The Winter Rules Update

[zilberfrid]

4 minutes ago, Howdyhedberg said:

I like the griffin since you get Karl Franz! It also looks more stable as a miniature compared to the dark elf dragon...

Can confirm sturdyness, dropped mine a few times.

I didn't build mine with the hammer, I put that on my kitbashed Admiral, but both Karl and the regular General are very good (if oversized) sculpts.

[Gaz Taylor]

I’ve had a quick glance at the update. Firstly, I really like the layout and it’s easy to see the tweaks. The core rule changes seem spot on and I really like them. I’m not a massive fan of the point changes and like others, I think some of the changes don’t seem quite right. However, I don’t know the future releases so no idea how things will change. 

[Mutton]

Wish Gutrippas had dropped in points; unfortunately this means Kruelboyz melee armies are still unfeasible. Continue the boltboy brigade!

Very happy about the Ogor Mawtribes and Kragnos changes though. The Gloomspite drops are a nice gesture, but all of those warscrolls just need a sweeping second pass--hell, the whole book--which is hopefully what we see next year.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Mutton

[madmac]

10 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

I'm out of the loop, but isn't Brokk a lot cheaper now?

That awesome model deserves time on the field.

Brokk's problem these days is that the generic ballooner hero is basically the same thing but cheaper, and with command traits and artifacts is just flat-out better. The better, generic guy is still 20 points cheaper, so...sorry Brokk.

[Beliman]

Quote

Click the button below to download the first Battlescroll, and read on to find out a little bit more about what’s in store

That means that we are going to see some more battlescrolls that focus on other things than GODS & HEROES?

I mean, yeah, big monsters and gods are an issue, but waht about the small dudes like grots, prosecutors, some artillery, small mosnters (cigor)... I mean, yes, they can use diferent points, but I'm talking about new warscrolls!!

[Marcvs]

Just now, Beliman said:

That means that we are going to see some more battlescrolls that focus on other things than GODS & HEROES?

I mean, yeah, big monsters and gods are an issue, but waht about the small dudes like grots, prosecutors, some artillery, small mosnters (cigor)... I mean, yes, they can use diferent points, but I'm talking about new warscrolls!!

I thought the same seeing the title but this battlescroll also has points changes for a lot of units that are neither gods nor heroes

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Beliman said:

That means that we are going to see some more battlescrolls that focus on other things than GODS & HEROES?

I mean, yeah, big monsters and gods are an issue, but waht about the small dudes like grots, prosecutors, some artillery, small mosnters (cigor)... I mean, yes, they can use diferent points, but I'm talking about new warscrolls!!

I hope that the idea is that we will get quarterly updates like 40k.

[The Red King]

20 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Can you explain a bit why? Didn't read all the FAQs and I don't know how coalition work now.

Coalition units no longer gain your khorne armies sub faction keyword and they are also not eligible for any buffs or effects from blood tithe. They still currently benefit from things that affect keyword KHORNE such as bloodsecrator and mark of the slayer but that was already the case so it's just a flat nerf to using the coalition rules that, to my knowledge, were not impacting competitive play and definitely not by beasts. 

 

It's less about power level to me and more about the blatant snubbing. I made my whole army off the 2nd edition skullfray batallion. GW said heres some awesome lore to fall in love with and some nice little rules to represent that lore go nuts! So I lovingly build, convert, and paint an army for them to go SIKE! No more batallion. Heres some coalition rules that do a poor job replacing it and forces you to run out of a different book but hey at least you can still get your mark of khorne and finagle a few buffs our of the other army despite it actively trying to prevent it (MORTAL KHORNE only buffs mostly). But hey I built and painted and loved this army so I'll make it work. And then "Haha loser we're gonna also remove as many rules interactions that benefit you as we can because even though we sold you the lore, fantasy, and RUELS of god marked beasts we dont want you to actually USE them."

We didn't even get a FAQ for crying out loud. It's this kind of passive aggressive "we'll sell you the option to play this way but constantly remove any incentive to do so" attitude that drove me out of 40k.

[Horizons]

31 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Let's do a cost benefit analysis:

+ Frostheart Phoenix can't be killed

- There's an elf on top

Seems like a wash to me

How about the worst of both worlds? Griffin with a Dark Elf Rider conversion.

I like the Cities changes, Irondrakes were overperforming compared to other ranged units, they'll still be better, you just won't feel as silly running Darkshards, Sisters and Handgunners now. 

Kragnos changes are awesome but I can't seem to find a place for him in my armies, would be fun with Hordes of Gutrippaz, 3D6 + 2 makes your boys pretty fast.

[Marcvs]

3 minutes ago, Horizons said:

 

I like the Cities changes, Irondrakes were overperforming compared to other ranged units, they'll still be better, you just won't feel as silly running Darkshards, Sisters and Handgunners now.

True, the internal balance was not great but, considering that Cities is not exactly destroying the tournament scene, why not reduce the cost of those other units instead? (also considering that sisters and handgunners got a stealth nerf due to the unleash hell changes)

[MothmanDraws]

My hedonites list has saved 40 points, truly a force to be reckoned with now

[Grimrock]

Quick question, does anyone know what the technical definition of 'does not benefit from allegiance abilities' is? Like Archaon in a Khorne army for example. I assume he doesn't gain any rules in the allegiance abilities, like the locus that gives reroll 1's to hit, and I assume you can't use the blood tithe table on him, like moving him in the hero phase, but is that all? Prayers are allegiance abilities, can you still cast one of those on Archaon? In plain english gaining a +1 save from bronzed flesh would be benefiting from an allegiance ability. If a bloodthirster takes the command trait that makes all nearby khorne models reroll 1's to hit, does Archaon benefit from it or is that again benefiting from an allegiance ability? I'm sure you can't take a spell from the Tzeentch lore, but can you cast a spell on him in a tzeentch army?

Beyond that I'm not a huge fan of the update. There are some good changes to be sure, but overall it was far too light of a touch on the things that are on the bottom end. Slaangors are one of the worst units in the game with glaringly obvious issues, but instead of updating the warscroll they get a 20 point drop. Slaanesh, one of the worst armies in the game, gets a point update for 4 units and that's it. Khorne mortals are in an absolutely terrible place and they get what? Some heroes no one will ever use get cheaper, and a few drops on units that might gain you 50 points in an average list. Maybe 70 if you're leaning into it. Just enough to buy absolutely nothing in the army. Why in the world would they conflate an update like this with the 40k dataslate changes? That at least made deep cuts into the game and fixed issues people have been begging for for years. This was just the usual update with a little better formatting.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Grimrock

[Horizons]

6 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

True, the internal balance was not great but, considering that Cities is not exactly destroying the tournament scene, why not reduce the cost of those other units instead? (also considering that sisters and handgunners got a stealth nerf due to the unleash hell changes)

True, but Cities have been doing good. There are a lot of armies that have a greater need for buffs. Overall I'm happy.

What's really great is their commitment to quarterly changes and they've hit some of the bigger issues, Amulet and God-models.

[yukishiro1]

Hmm. A massive nerf to Khorne (STD units no longer getting allegiance ability, the only thing that kept the army going competitively) while most of the top armies get insignificant nerfs is not really what I was expecting from a balance patch. 

A very strange grab bag of the good (heroic recovery and unleash hell nerfs) the bad (overall army balance changes doing little to reign in the strong while doing even less to boost the weak and in some cases actually making them weaker) and the ugly (many of the points changes, the amulet change which was needed but they chose the worst option). 

Edited December 21, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Reinholt]

For my part, I find this a very positive first step. Namely GW said they would do a certain timing, and they actually did it. They accurately identified at least a handful of the top tier imbalance issues (Tzeench Archaon, Amulet being LITERALLY EVERYWHERE because apparently they sell that stuff at Sigmart or something, etc.).

 

Is it perfect? Nowhere close.

Is it a first attempt going in the right direction? Yes.

 

If anyone from GW is reading this, my constructive criticism would be as follows:

1 - You should do a little more to try to help the absolute trash tier armies because in terms of customer engagement, having a non-competitive army for long periods of time is a good way to lose customers.

2 - You should be willing to move points on units you never see a bit more to improve internal balance in armies.

 

But overall I think this is a good first cut and if they keep iterating every few months I actually like the forward path as they didn't just do totally random things and miss the point while nerfing gluttons and bonereaper cavalry armies or something.

[PJetski]

Kragnos might be too strong now?

[Noserenda]

Woo, mostly finished rebasing my Eshin army and get a points reduction on half my warscrolls!

Ofc now i will have to reshuffle my list again to try and not be like 60 points under due to a lack of cheap options...

(Bring back triads and sorcerers!) 

[Grimrock]

7 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

For my part, I find this a very positive first step. Namely GW said they would do a certain timing, and they actually did it. They accurately identified at least a handful of the top tier imbalance issues (Tzeench Archaon, Amulet being LITERALLY EVERYWHERE because apparently they sell that stuff at Sigmart or something, etc.).

 

Is it perfect? Nowhere close.

Is it a first attempt going in the right direction? Yes.

The big problem is this isn't the first step. They've been doing winter updates and GHB updates for years now and every time we see them we think 'Well, that's not enough but at least they changed something! Maybe next time will be better!'. Sure they've targeted a few of the over performing units, but they've ignored so so many obvious issues. I don't know if I can take this cycle much longer, it's like the designers are playing a totally different game at this point. It's obvious the problems in the game will never be properly addressed since they either don't care or don't have the resources needed to really find good fixes. 

[Kamose]

Amulet of Destiny is nerfed to a 6+? We all know what that means!!

[yukishiro1]

- Save stacking still as strong as it ever was

- MWs stronger than they ever have been 

- OBR and Khorne gutted competitively (to the extent they had competitive builds in the first place) for no discernible reason

- Khorne Daemon Prince, Fulminators, Kairos, Mawkrusha remain unchanged

- Bizarre changes like the Chaos Warshrine going up 40 points while Morathi goes up zero and even gets a buff

There is some good stuff in here, but there's also a lot of changes that do fall into the "random stuff that completely misses the point," "didn't go something they needed to do," or "did something that resulted in unintended changes that hit already hurting armies without adequate compensation." Like if they had reworked OBR at the same time they nerfed Nagash, or Khorne at the same time they nerfed coalition, that would be fine. But they didn't. Instead they apparently just got hit with a collateral nerf bat that wasn't even aimed at them. 

Overall Grade: C 

Scaled Grade given GW's past performance: B-

Edited December 21, 2021 by yukishiro1

[boyadventurer]

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

Quick question, does anyone know what the technical definition of 'does not benefit from allegiance abilities' is? Like Archaon in a Khorne army for example. I assume he doesn't gain any rules in the allegiance abilities, like the locus that gives reroll 1's to hit, and I assume you can't use the blood tithe table on him, like moving him in the hero phase, but is that all? Prayers are allegiance abilities, can you still cast one of those on Archaon? In plain english gaining a +1 save from bronzed flesh would be benefiting from an allegiance ability. If a bloodthirster takes the command trait that makes all nearby khorne models reroll 1's to hit, does Archaon benefit from it or is that again benefiting from an allegiance ability? I'm sure you can't take a spell from the Tzeentch lore, but can you cast a spell on him in a tzeentch army?

 

The individual FAQ/Errata documents have the specific rules for what coalition can't benefit from. For Khorne it's Slaughterhosts and Blood Tithe Rewards. All your other (Khorne related) examples haven't changed.

[yukishiro1]

Yeah, for Khorne it's basically just using blood tithe. Nobody ever took anything but Reapers anyway and that only benefitted daemons so there's no real loss there re: coalition (I mean I guess the Khorne Daemon Prince can't double fight any more, but that's a once in a blue moon sort of thing anyway), but not being able to use blood tithe on coalition is a massive kick in the teeth for no real reason. 

Edited December 21, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Grimrock]

19 minutes ago, boyadventurer said:

The individual FAQ/Errata documents have the specific rules for what coalition can't benefit from. For Khorne it's Slaughterhosts and Blood Tithe Rewards. All your other (Khorne related) examples haven't changed.

Forgive me for being obtuse, but Archaon isn't a coalition unit (he doesn't have the Mark of Chaos keyword) so none of those rules apply to him. What I'm looking for is a definition of what they mean by 'you can still use the army’s allegiance abilities even though this unit is not from the army’s faction; however, this unit does not benefit from them' from the Warmaster rule. Maybe a definition of 'benefitting' I've missed somewhere in the rules? It's such a general term it could mean almost anything.

Also as far as I can see they don't spell out what coalition units can and can't benefit from in the Khorne FAQ, they simply modified some rules to specify the Blades of Khorne keyword and then added it to all of the warscrolls in the book. If that's all they intended for Archaon then they didn't need to change his Warmaster rule specifically saying he can't benefit from the allegiance abilities. He already doesn't have the Blades of Khorne keyword. The tweak to the Warmaster rule must mean more than just the tithe table and slaugherhosts.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Grimrock

[Beliman]

49 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

- MWs stronger than they ever have been 

Bloodstalkers, Salamanders and Sentinels had a point increase (maybe not big enough but it's not better than before) and Unleash Hell is not as strong as pre-patch unleash.
Maybe not what people wanted, but it's still a nerf to ranged (to hit rolls) mortal wounds.

Edited December 21, 2021 by Beliman
grammar

[Gailon]

I was disappointed at first, but I think most of that is just that expectations for this balance update got out of hand. Wish lists were dreaming up massive warscroll changes, new allegiance abilities, sweeping point changes etc. 

People are acting like the meta of AoS is out of control and really exaggerating the haves and have nots. The competitive scene appears to be fairly diverse. Lots of different armies are competing for top spots, no army has some winrate in the stratosphere, most top armies seem to have counter armies in the meta. From a competitive angle this balance should be considered within the context of a very healthy meta. 

In that way this was more of a precision strike. 

The Amulet of Destiny is a nerf to Gargants and the Maw Krusha. I think it makes sense to wait and see how that plays out before doing more to those. 

Unleash Hell is a critical nerf to all shooting. Again, we can wait and see how that plays out. It also provides some interesting counter play around positioning and charges. A boost to units with longer range and 6" pile in. 

Ultimately it's still GodHammer right now though. 

The big disappointment I am left with is the failure to address some internal balance in ways that would increase a lot of players' fun and enjoyment without impacting the meta. Dropping the points on things like spider riders, saurus, vanguard hunters, etc. isn't going to change the meta, but would boost up some internal balance and inject some life into more casual list making and games. 

Like several people have said, these changes seem good, just wish there were more, 

Edited December 21, 2021 by Gailon