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Save stacking - Menace or necessary?


AaronWilson

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6 hours ago, Evantas said:

If GW could one day sit down and rationalise the units for each faction to properly balance them, high rend and MWs can sit next to each other as similar mechanics but still nuanced enough for different counter units. 

This won't happen. :/
I am afraid we're steering into a territory in which AoS becomes increasingly extreme:
You either deal zero damage or you nuke whatever you point at off the board with mortal wounds.

I understand that people want their anvil to actually tank some damage. Yet common, you shouldn't have an Anvil that's also a Hammer and a Sorcerer, and a Monster, and a Hero at once. You also shouldn't be able to have several buffed up anvils.
It's not fine to have several of these anvils, it's toxic to the game. People in my group are on a all time low concerning AoS motivation.

 

In an Ideal game a buffed up Hammer VS a buffed up Anvil should result in the same outcome as these units would have in an unbuffed state. If you have to commit minimal Resources to make your Anvil utterly overperform at its job, yet you have to put in a lot of ressources to make you hammer do anything, but still it can't fulfill its job, then the game is in a bad state imo.

Edited by JackStreicher
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13 hours ago, Dogmantra said:

I appreciate you bringing some maths into this and showing your working, but I think your methodology is flawed and makes a lack of rend look worse than it is.

Your only example of attacks without rend are 4+/4+, which is an average wound rate of 25%. A 3+/3+ is an average wound rate of about 45%. I'm not saying this is the only thing making the elite and brute attacks look better than chaff, the rend is no doubt helping (a 2+ save becoming a 3+ doubles the damage that gets through after all), but when your rend attacks are already getting almost twice as many attacks to the point at which the save is rolled, it does feel a little like your thumb is on the scale here.

If the discussion is specifically about rend, then I think it's only fair to keep everything else the same.

I will talk a bit about why I specifically chose the stat lines I did.

Even though combat profiles are pretty complex and have a lot of components, the types of profiles you see in the game are actually pretty limited to a few archetypes. To hit and to wound values can range from 2 to 6, but in practice they cluster around 3 and 4, with the occasional 2 on really elite stuff and the occasional 5 on mega trash.

You hit on the reason for this in your own post: A 4+/4+ is a 25% hit chance, so going lower would basically mean printing "this unit does no damage" on the warscroll. 3+/3+ is just about where most damage dealers will sit, because putting a 2+ to hit/wound on a warscroll means that the unit cannot benefit from hit/wound buffs anymore, which it seems like the rules team wants to avoid. So in practice you get a lot of 4+/4+ and 3+/3+ attack profiles or an intermediate between the two like 4+/3+.

We also find that in the actual game of AoS, hit/wound profiles tend to correlate with rend and damage. You see very few units with bad hit/wound, but good rend and damage, and vice versa. Usually the progression towards being a better damage dealer goes bad hit/wound and low rend and damage, good hit/wound and some rend but bad damage, good hit/wound and good rend and damage.

This is what I want to represent with the chaff, elite and brute stat lines. Chaff are all those units that come in packs of 10 or more, usually have one wound, a save of 5+ and a cost of about 100 points. They are frequently what we think of as horde units that get run in packs of 30. Unitls like Skeleton Warriors and Freeguild Guard fall in this category. I included them to show that, in spite of usually coming in large numbers, their weight of dice is not enough to make them an offensive threat. I would say these kinds of units fail to be a threat against 3+ saves, no matter what offensive buffs you put into them.

The second common archetype we see is the elite unit. 3/3/-1/1 might be one of the most common stat lines in the game. Depeding on base size and minimum unit size, the unit will get 2 or 3 attacks and will generally deliver about 10 wounds worth of damage against a save 4+ after abilities are taken into account. Elites usually come in packs of 10 or 5, have 1 or 2 wounds, a 4+ save and cost about 150 points. I think it's fair to say that these units are the bread-and-butter hammers of most armies. I included them in my post to show that, once you stack two save buffs and take away their rend, these units are not much more threatening than chaff units. Which I think is a problem. They start struggling to deal any significant damage even against the 4+ save units they would previously wipe out on average.

The last type of unit I wanted to include are brutes. They represent large based elite models that come in units of 5. Things like Orruk Brutes and some of the new Stormcast units. These units are probably the most common sources of large amounts of high rend (-2 or better) damage you will find. They are typically 2 or more wounds, a 4+ save at minimum and cost around 180 to 200 points. These units are the best contenderst to actually threatening a unit that stacks saves. They can still somewhat deal with 3+ saves, even though because of their better base stats their buff potential is frequently lower than that of elites. But I think the numbers leave allow us to argue that even these top-end hammers struggle against fairly common saves of 3+ after two buffs, and they are definitely not able to deal with 2+ saves, especially 2+ saves with a ward. And let's remember that not every army even has access to brutes. A lot of armies definitely top out at elites.

I chose these three stat lines not to as a comparison on an equal playing filed, but rather as examples of what save stacking means for a cross section of commonly seen units in AoS. Remember, the point I wanted to support is that regular damage cannot reliably break through a 3+ save without rend. And that is ultimately what I see save stacking doing: Make it so that your units will frequently be in a situation where they have to try breaking though an effective 3+ or better save without any rend. That can be brutes hitting a 2+ while still having rend -1 on their weapons. Or it can be elites hitting a 3+ without any rend left. But the point is that these situations are now fairly common and easy to create. They are not just limited to god models, they appear with many hero-monsters and even a lot of regular anvil units like Blood Knights. The power differential between 200 points of hammer and 200 points of anvil is becoming very lopsided.

I would say it is fair to draw the conclusion that there are no reliable hammer units in the game right now that don't deal mortal wounds. The reason being that units without mortals are just shut down too hard by save stacking, and thus can't perform the function of a hammer unit, which is smashing things. Units with mortal wound output can definitely still do it, though, even againts stacked save bonuses. This is why I think save stacking in it's current form is bad for the game. Because it lessens the viability of regular combat as a means of dealing damage too much, when normal combat and all the systems that interact with it (charging, hit, wound, rend, save, wounds characteristic) are arguably where the meat of the mechanics of AoS are. Save stacking makes it so that interacting with these core mechanics in the way the game leads you to believe you should actually is not an effective means of dealing damage to your opponent anymore.

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13 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I chose these three stat lines not to as a comparison on an equal playing filed, but rather as examples of what save stacking means for a cross section of commonly seen units in AoS. Remember, the point I wanted to support is that regular damage cannot reliably break through a 3+ save without rend.

Thanks for the in-depth post. I think your reasoning as laid out here is compelling, and it works well as an analysis of the numbers you posted earlier. The issue I raised with your methodology in the original post was that your hypothesis was that specifically rend was required to break through strong saves, and your numbers did not necessarily demonstrate that because rend was not the only variable. The section of your new post that I have quoted is, I think, a better thesis statement than the one you originally made. For what it's worth, I strongly suspect that rend is the largest contributer to overcoming strong saves, but the influence of something like 3+/3+ compared to 4+/4+ is not to be underestimated.

It may seem nitpicky but I think that some conversation around overcoming strong saves has been focused entirely on rend as if it were the only option, rather than a specifically strong option out of a few, and while you're absolutely correct that high rend is often correlated with otherwise strong attack profiles, I think it's more helpful to directly compare each variable. I'm working on compiling some simulations to compare different bonuses directly, but one interesting thing to point out immediately is that a 3+/3+/-1/1 profile has about the same average damage output vs a 2+ save as a 3+/3+/-/2 profile.

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I wonder how things would change if All Out Attack / Defence came with trade-offs?

For example All Out Attack could provide +1 hit in the shooting phase but +1 to hit and an additional -1 rend in melee, at the expense of -1 save.

All Out Defence could still provide +1 save in both phases, at the expense of not being able to pile in or reducing your attacks in the combat phase.

I'm loathe to say that giving universal access to 6s to hit do mortals could be a good thing, because then you'd get problems with hordes taking out God Models again, which is obviously something that was intended not to happen anymore.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Liquidsteel said:

I wonder how things would change if All Out Attack / Defence came with trade-offs?

For example All Out Attack could provide +1 hit in the shooting phase but +1 to hit and an additional -1 rend in melee, at the expense of -1 save.

All Out Defence could still provide +1 save in both phases, at the expense of not being able to pile in or reducing your attacks in the combat phase.

I'm loathe to say that giving universal access to 6s to hit do mortals could be a good thing, because then you'd get problems with hordes taking out God Models again, which is obviously something that was intended not to happen anymore.

 

 

I actually think that horde troops with some standard buffs should be able to take out a God character ! If there was someway to get increased rend to your troops a unit of for example 30 skeletons with Dance Macabre should be able to really hurt a God character.

However, since there is very few if any ways to get increased rend I could have a 100 skeletons attacking and they would still not kill a god like character. In a lot of match ups there will be in pratice unkillable models which means you don't have to put any tactical consideration into how you use them. You should be risking something if you put your 3+ save hero close to an enemy, but in a lot of situation there is no threat what so ever which make the game boring. And also time wasting since you roll 120 dices to do 1-2 damage sometimes.

For me, I would like to se a general spell which gives you -1 rend, and perhaps a CA to give you another -1. That means that you can actually be able to use a big unit of horde troop to do some heavy hitting if you put your resources into it instead of just be used to hold an objective and be something to stand still and soak some damage for a turn or two.

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24 minutes ago, Boingrot Bouncer said:

I actually think that horde troops with some standard buffs should be able to take out a God character ! If there was someway to get increased rend to your troops a unit of for example 30 skeletons with Dance Macabre should be able to really hurt a God character.

However, since there is very few if any ways to get increased rend I could have a 100 skeletons attacking and they would still not kill a god like character. In a lot of match ups there will be in pratice unkillable models which means you don't have to put any tactical consideration into how you use them. You should be risking something if you put your 3+ save hero close to an enemy, but in a lot of situation there is no threat what so ever which make the game boring. And also time wasting since you roll 120 dices to do 1-2 damage sometimes.

For me, I would like to se a general spell which gives you -1 rend, and perhaps a CA to give you another -1. That means that you can actually be able to use a big unit of horde troop to do some heavy hitting if you put your resources into it instead of just be used to hold an objective and be something to stand still and soak some damage for a turn or two.

Fair enough but that's not something I would agree with, something like Nagash or Archaon should only be tickled, even if it's 100 skeletons.

The skeletons should not do more than a few wounds to the God character at best, what they should do is keep him busy for a turn or two, so that the actual threat behind them (Vhordrai, Grave Guard) can line up the ideal killing blow the turn after.

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55 minutes ago, Dogmantra said:

one interesting thing to point out immediately is that a 3+/3+/-1/1 profile has about the same average damage output vs a 2+ save as a 3+/3+/-/2 profile.

It's no coincidence, either. Going from a 2+ save to a 3+ save halves a unit's effective wounds (the damage you need to deal in order to get a wound through their save on average) from 6 effective wounds per actual wound to 3 effective wounds per actual wound. So one point of damage at rend -1 is equivalent in this situation to 2 points of damage at rend '-'. Against all other saves, doubling your damage is actually better than +1 rend.

If it were possible to increase your damage at the same pace that adding a point of rend offers against high saves (2+ and 3+), it would definitely be the best option overall. However, access to buffs that allow you to increase your damage to that degree is just not a thing in AoS for the most part. This is partially due to the fact that better hammers receive less of a damage increase from getting a buff to their hit/wound, damage or attacks characteristics. These kinds of buffs get less effective the better your base characteristics are. For example, increasing damage from 1 to 2 doubles your damage, but increasing it from 2 to 3 is just a 50% increase. The same holds true for attacks and hit/wound, which also get less impactful the higher your base values are.

Save buffs work the opposite way. The higher your starting save is, the more impactful increasing it will be. It is counter-intuitive, but the increase in your effective wounds you get from a +1 to save is not linear. It actually accelerates the higher you go. It looks like this:

 

Base save Effective wounds multiplier
'-' 1
6+ 1,2
5+ 1,5
4+ 2
3+ 3
2+ 6

 

I have somewhat touched upon this idea in my previous posts, but I think I have failed to make it explicit before: Units with bad combat profiles are easy to buff, but start at a low base. Units with good combat profiles are hard to buff but start at a high base. Because of this, neither type of can effectively keep pace with a buffed-up high save unit, which is easy to buff and starts at a high base. Outside of rend and mortal wounds, that is, since those two mechanics either ignore saves entirely or are more effective at higher saves. However, from the opposite perspective, that also means that reducing rend (such as through save stacking) is a disproportionally harsher damage penality against high base save units.

Here's a toy example of what I believe you had in mind with your post:

 

Save   Chaff (2 4/4/-/1)   Buffed Chaff (3 3/3/-/2)   Elite (2 3/3/-/2)   Buffed Elite (3 2/2/-/3)
2+ 0.88 4.59 3.11 10.76
3+ 1.75 9.19 6.22 21.53
4+ 2.63 13.78 9.33 32.29
5+ 3.5 18.37 12.44 43.06
6+ 4.38 22.96 15.56 53.82
- 5.25 27.56 18.67 64.58

 

In this table, I have calculated the damage potential of a 10 man chaff and elite unit, both of which don't have rend. Chaff starts at two attacks, 4/4/-/1. Elite starts at two attacks, 3/3/-/2. Both get +1 to hit and wound, +1 attacks and +1 damage.

The chaff unit buffs up better in relative terms. Their damage increases by a factor of ~5,3. The elite unit fares worse out of the same buffs, their relative damage increasing by only a factor of ~3,5. So unlike with saves, where starting high means a higher payoff for buffing, with damage starting high means a comparatively lower payoff.

I don't think we should take these numbers as actually being representative of the reality of the game. Both the base units and the amount of buffs put into them are unrealistic. But they demonstrate why it is so difficult for damage dealing units to deal with increased saves and decreased rend. Just by virtue of how the maths shake out, any one offensive buff turns out to be less effective for the attacker than +1 to saves does for the defender.

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37 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It's no coincidence, either. Going from a 2+ save to a 3+ save halves a unit's effective wounds (the damage you need to deal in order to get a wound through their save on average) from 6 effective wounds per actual wound to 3 effective wounds per actual wound. So one point of damage at rend -1 is equivalent in this situation to 2 points of damage at rend '-'. Against all other saves, doubling your damage is actually better than +1 rend.

If it were possible to increase your damage at the same pace that adding a point of rend offers against high saves (2+ and 3+), it would definitely be the best option overall. However, access to buffs that allow you to increase your damage to that degree is just not a thing in AoS for the most part. This is partially due to the fact that better hammers receive less of a damage increase from getting a buff to their hit/wound, damage or attacks characteristics. These kinds of buffs get less effective the better your base characteristics are. For example, increasing damage from 1 to 2 doubles your damage, but increasing it from 2 to 3 is just a 50% increase. The same holds true for attacks and hit/wound, which also get less impactful the higher your base values are.

Save buffs work the opposite way. The higher your starting save is, the more impactful increasing it will be. It is counter-intuitive, but the increase in your effective wounds you get from a +1 to save is not linear. It actually accelerates the higher you go. It looks like this:

 

Base save Effective wounds multiplier
'-' 1
6+ 1,2
5+ 1,5
4+ 2
3+ 3
2+ 6

 

I have somewhat touched upon this idea in my previous posts, but I think I have failed to make it explicit before: Units with bad combat profiles are easy to buff, but start at a low base. Units with good combat profiles are hard to buff but start at a high base. Because of this, neither type of can effectively keep pace with a buffed-up high save unit, which is easy to buff and starts at a high base. Outside of rend and mortal wounds, that is, since those two mechanics either ignore saves entirely or are more effective at higher saves. However, from the opposite perspective, that also means that reducing rend (such as through save stacking) is a disproportionally harsher damage penality against high base save units.

Here's a toy example of what I believe you had in mind with your post:

 

Save   Chaff (2 4/4/-/1)   Buffed Chaff (3 3/3/-/2)   Elite (2 3/3/-/2)   Buffed Elite (3 2/2/-/3)
2+ 0.88 4.59 3.11 10.76
3+ 1.75 9.19 6.22 21.53
4+ 2.63 13.78 9.33 32.29
5+ 3.5 18.37 12.44 43.06
6+ 4.38 22.96 15.56 53.82
- 5.25 27.56 18.67 64.58

 

In this table, I have calculated the damage potential of a 10 man chaff and elite unit, both of which don't have rend. Chaff starts at two attacks, 4/4/-/1. Elite starts at two attacks, 3/3/-/2. Both get +1 to hit and wound, +1 attacks and +1 damage.

The chaff unit buffs up better in relative terms. Their damage increases by a factor of ~5,3. The elite unit fares worse out of the same buffs, their relative damage increasing by only a factor of ~3,5. So unlike with saves, where starting high means a higher payoff for buffing, with damage starting high means a comparatively lower payoff.

I don't think we should take these numbers as actually being representative of the reality of the game. Both the base units and the amount of buffs put into them are unrealistic. But they demonstrate why it is so difficult for damage dealing units to deal with increased saves and decreased rend. Just by virtue of how the maths shake out, any one offensive buff turns out to be less effective for the attacker than +1 to saves does for the defender.

Your math inspired me to do some. I think, if we take a step back, 2.0 and 3.0 differed in one fundamental way: rerolls. In an effort to "simplify?" the game those were removed for the most part. Rerolls remain one of the best ways to facilitate dice math for various roles without inflating stats. 

Consider this ability: "Targets of this units attack must reroll successful saves instead of failed saves." and throw it onto the "elite" unit profile in many armies. Suddenly 3/3/-1/1 is quite punchy but without the asinine raw damage profile of recent hammers or the low interactivity of mortal wounds.

If this was common on elite units/hammers: a 3+ "un-re-rolled" save is failed 5/9s of the time (whereas a 3+ rerolled the other way is failed 1/9). Even a 2+ "un-re-rolled" is failed 11/36 or about 30% of the time.

This would allow hammers to fight through stacked saves quite nicely. I would also potentially allow anvil/block units access to the converse, rerolling failed saves. The player who's turn (or potnetially who goes first in a battle round chooses to make it more valuable to not shoot for double turns if you know you need the hammer to have its main tool) it was would then determine which rule was used if a hammer hit an anvil. This would be an ebb and flow thing, where anvils are tough, hitting an anvil in with a hammer in the anvils turn is worthless, hammers are strong, and hammers hitting things in their turn is strongest.

I think without rerolls we will continue to just statistically inflate units, which has a hard limit on a d6 system with 1s auto failing...

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I imagine the next edition of GHB will feature something, new commands inspired by the realm of Ulgu. "Shadow Blades" or something to allow a unit ignore the enemies positive save modifiers etc

Don't forget that we have access to Roar in this edition to somewhat counter stacking, I whiffed big time this weekend when I charged Nagash in to a Maw Krusha, I failed my Roar and he succeeded in his, meaning I lost my +1 to hit and he gained a crucial +1 to save. 

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12 minutes ago, jjb070707 said:

Your math inspired me to do some. I think, if we take a step back, 2.0 and 3.0 differed in one fundamental way: rerolls. In an effort to "simplify?" the game those were removed for the most part. Rerolls remain one of the best ways to facilitate dice math for various roles without inflating stats. 

Consider this ability: "Targets of this units attack must reroll successful saves instead of failed saves." and throw it onto the "elite" unit profile in many armies. Suddenly 3/3/-1/1 is quite punchy but without the asinine raw damage profile of recent hammers or the low interactivity of mortal wounds.

If this was common on elite units/hammers: a 3+ "un-re-rolled" save is failed 5/9s of the time (whereas a 3+ rerolled the other way is failed 1/9). Even a 2+ "un-re-rolled" is failed 11/36 or about 30% of the time.

This would allow hammers to fight through stacked saves quite nicely. I would also potentially allow anvil/block units access to the converse, rerolling failed saves. The player who's turn (or potnetially who goes first in a battle round chooses to make it more valuable to not shoot for double turns if you know you need the hammer to have its main tool) it was would then determine which rule was used if a hammer hit an anvil. This would be an ebb and flow thing, where anvils are tough, hitting an anvil in with a hammer in the anvils turn is worthless, hammers are strong, and hammers hitting things in their turn is strongest.

I think without rerolls we will continue to just statistically inflate units, which has a hard limit on a d6 system with 1s auto failing...

This is a nice effort to find a new way to make the math work, but I don't even think the juice is worth the squeeze here. I think the only thing that needs to change is to provide easy access to a buff that is equivalent to +1 to save (-1 to save or +1 to rend) or to change the order in which modifiers are applied so that repeatedly buffing saves does not give rend reduction (first calculate the overall save modifier, then apply rend). I personally prefer this because it could be a universal rule introduced in a GHB that everyone would instantly get access to and would not necessitate rewriting battletomes around a rule that, let's be honest, will probably be gone next edition.

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7 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I chose these three stat lines not to as a comparison on an equal playing filed, but rather as examples of what save stacking means for a cross section of commonly seen units in AoS. Remember, the point I wanted to support is that regular damage cannot reliably break through a 3+ save without rend. And that is ultimately what I see save stacking doing: Make it so that your units will frequently be in a situation where they have to try breaking though an effective 3+ or better save without any rend. That can be brutes hitting a 2+ while still having rend -1 on their weapons. Or it can be elites hitting a 3+ without any rend left. But the point is that these situations are now fairly common and easy to create. They are not just limited to god models, they appear with many hero-monsters and even a lot of regular anvil units like Blood Knights. The power differential between 200 points of hammer and 200 points of anvil is becoming very lopsided.

This is likely why a lot units which are exclusively "hammers" appear quite cheap, and why I'm against calls for increasing the points on strictly damage dealing units like Gore-gruntas and Sentinels.

Similarly I think its worth pointing out that the component of the game that uses points, and the GHB does not primarily deal with doing damage or killing units in general. Damage in AoS 3.0 to date is primarily about opening up board space, you can complete 4 Battle Tactics without necessarily needing to do a single point of damage to a model. 

The component of @Kadeton's argument that we seem to be skirting is that save stacking as a mechanic drastically segregates good players from the pack. And, we never have really addressed mechanics which segregate are acceptable or not as a premise, as a community. So long as we do not we will continue to see issues generated by this underlying unresolved issue. For example guess ranges, obviously segregated, but are a skill. The argument was that it wasn't a skill relevant to the game; totally sound argument. The question fundamentally in this instance is it ok to be average to mediocre at the core game (effectively strategy and tactics) and that be the cause of most of your in-game problems. 

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42 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

is that save stacking as a mechanic drastically segregates good players from the pack. And, we never have really addressed mechanics which segregate are acceptable or not as a premise, as a community.

I knew it would come to this and I simply disagree. Save stacking is neither complex to apply nor hard to use in a game-mechanical and tactical sense. The whole point of this is that it is too easy and too abundant.

The same goes for when not to attack something and what to do "against" save stacking. First off, there is nothing you can "do" against it, it happens. What you can do is react: Target another unit, run away, screen etc.
however those options rather quickly run out, especially if the oponents simply immortalizes key regions of the board. While his "anvils" hammer your units off said board.

I know claiming that something needs a high skill cap sounds good, it easily it excludes people from the discussion because usually it implies that they're not part of this elite cirlce of high skilled individuals, however this is AoS, so think again.
It's a sad excuse for a bad game mechanic. Sure at some "skill level" anyone can use any bad mechanic and claim that this is only an issue for the peasantry of gaming. It remains absurd however.

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On 11/7/2021 at 7:12 AM, Kadeton said:

It's the wrong question, IMO. The real question is: if you have a stack of saves available, why is your opponent's entire KO fleet still shooting at Archaon?

How often does it happen that a whole KO fleet continues shooting at Archaon through a stack of save bonuses? Quite often. A lot of players are still stuck in the "focus fire until dead" mentality, which was my entire point. How often do those players then go on to complain that save stacking is broken, rather than recognising that they could have made different choices? Quite often.

Because dealing with those lynchpin models is more challenging than just blowing units with poor saves off the board. You need a game plan that doesn't rely on killing them, which requires that people change their long-established wargaming habits. A lot of people are struggling to adapt... which, again, was my point.

The problem with the statistics is that they don't tell you anything about tactical play, they just give army composition (or often, only the faction). We don't know how each players' resources were used turn-by-turn. Archaon lists are definitely strong, but it's impossible to say from the stats how much of that 60%+ winrate is strength on paper versus tactical nous. There's no data.

I can give anecdotes instead, if that helps? I went to a tournament on the 30th of October, and played against a Slaves to Darkness list with Archaon in Feral Foray. It was easily the most intense, hard-fought games I've ever played - it's a powerful army, and was piloted by a skilled player. Use of defensive resources was extremely important: I had to carefully sacrifice units and spend resources to keep Archaon busy while dealing with the rest of my opponent's army. Only after his support was eroded and his own defensive buffs spent and unavailable did I seize the opportunity to take him out (on turn 4).

My opponent made sure to keep defensive buffs available for Archaon as much as possible, but he also wasn't brainlessly buffing him when it wasn't needed and would use those resources elsewhere when he knew it was safe to do so. However, I do think that the emphasis on keeping a "safety net" for Archaon made him more hesitant to buff other units, and that eventually gave me the edge I needed to scrape out the win (it was something like 29 to 27 VP in the final tally).

If I'd just charged in against a fully-buffed Archaon I would have lost the game, no question. The list is way too strong for that. But recognising that, and having to work out how to survive and win without just taking Archaon off the table right away, led to the most enjoyable game of AoS I've ever played. Hence my position: save stacking makes the game more interesting.

Because KO lose when they don't kill Archaon.

 

Your mindscape doesn't match the reality of the game man. Archaon moves too fast, KO are too combo heavy. The second Archaon hits the ironclad, game's over. And he'll hit it in the first few turns. There's no way to both avoid archaon and score objectives for KO. Archaon by himself, without literally any other models, has the damage output to table a KO army. He's fast, the board is small, and objectives are close.

 

As a KO player, you kill archaon or lose. Simple as.

 

16 hours ago, Kadeton said:

That's the outcome that I like - hard units actually being hard. Those units are anvils, a role that previously didn't exist in the game because everything died so easily regardless of how "tough" it was meant to be. Having the ability to buff up an anvil to the point where it can resist a hammer unit is what creates all the new tactical possibilities of 3rd Ed. Previously the only thing players could do against a hammer was screen - now they can also block. That means, as the hammer-wielder, you need to put actual thought into what you hit with your hammer, instead of just smashing everything you can reach.

I honestly couldn't care less if god models weren't playable (or even represented in the game), though I do recognise that they're a drawcard for a lot of people. Even if they weren't a thing, I'd still want anvil units that offer some counter-play to hammers.

Morathi's design, to me, represents the worst possible solution for the survivability problem - a bespoke rule that breaks the fundamental mechanics. She represents what happens when the designers have backed themselves into a corner, and can't see a way to get the outcome they want within the existing rules framework, so they just make a special case. I don't want special cases: I want the basic mechanics to allow for units to be tough enough to survive.

Yeah, I hope I've been very clear through this whole discussion that I never want to see the possibility for a player to make most of their army "unkillable" most of the time. Those defensive resources need to be strictly limited, counterable, and/or require foresight to use effectively. I think the current generic options are well structured in this regard: Finest Hour has to be used before your opponent commits their attack, allowing them to select weaker targets; Mystic Shield can be counter-spelled; All-Out Defense can be Roared away, and draws from a limited pool of CP. And all of them are single-target buffs, so using them on one unit denies them to every other unit. That should be the gold standard, IMO.

Where I do think there's a potential for problems is in a lot of the army-specific special abilities. Anything that buffs multiple units, has no chance of failure or counter, uses "alternative" mechanics (e.g. re-rolling saves), or can be used without consuming limited resources should be treated with the utmost care. I'm hoping to see fewer abilities like those in future battletomes.

It's also worth recognising that your opponent cannot stop your attack - all they're doing is blunting its effectiveness against one specific target unit. You've done the setup work, you can hit them really hard anywhere you want... if you choose to hit them in their hardest, most defended point and break your fist, instead of hitting them in any of their softer areas, that's on you. You know what their defensive capabilities are, what buffs are already deployed and what can be done reactively, so it's up to you to figure out how to direct your attack accordingly to get the maximum impact.

Mortal wound spam is a design failure, I totally agree. Almost all sources of mortal wounds should be removed, so that anvil units can do what they're supposed to do.

 

Your anvils aren't anvils. They're battleships. They survive everything and kill everything and if your army doesn't have one, or the equivalent of torpedoes (MW spam) you are going to lose. Every. Single. Time

 

There is no tactical choice to take when the 2 plus unrendable monster hops on the middle objective, in easy threat range of all the other objectives, and can trivially kill anything in your entire army. The only thing it can't kill is itself (unless it is a MW spewer like archaon. Then it just wins all things all the time).

 

I'd be way more okay with tough low damage output units. We don't got that one mate, we have the strongest units being the toughest units, and everyone else is pretty worthless or uses mortal wounds.

1 hour ago, whispersofblood said:

This is likely why a lot units which are exclusively "hammers" appear quite cheap, and why I'm against calls for increasing the points on strictly damage dealing units like Gore-gruntas and Sentinels.

Similarly I think its worth pointing out that the component of the game that uses points, and the GHB does not primarily deal with doing damage or killing units in general. Damage in AoS 3.0 to date is primarily about opening up board space, you can complete 4 Battle Tactics without necessarily needing to do a single point of damage to a model. 

The component of @Kadeton's argument that we seem to be skirting is that save stacking as a mechanic drastically segregates good players from the pack. And, we never have really addressed mechanics which segregate are acceptable or not as a premise, as a community. So long as we do not we will continue to see issues generated by this underlying unresolved issue. For example guess ranges, obviously segregated, but are a skill. The argument was that it wasn't a skill relevant to the game; totally sound argument. The question fundamentally in this instance is it ok to be average to mediocre at the core game (effectively strategy and tactics) and that be the cause of most of your in-game problems. 

 

I mean the skill that current save stacking and mortal wound trends test for is how to build lists and how deep your wallet is.

 

 

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I mean, it seems to me that the SIMPLEST solution would not be to change the core rules, but to change how their unit costing systems work to account for the models best possible save instead of its base save.  

So a unit with a 3+ base save would be costed almost as if it had a 2+ (based on actual availability of save buffs), etc.

I dont have an issue with hugely hard to kill, monstrously dangerous God's and Hammer-vills - but models like Archaon should probably be pointed under the assumption he's got a 2+ save (most of the time) instead of a 3+, which is in many cases "essentially" twice his printed wounds relative to when his "base" or rough cost was determined.  

There's a lot of stuff - especially in SCE this edition - that got printed with a 3+ save that feels like it was intended to have a functional 3+, which would have been a 4+ last edition.  Instead of, you know, a functional 2+.

There's a lot of ways you could go about addressing this in the core rules - most of which I don't like, as I think the game is better for being able to protect the things you love - but the easiest solution seems to be to just rethink save "values" in the next round of points updates they're going to be doing anyway.   

Edit- or hell, just make more use of the typical "shield" rule of +1 to save on the warscroll.  A model with a 4+ and a +1 is functionally a 3+ save that's capped there.  

Edited by KrispyXIV
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23 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

It's a sad excuse for a bad game mechanic. Sure at some "skill level" anyone can use any bad mechanic and claim that this is only an issue for the peasantry of gaming. It remains absurd however.

There are bad, good, and better people at all tasks why AoS would be different or somehow made to egalitarian seems impossible to me, but maybe I'm wrong.

You're perspective is too narrow btw. All mechanics segregateHowever, mechanics themselves are not complex, in general.  The complexity is deciphering what the presence of that mechanic means on the table. Which brings us to...

1 minute ago, stratigo said:

I mean the skill that current save stacking and mortal wound trends test for is how to build lists and how deep your wallet is.

The skill is discerning the affect of the mechanic's implementation, and the effects of the mechanics existence on what will happen on the game.

The question should be does save stacking or the volume of +x to save abilities create a situation where players are too segregated. A situation where improving via experience or study does not mitigate the existence of the rule.

Perhaps as we try and answer this we can come to a conclusion as to what is a "bad" mechanic. Lots of mechanics are intended to have a restricting or negative affect on players. For example not being able to come within 3", this is a new AoS mechanic, it introduces the possibility of failure at all times. The introduction of a negative affect cannot be the simple definition of a "bad" mechanic. I believe the my question is a much more effective question to ask when addressing these sorts of issues.

Yes. If you build a bad list, you will be constantly frustrated by almost all in-game mechanics. Objective control, Battle Tactics, and yes the combination of +1 save abilities. I have a friend who refuses to bring more Arkos and he consistently can't hold objectives and because he gets behind on the primary score must take increasingly high risk plays to keep the score even. That's bad list building and rightly he loses more than he wins, and he accepts that outcome as a consequence of his choice.

I've watched players lose games because their first movement phase was bad. I've also watched players not consider how they would get to their opponents territory and therefor it is impossible to score Savage Spearhead or Aggressive Expansion. Should the Movement phase remove all restrictions and buffs because the combination of mechanics segregate? I don't think anyone would put that forward. We generally accept that players need to learn to move, and if they don't they will fail more often than they succeed. 

Personally I think the theoretical existence of momentarily invulnerable pieces is a good element of the game, and many strategy games include invulnerability abilities. I think really the bigger (and possibly real issue) is how fast hero monsters put wounds back on. Archaon is particularly egregious in this regard, which means he can engage with no long term consequences, mostly because it means there is limited long term risk in using models which concentrate power, being the Hero keyword. As the only risk is explosive destructive power, which still doesn't exist in MWs and while explosive ordinary damage does exist, +save abilities completely negate. Outside of hero monster dmg you put on (even save staked models) sticks, either as wounds or dead models.

The final thing I'll add is that there is definitely a problem with the internet, forums, and streamers who by observing AoS create a meta, which then creates a counter meta, into infinity. In the before time, people had to grind their army to figure out what worked and the forums that did exist were not so heavily populated. Not to say this created more diverse list. But, it did create players who understood their list, and could change it incrementally over time. Addressing the cost and opportunity cost as there was no expectation (consciously or subconsciously) of immediate corrective measures to problems.

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10 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

There are bad, good, and better people at all tasks why AoS would be different or somehow made to egalitarian seems impossible to me, but maybe I'm wrong.

You're perspective is too narrow btw. All mechanics segregateHowever, mechanics themselves are not complex, in general.  The complexity is deciphering what the presence of that mechanic means on the table. Which brings us to...

The skill is discerning the affect of the mechanic's implementation, and the effects of the mechanics existence on what will happen on the game.

The question should be does save stacking or the volume of +x to save abilities create a situation where players are too segregated. A situation where improving via experience or study does not mitigate the existence of the rule.

Perhaps as we try and answer this we can come to a conclusion as to what is a "bad" mechanic. Lots of mechanics are intended to have a restricting or negative affect on players. For example not being able to come within 3", this is a new AoS mechanic, it introduces the possibility of failure at all times. The introduction of a negative affect cannot be the simple definition of a "bad" mechanic. I believe the my question is a much more effective question to ask when addressing these sorts of issues.

Yes. If you build a bad list, you will be constantly frustrated by almost all in-game mechanics. Objective control, Battle Tactics, and yes the combination of +1 save abilities. I have a friend who refuses to bring more Arkos and he consistently can't hold objectives and because he gets behind on the primary score must take increasingly high risk plays to keep the score even. That's bad list building and rightly he loses more than he wins, and he accepts that outcome as a consequence of his choice.

I've watched players lose games because their first movement phase was bad. I've also watched players not consider how they would get to their opponents territory and therefor it is impossible to score Savage Spearhead or Aggressive Expansion. Should the Movement phase remove all restrictions and buffs because the combination of mechanics segregate? I don't think anyone would put that forward. We generally accept that players need to learn to move, and if they don't they will fail more often than they succeed. 

Personally I think the theoretical existence of momentarily invulnerable pieces is a good element of the game, and many strategy games include invulnerability abilities. I think really the bigger (and possibly real issue) is how fast hero monsters put wounds back on. Archaon is particularly egregious in this regard, which means he can engage with no long term consequences, mostly because it means there is limited long term risk in using models which concentrate power, being the Hero keyword. As the only risk is explosive destructive power, which still doesn't exist in MWs and while explosive ordinary damage does exist, +save abilities completely negate. Outside of hero monster dmg you put on (even save staked models) sticks, either as wounds or dead models.

The final thing I'll add is that there is definitely a problem with the internet, forums, and streamers who by observing AoS create a meta, which then creates a counter meta, into infinity. In the before time, people had to grind their army to figure out what worked and the forums that did exist were not so heavily populated. Not to say this created more diverse list. But, it did create players who understood their list, and could change it incrementally over time. Addressing the cost and opportunity cost as there was no expectation (consciously or subconsciously) of immediate corrective measures to problems.

My perspective is narrow on purpose btw.
 

“The complexity is deciphering what the presence of that mechanic means on the table.“

Which isn’t hard. Most decisions are logical consequences to the current situation and what you plan on doing and or avoiding the next turn.

You are thinking way too broad here. You are looking for the very fundamentals of words, definitions etc. However I don‘t think these are required at all. Don’t overcomplicate a circumstance if it isn’t necessary.

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I really think the simple solution is just to cap the amount of +save you can get at +1 before rend, not after rend. This means rend becomes a counter to high armor saves, as it should be - that is the whole reason the mechanic theoretically exists. The current meta where the best way to kill a big hero is to drown it in low quality attacks with MWs on 6s is absurdly stupid from a "how things ought to work" kind of way.  And instead of save stacking, it rewards spreading your +to save out across the army instead, which is what you ought to be doing with a game mechanic. Models with a 3+ still end up with a 5+ against even rend 3 with a +1 to save, so it's not like they have no armor save at all, but it makes them actually vulnerable to high rend in the way they should be.

Then just go back and errata all the +1 to save effects on warscrolls to improve the save characteristic instead, and you're done. I'm not convinced you'd need to even change points because I'm not convinced the designers actually point in save stacking when pricing stuff - that's kind-of the problem right now. 

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31 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

My perspective is narrow on purpose btw.
 

“The complexity is deciphering what the presence of that mechanic means on the table.“

Which isn’t hard. Most decisions are logical consequences to the current situation and what you plan on doing and or avoiding the next turn.

You are thinking way too broad here. You are looking for the very fundamentals of words, definitions etc. However I don‘t think these are required at all. Don’t overcomplicate a circumstance if it isn’t necessary.

I start broad because I don't know that I am correct. For me I ask myself what sorts of list would I see if I was right and what would I see if I was wrong. Because writing an army lists is free just clicking around can show you what players who want to win are thinking. And, frequently you'll get an explanation.

There are a lot of monsters on 3+ saves, like a lot a lot. And, people aren't taking them, or even thinking about them. Which implies players believe rightly or wrongly that there are better choices available to them than multi-wound model which can save stack. 

People do however take such models which aren't good platforms for save stacking, l myself am taking a Killboss on Vulcha.

I find 2 examples of save stacking most prevalent. Archaon and Mega Gargants. For Megas it's easily explainable, their core strategy is to not die for 5 years. 

Archaon is a lot more complicated imo. His warscroll has been largely unchanged from the one Khorne players were using to middling success in early 2.0. Where he was imminently killable, even in the low rend meta of the time.

It was the combination of schemes, spells and destiny dice that propelled him to infamy at the end of 2.0 and the general reduction of heavy combat units in favour of more agile units capable of trading effeciently. But he was largely immune to damage by any practical reasons anyway.

I would argue Archaon's relative ability to not take wounds remains unchanged. Some armies actually have an improved ability to do dmg believe it or not.

What has changed is the ability to grind him down because he heals 15d3 wounds a game. Which is on average more wounds than he has. So as the opponent you can't do 2 wounds here, 5 there, and have a hard decision for how to use Archaon turn 3-5. 

This idea shows up again in the steam tank commander who similarly can heal in a variety of ways. Obviously with significantly less output, decreasing his relative value in game.

So let's take a look at other examples and then apply the logic? Examples that demonstrate save stacking absent significant life tanking is problematic?

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It wouldn't be a problem if they were to make All-Out Attack, All-Out Defense and Mystic Shield more exclusive.  Like if they were to make both commands cost 2 points each instead of 1 and if they made Mystic Shield successfully cast on a 7 or 8+.

Also mass mortals are a thing, but that makes hordes a bit better in comparison (they're abysmal atm) so those might actually be fine as is.

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8 hours ago, stratigo said:

Because KO lose when they don't kill Archaon.

Okay. You know from the outset, from the moment you finish writing your KO list even, that you don't have the damage to kill Archaon as long as your opponent has a basic understanding of the game mechanics. So your entire gameplan for that matchup is just "Step 1: Lose"?

8 hours ago, stratigo said:

Your mindscape doesn't match the reality of the game man. Archaon moves too fast, KO are too combo heavy. The second Archaon hits the ironclad, game's over. And he'll hit it in the first few turns. There's no way to both avoid archaon and score objectives for KO. Archaon by himself, without literally any other models, has the damage output to table a KO army. He's fast, the board is small, and objectives are close.

You're right, KO are a heavily-skewed faction that aren't very competitive in this edition. None of their core mechanics or unit profiles are geared for contesting objectives, so their only real strategy is to table the opponent, which this edition seems designed to avoid. Their body count is low (extremely low when most infantry are embarked), they have very little sustain, lack wizard or priest support, and are fragile. (Notably, they are fragile mainly because they have very few ways to stack save bonuses where they're needed!). They're a poorly-designed, one-dimensional mess of an army.

You could try a few things: look at ways to compensate for those weaknesses (e.g. allied/coalition units), start collecting a new army that's more competitive in the current ruleset, or take a break from competitive games until your army gets its 3rd Ed update.

8 hours ago, stratigo said:

Your anvils aren't anvils. They're battleships. They survive everything and kill everything and if your army doesn't have one, or the equivalent of torpedoes (MW spam) you are going to lose. Every. Single. Time

Some anvils can also function as hammers, yes. They tend to pay a lot of points for that, and in some cases should probably pay more.

You've identified that your list has a huge strategic weakness that your opponents can easily exploit, and you've immediately identified two potential solutions, just in what you posted above: get some "battleship" units of your own, or find ways to increase your mortal wound output. Or do both!

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3 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Okay. You know from the outset, from the moment you finish writing your KO list even, that you don't have the damage to kill Archaon as long as your opponent has a basic understanding of the game mechanics. So your entire gameplan for that matchup is just "Step 1: Lose"?

You're right, KO are a heavily-skewed faction that aren't very competitive in this edition. None of their core mechanics or unit profiles are geared for contesting objectives, so their only real strategy is to table the opponent, which this edition seems designed to avoid. Their body count is low (extremely low when most infantry are embarked), they have very little sustain, lack wizard or priest support, and are fragile. (Notably, they are fragile mainly because they have very few ways to stack save bonuses where they're needed!). They're a poorly-designed, one-dimensional mess of an army.

You could try a few things: look at ways to compensate for those weaknesses (e.g. allied/coalition units), start collecting a new army that's more competitive in the current ruleset, or take a break from competitive games until your army gets its 3rd Ed update.

Some anvils can also function as hammers, yes. They tend to pay a lot of points for that, and in some cases should probably pay more.

You've identified that your list has a huge strategic weakness that your opponents can easily exploit, and you've immediately identified two potential solutions, just in what you posted above: get some "battleship" units of your own, or find ways to increase your mortal wound output. Or do both!

Which renders a bunch of armies, and like 80 percent of all models completely useless. Like utterly and completely not worth bothering. Game's mighty boring with the same 5 armies using only the same 5 units of their books.

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2 hours ago, Dingding123 said:

It wouldn't be a problem if they were to make All-Out Attack, All-Out Defense and Mystic Shield more exclusive.  Like if they were to make both commands cost 2 points each instead of 1 and if they made Mystic Shield successfully cast on a 7 or 8+.

Also mass mortals are a thing, but that makes hordes a bit better in comparison (they're abysmal atm) so those might actually be fine as is.

We simply need at least one CA or spell that grants +1 rend

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12 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

This is likely why a lot units which are exclusively "hammers" appear quite cheap, and why I'm against calls for increasing the points on strictly damage dealing units like Gore-gruntas and Sentinels.

Similarly I think its worth pointing out that the component of the game that uses points, and the GHB does not primarily deal with doing damage or killing units in general. Damage in AoS 3.0 to date is primarily about opening up board space, you can complete 4 Battle Tactics without necessarily needing to do a single point of damage to a model. 

The component of @Kadeton's argument that we seem to be skirting is that save stacking as a mechanic drastically segregates good players from the pack. And, we never have really addressed mechanics which segregate are acceptable or not as a premise, as a community. So long as we do not we will continue to see issues generated by this underlying unresolved issue. For example guess ranges, obviously segregated, but are a skill. The argument was that it wasn't a skill relevant to the game; totally sound argument. The question fundamentally in this instance is it ok to be average to mediocre at the core game (effectively strategy and tactics) and that be the cause of most of your in-game problems. 

I agree points increases are not the way to fix sentinels. Stripping mortal wounds and LOS ignoring is better. Glad we're on the same page for that.

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Unpopular Opinion (wrong topic, I know):

Imho, there shouldn't be a lot of sources with +1 to your base stats. Like @KrispyXIV already said, some units that can maximize that +1 buffs are going to abuse it, and that's wrong. You should get what you paid for.

With fixed profiles, it's really easy to build basic stats (without abilities) that are build to do one jobs on the table. In other words, they are so easy to accomplish what they are designed for:

  • Do you want big anti-armor dmg? 2+/2+/-4/D2 attacks
  • Do you want to build a heavy armored dudes to be your anvil? 2+ saves

Why we don't have that profiles in ALL armies? Damage can still bypass armor with save rolls of 1, so it's not just an auto-win like AV14. And that's without taking in consideration Warscroll Abilities...

If we want to remove some waiting time or have more interaction, we don't even need CAs, just Reactions with more utility than plain buffs. If we want Stat-buffs, bring abilities with dice rolls (spells/prayers/whatever) and let the RNG god decide if your unit is going to be stronger than when you bought it.

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12 hours ago, whispersofblood said:

The component of @Kadeton's argument that we seem to be skirting is that save stacking as a mechanic drastically segregates good players from the pack. And, we never have really addressed mechanics which segregate are acceptable or not as a premise, as a community.

I somewhat get where you are coming from with this but I still find your logic flawed. Your point seems to be there is no issue at all because the whole save-stacking thing is a "skill", but for it to be a skill debate everyone needs to have the same tools or access to those same tools or access to ways to deal with it. Thats simply not the case. It has created a "have" and "have not" situation with many armies. I would also argue it isnt difficult to play S2D, point at your Archaon and click and he gets all those amazing buffs for free without your opponent really being able to do jack about it. 

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