3.0 Actual Games Conversation

[RuneBrush]

+++ MOD HAT +++

Just a nudge back onto talking about games rather than maths please 😉

[stratigo]

39 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

+++ MOD HAT +++

Just a nudge back onto talking about games rather than maths please 😉

XD, Most wargames ultimately revolve around probabilities 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 minutes ago, stratigo said:

XD, Most wargames ultimately revolve around probabilities 

Come on, my dude. This is the "3.0 Actual Games" thread. Just stick to actual games here. We have a rule discussion thread, too. That's a good place for maths.

[RuneBrush]

13 minutes ago, stratigo said:

XD, Most wargames ultimately revolve around probabilities 

+++ MOD HAT +++

I've always thought wargames revolved around rolling dice.

Regardless though, this thread is about the games people have been playing and how they're finding the rules.

[whispersofblood]

1 hour ago, Zappgrot said:

What? Who the hell looks at  absolute probability gains when calculating something to begin whit?  Doubling your money from 1 dollar to to 2 is not the same  impact wise as from 1.000.000 to 2.000.000 ?  For all the impact certain buffs can have on the spread of possible results  ( is this what you mean by relative impact? ).  Most buffs have such high impact on the expected outcome that the spread becomes less relevant. That being said the larger the poll of dice the less the spread of the outcome. So if you want a big chance for a result that difference greatly from the statistical average less dice is where it is at.  So your whole point makes absolutly no ****** sense to me. But maybe that's just me 

Well I do for one lol. But, we all do it's part how we assess warscrolls it's why we can have a discussion about how to value Mv9 against  Mv3d6. But, you are only taking the point half way. Fewer dice are highly variable in specific outcomes, which is a negative when failure results in removed models, generally speaking.

Because the benefit of All Out Defence is being applied to a pool more at risk to variance you are paying the same price for a less consistent ability to recieve said benefit. The next step is the opportunity cost.

 CP usage is an investment decision, which means context and absolute benefit are important margins for decision making. These are the sort of margin calls that are going to determine the outcomes of people's games. AoS 3 is much more similar to economy games like Porta Rico now. 

On table when making your decision the question to be answered is does All Out Defence keep more of my models on the table. Determine the answer to that is way more specific than it improves my save by x%; therefore, yes. Especially in face of CMD abilities like Inspiring Presence and Rally. 

[Zappgrot]

21 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Well I do for one lol. But, we all do it's part how we assess warscrolls it's why we can have a discussion about how to value Mv9 against  Mv3d6. But, you are only taking the point half way. Fewer dice are highly variable in specific outcomes, which is a negative when failure results in removed models, generally speaking.

Because the benefit of All Out Defence is being applied to a pool more at risk to variance you are paying the same price for a less consistent ability to recieve said benefit. The next step is the opportunity cost.

 CP usage is an investment decision, which means context and absolute benefit are important margins for decision making. These are the sort of margin calls that are going to determine the outcomes of people's games. AoS 3 is much more similar to economy games like Porta Rico now. 

On table when making your decision the question to be answered is does All Out Defence keep more of my models on the table. Determine the answer to that is way more specific than it improves my save by x%; therefore, yes. Especially in face of CMD abilities like Inspiring Presence and Rally. 

 No you don't no body not even you  would argue that  improving your save from - to 6+ is as valuable as improving from 3+ to 2+ The  absolute probability increase of success is the same. But for the evaluation of the outcome that is irrelevant. 

[Boar]

9 hours ago, Rachmani said:

We never took that for granted! It’s exactly like your graph says. The order makes no difference.

Only when the order gets changed or steps left out it does. Like with mortal wounds on 6+. Here hit is better than wound.

Just to be clear I am not talking about average, but distribution and variance. You can have same averages, but with different distribution. If you knew that good for you. I honestly wasn't sure.

And just to further clarify it's normal order, just with +1 given once to one roll, than to another. Because first you write that order does't matter, and next sentence that it does, so I am not sure what you are saying.

8 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

All out Attack is increasing the rate of success of the largest pool. All out Defence decreases the rate of failure of the smallest pool, and because saves generally in AoS are around a 4+ the distribution of failures can be anywhere between a 3 which is a marginal fail or a 2 and a 1 which are true fails, and the smaller the dice pool the more vulnerable you are to irratic distribution due to small sample sizes. 

OK, this time you were clearer.

This does not support conclusion that All out defense has lesser value. It simply works differently, ie. with similar "raw power", but with different variance. If that changes it's value for you this is your opinion, this is your preference, fine.

But it's just that your preference, as across many games we will be playing in AoS 3.0, value of all out defense, much like save characterisitc itself will trend toward average.

I already used this example, of elite attacks (40 of them) 3+/3+/-1 vs 4+ save. Where we can see that answering All out attack with All out defense lowers incoming damge even below what we could expect with no buffs on both sides.

this time charts not mine, but courtsy of Stathammer

interesting variance changes above

But wait, there is more!

If we don't answer all out attack, it drastically changes distribution in favor of attacking side. By using all out defense we are not only lowering expected average result. We are changing distribution that significantly increases chance of results that could be called failure for attacking side. As damage dealt has greater chance to not reach required threshold for achieving tactical goal by opponent. Or in other words introduces/increases uncertainity.

 

There is still more!

Now about gains from all out defense (or other such buffs) on lower number of rolls. As we can see moving one step (specifically from 4+ to 3+) on only 10 dice rolled, changes distribution of outcomes quite significantly. Mode changes from 5 to 7, and you have even not insignificant chance to roll 9 successes.

done by me in excel, no sims, just binomial distribution

So I would say conclusion is that we should not be afraid to boost lower number of rolls. They sure can fail more, but look how also lower results are reduced by this +1 buff.

As bonus, change from 5+ to 4+, again only 10 dice

Choice is yours dear reader, I know what I will do.

[Boar]

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

+++ MOD HAT +++

I've always thought wargames revolved around rolling dice.

Regardless though, this thread is about the games people have been playing and how they're finding the rules.

Sorry about that, I was typing post for a while already and didn't look at new messges

[whispersofblood]

2 hours ago, Zappgrot said:

 No you don't no body not even you  would argue that  improving your save from - to 6+ is as valuable as improving from 3+ to 2+ The  absolute probability increase of success is the same. But for the evaluation of the outcome that is irrelevant. 

That's one of the underlying assumptions of my perspective. But, people aren't finding the discussion particularly helpful so I'll post a reflection of a match I've recently played.

IDK: Fuethan (Allows rr1s in turn 2 and 4, mounts rr1 wounds in combat) (Mine) v DoT: Guild of Summoners

Tidecaster w/ High Priest, and Curse, Enhancement(Heal) 

Eidolon of the Storm w/ Cloak of Midnight

Soulrender

20 Namarti Reavers

10 Namarti Thralls

10 Namarti Thralls

3 Ishlaen Guard

3 Ishlaen Gaurd

1 Allopex w/ Razorshell Harpoon Launcher

1 Allopex w/ Razorshell Harpoon Launcher

Leviadon

From memory the list was

Karios

Fatemaster

The Blue Scribes

20 Pinks

10 Pinks

10 Pinks

3 Screamers

3 Screamers

3 Screamers

Cogs

Spell Portal

Basically planning to build summoning points and drop models on me. A bit weaker against me since I don't have any casts, but I don't unbind either so 6 of 1 half dozen of another.

We played The Vice, which was fun, a totally new experience and an interesting way to think about the board. I don't think the lack of mobility in my opponents list was good, and it was only exasperated by how mobile my own list was.

Notes on the list, I basically went for a lot of very flexible drops so that I could keep the opponent from figuring out where I was going to approach from. The small units meant I could move into gaps that my opponent couldn't with his large horror block. Reavers at Mv8 rr runs and run and shoot in turns 2, and 4 meant I could basically apply curse + 40 shots wherever I wanted once the combat lines were drawn out. 

I found the range on curse took a bit a getting used to, and I wasn't able to apply it as aggressively as I originally had planned to. Between the Allopex and the Leviadon shooting off his screamers he was very quickly penned. The Ishlaen Gaurd pinned the Horror units, and the Thralls zoned out his ability to summon in important places. Being able to Heal the Leviadon (with Heal) and the Eidolon with Ritual of Rousing, Heroric Recovery and Crashing Upon the Foe meant my opponent didn't really do very much Damage to either. Kairos did 10 MW to the Leviadon in one turn, by the time my Allopex charged and killed him in my turn, I had basically healed all the damage back.

The Leviadon actually just charged and pinned the 20 man unit 10" or so away from the central objective so he was never really able to apply the anvil where he wanted to. We used the scoring suggestion from THW. Because I was able to push really far into my opponent's territory from the second turn I basically always scored more. Meaning turn 4 I was up 3 points on the primary, and the Leviadon allowing me to continuously score bonus points throughout the game. For example shooting off the last Horror for Broken Ranks, or Monstrous Takeover. Also I killed the General with some shooting attacks after my Reavers with curse failed to do so. The value of survival monsters I think is plainly obvious at this point.

The Soulrender was ok nothing amazing, returned like 7 reavers over the course of the game.

 

[JonnyTheKing]

I played recently with a heavy Nurgle Daemon list against Lumineth, actually a Lumineth game I didn’t want to die of boredom in surprisingly due to Nurgle having defences against Lumineth’s problematic rules. Was a very close game but ultimately lost, discovered Nurgle struggle to complete a couple of the battle tactics which really hurts for them, however their durability now is insane with the changes to Plaguebearers and  2 of their Heralds becoming amazing. Lumineth really struggled to shift my army and GUOs as always are beasts

Really enjoying how Nurgle play at the moment but they do perhaps need a slight boost in damage when their new book comes out, excited to get some more games against other armies in with Nurgle 

[Christopher Rowe]

I'll be playing my first game this coming Sunday, my Seraphon versus a friend's Ossiarch Bonereapers. I don't know much of anything about that army, so we'll see how it goes. It's 2,000 points and I imagine it will be pretty slow as we go through all the new options. Right now I'm busily building Saurus Knights!

[Skreech Verminking]

5 hours ago, stratigo said:

XD, Most wargames ultimately revolve around probabilities 

Not, when that skaven players has 1-more Dooomwheels!!!

4 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

+++ MOD HAT +++

I've always thought wargames revolved around rolling dice.

All real skaventide  (Dommwheel) players approve!

[Enoby]

2 hours ago, JonnyTheKing said:

Was a very close game but ultimately lost, discovered Nurgle struggle to complete a couple of the battle tactics which really hurts for them

Just curious, which tactics do they struggle with?

[MitGas]

2 minutes ago, Enoby said:

Just curious, which tactics do they struggle with?

freshening-up tactics! 😎

[Sleboda]

I got a game in a few days ago.

It was Khorne demons vs. Skaven, 1000 points.

Our armies weren't all that huge, but that was on purpose so we could focus on new mechanics. Know what? It pretty much felt like old AoS overall. Sure, there was a bit more interaction, and more choices (which can be good or bad depending on your view), but we didn't feel these bits actually did much. They just created a feel good vibe to an extent.

Probably the biggest change was scoring. I like how it really drives the point home that the game isn't about wiping out the other army.

My bloodthirster really liked the smaller board and the limits on command abilities. He was the man of the match.

One thing I absolutely do not like is the ability to swarm models around in combat with pile in moves. The wording change from closest model to closest unit makes it far too easy to drop units that have charged but not yet fought out of combat. Intelligent casualty removal has always been a part of the game, but with this added, I suspect this will lead to many frustrating experiences.

Looking forward to another game soon.

 

[Andrew G]

16 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

Curious what was your actual list. I've been noodling with my Warclans and keep pondering Boarboyz. 

 

Spoiler

Allegiance: Ironjawz
Megaboss on Maw-Krusha (495)
- General
- Boss Gore-hacka and Choppa
- Command Trait: Ironclad
- Artefact: Amulet of Destiny (Universal Artefact)
- Mount Trait: Weird 'Un
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)
- Lore of the Weird: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork
Orruk Warchanter (120)
- Warbeat: Fixin' Beat
Orruk Warchanter (120)
- Warbeat: Killa Beat
5 x Orruk Ardboys (95)
5 x Orruk Ardboys (95)
5 x Orruk Ardboys (95)
10 x Orruk Ardboys (190)
- Reinforced x 1
3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)
- Pig-iron Choppas
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (340)
- Pig-iron Choppas
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Orruk Brutes (150)
- Pair of Brute Choppas

Total: 1990 / 2000
Reinforced Units: 2 / 4
Allies: 0 / 400
Wounds: 143
 

List above. I took the battalion that gives an extra enhancement and gave the shaman +1 cast. Grand strategy is to keep battleline alive.

 

13 hours ago, Mutton said:

If they were willing to put something like Unleash Hell into the game in the first place, it's safe to say they're still clueless on just how powerful shooting in the game is right now. But Sentinels specifically, yeah, it's unbelievable that they and Skinks are still so bloody cheap.

 

9 hours ago, Zappgrot said:

I have no idea what gw was thinking whit sentinals either. This 30 inch range ingore los ignor opponets armour to mortal wounds bs Is jus the mother of all anti fun designs. It's just impossible to make a fun and competative unit out of them now. Since there is no counterplay.  Gw could make them to cheap (as in as they are now) and it's no fun for the opponent. Or they could make them to expensive and then it would be no fun for the Lumineth player. It's just the mother of all bad ideas to make something strong ignor los and long range at the same time. 

Agree, doesn't help that even if you do get into the archers now they're most likely going to be -1 hit / +4 armor / +5 ward which is a respectable defensive state line for pretty much any army., especially for one of the premier long range units in the game. 

I know they mentioned the intent this edition was to move away from Deathstars, but what they actually did widened the gap between the haves and have nots in that area. 

[novakai]

i think this was mention before but the games i played and seen, feels like rend -1 and even -2 feels less strong with how both mystic shield and all out defense work. now if feel like your units base save is what determines how much damage you can pull through. rend shooting at a key target also feels harder to pull off and stuff like Archeon and Nagash seem really hard to take down now unless you really plan your list to take them down. MW is still the most effective way to do damage i feel now. 

granted i didn't have access to many monster in the army i was playing, but i think Roar is probably a key ability now since you need it to cancel out All out Defense in the combat phase to counterplay how units are more tankier. maybe there should be more ways to cancel out CA being issues that are not only in the Combat phase.

i like the command point system now, since you have to more mindful now of how to spent them since there are more ways to spent them.

consistent Rallying on horde unit was very effective and also very annoying if your playing against it i found lol. everyone is almost an undead army sometimes

[yukishiro1]

There is a definite lack of symmetry now between the ability to improve saves and the ability to improve rend. Given how rare bonuses to rend are, how rare even base rend -2 is and how almost nonexistent base rend -3 is, and how common bonuses to saves now are, a unit's base save now feels like it is typically going to be the worst their save is made at. I.e. something with a 3+ save is rarely going to be saving at worse than a 3+. Rend is more to stop it from saving at a 2+ than to reduce it to a 5+ like you used to be able to do.

That said, for someone like Archaon, it used to be a 5+ rerolling when faced with -2 rend. Now it's a 3+ (assuming he has +2 to save), without the reroll. It's better, but not dramatically so. 

The bigger problem with the game I've seen with heroic monsters is that chip damage has become so much less effective. Archaon is essentially guaranteed to heal 3d3 wounds per battle round. This means that unless you can kill him all at once or close to all at once, there's not really any point in trying to wear him down. This is true of most of the big god-tier characters - unless you can oneshot them, you might as well not really bother any more. I am not convinced this is a great change - I don't think these all-or-nothing kind of gameplay systems are particularly rewarding or satisfying.

I don't think monstrous heroes saving at a 2-3+ would really be all that big of an issue if they weren't also healing for 2d3 a battle round. If you could chip them down over time, that'd be ok. But you can't. I am not sure this is going to result in satisfying gameplay over the long term - even if you win. Kinda the LRL problem. I don't know that watching an immortal Archaon dismantle my army over 5 turns yet still lose on points is going to stay novel after the first or second time I do it. 

 

Edited July 13, 2021 by yukishiro1

[PrimeElectrid]

Hearing lots of talk about stacking save bonuses. I wonder if this will be an early FAQ. It does seem unintuitive to cap save bonuses to +1 but then allow stacking them for the purposes of beating rend. Seems like it’s an unintentional side effect.

[stratigo]

15 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

+++ MOD HAT +++

I've always thought wargames revolved around rolling dice.

Regardless though, this thread is about the games people have been playing and how they're finding the rules.

I have to ask, what do you think rolling dice is based around?

I hate this kind of response, it is so passive aggressive. If you don't like thinking about math in a mathematically driven game, just say that. Don't do this "Oh but rolling dice tho". I hate doing math, but I still understand the game can be understood with probabilities and play to it.

 

If you use basic probabilities, you will be a better player then one who doesn't.

[Rachmani]

I think you maybe missed the humor. >.< 
At most a tad snarky.

[KrispyXIV]

3 hours ago, PrimeElectrid said:

Hearing lots of talk about stacking save bonuses. I wonder if this will be an early FAQ. It does seem unintuitive to cap save bonuses to +1 but then allow stacking them for the purposes of beating rend. Seems like it’s an unintentional side effect.

Its quite (and explicitly) intended, by both the modifier stacking rules in the the core rulebook and the FAQ.  

I didn't play 2E for more than a couple of months, but a very common complaint was that the game was too lethal and things died too quickly.

They fixed that, to a degree - and now people are concerned things are too tanky.

Irony.

Myself, in the games I've played so far it made Heroes and Monster-Heroes feel significant, and durable - I didn't really have an issue with that durability.  It was the only thing that made Battle Tactics like Bring it Down or Slay the Warlord really contestable - without the extra durability, Slay the Warlord is trivial.  Because heroes can be really durable, you actually have to work for it.

Edited July 14, 2021 by KrispyXIV

[yukishiro1]

It's not really that "things" are too tanky in 3.0, it's that very specific things - monstrous heroes with a 3+ base save and a ward save or other MW protection - are not even too tanky per se, but that they have too much sustain. It'd be ok if they were this tanky but once you wore them down they stayed worn down, but they don't, they just heal right back up using mechanics that the opponent has no real way to stop. And it doesn't feel at the moment like a lot of these models have points costs that reflect how much more sustain they gained in 3.0. 

IMO allowing monstrous heroes to use heroic recovery was a mistake, that should have been limited to non-monstrous heroes, to balance out their squishiness by giving them sustain instead. That'd create actual choices and tradeoffs, rather than just sending you to the monstrous version 99 times out of 100 because it's just better. 

In every game I've played so far, there's come a point - typically around the breakpoint between T2 and T3 - where my Anointed just had free reign over the table because there wasn't enough of my opponent's army left that he could ever realistically kill it when you factor in its ability to stack saves and then heal itself. And when the opponent had a similar model, a similar thing happened for them. Models that are theoretically killable by the opponent's entire 2000 point army quickly become unkillable once armies are whittled down. You have a very small window in which you might be able to go all in to remove the model - usually T1 to T2 if you can get the double - and then the window closes, and if you didn't take your chance early, you have virtually no chance to kill these models in the later game. This seems like the opposite of how things really ought to work, battles ought to build to a crescendo, not start out with gods dying on T1-T2 or not at all. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Kadeton]

I played a game last night, 2000 points of Beastclaw Raiders against Kharadron Overlords.

My main takeaway from that game is that traditional focused fire has become very inefficient. When the entire Kharadron army is set up to shoot at a single Frostlord, spending one CP on All-Out Defence is a no-brainer, and seriously blunts the impact. Even if that Frostlord dies, it took everything they had, and now you're set up for the counter-attack.

Mortal wounds really are king at the moment - the Kharadrons did more damage with bombs in melee than they did with their regular shooting. Unleash Hell didn't add enough damage to strongly affect the outcome of the game.

So the insight I had based on those factors was that you have to use your mortal wound output to focus something down if you want to kill it outright. Your regular attacks aren't as good for destroying units outright, but are still good for spreading chip damage around to multiple targets, which can't all be defended with CP and heroic recovery.

I'm further convinced that the Beastclaws are excellently suited to this edition, having very strong monster heroes with 3+ saves and 5+ wards, access to a lot of mortal wounds, strong objective-holding, and extremely high mobility. Meanwhile the Kharadrons, with their heavy reliance on traditional shooting and limited mortal wound output, seem to be hurting a bit - they can still play the keep-away objective game with the best of them, but their aggressive alpha-strike builds just aren't cutting the mustard.

[Zappgrot]

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

It's not really that "things" are too tanky in 3.0, it's that very specific things - monstrous heroes with a 3+ base save and a ward save or other MW protection - are not even too tanky per se, but that they have too much sustain. It'd be ok if they were this tanky but once you wore them down they stayed worn down, but they don't, they just heal right back up using mechanics that the opponent has no real way to stop. And it doesn't feel at the moment like a lot of these models have points costs that reflect how much more sustain they gained in 3.0. 

IMO allowing monstrous heroes to use heroic recovery was a mistake, that should have been limited to non-monstrous heroes, to balance out their squishiness by giving them sustain instead. That'd create actual choices and tradeoffs, rather than just sending you to the monstrous version 99 times out of 100 because it's just better. 

In every game I've played so far, there's come a point - typically around the breakpoint between T2 and T3 - where my Anointed just had free reign over the table because there wasn't enough of my opponent's army left that he could ever realistically kill it when you factor in its ability to stack saves and then heal itself. And when the opponent had a similar model, a similar thing happened for them. Models that are theoretically killable by the opponent's entire 2000 point army quickly become unkillable once armies are whittled down. You have a very small window in which you might be able to go all in to remove the model - usually T1 to T2 if you can get the double - and then the window closes, and if you didn't take your chance early, you have virtually no chance to kill these models in the later game. This seems like the opposite of how things really ought to work, battles ought to build to a crescendo, not start out with gods dying on T1-T2 or not at all. 

Yea i agree whit this in the few games i had up until now i quickly found out that  hero's are the real problem.  Things like frostlords,  ghoulkings on terror gheist  and the new stormcast character turn out to be really hard to kill.  All out defence really helps when you have a good save and lots of woudns. And the heroic healing  every single hero phase also helps out.  The terrogheist is the worst of all. It healing 3d3 every battle round ( 2 heroic heals and it's royal blood really makes it impossible to take down unless you have somthing big and strong of your own or mortal wound spam. This realisation really hurts my enthusiasm for 3.0  It seem that the really strong options are turning out to be  monsters, hero's (preferably both at the same time)  and mortal wound shooting. All things i dislike. Give me good old infantry on infantry combat over that anny day.