AoS3 - The points discussion

[C0deb1ue]

1 minute ago, Zappgrot said:

Meh who knows. Rules change  a lot during the design-proces. Might be that Kragnos started out whit some additional rules that we don't know about and those where changed at the last moment. 

Who know but 695 points is still at least 100 points too many. It does generally make you wonder about the process and nothing shown so far explains his cost. 
 

as loads have said, GW just never explains their design decisions.

[Eternalis]

Just now, Zappgrot said:

and those where changed at the last moment. 

And then who playtested these changes? 

I do agree though, Kragnos isn't worth 740pts...
But then, why did GW put him at this price? I mean BR:Kragnos has been written months ago and so does the GHB 21, why don't they give him the same price? Is he worse in V3 than he was in V2?

[C0deb1ue]

2 minutes ago, Eternalis said:

And then who playtested these changes? 

I do agree though, Kragnos isn't worth 740pts...
But then, why did GW put him at this price? I mean BR:Kragnos has been written months ago and so does the GHB 21, why don't they give him the same price? Is he worse in V3 than he was in V2?

Gork help us if he is worse!

[Zappgrot]

1 minute ago, Eternalis said:

And then who playtested these changes? 

I do agree though, Kragnos isn't worth 740pts...
But then, why did GW put him at this price? I mean BR:Kragnos has been written months ago and so does the GHB 21, why don't they give him the same price? Is he worse in V3 than he was in V2?

THe playtesters test the points. But GW's studio sets the point in the end.  BR_-Kragnos was a rush job so god knows what happend.  We can only speculate. But the book getting printed whit points for a older version of the warscroll and then beeing corrected in GHB does seem like a possible explanation to me  

[novakai]

interestingly the Pitch battle profile in BR Kragnos was slated for JUNE 2021 and the new GHB i believe was JULY 2021, which say to me they immediately regretted their decision on Kragnos's point cost

[Reinholt]

31 minutes ago, C0deb1ue said:

GSG have been bad for so long that I’m not sure I have much faith in GW’s chosen playtesters saying they are ok. 

I will bring this up to make a point: the history of GW has been awful balance. Anyone remember nigh-invulnerable Falcon grav tanks way back in 40k? Blood Angels turn 1 rhino rush? Anyone ever play against Daemons in 7th ed? Eldar in Gothic?

GW doesn't get the benefit of the doubt because over a 20 year period they have repeatedly shown they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. The next time GW produces a tightly balanced main game and/or is responsive in short timeframes to both balance and quality of life concerns for players will also be the first time GW has ever done this.

This is just calling a spade a spade; we are all here and play the games regardless (though I have already lost at least 1 player from my group in the AoS 3.0 change when he finally threw in the towel on Sylvaneth). However, to say GW has a good grip on any of these things would be a bit like saying Fiat has a good handle on automotive reliability. We can still like the game and criticize the company where valid.

To that end, it's pretty obvious there is some stuff that doesn't work well as 3.0 is currently designed. I think in particular, the interaction of larger base models and coherency for units over 5, Unleash Hell as an ability, and some of the points changes for a handful of factions (Slaanesh and Sylvaneth in particular) are going to make for some pretty justifiably salty people until that gets sorted out. My hope is GW sorts it out quickly while people are still in the annoyed/angry phase, because that means they are engaged.

The danger zone is my friend who I had to email to ask if he still wanted a core rulebook because he'd said nothing about AoS for close to a month, and then responded with "nah I'm good" and is busy playing other games while shelving his trees. Once they disengage, it's much harder to get people back.

[Zappgrot]

2 minutes ago, novakai said:

interestingly the Pitch battle profile in BR Kragnos was slated for JUNE 2021 and the new GHB i believe was JULY 2021, which say to me they immediately regretted their decision on Kragnos's point cost

Yea,  That is  something that makes me think they made a mistake/printing error.   A bit like the 240 points for the new battle sisters "dreads" that was a  printing error. 

[C0deb1ue]

4 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

I will bring this up to make a point: the history of GW has been awful balance. Anyone remember nigh-invulnerable Falcon grav tanks way back in 40k? Blood Angels turn 1 rhino rush? Anyone ever play against Daemons in 7th ed? Eldar in Gothic?

GW doesn't get the benefit of the doubt because over a 20 year period they have repeatedly shown they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt. The next time GW produces a tightly balanced main game and/or is responsive in short timeframes to both balance and quality of life concerns for players will also be the first time GW has ever done this.

This is just calling a spade a spade; we are all here and play the games regardless (though I have already lost at least 1 player from my group in the AoS 3.0 change when he finally threw in the towel on Sylvaneth). However, to say GW has a good grip on any of these things would be a bit like saying Fiat has a good handle on automotive reliability. We can still like the game and criticize the company where valid.

To that end, it's pretty obvious there is some stuff that doesn't work well as 3.0 is currently designed. I think in particular, the interaction of larger base models and coherency for units over 5, Unleash Hell as an ability, and some of the points changes for a handful of factions (Slaanesh and Sylvaneth in particular) are going to make for some pretty justifiably salty people until that gets sorted out. My hope is GW sorts it out quickly while people are still in the annoyed/angry phase, because that means they are engaged.

The danger zone is my friend who I had to email to ask if he still wanted a core rulebook because he'd said nothing about AoS for close to a month, and then responded with "nah I'm good" and is busy playing other games while shelving his trees. Once they disengage, it's much harder to get people back.

Yeah I have similar experiences to this. Someone invests like £500 pounds in an army and painting time and GW wrecks them with bad rules and takes 2 years to fix it.

[Zappgrot]

1 minute ago, C0deb1ue said:

Yeah I have similar experiences to this. Someone invests like £500 pounds in an army and painting time and GW wrecks them with bad rules and takes 2 years to fix it.

I might be very cynical. But i think from both a business perspective as an product engagement perspective. Switching army strengths around, so ppl  have an intensive to switch armies does make sense. It's not all bad tough. The meta swings do make the game more interesting as a pastime then lets say  checkers.   

[MitGas]

24 minutes ago, C0deb1ue said:

Well if playtesters thought Kragnos was worth 760 points, then we are in far more trouble than we thought…

Well, I sincerely wish you and the players of all factions, not just Kragnos fans, to be happy but let‘s wait and see. I could very well imagine that many units got a bad deal only Vader would think if as good and I‘m not saying that complaints have no place as that‘s childish but we‘re still missing some details that might change overall balance. Once everything is known and something still sucks, fire away with everything you have. We can only hope that someone from GW will hear about the community‘s feedback and implement it. I guess they wouldn‘t be allowed to reply in an official capacity but if I was working on AoS, I‘d sure as heck would listen to this community. Perhaps we should then, when people are more familiar with 3.0 and have played a couple of games, make a thread that collects the most obvious faults/oversights so that it‘s easy to find. That said, usually games are balanced around the best players - which some of you might very well be, I know that I‘m not as I never even played in a single Warhammer tournament. 😅

[relic456]

13 minutes ago, C0deb1ue said:

Yeah I have similar experiences to this. Someone invests like £500 pounds in an army and painting time and GW wrecks them with bad rules and takes 2 years to fix it.

That's why I switched to TTS my man, can play the game entirely for free and reduces the pain of GW shenanigans.

Decided to see what the release dates were for the 40k 9th edition rules and the 9th edition army FAQS. Looks like the rules were up on July 2nd, 2020 and the FAQs were up on July 13th, 2020.  The AoS 3.0 rules went up on June 14th, 2021, so we could very well have the FAQs by June 25th!

[Ragest]

The points are not bad in most of the cases if you just take de context of internal balance (i think just lumineth and seraphon have problems in this regard) the problem comes when you try to compare factions.

Eltharion or Drycha +30 and Volturnos -10 is impossible to justify.

Sents or Sallys +10 and stalkers +30 is the same.

Morathi or Teclis +60/80 and Archaon +30

KoS +80 and Kairos +35

Avalenor +55 and BT +25

Maybe we need less months of playtest and more about a central figure in AoS' developement that homogeinize the changes.

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

3 hours ago, MitGas said:

Yeah, I often think that the name "Mortal Realms" doesn't reflect the situation all too well with lots of godly beings being part of every second battle. I'm glad the Chaos Gods will never have models. 

As I am sure you are aware, the games of Age of Sigmar are usually some epic, mythological battle of the ages well beyond the tens of thousands petty tribal warfare of duped followers of Chaos.  Most mortal tribes are not even aware of the dark gods.  Just like in 40k, where no cares all that much about Planetary Defense Force battles which really do make up the bulk of combat, one-sided though it may be, in the galaxy.  Even historical games tend to focus on big battles such as Normandy landing instead of some skirmish in the Hürtgen Forest in November of '44.

On a narrative level, a player should be honored that their army poses such a threat that the very gods of the setting themselves had to intervene. Which is the main reason that Teclis, Archaon or even Abbadon in 40k are rarely included in my own army lists.  I don't control my opponent's army though just my own.  They are free to construct it how they like, and I will deal with it as best I can with my own.

[Zappgrot]

1 hour ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

As I am sure you are aware, the games of Age of Sigmar are usually some epic, mythological battle of the ages well beyond the tens of thousands petty tribal warfare of duped followers of Chaos.  Most mortal tribes are not even aware of the dark gods.  Just like in 40k, where no cares all that much about Planetary Defense Force battles which really do make up the bulk of combat, one-sided though it may be, in the galaxy.  Even historical games tend to focus on big battles such as Normandy landing instead of some skirmish in the Hürtgen Forest in November of '44.

On a narrative level, a player should be honored that their army poses such a threat that the very gods of the setting themselves had to intervene. Which is the main reason that Teclis, Archaon or even Abbadon in 40k are rarely included in my own army lists.  I don't control my opponent's army though just my own.  They are free to construct it how they like, and I will deal with it as best I can with my own.

Altough you have to admid that it would still be kind of strange if Churchil fought whit the troops on D-Day. What is kinda what is happening in AOS all the time

[Saturmorn Carvilli]

8 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

Altough you have to admid that it would still be kind of strange if Churchil fought whit the troops on D-Day. What is kinda what is happening in AOS all the time

Depends, if Churchil was an  immortal deity-like individual of the British people with supernatural powers useful in combat, and his mere presence created a zealot like morale like any AoS god, I think it would be strange he wasn't there.  However, since we live in a world where the more political power one possess has no bearing on combat prowess (usually the opposite given the time and age of such individuals), I think it was a good call a heavy set, 70-year-old man wasn't allowed to be there despite any wishes he may have had.

[Reinholt]

5 minutes ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

Depends, if Churchill was an  immortal deity-like individual of the British people with supernatural powers useful in combat, and his mere presence created a zealot like morale like any AoS god, I think it would be strange he wasn't there. 

Wait he wasn't!?!?!

[MitGas]

1 hour ago, Saturmorn Carvilli said:

As I am sure you are aware, the games of Age of Sigmar are usually some epic, mythological battle of the ages well beyond the tens of thousands petty tribal warfare of duped followers of Chaos.  Most mortal tribes are not even aware of the dark gods.  Just like in 40k, where no cares all that much about Planetary Defense Force battles which really do make up the bulk of combat, one-sided though it may be, in the galaxy.  Even historical games tend to focus on big battles such as Normandy landing instead of some skirmish in the Hürtgen Forest in November of '44.

On a narrative level, a player should be honored that their army poses such a threat that the very gods of the setting themselves had to intervene. Which is the main reason that Teclis, Archaon or even Abbadon in 40k are rarely included in my own army lists.  I don't control my opponent's army though just my own.  They are free to construct it how they like, and I will deal with it as best I can with my own.

I'm not a big fan of these pseudo-gods (pfff, born mortals trying to be gods) we got now walking around and eating up too many points for proper armies as much as you try to sell them to me with a nice point of view.  Not sure what that has do to with "petty tribal warfare of duped followers of Chaos" as I simply like armies and a super-uber hero (or heroine) and his/her merry band of 15 dudes. But that's preference, some might love having them on the table all the time. I like special characters but my personal preference are either your own heroes or cheaper named characters that don't eat half of the army's points. I just find godly characters much more interesting if they stay in the background... wouldn't have liked to see Ulric or Tzeentch on the table either. Although I would totally buy a nice sculpt of the Chaos Gods to use as scenery. 😎

[Christopher Rowe]

47 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

Altough you have to admid that it would still be kind of strange if Churchil fought whit the troops on D-Day. What is kinda what is happening in AOS all the time

Well, no offense to fans of either leader, but Lord Kroak and Churchill do, in fact, kind of resemble one another. 

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Zappgrot said:

Altough you have to admid that it would still be kind of strange if Churchil fought whit the troops on D-Day. What is kinda what is happening in AOS all the time

I mean, it's more a Richard lionheart than a churchill, and kings regularly fought on the battlefield with their troops. But AoS setting is so big that the game FEELS smaller if all you play are the godking and their personal retinue

[Sapca]

8 hours ago, stratigo said:

I mean, it's more a Richard lionheart than a churchill, and kings regularly fought on the battlefield with their troops. But AoS setting is so big that the game FEELS smaller if all you play are the godking and their personal retinue

In DoK, every "hero" apart from Morathi just looks.... basic. Can't get around it if there's no choice.

Morgwaeth is only other "named" and she gets lost on table. I do like the sculpt, but you know... she's nothing even remotely special and tiny...

--
Make a Snake priestess with her personal cauldron.

Make a medusa on foot that screams "I can cast 2-3+ spells per turn and I do it well"

Make Khinerai that you can place next to Yndrasta and wonder which will win.

A regular priestess with personal proper "Durthu" Avatar for some smashing.

Add a Warlock + Executioner dual model (why are Executioners not(also) in DoK?) or some special WE/SoS - have warlock seemingly fly to get some sculpt height for some dynamic option.

And remove all easy activatable fight/shoot twice commands from game.... things that grant it will never go out. If not just all of it. And then people might make varied lists that don't start with Morathi (at the moment she's basically a must, crutch...).

Otherwise you have options:
A wheeled cart you can have multiples of them at same time, small Bikini Babes which you need to mark with tokens to know which one has what prayer(s), a group of medusas with own tokens for identification and spell list(s), ironscale or Morathi.

[Greybeard86]

15 hours ago, C0deb1ue said:

Yeah I have similar experiences to this. Someone invests like £500 pounds in an army and painting time and GW wrecks them with bad rules and takes 2 years to fix it.

This, so much.

Which is compounded by the fact that, usually, models and rules go hand in hand, meaning that if a faction gets no new rules the model range is left to languish.

It is a terrible feeling to spend hundreds of $ and many hours painting and basing an army that will get sidelined. Yet, that happens constantly with the current release schedule.

And that's without bringing up when GW gives the death kiss to a faction, such as Legion of Azgorh aka chaos dwarves aka chorfs. 5 years post release of a bunch of super pricey FW models, they burn them down in a trash can fire in a back alley.

[Honk]

10 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

And that's without bringing up when GW gives the death kiss to a faction, such as Legion of Azgorh aka chaos dwarves aka chorfs. 5 years post release of a bunch of super pricey FW models, they burn them down in a trash can fire in a back alley.

QfT…

my wrath burns with the heat of a thousand suns !!! May your dices roll 1s except for battleshock , there I wish them 6s… 😤😡🤬😡😤

 

Back2Topic

FEC: without battalions, without double feeding frenzy, things will be outside my comfort zone a bit, but now into the breach…

how by the holy lady of the lake is the King on zombiedragon still on points with the GkoTg ??? and a tough spike too 445 is massive, almost as massive as the maw 🤣 

most points are a bit back and forth , but manageable without the battalion tax. Flayers and infernal getting a bit up, horrors and haunter going a bit down.

The chalice going up some points, with battleshock casualties out of the bucket, don’t know,

barricade with slight increase, never saw much use, still ok

stampede big up, but with the new rules it might even be worth it 🙀 the shock…

The Blisterskin Court still looks solid

The Gristlegore Court got a funky buff

The Hollowmourne Court without smashbat… nope, cheap horrors ok, but can’t see that. Only in the most friendliest games, maybe against hedonites 🤗

The real sad thing are the reinforcement points for casual ghoul hordes. Extra attacks with 20+ models 😢 bye bye 4x30 mob madness

After playing FEC and Undead since AoS 1.0, I know how it feels to be trash-tier games were still fun and I could win some friendly games. Then LoN dropped and I got brutal revenge 😈 then FEC 2 came and the first strike feeding frenzy mulched whole armies 🤣

friendly games are always possible

 

[Zeblasky]

On 6/19/2021 at 9:54 PM, yukishiro1 said:

Contrast this with something like the approach CA takes to running Total War: Warhammer, and it's quite stark. CA has its issues as a company too, but one thing they are much better at doing is fostering a dialogue with the community, especially when it comes to balance issues. The CA Devs responsible for balancing their Warhammer game are constantly engaged in dialogue with the community. They may not always do what people want, but there's not the sense that they're God up on a cloud, or a black box you're never, ever allowed a glimpse inside. 

A bit late and a bit odd topic, but yea, CA are pretty great at listening and speaking with community. And it's not only community managers you can speak to on Discord and Reddit. 3 years ago, one of the leads on balance, CA_Duck, one day just came into the main tourney discord (it was pretty small) and stayed with us, occasionally chatting. I mean, imagine freely chatting in Discord with a GW developer. Btw, he was actually a great guy and a solid competitive player, played in 2 tourneys at least with solid off meta builds.

 

But here's the thing. While balance and communications became much better overtime, this did not stop CA from introducing clearly overpowered or underpowered things almost every major patch, and often only fixing them 2-4 patches later (or never in case of Beastmen, haha!). Having good communications makes balance and tensions easier, but it's not a cure. But still, I completely agree, that GW should open up and be more chatty and clear about a lot of things, including balance, but I'm afraid that they are... Afraid to do this. You all have seen how much toxic rage their mistakes produced over time (especially in 40k), and GW probably do not want to deal with that directly. It is kinda understandable, but it's not the way to go in 2021. You have to be open about what you do both to lessen your mistakes as well as reduce the amount of negativity generated by them.

 

On 6/20/2021 at 5:39 AM, thubivision said:

Perceived strength/weakness is also a real thing that can cloud people’s eyes from reality. I’ve severely nerfed overpowered weapons and not seen usage drop. Conversely, I’ve made weak weapons completely broken OP and not seen usage move. And this is with spending a lot of time to create meticulously detailed patch notes to communicate those changes (add another to the “why bother?” column.) Once a community believes something to be at a certain strength, it’s hard to dislodge that no matter what changes. I suspect that competent Hedonites players will be very successful as their opponents won’t have a lot of experience against them and will underestimate their strengths. More-so if points are adjusted down

 

This, 1000 times this. I've seen it so many times, and it's very hard to prove to people the opposite. The funniest example of this from my memory were Waywatchers in TW:W2. When people just never used them (besides me apparently), considering them terrible, they were pretty good. But then they've got overbuffed like crazy and became meta defining and PTSD creating unit. Then they were nerfed 4 times in a row and now they are worse that they were prebuff, but some people still considered them OP and the main and only way to play Wood Elves before the DLC.

The lesson here? Don't always trust the meta and your own perception, try some brainstorming, calculations and testing, especially if what you are doing is not working (or if you just want some competitive fun). Most of the time you can find something worth the try, potentially meta redefining. Even certain units perceived as meme ones can becomes crazy effective when combined right. And trust me, there are a few things more funny than provoking nerfs on meme units because they aren't memes anymore x)

 

[Reinholt]

So after a little more testing, I'm pretty convinced that GW is either going to have to significantly raise the points of a lot of shooting units or just get rid of Unleash Hell as a command ability. The ease of dialing up the efficiency of already efficient shooting units by allowing them to shoot again is grotesque, at least so far. Right now the MVP by far of my few early games tinkering with the new edition are all shooting units. Unleash Hell just basically doubles your points efficiency as now you shoot twice where before you would have shot once. Not quite because there is the hit modifier, but on the flip side, using a screen to block and then shooting is really a ****** move that is clearly not accounted for.

Vanguard Raptors in Anvils have become almost un-playably unfriendly with the aetherwing charge block / unleash hell combo, for instance. A close to ironclad (itself a problem unit with unleash hell for KO) guarantee that you can unleash hell twice while being able to double tap shooting in your own turn is downright oppressive. There are a handful of builds I think could give it problems that aren't just using "shoot back" as an answer (namely Idoneth Eels and maybe the new Blood Knights given how they jump screens), but even then... it's bad.

Edited June 25, 2021 by Reinholt

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, Reinholt said:

So after a little more testing, I'm pretty convinced that GW is either going to have to significantly raise the points of a lot of shooting units or just get rid of Unleash Hell as a command ability.

While (as a player of primarily melee armies) I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Unleash Hell toned down, I do think having it in the game creates opportunities for units that otherwise don't have much of a role. I'm thinking stuff like Fell Bats, which a lot of people argued were just pointless garbage in AoS2 - cheap, fragile, high-mobility flanking/harassing units with little to no combat punch.

Yeah, those units could be used as objective-grabbers (though not objective-holders) in a pinch, but that was rarely a valuable enough role to justify putting them in a list. You can still use them for that, of course, but now I feel like there's actual potential value in using them to harass shooting units.

There's still some tactical manoeuvring and luck required, of course (though I think those are things that tend to make the game more interesting), but getting into a position where the harassers can fly over a screen and hit a shooting block with a charge puts the opponent in a tough spot, and leaves your main force of chargers free to smash through screening units without fear of getting shot.

Anyway, I could be totally wrong, but it's nice to think that this sort of tactical play is the sort of thing the rules could support in theory, even if the current unit choices and prices might not make it entirely feasible. I think it's pretty reasonable for melee units to suffer if they charge face-first into a hail of bullets or arrows, and the threat of Unleash Hell means you have to be more thoughtful about planning your charges. But at the same time, the fact it can only be used once per turn is a glaring weakness that leaves plenty of room for clever tactics... I hope. I really need to get some games of AoS3 in.