AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[RuneBrush]

On 6/22/2021 at 5:16 PM, C0deb1ue said:

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

Oh, sweet summer child.  Pretty much all armies get some kind of update every three years or so and there are FAQs & Erratas every six months.  Glacial is back in old WHFB/40k days where an army may receive one new book per edition if they were lucky, with no updates if something was printed wrong.  I think I went 3 editions of 40k without a new Space Wolves codex...

On 6/22/2021 at 6:56 PM, Reinholt said:

If that's game design working as intended, I think someone needs to have a word with GW's game designers about what their customers want, which is probably not materially slower games with less choice of models. If it's not intentional, I suggest they fix it.

If you can get a collective consensus from 1000 players, hats off to you, it's like herding cats.  Let's be honest most threads on here have a dozen people who don't have the same point of view 🤣

On 6/23/2021 at 2:40 AM, Verminlord said:

So am I reading this right? These free battalion abilities say you can "Receive" the command without it being issued. Does this mean you can use "Unleash Hell" more than once in the same phase with the battalion?

Yes, but you can't Unleash Hell the same unit twice in a single phase.  You also don't need to have a hero within range - you could feasibly Unleash Hell on a random artillery piece in the corner of the table.

[RuneBrush]

I've been pondering about the new coherency rules.  One of the things the new coherency rules does is to reduce the number of models that can get into melee - maybe this is the actual reason for the rule rather than being an unwanted side effect?  If you think about the way reinforcements now work, how you can't stack modifiers and can only receive a single command ability once per phase, the new rules basically reduce your ability to create death star horde units.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

I've been pondering about the new coherency rules.  One of the things the new coherency rules does is to reduce the number of models that can get into melee - maybe this is the actual reason for the rule rather than being an unwanted side effect?  If you think about the way reinforcements now work, how you can't stack modifiers and can only receive a single command ability once per phase, the new rules basically reduce your ability to create death star horde units.

Without speculating about what the rules writers intended, the new coherency and reinforcement rules definitely discourage big blobs of infantry hammers, but encourage big blobs of chaff/anvils. The reason being that chaff and anvils don't suffer diminshing returns from unit size. If all you care about are the wounds and body count of a unit, it does not really matter that they can't all get into combat. All-Out Defense only gets more valuable on a big unit.

I am still currently working through the nuances of the Gravelords tome, and it seems to me that this is exactly what's going on with respect to zombies and skeletons. If you just forget about their damage (which you honestly should, because they can't kill anything), they are extremely solid units and I would say the rules of the game encourage you to max out at least one blob.

There is a certain sign posting function to reinforcement points. If you look at the contest of generals rules and see "up to 4 reinforcements allowed in a 2000 point game", that makes you think about reinforcement points as a resource you ought to be spending. That is, the game is encouraging you to take two maxed out blobs (or whatever).

The coherency rules then pull you into a different direction and tell you "Don't blob up with your offensive units, they won't all get to fight". So I guess that's what the rules end up encouraging overall: Take blobs for defense, take small elite units (cavalry, big base units) for offense. Exceptions to the rule exist, of course (2" reach, hammers on 25mm bases), but overall I think this seems about right.

Now there is just a question of whether the units of particular armies got re-jiggered correctly to play their new roles. An example would be Ogor Gluttons: They now come in packs of 6 and their points went up by 20. It seems you are supposed to use them as anvils now, because they certainly won't function well as hammers. But it's hard to say whether they can really play that role with their 5+ saves, even at 4 wounds per model.

[C0deb1ue]

4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Oh, sweet summer child.  Pretty much all armies get some kind of update every three years or so and there are FAQs & Erratas every six months.  Glacial is back in old WHFB/40k days where an army may receive one new book per edition if they were lucky, with no updates if something was printed wrong.  I think I went 3 editions of 40k without a new Space Wolves codex...

If you can get a collective consensus from 1000 players, hats off to you, it's like herding cats.  Let's be honest most threads on here have a dozen people who don't have the same point of view 🤣

Yes, but you can't Unleash Hell the same unit twice in a single phase.  You also don't need to have a hero within range - you could feasibly Unleash Hell on a random artillery piece in the corner of the table.

I think you need to want better. If they were worse before at updating stuff then that’s bad, doesn’t mean what is happening now is good just because it isn’t as bad as before.

GW FAQs/point adjustments are pretty poor generally and tend to overshoot or not address the issues. Real Change, i.e changes to warscrolls seem to happen once every edition and the majority of the bad design decisions cant be fixed with point adjustments.

Edited June 24, 2021 by C0deb1ue

[EMMachine]

I think their could be another reason with the coherrency as well. In 1.0 you could spread a unit as far as possible and when a single model was in range of a hero the entire unit would get the effect. Later they invented "wholly within"  in such rules to prevent it. Now in 3.0 we have the case that the unit leader can give commands as well, that means you need to restrict the spreadout of the unit so the unit isn't able to daisychain and buff themselfes with commands.

(and yeah it could have been 2" but then we most likely would end up with the same daisychain as before not really needing the rule at all)

In the end the new coherrency is mostly working with triangles

This is a valid formation for for units with larger bases (could be glottons, or blight drones)

In units of 6 you don't even have to care if one model dies. In larger units maybe the triangles have to be rotated a little so killing one model doesn't break coherrency

In case of 32mm Bases. It is possible to get a second rank into combat range (this exmple was for 2" weapons, the two models in the middle should be in range as well)

[stratigo]

On 6/22/2021 at 2:50 PM, yukishiro1 said:

To use the example given of 9 ogors, keeping 9 40mm models w/in 1" of 2 other models while also maximizing frontage against another unit that can be positioned in any number of different ways is definitely complex geometry. In fact, it's so complex that most people won't even try and will just settle for mushing them together. But if you actually try to maximize your efficiency, it becomes extraordinarily complex. 

People are way overthinking this.

 

 

It's about making monsters more attractive.

[whispersofblood]

On 6/22/2021 at 9:48 PM, yukishiro1 said:

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

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

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

I'm curious what shooting units are you talking about? The only unit I can think that is really good at applying damage (DMG a combat unit would care about) at long range is like Blood Stalkers, everything else seems quite scalpel like. But, maybe I'm forgetting something. Skinks I suppose, did just gain MW on a 6 to hit so there is that. I guess 20 Helon Sentinels using Unleash Hell is quiet brutal as well doing like 12/13 MW (20/21 if the unit charging was the one hit with Lambent Light in the LRL turn) to the charging unit, if they are within 3". But, Sentinels can't really be buffed in a way to dramatically increase their active damage.  

I think the matched play battle pack is missing a restriction of duplication of non-battleline units, that would deal with your Allopexs, Salamanders, and cockatrices. Shark Spam is definitely a think in AoS 3.

As per the fiddliness of combat large combat units, that was an inherent issue of real life combat units maintaining the integrity of block to retain the benefits of being a block. Hell the Theban phalanx specifically went deeper in response to not being as good individually as the Lacedaemonian phalanx, and ultimately proved the better tactic. I think intellectually the conversation needs to move from what are the advantages of being a block, rather than what a block can't do. IF there aren't suitable advantages, don't block up. 

Using the Ogre example Gluttons operate in the half-space between a lot of different types of units, which is a strength, but also it means they aren't obviously one thing, and won't be adapted to being that thing. So the double reinforcement which might make Chaos Warriors a great block in the center, won't necessarily work for Gluttons. But, there is one thing that seems patently obvious about large units; they aren't meant to be blenders except in the most specific cases.

[chosen_of_khaine]

Deleted

Edited June 24, 2021 by chosen_of_khaine

[yukishiro1]

4 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

I'm curious what shooting units are you talking about? The only unit I can think that is really good at applying damage (DMG a combat unit would care about) at long range is like Blood Stalkers, everything else seems quite scalpel like. But, maybe I'm forgetting something. Skinks I suppose, did just gain MW on a 6 to hit so there is that. I guess 20 Helon Sentinels using Unleash Hell is quiet brutal as well doing like 12/13 MW (20/21 if the unit charging was the one hit with Lambent Light in the LRL turn) to the charging unit, if they are within 3". But, Sentinels can't really be buffed in a way to dramatically increase their active damage.  

Any shooting unit just became much better at shooting at melee units thanks to unleash hell (and better at avoiding melee or setting it up thanks to redeploy). Unleash hell amounts to a significant boost to any shooting unit that has enough output to be worth spending a CP on, which is a lot. There are a ton of shooting units in the game that fit this bill; they may not wipe out a charging melee unit entirely, but many of them do enough damage to put a significant dent in the chargers' output. To add to your list, Skaven and Cities are full of good shooting units that can put out a lot of damage. Buffed Irondrakes behind a screen that can stay further than 3" but closer than 9" so they get the double shots are seriously scary. Warpfire stuff for skaven is terrifying, as is anything that doesn't have to roll to hit generally. Even a pair of gyrocopters for 150 points becomes something that's a serious threat to a lot of battleline blocks. 

Aside from unleash hell, curse is an extremely powerful debuff against anything that relies on a good save, that becomes more powerful the more attacks you can deliver on the debuffed unit, which is a natural match for shooting units as the big advantage of shooting is that you're not limited by the amount of models you can get into melee range of the target. Though it's also unreliable and reasonably difficult to set up. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by yukishiro1

[PJetski]

The 2021 Battle Tactics seem to heavily favour having multiple MONSTER warscrolls in an army.

You score an additional VP per round if you slay a MONSTER in that round but I think that's not going to make up the difference in being able to score a bonus point from almost every Battle Tactic. The spell to transform any HERO into a MONSTER will help but it's not guaranteed to go off and also requires a WIZARD who will probably want to cast some other spells. Could be a rough time for armies with few good MONSTER units to play objectives as well as other armies.

Armies with zero MONSTER:

• Kharadron
• Nighthaunt
• Bonesplitterz
• Gutbusters (can bring in Beastclaw units)

Armies with few usable MONSTER:

• Idoneth (Leviadon)
• Daughters of Khaine (Morathi)
• Lumineth (Teclis - does anyone use the mountain spirits?)

[SentinelGuy]

I can't see any reason to take a second troops unit in the Warlord battalion. It seems totally pointless. Am I missing something?

[KrispyXIV]

8 minutes ago, PJetski said:

The 2021 Battle Tactics seem to heavily favour having multiple MONSTER warscrolls in an army.

You score an additional VP per round if you slay a MONSTER in that round but I think that's not going to make up the difference in being able to score a bonus point from almost every Battle Tactic. The spell to transform any HERO into a MONSTER will help but it's not guaranteed to go off and also requires a WIZARD who will probably want to cast some other spells. Could be a rough time for armies with few good MONSTER units to play objectives as well as other armies.

Armies with zero MONSTER:

• Kharadron
• Nighthaunt
• Bonesplitterz
• Gutbusters (can bring in Beastclaw units)

Armies with few usable MONSTER:

• Idoneth (Leviadon)
• Daughters of Khaine (Morathi)
• Lumineth (Teclis - does anyone use the mountain spirits?)

I'm personally waiting on the FAQs to jump to conclusions on this.  It wouldn't be extensive errata for some warscrolls to pick up the monster keyword, and there are several models in DoK at least where it wouldn't be completely inappropriate to show up.  

Specifically, I'm thinking of the Avatar of Khaine and both Cauldrons of Blood. 

I'm not exactly expecting that to happen, but if it did any concerns I have about being "forced" to bring Morathi (or allies) instantly vanish.  

Similarly, the IDK sharks could get Monster back, KO could get something crazy like counting their boats as monsters for scoring (giving them both interaction with victory conditions and objective claiming power), etc.

If things remain as it stands now though, yeah, there's a disparity. 

[SentinelGuy]

7 minutes ago, PJetski said:

The 2021 Battle Tactics seem to heavily favour having multiple MONSTER warscrolls in an army.

You score an additional VP per round if you slay a MONSTER in that round but I think that's not going to make up the difference in being able to score a bonus point from almost every Battle Tactic. The spell to transform any HERO into a MONSTER will help but it's not guaranteed to go off and also requires a WIZARD who will probably want to cast some other spells. Could be a rough time for armies with few good MONSTER units to play objectives as well as other armies.

Armies with zero MONSTER:

• Kharadron
• Nighthaunt
• Bonesplitterz
• Gutbusters (can bring in Beastclaw units)

Armies with few usable MONSTER:

• Idoneth (Leviadon)
• Daughters of Khaine (Morathi)
• Lumineth (Teclis - does anyone use the mountain spirits?)

Cities monsters are pretty bad even if they do have lots of different ones available. I think the only reason they used to get taken was for the battalion requirements. These days they're even more of a hard sell. 10 Irondrakes or a Hydra - I'm taking the Irondrakes. Sorceress on dragon or Runelord, 10 Irondrakes and almost enough leftover for a unit of Aetherwings.

The ones with a longer ranged attack may have a very niche role in Living City - that's about the only benefit I can see.

[EnumaEilish]

52 minutes ago, SentinelGuy said:

I can't see any reason to take a second troops unit in the Warlord battalion. It seems totally pointless. Am I missing something?

Unless there's a rule requiring all units to belong to a battalion, which I don't think there is, there's no reason to put any optional units in either the Warlord or the Command Entourage battalions. Adding optional units to the Battle Regiment has the obvious benefit of letting you save drops, and the other three at least give you another target you can use the free command ability on, so there's a valid use-case for those. Best I can tell, it's a weird oversight in the current version of the rules.

Edited June 24, 2021 by EnumaEilish

[yukishiro1]

The non-hero monsters in Cities aren't so hot, but an annointed on phoenix (both types I guess, but more the frost heart) is set to be one of the premier units of the new edition IMO. 

Edited June 24, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Reinholt]

14 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

I'm curious what shooting units are you talking about? The only unit I can think that is really good at applying damage (DMG a combat unit would care about) at long range is like Blood Stalkers, everything else seems quite scalpel like. But, maybe I'm forgetting something. Skinks I suppose, did just gain MW on a 6 to hit so there is that. I guess 20 Helon Sentinels using Unleash Hell is quiet brutal as well doing like 12/13 MW (20/21 if the unit charging was the one hit with Lambent Light in the LRL turn) to the charging unit, if they are within 3". But, Sentinels can't really be buffed in a way to dramatically increase their active damage.  

Lumineth Sentinels with their auto mortal wounds and Vanguard Raptors (esp. in Anvils with the double tap) would be two examples I would give that I've seen be genuinely oppressive when people have to play against them with regard to the ability to dish kind of perverse amounts of long range damage.

 

In one of my test games for the new edition I had someone rage quit on me because of the VRs; I shot them twice in turn one, blocked a charge with Aetherwings and used Unleash Hell, shot them twice in turn two, then unleashed hell again when they finally charged the raptors (which wiped the charging unit). Six shots from a unit that is 2s/3s/rend-2/2 damage and dishes 2 mortals on a 6 to hit and has a 30" range fired SIX times while they got one effective charge off and wiped a 40 point unit of aetherwings while I'd wrecked several units in that span.

 

It is an oppressive level of shooting with Unleash Hell.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Reinholt

[whispersofblood]

3 hours ago, Reinholt said:

Lumineth Sentinels with their auto mortal wounds and Vanguard Raptors (esp. in Anvils with the double tap) would be two examples I would give that I've seen be genuinely oppressive when people have to play against them with regard to the ability to dish kind of perverse amounts of long range damage.

 

In one of my test games for the new edition I had someone rage quit on me because of the VRs; I shot them twice in turn one, blocked a charge with Aetherwings and used Unleash Hell, shot them twice in turn two, then unleashed hell again when they finally charged the raptors (which wiped the charging unit). Six shots from a unit that is 2s/3s/rend-2/2 damage and dishes 2 mortals on a 6 to hit and has a 30" range fired SIX times while they got one effective charge off and wiped a 40 point unit of aetherwings while I'd wrecked several units in that span.

 

It is an oppressive level of shooting with Unleash Hell.

Ok this is a clearer example. Your opponent made for lack of a better term, a series of unfortunate tactical decisions. Which I can probably assume were because you had effective shooting and your opponent did not?

Obviously it is hard to dissect a battle I didn't see but, charging aetherwings unless you absolutely have to is a well know poor decision. But, why did he need to go after the Longstrikes? Could they not hunt down the hero required to use Heros of Another Age? Was the dmg generally so intolerable to their game plan that they couldn't focus on the objectives and their battle tactics?

Also, there are tools available to prevent this situation and by rushing a player puts themselves in a position to suffer. I can't say as I didn't see the live match, but it sounds like this was a game of AoS2 played using the rules of AoS3 and no accommodation has been made for the new abilities the game presents?

Maybe there needs to be a thread dedicated to helping people improve tactically? In this case it seems you created a decent trap and your opponent walked right into it. But, yeah if they have no tools in their list, then the loss here is a natural consequence of their poor list, not the rules of the game. Which is good, because it means your opponent can not have this happen to them in exactly the same way again.

Edited June 25, 2021 by whispersofblood

[novakai]

23 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

Oh, sweet summer child.  Pretty much all armies get some kind of update every three years or so and there are FAQs & Erratas every six months.  Glacial is back in old WHFB/40k days where an army may receive one new book per edition if they were lucky, with no updates if something was printed wrong.  I think I went 3 editions of 40k without a new Space Wolves codex...

 

I feel like its disingenuous to use what happens in the old day to compare it to the current standard of now, yes back then was glacial but it should not be use as the defense of why it ok now and be sarcastic about it.

 

[Bosskelot]

Plus for many people the pace is still glacial, especially if they have no point of reference for the bad old days.

 

[Zeblasky]

15 hours ago, SentinelGuy said:

Cities monsters are pretty bad even if they do have lots of different ones available. I think the only reason they used to get taken was for the battalion requirements. These days they're even more of a hard sell. 10 Irondrakes or a Hydra - I'm taking the Irondrakes. Sorceress on dragon or Runelord, 10 Irondrakes and almost enough leftover for a unit of Aetherwings.

The ones with a longer ranged attack may have a very niche role in Living City - that's about the only benefit I can see.

Annointed on both Phoenixes are great (they have a bit different roles though), General on a Griffon is a great melee blender fighting twice in Hammerhall, Dreadlord on a Dragon is a very fast unit in Living City and a decent fighter with shield everywhere else (his breath attack got weaker due to incoming MSU meta, but it's still underestimated). The rest of Cities monsters ranges from meh to very bad though. Hydras are at least very cheap and be used just to get some mosters on the field.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Zeblasky

[NauticalSoup]

11 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Your opponent made for lack of a better term, a series of unfortunate tactical decisions.

I've never once seen 'git good' work to keep someone in the hobby. If somebody is quitting because of negative play experiences you're going to have to do better. And I think you're vastly understating the strength of Unleash Hell, it's not going to be easy to play around and is currently central to competitive discussions of the game.

I think PC was joking about it in his Goonhammer article, but I think the ability being stripped out of matched play next GHB is a likely outcome.

Edited June 25, 2021 by NauticalSoup
Goodhammer

[Reinholt]

6 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Ok this is a clearer example. Your opponent made for lack of a better term, a series of unfortunate tactical decisions. Which I can probably assume were because you had effective shooting and your opponent did not?

Very few armies have effective shooting in comparison to shootcast, and I know how to position my screens.

If you are going to counterplay this, you need to be one of the few armies that can shoot back effectively (Lumineth, Seraphon, etc.) or you need fast, flying units that can completely dodge my screens (esp. given how Aetherwings work) while saying out of shooting range (30") prior to that, which basically can be summed up as Idoneth Eels.

My opponent for this game is decently good; he's won a few local tournaments and knows how to play the game. But if you have something specific you think Fyreslayers can do against this, I'm all ears, because if we swapped armies and played again, I am very confident he'd smash me.

The answer shouldn't be "Well, obviously playing 3/4 of the armies in the game is a dumb mistake".

[Kitsumy]

New coherence rules fuking congas, and big unit is great, but.... Gw didnt thought about poor units that are 10 models in msu, have 1" and 32 bases, like poor idoneth thralls. They are forced to eat this rule since cant go in 5. But only hp 5 each 10 will fight.

since games arent perfect lanes vs lanes where u can maximice every milimeter range after meassuring for 30 minutes only to get 1 or 2 more in range.

 

[Christopher Rowe]

Is there not a way to effectively play this game competitively while limiting the number of charges you make with your units? That's what triggers Rain Down Hell, correct?

[EnumaEilish]

10 minutes ago, Christopher Rowe said:

Is there not a way to effectively play this game competitively while limiting the number of charges you make with your units? That's what triggers Rain Down Hell, correct?

Each command ability can be used once per phase, so your opponent only gets one unleash hell per turn, generally. Plus, a unit can only unleash hell if they aren't engaged by another enemy unit. I think a good strategy may end up being charging with a "forlorn hope" chaff unit to absorb the enemy fire, then sending in whatever wrecking ball you actually want to mess up the enemy.

Edited June 25, 2021 by EnumaEilish