AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Does it encourage single units, though? I was thinking about crossfire. Having a couple such units guarantees you'll get the potential for 2 more volleys even if the attacker has some shenanigans and gets into one of the shooters.

I think we can at least conclusively say that Unleash Hell being a once-per-turn thing means that there are diminishing returns to spamming shooting units if you want to make use of it. Taking two shooting units instead of one definitely does not provide double the value.

It's an open question whether Unleash Hell encourages bringing, for example, single units of 30 or whether taking two units of 20 is more advantageous, for the reasons that you mention. But I think we can say that it does not, for example, encourage shooting only lists (by itself). In conjunction with the new reinforcement rules, I think that something like 2x30 also seems like a fairly bad choice in most cases.

So overall, I would say the presence of Unleash Hell rewards bringing some shooting, but does not particularly reward bringing lots of shooting.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

6 minutes ago, Doko said:

So you are putting handgunners with a +2 hit buff vs sentinels unbuffed.

Now lets compare them with sentinels with +2 hit also(ca and the spell) and rerrolling all hit and see the numbers

And btw if they get his overwatch is with enemys at 3" so they loose his +1 hit innate.

So yes hard compare a unit that need have enemys at 3" and isnt mage to a unit that do the same(with less support) being mage and from safe behind a screen.

I dont say handgunners are bad,they are great. But is imposible compare them to sentinels.

Sentinels output isnt the problem. Is the fact how easy and 0 counterplay have

I'm was looking at a realistic amount of buffs, so this is what I assumed:

Handgunners get +2 to hit from somewhere. There are a few ways to do this. They have a +1 on their warscroll, a Hurricanum can grant +1, the Freeguild General gives +1 to hit and wound and there are probably other ways to do this as well. I think you can find a way to give them +2 to hit most of the time. Losing the warscroll +1 to overwatch is not that crucial, by the way, since they also don't suffer a -1 to hit like when using Unleash Hell if they use their warscroll ability.

In a scenario where everything goes your way, they could potentially also have +1 to wound and reroll 1s to hit, but I have not assumed this. Just the less situational +2 to hit overall, so that they are at +1 to hit after Unleash Hell.

For Lumineth, I was going from memory on the numbers, but assuming Aimed Shot and mortals on 5+. You will sometimes probably also get other bonuses (reroll hits, +1 to hit from somewhere), but so can Freeguild. I just want to consider a likely scenario.

So anyway, here are the numbers head to head:

Save	Handgunners (double overwatch)	Sentinels
2+	8.89	10.47
3+	13.33	10.88
4+	17.78	11.28
5+	22.22	11.68
6+	26.67	12.08
-	26.67	12.08

Personally, I think the comparison is fair. Sure, Sentinels and Handgunners ultimately have different strengths and weaknesses. But they are not so different in their function that comparing them does not make sense at all. And in the context of Unleash Hell, I would say it's a fair conclusion that Handgunners benefit more than Sentinels, in general. That does not have to mean that they are the better unit overall, of course.

[Reinholt]

I want to re-iterate that what I find particularly troublesome about Unleash Hell is the ability to do it when the unit providing the response fire is not the one charged. If they didn't allow you to Unleash Hell when someone charged a nearby screen, I think the ability is probably still not needed, but now more in the realm of "dumb but we can live with it". As it stands, when I can bubble wrap a very powerful shooting unit and potentially cycle screens repeatedly, putting my opponent in the world of "congrats you're going to get shot so many times and your counterplay is to not charge me" is pretty grotesque.

Not just because it's powerful (it is), but because some armies do not have a meaningful counterplay. If you don't have your own shooting or magic powerful enough that you can deal with the threat, you don't really have a great option (maybe if you have very fast flying units that are also tough enough to get a meaningful charge in, like eels). And unfortunately, thanks to the state of the design space, that's probably at least 50% of armies.

This is where I think the real issue is. As we look at the math, also consider the NPE of repeatedly banging into things like Aetherwings or Arkanaut units while the giant shooting unit continues to just pummel you in their turn as normal and in your turn whenever you charge a screen. The combined weight of fire for units that were already very good being amped up dramatically at the low cost of using a screen, which is something anyone with two brain cells to rub together was already doing, is the issue.

You are rewarding some very NPE tactics to the point they will become dominant plays in the meta. That is my fundamental concern. Again, for those who think it's not an issue (and not just with Sentinels, though it is definitely one there), go play some of the other armies with good shooting units. 1 CP per turn to nearly double the efficiency of your best shooting units if someone gets near you is pants on head dumb. On a comparison basis, just to be clear, your equivalent melee buff would not be +1 to hit, it would be you get to pile in and fight immediately when someone charges you at -1 to hit. I think if that were in the game, people would also lose their minds.

[Greybeard86]

35 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

On a comparison basis, just to be clear, your equivalent melee buff would not be +1 to hit, it would be you get to pile in and fight immediately when someone charges you at -1 to hit. I think if that were in the game, people would also lose their minds.

This.

[Andalf]

In the middle of a game currently, turn 3.  Opponent deploys a squad of 20 Wardens, 5 Bladelords, Ellania and then a bolt thrower and Wind Spirit tucked in behind.  Turn 1  My LA on Tauralon, Gryphcharger and Footie on Dais Arcanum jumped across the 18” no mans land and the two mounted lords pull off the charge.  Wind Spirit I think shaved a wound or two off with Unleash He’ll but other than that nothing.

Turn 2 my Tauralon was free’d up and made another charge into Ellania and Bladelords that the Gryphcharger had pinned down.  Unleash Hell took my Tauralon down to 3 wounds.  In the next two hero phases I heal him back up from Healing Light and Heroic Actions.  His 20 sentinels were dealing with Sequitors and Evocators that had dropped on his objectives but they were now primed to shoot any of my LA’s who were coming in next.  I just turned around and left him in the corner and went about dominating Battle Tactics after using Ghur to delete the objective the Sentinels were standing on.  It was a turn the Lumineth had won the double, but couldn’t give me first turn without really being exposed to some skull cracking, but the choice of which Objective to destroy made it almost a lose-lose; something worth noting to watch for IMO, and I think this Dynamic is a lot harder of a new tool to gauge the power of than he Unleash ****** from relatively powerful shooting models doing relatively nothing other than forcing my actions on heals rather than boosting my saves.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Andalf

[Greybeard86]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I think we can at least conclusively say that Unleash Hell being a once-per-turn thing means that there are diminishing returns to spamming shooting units if you want to make use of it. Taking two shooting units instead of one definitely does not provide double the value.

I think you are looking at it too narrowly and railroading us into your conclusion (unleash hell does not reward bringing more shooting). Diminishing returns should be assessed accounting for whether you are likely to get it off, at all, or where it matters (the expected value). More shooting units provide more such opportunities. For instance, if you just have 1 shooting unit, then threatening to tie it up with chaff makes it likely to force it on the opponent, whereas if they have two shooting units they could save it for when your "good unit" is charging, not your bait.

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I think we can say that it does not, for example, encourage shooting only lists (by itself). In conjunction with the new reinforcement rules, I think that something like 2x30 also seems like a fairly bad choice in most cases.

So overall, I would say the presence of Unleash Hell rewards bringing some shooting, but does not particularly reward bringing lots of shooting.

I do not know where you get that conclusion, but I think it is markedly wrong. Unleash hell makes any shooting unit more dangerous. Thus, in itself, it rewards bringing more shooting than in a world where the rule does not exist.

[Andalf]

There is a pretty big play around in forcing your opponent to use the CP’s as well though.  Unleash Hell is basically your second to last option per player turn, if you’re going second you do start w/ 3 + whatever your Battletome/heroes can generate.  It sounds easy turn one I’ll give you that, but by turn two or three... it’s even a play around to give the shooter first turn to limit exposure to his spending CP on Unleash Hell this way.  There are just too many factors, IMO, to suggest that this one very particular interaction (scary shooters getting Unleash Hell) is going to dominate games to the point it’s a problem.  At least for now the jury has to be out until your ‘meta’ might decide which way it’s going to take this edition, but I’m not seeing heavy shooting armies winning.  
 

If anybody has taken notes from 40K, movement and contesting objectives and really risking your neck in melee is what is winning games; maybe some really souped up Castles will get their 70% win rate due to probabilities but if you’re playing against an army equally tuned for devastation, while standing still in the corner and counting on your opponent to let you setup to do Lambent Light, maybe spell portal, Power of Hysh, maybe Twinstones to even have the chance to cast them, or bringing God to do it automatically but not much else, and then charge face first into you...  this sounds like a losing proposition.  Even Shootcast, or whichever the next worst offender is.  Not even remotely creative.  
 

You know there’s books that bring models back to life on one wound too right?  If anybody had seen my Gryphcharger get killed 4 times by Ellania and Ellathor I’d think they would think that’s cheesy.  Especially when the 28 dice I rolled for the new Blazing rule or whatever in turn killed them.  But guess what?  As long as the Twins fight you get to roll under your wounds or the round # and come back to life with D6 wounds and teleport anywhere on the table 12” away.  Which they do automatically when they die, and so they teleported to the other side where my warlord was sitting on an objective, got the charge off in their next turn and dumped my Tauralon on his Ass with their 5 damage sword, winning the game that I had in the bag for most of the last three turns...  they even managed to heal themselves back up.  None of this was possible in AoS2, it was one of the most fun games I’ve ever played and most of the stuff we were pulling off made stacking shooting units look like play-doe IMO.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Andalf
Grammar

[Beliman]

3 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

Unleash hell makes any shooting unit more dangerous. Thus, in itself, it rewards bringing more shooting than in a world where the rule does not exist.

I agree with that.

I want to add that Unleash Hell is an investment too. Using CP on the enemy Charge Phase means that maybe I will not have enough CPs for All Out Defense on enemy's Fight Phase or even Inspiring Presence, and if I go second, maybe I will not have enough punch in my turn without all that juicy All Out Attacks or other stuff.

I just want to say that only one unit can use Unleash Hell using 1 CP from a basic pool of 3 or 4 CPs (that's 25 to 33% of all your CPs for that Battleround). Btw, I still think that Shooting is really powerful with Unleash Hell, but I will wait to see the whole FAQs and the first Battletomes to see where this edition is going (I just want to remember that Judicators are going to be 200 points...).

 

 

Edited July 1, 2021 by Beliman

[Sleboda]

10 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It's just one of the two most contentious new rules, along with coherency.

FWIW, I really like the coherency rule. It's going to make units look more like actual regiments instead of strung out collections of rabble. Anything that encourages AoS forces to look more like armies is a plus in my book.

At this point, I'm assuming the recent 28mm bases will soon replace 25mm bases, forcing another rebasing wave and eliminating line formations for even the units that used to be on 25mm bases.

[Greybeard86]

4 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

FWIW, I really like the coherency rule. It's going to make units look more like actual regiments instead of strung out collections of rabble. Anything that encourages AoS forces to look more like armies is a plus in my book.

Will it, though? I was traumatized when the long list of new formation memes came out.

If it does, I agree, it will be a massive plus.

[NauticalSoup]

It absolutely will NOT result in units looking more like actual regiments, unless players are keen on gimping the performance of their combat units for aesthetic reasons.

[Grimrock]

13 minutes ago, NauticalSoup said:

It absolutely will NOT result in units looking more like actual regiments, unless players are keen on gimping the performance of their combat units for aesthetic reasons.

Yeah this is what I've seen so far. Screens of 10 32mm base models have simply been dropped for 5 man units of cavalry turned sideways. Combat units running in triangles to maximize attacks. Large units mostly skipped in list building in favor of mass MSU to avoid loss of efficiency. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it absolutely doesn't look like the rank and file armies from the old WHFB days. 

[Lord Krungharr]

Maybe in AoS 4.0 they'll give save bonuses for having every model within 1" of 3 other models from the unit, like a phalanx.

 

[yukishiro1]

Yep. Cloud coherency fixes things, it's the easy no-brainer solution most other games systems use. GW of course doesn't use that because that's too simple and easy and if everyone does it that must mean it's inferior, instead they come up with this bizarre w/in X of 2 other models thing that results in terribly gamey formations that you absolutely have to use to play the best game you can play. 

They've somehow managed to hit on the one system that is worse than both ranked base-to-base and skirmish. It has most of the disadvantages of both, and few of the advantages of either.

Edited July 1, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Zappgrot]

5 hours ago, Andalf said:

There is a pretty big play around in forcing your opponent to use the CP’s as well though.  Unleash Hell is basically your second to last option per player turn, if you’re going second you do start w/ 3 + whatever your Battletome/heroes can generate.  It sounds easy turn one I’ll give you that, but by turn two or three... it’s even a play around to give the shooter first turn to limit exposure to his spending CP on Unleash Hell this way.  There are just too many factors, IMO, to suggest that this one very particular interaction (scary shooters getting Unleash Hell) is going to dominate games to the point it’s a problem.  At least for now the jury has to be out until your ‘meta’ might decide which way it’s going to take this edition, but I’m not seeing heavy shooting armies winning.  
 

If anybody has taken notes from 40K, movement and contesting objectives and really risking your neck in melee is what is winning games; maybe some really souped up Castles will get their 70% win rate due to probabilities but if you’re playing against an army equally tuned for devastation, while standing still in the corner and counting on your opponent to let you setup to do Lambent Light, maybe spell portal, Power of Hysh, maybe Twinstones to even have the chance to cast them, or bringing God to do it automatically but not much else, and then charge face first into you...  this sounds like a losing proposition.  Even Shootcast, or whichever the next worst offender is.  Not even remotely creative.  
 

You know there’s books that bring models back to life on one wound too right?  If anybody had seen my Gryphcharger get killed 4 times by Ellania and Ellathor I’d think they would think that’s cheesy.  Especially when the 28 dice I rolled for the new Blazing rule or whatever in turn killed them.  But guess what?  As long as the Twins fight you get to roll under your wounds or the round # and come back to life with D6 wounds and teleport anywhere on the table 12” away.  Which they do automatically when they die, and so they teleported to the other side where my warlord was sitting on an objective, got the charge off in their next turn and dumped my Tauralon on his Ass with their 5 damage sword, winning the game that I had in the bag for most of the last three turns...  they even managed to heal themselves back up.  None of this was possible in AoS2, it was one of the most fun games I’ve ever played and most of the stuff we were pulling off made stacking shooting units look like play-doe IMO.

You don't see heavy shooting armies winning?  You might wanna watch the shooting damage spreads in the meta watch . The only top army that does not really heavily on shooting are the deepkin. And they are top cause they counter shooting armies.  But i am glad your having fun in your games

[Zappgrot]

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

FWIW, I really like the coherency rule. It's going to make units look more like actual regiments instead of strung out collections of rabble. Anything that encourages AoS forces to look more like armies is a plus in my book.

At this point, I'm assuming the recent 28mm bases will soon replace 25mm bases, forcing another rebasing wave and eliminating line formations for even the units that used to be on 25mm bases.

Yea I must say ppl placeing thier cavalary sideways so the second rank can fitght really improved the  aesthetic. Nothing says immersion  like sideways trotting pigs. 

[Andalf]

25 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

You don't see heavy shooting armies winning?  You might wanna watch the shooting damage spreads in the meta watch . The only top army that does not really heavily on shooting are the deepkin. And they are top cause they counter shooting armies.  But i am glad your having fun in your games

I meant looking ahead, sorry; and not that they won’t win, but that they won’t be as dominant as everybody is saying.

Edited July 1, 2021 by Andalf

[Zeblasky]

So, instead of replying to everyone here, I've decided to reply directly to certain discussed topics instead.

 

1) Shooting units do not pay for shooting advantages.

The more I do math and compare performance of different units, the more I am convinced, that almost all shooting units do pay for their advantages. Shooting units are mechanically stronger, as they can apply all their damage on any target in range, while not worrying about coherency, charges, activations or retaliation damage. But they pay for it with lower damage per turn (and much more lower per battle round), worse saves, sometimes with huge conditional debuffs (don't want to use normal moves or be in melee contact). The biggest thing about ranged units is that they also cannot contest objectives, and only a few (SotW and Handgunners mostly) can even hold objectives against direct assault. The main role of missile units is killing certain things you need to die, while being properly protected. And, even in good situations, they still need 2-3 turns of "free" shooting to pay for themselfs. And in upcoming MSU meta, it will be quite harder.

And yes, even Sentinels, as NPE as they are, are still actually balanced on their own. Things that enable them to be abusive are Twinstones casting bonuses to Power of Hysh and Lambent Light for MW fishing. And even then, it's manageable. Actual worst things about this combo are that it can be so reliable and that there is simply almost no counterplay to it, besides dispelling. No all out defence, no high saves in general, no line of sight, no minus to hit defence. Only ward protection or MW negation is viable. And how to fix this situation... well, it is tricky. Rebalancing Sunmetal weapons to work on to wound rolls could be a start though.

 

2) New meta will be all about shooting units with screens.

For some factions - probably. Is it bad? Is it worse than pure melee and/or moster spam? Is it worse than pure Eels spam? I'd say it's quite better. Having a sturdy frontline and a squishy backline is actually much better for this game diversity. It also gives huge value to fast MSU shock cavalry units and mosters, that can be used for charging down backline missiles. No rend shooting units are also quite more valuable now, as they can be used for a very effective countershooting on a usually squishy enemy missiles. Such meta will also be kept in check quite well by a fact that there is a LOT of deepstriking factions and subfacions and you can't screen those if you take too much missiles.

Now, could some factions become too powerful? Could factions without decent shooting be left in the dust? It is possible, and balance has to be maintained. But, as long as Seraphon like crazy combos are kept in check, I'd say it should be fine. Lists with heavy shooting are finally viable for a lot of factions (6 currently), and mainly melee meta is thankfully long dead.

 

3) Unleash Hell buffs all shooting.

Kinda true, but it's less about giving a direct buff to every single shooting unit you have, and more about buying an extra bullet to all riflemen in your unit. Every turn you spend CP to make one of your shooting units stronger, while the rest stay... well, the same. So the best strategy for utilizing Unleash hell is with 2-3 blocks of 20-30 models. Which also wastes reinforcement points and weakens the melee part of your force.

 

4) New Save stacking will invalidate rend too much.

I am quite afraid of that too. Now you have 2 new sources of extra saves, available to everyone - Mystic Shield and All-out Defence. They alone can give a unit +2 to save, but add some faction specific abilities, and one or two key units in your army can ignore -2 rend, while still maintaining +1 to their save. This situation benefits no rend weapons and... mortal wounds, yep. We will have too see, if it will be too much. Easy to fix witha  FAQ though, just make any extra saves not to apply to rend.
 

Edited July 2, 2021 by Zeblasky

[Chaos Shepard]

50 minutes ago, Zeblasky said:

4) New Save stacking will invalidate rend too much.

I am quite afraid of that too. Now you have 2 new sources of extra saves, available to everyone - Mystic Shield and All-out Defence. They alone can give a unit +2 to save, but add some faction specific abilities, and one or two key units in your army can ignore -2 rend, while still maintaining +1 to their save. This situation benefits no rend weapons and... mortal wounds, yep. We will have too see, if it will be too much. Easy to fix witha  FAQ though, just make any extra saves not to apply to rend.

I actually have the opposite opinion in this part. Rend actually feels like it has a point. Armor save in this game where so low that everything beyond rend 1 felt mostly redundant. Its not perfect, I do think that rend tends to be rarer and over costed when compared to mortal wounds, so there is room for improvement going forward.

[Sleboda]

5 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Yeah this is what I've seen so far. Screens of 10 32mm base models have simply been dropped for 5 man units of cavalry turned sideways. Combat units running in triangles to maximize attacks. Large units mostly skipped in list building in favor of mass MSU to avoid loss of efficiency. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it absolutely doesn't look like the rank and file armies from the old WHFB days. 

I'll ask be taking decent sized units and "ranking" them up.

 

🤷‍♂️

 

[The Red King]

25 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

I'll ask be taking decent sized units and "ranking" them up.

 

🤷‍♂️

 

No offense but "if you just ignore the actual mechanical effect of the rule to your own detriment in order to preserve the spirit of the game then it's a good rule." Is an admirable thing to do in a friendly game (which is just about all I play mind you) but it's a terrible argument for the quality of a rule.

 

Ultimately there's just no arguing that the rule they wrote achieves the effect we all pretty safely assume they (and probably many of us as well) wanted.

[zilberfrid]

9 hours ago, Sleboda said:

FWIW, I really like the coherency rule. It's going to make units look more like actual regiments instead of strung out collections of rabble. Anything that encourages AoS forces to look more like armies is a plus in my book.

At this point, I'm assuming the recent 28mm bases will soon replace 25mm bases, forcing another rebasing wave and eliminating line formations for even the units that used to be on 25mm bases.

Forcing rebasing to a stupid new format nobody uses isn't going to land well.

I can use 25mm on a battlemat, 28 isn't big enough for a large creature (32 already looks too small for that), and doesn't fit medium or small ones.

If you want to rebalance, give 25mm minis 2cm of reach, and 32mm minis 3cm of reach.

Edit: though drifting horses sound fun, the lines that form in the new coherency rules are finicky and stupid.

They are a direct buff to Drakespawn Knights though.

Edited July 2, 2021 by zilberfrid

[PJetski]

Q: If I am allowed to take an additional enhancement, can I take the same enhancement more than once?

A: Yes, unless specifically noted otherwise

 

but then

27.3.3 – Artefacts of Power Add: ‘An army cannot include duplicates of the same artefact of power.’

Edited July 2, 2021 by PJetski

[Kadeton]

1 minute ago, PJetski said:

Q: If I am allowed to take an additional enhancement, can I take the same enhancement more than once?

A: Yes, unless specifically noted otherwise

I was right! Welcome to the Age of Arcane Tome

Core Rules Errata, 27.3.3 – Artefacts of Power
Add:
'An army cannot include duplicates of the same artefact of power.'

[tripchimeras]

12 hours ago, Zeblasky said:

4) New Save stacking will invalidate rend too much.

I am quite afraid of that too. Now you have 2 new sources of extra saves, available to everyone - Mystic Shield and All-out Defence. They alone can give a unit +2 to save, but add some faction specific abilities, and one or two key units in your army can ignore -2 rend, while still maintaining +1 to their save. This situation benefits no rend weapons and... mortal wounds, yep. We will have too see, if it will be too much. Easy to fix witha  FAQ though, just make any extra saves not to apply to rend.
 

Well on the downside the faq confirms positive modifiers past +1 do affect rend.  On the upside it appears the faq has removed nearly all access to rerollable saves from the game.  While in the case of poor slaanesh, this is yet another kick to the groin, however overall this goes at least part of the way in reducing how abusable this is.  There is still going to potentially be an issue with rend becoming too devalued, but it at least removes some of the most potentially abusable examples.

Edited July 2, 2021 by tripchimeras