3.0 Actual Games Conversation

[RuneBrush]

7 hours ago, stratigo said:

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.

+++ MOD HAT +++

For me to put probability first is putting the horse before the cart.  The point of dice based games is that they're random.  Gamers use probability (often intuitively) to make decisions during a game, however there are just as many times when probability is thrown to the wind - otherwise nobody would attempt that 12" charge.

You're welcome to hate my response (though I think you perhaps use the word hate too freely) - the point still stands that this is meant to be a thread talking about games people are playing and it's being hijacked to talk about maths.  Feel free to create a new thread if you wish to continue your discussion on probability and dice rolling and lets keep this thread focused on actual games people are having of the new version of the rules.

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, Zappgrot said:

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. 

Well, so the FeC playe wastes all his heroic actions on heals? Good for you I guess he could've received more CP ^^
Apart form that: FeC really aren't that strong on paper in the new edition. What made them strong was feeding frenzy which is now limited to one use per phase.

[Zappgrot]

46 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Well, so the FeC playe wastes all his heroic actions on heals? Good for you I guess he could've received more CP ^^
Apart form that: FeC really aren't that strong on paper in the new edition. What made them strong was feeding frenzy which is now limited to one use per phase.

I lover your optimism. But FEC worked great for me in 3 edition.  Healing strong monster hero's and having a shooting attack that does not roll to hit whit unleash hell worked great so far.

[JackStreicher]

Just now, Zappgrot said:

I lover your optimism. But FEC worked great for me in 3 edition.  Healing strong monster hero's and having a shooting attack that does not roll to hit whit unleash hell worked great so far.

Interesting. What about everything not being a monster though?

[Zappgrot]

2 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Interesting. What about everything not being a monster though?

Well  they just stand around and claim ******. Some of them may die. But that is a sacrifice I am willing to make.  A ghoul horde isn't so great atm but that's was already bad in 2.0  since the rise of shooting since ppl just kill the buff characters.  Flayers and  big monsters is what has been working for me lately.

[whispersofblood]

44 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

I lover your optimism. But FEC worked great for me in 3 edition.  Healing strong monster hero's and having a shooting attack that does not roll to hit whit unleash hell worked great so far.

I suspected using ghouls as walls and using redeploy to bring Flayers into Unleash Hell range was going to be a decent strategy. *Clarifying using Redeploy on the ghouls*

Do you think the output on unridden Terrorghists is suffecient for the points spend?

Edited July 14, 2021 by whispersofblood

[Zappgrot]

3 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

I suspected using ghouls as walls and using redeploy to bring Flayers into Unleash Hell range was going to be a decent strategy. *Clarifying using Redeploy on the ghouls*

Do you think the output on unridden Terrorghists is suffecient for the points spend?

 To be honest. No. Now that the warscroll battalion that heals them is no longer a thing they feel kind of weaker.  Altough beeing a monster is nice. I don't think useing redeploy on the ghouls is worth it btw. I mean the opponent is going to know that the flayers are in range before he charges no matter if you redeploy them or just put them behind the screen in the first place. It can be a decent gotya i gues but ppl get wise to that stuff pretty fast. 

 

 

[JackStreicher]

8 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

Do you think the output on unridden Terrorghists is suffecient for the points spend?

tricky. I tested one in my SBGL. It was fine? It killed off 2 small giants. Yet it was not worth it's 300+ points. 280 seems more reasonable.

For FeC: Perhaps, yet the hero version is just so much better.

[yukishiro1]

My experience so far is that non-hero monsters seem like a trap, they give away more VP than they earn and still aren't points efficient.

The sweet spot seems to be 1-2 tanky heroic monsters in your list. Going heavier than that has diminishing returns, as does taking monsters that aren't heroes and therefore can't access artefacts and heroic buffs and lack the survivability and sustain that makes heroic monsters so dominant in this edition. If you could do multiple stomps and roars that might change, or if those were limited to non-heroic monsters, but you can't, and they aren't. 

[WindstormSCR]

3 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

My experience so far is that non-hero monsters seem like a trap, they give away more VP than they earn and still aren't points efficient.

The sweet spot seems to be 1-2 tanky heroic monsters in your list. Going heavier than that has diminishing returns, as does taking monsters that aren't heroes and therefore can't access artefacts and heroic buffs and lack the survivability and sustain that makes heroic monsters so dominant in this edition. If you could do multiple stomps and roars that might change, or if those were limited to non-heroic monsters, but you can't, and they aren't. 

Exception here feels like my ogres, as my multi-stonehorn list (posted in the mawtribes thread over in destruction) has been doing just fine at 2k, even leaning toward too obnoxious for my local meta, playing vs a serious tournament player on saturday, that'll really tell the tale.

[grimgold]

22 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.

Seems like there could be an entire thread about rend and armor in AoS 3, but the long and the short is that the current implementation is not less lethal or more lethal, it's both. As an example zero rend got a lot more dangerous with the removal of rerolls for armor saves, nobody is rocking 3+ with a reroll anymore, which takes weapons with no rend against a 3+ from 1 in 9 to 1 in 3. The new system also gives us methods for dealing with rend, so high rend doesn't have to trivialize armor. Like rend -1 is alot less valuable because of all of the ways you can stack bonuses to saves. With that said you can't use stacking mods to make invincible units because it's capped at +1 net and most units will have a 4+ base, so a third of wounds is still making it past armor and go to secondary saves.

I actually think it's quite clever, it reduces the gap between the rend haves and the rend have nots, and adds a lot of play and counter play to the game. With the new system focus fire isn't always the best decision because you can stack defenses as a counter, so there will be situations where forcing an opponent to spread out their defenses will lead to better results. That means interesting choices, and changes to the meta I don't think we've quite anticipated yet.

[PrimeElectrid]

22 minutes ago, grimgold said:

Seems like there could be an entire thread about rend and armor in AoS 3, but the long and the short is that the current implementation is not less lethal or more lethal, it's both. As an example zero rend got a lot more dangerous with the removal of rerolls for armor saves, nobody is rocking 3+ with a reroll anymore, which takes weapons with no rend against a 3+ from 1 in 9 to 1 in 3. The new system also gives us methods for dealing with rend, so high rend doesn't have to trivialize armor. Like rend -1 is alot less valuable because of all of the ways you can stack bonuses to saves. With that said you can't use stacking mods to make invincible units because it's capped at +1 net and most units will have a 4+ base, so a third of wounds is still making it past armor and go to secondary saves.

I actually think it's quite clever, it reduces the gap between the rend haves and the rend have nots, and adds a lot of play and counter play to the game. With the new system focus fire isn't always the best decision because you can stack defenses as a counter, so there will be situations where forcing an opponent to spread out their defenses will lead to better results. That means interesting choices, and changes to the meta I don't think we've quite anticipated yet.

Except it seems like the meta is developing towards the best 3+ armour save units, who will almost always be sat at a 2+, and who will probably be heroes healing themselves. 

[yukishiro1]

42 minutes ago, grimgold said:

Seems like there could be an entire thread about rend and armor in AoS 3, but the long and the short is that the current implementation is not less lethal or more lethal, it's both. As an example zero rend got a lot more dangerous with the removal of rerolls for armor saves, nobody is rocking 3+ with a reroll anymore, which takes weapons with no rend against a 3+ from 1 in 9 to 1 in 3. The new system also gives us methods for dealing with rend, so high rend doesn't have to trivialize armor. Like rend -1 is alot less valuable because of all of the ways you can stack bonuses to saves. With that said you can't use stacking mods to make invincible units because it's capped at +1 net and most units will have a 4+ base, so a third of wounds is still making it past armor and go to secondary saves.

I actually think it's quite clever, it reduces the gap between the rend haves and the rend have nots, and adds a lot of play and counter play to the game. With the new system focus fire isn't always the best decision because you can stack defenses as a counter, so there will be situations where forcing an opponent to spread out their defenses will lead to better results. That means interesting choices, and changes to the meta I don't think we've quite anticipated yet.

I think this would be true if not for the 3+ base save models with massive sustain who can get to a 2+ with a ward save and then heal 2d3+wounds per battle round. If saves were capped at a 3+ regardless of modifiers unless the model's base save is higher than that, and if you could only use heroic recovery on a model once per game the same way as finest hour (you could make it flat 3 wounds instead to compensate), I think that'd fix all the issues and you'd end up with a system that's actually more clever than the old one. 

Edited July 14, 2021 by yukishiro1

[grimgold]

That does seem like an issue, mostly because of the healing though. If there was little to no healing you'd just chip it with mortal wounds, but 2d3 heals per round is hard to overcome with MW unless you play a faction with pointy ears.

The other consideration is that staying at a 2+ requires more buffs than characters can usually provide themselves, two buffs for 1 point of rend, and three buffs for 2 points of rend. The requirement for supporting units gives a way to address the problem that doesn't involve trying to get a 1 in 6. Also those two or three buffs are not helping you win fights, and instead are just helping you survive. There are certainly cases where surviving is a goal unto itself, but most of the time buffs that make you hit harder end up being worth more (because dead enemies don't hit back). 

It's like fighting Archaeon, if you take him on head to head with his supports in place your gonna have a bad time, the easier solution is to hit his supports and then tarpit him. Then again maybe this will end up being the early sticking point of AoS 3.0, it's hard to predict the future.

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, grimgold said:

That does seem like an issue, mostly because of the healing though. If there was little to no healing you'd just chip it with mortal wounds, but 2d3 heals per round is hard to overcome with MW unless you play a faction with pointy ears.

The other consideration is that staying at a 2+ requires more buffs than characters can usually provide themselves, two buffs for 1 point of rend, and three buffs for 2 points of rend. The requirement for supporting units gives a way to address the problem that doesn't involve trying to get a 1 in 6. Also those two or three buffs are not helping you win fights, and instead are just helping you survive. There are certainly cases where surviving is a goal unto itself, but most of the time buffs that make you hit harder end up being worth more (because dead enemies don't hit back). 

It's like fighting Archaeon, if you take him on head to head with his supports in place your gonna have a bad time, the easier solution is to hit his supports and then tarpit him. Then again maybe this will end up being the early sticking point of AoS 3.0, it's hard to predict the future.

having unkillable hero monsters means they can do their damage unopposed. And they tend to do a lot of damage.

[Kadeton]

You can only ever have one "unkillable hero monster" (utilising all those buffs and healing) per army, though. Some comments here make it sound like every hero heals 6 wounds every round, but that's simply not how it works in practice - heroic recovery has a decent chance to just fail, and even when it works it's certainly not enough on its own to keep a hero alive under sustained pressure. That means your opponent will generally be stacking all the survival and recovery tools at their disposal on their single uber-hero. Everything else is fair game... or just tie them up and focus on objectives. Surely we've already learned enough from facing Gotrek lists last edition to understand how to handle an unstoppable hero that kills everything it can touch?

[Andalf]

It’s going to be interesting to see if players iron out strategies to resolve these issues themselves or if it will actually require builds from incoming battletomes to truly see what their intentions are going forward.  40k looked hardcore elite infantry for months at first, but it looks like a completely different game now with Troop Transports everywhere and hordes of stuff to push those baseline stratagems.  It looks as though they are going to go overdrive into monstrous heroes, while at the same time still giving out stuff like 5+ MW 2 damage bows, which is what will be necessary for all armies to have.  Reinforcing a unit or two is a good way to survive the initial impact yourself, and a stalemate is just that; I don’t have enough infantry to counter-contest but I do have access to reasonable shooting myself and a monster killer in Yndrasta so I don’t mind; I haven’t played against an army that didn’t have the tools to do the job, I’ve only played against people who didn’t have the models and want to be competitive with their janky mix of internet hand-me-downs so far.

[readercolin]

Pulled out my Cities for two games earlier this week.

Game 1 was against another cities player.  My list:

City: Hallowheart
Annointed on Frostheart - Arcane Tome
Annointed on Foot - General
Knight-Incantor - Adjutant, Amulet of Destiny
Ghur Battlemage
30x Phoenix Guard
20x Phoenix Guard
20x Phoenix Guard
Emerald Lifeswarm
Cogs

My opponent:
City: Excelsius?
General on Griffon - general, 5+ ward Artefact
Annointeted on Frostheart - Gryph Feather Charm
Hysh Battlemage
3x3 Demigryph Knights
2x 20 Phoenix Guard

After writing this out, it looks like my opponent may have been mis-reading the new warscroll battalions (or excelsius has a rule about giving out +1 artefact), because otherwise he couldn't have taken the battalion to get an extra artefact.  Not too surprising, as this isn't the first time that this particular opponent has mis-represented his army.

The battleplan was Tooth and Nail from the Generals Handbook.  I set up my army with the Phoenix and 20 guard near one of the middle objectives, 20 phoenix guard and battlemage at my objective, and 30 guard + annointed + incantor at the other middle objective.  My opponent deployed 20 guard at his home objective, and then the rest of his army nearby the objective that I deployed my phoenix at, with the goal of crushing my forces with superior numbers.

Turn 1, he went first, and moved to claim the objective with guard and general, and put his demigryphs and phoenix nearby to counter-charge if I fought him over it.  My turn I moved up to take the objective with my 30 guard, moved by 20 by the phoenix into a defensive position, and then charged his griffon with my phoenix.  We both used finest hour and Titanic Duel... and nothing happened.  My phoenix did 2 damage, which he healed up next turn, and he did 3 damage, and I healed 2 of it. 2 more rounds of combat followed that with us hitting each other with wiffle ball bats before he moved his griffon away, charged with a unit of demi's, and charged with his griffon (command trait to retreat and charge apparently), which finally managed to take my phoenix down.  It was... sad.

Nearby, my 20 guard charged his 20 guard, a lot of nothing happened, and then he got a lucky set of attacks to my unlucky ones and managed to secure dominance, taking that objective pretty thoroughly.  In the middle, my 20 guard charged 2 units of his demi's, wiping 1 out and damaging the second, but leaving my home objective unsecured, which he took advantage of with his phoenix.  Finally, my 30 guard were doing their best to move on his home objective, and were moving kind of slowly.

We called this on turn 3, because he took the upper right objective and my home objective, and had half his army surrounding the remnants of my 20 guard.  Even if he just avoided my 30 man block and let me have objectives, I couldn't hold enough with 1 unit to win, so it was basically an automatic victory for him.  That being said - I might need to spend some time looking over the rules, because it is quite clear looking back on it that he was playing fast and loose with some of them.

Game 2 I ran Cities vs Stormcast.  My list:

City: Living City
Annointed on Frostheart - Arcane Tome
Dreadlord on Black Dragon - Amulet of Destiny
Annointed - General
Knight-Incantor - Adjutant
30x Phoenix Guard
3x 10 Phoenix Guard
Emerald Lifeswarm

My Opponent
Stormhost: none - was using the rules from the dominion box set
Yndrasta
Lord-Imperatant - General
Knight-Arcanum
Knight-Vexilor w/ Banner of Apotheosis
10x Vindictors
2x 5 Vindictors
2x 3 Praetors
2x 3 Annihilators

Battle Plan, Power in Numbers.  Here my opponent put 10 Vindictors and the Knight-Vexilor on one of the side objectives, Yndrasta and 5 Vindictors on the other side, the Annihilators in the sky, and everything else around the center objective.  For myself, I put a unit of 10 guard on each objective, and then my block of 30 in the center with the my hero's behind it.  Point to note - Power in Numbers states that if battleline are near an objective, then only battleline can contest them, which gave my force a MASSIVE advantage.

Turn 1, I moved forward with everything except my objective holders, keeping my 30 man block between my hero's and his forces.  He converged on the center with most of his forces, and dropped a squad of 3 annihilators one one of my side objectives to try and move my guard (very unsuccessfully... he did kill 4 of them though). 

Turn 2, I kept priority and charged my 30 guard into... most of his army, obliterating his 5 man squad of Vindictors and doing a bit of damage to yndrasta and one of his squads of praetors.  This secured me his central objective, which I promptly burned for 1 victory point.  My Phoenix moved over to support my guard against his Annihilators, while my dreadlord attempted to make a move on the objective he was holding with only 5 Vindictors (doing his best to go anywhere Yndrasta wasn't).  The dreadlord then lived up to his history, and proceeded to fail to bite anything with his jaws over 3 rounds of combat (he killed 4 vindictors over those 3 rounds... but this is the ~12th time he has hit the field for me and he has successfully bitten something ONCE ... ever).  My opponent dropped his second round of Annihilators and attempted to charge, but failed to get it off.  He converged most of his army on my squad of Guard in the center, and then proceeded to kill off a few models per battle round.

Turn 3, I won the roll off, but let him take the turn, using the Ghur ability to eat the one objective he controlled that I wasn't moving towards.  He continued to beat on my 30 man squad, dropping it down to only 6 models remaining, but had to burn his last remaining objective so that I wouldn't take it when I finally managed to kill of his last vindicator on it in my turn.  This scored him 4 points, but I was then able to burn all 3 of my objectives for another 12 points, putting me at 15 from objectives to his 6.  At this point we called it, because my grand strategy was to keep at least 1 unit of battleline alive, and his was to kill my general, who was now running away from the rest of his army like a madman.  But with no objectives left on the field, there really was no way for him to come back.

 

My overall impressions of 3.0 after these games:

The first big hero monster is really good.  The second starts to suffer from diminishing returns though, both because of the limit of 1 heroic action, and because it is going to be really hard to get additional artefacts (battalion rules state that you can have 1 hero monster and 2 non-monster hero's per battalion to get an enhancement, meaning you can get an absolute maximum of 3 enhancements, and then only if you limit yourself to 2 monstrous hero's).  This leads me to think that most armies are going to be well served to bring 1 monstrous hero, and only a 2nd if they have some really good options.

Everything is more survivable.  I am well aware that 60 phoenix guard on the table is going to be rough for basically anyone to go through, in 3.0 or in 2.0.  The whole reason you take them in the first place is their tankyness.  But running into units with a 2+ or 3+ save is really rough, and leads to a lot less lethality.  Hero's with good saves, wards, and the ability to heal is also a big deal, as it means that they can just stick around for a while.

The new command point usage also makes games more interesting as well, as I have actions in most of my opponents phases as well now, which leads to less sitting around.  The limit of 1 usage of a particular command per phase also came up a few times and ruined my opponent's plans, and made me more cautious of "is this really what I want to do?".  

Overall, I find 3.0 to be more fun and engaging than 2.0.  I'm not exactly going out and playing against top end competitive lists at the moment, and if I end up facing someone with a block of 30 sentinels my opinion might change.  Playing without shooting armies though, the rules are quite fun and entertaining.

As for my armies, I prefer my army build for the 2nd match much more than the one for the first.  Having dedicated objective holders, and then offensive hammers that I can send out to punch things gave me a lot more flexibility.  If I had taken my first army to my second game, I think it may have turned out very differently because I couldn't have moved forward as aggressively, and would have had to give up a lot of real estate to my opponent.

[stratigo]

7 hours ago, Kadeton said:

You can only ever have one "unkillable hero monster" (utilising all those buffs and healing) per army, though. Some comments here make it sound like every hero heals 6 wounds every round, but that's simply not how it works in practice - heroic recovery has a decent chance to just fail, and even when it works it's certainly not enough on its own to keep a hero alive under sustained pressure. That means your opponent will generally be stacking all the survival and recovery tools at their disposal on their single uber-hero. Everything else is fair game... or just tie them up and focus on objectives. Surely we've already learned enough from facing Gotrek lists last edition to understand how to handle an unstoppable hero that kills everything it can touch?

This is why arhcaon and nagash are getting such good milage right now. All in on the swolest hero you can.

 

I do think double heroes are gonna be ultimately better for the best big heroes.

 

Gotrek though is a poor comparison. If he had a 12 inch movement, Gotrek would be brutally overpowered. It wouldn't even be fair. You'd take him every time. The meta would be gotrek and ways to kill gotrek. No one is taking a monster hero that can only move 4 inches, it'd be terrible. I wish gotrek had the kind of movement all the big monster heroes (But like, it's good he doesn't)

 

 

[PrimeElectrid]

14 minutes ago, stratigo said:

This is why arhcaon and nagash are getting such good milage right now. All in on the swolest hero you can.

 

I do think double heroes are gonna be ultimately better for the best big heroes.

 

Gotrek though is a poor comparison. If he had a 12 inch movement, Gotrek would be brutally overpowered. It wouldn't even be fair. You'd take him every time. The meta would be gotrek and ways to kill gotrek. No one is taking a monster hero that can only move 4 inches, it'd be terrible. I wish gotrek had the kind of movement all the big monster heroes (But like, it's good he doesn't)

 

 

I’m pretty sure that everyone who can is actually taking Gotrek right now.

[Kadeton]

8 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Gotrek though is a poor comparison. If he had a 12 inch movement, Gotrek would be brutally overpowered. It wouldn't even be fair. You'd take him every time. The meta would be gotrek and ways to kill gotrek. No one is taking a monster hero that can only move 4 inches, it'd be terrible. I wish gotrek had the kind of movement all the big monster heroes (But like, it's good he doesn't)

Eh, maybe. He's already got more hitting power and survivability than the big monster heroes, so if he had their movement, I presume he'd be well above their points cost too. Is he still a meta-defining auto-take at Move 12 if he costs 1000 points?

Regardless, playing against Gotrek did require opponents to understand how to screen and tarpit an unstoppable force. It was easier because he had limited mobility, sure... but he costs half as much as Archaon, so you can afford to expend a lot more resources keeping Archaon occupied. People get really caught up on "But I can't kill <insert monster hero here>!" and forget that you don't need to kill that dude to win, like, at all.

[Beliman]

29 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

I’m pretty sure that everyone who can is actually taking Gotrek right now.

I think that the first 3.0 tournaments had more Nagashes, Archaons and Teclis than Gotreks. Imho, as a KO player, I will take Gotrek in my next tournament (two weeks) so... 😙

Edited July 15, 2021 by Beliman
Ouch

[stratigo]

41 minutes ago, PrimeElectrid said:

I’m pretty sure that everyone who can is actually taking Gotrek right now.

Nah, he has a place now where he didn't before.

[novakai]

i think its going to be that not every army is going to have the answer to these kind of new powerful things (dealing with Hero monster or having good Hero monsters) and i think a lot of armies will also struggle doing  with the secondaries.

i do wonder how much power curving they are going to do with the newer Battletomes (Higher saves, Higher rend, More MW and shooting options, CA denying ability)

[Sleboda]

I got in another game last night.

2K Ironjawz vs. Gitz. The scenario was the one where battleline trump non-battleline and you can destroy objectives.

It was over fast. In my Ironjawz army, I had four heroes and four battleline, with the wizard teleporting units. By my turn two I was up 10 VP's and only two objectives remained. Plus, the Gitz had no battleline left and their colossal squig was dead.

It appears it's by design, but we are firmly back in the days of Herohammer now. One of my mawkrushas didn't even end up having to fight.

Also, a single redeploy likely won me the game, or at the very least made the quick win possible. I think that's going to be the sneaky power move winner for this edition. I am very sad that the "tactical genius" army, Bonereapers, is the only one that can't use this new and exciting part of the game. Ironjawz, though, are in good shape.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Sleboda