Warscroll Changes vs Points Changes

[Enoby]

Age of Sigmar, compared to older 40k and Fantasy, has had a fantastic opportunity to remain more balanced throughout editions thanks to semi-annual points changes and battlepack updates. With most of the gaming information of the hobby (e.g. points updates, FAQs, erratas, warscroll updates) being available online to a wide audience, they have a large advantage in the form of easy updates.

I would say close to all competitive players keep up to date with the FAQs and commentaries only available online, as well as buying the newest GHB to keep up to date on points. Points changes, FAQs, and designer commentaries can be swing an army (or an entire system) massively should they be great enough. As such, I find it interesting that despite other regular important updates for the game, Warscroll updates are few and far between (and usually just consist of a single ability change, or once per few years in campaign books).

Most of the time, a warscroll that is too powerful will simply have its points increased, whereas a warscroll that's too weak will have its points decreased. While this should work on paper, it comes with three caveats:

- Making a bad warscroll cheaper doesn't make it any more interesting to use, it just turns it into cheap chaff or a list filler; no one in S2D is wanting to use Spire Tyrants despite their miniscule cost, for example.

- Making a too-good warscroll more expensive may work at a competitive level, but sometimes it just homogenises lists by kicking out flavourful additions to fit the strong unit in. In addition, it doesn't make that model any more fun to play against.

- Some models (mostly Sons of Behemat) rest on such a fine line that any significant points increase would break the army, and any decrease would hardly matter.

That said, it's not as if updating warscrolls (or allegiance abilities for that matter) would be a perfect solution. It comes with a number of downsides:

- For those who don't keep up with updates, they may well be confused to have someone tell them in the middle of the game that their monster's save is one worse, or that the attacks of an opposing unit is much better than initially thought.

- To follow on from this, it would date battletomes even more quickly (though it could be argued FAQs do this already).

- With points changes, you can generally be pretty conservative with them to feel out the correct balance. With a warscroll change, it would often be a larger change that has a much higher chance of inintended consequences.

- If GW got a bit too warscroll change happy, they may change warscrolls that most people like into something less enjoyable.

- Without using the app, warscroll changes are much harder to keep a track of compared to points.

- Nobody wants their list becoming much less fun (or totally different) in one FAQ.

 

Overall I would like to see some more warscroll changes on the weakest and most uninspiring of warscrolls. I believe points changes are great for those units that fall into the "fine, but they're outcompeted in their own army" units, but they aren't enough to tone down the most egregious warscrolls (without ridiculously points tax) nor are they enough to make some warscrolls feel enjoyable to use.

In addition, I think it would be a good opportunity to discuss what warscrolls would be in line for a change. I'd wager most armies have a few "wouldn't even use at half the cost" units.

What are your thoughts?

[JackStreicher]

Point changes are fine. However, as you‘ve stated, those changes do nothing to make very weak and flavorless warscrolls any more interesting or usable.

I‘d prefer them to update bad warscrolls every year/half a year. This way they can avoid rewrites by making the warscroll useful the moment it is released.

Latest examples for WS that need a rewrite: Black Knights, Wight Kings, half of the Stormcast Heroes.

Edited October 30, 2021 by JackStreicher

[yukishiro1]

I think the stormcast heroes are hopeless, there's just double as many as any faction could ever reasonably need. There's no possible way to make 36 different hero options all compelling choices. 

On updating generally, they need to move into the 21st century and use a digital rules distribution system, not tie rules to physical books that only get updated every 3-4 years. It's just so horribly out of date. 

Edited October 30, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Lurynsar]

So I think the problem is two-fold personally. 

The first issue is balance is impossible. No not trying to say GW can’t do better, but in any level of competitive game you’ll always have optimal. As such Warscrolls are often seen as weak, bad, garbage etc (especially among the more competitive minded group of us) when in reality they’re just not optimal for the optimal list in the optimal faction. This issue will never be solved. Better scrolls or points changes will simply change what’s optimal and new Warscrolls will become bad, weak or garbage. 

I personally wish GW moved primarily to the app. This would allow changes to literally anything at a whim should it be truly needed. I understand some sect of the AoS population is against the app, and is against constant changes. Like said nobody wants their entire army to change. I mean I do. Constantly updating stuff makes the competitive meta so much more exciting, and wouldn’t really bother me if it was implemented well, but would likely hurt the casual players who are the largest playerbase  

But to the actual issue points are the easiest way to disrupt the least amount of players. People in this game often seem so against change that they don’t take time to understand it before they claim OP or Garbage or whatever their go to is. Look at 3.0s release. A ton of people calling it bad, or broken or ****** or what have you because it changes the game. But the tournament scene seems more healthy than before. Are certain things overturned? Sure. But it doesn’t seem anywhere near as bad as times in 2.0. This is why points works. Most of the issues right now can likely be fixed via point increases on the stuff that’s too efficient and that will likely naturally shift the games balance. 

So could Warscrolls be changed? Yes. I’d even want them to be. However you open a can of worms with players thinking X Y and Z deserve changes, but only A, B and C getting the changes. And to be totally honest most of the people who try to tell me about why something is good or bad in this game… are not people I want having any say in pushing for changes. People rarely can be objective and the amount of people who automatically have an opinion that something is OP/Garbage is way too high. Very few Warscrolls can be properly evaluated without a ton of games played, despite what people will claim. This is why I’d be terrified of any sort of system that updates Warscrolls if it has any public input. People subconsciously are bias one way or another in design, and it shows time and time again. 

So can GW do it? yes. Should it be done? Maybe. Should players have any input in it? Nope (for proof of this see how hard Warmachine failed even when trying to do constant changes with the entire community able to play test). But at the very least GW needs to embrace digital technology and their app and use it to update the game/armies as needed without being tied to new model releases and physical media. That would be better for everyone if every 3.0 book just came out with the new units coming “soon” just omitted until they released. Sure some spells or allegiance might make less sense until the model release. But at least we wouldn’t be waiting and told “the game is balanced with all the new books, just wait until they’re all out” (like 40K…)

[Sarouan]

Just a question : on which criterias do you objectively say a bad/good warscroll is "bad/good" ?

Edited October 30, 2021 by Sarouan

[OkayestDM]

6 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

Just a question : on which criterias do you objectively say a bad/good warscroll is "bad/good" ?

This is the question right here, because so much of the conversation turns on how we interpret this aspect.

For my part, I try to look at what the unit in the warscroll is supposed to be doing and how well its stats, abilities, and other design elements interact with that.

Vanquishers are a "killy" unit that cannot perform its role against heroes, monsters, or small, elite units, and it doesn't synergize well with it's own abilities.

Gors are technically a screening/battleline unit, but there are other units that fill those roles more efficiently and effectively.

Importantly, a unit that performs its role too well can be just as bad as one that performs it poorly. 

Pink Horrors are a screening/tarpit unit that was simply too good at what it did. (Might still be, I'm not sure any more.)

Sentinels are a power projection unit that can be made oppressive fairly easily, and with limited options for counterplay.

A "good" unit is one that fulfills its function without either being too good or too bad at what it does. There's a lot of gradient in there, and there will always be some units that edge others out, but that's where points changes take over.

[Skreech Verminking]

9 minutes ago, OkayestDM said:

Gors are technically a screening/battleline unit, but there are other units that fill those roles more efficiently and effectively.

From a fluff perspective this unit should be a horde blender.

Yet it isn’t 

[Ferban]

I completely agree that some warscrolls just don't seem to do what they are intended to do.  I think that is an issue that can and should be updated with warscroll updates.  A good example was Pink Horrors being too good (still seem pretty good) and the changes to make some of the Nurgle demon heroes more relevant.  

But, I generally think that Warscroll changes should be infrequent.  As noted above, a warscroll change can (much more easily than points adjustments) lead to some unintended consequences breaking other parts of the game.  And I could definitely see it causing confusion for players who aren't as up on the changes being told about warscroll changes mid-game at their local shop.  

I also think warscroll changes could could lead to a real feel bad moment.  If you ran out and bought a particular unit because it did some cool thing that you wanted as part of your overall strategy, and then the warscroll was changed to eliminate that ability, that could be a feel bad moment.  It might make you feel like you wasted the time, money, and effort.  And, undoubtedly, it would fuel accusations (which might or might not be true) that GW was nerfing old warscrolls in order to sell new models.  

I think warscroll adjustments should be targeted to the most problematic units (either too good or too irrelevant) and should be done only very rarely.  Otherwise, I think reserving significant warscroll changes for a battletome refresh (2-3ish years apart?) is about the right frequency.  

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

On 10/30/2021 at 10:22 PM, Sarouan said:

Just a question : on which criterias do you objectively say a bad/good warscroll is "bad/good" ?

There are at least a few more or less objective criteria you could try.

Does the unit have a role on the battlefield?

There are a few units in the game where there is just no reason to put them in a list, because there is no real way in which they advance your game plan, whatever it may be. A lot of combat heroes fall into this niche, they generally don't deal point efficient damage and don't offer anything else that would make them an interesting choice. If the unit in question is not a hero, sometimes it can be made into a chaff unit by point drops, but that is not always what you want units to be. In this case, a warscroll rewrite seems like the only solution if you want to give the unit another role besides chaff.

If the unit has a role, is that role too crowded?

The old Ungor/Gor/Bestigor situation. You have three infantry horde units. If you want them for chaff, you pick the cheapest one (Ungors). If you want them for damage, you pick the expensive one (Bestigors). Gors are left without a use, since they just end up being the second best choice no matter what you want them to do. No matter how you monkey around with the points, there is no real solution here where all three units are attractive to play. Only a warscroll rewrite that gives Gors a different use from Ungors and Bestigors can really fix this situation.

Can the unit be made viable by point drops without compromising its fluff?

Imagine you have a unit of huge, bulky, elite guys. Let's say their warscroll makes them an underperformer. Maybe it's unfocussed. Let's say they are a decent tank, but don't quite hit strongly enough and are a bit too immobile. They could well be worth it with a point drop. But what do you do if  a point drop would bring them into direct competition with a unit that currently does perform well, but is much less elite in the fluff? It's not really easy to get them to perform by giving them point drops without ****** with the narrative of what the faction is supposed to be. This also seems like good case for a warscroll rewrite to me.

[Maddpainting]

They really do need to make more warscroll changes and honestly the Kragnos books for the most part did that just fine... other than my main army which actually made the warscrolls worst.....  Now I have literally zero reasons to take the 2 units that got changed. 

On 10/30/2021 at 4:22 PM, Sarouan said:

Just a question : on which criterias do you objectively say a bad/good warscroll is "bad/good" ?

As already said but want to agree and add.

A unit should have a role (a purpose), those roles can be Jack of All, cheap chaff, hard hitters, tanks, it could even just be a menace to deal with, what every that is it needs to do that. It is ok to have units overlaps in roles, this adds flavor as long as they are distinctly different and a unit is not completely over shadowing the others.

But also does the army even need that unit or does that unit have synergies with the army and other units and are its synergies bad units? Sometimes the warscroll is fine but the supporting units are terrible, or the army has no need for that unit at all.

An example of Sharing the same roles in Beastmen, no matter what in its current state Ungors and Gors are competing for a place, there is no reason to bring both. Both deals little to no damage, both die to everything, both are battleline, and are within 5pts of each other, neither gains any buffs that you want in those units. So we use to go for the cheaper one then they made them about the same cost so now we go for Gors only bc the bases are bigger or a chance to use that +1 to saves the Ungors don't have. 

 

[Kadeton]

On 10/31/2021 at 4:22 AM, Sarouan said:

Just a question : on which criterias do you objectively say a bad/good warscroll is "bad/good" ?

Objectivity is not relevant or useful here, since we're talking about the human experience of playing the game. What you should be looking for is broad trends and consensus. This could be indicated by sales figures in the primary and secondary markets, army composition statistics at events, and direct player feedback.

In the broadest possible sense, a unit that is popular is "good" and one that is unpopular is "bad", because the relative usage of any given unit is the natural expression of its perceived value among the player community. Find the over-used and under-used outliers, and you've got your set of warscrolls that need attention and adjustment.

[Mattrulesok]

On 10/31/2021 at 2:43 AM, yukishiro1 said:

I think the stormcast heroes are hopeless, there's just double as many as any faction could ever reasonably need. There's no possible way to make 36 different hero options all compelling choices. 

On updating generally, they need to move into the 21st century and use a digital rules distribution system, not tie rules to physical books that only get updated every 3-4 years. It's just so horribly out of date. 

the thing that baffles me with the stormcast heroes is that they removed rules from some of the heroes for no reason, taking many of them from bad but interesting to bad and boring warscrolls. 🤷‍♂️

 

Like look at the poor heraldor warscroll, look at how they massacred my boy! He used to be useless in combat, on a 4+ save for no discernable reason BUT he granted a run/retreat and charge plus some finicky mortal wounds. Now he just does the mortal wounds and is slightly better in combat but has lost all actual purpose, I don't understand it at all.

[Beliman]

3 minutes ago, Mattrulesok said:

he thing that baffles me with the stormcast heroes is that they removed rules from some of the heroes for no reason, taking many of them from bad but interesting to bad and boring warscrolls. 🤷‍♂️

I think that will be the standard for all armies: Two abilities (or less) for low-wounds heroes and move on. Of course we are going to see some others like Wardokks, but I think they the exception of the rule.

Time will tell

[Mattrulesok]

10 minutes ago, Beliman said:

I think that will be the standard for all armies: Two abilities (or less) for low-wounds heroes and move on. Of course we are going to see some others like Wardokks, but I think they the exception of the rule.

Time will tell

and TBH i don't mind them simplifying but some they made outright do nothing. I think if you are going to give little heroes one ability it should be more than 'do mortals on a 6'. The heraldor is a good example because he had 2 abilities on his warscroll, functionally he could have been kept the same and stayed simple to use but if they wanted to remove one they should have removed the mortal wounds and kept his utility. Right now no one will use the heraldor until he goes down to like 70 points at which point someone will probably take 5 to a tournament with the ultimate NPE army doing 40 mortal wounds in a turn.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Mattrulesok said:

Right now no one will use the heraldor until he goes down to like 70 points at which point someone will probably take 5 to a tournament with the ultimate NPE army doing 40 mortal wounds in a turn.

I have only recently come to appreciate the strength of a reasonable mortal wound bomb on a generic hero after seeing the Knight-Judicator spam list. I actually think that kind of ability may be a design mistake, becaue it's often irrelevant if you only have one copy of it or overpowered when you spam it. Dropping 1d3 mortals in a bubble once per game isn't really impactful, but if you have the ability to drop 5d3 mortals wherever you want, suddenly you can just nuke all your opponent's heroes.

[EMMachine]

On 10/30/2021 at 10:03 PM, Lurynsar said:

I personally wish GW moved primarily to the app. This would allow changes to literally anything at a whim should it be truly needed. I understand some sect of the AoS population is against the app, and is against constant changes. Like said nobody wants their entire army to change. I mean I do. Constantly updating stuff makes the competitive meta so much more exciting, and wouldn’t really bother me if it was implemented well, but would likely hurt the casual players who are the largest playerbase  

The problem is, the app isn't multilingual, so if you want to play in english it's maybe fine, but if you want to play with for example german rules you don't get those with the app (I used the old app, so I was able to get the english rules next to my printed german publications). And what do you do if the battery of the mobile device you use for the app dies in the first turn of your battle? I had my smartphone for 6 years, in the endphase, it wasn't able to charge well anymore (with the third battery) and even plugs to powersupply it was possible that it simply stopped working. Now I have send it to rest, but still not bought a new one. (plus, most likely being forced to an online subscribtion, losing anything when you stop subscribing)

GW had the possibiliy to change warscrolls until 3. Edition without the use of an App. They had the warscrolls to download on their page and in rare cases they changed the pdf and made an Errata saying "don't use the warscroll of the book, instead use the warscroll of the webpage".

 

Like others said, point changes are the easiest way to change balancing but either you change points or rules, the prolem will be that every change will only move balancing, making other units bad.

[Phasteon]

4 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have only recently come to appreciate the strength of a reasonable mortal wound bomb on a generic hero after seeing the Knight-Judicator spam list. I actually think that kind of ability may be a design mistake, becaue it's often irrelevant if you only have one copy of it or overpowered when you spam it. Dropping 1d3 mortals in a bubble once per game isn't really impactful, but if you have the ability to drop 5d3 mortals wherever you want, suddenly you can just nuke all your opponent's heroes.

Does this strategy realistically work though? 

1) its on a 4+, so you might miss a lot of damage

2) 5 KJudicators are over 1k points

3) a smart opponent can just keep their heroes more than 12“ from another. Since pretty much all 5 KJudicators do is that onetrick spreading out shouldnt be too bad

4) even if you delete like 400p-500p of Heroes you still have like 1000p army against 1500p of enemy army

 

I dont see KJudicator spam being a serious „meta list“ its more of a onetrick that might catch people off guard once, but not if they know what the KJ does.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Just now, Phasteon said:

Does this strategy realistically work though? 

The list went 5-0, so I guess that ends the need for speculation whether or not it's viable

The Knight-Judicator comes with some nice upside besides the 1d3 once per game mortal wound bomb. It also has a great attack profile of 2 attacks, 3/2/-3/3 at 30" so it puts out good damage every turn, and it comes with two Gryph Hounds for chaff.

Busting up the opponent's big centerpiece hero or their castle turn one and then laying down the suppression fire seems like it could be worth it, even at 1000 points. Just looking at it as 1000 points vs 1500 points is too reductive, if your 1000 points manage to take out the centerpiece of their list that everything else revolves around it can still be worth doing. Not to mention that a 6" within bubble is going to catch more than just a single hero almost guaranteed.

[Phasteon]

3 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

The list went 5-0, so I guess that ends the need for speculation whether or not it's viable

The Knight-Judicator comes with some nice upside besides the 1d3 once per game mortal wound bomb. It also has a great attack profile of 2 attacks, 3/2/-3/3 at 30" so it puts out good damage every turn, and it comes with two Gryph Hounds for chaff.

Busting up the opponent's big centerpiece hero or their castle turn one and then laying down the suppression fire seems like it could be worth it, even at 1000 points. Just looking at it as 1000 points vs 1500 points is too reductive, if your 1000 points manage to take out the centerpiece of their list that everything else revolves around it can still be worth doing. Not to mention that a 6" within bubble is going to catch more than just a single hero almost guaranteed.

Many big Centerpieces come with a Ward (Archaon and Nagash having 4+ against MW) 

A single 5-0 surely cant be ignored, but its a single result pretty early this edition.

I wouldnt call it „overpowered“.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 minute ago, Phasteon said:

Many big Centerpieces come with a Ward (Archaon and Nagash having 4+ against MW) 

A single 5-0 surely cant be ignored, but its a single result pretty early this edition.

I wouldnt call it „overpowered“.

If you take issue with the wording, then forget about me calling it overpowered in that one sentence. It might have been more appropriate to call it something else, although I don't quite know what. My point is, I am almost certain that the GW rules people think of 1d3 once per game abilities as little nice to have extras on a warscroll, but if they are put on generic heroes they might absolutely end up doing way more work than might be expected (at least more than I initially expected when I saw the Knight-Judicator warscroll).

I think from a design perspective, 1d3 mortal wounds is pretty hard to handle. If you are not careful, that can turn into 5d3 mortal wounds in one turn really quick, and that is definitely enough to put a serious dent into most things. But this is slowly getting off-topic.

[Popisdead]

On 10/30/2021 at 3:24 AM, Enoby said:

Age of Sigmar, compared to older 40k and Fantasy, has had a fantastic opportunity to remain more balanced throughout editions thanks to semi-annual points changes and battlepack updates. 

I think it's pretty obvious with a few example Battletomes what makes things work and what doesn't. 

Beasts of Chaos and Hedonites of Slaanesh (the latter especially) really struggle with synergy and some warscrolls in a game where dropping points just makes them spammable but,.. not great.  I look at HoS as a very different maybe confused way of writing a battletome.  Perhaps time will tell it has legs and points changes could indeed benefit.

Dropping points in BoC did nothing.  It is an architectural issue with design.  Granted if they re-wrote any warscrolls in that book properly, it could do a lot.

GW has re-written warscrolls outside books and I don't want to see books as a means to be reprinted often as,. well that's not a good value or system.  I think General's Handbook is a good method of updating Warscrolls in need of it.  It is annual, likely not going to be moot as there shouldn't be such issues as book re-writes/prints it's too chaotic and for matched play players, it affects those who need it most.  I don't want to see the system move to an app.  That prevents the entry of new gamers and adds another layer of complexity as historically the app has been wrong, and never fixed.  GW is bad with apps.  

GW has also already done this with Alarielle, the Jabberslythe, etc.  It's not a bad idea for warscroll re-writes.  Alarielle is the perfect example.  She's amazing right now and has never been better.  

At no points cost would Bullgors be a good optimal choice in AoS 3.  As BL they give away Broken Ranks really easy, and hitting on a 4+  with very few attacks (even with all out attack) make them,.. so susceptible to dice spiking they are just a weak choice.  

 

[JackStreicher]

Quite honestly: we need to get away from the term „Balance“ since it is way too broad.

What GW should do is making every Warscroll decent - do not overdo them, simply make them decent.

This means: Every Warscroll needs a role and it needs to be good at something’s that’s relevant to the army. There‘re a lot of warscrolls that are obviously not decent like the Black Knights, Wight Kings, most SCE Heroes, Chaos Warbands, Certain Wizards riding noble creatures etc.

Most of these Warscrolls can be identified as trash by a quick glance:

Oh it has the melee profile of a Skeleton, the armour save too and a non-scalable maybe-Mortal wounds mechanic on the charge, while there is no retreat and charge in the entire army? Maybe that Warscroll should be rewritten.

[Mattrulesok]

21 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have only recently come to appreciate the strength of a reasonable mortal wound bomb on a generic hero after seeing the Knight-Judicator spam list. I actually think that kind of ability may be a design mistake, becaue it's often irrelevant if you only have one copy of it or overpowered when you spam it. Dropping 1d3 mortals in a bubble once per game isn't really impactful, but if you have the ability to drop 5d3 mortals wherever you want, suddenly you can just nuke all your opponent's heroes.

Yep, start of this edition before the new book i was running 2 heraldors and annihilators and i caught so many people off guard with the sheer amount of mortal wounds it did for relatively little effort. I still want to try a 6 knight vexillor list for the memes because 6 lots of guaranteed d3 mortal wounds in a 12 inch bubble is stupid

[Yondaime]

1 hour ago, Mattrulesok said:

Yep, start of this edition before the new book i was running 2 heraldors and annihilators and i caught so many people off guard with the sheer amount of mortal wounds it did for relatively little effort. I still want to try a 6 knight vexillor list for the memes because 6 lots of guaranteed d3 mortal wounds in a 12 inch bubble is stupid

There is a list that won a major tournament with 6 knight judicators and a fox

 

For some units a point change is not enought, pink horrors, kairos and belakor are wrong on warscroll level for example

[MitGas]

Fix Chaos Warriors for Eff‘s sake already… 🙄 Seriously, GW should‘ve redone some warscrolls like 2 years ago. No idea what they are thinking in some cases. Some are neither fluffy nor competitive and nothing changes despite having to keep up with multiple things. They also need to really look at the overall rules of the game if they want AoS to continue thriving like it should…