel like this instead compounds the issue.

 

PPS upon further reflection, this was definitely a kneejerk reaction to the Khorne article confirming the rule was likely staying for me... Thinking about it more, maybe its not so bad.  Definitely think some chaos lists are going to abuse the ****** out of it early, but I do think overall it probably helps vs shooting in the long run and I'm sure abuse will be curbed as more books come out... So meh... Leaving my overreaction here for posterity so others can overreact to my overreaction :).

Edited June 30, 2021 by tripchimeras

[Ian Wallsh]

I don't get why people hate Lumineth so much....?

Sure the rules could do with a little tweaking 'here and there'...

But their beautiful figures with exquisite Lore and inspiring stories about them..

Surely a 'bad general blames the rulebook ' applies here and it's up to the opposing player to use all their cunning, ingenuity and luck to beat them.....?

Remember 'The greater the odds the greater the glory' and if a General is truly worth his/her 'Salt' they will prevail...