Save stacking - Menace or necessary?

[AaronWilson]

Hello all. 

As we're settling into AoS 3 save stacking is a topic that comes up quite a lot and I'd though it would be interesting to have a discussion on the topic now we've a few months into AoS3. 

For those who maybe are unaware, save stacking is the practice of putting multiple instances of +1 save on a model (Mystic Shield, All out Defence, Their Finest Hour) etc to pseudo ignore -1/2 rend. This is most effective on a 3+ save hero (Nagash, Archaon) etc as the limit to the roll is +1, any extra means you will be ignoring -1 rend and on TFH turn -2 rend. This is new to the edition due to Mystic Shield becoming +1 save & Their Finest Hour appearing.

Initially I thought I dislike the idea of save stacking, but now I'm multiple games in I've swapped stance. It's nice to have your big heroes which you invest a lot of points in actually feel like as hard to kill as they should be. Even not for the big names (Nagash, Archaon, etc) I had a Liege-Kavalos in Petrifex elite under mystic shield & their finest hour tank Bel'akor & a Khorne Deamon prince to deny Slay the Warlord and it felt epic. 

While I can appreciate some people may think it has tipped certain big names into the too hard to kill category, I think it's nice to see them feel as epic as their points / backstory tells us. 

What are your guys thoughts on save stacking right now? 

[zilberfrid]

It doesn't invalidate rend as much as mortal wound spam does.

[Kadeton]

I like it, in the abstract. I feel like it promotes interesting strategic decisions - since most of the save bonuses can only affect one unit at a time (All-Out Defence, Mystic Shield, etc) you can stack them all on one target, and if you do then that unit is quite safe... but all your other units are vulnerable, so a savvy opponent will take the opportunity to spread their damage elsewhere.

I think the biggest flaw in practice is the abundance of mortal wounds, making the whole armour and rend system superfluous. If you want to kill something, you don't bother trying to amass high-rend attacks. It's far more efficient and reliable to max out on mortal wound output, which for some reason is significantly undercosted compared to Rend -2 or higher.

As I've commented elsewhere, I would also like to see some Rend stacking as a counterpoint to Save stacking. Like a universal command ability:

Quote

Aim for the Weak Spots: With keen instincts, these warriors target their opponents' most vulnerable areas.

You can use this command ability when you pick a friendly unit to shoot in your shooting phase or fight in the combat phase. That unit must receive the command. Subtract 1 from save rolls for attacks made by that unit until the end of that phase.

Or a universal spell:

Quote

Ensorcelled Blades: The caster conjures coruscating energy to envelop his allies' weapons, such that they penetrate the strongest armour with ease.

Ensorcelled Blades is a spell that has a casting value of 6 and a range of 12". If successfully cast, pick 1 friendly unit wholly within range and visible to the caster. Subtract 1 from save rolls for melee attacks made by that unit until your next hero phase.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I like all the new options to pump saves. I like that the new design direction generally removes rerolls and that it makes stuff generally die less fast.

However, giving everyone the ability to stack save bonuses to negate rend was a mistake. A rule of thumb that I discovered for myself is that, with no rend, you might be able to muscle past 3+ saves if you stack extra damage and attacks. But against 2+, you need at least rend -1 to realistically stand a chance. To comfortably fight against 2+, you really need rend -2.

But what save stacking does is give everything the option to not just be at a high save, frequently at least 3+, but to also be ethereal on top of it if they really need to. And that's just too much. There was a time a few years ago when an ethereal Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon was seen as borderline too tanky, to the point where it was affecting fun of many players. Now we can easily get a VLoZD on a 2+ ethereal, 5++, heal 1d3 every hero phase, and that's not even anything super special anymore. It really affects the viability of normal combat at this point.

My solution would be to change the sequenceing how saves are determined to this: Modifiers, cap, rend. That is: You first add up all modifiers to saves on the model, then cap them to +/-1, then finally apply rend. Rend is already a special case in many ways. It's not really a debuff like -1 to hit or wound, since it's baked into the core mechanics and is printed right into the attack profile of a weapon. It should not really have to play by the same rules as other modifiers, and I think the way saves are handled should reflect this.

[PlasticCraic]

Save stacking doesn't really work in the context of a game where rend -2 is relatively rare.  It was fine beforehand, where you could look at a warscroll and know that rend -2 was precious, but it's been massively left behind and the game is out of kilter as a result.  

I totally agree with @Neil Arthur Hotep's solution, i.e. capping it at +1 to save "gross" rather than "net".  The current method just makes the game too binary and creates way too many situations where it's impossible for one player's army to do anything meaningful.  Ignore it and play the objectives is a facile response - that's obviously what we all do, but it is of limited use in the big chunk of missions that have a small number of objectives jammed in the middle of the board.

As someone who also plays other game systems, I feel like it's worth pointing out that AOS in general has very limited ways to interact with an opposing army other than killing them.  MCP has loads of pushes and throws (a bit like the Slaughterpriest, but a much bigger part of the game); Star Wars Legion and Bolt Action have morale or suppression style effects, whereby you can panic a unit and reduce its effectiveness or even make it sprint towards the nearest board edge (Vader is really good at terrifying people). 

So that's the context in which I think people are frustrated when they just bounce off something unkillable - most armies don't have the tools to deal with a 0+ save, and when they don't, they've got nowhere else to go.

[Kasper]

I feel like a lot of people are exaggerating the impact of this "save stacking", like "oh but rend is now worthless". It is really not. Not every unit on the table will be at +5 to save. We do have some heroes, especially monsters, that are nigh immortal and when they make up the majority of your army, save stacking on these specific heroes does become a big deal. This coupled with the amount of healing that a single hero can receive each turn also further compounds on the "save stacking" issue. 

On the flip side save stacking also makes a whole lot of armies/units much, much more viable now. 4+ base save used to be considered pretty "meh" and average, but by combining a couple of buffs you can now make these work really well. Im heavily considering units now that I would literally never even look at in AoS 2.0. A lot of S2D units come to mind. 

 

To me save stacking is really only an issue on a few big hero pieces that literally turn into Morathi clones - Pieces you have to worry about that are literally immortal to the majority of armies. The system overall is not an issue and has only opened up for more viable units.

[Wordy9th]

My Vampire Lord is 140 points and has a 3+ save. He has 5 wounds though so he just dies when someone looks at it. What gives?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

7 minutes ago, Wordy9th said:

My Vampire Lord is 140 points and has a 3+ save. He has 5 wounds though so he just dies when someone looks at it. What gives?

I mean, if you are willing to actually burn a Finest Hour and All-Out Defense on him, he really doesn't die. Not to combat at least. A 5 wound model on a 2+/6++ takes 36 non-rend damage to kill on average. You have to be really out of positon to take that much in a single turn. 30 models at an elite profile of 2 attacks, 3+/3+/-1/1 don't do it.

Small models have the disadvantage that you can reasonably focus them down with just mortals, though. ~5 mortals in one turn is pretty easy for most tuned lists to do. So a unit of Sentinels will take a normal Vampire Lord right off the table. As will a lucky spell cast and a few incidental mortals or something.

That's what I am talking about when I said before that it's starting to affect the viability of normal combat. That stupid 5 wound Vampire Lord is hugely tough in regular combat at the moment. He still falls to mortals as easily as ever, though.

[schwabbele]

4 hours ago, AaronWilson said:

TFH

What does this mean? 

[PrimeElectrid]

1 hour ago, Kasper said:

I feel like a lot of people are exaggerating the impact of this "save stacking", like "oh but rend is now worthless". It is really not. Not every unit on the table will be at +5 to save. We do have some heroes, especially monsters, that are nigh immortal and when they make up the majority of your army, save stacking on these specific heroes does become a big deal. This coupled with the amount of healing that a single hero can receive each turn also further compounds on the "save stacking" issue. 

On the flip side save stacking also makes a whole lot of armies/units much, much more viable now. 4+ base save used to be considered pretty "meh" and average, but by combining a couple of buffs you can now make these work really well. Im heavily considering units now that I would literally never even look at in AoS 2.0. A lot of S2D units come to mind. 

 

To me save stacking is really only an issue on a few big hero pieces that literally turn into Morathi clones - Pieces you have to worry about that are literally immortal to the majority of armies. The system overall is not an issue and has only opened up for more viable units.

Because people are writing lists to maximise those big hero pieces that best take advantage of save stacking.

[Backbreaker]

I'm not a huge fan of this stacking. Mostly because there is one counter measure, mortal wounds, which is already the counter measure of most things in the game. It just makes MW even better.

And another issue might be that the stacking is not the issue but the lack of rend is... and we saw that a battleline unit like Ironjawz brutes are getting access to rend -2. I think we should wait the two first battletomes  

[Wordy9th]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I mean, if you are willing to actually burn a Finest Hour and All-Out Defense on him, he really doesn't die. Not to combat at least. A 5 wound model on a 2+/6++ takes 36 non-rend damage to kill on average. You have to be really out of positon to take that much in a single turn. 30 models at an elite profile of 2 attacks, 3+/3+/-1/1 don't do it.

Small models have the disadvantage that you can reasonably focus them down with just mortals, though. ~5 mortals in one turn is pretty easy for most tuned lists to do. So a unit of Sentinels will take a normal Vampire Lord right off the table. As will a lucky spell cast and a few incidental mortals or something.

That's what I am talking about when I said before that it's starting to affect the viability of normal combat. That stupid 5 wound Vampire Lord is hugely tough in regular combat at the moment. He still falls to mortals as easily as ever, though.

You're absolutely right. So far the problem has been mortals. A little zap from the bonetithe nexus here, a couple 1d3s from arcane bolts there and all of a sudden he's one failed save from copping it.

A part of me feels like some kind of bodyguard save for all heroes (like the necromancer) would be nice. Maybe on a baseline 4+? 

[Drazhoath]

1 hour ago, Backbreaker said:

I'm not a huge fan of this stacking. Mostly because there is one counter measure, mortal wounds, which is already the counter measure of most things in the game. It just makes MW even better.

And another issue might be that the stacking is not the issue but the lack of rend is... and we saw that a battleline unit like Ironjawz brutes are getting access to rend -2. I think we should wait the two first battletomes  

And then what? Until all the other battletomes will get a new book it takes years and until then they are too weak. The easiest way is to remove save stacking from the core rules NOW and even weaker armies can deal with big heroes.

[yukishiro1]

The theory of save stacking could work. The current implementation doesn't. Both the ability to do so and the counters to doing so are not well distributed, both across books and within books. There's no good reason that a 3+ save should be so vastly superior to a 4+ save, and there's no reason that "puny useless stuff that mortals on a 6 to hit" should be the ideal counter for unkillable god characters. The gameplay this system actually creates is not satisfying. 

The fact that they seem to be planning to address it tome by tome is also frustrating as it will create the normal power creep cycle I am frankly so sick of by now. Which GW loves, of course. 

[GrogTheGrognard]

4 hours ago, schwabbele said:

What does this mean? 

TFH would probably stand for Their Finest Hour hero ability.

[Mutton]

Save stacking has literally ruined a number of 3.0 games in our group. It completely negates so many normal units and makes them useless against anything with a 3+ save or better. It turns the game into a slog, where high-defense units/heroes mosey around without a care in the world and never die, no matter how many resources you put into killing them. It's absolute nonsense that turns the game into the dark HeroHammer days of old.

I despise it with every fiber of my being.

[Zappgrot]

11 hours ago, AaronWilson said:

Hello all. 

As we're settling into AoS 3 save stacking is a topic that comes up quite a lot and I'd though it would be interesting to have a discussion on the topic now we've a few months into AoS3. 

For those who maybe are unaware, save stacking is the practice of putting multiple instances of +1 save on a model (Mystic Shield, All out Defence, Their Finest Hour) etc to pseudo ignore -1/2 rend. This is most effective on a 3+ save hero (Nagash, Archaon) etc as the limit to the roll is +1, any extra means you will be ignoring -1 rend and on TFH turn -2 rend. This is new to the edition due to Mystic Shield becoming +1 save & Their Finest Hour appearing.

Initially I thought I dislike the idea of save stacking, but now I'm multiple games in I've swapped stance. It's nice to have your big heroes which you invest a lot of points in actually feel like as hard to kill as they should be. Even not for the big names (Nagash, Archaon, etc) I had a Liege-Kavalos in Petrifex elite under mystic shield & their finest hour tank Bel'akor & a Khorne Deamon prince to deny Slay the Warlord and it felt epic. 

While I can appreciate some people may think it has tipped certain big names into the too hard to kill category, I think it's nice to see them feel as epic as their points / backstory tells us. 

What are your guys thoughts on save stacking right now? 

My toughts are that it does not matter. Since you will get kicked of the board by mortal wounds much more then ever before. 

[Ragest]

We are already seeing the answer with 2 rend brutes and stormcast

[Zappgrot]

8 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I mean, if you are willing to actually burn a Finest Hour and All-Out Defense on him, he really doesn't die. Not to combat at least. A 5 wound model on a 2+/6++ takes 36 non-rend damage to kill on average. You have to be really out of positon to take that much in a single turn. 30 models at an elite profile of 2 attacks, 3+/3+/-1/1 don't do it.

Small models have the disadvantage that you can reasonably focus them down with just mortals, though. ~5 mortals in one turn is pretty easy for most tuned lists to do. So a unit of Sentinels will take a normal Vampire Lord right off the table. As will a lucky spell cast and a few incidental mortals or something.

That's what I am talking about when I said before that it's starting to affect the viability of normal combat. That stupid 5 wound Vampire Lord is hugely tough in regular combat at the moment. He still falls to mortals as easily as ever, though.

To be honest a unit of sentinals will take most things of the table.   A unit of 30 whit both buff will likeley do between 14 and 19 mw. No LOS needed whitin 30 inch. There is no defence except dispelling the buffs. Meaning that if your stuck whit a magic weak army. You basically ******. 

[Beliman]

As a KO player, I'm fine with the mechanic but not for the whole experience (and design) of the game.

Imho, that's because we play a 3.0 game with 2.0 army's rules.
Some armies don't have the new buffed up stuff (save stacking being one of them), others can abuse them. That's my main issue and why I really want to see what's in the first 3.0 battletomes (if we takke a look at Gravelords, they seems to be fine and be good to play with and against, so it's not that gloom & doom as some people think).

4 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:

To be honest a unit of sentinals will take most things of the table.   A unit of 30 whit both buff will likeley do between 14 and 19 mw. No LOS needed whitin 30 inch. There is no defence except dispelling the buffs. Meaning that if your stuck whit a magic weak army. You basically ******. 

Without lambent light, you are going to do 8-12 average. That's still a lot but imo, it's fine for a 450 points unit.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Beliman

[Grimrock]

1 hour ago, Ragest said:

We are already seeing the answer with 2 rend brutes and stormcast

This is the biggest thing, as far as I can tell there is a big uptick in rend available for the warscrolls that are leaking. The worst part about that is it looks like we're heading to a have/have not era where 3rd edition books are fully equipped to deal with all the meta boogymen while the ones with 2nd edition books languish and barely hang on with weird outdated combos. It's been happening in 40k for about a year now and I was really hoping it wouldn't come to AoS. 

[Kasper]

2 hours ago, Mutton said:

Save stacking has literally ruined a number of 3.0 games in our group. It completely negates so many normal units and makes them useless against anything with a 3+ save or better. It turns the game into a slog, where high-defense units/heroes mosey around without a care in the world and never die, no matter how many resources you put into killing them. It's absolute nonsense that turns the game into the dark HeroHammer days of old.

I despise it with every fiber of my being.

While I agree save stacking with the current healing mechanics is nuts on bigger heroes, I have found that the simple solution is to kill whatever else is on the board and leave the typically single juiced up unit be. This is obviously easier for more mobile armies or shooting armies in general but you usually dont HAVE to kill that one unit the opponent piled multiple buffs onto.

Edited September 9, 2021 by Kasper

[annarborhawk]

As stated by many, save stacking has put an even a higher premium on mortal wound output and mortal wound defense. That, taken together with the value of tactical objectives have fundamentally changed the feel of the game.

I'm oversimplifying, but the game has devolved into doing tactically weird/odd things (from the perspective of someone observing a battle unfold) to score tactical objectives, whilst trying at the same time to dish out as many mortal wounds to your opponent's key pieces and preventing the same from happening to yours.

I suppose that's fine. It makes for a more cinematic looking game, if that's what you're after. But it really is a sea change, and some older army books were not designed with any of this in mind, at all.  

 

 

 

[Skreech Verminking]

11 hours ago, Zappgrot said:

To be honest a unit of sentinals will take most things of the table.   A unit of 30 whit both buff will likeley do between 14 and 19 mw. No LOS needed whitin 30 inch. There is no defence except dispelling the buffs. Meaning that if your stuck whit a magic weak army. You basically ******. 

To be honest, sentinel spam, really just makes it easier for any skaventide army with a few hidden weapon teams to win the game,

especially if that skaventide player gets the first turn.

[Zappgrot]

1 hour ago, Skreech Verminking said:

To be honest, sentinel spam, really just makes it easier for any skaventide army with a few hidden weapon teams to win the game,

especially if that skaventide player gets the first turn.

Well at least there is one thing skaven might be good at theb.