AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[dirkdragonslayer]

1 hour ago, Zappgrot said:

Yea but the whole. I ate one model and now the rest runs away Stick is AWFULL. It's not fun to use and not fun to have used againt you. It basically feels like cheating. 

While it may feel like cheating, GW is probably doing this to counteract spaghetti line formation. IIRC they implemented it in 40k because of 30 conscripts in thin line bubble wrapping eachother requiring multiple turns of charges. These layers made it difficult for melee units to reach shooting units like Broadsides or Leman Russ tanks. With smaller boards and a greater emphasis on shooting this edition (from what rules we have seen so far) they are probably doing this so I can't put large narrow lines of spearmen to completely block off archers/artillery.

Personally I am excited to see my Dankhold do more to disrupt people's formations if they aren't careful.

Edited June 8, 2021 by dirkdragonslayer
Spelling Error

[SpiritofHokuto]

1 minute ago, dirkdragonslayer said:

While it may feel like cheating, GW is probably doing this to counteract spaghetti line formation. IIRC they implemented it in 40k because of 30 conscripts in s thin line bubble wrapping eachother. These layers made it difficult for melee units to reach shooting units like Broadsides or Leman Russ tanks. With smaller boards and a greater emphasis on shooting this edition (from what rules we have seen so far) they are probably doing this so I can't put large narrow lines of spearmen to completely block off archers/artillery.

Personally I am excited to see my Dankhold do more to disrupt people's formations if they aren't careful.

Yes, we know. But it's one thing to try and curb this kind of thing, and quite another to take such broad strokes as the new coherency rules which both kind of fail in their goal and punish larger based units at the same time. Quite the achievement to fail that hard, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions. 

[Golub87]

Just now, dirkdragonslayer said:

While it may feel like cheating, GW is probably doing this to counteract spaghetti line formation. IIRC they implemented it in 40k because of 30 conscripts in s thin line bubble wrapping eachother. These layers made it difficult for melee units to reach shooting units like Broadsides or Leman Russ tanks. With smaller boards and a greater emphasis on shooting this edition (from what rules we have seen so far) they are probably doing this so I can't put large narrow lines of spearmen to completely block off archers/artillery.

Personally I am excited to see my Dankhold do more to disrupt people's formations if they aren't careful.

True, but we should just go back to square formations. There is no reason, gameplay or lore, that requires the tedium of moving models one by one.

Historically speaking formations were extremely important in pre-industrial warfare and there is no way to impose their practicality on the player via soft rules.

[Chikout]

21 minutes ago, peasant said:

Unleash hell Killed my hype for 3.0

I understand the concern but there is a thing that bothers me about all the rules news.

When people see expensive new minis, there's always a flurry of comments about how people will change this or that aspect of the mini or kitbash it with another extremely expensive mini. People come with lore and original colour schemes and dozens of other unique and creative changes. 

When people see a rule that is potentially game breaking, everyone is like "I'll use that rule that no-one likes but I won't be happy about it", even though it just rules on page that can be changed for free. 

If you think a rule is broken don't use it. If you're a TO ban it from your event. If you're having a pick up game with a stranger, have a little friendly chat before the game. If you're running a tournament level Lumineth list against someone playing their first game with Sylvaneth try not using some of their stronger abilities. If you play a newbie and wipe the table with them, that's your fault and not the game's. If I played tennis against Federer and he played his best. I wouldn't win a single point. Does that mean tennis is a broken game? I'd like to think he'd lob a few soft balls at me so we could have an enjoyable game. 

When I was a kid playing chess against my dad, he always took four of his pieces off the board at the start and we had a lot of fun games because if it. 

Gw themselves have said many times that they view their rules not as a definitive gospel but as a toolkit which can be used in any way players see fit. 

This is probably a fight against human nature that I'm not going to win, but I think AoS is a cooperative game where the two players try to create a situation where a tense and exciting game is possible. If it turns out that unleash hell   is broken I would be tempted to introduce a house rule that a unit that uses it can't shoot in the next shooting phase. 

On top of all that be aware of the nature of GW marketing. I would be extremely surprised if the marketing team consulted the rules team about what to include in the previews. They almost always focus on destructive abilities and almost never focus on limitations. We don't know anything about limitations on command abilities or second rank fighting or other ways to apply ward saves which we already seen a priest can do. In the rules as we've seen them it's possible to make a unit +1 save -1 to hit and with a 6+ ward save. 

We don't know anything about scenery rules yet. 

But ultimately if you don't think gw is making a good ruleset then just adapt it to fit your needs. It's your game. 

[W1tchhunter]

I haven't played in a while, but I do remember going second was nine times out of ten the much better option, due to being able to react to your opponent AND have the chance of the double turn. Why have they buffed going second even more by gifting an extra command point?

[Televiper11]

31 minutes ago, Golub87 said:

By that logic we should be all playing Flames of War because it has tanks and artillery and planes and machineguns.

...which is a rather brilliant idea actually, might take you up on that. Thanks!

AoS has all those things too. 

[SpiritofHokuto]

4 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I understand the concern but there is a thing that bothers me about all the rules news.

When people see expensive new minis, there's always a flurry of comments about how people will change this or that aspect of the mini or kitbash it with another extremely expensive mini. People come with lore and original colour schemes and dozens of other unique and creative changes. 

When people see a rule that is potentially game breaking, everyone is like "I'll use that rule that no-one likes but I won't be happy about it", even though it just rules on page that can be changed for free. 

If you think a rule is broken don't use it. If you're a TO ban it from your event. If you're having a pick up game with a stranger, have a little friendly chat before the game. If you're running a tournament level Lumineth list against someone playing their first game with Sylvaneth try not using some of their stronger abilities. If you play a newbie and wipe the table with them, that's your fault and not the game's. If I played tennis against Federer and he played his best. I wouldn't win a single point. Does that mean tennis is a broken game? I'd like to think he'd lob a few soft balls at me so we could have an enjoyable game. 

When I was a kid playing chess against my dad, he always took four of his pieces off the board at the start and we had a lot of fun games because if it. 

Gw themselves have said many times that they view their rules not as a definitive gospel but as a toolkit which can be used in any way players see fit. 

This is probably a fight against human nature that I'm not going to win, but I think AoS is a cooperative game where the two players try to create a situation where a tense and exciting game is possible. If it turns out that unleash hell   is broken I would be tempted to introduce a house rule that a unit that uses it can't shoot in the next shooting phase. 

On top of all that be aware of the nature of GW marketing. I would be extremely surprised if the marketing team consulted the rules team about what to include in the previews. They almost always focus on destructive abilities and almost never focus on limitations. We don't know anything about limitations on command abilities or second rank fighting or other ways to apply ward saves which we already seen a priest can do. In the rules as we've seen them it's possible to make a unit +1 save -1 to hit and with a 6+ ward save. 

We don't know anything about scenery rules yet. 

But ultimately if you don't think gw is making a good ruleset then just adapt it to fit your needs. It's your game. 

This kind of mindset is all very well for something that is more narratively focused like Necromunda (which I've very much enjoyed playing/arbitrating for 25 or so years). And they can throw all sorts of interesting scenarios and battleplans for narrative or open play. But at the end of the day Matched play is going to be this games bread and butter. And so having a solid foundation that doesn't need a multitude of gentlemen's agreements just to start is something that the dev team should have both envisaged and expected. 

[Reinholt]

3 minutes ago, SpiritofHokuto said:

This kind of mindset is all very well for something that is more narratively focused like Necromunda (which I've very much enjoyed playing/arbitrating for 25 or so years). And they can throw all sorts of interesting scenarios and battleplans for narrative or open play. But at the end of the day Matched play is going to be this games bread and butter. And so having a solid foundation that doesn't need a multitude of gentlemen's agreements just to start is something that the dev team should have both envisaged and expected. 

Also, if it's going to be house rules all the way down that vary across the world, by store, by tournament, and by playing group...

 

What exactly are we giving GW money for? If we want hack-y rules the internet can do that for free just fine. If GW wants me to pay premium money for rules, they need to delivery quality and a solid benchmark. Regardless of the good intentions of the "just modify the game" argument, there is no consensus and it destroys the ability of the community to expand and have events. It is in GW's best interests to not have garbage rules, but that's something they seem to be unable to comprehend.

[Angela]

4 hours ago, Eternalis said:

For Pink horrors?

So I have a unit of 20 pink horrors that is down to 40 blues, can I roll 20 dice and bring back some pinks? That just seems broken to me. 

[Chikout]

11 minutes ago, SpiritofHokuto said:

This kind of mindset is all very well for something that is more narratively focused like Necromunda (which I've very much enjoyed playing/arbitrating for 25 or so years). And they can throw all sorts of interesting scenarios and battleplans for narrative or open play. But at the end of the day Matched play is going to be this games bread and butter. And so having a solid foundation that doesn't need a multitude of gentlemen's agreements just to start is something that the dev team should have both envisaged and expected. 

Presumably that's what the ghb is for and we haven't seen a single page of it yet. 

[Golub87]

35 minutes ago, Angela said:

So I have a unit of 20 pink horrors that is down to 40 blues, can I roll 20 dice and bring back some pinks? That just seems broken to me. 

This is a definite yes.

Jury is still out what happens if you are down to 40 brims. Do you roll 60 dice (20 for pinks and 40 for blues)?

[Grimrock]

15 minutes ago, Golub87 said:

This is a definite yes.

Jury is still out what happens if you are down to 40 brims. Do you roll 60 dice (20 for pinks and 40 for blues)?

As far as I can read the rule, yes you do. Nothing in the rule says anything about the models having to have been on the table at the beginning of the game, it just says roll a dice for each slain model from the unit and for each 6 you return a model. Unless the rules for 'slain' change drastically, it'll include the blues as well. You could be down to a single brimstone and roll 99 dice, on average bringing back 16 pinks and almost completely rejuvenating the unit. I mean the odds of starting a hero phase with a single brimstone are marginal at best, but if you ever pulled it off... hoo boy. Oh, and it doesn't specify which hero phase you do it in, so unless there are other rules elsewhere you can do it at the start of your opponent's hero phase as well. Just need to be outside of 3" of enemy models. Pink Horror meta here we come. 

Edited June 9, 2021 by Grimrock

[Envyus]

I think people are really overreacting.

[Verminlord]

1 minute ago, Envyus said:

I think people are really overreacting.

As they always do.

[Vaporlocke]

7 minutes ago, Envyus said:

I think people are really overreacting.

Haven't seen a reason not to be upset, GW's history doesn't earn them the benefit of the doubt either. 

[Ganigumo]

18 minutes ago, Envyus said:

I think people are really overreacting.

I mean GW themselves said these were the best rules ever.

Would be kind of embarassing if they unintentionally missed something as bad as unleash hell being usable by units that weren't charged.

Or if they simultaneously nerfed melee, buffed teleports, and buffed shooting in a meta where teleporting and shooting is already dominant and people have been complaining about it for over a year.

Yeah they'd never make a mistake that embarassing

[Chikout]

This is just the latest stage in the eternal battle. I think that the majority of staff at GW don't want to make a competitive game. As far as I'm aware the only member of the AoS studio who self identifies as competitive is Ben Johnson. When GW makes a product the order of priority is minis>lore>art>theme>abilities>regular stats>points>balance. Do you feel like an arrogant elitist when you win with Lumineth- job done!

Gw is like a chef who opens a pasta restaurant and is very proud of the pasta they make. Unfortunately all the customers really want ramen. So the chef grudgingly says "Ok. I'll make you some ramen but it's still going to taste an awful lot like pasta."

Now it's perfectly valid to complain about this scenario but I think that's the way it is. 

[Neverchosen]

I must say that this is going to result in a lot more sales for movement trays, I know I will be investing in some but the question remains which strange cavalry formation will the movement trays be sold in?

[Envyus]

Still think overreacting. Unleash Hell does not seem that strong to me give it can only be used once per turn.

[Envyus]

24 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

I mean GW themselves said these were the best rules ever.

Would be kind of embarassing if they unintentionally missed something as bad as unleash hell being usable by units that weren't charged.

Or if they simultaneously nerfed melee, buffed teleports, and buffed shooting in a meta where teleporting and shooting is already dominant and people have been complaining about it for over a year.

Yeah they'd never make a mistake that embarassing

So far stuff seems like improvements.

[Reinholt]

38 minutes ago, Chikout said:

This is just the latest stage in the eternal battle. I think that the majority of staff at GW don't want to make a competitive game. As far as I'm aware the only member of the AoS studio who self identifies as competitive is Ben Johnson. When GW makes a product the order of priority is minis>lore>art>theme>abilities>regular stats>points>balance. Do you feel like an arrogant elitist when you win with Lumineth- job done!

Gw is like a chef who opens a pasta restaurant and is very proud of the pasta they make. Unfortunately all the customers really want ramen. So the chef grudgingly says "Ok. I'll make you some ramen but it's still going to taste an awful lot like pasta."

Now it's perfectly valid to complain about this scenario but I think that's the way it is. 

If that's true (it might be), then management needs to act and bring in more competitive designers to balance out the team and get rid of the people most opposed to having balanced and level rules. Or, they need to bring in quality control so after the designers go nuts, people actually properly test it, including some technical readers, and those people can fix the broken stuff and make corrections. You also need a head of that division who ensures it all comes out working together and you don't have things like Sylvaneth vs. Seraphon games in the same edition (like WTF, you're throwing rocks at a tank in that matchup). GW is a public company. If they continue not giving customers what they want, it will be a matter of time until other people step in and will do it, because GW is not a company where their management owns the majority of the stock.

This sort of approach is exactly how and why hostile takeovers happen, and it's a matter of time until you attract one if you could deliver far more for your customers and consistently don't.

The crazy part of this is tight, balanced rule sets are better for narrative gaming as well. I remember someone who wanted to get into AoS about a year and a half ago (time has lost all meaning in the pandemic). One of my friends lent them some models when they came to play in a small round robin set of games we were playing at a weekend in a bar another friend owns.

Game 1: tabled by Slaanesh in round 2.

Game 2: I played the poor ****** with my Shootcast, and while I didn't table him (largely because I was being nice), he got his ass thoroughly kicked.

Game 3: tabled by OBR in round 3.

So what was the problem, you ask? Turns out the poor kid really liked Sylvaneth, you see. And because GW wrote a ****** book and hasn't bothered to fix it for years, they lost a potential customer because the game was so poorly balanced and the experience was so un-fun he decided not to pick up the game, despite all three people he played being very nice about it and trying to teach. But when the answer to "what do I do in this situation?" is ultimately you can play 2x as well and you're still going to get wrecked, you have bleed around the edges.

I get that GW is doing well enough now (unlike the end of the Kirby time), but unforced errors of large magnitude create a lot of small cuts that can slowly turn things around to where WFB ended up in 8th, and it's so trivial to fix them that it's kind of insulting GW won't.

Put differently: I would not eat at the restaurant Chikout described more than once.

 

Edit: the part that kills me here is I like a LOT of what they are doing in AoS 3.0. But in my view, as a long-time shootcast player, if you don't fix the Unleash Hell bit in a day 1 type errata, that does more bad than all of the good they have done with a single rule that will be so dominant it will control the game.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Reinholt

[Verminlord]

1 hour ago, Vaporlocke said:

Haven't seen a reason not to be upset, GW's history doesn't earn them the benefit of the doubt either. 

How's this for a reason: we only know a tiny portion of the actual rules and won't know how all the parts function and interact until the book is in our hands and our models hit the table.

Once the full rules are out and tested, feel free to complain.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Verminlord

[Chikout]

57 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

 

I get that GW is doing well enough now 

Put differently: I would not eat at the restaurant Chikout described more than once.

 

 

GW is not doing well enough. They just had by far their best year ever. This year should have been a massive kick in the teeth to the company as in their two biggest markets people couldn't even go round their friends house to play a game let alone enter a tournament. 

The only reason I can think of for GW's success this year is that the games aren't actually that important. I remember back in the 90s gw had 9 or 10 designers and 9 or 10 rules writers. 

Now they have 9 or 10 writers spread across more game systems and more than 30 designers so it's pretty easy to see where their priorities lie and it seems to have paid off. 

As for the restaurant analogy if you've been playing gw games for more than a couple of years, you've definitely been going back to that restaurant. 

The only game gw have ever designed from the ground up to be balanced is Underworlds. 

Now I personally would love to see a more balanced game. I am worried about the problems unleash hell might cause, but so far I've seen several good things, a couple of debatle things and one worrying thing. 

Finally we have Smorgan (I think) of listlab fame. Here is a player who plays hundreds of games a year and, unlike all of us, has read all the rules. As a regular Honest Guest he's not exactly a gw shill but he seems pretty happy with the rules.

Edited June 9, 2021 by Chikout

[Vaporlocke]

52 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

How's this for a reason: we only know a tiny portion of the actual rules and won't know how all the parts function and interact until the book is in our hands and our models hit the table.

Once the full rules are out and tested, feel free to complain.

Nah, I'll complain now, thank you.

 

Everything we've seen have been buffs to problematic areas for the game and nerfs to struggling areas. The more they release the worse its gotten, and having been playing GW games since the 90's I'm fully aware that there isn't some magic fix they've been hiding. 

[yukishiro1]

Most people who buy GW miniatures don't even play the games, at least not more than once in a blue moon. The rules are just an excuse to get people buying miniatures. GW is still a miniatures company, not a rules company - they're just smart enough these days not to say it out loud.