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Played against the Morathi-Gotrek-Snek list with a STD infantry list I deliberately set up to be counter-meta, to try to figure out if I can make that work. I gotta be blunt, the MGS list is gonna get nerfed hard whenever the first major balance adjustment is. It's just silly, as silly as Tzeentch Archaon (which I was totally wrong about the power of because I underestimated how much the battleplans matter, see below). I actually ran him pretty close up to T5, but the match was never really in doubt, largely because of the battle plan we rolled, the one with the 3 objectives all in a line in the middle where  you roll a D3 each turn to see which objective is worth 2. Gotrek wasn't an issue, I got curse off and obliterated him with a marauder block and that felt good, but Morathi was, well, Morathi, and the Sneks did what Sneks do and sniped out my heroes, which I had absolutely no choice about because of said battleplan requiring everybody to scrum in the middle. By T5 my army just ran out of steam. I might have been able to win against a bad player who wasn't careful to screen the sneks so I couldn't drop some marauders on them, but that's hardly rocket science, and with that screening it was always going to be a massively upward slog to get anything on a plan so focused on the middle of the board. 

Which brings me to...battleplans that have the objectives clustered all in the middle are not good battle plans. I actually think I could have won this game on a battleplan that made a bigger portion of the board important, but too many of the new battleplans reward a style of gameplay that, to put it bluntly, feels pretty faceroll-y. Given how much the basic ruleset already rewards the big centerpiece models, I do not think emphasizing the moshpit in the middle version of mission design was a good idea, it ends up making the strong stronger while also removing strategy from the game. 

I've put this battleplan - Tectonic Interference, just looked it up - on my list of plans I will ask my opponent if we can remove from the possibilities. 

 

 

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Heartily agree. If the objectives encourage you into a central moshpit, then you don't need objectives - that's what armies do anyway when left to their own devices. Objectives should require difficult choices, and the commitment of resources away from the main fight.

Tectonic Interference is also the mission where the Ghur realm ability (the player going second in the third battle round gets to destroy an objective) is negated, right? Definitely lazy design on that one.

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Yeah, though it'd probably be even more problematic if it wasn't. But that probably should have been a clue to them that they should have gone back to the drawing board...

I am starting to feel like the biggest buff to big centerpiece models this edition isn't even the save stacking and heroic heals, as significant as those are. It's that only being able to be in one place at a time isn't nearly the disadvantage it used to be, because the board is not only significantly smaller, but the critical area of the board - where objectives are - has been reduced even more in most battleplans. The average number of objectives has decreased, and on top of that, they feel more loaded towards the middle on the majority of the maps. And of course even controlling the objectives at all is much less important than it used to be, given it's now only 50% of the scoring. All these things together are conspiring to make big centerpiece models much more powerful than they used to be, even before you consider their boosted survivability and how little they mostly went up in points compared to that boost. 

Edited by yukishiro1
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6 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Played against the Morathi-Gotrek-Snek list with a STD infantry list I deliberately set up to be counter-meta, to try to figure out if I can make that work. I gotta be blunt, the MGS list is gonna get nerfed hard whenever the first major balance adjustment is. It's just silly, as silly as Tzeentch Archaon

Well if it makes ya happy, there has been a lot of talk, about banning Archaon.

Not sure if it will happen, since we are pretty early into third edition, but the possibility seems to be there

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Seems like a band-aid for a gunshot wound, the problem is less Archaon and more the combination of all the mechanics they've introduced that benefit models like his. Though it'd be enough of a black eye to GW that it might be worth doing just to get them to take things a little more seriously. 

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2 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

Seems like a band-aid for a gunshot wound, the problem is less Archaon and more the combination of all the mechanics they've introduced that benefit models like his. Though it'd be enough of a black eye to GW that it might be worth doing just to get them to take things a little more seriously. 

It might.

Something similar happened in 40k with a certain space marine order in 8th edition.

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Recap from a 1-day, 20 person event. 

My List (Ironjawz): 

Spoiler

Allegiance: Ironjawz
- Grand Strategy: Hold the Line
- Triumphs:
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 Warchanter (120)
- Warbeat: Fixin' Beat
Orruk Warchanter (120)
- Warbeat: Get 'Em Beat
Orruk Weirdnob Shaman (120)
- Lore of the Weird: Da Great Big Green Hand of Gork
6 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (340)
- Pig-iron Choppas
- Reinforced x 1
3 x Orruk Gore-gruntas (170)
- Pig-iron Choppas
5 x Orruk Brutes (150)
- Pair of Brute Choppas
10 x Orruk Ardboys (190)
- Reinforced x 1
5 x Orruk Ardboys (95)
5 x Orruk Ardboys (95)
5 x Orruk Ardboys (95)

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

Game 1: Clan Skryre
All gas, no brakes MW shooting Skyre list. He didn't have a screen in the army. He did have enough firepower that if you actually set-up in range of the Stormfiends, canons, etc. he probably could shoot off almost anything. So, I didn't set-up anything important in range of those things!

 He opts to give me first turn as I had deployed so far back. Orcs go fast though, I Mighty Destroyers the Mawcrusher up the board, teleport 5-ardboyz to absorb Unleash Hell, and everything else runs to middle objects. I kill off enough of his MW shooting output he can't kill my MK in one round in his turn. I win the initiative roll, game over for the rats.

Game 2: Soulblight
Faced off against one of the best players in the area. He's running a Gatebreaker ally, zombie dragon,  Radukar, MSU zombies+Graveguard. Really close game, but he exposed his zombie dragon genera and Gatebreaker too early and I got very lucky with dice  and end up killing/crippling them both T1. He stayed in the game clogging up the board and respawing zombies in the backfield, but he had no answer for the Mawcrusher for the rest of the game so it mostly just a game of wack-a-mole from there. 

Game 3: Idoneth

Walking up the table and seeing the army, I had no idea how this guy won two games. 2x30 Namarti bow guys, two turtles, Idolon, and some other stuff. After playing against it, it made a lot more sense. Not paying for rend -1, or -2 and just going for volume of shots is probably the way to go when there's basically 2+ armor ethereal amulet hero/monsters in most games.

That said, another person who tried to skip screens to maximize firepower and deployed on the backline to try to prevent T1 charges. He gives me 1st turn, Orcs go fast, and I end up getting the mawkrusher (landed the 3d6 charge warbeat), 6 gore gruntas (mighty destoryer), and 5 'ardboyz (teleported) into his army T1. Kill almost all the reavers. 

He tries to jump the Mawkrusher with the two turtles and Idolon, and fails to land a roar on the MK, which means I'm tanking everything on 2+ and he only lands one MW bite. I win initiative, and it was game over. 

Result: I ended up in second, with the person taking first bringing Nagash. 

Takeaways: 18 of the 20 players were playing shooting lists to counter chad monsters, or playing chad monster/heroes. I have no idea how I dodged Lumineth, as 6 of the 20 players basically brought the same lumineth list. I don't think I'll get as lucky next time and get two players who thought they could rely on low-drops/unleashed hell/damage output/ backline deployment to deal with really fast armies but I'll take it. 

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Seems like a lot of people are going to need to relearn that screens still matter. That's the best thing about that STD infantry list honestly, it puts so many bodies (~95 1W infantry alone) on the table that with the 6" pregame move from the two units of beast cultists you actually screen off a huge portion of the board, to the point where a lot of stuff can't snipe your heroes T1 because it just physically can't get close enough due to the sheer amount of bodies in the way. If they don't take first I'm basically screening off the entire board outside 3" of their units before they get to move. 

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Had a fast 1k game against a buddy to try out our lists for an upcoming team tournament. Beastclaws vs Seraphon. It was the mission with 4 objectives moving to the middle. I brought 2 SH (Lord and Riders) and 2 Mournfangs (Battleline Tax), he went with some ripperdactyls, Kroak and Saurus Guards as well as with some hero. It was a cool game and once again the new battle tactics made it all fun, althrough I really suffered from the low Drop count (3 units) that comes with such a list. I failed some crucial rolls and had several combats in which my SH's did almost nothing due to bad dice. There were also some serious misplays I am glad I learned in this friendly environment. Mostly: Slay the Warlord can quickly be a wasted battle tactic when your opponent gets to reposition too easy. Also it is not worth taking some battle tactics early on only because there is a slight chance of achiving them. Better take them later when the odds are good to fullfill them. In the end I also messed up reading the mission and somehow I tought the objectives wouldn't move T1 and T2 and wasted my first movement phase on staying stationary. 

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30 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

Seems like a lot of people are going to need to relearn that screens still matter. That's the best thing about that STD infantry list honestly, it puts so many bodies (~95 1W infantry alone) on the table that with the 6" pregame move from the two units of beast cultists you actually screen off a huge portion of the board, to the point where a lot of stuff can't snipe your heroes T1 because it just physically can't get close enough due to the sheer amount of bodies in the way. If they don't take first I'm basically screening off the entire board outside 3" of their units before they get to move. 

Completely agree. I think this is pretty typical when any new edition drops, as most people focus output/synergy first and then sacrifice damage output/wounds per point for utility pieces they determine they need through more in-game experience.

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On 7/30/2021 at 10:16 PM, Sharklone said:

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.

The problem iz that the balance is such a mess that unleash hell is the only thing buoying shooting against the spate of three plus save hero monsters that are rocking the edition.

 

Any melee unit with less then a three plus save is almost not viable now.

On 7/31/2021 at 12:31 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

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

(Should've gone with Pestilens!)

This is very true.

 

But it is also super discouraging to build and paint and army and do nothing but lose. New players will just stop. It's only us whales that will stick with it the year or three before our stuff is good again, or invest in another army entirely. 

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I played an updated version of my Vampire list (I have enough Battleline to run Vyrkos now!) against Idoneth the other day. We were playing at 2000 points, using the Marking Territory battleplan from GBH2021.

It was really nice to see an Idoneth list that didn't just use eels. The Namarti archers were pretty scary, and used Unleash Hell to great effect on the turn that I forgot it existed and charged them with a Vargskyr. There were still nine eels in the list, but even though they're almost indestructible, they really struggled with damage output - at one point a unit charged into my Blood Knights and inflicted no damage.

My opponent fell for what I think is becoming the classic blunder in this edition, as a holdover from old habits. I put my Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon into the middle of his lines, and he threw everything at it - turtle, eidolon, eels, thralls - and between Finest Hour and All-Out Defence, he only managed 11 out of 14 wounds. This left his objectives weakly defended, and a lucky long charge from the Blood Knights on turn 3 gave me all four objectives and the instant win. (Side note to GW: instant-win scenarios are terrible, please stop.)

We had an echo of the same conversation that's been going on here since the start of the edition, namely that 3+ save monster heroes are too hard to kill. It's putting him off playing, which is a real shame - as he put it, he enjoyed our game but doesn't like the rules.

From my perspective, it reinforced my thoughts on how to approach this edition. Enemy heroes are something you just have to put up with, and it's much better to tie them up using as few resources as possible rather than trying to kill them. Meanwhile, playing for the objectives and the battle tactics is the path to victory, since the heroes and monsters can't be everywhere. It actually makes me happier about this edition in general, since I much prefer a game where it's not just about tabling your opponent.

That said, I do think the survivability is a little on the extreme side right now. I'd like to see it reduced a bit at the top end - personally I think they should have gone with allowing save bonuses to stack, but capping all saves at 3+ overall. 2+ saves just aren't much fun, and neither are mortal wounds, but that's what everyone is pressured to play in the game's current state.

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There are two things going on with hero monster survivability IMO:

1. Is it overpowered?

2. Is it fun?

The answer to 1 depends on the battleplan, a whopping 5 of the new battleplans only have 3 objectives, with 4 of those having them all in a line with only a ~7" zone between each objective that doesn't count towards control of one or the other. On these missions, the disadvantage of not being able to be in multiple places at once is greatly mitigated, which means the ability to "deal" with these heroes by means other than killing them is greatly reduced, and therefore the power of that durability is greatly increased. On maps with lots of spread-out objectives, it's arguably ok from a balance perspective to have these unkillable models, though there are very few of these in the new pack.

The answer to 2 is subjective, but I wager most people will go on a progression from "yes! it's so fun using my unkillable archaon/gotrek/whatever!" to "ugh, this is such a drag seeing these models in almost every army and having to constantly deal with them" rather quickly as the edition wears on. 

Both of these considerations are important. It doesn't really matter if something's balanced, if it isn't fun, it isn't a good mechanic, because people only play games that are fun. 

I've won games of 3.0 against unkillable monster heroes, but the experience generally hasn't been very satisfying except in a problem-solving, underdog kind of way. And that is the sort of fun that wears off quickly. 

 

Edited by yukishiro1
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Agreed, the mechanic being fun is extremely important, and currently I'd say it does make things a bit grindy.

I think a corollary question is also needed, however: In the previous edition, when big centrepiece models died like chumps almost immediately, was that fun?

Personally, I find having the heroes on the board is more fun than having them in the dead pile or on the shelf. So in the comparison, I prefer the new level of survivability. But I can certainly see ways the game could be more fun if it wasn't quite so extreme.

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5 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Agreed, the mechanic being fun is extremely important, and currently I'd say it does make things a bit grindy.

I think a corollary question is also needed, however: In the previous edition, when big centrepiece models died like chumps almost immediately, was that fun?

Personally, I find having the heroes on the board is more fun than having them in the dead pile or on the shelf. So in the comparison, I prefer the new level of survivability. But I can certainly see ways the game could be more fun if it wasn't quite so extreme.

Same experience here.

Played a game with SoB (with 5++ artefact everyone uses). My Opponent doesnt know what he can do against such staying power. Also I played against standard Soulblight with Dragon. Almost unkillable. 
Last edition things like monster heroes were too killy. Now they are still killy but more durable too. GW doesnt get it to make balanced rules. Because playing same lists with the same boring monster heroes everyone take (because they have to If you need a chance to win) is boring and unfun to grind through this armies.

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8 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Agreed, the mechanic being fun is extremely important, and currently I'd say it does make things a bit grindy.

I think a corollary question is also needed, however: In the previous edition, when big centrepiece models died like chumps almost immediately, was that fun?

Personally, I find having the heroes on the board is more fun than having them in the dead pile or on the shelf. So in the comparison, I prefer the new level of survivability. But I can certainly see ways the game could be more fun if it wasn't quite so extreme.

The issue though is that the survivability isn't really equally distributed. Small foot heroes still die just as fast as before, maybe even faster, unless they happen to have that magic 3+ save and MW protection. 

The reasons heroes died so quickly in 2.0 are all still here - it basically comes down to shooting and ranged MW output going through the roof over the course of the edition, with no realistic way to prevent it because look out sir and terrain LOS blocking are both jokes in this game. 3.0 just layered a bunch of survivability on certain big models on top of what they already had, with the result that they become nigh invulnerable, while normal heroes are about as trivial to remove as they always were. I don't like removing my heroes T1 any more than the next guy, but it isn't any more or less fun to remove my 3 support heroes over an opponent's shooting phase than it is to remove a big hero worth 3x the points. 

If they had buffed hero survivability generally and evenly across the board by making it harder to snipe them, I think people would be happier than with what they did, which is to keep most heroes trivially easy to kill while taking a select few that were mostly already strong and buffing them to the moon. 

Edited by yukishiro1
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from my perspective the issue is really in the healing, seeing that big bad monster heal back up to full after having maybe taken it down to a few wounds left is what really creates a feel bad imo. also without healing you can more easily balance things as it would be possible to grind anything down if u are willing to put the resources behind it (as opposed to having models that are truly immortal). So now we need to be able to take them down in one go, which creates need for mortal wound/ high rend hammers, which in turn prey on all else in the game and leads to haves/have nots, or games that are decided 99% by list building/match up.

so imo there should be a cap on heroic recovery that it can only heal u up to eg 5 wounds (so small chars/ badly wounded monsters can still use it), ofc Gotrek needs to get his warscroll changed to not allow him to heal, same as morathi. and I think GW should be more restrictive with the healing available to things with high saves in general (eg nagash, archaon) or at least point them really really high (as arguably is the case now with nagash at least)

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11 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Agreed, the mechanic being fun is extremely important, and currently I'd say it does make things a bit grindy.

I think a corollary question is also needed, however: In the previous edition, when big centrepiece models died like chumps almost immediately, was that fun?

Personally, I find having the heroes on the board is more fun than having them in the dead pile or on the shelf. So in the comparison, I prefer the new level of survivability. But I can certainly see ways the game could be more fun if it wasn't quite so extreme.

they didn't though. 

 

Only certain armies could frontload all that damage, and several of them can STILL do that. It kicked, like, KO down. But the snek lists and tzeentch don't care.

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11 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

If they had buffed hero survivability generally and evenly across the board by making it harder to snipe them, I think people would be happier than with what they did, which is to keep most heroes trivially easy to kill while taking a select few that were mostly already strong and buffing them to the moon. 

I totally agree. That would have been much better.

However, I still feel that making some heroes survivable is better than making no heroes survivable. We can talk all day about the wonderful possibilities that might have been, but that's not really a valid point of comparison. All we actually have to compare in real terms is how it worked before versus how it works now. Of those two, I prefer how it works now.

Issues with the survivability of individual heroes can always be addressed as new battletomes are released, but at least they now have a supporting framework where it's actually possible to make them hard to kill.

9 hours ago, stratigo said:

they didn't though.

Only certain armies could frontload all that damage, and several of them can STILL do that. It kicked, like, KO down. But the snek lists and tzeentch don't care.

I'm a bit confused about your position. You seem to be saying that nothing has really changed: some armies could kill monster heroes before and still can, some armies couldn't kill them before and still can't. If the situation is more or less the same as it was, what's the issue?

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59 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

I totally agree. That would have been much better.

However, I still feel that making some heroes survivable is better than making no heroes survivable. We can talk all day about the wonderful possibilities that might have been, but that's not really a valid point of comparison. All we actually have to compare in real terms is how it worked before versus how it works now. Of those two, I prefer how it works now.

Issues with the survivability of individual heroes can always be addressed as new battletomes are released, but at least they now have a supporting framework where it's actually possible to make them hard to kill.

I'm a bit confused about your position. You seem to be saying that nothing has really changed: some armies could kill monster heroes before and still can, some armies couldn't kill them before and still can't. If the situation is more or less the same as it was, what's the issue?

 

You could always kill a monster hero before if the opponent misplayed, or you outmaneuvered them. Only a handful of armies could accomplish that kill without any, well, skill involved.

 

Now these heroes are unpunishable, you can be as reckless and play utterly poorly and it doesn't matter, most armies just can't kill your hero monster. Except for a slightly smaller group of mindless point and click armies that are unaffected.

 

What cranking the defensiveness of heroes to the moon does is reward being bad at the game in the same way giving a shooting army teleports and mortal wound shooting does.

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18 minutes ago, Perturbato said:

Did anyone had the occasion to use be'lakor to cancel chose big unfair Monsters or is it pointless to have the ability (not guaranted) to cancel them only one turn ? 

You can get it to last two turns, if the opponent goes bottom of the round and they either take, or you give them, the double

 

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5 hours ago, stratigo said:

You could always kill a monster hero before if the opponent misplayed, or you outmaneuvered them. Only a handful of armies could accomplish that kill without any, well, skill involved.

Now these heroes are unpunishable, you can be as reckless and play utterly poorly and it doesn't matter, most armies just can't kill your hero monster. Except for a slightly smaller group of mindless point and click armies that are unaffected.

What cranking the defensiveness of heroes to the moon does is reward being bad at the game in the same way giving a shooting army teleports and mortal wound shooting does.

Ah cool, thanks for explaining. I see what you mean - you don't have to be as careful with your heroes, for sure.

I guess my perspective is a bit different - from the other side, I see being able to go "The enemy's army revolves around that hero, so I'll just kill him," as the low-skill option that rewards being bad at the game. This edition has changed that to "The enemy's army revolves around that hero, and I can't kill him, so I'll have to work out how I can win some other way," and I honestly think that's a far more interesting and challenging proposition.

My experience so far has been that bad players with unkillable heroes are pretty easily beaten by good players with a plan that doesn't involve killing those heroes. Hence, skilled play is rewarded.

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Just as a general game experience observation, I find it interesting how Heroic Recovery has suddenly made Bravery an extremely important stat for Heroes.  Most discussion seems to treat it like an assumption Heroic Recovery goes off, but the reality I've seen is that for heroes with mortal bravery it's essentially a non-thing, heroes with moderate bravery (8 of so) can have runs of bad luck where that needed healing craps out at the worst times, and my slaanesh demon heroes really feel like they benefit from their stellar bravery 10 - essentially it feels like an additional "survival asset" on top of their save and other defenses.  

While I get that a lot of the top end monsters currently have super high bravery anyways, I do feel like there are dials that can be adjusted to ration how much healing any given super monster has access to.  It also leaves me wondering if current units are paying for (or receiving discounts for) their high/low bravery stats now to compensate for the healing that that stat allows - or if that's been overlooked, and yet needs to be considered and implemented. 

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