The Mortal Wound Pandemic, and Dealing With It

[RyantheFett]

My friend loves his death factions and going against 100 zombies that are just hunting for those mortal wounds is...................... something. Watching a 500 point Stardrake lose over half of its heath with nothing to counter it is not the best experience. Of course meta has a lot to do with it I guess and where I play mortal wound and ward saves are mandatory.

[NinthMusketeer]

Fun fact; against a 4+ save over 85% of zombie damage statistically comes from mortal wounds. A player that rolls the whole sequence for 36 zombie attacks will inflict 7 damage on average; a player who only rolls the hits then stops will deal 6.

[JerekKruger]

26 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

Fun fact; against a 4+ save over 85% of zombie damage statistically comes from mortal wounds. A player that rolls the whole sequence for 36 zombie attacks will inflict 7 damage on average; a player who only rolls the hits then stops will deal 6.

I don't quite understand what made GW feel like Mortala on 6s was a good rule for zombies. It just seems odd. By all means give them the "slain enemies rise as extra zombies", but make them rely on their crappy attacks for that, don't give them Mortals on 6s.

I wonder how their Warscroll will fare in the new Battletome. I guess we'll find out fairly soon (based on the vampire bats on the new Kharadron time I reckon Soulblight will be next).

[NinthMusketeer]

I rank the current zombie warscroll as one of the worst-designed warscrolls in AoS history;

-Overwhelming majority of damage is from MWs

-On a unit for which it makes NO thematic sense (since when do zombies cut through plate like it isn't there?)

-6" pile in, which totally negates the 'slow' weakness they are supposed to have

-Again, on a unit for which it makes NO thematic sense

-Only a 6+ ward for defense (thank goodness!), but extremely high bravery means battleshock is not a reliable counter

-A cool, thematic ability for adding new models to the unit as 'fresh zombies'... but it triggers on a per-slain basis and on a 2+. This means the unit's effectiveness varies WILDLY based on the target. 1 wound enemies? OP as all hell.

-Combining that ability with MWs on 6s to hit and 6" pile in means they have few ways to counter them. Armor/elites die to the MWs, swarms get overrun by the free models, shooters/skimishers get caught by 10" run then 6" pile in for guaranteed 16" threat range with no unleash hell.

-While a bit outside the warscroll, combining all of the above with the ability to deep strike, to resurrect at half strength, its dirt-cheap point cost, and battleline... Suffice it to say all the experienced players in my community immediately pegged zombies as meta-defining for SGL at the least, if not the whole tourney scene. Lo and behold...

[Beliman]

Unpopular Opinion: They are not that bad.

Imo, they are not just annoying"chaff" that can't kill. They feel more like zombies from tv shows: they move slow (4") unless they are close enough to "chase their prey" (pile in 6") for a mini-marathon of 10" (+1D6" if they run). Take in mind that they can't do that if they are not close enough (6").

MW are just their "bite". 1 zombie only has a 16-17% of biting anyone and most people (2+wounds) will survive, so extremely low chance to kill a veteran (aka, elite units), but a group of zombies should be a threat as we have seen in Last of Us, Walking death, World War Zombies,...

And what happens if they bite a model, there is a high chance to see a new fresh zombie. It feels OP vs 1 wounds units but that's their point, overwhelm poor fellows, like any "new" zombie mob in tv shows, movies and tabletop games.

They could be a bit better, but AoS is build around this simplifaction that you need to lose some part of their identity in the rules. Imo, their bite ability should only be active when they are more models than enemy units.

Quote

Fun fact; against a 4+ save over 85% of zombie damage statistically comes from mortal wounds. A player that rolls the whole sequence for 36 zombie attacks will inflict 7 damage on average; a player who only rolls the hits then stops will deal 6.

That sounds bad, but I think the maths are good for what GW wants to accomplish. 40 zombies (a big mob) doing atacking at 5+/5+ without rend seems meh, just chaff. But their bites doing an average of 7 mw seems fine to me, if we understand that there is a low chance that any zombie can infect/kill any dude (unless you are the star of the show, then you will have a HERO keyword, maybe a Ward save and 5 or more wounds). 

[JackStreicher]

45 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Unpopular Opinion: They are not that bad.

Imo, they are not just annoying"chaff" that can't kill. They feel more like zombies from tv shows: they move slow (4") unless they are close enough to "chase their prey" (pile in 6") for a mini-marathon of 10" (+1D6" if they run). Take in mind that they can't do that if they are not close enough (6").

MW are just their "bite". 1 zombie only has a 16-17% of biting anyone and most people (2+wounds) will survive, so extremely low chance to kill a veteran (aka, elite units), but a group of zombies should be a threat as we have seen in Last of Us, Walking death, World War Zombies,...

And what happens if they bite a model, there is a high chance to see a new fresh zombie. It feels OP vs 1 wounds units but that's their point, overwhelm poor fellows, like any "new" zombie mob in tv shows, movies and tabletop games.

They could be a bit better, but AoS is build around this simplifaction that you need to lose some part of their identity in the rules. Imo, their bite ability should only be active when they are more models than enemy units.

That sounds bad, but I think the maths are good for what GW wants to accomplish. 40 zombies (a big mob) doing atacking at 5+/5+ without rend seems meh, just chaff. But their bites doing an average of 7 mw seems fine to me, if we understand that there is a low chance that any zombie can infect/kill any dude (unless you are the star of the show, then you will have a HERO keyword, maybe a Ward save and 5 or more wounds). 

Agreed.

[JerekKruger]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

MW are just their "bite". 1 zombie only has a 16-17% of biting anyone and most people (2+wounds) will survive, so extremely low chance to kill a veteran (aka, elite units), but a group of zombies should be a threat as we have seen in Last of Us, Walking death, World War Zombies,...

But why do zombie teeth ignore Annihilator armour? Where exactly are they buying Annihilators to do that?

Their bite should be their normal attack i.e. extremely interesting to armoured enemies, but if it does go through the enemy can turn into a zombie. Making it a mortal just doesn't make thematic sense (at least to me).

[Debello90]

Pile in 6 inches is a really bad rule, i don't like it when GW creates a rule and breaks it with a warscroll...the basic rules should always be respected, as well as there should be no attacks or movement out of their respective phases.. .stop moving or fighting in hero phase where enemy forgets how to shoot or how to use command point for +1 Save. The mortal wounds of zombies is a lazy gimmick to sell them, next time they will move the mortal wounds to skeletons.

[Beliman]

12 hours ago, JerekKruger said:

But why do zombie teeth ignore Annihilator armour? Where exactly are they buying Annihilators to do that?

Their bite should be their normal attack i.e. extremely interesting to armoured enemies, but if it does go through the enemy can turn into a zombie. Making it a mortal just doesn't make thematic sense (at least to me).

That's what I was talking about when I said "simplification":

1. You see a zombie that ignores the high armor of the Anihilators when they "bite". Without mw, 40 zombies (40 atacs at 5+/5+) will do 1 wound to Annihilators, so they probably will not kill any Annihilator.
2. You know that scene when the main group survive a big mob, but sadly one of them has been biten and he/she will die in less than 10 minuts? even if he/she is so badass that kills zombies with his/her own hands? That's what I see. If we look at annihilators, one zombie can kill a dude if he is lucky, but can't kill an annihilator (max dmg zombies can do is 1 wound). But a big blob of zombies is a threat to Annihilators too (movie/show references). That's why a 40 man blob would kill 7 or 8 basic dudes (and return them as zombies) and/or kills 2 Annihilators (and return only 2 zombies). 

Maybe there could be some "infection" mechanics when being wounded by the zombies, but that's a bit Nurgle and maybe we are overcomplicating zombie's rules (bite, kill, return them as zombies). Maybe the numbers are a bit better than they should, maybe they should do mw on Wound rolls. I don't know, but to me, they are not that bad.

12 hours ago, Debello90 said:

Pile in 6 inches is a really bad rule, i don't like it when GW creates a rule and breaks it with a warscroll...the basic rules should always be respected, as well as there should be no attacks or movement out of their respective phases.. .stop moving or fighting in hero phase where enemy forgets how to shoot or how to use command point for +1 Save. The mortal wounds of zombies is a lazy gimmick to sell them, next time they will move the mortal wounds to skeletons.

I agree, but we are late to the party. There isn't a Battletome without something that breaks the main core rules, and believe me that a 6" pile in is the less annoying mechanic to deal with!

Edited February 17, 2023 by Beliman

[zilberfrid]

11 minutes ago, Beliman said:

That's what I was talking about when I said "simplification":

1. You see a zombie that ignores the high armor of the Anihilators when they "bite". Without mw, 40 zombies (40 atacs at 5+/5+) will do 1 wound to Annihilators, so they probably will not kill any Annihilator.
2. You know that scene when the main group survive a big mob, but sadly one of them has been biten and heshe will die in less than 10 minuts? even if he/she is so badass that kills zombies with their own hands? That's what I see. If we look at annihilators, one zombie can kill a simple dude if they are lucky, but can't kill an annihilator (max dmg they can do is 1 wound). But a big blob of zombies is a threat even to Annihilators (movie/show reference). That's why a 40 man blob would kill 7 or 8 basic dudes (and return them as zombies) and/or kills 2 Annihilators (and return only 2 zombies). 

Maybe there could be some time of "infection" when being wounded by the zombies, but that's close to what Nurgle has and maybe we are overcomplicating the main mechanic (bite, kill, return them as zombies). Maybe the numbers are a bit better than they should, maybe even they should do mw on To Wound rolls, I don't know, but to me, they are not that bad.

I agree, but we are late to the party. There isn't a Battletome without something that breaks the main core rules, and believe me that a 6" pile in is the less annoying mechanic to deal with!

That would also be the case with Chaos marauders, Freeguild guard, Saurus or similar, but it's not in the game.

[JerekKruger]

7 minutes ago, Beliman said:

That's what I was talking about when I said "simplification":

1. You see a zombie that ignores the high armor of the Anihilators when they "bite". Without mw, 40 zombies (40 atacs at 5+/5+) will do 1 wound to Annihilators, so they probably will not kill any Annihilator.
2. You know that scene when the main group survive a big mob, but sadly one of them has been biten and heshe will die in less than 10 minuts? even if he/she is so badass that kills zombies with their own hands? That's what I see. If we look at annihilators, one zombie can kill a simple dude if they are lucky, but can't kill an annihilator (max dmg they can do is 1 wound). But a big blob of zombies is a threat even to Annihilators (movie/show reference). That's why a 40 man blob would kill 7 or 8 basic dudes (and return them as zombies) and/or kills 2 Annihilators (and return only 2 zombies). 

When I think of Zombie films I tend to think of a bunch of survivors, perhaps some with relevant skills, using scavenged gear, not a reforged hero wearing full plate+. That survivor getting bitten works because despite their skill they are operating in terrible conditions without the right equipment, but that's not what an Annihilator is.

Also, zombies rarely ever turning an Annihilator into a zombie is a feature rather than a bug to me. The few times it happens become memorable events, and zombies still do their job i.e. being cheap chaff that can tie up a slow unit like Annihilators for a turn or two. When zombies are fighting Clanrats they might convert a few, and that's also cool, because Clanrats are also chaff.

But it's ultimately a matter of personal preference. To me, Zombies just don't feel like they are supposed to because they are too effective at killing: 3/4 Mortal Wounds from 120 points of chaff just doesn't feel right to me.

[Beliman]

3 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

That would also be the case with Chaos marauders, Freeguild guard, Saurus or similar, but it's not in the game.

Na, marauders and greeguild are the "punchbags" of any setting. They are atrezzo.

Saurus Guard should be close to ScE with scales.

3 hours ago, JerekKruger said:

But it's ultimately a matter of personal preference.

I completely agree. But don't get me wrong, I don't like the mortal wound spam that plagues the game, it's just that zombies are not at the top of my list.

[Ganigumo]

Mortals are fine but a bunch of the stuff that gets them can be excessive.
Without strength/toughness/WS its useful to have something to differentiate attack profiles, mass attacks, rend, and mortals create 3 different offense types.

mass attacks for low saves

rend for medium

mortals for very good saves.

I find it funny that when an army gets mortals as a mechanic, it tends to be carefully limited and balanced (spiderfang, kruleboyz), but then they just slap it on random warscrolls where it becomes ridiculous (squigboss, splintered fang, zombies). Not sure where lumineth fit though, nobody in my playgroup plays them.

[Koala]

As per usual we need to distinguish between Design and Balance.

 

It is possible to have a badly designed, balanced unit... And the opposite.

I feel this is a design debate, not a balance one. 

And design is subjective.

( That said: i do agree that "chaff" units that mainly Deal MW are weird and should be an exception instead of the norm)

 

[NinthMusketeer]

I think zombies should have poisoned attacks; 6s to hit auto-wound. Give them rend -1 if they attack a target with less models than they, and let a nearby corpse cart hand out an additional rend buff. Beyond that it's about making them roll enough saves that they fail some; which is exactly what zombies are supposed to be.

For that matter, represent their 'relentless' aspect by letting them pile from 6" away... but still only pile 3". THAT I how zombies do.

Edited February 17, 2023 by NinthMusketeer

[RyantheFett]

Once again i mostly play against death factions and have lost count the number of times I have went against 120 zombies. Their extra long pile in, how easy it is to control objectives, bringing back zombies, and how hard they are to fully kill are fine and thematic.

On the other hand, the mortal wounds I still find too much and just allows a tar pit unit to punch way over its pay grade. Just feels that it removes some tactical elements from the game and it is not like the game is not deadly enough already.

[Debello90]

40 minutes ago, NinthMusketeer said:

I think zombies should have poisoned attacks; 6s to hit auto-wound. Give them rend -1 if they attack a target with less models than they, and let a nearby corpse cart hand out an additional rend buff. Beyond that it's about making them roll enough saves that they fail some; which is exactly what zombies are supposed to be.

For that matter, represent their 'relentless' aspect by letting them pile from 6" away... but still only pile 3". THAT I how zombies do.

It would suffice to add an attack to each zombie model if the enemy has fewer wounds than the zombie unit, stop hit mortali wound, furthermore if the enemy has fewer wounds it suffers 2+ d3 mortal wounds at the end of the turn to represent the horde of zombies trampling them.

Let them take enemy dead at 2+. Eliminate the 6 inch pile that only creates problems and replace it with a roll back charge roll to represent unexpected speed near the enemy.

You now have a thematic and non-oppressive unit.

[JerekKruger]

7 hours ago, Beliman said:

I completely agree. But don't get me wrong, I don't like the mortal wound spam that plagues the game, it's just that zombies are not at the top of my list.

I think I agree with that: mortals on Zombies doesn't fit with my image of them, but I don't think they are anywhere near as much of an NPE as, say, LRL Sentinels doing ranged mortals on 5s is a far worse experience than Zombies. I only really focused on Zombies as they were raised by another poster.

[woolf]

the 6" pile in that effectively becomes retreat & charge, strike first and run & charge is definitely the issue imo. sure MW on 6s is a bit weird maybe but ultimately question is just if they deal 2 much dmg or not.. maybe, maybe not, probably when buffed but not really out of the box..

imo MW is quite needed as long as 2+ and/or rerolling save exists, in particular for units that can heal/revive. Swapping MW mechanic for very high rend is fine but basically the same anyways in most cases (although playing eg IJ into NH is not great for this reason). I guess we r all a bit biased to our personal preferences though and for me it's way worse to:

1. face unpenetrable super anvils (in particular if they also deal a lot of dmg) as then the game becomes trying to avoid these units which doesn't feel like wargaming at all (eg last version of archaon case in point)

vs 2. play "rocket tag" which is basically a trading game, but at least there are things to do and any unit is killable with the right counter

[JackStreicher]

My experience with fielding zombies is losing a maxed out blob per turn , they‘ve no defense and in AoS every little  critter deals like a gazillion damage. And then comes the battleshock with -30.

that‘s why I stopped using them.

Edited February 18, 2023 by JackStreicher

[RuneBrush]

Have to say that I agree with the general consensus here.  In principal, Mortal Wounds are a great way of having that "scary attack" that will easily damage the toughest of opponents.  The trouble is the world and their mum has it.  That's resulted in most armies needing to have some kind of ignore damage/ward roll - which complicates the game and can make some units exceptionally harder to kill than they should be.  Ultimately in my eyes MW's should really be confined to characters and magic - certainly not on a horde unit and certainly not on most ranged attacks.

I think the biggest challenge is that AoS at it's core is simple.  A unit's "toughness" is represented by their wounds and the save attribute, but that doesn't really work when you've more complex ideas like poison.  Even the save roll is an abstraction and combines armour, deftness, tattoos etc, so it's impossible to create mechanics that interact with one item of that abstraction.

I've said for ages in my group of friends, that modifying the rend on an attack would have a much better play experience in a lot of instances, having a bonus -1 rend on a to hit roll of a 6 for an arrow makes a huge amount of sense.  A -2 rend bonus on a wound roll from a giant's club also works.  However MW's are now baked into the foundations of most armies and the way they counter other forces, so it'd need an almost complete reset to reduce the number of MW's in the game.  An army with low rend will struggle against heavily armoured forces and ethereal causes it's own world of complication.

[Gailon]

This conversation just highlights for me the incredible breadth and scope of Age of Sigmar. There are so many matchups, especially if you have a non competitive meta, but the game is so healthy right now (in balance of armies) that there is a lot of diversity. 
 

for me the mortal wound wounds on to hits has not been an issue. But I never play Lumineth or sbgl. And Kruelboyz are not good. Mortals on hit are scary but it’s all they have that is. 
 

but I have had Ogor Meatfists absolutely blast me off the table with almost entirely mortals. And hearthguard be completely unbeatable for me. 
 

I really like the mechanic that 6’s to hit improve rend, Skaven have some of that. But it does extend the game, something they are clearly trying to avoid (until they aren’t). 
 

mortal inflation really seems to be in the game. They aren’t particularly special. They are required. And some armies can produce absurd quantities of them. 

[Galdenistal]

As depressing as it was, my solution was to stop playing the game, not touched it since late 2019 and won't come back till MW are gone.

Why can't they break it down into 2 special rules: 6's to hit auto wound and 6's to wound ignore armor.

I'm hoping whatever game comes from The Old World doesn't inherit this mess.

[CommissarRotke]

thematically, I'm not sure how many denizens of the Mortal Realms zombies could actually Turn. Outside of the men, aelves, and duardin there's a ton of fantasy races that I just can't see becoming zombies:

coalesced or starborne seraphon wouldn't care,
orruks and goblins are literal fungi,
at a certain level of Chaos mutation your GIFTS should make you should be immune,
everyone else in Death is off the table,
Beasts of Chaos could go either way--again probably down to hierarchy/level of gifts.

thematically, poisoned attacks and returning zombies when attacking 1 wound enemies makes the most sense. I agree both because of MW spam and thematics that MW on chaff zombies doesn't make much sense.

Also agree with the general sentiment against MW spamming, and I'd also like to add that we've seen at least one model (hero?) already that can NEGATE wards. And since wards don't seem to be given out nearly as much as MW, if they want to throw this ability into the mix then we need to see more wards.

[Gailon]

4 hours ago, Galdenistal said:

As depressing as it was, my solution was to stop playing the game, not touched it since late 2019 and won't come back till MW are gone.

Why can't they break it down into 2 special rules: 6's to hit auto wound and 6's to wound ignore armor.

I'm hoping whatever game comes from The Old World doesn't inherit this mess.

I do think you’re missing out as the game has improved in so many ways since 2019. IMO. 
 

And isn’t ignoring armor the same as mortal wounds? Is there something I’m missing?

6’s to hit auto wound is a faction ability of Nighthaunt now. I love it as a mechanic. It is very flavorful without being op. 
 

I would definitely agree that 6’s to wound doing mortals is far more balanced. It still blows past heavily armored units in a way that doesn’t make complete sense for ‘poison.’  Mortal wounds really make sense for magic and far less sense in other contexts.