AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[yukishiro1]

That's the problem with big models, they're inherently swingy and it's very difficult to get them to a place where they are both balanced and fun to play and play against. IMO AOS would be in a better design place if the most expensive models were in the 500ish range instead of the 1000ish range, with reduced power to compensate. 

[PrimeElectrid]

8 hours ago, Golub87 said:

Fun is a very subjective thing and hard to discuss in any medium. Best way to go about it would be: "This book/song/painting/movie/game is trying to evoke a particular mood in the audience by doing X. Does it really do X? Does it use all the tools and techniques available in the medium to achieve X? How well does it use those tools when compared to other examples of the medium?" etc. There is a reason why a good movie or book critique does not just speak of fun but of more quantifiable things, like pacing, character development, framing devices etc. That way you do not get the answer if the piece of work is fun, but you do get an answer if it does its thing well or not and each of us can then make a decision if that would be fun or not for us. I would never watch a buddy cop comedy, even if it is exceptional and critically acclaimed, but might try out average sci-fi if I have nothing better to do.

That said I am curious about this complexity you mentioned. What exactly do you mean by it?

I mean AoS3 has depth to it without being needlessly complex.

47 minutes ago, Honk said:

16hp 3+, the automated healing is over 9000, the 24“ 6dmg spear? 
model can retreat and shoot/charge, with battering ram? Casts 3 spells, with the cast bonus cheese?

All the big models are a bit wonky, Nagash could rolfstomp your whole army or get shot off the board turn 1-2

740 points with no after save. Is she good? Probably. Is she nagash/archaon/gotrek/morathi tier bonkers? Absolutely not.

 

[stratigo]

There's plenty of needless complexity in AoS.

 

Indeed the whole rules lawyer debate silliness kind of proves that.

[PrimeElectrid]

23 minutes ago, stratigo said:

There's plenty of needless complexity in AoS.

 

Indeed the whole rules lawyer debate silliness kind of proves that.

The difference being that those are oversights which need clarification; not baked into the ruleset by design.

Edited July 20, 2021 by PrimeElectrid

[Charleston]

Do we know anything about the new codex releases? Because currently we are in the perfect vacuum of old tomes + new core rules. As soon as the first book releases drop we will see new wordings and approaching to balance which will tilt the balance scale again as we currently see in 40k.

[EMMachine]

53 minutes ago, Charleston said:

Do we know anything about the new codex releases? Because currently we are in the perfect vacuum of old tomes + new core rules. As soon as the first book releases drop we will see new wordings and approaching to balance which will tilt the balance scale again as we currently see in 40k.

Except for the covers and that they will come in August we know next to nothing about the new Battletomes.

But it is also too early at the moment. We will hear about the Battletomes in the Week before Preorder, so we have to wait for the "Preorder next week" Announcement that is released on sundays (or if GW wants to make another preview).

[Golub87]

2 hours ago, PrimeElectrid said:

I mean AoS3 has depth to it without being needlessly complex.

I mean I get it that this is what you meant, but would you be so kind to elaborate on that? An example of depth?

From my perspective it seems that the opposite is true - game has enormous complexity manifested in all kinds of different abilities, rules and exceptions, while having very little depth - core systems of the game are merely there as a delivery methods for warscrolls whose individual abilities are more akin to hand grenades that you fire off when needed. Sure, there are interactions between warscrolls, but these are quite linear (ok, my hero gives off bonus in a bubble, so I keep him next to the unit that is the optimal target for the bonus). It is all very straightforward and basic while still being burdened with a huge amount of text that is not standardized in the slightest.

Depth is a vertical measurement, where you have a comparatively small footprint of tight rules that create emergent layers via their interactions. AoS takes a very horizontal approach - constantly adding new abilities and widening the pool of optional rules while having bare bones core rules.

This is a game that requires a cheat sheet to play (ok, lets see, start of hero phase I activate this thing, then I fire off these abilities, end of hero phase do this... OK, lets do movement phase now). And for all these extra rules, it becomes quite rigid once you finalize your list, your gameplan is usually fixed by then with few variations or options during the game itself.

It is a complex, fiddly game with lots of busywork (remembering all the buffs and abilities while pushing dozens upon dozens of models across the table individually) with surprisingly little depth, just a lot of noise.

[PrimeElectrid]

16 minutes ago, Golub87 said:

I mean I get it that this is what you meant, but would you be so kind to elaborate on that? An example of depth?

From my perspective it seems that the opposite is true - game has enormous complexity manifested in all kinds of different abilities, rules and exceptions, while having very little depth - core systems of the game are merely there as a delivery methods for warscrolls whose individual abilities are more akin to hand grenades that you fire off when needed. Sure, there are interactions between warscrolls, but these are quite linear (ok, my hero gives off bonus in a bubble, so I keep him next to the unit that is the optimal target for the bonus). It is all very straightforward and basic while still being burdened with a huge amount of text that is not standardized in the slightest.

Depth is a vertical measurement, where you have a comparatively small footprint of tight rules that create emergent layers via their interactions. AoS takes a very horizontal approach - constantly adding new abilities and widening the pool of optional rules while having bare bones core rules.

This is a game that requires a cheat sheet to play (ok, lets see, start of hero phase I activate this thing, then I fire off these abilities, end of hero phase do this... OK, lets do movement phase now). And for all these extra rules, it becomes quite rigid once you finalize your list, your gameplan is usually fixed by then with few variations or options during the game itself.

It is a complex, fiddly game with lots of busywork (remembering all the buffs and abilities while pushing dozens upon dozens of models across the table individually) with surprisingly little depth, just a lot of noise.

In it's simplest form (and less true for Aos3 than Aos2 but still applies), the base rules are still quite easy to learn and simple to play, but the layers of base rules) + battleplans + battletomes + warscrolls creates interactions to explore that aren't immediately obviously. This is what I mean by depth as I see them as layers on the core rules.

Yes there is a lot more going on in AoS3 and by definition that means it is more complex; but, equally, I don't think it is as complex as WHFB was. Wheels & arcs are an example of unnecessary complexity which in hindisght I don't think contributed much to that game in the way they were implemented (if only for the fact that so many powerful units were single models and so ignored them almost entirely).

[Golub87]

4 hours ago, PrimeElectrid said:

In it's simplest form (and less true for Aos3 than Aos2 but still applies), the base rules are still quite easy to learn and simple to play, but the layers of base rules) + battleplans + battletomes + warscrolls creates interactions to explore that aren't immediately obviously. This is what I mean by depth as I see them as layers on the core rules.

Yes there is a lot more going on in AoS3 and by definition that means it is more complex; but, equally, I don't think it is as complex as WHFB was. Wheels & arcs are an example of unnecessary complexity which in hindisght I don't think contributed much to that game in the way they were implemented (if only for the fact that so many powerful units were single models and so ignored them almost entirely).

I would disagree about the interactions being deep. Yes you can create quite complex layers of powerful combos, but these things are set up in the army list building stage and do not bring any kind of emergent gameplay to the table. Emergent gameplay being that new and unexpected situations arise from actual play that force you to adjust the way you play. AoS is too fast and too simple a game for that. You are either doing your planned thing and winning or not dong your thing and losing. There is no room for developing situation on the board. Lack of terrain rules also contributes to this - every single battlefield is the same - an arena peppered with obstacles that sometimes do something so minor that including it in the game actually takes away room the experience because it adds to the noise without actually changing considerations of play.

One place where you do have emergent interactions are the battle tactics that have potential, because they are not prepared in advance but is something mutable and something that you have to improvise according to the situation and plan ahead what would be the optimal time to execute them as well as the optimal way to stop the opponent from scoring them. there is some gold hidden in them hills, it's just a shame that it is drowned out by all the other noise.

Now, wheels and arcs are a very good example of what I meant when I said that GW rules writing leaves off the impression of a heartbreaker game. W&A are an important part of historical wargaming because it is all about piloting your cumbersome formations around in order to bring about maximum impact on a small section of the enemy line overwhelming it and securing the victory if the enemy can't plug the hole and you are in the position to exploit it. These games would be ridiculous and would lose a lot of depth without wheels and arcs.

Now GW wanted to make their massive wargame but with orcs and elves, a great idea and they took all those rules from historical wargaming and implemented them without any consideration as to how the changing setting and new unit types fit with those rules.

Same happened later with AoS, GW recognized that skirmish games are the new hotness, so they put their models on round bases and established individual movement and called it a day, not realizing that the reason why skirmish games are popular is in the fact that you can have an army ready quickly and cheaply with 10-15 models, not because of the round bases and individual movement. This results in fiddly coherency rules, headache inducing movement phases that eat most of the game time and overall player exhaustion resulting from moving dozens or even hundreds of models one at a time with no upside whatsoever.

This is what I meant when I said that GW games look like heartbreakers - they take these things because "that is how things are done" and just toss them in without consideration on how it interacts with the rest of the game, just like fantasy heartbreaker RPGs of late 80s that were all about dungeon crawling and "what do you mean you can have an RPG without the weapons and armor table?". Just a parade of completely unquestioned assumptions cast in stone, without a thought that it might be done differently.

Let's take a look at a charge roll. Why is it there? It introduces a factor of randomness and risk, what if you fail... sure, I have no problem with that. But the execution has been the same for decades now. Roll 2d6 and compare the distance. Why is it like that? At this point I am sure that the answer is that no one thought to ask the question if it should be different... because there are much better ways to do it, make it a morale check for example. Fixed distance, depending on the movement, but you have to pass morale check. All of a sudden, piloting light skirmisher cav and heavy elite inf feels completely different even without the fancy warscroll fireworks. These guys can easily make long distance charge but their morale is poor, these guys will get stuck in, but I have to move them closer and cover them while they get there.

This is depth, creating a ruleset that completely changes the role of the unit by switching two numbers around. Their entire warscroll could be blank, and they would still have flavor and FEEL different. As it stands charge roll is a rule that is there and that has no interaction with the rest of the rules, aside from occasional charge roll boost, which is something that can be kept under a different system, adding more depth.

[Lich King]

Did they ever release the 2021 Forgeworld Points ?

[zilberfrid]

34 minutes ago, Lich King said:

Did they ever release the 2021 Forgeworld Points ?

I don't know. There isn't much left for AoS (Troggoth Hag now also no longer available).

[Landohammer]

38 minutes ago, Lich King said:

Did they ever release the 2021 Forgeworld Points ?

No but strangely the Monstrous Arcanum is listed in the GHB as legal for matched play, while there aren't any points in the actual GHB for those units.

So RAW I guess you could use their original points? Feels weird. Probably just another oversight. 

[Landohammer]

11 hours ago, Honk said:

16hp 3+, the automated healing is over 9000, the 24“ 6dmg spear? 
model can retreat and shoot/charge, with battering ram? Casts 3 spells, with the cast bonus cheese?

All the big models are a bit wonky, Nagash could rolfstomp your whole army or get shot off the board turn 1-2

If you are arguing that Alarielle is comparable to other god-tier characters, I'm afraid I have to disagree. I have played her in a few games, it hasn't went well lol.

Most recent 2 games she died turn 1 to a terrorgeist and turn 2 to an Ogor Tyrant. 

Maybe I'm not using her correctly, or maybe i'm overcommitting her. But when 1/3rd of my army is in a single model, there is definitely a sense of urgency for her to perform lol. 

 

 

[Clan's Cynic]

11 hours ago, Charleston said:

Do we know anything about the new codex releases? Because currently we are in the perfect vacuum of old tomes + new core rules. As soon as the first book releases drop we will see new wordings and approaching to balance which will tilt the balance scale again as we currently see in 40k.

Stormcast and Warclans in August. An unspecified Chaos Battletome in October.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[Zeblasky]

13 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

If you are arguing that Alarielle is comparable to other god-tier characters, I'm afraid I have to disagree. I have played her in a few games, it hasn't went well lol.

Most recent 2 games she died turn 1 to a terrorgeist and turn 2 to an Ogor Tyrant. 

Maybe I'm not using her correctly, or maybe i'm overcommitting her. But when 1/3rd of my army is in a single model, there is definitely a sense of urgency for her to perform lol. 

 

 

Her real cost is 740- ~200 points, so she's more like a 500 gold model, as long as you manage to get her summon off. Don't treat her as Archaon or even Nagash, both of them are quite more tankier than her (if we're talking about a single batteround or a game where mortal wounds are decently present), she's much more of a support piece with great mobility, so she should be close to the action, but definetly somewhere she can't be focused too much.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Zeblasky

[Landohammer]

3 minutes ago, Zeblasky said:

Her real cost is 740- ~200 points, so she's more like a 500 gold model, as long as you manage to get her summon off. Don't treat her as Archaon or even Nagash, both of them are quite more tankier than her (if we're talking about a single batteround or a game where mortal wounds are decently present), she's much more of a support piece with great mobility, so she should be close to the action, but definetly somewhere she can't be focused too much.

I'm still not comfortable with a 540pt unit just acting in a support role. And to be honest she doesn't even really fill the support role that well since she is primarily a melee combatant. 

Its painful to look at her warscroll and compare to something like Yndrastra, which really nails what Alarielle should have been IMHO.  

 

[Honk]

11 hours ago, PrimeElectrid said:

740 points with no after save. Is she good?

24 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Alarielle is comparable to other god-tier characters, I'm afraid I have to disagree.

Nagash can die very easily to a gristlegore terrorgheist with feeding frenzy 🤔 alariell without ward, yes, probably also killable by GkoTg , like everything else except morathi …

i fully understand the feeling of an oppressive god-tier character, but imo alariell is up there, maybe not kroak style, but I hated her 😅 so ymmv

 my Nagash gets god-complex and run over by big stabbas 

[yukishiro1]

The amount of power big models have to be able to concentrate in one area to be worth taking is so extreme that it also tends to end up making them easily oppressive to non-optimized lists. Alarielle IMO is an example of how hard it is to make a big model worth taking without some kind of ridiculous nonsense tacked onto them. It'd be better if Nagash, Gotrek, Archaon etc were more like Alarielle than if Alarielle was more like them. 

[Landohammer]

8 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

The amount of power big models have to be able to concentrate in one area to be worth taking is so extreme that it also tends to end up making them easily oppressive to non-optimized lists. Alarielle IMO is an example of how hard it is to make a big model worth taking without some kind of ridiculous nonsense tacked onto them. It'd be better if Nagash, Gotrek, Archaon etc were more like Alarielle than if Alarielle was more like them. 

This is actually a really good take on the situation. Good point. 

 

[Zeblasky]

24 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

The amount of power big models have to be able to concentrate in one area to be worth taking is so extreme that it also tends to end up making them easily oppressive to non-optimized lists. Alarielle IMO is an example of how hard it is to make a big model worth taking without some kind of ridiculous nonsense tacked onto them. It'd be better if Nagash, Gotrek, Archaon etc were more like Alarielle than if Alarielle was more like them. 

The funny thing is, as everyone knows, that during most of AoS 2.0 it was exactly the opposite - big hero models were too cost inneficient in 2000 pts games. Now they got a lot new things to synergize very well with their 3+ saves profiles. So I guess finding middle ground is possible here. I wonder if making all or just certain Heroic Actions restricted to named characters could mostly solve this problem. We will still have things like Vampire Lords on Zombie Dragon, Ghoul Kings on Terrorgeist or Sons of Behemat in general, but those do have quite more limited impact.

Edited July 20, 2021 by Zeblasky

[yukishiro1]

IMO you just shouldn't be able to go better than a 3+ save period unless you have a 2+ or better as your base save, and you shouldn't be able to use heroic recovery on the same character more than once per battle round. Those two things would go a long way towards taming the regenerating unkillable super heroes (along with fixing the trait that lets you give a Mawkrusha a 2+ to just be a +1 to save like all the others, fingers crossed that one is addressed in the new codex). They'd still be useful, but they wouldn't be so faceroll any more. The problem with restricting just named characters is then you end up with weird situations where that 2+/5++ ignoring spells on a 4+ Mawkrusha is way tankier than even the tankiest of named characters, which feels odd too.

I honestly don't think they really realized what they were doing by making it so easy to go to a 2+ save that ignores multiple rend on so many power pieces. The math difference between a 3+ and 2+ save and the ability to heal 2d3 wounds per battle round is what is pushing these models from "powerful" to " virtually unkillable without MW spam." 

Edited July 20, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Zeblasky]

9 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

IMO you just shouldn't be able to go better than a 3+ save period unless you have a 2+ or better as your base save, and you shouldn't be able to use heroic recovery on the same character more than once per battle round. Those two things would go a long way towards taming the regenerating unkillable super heroes. They'd still be useful, but they wouldn't be so faceroll any more. The problem with restricting just named characters is then you end up with weird situations where that 2+/5++ ignoring spells on a 4+ Mawkrusha is way tankier than even the tankiest of named characters, which feels odd too.

I honestly don't think they really realized what they were doing by making it so easy to go to a 2+ save that ignores multiple rend on so many power pieces. 

Well, making any additional saves after +1 to not affect anything could be a start. Still a lot of 2+ saves, which is strong, but at least it's much more manageable.

[yukishiro1]

2+ saves are fine in a game like 40k where there's tons of AP -3 to -5 weapons and lots of basic infantry have 4+ attacks each, I don't think they're fine in a game where anything above rend 2 is virtually non-existent and basic infantry very rarely goes above 2 attacks per model. With a tiny number of exceptions, nothing in AOS has either the dice output or the rend to get through the number of 2+s ignoring rend 1-2 that they have put into the game via the new system. That sort of save should be something super rare, not something that dozens of heroes now have easy access to. 

I don't think it's good game design to have a system where MW are the only realistic way to hurt a large proportion of the strongest models in the game. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect this is going to be the biggest issue with AOS 3 going forward. 

Edited July 20, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Zeblasky]

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

2+ saves are fine in a game like 40k where there's tons of AP -3 to -5 weapons and lots of basic infantry have 4+ attacks each, I don't think they're fine in a game where anything above rend 2 is virtually non-existent and basic infantry very rarely goes above 2 attacks per model. With a tiny number of exceptions, nothing in AOS has either the dice output or the rend to get through the number of 2+s ignoring rend 1-2 that they have put into the game via the new system. That sort of save should be something super rare, not something that dozens of heroes now have easy access to. 

I don't think it's good game design to have a system where MW are the only realistic way to hurt a large proportion of the strongest models in the game. Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect this is going to be the biggest issue with AOS 3 going forward. 

You know, I am quite more inclined to agree with you here, but I also try to contemplate the other side of the coin. Certain god characters are hard to kill without a lot of concentrated firepower, this is a fact. Is that bad for the game balance? Does this makes winning versus them too hard, does this makes them unbalanced? Because as of right now, this is unclear. Before, they were dying too fast to pay for themself. Now, you need a lot of firepower, but, well, you can also ignore a god model, kill its army, tarpit it with chaff and just dominate on points anyway. So, you have 2 ways to deal with a situation, and as of now it is unclear if god models can kill enough stuff in 5 rounds to win games basically on their own.

And yes, if you would make 3+ save as a limit for everyone without a better base save, even my personal build, which is not that focused on alpha strike (living city with 40 sisters and 1 dreadlord deepstriking) could with a certain guarantee kill Archaon within a single turn, first or second, does not really matter in this case. And that's it, I used half of my army here, but I've removed half of my enemy army with only a very few losses, which probably means instant GG from that point, as my forces will be able to probably table my enemy by a 3 round. And my army is not focused that much on alpha strike, you can push it quite higher. I still can try to do this even now btw, with a first turn alpha, but due to All out Defence in both Shooting and Combat phase from a Chaos palyer it's quite more risky, as I would deal only 18.4 damage to Archaon on average (with using All out attack twice as well). So, unless I get a great rolls on MW or on a Dreadlord, I probably won't kill him as of now, but hey, call alpha the hell out of Nagash, heh. And this is just a single example.

For me personally I am more concerned about units that are extremely point efficient with a +2 save like Blood Knights at the moment though. Such units can be everywhere, cap objectives, kill a lot of stuff while being too hard to kill.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Zeblasky

[yukishiro1]

The big god models did see play in 2.0, but mostly in gimmick lists designed to abuse them in the most egregious ways through buff stacking.

I'm not sure your math is factoring in best day, or that if you go second he likely has another +1 to save from arcane shield and/or oracular visions, meaning he's now on a 2+ ignoring rend 2, so saving everything in your army on a 2+ (with a 4+ for the mortals). Unless I'm missing a big something, 40 sisters + a dreadlord isn't putting out close to enough damage to kill Archaon through even the 2+ ignoring rend 1 that he can get from just best day and all out defense, much less if he's ignoring rend 2 also. Did you factor in that Ed Sheeran's Eye forces you to reroll 6s to hit, where your mortals come from on the sisters? That makes a huge difference to the math. 

But that would be another way to come at the issue - keep Gods very strong, but stop them from being buffed by anything else. It is kind-of silly when you think about it that Archaon depends on a stupid little chaos lord to be able to attack twice, or on a stupid little sorceror to be able to have oracular visions to improve his save. Or that Teclis gets different abilities depending on what particular group of his homies he's hanging out with at the time.

And if you didn't have these buffs to worry about, you could balance Archaon on his own terms, not with how he interacts with other stuff. If his save couldn't be improved, he couldn't heal 2d3 a turn using heroic actions, etc, you could have him on a base 2+ with no issues, and he could do more damage too if you didn't have to consider him double fighting with the chaos lord, etc. 

Edited July 21, 2021 by yukishiro1