AoS 3 New Rules Discussion

[Jaskier]

42 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

...armies like Gitz, Beasts of chaos, Khorne, and Slaanesh.

Just wanted to single this out as a Slaanesh player as it does kinda run counter to your point, but Slaanesh are looking like they are in a great spot heading into the new edition, and they're not exactly weak at the moment either. The loss of their old battalions doesn't hurt them much at all, as outside of Seeker Cavalcade the main point to battalions for them was getting low drops, and one of the new ones will still help with that. I can't speak as much to the other armies regarding your point. 

One thing is for sure is that 3.0 is a much bigger shift than 2.0 was. I don't even think the tournament scene will really reflect just how big of a shift it is for a good while as everyone adjusts. The other unknown is the GHB.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Jaskier

[Reinholt]

For my part:

1. I am glad battalions are gone from matched play because the artifact + drop modification + battalion ability is nightmarish to balance, points wise. GW never got this right but I'm also not sure it is something you can get right in a tabletop format. That's a lot of variables to balance all at once that are also dependent on other parts of a book. Standardizing them for everyone and making them less powerful is a good decision to me.
2. I maintain my stance that the army construction rules looking more like a beefed up meeting engagement will be quite good for the game. A lot of the problem in competitive games is if you spam X unit or can max out combos for buff synergy. Now that is all harder. Not impossible, mind you. Harder.
3. I do maintain my reservations about Unleash Hell but given it's literally one thing, the response of the community could be to simply ban it. If it as broken as my initial tinkering shows, it probably will be. Or it needs to be errata'd in some way (probably to be only if you charged that exact unit, not their screens or other units around them - then it's still rough but you can play around it).
4. I still think 95% of the changes will make the game better. I do agree army books also need major work (nothing in this set of changes makes Sylvaneth anything other than bin tier, but that's a problem with the book). One thing GW should consider more often is that if a book is particularly failing, the WD expansion / modification as they did with Gloomspite seems to help significantly and is nearly cost free. Use that tool to help the community GW.

[Kaladreon]

34 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

It is, as far as I can tell, a new term for AoS

Yup, a new term that I hope will be used for all after-saves and give some cohesion and uniformity. Its a term from Warhammer Fantasy and seems like it will work the same way back then. They're different (so far) from 40K Invulns in that they are taken after armour saves where Invulns just limit how much your save can be reduced.

[Jaskier]

7 minutes ago, Kaladreon said:

Yup, a new term that I hope will be used for all after-saves and give some cohesion and uniformity. Its a term from Warhammer Fantasy and seems like it will work the same way back then. They're different (so far) from 40K Invulns in that they are taken after armour saves where Invulns just limit how much your save can be reduced.

This seems like a safe bet, and will help cut out some headaches. Just a neat little tidy up rule. Little touches like this are really cool to see. 

[Televiper11]

Not feeling the complexity creep but at the same time, I’m sure I can master it eventually. I do like that this baselines the whole game: at least for a few months. 

[Sleboda]

8 hours ago, jake3991 said:

Anyone else feel like unleash hell (stand and shoot) is going to get comped out by the community? 

Thoughts?

Thoughts? How about "any community that thinks it knows more about the game than the people who wrote it, any community that changes rules rather than learn how to play with them, any community that thinks about changing rules before they have even played one single game using them, is a community that needs to be nuked into oblivion and stop crying."

That's my thought.

Rules comp is one of the Unholy Octet of Warhammer Evils.

[Chikout]

For me a big problem with the old battalions is that many of them aren't interesting. If you make six different things with six different abilities, competitive players will always choose the most powerful one. So you always saw Fyreslayer players using lords of the lodge which meant that every army would have the exact same 4 units at its core. 

The new battalions aren't super exciting but they are flexible. In a Soulblight army there are something like 50 ways of creating the command battalion. Presumably they will also be pointed. 

[PJetski]

Reinforcements will force people to use lots of MSU?

[Fred1245]

2 hours ago, Ganigumo said:

I do actually think the strength of armies hurt/buffed by the battalion changed is generally random. Which is the point, it doesn't improve balance at all, it just shakes things up while cutting an interesting piece of the game out, but everyone always pushes back saying it does make the balance of the game better. There are winners and losers at both ends of the power spectrum, but the ones at the bottom are hurt more, because armies at the bottom have less they can fall back on, armies like Gitz, Beasts of chaos, Khorne, and Slaanesh. So from my perspective the conversation should be around whether shaking the meta up like this is worth what we're giving up, which I don't think it is. I'd rather we have just taken power out of battalions being present, or solved the accessibility issue by introducing general battalions alongside warscroll ones (raising the floor of battalion quality and buffing some strong armies) because then we're being honest about the problem we're solving instead of shaking everything up and praying things land in a better spot (which they wont, because while its "random" whether high or low tier armies are hurt by the change, we actually have the benefit of being able to predict the winners and losers because the armies themselves actually exist, and top tier armies generally aren't using battalions as a crutch).

My argument about the stronger armies getting better is mostly aimed at the other rules changes, although seraphon (specifically) will definitely benefit from the new battalions, as the strongest armies are already abusing things like teleports, shooting, and 25mm bases, all of which seem to be getting better, or are impacted less by the changes. 

 

 

1) Yes but the new ones are boring.
2) You know your rules, and your opponent knows their rules, and if you're unsure ask. its a social game and nobody should be expected to know the rules for their opponents army before starting the game.
If complexity was the issue they should've just removed them entirely instead of giving us something boring to keep track of.

1. So were the old ones. Just in a more stupid way. Half the factions in the game had 0 good battalions and 90% of the list total was garbage. 'Oh, it's so exciting to pay 140pts to get a command point that's slightly worse than a regular command point for taking models I was gonna take anyway!' Said no DoK player ever.

2. In tournaments (the only place the rules actually matter. Don't @ me.) you are on a timetable. The less rules of your opponents you have to memorize the better. You simply don't have time to cover every tactical vector something like Changehost has and your opponent is only obligated to explain what a rule DOES not what he plans to use it for. So yes, nominally you can ask your opponent to explain his rules, but that's not always going to be enough to prevent getting 'gotcha'd'.

(The 'how much information is my opponent required to give me in order to qualify as good sportsmanship' debate is a serparate issue. Again don't @me.

And yeah, I would have been totally happy to see them removed too. This is a fair compromise.

[Fred1245]

I'm going to say it here now:

I think stand and shoot is nowhere near as strong as the d6 flee.

Unleash hell is very showy. Ooh Such shoots, much Damages! Pretty colors! But ultimately it's an anemic last stand for the majority of archer models. You'll get some extra casualties you wouldn't have in AoS2, but end up still trapped in combat and still probably being killed the majority of the time.

The D6 flee is game deciding. I guarantee good players will win at least 1 game per event with this ability alone.

[Andalf]

I agree 100% Fred.  Being able to play old school MSU style I think it feels more like WHFB which I love.  Fleeing was a major mechanic in every game where there wasn’t Immune to Psych stuff (mostly undead/daemons).  With smaller squads meaning likely more units on the table the game gets opened up to a lot more counter plays; which they’ve also added a nice new array of bespoke layers with the Rampages and Heroic actions it sounds actually quite immersive.

Edited June 11, 2021 by Andalf

[Coyote]

This feels like some return to old WHFB.

[Benkei]

6 hours ago, Fred1245 said:

I'm going to say it here now:

I think stand and shoot is nowhere near as strong as the d6 flee.

Unleash hell is very showy. Ooh Such shoots, much Damages! Pretty colors! But ultimately it's an anemic last stand for the majority of archer models. You'll get some extra casualties you wouldn't have in AoS2, but end up still trapped in combat and still probably being killed the majority of the time.

The D6 flee is game deciding. I guarantee good players will win at least 1 game per event with this ability alone.

I've seen this opinion about UH a couple of times in the forums already and I wonder why some people can't understand. UH lets you stand and shoot at units charging YOUR SCREENS; your shooting unit won't be engaged after UH most of the time. It would be a lot more palatable if it was old Warhammer's Stand and Shoot, at the moment it seems basically "pay 1cp to shoot twice this round" 

Also the problem is mostly the already OP shooting units that get even better with UH and not so much UH itself

Edited June 11, 2021 by Benkei

[Reinholt]

2 minutes ago, Benkei said:

I've seen this opinion about UH a couple of times in the forums already and I wonder why some people can't understand UH let's you stand and shoot at units charging YOUR SCREENS. It would be a lot more palatable if it was old Warhammer's Stand and Shoot

I think part of it is also thinking about Stand & Shoot for the median shooting unit you encounter, which is honestly not that scary.

 

Who cares if 5 Judicators stand and shoot?

 

Now, 6 Vanguard Raptor Longstrikes or a Kharadron Ironclad or Salamanders hitting you when you hit the screen, hitting you again in their turn (twice for the longstrikes!), and then hitting you AGAIN when you finally charge them. That's less friendly.

[SorryLizard]

20 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

I think part of it is also thinking about Stand & Shoot for the median shooting unit you encounter, which is honestly not that scary.

 

Who cares if 5 Judicators stand and shoot?

 

Now, 6 Vanguard Raptor Longstrikes or a Kharadron Ironclad or Salamanders hitting you when you hit the screen, hitting you again in their turn (twice for the longstrikes!), and then hitting you AGAIN when you finally charge them. That's less friendly.

Also, if you're an MSU army that shooting is likely to remove or cripple your small 5 model unit. So you feed a small unit to the UH, then charge with a second to be able to engage the screen.

This might explain why there are more higher saves being seen and ways of dealing damage that don't need to be  a charge. Kastelai Blood Knight for example trampling over units for MWs.

Oh. And the game does have invulnerable saves. Unrendable 2+ eels, Bastilidon, Neferata's spell.

Ethereal is not quite invulnerable in the 40k sense of the word due to the restriction on improving the save but it's pretty close and is an ability for an entire starter faction.

[Chikout]

19 minutes ago, Benkei said:

I've seen this opinion about UH a couple of times in the forums already and I wonder why some people can't understand UH let's. you stand and shoot at units charging YOUR SCREENS; your shooting unit won't be engaged after UH most of the time. It would be a lot more palatable if it was old Warhammer's Stand and Shoot, at the moment it seems basically "pay 1cp to shoot twice this round" 

Also the problem is mostly the already OP shooting units that get even better with UH and not so much UH itself

There is counterplay though. Anything with 6 inch pile in can ignore it. Flying chaff is great. Fly some chainrasps, or fellbats, or  5 squig hoppers over the screen. The shooting player has to decide if they want to waste  a command point on clearing the chaff. If they dont spend it, they can't use it against another unit as the chaffe unit will be too close. It's certainly going to have an impact sometimes but its not unbeatable. 

Also we are getting L-shaped scenery and we still haven't seen the new scenery rules yet. 

[Benkei]

There is very little counterplay as evidenced by the corner cases in your examples, and why the hell have the melee units to go through all the hoops on top of having to close the distance and risking retaliation on their own combat phase while shooting units already dominating the meta just don't care and shoot all day long while not giving a ****** about having to MSU or coherence? 

It would be all fine and dandy if shooting units were substantially more expensive than melee units, but they aren't. 

Edited June 11, 2021 by Benkei

[Mcthew]

3 hours ago, Jaskier said:

Just wanted to single this out as a Slaanesh player as it does kinda run counter to your point, but Slaanesh are looking like they are in a great spot heading into the new edition, and they're not exactly weak at the moment either. The loss of their old battalions doesn't hurt them much at all, as outside of Seeker Cavalcade the main point to battalions for them was getting low drops, and one of the new ones will still help with that. I can't speak as much to the other armies regarding your point. 

One thing is for sure is that 3.0 is a much bigger shift than 2.0 was. I don't even think the tournament scene will really reflect just how big of a shift it is for a good while as everyone adjusts. The other unknown is the GHB.

This is a good point. Given we are still in the clutches of a pandemic around the world, a major shift in Core rules isn't the best thing (but that's not GWs fault - this was planned and written pre-Covid).

Players may not get the same game-time as they are used to, and getting their heads around a more complex system might not be for them. It'll be some time before a lasting opinion is formed once these rules land.

I wonder how many players will kick matched play rules into touch and use narrative or homebrew to compensate?

[Beliman]

Unleash Hell it's an awesome ability, only time will tell if it's broken. But for the most part, it seems fine. There are a lot of counterplays and some new abilities to play with, and the player will be more impactful with CA Reactions and more units overall on the table.

 

 

[GutrotSpume]

2 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Thoughts? How about "any community that thinks it knows more about the game than the people who wrote it, any community that changes rules rather than learn how to play with them, any community that thinks about changing rules before they have even played one single game using them, is a community that needs to be nuked into oblivion and stop crying."

That's my thought.

Rules comp is one of the Unholy Octet of Warhammer Evils.

The community has consistently shown to be better at comping GW games over the years and if it wasn’t for the community giving AOS points and scenarios this game would have died a long time ago.

[Greybeard86]

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

"The community" is not an acting body. It's hundreds of thousands of individuals with individual wants and desires. We really can't base any course of action on the assumption that "the community" is some sort of cohesive body.

And yet things like the Swedish competitive system existed and did very well. You are pointing out obvious things that do not imply that "community" action is impossible. Heck, we have evidence to the contrary, so there isn't much to discuss on this.

4 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Secondly, if GW ever drops physical books, I'm out. There is just something ... real ... about a book. The smell. The sound of a turning page. The lack of glow straining the eyes.  The fact that it doesn't go *poof* when the power runs out.

No, give me physical books as a vital part of my hobby experience. This is a physical hobby, with WYSIWYG physical models, physical dice, physically applied colors, physically present opponents, and physical books.

I also love video games. Heck, I play more Hearthstone than pretty much any other game currently - physical games included, but this hobby of ours is different and it would be worse off for the loss of any of its physical elements.

What if GW published the books for collectors, but simply had digitial copies available and frequently updated too?

It has become painfully obvious that either GW plans better the rule release schedule or they need to be more flexible updating them.

[Ghoooouls]

5 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Somewhere in the recent rules releases, maybe even here on this forum, there was a reference to "ward saves." It looks like Invulnerable Saves are coming to AoS.

'Invulnerable' saves already exist. They're just called ethereal or similar like from items where you ignore modifiers. Ward saves in fantasy were the 'after saves/wound negation' we currently have, so I assume they will just have the term 'Ward save' now.

[vlad3theimpaler]

On 6/9/2021 at 4:36 PM, Athrawes said:

Nothing in the core rules says I'm not allowed to smash your models with a hammer, but I probably shouldn't if I want to make the game enjoyable for me and my opponent. 

The rules tell you what you can do, not what you can't.  That's a completely invalid line of argument and does not appear to be made in good faith.

9 hours ago, Fuxxx said:

"Ok guys, before we allowed you to take smaller units if you lacked a model or two. But you have to understand us as a company. We have to make money somehow. So the lax times are over, even if you want to you are not allowed by the rules to take smaller units!"

Ok just making fun of it, and to be frank: You always only have one unit of a type that is too small anyways, you would have to run them small on purpose to have more..

I have odd numbers of both skeletons and grave guard.  It sounds like I would not be able to use odd numbers of both under these rules, but I'm not sure what they mean by "type" of unit.  I could see that as referring to either each warscroll being a "type" or each role being one.

3 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Thoughts? How about "any community that thinks it knows more about the game than the people who wrote it, any community that changes rules rather than learn how to play with them, any community that thinks about changing rules before they have even played one single game using them, is a community that needs to be nuked into oblivion and stop crying."

That's my thought.

Rules comp is one of the Unholy Octet of Warhammer Evils.

The mtg communtiy has found broken combos in cards before they were even released just from previews alone, and WotC has found that they were correct and had to ban/errata the offending cards to fix it.  So were those mtg players wrong for "thinking they know more about the game than the people who wrote it" and therefore should be "nuked into oblivion?"

[Sleboda]

51 minutes ago, GutrotSpume said:

The community has consistently shown to be better at comping GW games over the years and if it wasn’t for the community giving AOS points and scenarios this game would have died a long time ago.

Man, I really wish I could see into alternate timelines, too.

Comp is garbage. It's ego. It's fear and stubbornness masquerading as insight and intelligence. Comp is just about the most certain way to divide a global community into factions - pockets of people who, each in their own group, think they have found the One True Way to play.

Comp is a disease in search of a weak-willed host.

Do you really want build your strategies based on one set of rules only to find that in the next town other over they play by different rules that ****** up your understanding of the game? Comp does exactly that and has for decades. It is maddening to have to learn 10 different sets of the supposedly same rules just because 10 different tournament organizers or 10 different gaming groups each feel they have "fixed" the game but each in different ways.

 

 

Edited June 11, 2021 by Sleboda
Additional need to rant.

[Darkhan]

8 hours ago, Gauche said:

I find myself disagreeing so I'll probably give up the fight here but my last $0.02. The new complexity...isn't complex. Coherency will take you one game to adjust to, I promise. It's not a new concept in the genre or from GW and it's been tested thoroughly. New Command Abilities you can write on a notecard, they're very simple as well. What new Special Abilities, the Monster/Hero stuff? Again, fits on a notecard and is pretty easy to grasp, I hope.

Unleash Hell looks strong at first glance but we don't have the whole picture. What if Terrain starts playing a bigger part? Now shooting isn't as good (I'm hoping for this personally). What about tagging them in Combat to get around it? As far as I know that still exists. That's the problem with making negative judgements without 100% of the picture.

There are no weak or strong armies from the past, this is a new game. New Points, new Missions, rules changes, and of course new Army Books will come. No one has any idea what the weak and strong will end up being and it's way too early to even guess based on what we know. Even if an army has taken NOTHING but nerfs from the rules that have been shown there's plenty more to see.

Ultimately to fix balance the community needs to stop buying rulebooks and force GW to move to digital rules that get updated once a quarter, like some games do. But that will take a very long time since GW is great at churning customers and people get very defensive about piracy because it's a "bad word". Otherwise nothing will ever change, there's no financial incentive for it to. Anything else is treating the symptoms, not the disease.

 

I do hope you like 3.0 and find some enjoyment from it. Never fun to see someone fall out of love with a game for any reason.

I'm curious why the AoS battletomes does not include a digital download code like the 40k codexes. Hoping they will tho in the future.