What makes a good battletome?

[Enoby]

Recently I've been looking around the other battletome threads in this forum, as well as Facebook groups and Discords, and one thing that's stood out to me is how many people think their battletome is poorly designed. The reasons for this differ, but it's rare to see people have a wholly positive opinion of a battletome (to the point where I can probably only name Daughters of Khaine as a battleltome where 90% of DoK players were happy with it).

In addition, it's very common to see a "grass looks greener" perspective between armies. For example, I distinctly remember reading someone who said that their battletome was rubbish and considerably worse than Slaves to Darkness (which they believed was the best designed battletome), but when you look at S2D discussion threads the opinion is pretty mixed about the book (leaning on the negative).

As we've reached our first three 3rd edition battletomes, I can't say I've seem much applause about them. Certainly they have good things, but the most common comments have been "Bonesplittaz have been nerfed and not much else has been changed", "Terrible internal balance with some units that stand out too much", and "overly bitty with very expensive units". Of course, the internet is likely to always go on a negative slant, but that brings me to the title question:

If the vast majority of battletomes have very mixed reactions in the community, what makes a good battletome?

Other questions would be, "What examples would you give of a good battletome?" and "why is it that so many don't meet the cut of generally been accepted as good - is it just bias?"

Personally, I do think a lot of this comes down to the grass looking greener; that's not to say you should never compare battletomes, but it's easy to go in with blinkers on. For example, a lot of Slaanesh players (myself included) are disappointed thar we have much less synergy in our book, but other battletomes sometimes have so much synergy that it practically builds the army for you with clear 'correct' choices (I find this an issue with S2D). 

But on the other hand, there are definitely things that we like to see in a battletome:

- a variety of sub-allegiances, all of which are viable and there's no clear winner

- a large number of varied warscrolls, none of which outshine another 

- ways to have units work together (synergy) without feeling as if you have to take a particular model in 100% of games

- an allegiance ability that feels useful in nearly all situations, but not overpowered or overly complex 

- for me, the most important thing is that the battletome feels narratively consistent with the faction - e.g. a Mighty Lord of Khorne should hit like a truck compared to being a 'lead from the back' sort of guy 

Of course, all of this is easier said than done.

What do you think makes a good battletome, and do you have a battletome you'd say is as close to perfect as it can be?

* Please note, when I say "battletomes", I'm also referring to the warscrolls

[Kadeton]

It's an interesting question. Ultimately, a battletome exists in a state of compromise - the overall balance can't be too powerful or too weak, the choices can't be too obvious or too obscure, the mechanics can't be too simple or too complex. The thing about compromises is that even though they may be the best workable outcome for all concerned, everyone tends to be disappointed with the result. The underlying principle of balance is that nobody gets exactly what they want.

The main things I look for in a battletome are a variety of interesting builds, and strong links between theme and mechanics. Even in the tomes that largely do this well (e.g. Soulblight) there are still plenty of things I'd like to change (e.g. Vampire Lords should be way more dangerous). Best just to find the things in your chosen tome that you like, and ignore the things you don't.

[Clan's Cynic]

Strong internal balance.

Good external balance.

Flavourful and fun rules.

 

[PJetski]

In order of importance:

1. The rules match the models; the gameplay is unique and matches the army aesthetic. The subfactions should be thematically appropriate.

This is the most important thing to me - I can tolerate playing an imbalanced game with poor mechanics, but as long as the miniatures do what they look like they should be doing then I can at least have some fun with it.

2. Internal balance - Lots of viable unit options; ideally every unit has some niche they can fill. All subfactions should be useful and interesting.

You should never look at a model you like and say "I will never find a use for this in any list". In my eyes this is the greatest mistake that can be - and frequently is - committed by Games Worskhop.

3. External balance - Capable of making powerful lists with interesting strengths and exploitable weaknesses.

If you hit all 3 of these points you've got a great battletome in my opinion.

Edited January 3, 2022 by PJetski

[Doko]

I gonna speak only about my armys because is better than speak about tomes that i dont play.

In general the most important to me is have many options in the army,building my lists is the funniest part to me,so have many diferents options in citys,enhacements,units etc is the most important to me.

Also the balance is almost the same in importance,its useless have 100 scrolls if you only can play with 20 because the others are useless. In my opinion i prefer have a perfect internal balance before than external balance.

A good example is my sc vs cos. Sc have better external balance because have one competitive build(fulmis,raptors) but have a horrible internal balance where the 80% of units are useless and the 20% are very good. But in other hand we have citys,where his top build is worse than sc per example and so have worde external balance,but the internal balance is very good and almost any unit of the book is at the same level(only behemots are useless and gw seems to know it and is decreasing their cost)

In general i call a good book one that gives me many options to buiid my lists and  have a good balance(internal and external) as vampires. Then a bad tome is one where you only can play the same list every game and where the balance is bad and only one unit is good as fyreslayers

Good example of tomes:

Soulbligths:many options and builds and every unit is playable(only black knigths havent any use)

City of sigmar: huge options,you can change list for every game and all even if it isnt top,are playable

 

Bad example of tomes:

Stormcast: 100 units where 80 are useless and 20 are playables,also the tome is the worst never released,where every enhacement are useless and worse than generics. A tome with 0 ca,boring and with boring new scrolls where lost the 75% of their habilitys.

Fyreslayers: a tome with 3!!!! Non hero units and where only one of these units is playable. Also dont have options good in the book and only have one lodge playable and with only one unit.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Doko

[Mattrulesok]

I think for me the key is internal balance. And that's not just about whether X warscroll is better points value than Y, it's also about whether you can play a decently competitive (doesn't have o go 5-0) list with YOUR favourite units. To me the 3 books that seem to embody this well are DoK, Seraphon and SBGL. With DoK and Seraphon they obviously came with some external balance issues but i don't think that makes them bad books, just pointed badly. The fact all 3 of those books don't pigeonhole you into a play style, creates bonuses for playing your models (think thunderlizards for dino's, fangs for skinks etc.) and 90% of the warscrolls are playable, have a purpose in the book and provide playstyle options for players.

 

To a lesser extent it's the same reason i am fond of the Ogor book, it gives you options for playing your way (monster mash, shooting, infantry) however the internal balance is a little more off (although again it's mostly points) and there are a lot more useless or duplicate style warscrolls

[Arzalyn]

The 3 points @Clan's Cynic said to me are probably the reason most of the tomes have discussion on how they are "bad designed". Most tomes get at least one of them correctly, but missing the other two creates the negative views. A tome has to deliver the flavour of the army (what you expect after reading its lore), be mechanically balanced by itself so you have choices and have to make decisions while building your list and do things that are at least on par with what the other tomes are doing.

My process in judging a battletome by those 3 pillars usually follow this line of thought:

- After reading all the allegiance abilities, traits, artefacts and warscrolls, do the army do what I expected it to do lorewise?

Things like, do battle seeking armies like Ironjawz and Khorne focus on been aggressive and in the face of the opponent, or tricky and more strategic armies like Kruleboyz or Tzeentch have rules that reflect it? This is something that I fell is getting better with the latest tomes to a degree, the new Nurgle tome is a good example of this.

- After reading all the allegiance abilities, traits, artefacts and warscrolls, can I see a reason to take each unit? How many artefacts and traits I can see myself considering during list building? Do you have a reason to take each subfaction or are one much better than the other? There is more than one battleline option and how much accessing those options restrict my list building?

This is probably the greatest offender in many books and in my opinion the most problematic. Generally you have 3~18 traits and artefacts tables, but most are full of "once per game roll a dice and if you roll X nothing happen". Most of the age factions have a small roster of units to choose from (between 10 ~ 20 units in total) and all of the tomes have at least 1 unit that or fill no role/is redundant with something other unit is already doing or that its rules + points offer no reason for you to pick that unit. This reduce your options even more and end creating the "one list" problem. Of all your options one of them is clearly much better than the others, so why take the other ones? This is specially bad when you consider that this is a hobby that demand time assembling and painting your models and many times a cool model is what got you in that army and you want it to be useful.

This is a problem that don't see to be getting better with the tomes we saw so far. Stormcast have lots of units options, but the tome fail to give most of them a meaningful place. Kruleboyz have really bad artefacts and are super restricted during list building by its battlelines while Ironjawz have very little units and are mostly trying to perform a similar role. Nurgle have 9 artefacts and traits in total, but I doubt you gonna see a list that don't pick the same artefact/trait for its general (stench/helm for mortals, nurglings/staff for demons). They need to give more attention to those things, otherwise the tome is easily solved and there isn't much to care about.

- Do the rules in your tome are balanced in comparison to the rules of other tomes?

This also tent to be a problem. You don't play the game alone, so you need to have rules that are at least on par with what your opponent is getting. Generally speaking outliers are the problem here. Or you have something that do something that is much better than anything anyone else do or your rules are too weak when compared to what the other tomes offer.The gradual battletome release model creates too much space between the different battletomes design and this lead to changes in the design philosophy along the way, which tent to create those disparities.

Of the tomes we have now, the Soulblight is the one that do all of the above well for me. For the most part, their rules reflect their lore, the units have a place, you have good options and have to make decisions between the different subfactions, traits and warscrolls and what you do is good enough when compared to the other tomes. Its not perfect, you still have units without a place, bad artefacts choices and some rules that don't reflect the lore, but compared to the other tomes there is much less occurrences of those.

[Byro]

There's a lot I really like about the Stormcast 3.0 tome. 

You get your army, then you get either Stormkeep or Stormhost, which then allows you two viable "avenues" for building your army. From there, you get access to a host of choices, beginning with souping Stormcast & Cities, or maintaining a "pure" army of knights (which, now that we've had some time to see lists develop post-release, have quite a bit of variety to pull from, some examples being, dragon-heavy lists, Stormcast shooting lists, paladin-heavy lists, alpha-strike focused lists, etc). 

The Orruk book, meanwhile, was a little lackluster, especially so, given my excitement for that book going into 3.0. An entire subfaction (Bonesplitterz) was horribly nerfed, while Kruleboyz came out just ok, in comparison to the Ironjawz, who received not a single new model, but did get their rules cranked up to 11. Overall, in comparison to the Stormcast, they just come off feeling like a 2nd-rate book, with too much inconsistency throughout. Not bad, mind you, but more problematic in ways we shouldn't be seeing 3-editions in.

[Skreech Verminking]

In my opinion, a high risk and reward system must be a part of anh good battletome.

Just look at the skaventide battletome.

nothing beats randomness.

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Skreech Verminking

[Dracan]

11 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

In my opinion, a high risk and reward system must be a part of anh good battletome.

Just look at the skaventide battletome.

nothing beats randomness.

 

This problem does feature quite a bit in the new nurgle book and specifically the blightking warscroll. Effectively the new scroll is "a lot" more powerful, but, with the loss of the exploding attacks the warscroll became more reliable, less of a gamble with higher avg output, but the chance for the spike to hit and the dopamine rewards that go with that is totally gone.  

Reliability wins tournaments, gambling is more fun and makes for better memories.

[yukishiro1]

Maybe the most important thing good books have that GW fails to deliver consistently is rules that actually work in practice. Sylvaneth are maybe the epitome of this. The Sylvaneth book is great in many ways. The book is full of both fluffy and - on paper - powerful rules. But where the book falls down is in the way those on-paper rules actually translate to the real game. Basing a lot of the faction's gameplay around forests is great on paper...and then you get to real life, and you find you can't place forests where you need to, or that every turn is basically a multi-stepped flow chart of probabilities and you need everything to line up to do the powerful cool thing your army is built around, but the actual probabilities of all those fail-points being passed is very low. So the theorycrafting ends up completely different than the actual gameplay experience, where you're endlessly frustrated because you failed to cast your wyldwood, or you succeeded your cast but you can't place it where it needs to go because of the stupidly finnicky 3" from everything rule. And playing the army competitively becomes an exercise in funneling your list down to the choices that minimize that RNG - a treelord ancient to be sure you can summon at least one more wood where you need it, the warsong revenant because he's the only way to reliably cast spells that you 100% need to make the faction work, etc etc. So the book ends up being very narrow in practice even though it looks much wider at first glance.

It would take so little - letting you give the awakened wyldwood keyword to an existing piece of terrain in lieu of summoning a new one, for example - to vastly improve the faction's actual gameplay experience. But that takes designers who actually play their own game and understand it on the level of a player, not a designer, and the Sylvaneth book is a great example of how that doesn't really seem to be the case.

You could make similar observations about a lot of other books that struggle. Nighthaunt, Slaanesh, Gitz - all these are books that work on paper but that don't really work in reality. There's probably others I'm not thinking of at the moment, too. 

 

 

 

Edited January 4, 2022 by yukishiro1

[PlasticCraic]

Really interesting topic @Enoby

10 hours ago, Enoby said:

- for me, the most important thing is that the battletome feels narratively consistent with the faction - e.g. a Mighty Lord of Khorne should hit like a truck compared to being a 'lead from the back' sort of guy 

...and this one certainly seems to be coming up a lot as a popular theme in the threat.  By contrast I noticed that external balance / overall power level of the top list(s) within the book wasn't one you (or many others) mentioned, but as a member of the noisy minority whose focus is tournaments, it is the biggest single factor for me. 

I personally like new books to be really good but not oppressive in a competitive setting - you want them to be good so they are relevant to the meta, which therefore keeps developing, but not so broken that they crush everything before them, which has happened before on occasion.

Beyond that, I also like armies that do not lean on ranged mortal wound output or switching off your opponent's army mechanics for success - those are my own personal view of what constitutes NPE, and for that reason I wasn't super keen on Lumineth as a book for example.  Even leaving aside point 'n' click Sentinels, which have certainly been talked about enough at this point, things like the Cathallar preventing your units from taking part in the game, and the various ways of stopping you from using Command Abilities are not something I particularly liked seeing.

I would also second the points you and others have made about Subfactions - when the design team nails those, and makes the majority of them relevant and interesting, it can really make a book sing.  It ties in the rules with the theme of the army, and it's what will keep you coming back to a book time and again as the list building ideas keep on flowing.  The previous Warclans book might have been my favourite expression of that so far, but Ogor Mawtribes was pretty good in that respect too.

For anyone interested, I did enjoy reading this article on the previous DOK book, which expands on the topic:

https://www.strengthhammer.net/2019/05/battletome-banter-daughters-of-khaine.html

[Neverchosen]

For me a good battle-tome makes me want to play the army and construct strategies and create thematic lists. In other words, I think a good battletome is one that makes me excited to play an army and try to construct different lists. I am not directly concerned with balance internally or externally but it does impact this excitement, especially if I know that a specific unit will never actually accomplish its role or an allegiance ability will likely never impact a game. 

So I really like the new Stormcast Battletome, but that is because I have created a number of lists based around different Stormhosts and switching between Scions of the Storm and Stormkeep lists. The Warscrolls are simple yet pretty effective at capturing the feel of a unit and give enough variety for me to think about which unit I want for which situation. Similarly, I really enjoy developing S2D lists based around Marks and Damned Legions, but I am significantly less excited about specific warscrolls and Allegiance Abilities. I know I am not the greatest player but if I am going to lose at least I want to have fun in the process. 

Edited January 4, 2022 by Neverchosen

[yukishiro1]

The new SCE book passes the "works in practice" test, mainly because it is so simple and reliable. The few tricks it has are overwhelmingly things that just work - translocate on a 2+, probably rerolling, for example, or dragons that just move and then charge on a 2+ in the hero phase - no spell you have to get off, no conditions you need to meet. They just do what they do. The closest things to fail points the book has is stuff like Fulminators being ungodly good (as opposed to just very good) only on the charge, meaning in theory you can kind-of waste them if they get charged rather than charge themselves, or longstrikes being very squishy for their points. But that's very minor and basic compared to the restrictions and issues a lot of books have built into them. 

It also passes the "doesn't force you down one path" list, at least in terms of theory. You can pick and choose elements pretty freely; you don't get locked into one archetype hard because you need to spend a billion points on synergies that only work with part of the army. Gitz is the polar opposite of this, where you basically have to go down one path because the whole book is built around expensive, restrictive synergies. 

Where it falls down is internal balance, but that's at least fixable, and a lot of it is because there's just way too many units. It's also probably a little bit too compressed in terms of skill floor and cap, with little room for the really good players to shine. But IMO it's ok to have some armies that are just kind-of generically good; skilled players will always just play better generally and I'm not sure you need to deliberately build in a lot of ways to distinguish the better players into the book structure itself. 3.0 has enough of that built into the basic rules now that the books themselves can carry less weight on that front IMO. 

Honestly the thing I like least about 3.0 tomes is that the sub-allegiances have been neutered to the point where they are almost irrelevant. I think it's great they no longer lock you into command traits and artefacts, but they didn't need to go as far as they did; now you're as likely to take them for the conditional battleline as the actual rules, and that feels a bit weird and like a lost opportunity. It's not as if simplifying them has made them better balanced, either - despite having such a small impact there are still clear winners and losers. 

Edited January 4, 2022 by yukishiro1

[Beliman]

I'm with @Clan's Cynic:

16 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Strong internal balance.

Good external balance.

Flavourful and fun rules.

Another point to take in mind is that battletomes should have a bit more interesting rules for their unique themes. Lumineths did a good job with their temples.

And as a Kharadron player, rules need to be clear... (still waiting for a third FAQ).

[Perturbato]

A good battletome is a battletome that makes current unplayable miniatures very powerfull.

A good battletome is a battletome that makes current playable miniatures useless.

A good battletome is a battletome that makes old battletomes feel bad and you have to buy the new one and start an army again.

In a good battletome you just have to drop new overpowered miniatures without a lot of testing.

I'm sure a certain company thinks that way.

[JackStreicher]

A good Battletome consists of the following ingredients(imo):

- Variety (models and lists) and options

- The army should play the way it is supposed to feel (unlike Khorne, Slaanesh and S2D)

- Strong identity/unique mechanics (MW spam is no mechanic)

- Good internal balance (unlike the SCE BT)

- a minimum of barely usable Warscrolls

- Simplification where needed, but not forced upon the rules (no butchered Warscrolls like SCE have 30 of at the moment)

[Gitzdee]

A good battletome imo has rules that reflect what the army is about and make the models u play with feel alive on the table. 

A bad battletome is about the new statline being better than the last battletome released and picking the unit who deals the most mortal wounds. Stats are changed so many times in the lifespan of a battletome that i dont care for those at all. I wont be trapped by the favourite model of the month type of thing gw seems to create sometimes.

[Feii]

22 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Strong internal balance.

Good external balance.

Flavourful and fun rules.

 

To the rules. Flavourful and fun rules that promote lines of play for both players and player agency. 
 

 

Foxes/Pinks are very flavourful and fun. For one player.

[Durgin]

My opinion:

first of all, a good battletome should be unique, both concerning the aesthetics of the army and its gameplay. 

I like when, on the battlefield, your army acts according to its lore and uniqueness among the others.

I like when I have multiple choices to choose from, without being forced to play only a certain combo of units (if not, the same units...): I don't say that all the army choices must be overpowered, I just settle for having a fair amount of choices that are somehow decent in game, that allow me to variate my gameplay and strategy.

A thing that I particularly love is to have sub-factions to choose from (for example, KO skyports-kruleboyz clans etc etc), because it adds A LOT of flavour and it gives many ideas for conversions and hobby time (if only my beloved skullbugz were a fair choice in-game T___T).

In general, I consider a battletome "good" when it has a strong identity and it is able to translate it in gameplay.

 

 

 

[azdimy]

Interresting topic. Thanks for bring it up outside of faction specific threadd

As some mentionned I d say the following are the most important criteria for me to make a good battletome in this order:

1 External balance

2 Faction identity

3 Internal balance

Since we re including warscrolls in the battletome appeal, I like the warscrolls to have a few relevant  abilities each that are somewhat unique, clear and short. I m ok with a center piece having more abilities but rules bloat turn me off

 

[Charleston]

I agree with the others. Especially the Faction identity is important and something GW manages to do sometimes quite well (IDK, Maggotkin) and sometime quite awfull (Khorne with their "Whatever you do, do not charge recklessly and stay inside the Bubble! Good Boy!").

It would be quite fun to sort the current Battletomes in a 3 Axis Chart for this

[Gaz Taylor]

7 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

A good Battletome consists of the following ingredients(imo):

- Variety (models and lists) and options

- The army should play the way it is supposed to feel (unlike Khorne, Slaanesh and S2D)

- Strong identity/unique mechanics (MW spam is no mechanic)

- Good internal balance (unlike the SCE BT)

- a minimum of barely usable Warscrolls

- Simplification where needed, but not forced upon the rules (no butchered Warscrolls like SCE have 30 of at the moment)

I was going to type out my thoughts but this is what I would love to see in a battletome. Just to add of course it should have good external balance as well! 🤣

[the Fel-hand]

I feel that the internal balance between units is the key for a good battle tome. It's just not a good a feeling when you're looking through a book and your first impression of several units is disappointment.  I really think this is most important part, because you won't have variety without good internal balance. By the same token units that are too good can take away from a fraction's identity.

I will admit that when it comes to external balance my expectations have changed a bit. With products like the Generals Handbook and Chapter Approved External balance should be the best it's ever been. I explained to GW in the 40k survey why I wouldn't buy products like that anymore if they didn't start making bigger changes (30% win rates shouldn't exist with paid living rule updates). 

[Gesundheit]

I Take the example of the New Nurgle battletome.
Is it S Tier? - probably no!

is it fluffy? - Yeah much More than the Last tome!

is it a Good tome? - absolutely!

in my opinion a tome should fill the fluff of an army! And over all the tomes should be balanced. Ofc that is not 100% possible, but if all tomes got nearly the same power level (+-15%) it’s totally fine! 
not every army needs units for every role! Tzeentch does not need an tanky unit! (Horrors aren’t tanky, they are just many!)

nurgle does not need to shoot on range! 
that’s why I think the Stormcast need to fill every role! Cause it’s fluffy since they arrived in AoS! 
ofc they got overtuned units, but at least they got much more expensive.

i think the new tomes are all fine! I hope they go on with that way.🤷🏼‍♂️