3.0 Actual Games Conversation

[yukishiro1]

Yeah, it's a headscratcher for sure. There's no clear rationale for it other than "this is how it was before, so this is how it should continue to be." It's even more problematic in AOS than in 40k, because AOS is so much more of a front-loaded game, so being able to deploy with the knowledge that you get to choose who goes first is even more of an advantage than it would be in 40k. 

The only thing I can really think of is that they really want to push big god-tier models and drop count does do that since each one of those models costs so much. But that doesn't seem a particularly convincing reason for it, there are so many other ways to promote big models if that's what they really want to do, drop count is comparatively such small potatoes. 

Edited July 29, 2021 by yukishiro1

[NinthMusketeer]

What they improved in 3rd is that they made turn choice an actual choice; going first is nice but going second is an extra CP every round, plus being able to remove an objective on round 3 in a good chunk of matched scenarios. It isn't perfect but overall it is a pretty elegant approach that alleviates first turn advantage without flipping things the other way.

Except the double turn exists so nevermind.

[Karragon]

4 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:

What they improved in 3rd is that they made turn choice an actual choice; going first is nice but going second is an extra CP every round, plus being able to remove an objective on round 3 in a good chunk of matched scenarios. It isn't perfect but overall it is a pretty elegant approach that alleviates first turn advantage without flipping things the other way.

Except the double turn exists so nevermind.

That's another thing I've found largely irrelevant. I don't think anyone, (myself or my opponents) has yet opted to go 2nd if they've won a roll off, 1 extra CP just isn't a consideration compared to getting to take a turn (Turn 1 excluded). The objective removal is pretty meh as well as I've previously noted most of my games end T3 or before so it doesn't make much difference, it's an after thought of "oh, I might as well remove one then"

[Liquidsteel]

Yeah if you can go second turn 1, potentially double turn 2, you risk less going in to turn 3 as on most battle plans, if they take the double you get to remove an objective, then potentially double them again in to turn 4.

[Backbreaker]

14 hours ago, BadDice0809 said:

It still blows my mind that the stupid low drop game is still in matched play. Hell they finally got to the level 8th edition 40k was at, over a year ago, in the core rules, then they immediately rule back to the drop bull ****** in the GHB. 40k is much better for not making first turn priority a sure thing (or next to one). 

I would love to hear why it was shoe horned back into the game.

Honestly, I really like it. I hate when first turn is decided by a dice roll.

 

But I'm really surprise that your games are ending after 5 rounds. We struggle to finish the third round without a player tabled.

[NinthMusketeer]

It's all in the list balance; if your games are ending by turn 3 it's little to do with the core rules and everything to do with the awful balance of matched play. And/or they are double-turn games.

[EldritchX]

4 hours ago, Karragon said:

That's another thing I've found largely irrelevant. I don't think anyone, (myself or my opponents) has yet opted to go 2nd if they've won a roll off, 1 extra CP just isn't a consideration compared to getting to take a turn (Turn 1 excluded). The objective removal is pretty meh as well as I've previously noted most of my games end T3 or before so it doesn't make much difference, it's an after thought of "oh, I might as well remove one then"

I have the same experience so far. This is in contrast to 2.0, where I opted to go second quite often if Geminids were on the table, even giving my opponent double turns. I was playing -hit stacking, always strikes first lists though. That said, I've been double-turned several times so far in 3 and still won.

[TheCovenLord]

2 hours ago, EldritchX said:

I have the same experience so far. This is in contrast to 2.0, where I opted to go second quite often if Geminids were on the table, even giving my opponent double turns. I was playing -hit stacking, always strikes first lists though. That said, I've been double-turned several times so far in 3 and still won.

I believe your list is likely in the minority as it sounds like you had a very particular strategy in mind and built specifically around min-maxing it.

 

This is a zero change from 2.0 for myself and my games group. We almost never opted for 2nd turn and still don't in 3.0.

Edited July 30, 2021 by TheCovenLord

[yukishiro1]

3.0 actually made the incentives to do the most powerful thing - go second T1, get the T2 double, effectively win the game by halfway through T2, then be free to give away the turn on T3 in order to be able to burn the objective of your choice and secure victory - even stronger. The rules designers don't appear to have recognized that it isn't T3 where they needed to incentivize going 2nd, it's T2, because it's the T1 to T2 double turn that is now the most important. It's like they were still playing the AOS of several years ago, before the shooting meta, when it really was T3 that was critical. But since then they've moved up the critical turn from T3 to T2 due to the proliferation of ranged attacks, teleports, out of phase moves, etc. It's the very rare army that can't hit their opponent hard from the bottom of T1 these days.

 

Edited July 30, 2021 by yukishiro1

[stratigo]

Maybe they all play idk and think everyone is waiting for the asf tide to kick in

[NinthMusketeer]

I was at a small tournament that house-ruled random initiative not starting until round 3 (as in, round 2 automatically used the same initiative as round 1). None of the games were decided before round 4, most needed round 5.

[yukishiro1]

I've been advocating that for a long time. GW evidently has no interest, which is too bad, as it would allow them to keep the double turn they are so wedded to while vastly diminishing the amount of games it ruins. 

Edited July 30, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Charleston]

Well, 3.0 seems like a mixed bag. The new approach of shared enchancements is nice and I really love the battle tactics. 

But the core rules more than ever make the whole game dependend on faction and unit selection due to the evergrowing list of "have & have not' rules. There are simply mechanics that are so powerfull that some lists or even whole armies don't have a lever to handle them. In a game in which the first advice new players hear is 'Pick the faction that you love the look the most' it is quite a shame when people learn that they picked up the wrong faction.

This bad feeling of beeing punished for picking up the wrong factions/kits, paired with the high complexity of the game and the fast pace of (expensive) book rotations (which are of bad quality) currently shades a bad light on AoS. 

[Injuryprone]

I picked troggs for the look and low model count.  Now I wish I would have went gargants instead.

[Pariah]

Since I was so negative at first having only played my goblins (which are still awful and unplayable with the build I have), I figure I should mention how my games with my other armies.

Played a few games with celestial vindicators: liberators, retributors, prosectors, basically the 1st edition starter stuff plus a knight heraldor. The army wasn't awful but I had the same terrible play experience which made me get into other armies than stormcast, they simply have so few dice that ever decision felt like a gamble because your never sure when your 3 attacks on your awesome leader just all come up as 1s.

Played a cities of sigmar army last game, now that irondrakes are battleline it was 2 10 man units of them, 2 gyrobombers, a cogsmith, a warden king, and drycha hamadrath (living city) at 1k points. shot my opponent to pieces, went 2nd, turn one wiped his protectors, double turned, turn 2 took out vandus hammerhand, the game was over from there, lost a single irondrake all game. Was pretty fun, not sure the balance on shooting in this edition, was my time playing a gunline. 

[RedemptionUK]

After feeling that a list with multiple drops leading to not dictating turn order. I decided to try a 3 drop list with Gotrek (friend wanted to test out his list for a tournament tomorrow and asked me to play him), I have grown to massively appreciate dictating initial turn order when nothing I have for lists so far really can make use out of the 5+ ward artefact.

I still really like Evocators and have grown to appreciate Sequitors more again. I'm excited to see how the new book plays; especially with the potential to have less worry about sitting 5 battleline on a back objective without feeling like they will struggle to really contest if need be due to being out-numbers almost all the time.

[Sharklone]

Watched my mate vs Lumineth with his Orruks last night on TTS.

Unleash hell definitely needs some looking at - Either it needs to change or some warscrolls need to change. Some potential fixes we talked about were; *note* not all of them at once.

- hits on 6's only

- No extra effects from the shooting (i.e) mortals

- Only the unit being charged can shoot.

I like the concept of unleash hell, but people are just going to abuse the ****** out of it with certain armies/warscrolls - and not every army has aetherwings or fell bats to sacrifice to unleash hell to protect their damage dealing units. 

We talked about potential counterplays the orruk player could have done instead - but realistically - he either had to rely on the double turn to stand a chance, or just hope the unleash hell shots whiff. Both players ended the game pretty sour. Not at each other, just about the way the game went. 

I'm aware the top tier toruney players can probably outplay this mechanic to an extent, but for your beers and pretzels games - it makes for a fairly unpleasant experience.

[yukishiro1]

They just need to make it so only the unit being charged can shoot, that fixes most of the edge cases - irondrakes lose half their shots, sentinels and other squishy stuff have to put themselves in danger to do it, etc. 

Whoever thought it was a good idea to let you do it w/in 9" of whatever was actually charged...hoo boy, that was an odd decision. 

[NinthMusketeer]

I will go out and say they don't need it at all. Redeploy already gives ranged units a way to react against encroachment. Nerfs to the ability would make it so only the ones exploiting it use it and it's not worthwhile for anyone else.

Hitting only on 6s still leaves units like sentinels who only care about 6s anyways. Not triggering abilities helps with that but does nothing against more blunt force shooting like irondrakes or stormfiends. Both just leads back to my first point of why even have it at all.

[Beliman]

Agree to disagree.

My gaming group has moved to Big Hero-Monsters (and it seems that tournament players too). Unleash Hell is awesome, but only a few units can "auto-win" the game with Unleash Hell, like Sentinels or warpfire Skavens (btw, our Lumineth player benched their aelfs for Mega-Gargants and Sylvaneth).

Btw, stacking saves on 3+ heroes/monsters is still nasty.

Edited July 31, 2021 by Beliman

[Ragest]

Any strong shooters can stop a big monster.

In my community the lists are pure herohammer now, most of them saving 2+ ethereal with 5++ fnp, unleash is a complete waste of resources

Edited July 31, 2021 by Ragest

[Battlefury]

The dictated meta for this edition ( from the very beginning in the twitch stream release ) seemed to be: Heroes & Monders = Meta.

Makes sense to me, since they want people to change their armies and therefore buy models = money $$$.

Just gonna see how often they will shift the meta this year, I'd suggest 1 time this year and then 3 times per year.

So far for the declaration of the obvious.

Something productive:

Try to play the game via a single house rule and see, what happens:

Activate single units in an alternating manner within the battle rounds. Means: Player A starts and chooses a unit to activate and do, what the warscroll & core rules let them do. Then Player B does the same. Repeat, until all units have been activated.

After this, do not roll for initiative. The player, who finished the previous turn first ( due to his available activations ) will begin the next turn.

Otherwise all core rules apply.

Cheers///

Sidenote: I definetly picked the wrong faction for this edition ( potentially a new book changes that...but I doubt it )*


*Cries in Blood for the Blood God

[Holy_Diver]

12 hours ago, Charleston said:

This bad feeling of beeing punished for picking up the wrong factions/kits, paired with the high complexity of the game and the fast pace of (expensive) book rotations (which are of bad quality) currently shades a bad light on AoS. 

In aos 1 (free pdf times) I picked Khorne because I like "aggressive playstyle" and... well, looking back to what that faction as been in the years, that was a wrong interpretation. Life is good, but ****** happens! 😅

Jokes apart, the Ghur battlepack is very cool (in first place the removing objective, that can revert a game upside down) but after a series of games, I think 3.0 is very time dependant. What that mean? It means some armys have desperate need of rebalance to only start to give you a fun matchup, and that doesn't mean competing. For competing tomes like Beasts of Chaos need rules steroids.

[NinthMusketeer]

Points change, rules change. But what you think looks cool doesn't 🙂

(Should've gone with Pestilens!)

Edited July 31, 2021 by NinthMusketeer

[JackStreicher]

So what really needs to change imo is:

- Unleash hell: while fine for small units, it‘s absurd for big ones or MW shooting

- Buff stacking. It plainly sucks. Some armies have such easy access to Dave bonuses that killing a single hero is impossible without spamming mortal wounds. Something along the lines of: the best you can ever get is +1 to your save. If the attack targeting this unit has rend you can only cancel out the rend by stacking, you won‘t receive a +1 to save.