The Winter Rules Update

[Kadeton]

4 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

You do know factions like Kharadron only have one battleline warscroll, right?

I think that's sensible, personally. Most militaries are overwhelmingly made up of a single "unit type", a standardised basic infantry. Most AoS armies should have one or two basic units that make up the bulk of their forces.

The bit that's missing from AoS is that real militaries deploy basic infantry not because they're forced to take a "battleline tax" by some arbitrary rules of engagement, but because basic infantry are the most cost-effective general-purpose military asset. You shouldn't need to force players to take Battleline units, they should just be good value for their points and army composition would take care of itself.

[dirkdragonslayer]

54 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

I think that's sensible, personally. Most militaries are overwhelmingly made up of a single "unit type", a standardised basic infantry. Most AoS armies should have one or two basic units that make up the bulk of their forces.

The bit that's missing from AoS is that real militaries deploy basic infantry not because they're forced to take a "battleline tax" by some arbitrary rules of engagement, but because basic infantry are the most cost-effective general-purpose military asset. You shouldn't need to force players to take Battleline units, they should just be good value for their points and army composition would take care of itself.

Coming from 40k, making a basic unit such good value that you bring it even without requirement can be a slippery slope. I remember in early 8th edition common wisdom for Orks was "bring boys." Point-for-point, Boyz were the most efficient unit in the army for basically any purpose, and you would bring ~100. Specialists like Nobz, Flash Gits, or Burnaz? Cheaper to bring more Boyz for more attacks. Eventually they were tuned and other units improved, but I remember the days of only Boyz and Mek Gunz.

[yukishiro1]

I think the way to make basic troops useful isn't to make them the most efficient but to make them the best at scoring. Ob-sec was the right idea, GW just goofed by giving it out to non-troops like candy in 9th edition books. But there are other ways you could accomplish the same thing re: making people want to take basic battleline not because they're the best at stomping the opponent but because they're best at actually winning your games. 

None of this matters as long as conditional battleline is thing, though. There's no way they can give battleline special scoring abilities when you can have armies where the "battleline" is all 12 wound monsters. 

I mean I guess you could put it right on the warscrolls of "real" battleline units and then battleline wouldn't have any relevance except for army construction. It'd be kinda awkward, though. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Ganigumo]

6 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

The trouble with conditional battleline is it makes it difficult to make battleline an actual meaningful thing. You can't have a rule like ob-sec in 40k that makes troops valuable (well, at least until they started handing it out like candy to non-troops) because almost anything can be troops in AOS. And it also greatly exacerbates issues with unit spam, one of the game's major scourges. And the bad approach to GSes has only made it even more attractive to load up on conditional battleline spam to get a free 3 points at the end of the game, too. 

I'd prefer a game without conditional battleline, but where battleline actually means something beyond list construction. Or at least one where conditional battleline allows you to take units as an alternative to battleline, but that don't count as battleline themselves. So if you really want that army full of stegadons you can...but you'll pay for it by not having access to powerful rules that normal battleline units have. 

The other upside to that approach is that balance is a lot simpler in an environment where competitive armies all look at least vaguely similar, instead of the current environment where they're stuck trying to balance 200-model 1W hordes against 5-10 model monster spam lists. 

Nobody is upset by the guy running 100 squig hoppers, just the guy running 50 sentinels or 70 horrors.
So the problem comes down to one of two things:

1. The unit itself is broken
2. The book is awful and its the only good thing in the entire book

Both of which are failures in balance that should be addressed DIRECTLY, not by adding more complexity to listbuilding that are just a bandaid.

Putting in hard rules against spam (like 40k's rule of 3, which wasn't even enough as shown by the extra limits they had to place on fliers and ork buggies) do nothing except hide and diminish the effect of horrible balance by creating a "bottleneck". (side note, I despise 40k's army composition rules. Complex, but shallow with a ton of limitations to attempt to reign in broken builds that still show up which also heavily punish bad silly lists.)

The purpose of "battleline" units in my opinion is to guide listbuilding, not tax armies or create more "realistic" armies (aos is high fantasy where basically anything goes).  From a purely mechanical standpoint I wouldn't be against getting rid of battleline in its entirety, but I think providing some structure to listbuilding is a net positive, especially for newer players.

 

[Beliman]

9 hours ago, dirkdragonslayer said:

Coming from 40k, making a basic unit such good value that you bring it even without requirement can be a slippery slope. I remember in early 8th edition common wisdom for Orks was "bring boys." Point-for-point, Boyz were the most efficient unit in the army for basically any purpose, and you would bring ~100. Specialists like Nobz, Flash Gits, or Burnaz? Cheaper to bring more Boyz for more attacks. Eventually they were tuned and other units improved, but I remember the days of only Boyz and Mek Gunz.

I think that's exactly what happens in AoS.

Only bodycount, buff-stacking (for a lot of attacks) and their base size are the main selling points for Horde. It could be a lot worst, like giving some type of mechanic to monsters to take objective... mmm... ouch! 

Another thing to take in mind is that AoS armies are completely diferent. There are armies with only 3 troops, others without any monsters, others without any cavalry or artillery, others with just 1 battleline, etc... It's not easy to write core-rules for all of them.

Edited December 29, 2021 by Beliman

[yukishiro1]

59 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

Nobody is upset by the guy running 100 squig hoppers, just the guy running 50 sentinels or 70 horrors.
So the problem comes down to one of two things:

1. The unit itself is broken
2. The book is awful and its the only good thing in the entire book

Both of which are failures in balance that should be addressed DIRECTLY, not by adding more complexity to listbuilding that are just a bandaid.

I dunno that this is really true. I don't think you'd necessarily see more diversity even if units were better balanced. More diversity of armies, possibly, but not necessarily more diversity of units within a single list. The fact is that AOS' mechanics don't easily lend themselves to a lot of different unit roles, and many mechanics - above all the emphasis on power pairs and buff synergies - tend to reinforce the value of spamming the same unit rather than taking two different ones, even if the two are perfectly balanced before you figure in the cost of supplying buffs to them.

You see this in practice in how AOS units actually work. Nobody takes anything but Mortek in OBR because the elite infantry choices don't measure up. But if you made them measure up, then why take Mortek? Expecting perfect balance is not realistic and as long as the balance isn't perfect people will just take whichever is better, unless they are forced not to, in the absence of some basic rules that actually distinguish the two on more than just unit stats. Meanwhile in Fyreslayers nobody takes Vulkites because the elite choice do the same basic role, but better. And I don't think that'd change by just buffing Vulkites, unless you buffed them so much that everyone would just start taking them instead. I can see a world where you could viably base you army around either, but it's hard to see one without new rules for basic troops where you'd want to take a mixed force of both instead of going heavy into one or the other. 

GW recognized this with monsters - without a toughness stat it's difficult to make them have an obvious role - and gave them new rules other units didn't have to make them more useful. I don't see why it'd be a bad idea to do the same thing with basic troops, another generally under-used unit type in AOS. It could be simpler than monstrous rampages, but something to give you a good reason to take those units in all or at least most armies seems like it'd be a good change. 

There are exceptions - I think Nurgle is a good example of a book where all the units (except some of the heroes and maybe foot blightkings) have play, and where it makes sense to take a combined arms approach rather than spam. But that's because the basic units are so extremely specialized - Plaguebearers pay for nothing but wounds and models on objectives, having absolutely zero mobility and damage output, and that naturally creates a role for the faster moving, harder-hitting units because you literally can't get across the board or kill anything otherwise. But few armies have basic troops as ridiculously specialized as Plaguebringers. 

Edited December 29, 2021 by yukishiro1

[zilberfrid]

7 hours ago, Orbei said:

Yeah. I play IDK which only has one default battleline as well. They should probably give factions like those more kits. 

Absolutely, but remember this is GW we're talking about, whose rule mantra is "First, do harm, then maybe fix the wrong thing in 6 months".

I would see them taking away conditional battleline, and never adding a second battleline kit.

I like much of how Kharadron do it, with a second battleline choice dependent on subfaction, and you only have two battleline choices in total. Endrinmaster breaks that though.

[zilberfrid]

3 hours ago, Kadeton said:

I think that's sensible, personally. Most militaries are overwhelmingly made up of a single "unit type", a standardised basic infantry. Most AoS armies should have one or two basic units that make up the bulk of their forces.

The bit that's missing from AoS is that real militaries deploy basic infantry not because they're forced to take a "battleline tax" by some arbitrary rules of engagement, but because basic infantry are the most cost-effective general-purpose military asset. You shouldn't need to force players to take Battleline units, they should just be good value for their points and army composition would take care of itself.

Let's not talk about modern strategic troop types in AoS, that's way beyond where AoS falls apart in realism.

It doesn't apply before modern day (to most armies and it leads to less diversity and list choices. Then, it creates much worse balance between factions that do have a good battleline and those where it sucks.

[Kadeton]

5 hours ago, dirkdragonslayer said:

Coming from 40k, making a basic unit such good value that you bring it even without requirement can be a slippery slope. I remember in early 8th edition common wisdom for Orks was "bring boys." Point-for-point, Boyz were the most efficient unit in the army for basically any purpose, and you would bring ~100. Specialists like Nobz, Flash Gits, or Burnaz? Cheaper to bring more Boyz for more attacks. Eventually they were tuned and other units improved, but I remember the days of only Boyz and Mek Gunz.

Sure, me too. Given the choice between two evils, I prefer "Bring as many Boyz as possible" to "Only bring as many Boyz as you're forced to", which is where AoS is at right now. Obviously "Bring a variety of units" would be lovely but no GW game has managed to get there yet.

4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

I think the way to make basic troops useful isn't to make them the most efficient but to make them the best at scoring. Ob-sec was the right idea, GW just goofed by giving it out to non-troops like candy in 9th edition books. But there are other ways you could accomplish the same thing re: making people want to take basic battleline not because they're the best at stomping the opponent but because they're best at actually winning your games.

I like the concept, but hate GW's executions of this. Objectives already feel meaningless and artificial, being just a spot where you stand until bing! you "win" and then everyone stops fighting and goes home. Layering the idea that certain troops have such a magical talent for standing around that nobody else can compete, on top of that abstraction, just becomes a step too far away from any sense of what is actually being represented in the game.

Achieving objectives should always be more important than killing. To my mind, the reason to use Battleline units for that would be that they're very cheap, and you don't want to spend your more expensive units' valuable time faffing about with an artefact or whatever it is they're doing to "score points" when they could be fighting. That's a valuable form of efficiency.

2 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

Let's not talk about modern strategic troop types in AoS, that's way beyond where AoS falls apart in realism.

It doesn't apply before modern day (to most armies and it leads to less diversity and list choices. Then, it creates much worse balance between factions that do have a good battleline and those where it sucks.

To be honest, I was mostly thinking along the lines of Roman legionaries, or medieval pikes and crossbows. And yeah, AoS is ultra-high fantasy, but all the magic superheroes must still be vastly outnumbered by "ordinary people" of all races, who should have a role in warfare.

[Feii]

[zilberfrid]

55 minutes ago, Kadeton said:

Sure, me too. Given the choice between two evils, I prefer "Bring as many Boyz as possible" to "Only bring as many Boyz as you're forced to", which is where AoS is at right now. Obviously "Bring a variety of units" would be lovely but no GW game has managed to get there yet.

I like the concept, but hate GW's executions of this. Objectives already feel meaningless and artificial, being just a spot where you stand until bing! you "win" and then everyone stops fighting and goes home. Layering the idea that certain troops have such a magical talent for standing around that nobody else can compete, on top of that abstraction, just becomes a step too far away from any sense of what is actually being represented in the game.

Achieving objectives should always be more important than killing. To my mind, the reason to use Battleline units for that would be that they're very cheap, and you don't want to spend your more expensive units' valuable time faffing about with an artefact or whatever it is they're doing to "score points" when they could be fighting. That's a valuable form of efficiency.

To be honest, I was mostly thinking along the lines of Roman legionaries, or medieval pikes and crossbows. And yeah, AoS is ultra-high fantasy, but all the magic superheroes must still be vastly outnumbered by "ordinary people" of all races, who should have a role in warfare.

Roman legionaries, like Hastati, Principer and Triarii (with some added skirmishers and archers)?

I know, the post-marian reforms legionairs are an exception, where it's mostly one type with some additions.

If you're looking at later armies, you'd find at least a difference between ranged and melee.

So yes, the pike AND the shot (whether gunpowder or crossbow, or a mix) would be battleline, with cavalry, specialist infantry and artillery being non-battleline.

Though arguably in some historical engagements cavalry or specialist infantry were the only troops. The famous "charge of the light brigade" had one end all cavalry, and the other did have infantry, but it was the artillery that was more decisive (for the Russians, the battleline looks right).

Similar with Scythians and Mongols.

I'd say you need at least 2 battleline options, more than some armies have. I love Arkanauts, but not 30 of them. 2*10 and another battleline choice, that I can manage.

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

I'd say you need at least 2 battleline options, more than some armies have. I love Arkanauts, but not 30 of them. 2*10 and another battleline choice, that I can manage.

Two seems fine if your forces typically separate melee and ranged. Arkanauts thematically seem like they're intended to be capable at both, even if their game profiles don't reflect that?

And I think the point of what I'm saying is that you shouldn't have to take 30 of them if you don't want to. Instead, they should provide something valuable to the list, so that you want to take them. If removing minimum battleline (and battleline-if) means that you wouldn't take any battleline units, then those units need to be improved until they're worthwhile. If you then decide that you only want 20 because you want more variety of units, that's great - you do you.

[JackStreicher]

2 hours ago, Feii said:

!?

immortal giants would be back. Morathi was designed that way because you can actually, rather easily kill her.

[Feii]

16 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

!?

immortal giants would be back. Morathi was designed that way because you can actually, rather easily kill her.

It's a joke and easily killing morathi is well an interesting take. 

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

!?

immortal giants would be back. Morathi was designed that way because you can actually, rather easily kill her.

I mean, if the amulet had a restriction, where only 6 or less wounds carrying heroes could take it, it might be ok-ish.

But personally I’m fine with the 6+ ward save for now.

[AdamR]

It could have a ward save based on the users Wounds characteristic. Say sub 10 4+, sub 20 5+ 20 or more 6+ ( or sub 8/ sub 15/ 15+... Whatever floats your boat!)

Just an idea!

[zilberfrid]

4 hours ago, Kadeton said:

Two seems fine if your forces typically separate melee and ranged. Arkanauts thematically seem like they're intended to be capable at both, even if their game profiles don't reflect that?

And I think the point of what I'm saying is that you shouldn't have to take 30 of them if you don't want to. Instead, they should provide something valuable to the list, so that you want to take them. If removing minimum battleline (and battleline-if) means that you wouldn't take any battleline units, then those units need to be improved until they're worthwhile. If you then decide that you only want 20 because you want more variety of units, that's great - you do you.

For me, it's mostly variety. With the right options, you can make a list with one of every Kharadron non-unique unit and leader, providing an optimum of painting variety. Now this needs not be good, but it is an option.

[Ganigumo]

16 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:

I dunno that this is really true. I don't think you'd necessarily see more diversity even if units were better balanced. More diversity of armies, possibly, but not necessarily more diversity of units within a single list. The fact is that AOS' mechanics don't easily lend themselves to a lot of different unit roles, and many mechanics - above all the emphasis on power pairs and buff synergies - tend to reinforce the value of spamming the same unit rather than taking two different ones, even if the two are perfectly balanced before you figure in the cost of supplying buffs to them.

I don't think diversity in all lists is something the game should aim for. Mixed arms forces exist in the game and fulfill this role, not every army needs to be built that way, and enforcing that makes armies feel and play too similarly to each other.
 

Quote

You see this in practice in how AOS units actually work. Nobody takes anything but Mortek in OBR because the elite infantry choices don't measure up. But if you made them measure up, then why take Mortek? Expecting perfect balance is not realistic and as long as the balance isn't perfect people will just take whichever is better, unless they are forced not to, in the absence of some basic rules that actually distinguish the two on more than just unit stats. Meanwhile in Fyreslayers nobody takes Vulkites because the elite choice do the same basic role, but better. And I don't think that'd change by just buffing Vulkites, unless you buffed them so much that everyone would just start taking them instead. I can see a world where you could viably base you army around either, but it's hard to see one without new rules for basic troops where you'd want to take a mixed force of both instead of going heavy into one or the other. 

Not having all units be viable in armies as small as OBR and especially fyreslayers has nothing to do with trying to get things perfectly balanced, and everything to do with bad design. You should run into that problem when you have big bloated armies like stormcast and skaven, not with small ones like OBR and fyreslayers. There really isn't an excuse balancewise for mortek being more durable than immortis and do more damage than stalkers. Its a complete failure. It would be extremely easy to design roles for these units that they perform well at, giving you a reason to take them. Sure you might not see them in every list (and that's fine) but the problem here (and with fyreslayers) is the internal balance and design is so bad with regards to these units that they're never better than the alternative. Immortis should be the anvil, Stalkers the hammer, and mortek are for board control, wounds, and securing objectives.
 

Quote

GW recognized this with monsters - without a toughness stat it's difficult to make them have an obvious role - and gave them new rules other units didn't have to make them more useful. I don't see why it'd be a bad idea to do the same thing with basic troops, another generally under-used unit type in AOS. It could be simpler than monstrous rampages, but something to give you a good reason to take those units in all or at least most armies seems like it'd be a good change.

Non hero monsters are still largely bad. None of the new monster rules can save stuff like arachnaroks and Gorgons. It also added more complexity to the game, sure its not much, but it adds up over time. The design of the book should be enough to make you want to take the basic troops, some books do this super well too. Gitz are a good example, grots are great at board control, and are easily the most buffable piece in the army. Also "basic troop" is pretty open to interpretation anyways especially with how diverse the armies are in aos, like obviously it covers stuff like grots and gluttons, but what about mournfang and spider riders, which both serve a similar "role" in their respective armies.
 

Quote

There are exceptions - I think Nurgle is a good example of a book where all the units (except some of the heroes and maybe foot blightkings) have play, and where it makes sense to take a combined arms approach rather than spam. But that's because the basic units are so extremely specialized - Plaguebearers pay for nothing but wounds and models on objectives, having absolutely zero mobility and damage output, and that naturally creates a role for the faster moving, harder-hitting units because you literally can't get across the board or kill anything otherwise. But few armies have basic troops as ridiculously specialized as Plaguebringers. 

The new nurgle book is an example of a modular book done right (at least in terms of internal warscroll balance, its got a few other design issues). Books in AOS fall into one of two categories, linear design or modular design.

Linear design is when you use stacking incentives to guide the player through the book/list from a single decision. This tends to lead to more spammy lists because of how the book handles incentives. "This subfaction buffs <x> unit, this hero makes that unit battleline and buffs them, this support piece buffs them etc....". The end result often ends up looking spammy because the build heavily incentivizes that unit, but theres usually many different builds in the army (i.e seraphon with monster, skink, and saurus builds, or gitz with trogg, grot, squig and spider builds).

Alternatively there's modular design, where each piece (or a pair of pieces like a unit with a hero to buff them) operate separately as their own entities. Mixed arms forces tend to fall into this category, and its this kind of book that usually struggles with dead weight warscrolls and units because there's usually a "best version" of the unit (like phoenix guard/irondrakes). Armies like cities of sigmar fall into this category. These kinds of armies are usually very flexible though, and there can be a lot of diversity within a list because of how the pieces are largely independent.

There's nothing wrong with either of these designs, both have their pros and cons, and having both makes the game appeal to more people.

[Dingding123]

IMO reinforcing battlelines with 2 or fewer wounds should be at a discount.  No one brings basic stuff anymore, let alone tons of it unless it's for shooting.  Tweak points how you will for shooting armies/etc.

[Skreech Verminking]

2 hours ago, Dingding123 said:

IMO reinforcing battlelines with 2 or fewer wounds should be at a discount.  No one brings basic stuff anymore, let alone tons of it unless it's for shooting.  Tweak points how you will for shooting armies/etc.

Skaven: we are forced to take the common very expensive troops for our battleline.

But Personally said, clanrats stabbas and shootas just fee to expensive.

if they had a cost of 5 points per model, I could see them being taken more happily.

Edited December 30, 2021 by Skreech Verminking

[stratigo]

On 12/28/2021 at 11:16 PM, Kadeton said:

I think that's sensible, personally. Most militaries are overwhelmingly made up of a single "unit type", a standardised basic infantry. Most AoS armies should have one or two basic units that make up the bulk of their forces.

The bit that's missing from AoS is that real militaries deploy basic infantry not because they're forced to take a "battleline tax" by some arbitrary rules of engagement, but because basic infantry are the most cost-effective general-purpose military asset. You shouldn't need to force players to take Battleline units, they should just be good value for their points and army composition would take care of itself.

This would make sense on a grand military scale, but AoS is mostly a skirmish. You get maybe 150 models at most. A good representation of a society's army this is not. Indeed at this size it is eminently conceivable that this is a specialized all elite formation.

[Kadeton]

1 hour ago, stratigo said:

This would make sense on a grand military scale, but AoS is mostly a skirmish. You get maybe 150 models at most. A good representation of a society's army this is not. Indeed at this size it is eminently conceivable that this is a specialized all elite formation.

In which case, minimum Battleline requirements still aren't appropriate, which is my point.

[stratigo]

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

In which case, minimum Battleline requirements still aren't appropriate, which is my point.

battlelines tend to be so diverse that you can build any theme around them for most armies.

 

Ultimately battlelines aren't for realism or logic. They exist for game balance. And I agree that they do a poor job in this regard

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, Kadeton said:

In which case, minimum Battleline requirements still aren't appropriate, which is my point.

I'm sorry, I sorely misunderstood, I thought you were in favour of minimum battleline requirements with a small roster. I can be dense sometimes.

27 minutes ago, stratigo said:

battlelines tend to be so diverse that you can build any theme around them for most armies.

Ultimately battlelines aren't for realism or logic. They exist for game balance. And I agree that they do a poor job in this regard

For CoS, Battlelines aplenty.

For Kharadron as current, options, but they have consequences in other choices you have. Three ports give another unit as battleline, and one general gives two units as battleline. Nitpicks: I would have loved it if Mhornar gave Skywarden battleline and both Brokk and regular Endrinmaster gave Endrinriggers (and Skywardens) as battleline. Maybe even the Admiral giving Ironclad as battleline, but that's stretching it.

I think a minimum of three battleline warscroll choices is good thing. Technically Fyreslayers comply, but only with ONE of their 12 heroes as general, which is the opposite of giving more diversity.

[Kadeton]

2 hours ago, stratigo said:

battlelines tend to be so diverse that you can build any theme around them for most armies.

I think there's a few threads of this conversation that are getting tangled. The original complaint was that some armies don't have diverse battleline choices; my contention was that battleline choices shouldn't be mandatory, in which case a lack of variety would be fine (and IMO thematic, since the "battleline" of most military forces is not highly varied - this has been disputed).

2 hours ago, stratigo said:

Ultimately battlelines aren't for realism or logic. They exist for game balance. And I agree that they do a poor job in this regard

I'm not sure I agree that this is even the case, since I can't honestly see any evidence for it. Are there examples you'd cite where the limited selection of battleline units helps to balance the army?

Heavily skewed lists are still certainly possible in many forces due to battleline-if, so my suspicion is that the Battleline concept was originally intended to enforce "thematic" (rather than necessarily "balanced") armies - ones that featured at least some of the most common units in the army fluff. Hence my other contention - as a game designer, you shouldn't create knowingly sub-par units and then force people to take them. You should just make them decent choices to begin with, so that armies on the table look like armies in the fluff without the need for artificial restraints.