The Mortal Wound Pandemic, and Dealing With It

[Bayul]

5 hours ago, Gailon said:

Mortal wounds really make sense for magic and far less sense in other contexts. 

I think this is the answer. I'd wish that mortal wounds would exclusively represent damage that is non-mechanical or non-physical. So impact damage of weapons, missiles or charges just wouldn't deal mortal wounds, but spells and immaterial incidents certainly would.

The concept of poisons could be represented by effects like debuffs for -1 to hit or halved movement. Then place a "Poisoned" marker next to the unit and some armies might get a bonus for attacking them, like NURGLE units. This idea already works with "Terrified" in Nighthaunt.

Charges on the other hand could cause x amount of save rolls based on the wound characteristic of a model, so basically WH40K's toughness:

1 wound = 6+
2 wounds = 5+
3 - 4 wounds = 4+
5 - 9 wounds = 3+
>= 10 wounds = 2+ 

While Kairic Acolytes would considerably feel the impact of a charge, a Daemon Prince might stagger and Archeon wouldn't be impressed by it. This would be far more interesting then mortal wounds on impact.

Ward saves could in consequence work exclusively for mortal wounds as well. I wouldn't mind if they are 4+ or even 3+ in this case, because they are very specific. That could actually be a represented by a "Mystic Shield" spell.

[Beliman]

Is magic any diferent than breathing fire, lasers or an aether-shot?

I mean, most magic in AoS turns to be fireballs, tendrils, claws, etc... I can understand that some of this things like ghost-hands traspassing shields or debuffs or mind-tricks should do mw, but not sure that all magic needs to do mw.

Btw, I like the charge chart made by @Bayul

[Bayul]

2 hours ago, Beliman said:

I mean, most magic in AoS turns to be fireballs, tendrils, claws, etc... I can understand that some of this things like ghost-hands traspassing shields or debuffs or mind-tricks should do mw, but not sure that all magic needs to do mw.

I think you have to make a difference here: Tendrils, claws or hailstorms are summoned by magic, but those things are material and tangible. Magic is only the cause and a Wizard would need to roll casting roll. But I don't see a necessity to have them deal mortal wounds instead of causing save rolls. A model with 3+ save due to a shield might be better protected by them. 

Warpfire, curses, arcane bolts, spectral effects, gazes etc. on the other hand should deal mortal wounds. Mere armor doesn't prevent its damage.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

55 minutes ago, Bayul said:

I think you have to make a difference here: Tendrils, claws or hailstorms are summoned by magic, but those things are material and tangible. Magic is only the cause and a Wizard would need to roll casting roll. But I don't see a necessity to have them deal mortal wounds instead of causing save rolls. A model with 3+ save due to a shield might be better protected by them. 

Warpfire, curses, arcane bolts, spectral effects, gazes etc. on the other hand should deal mortal wounds. Mere armor doesn't prevent its damage.

I think it's important to recognize that looking at mechanics from an in-world, "does this make sense?" perspective is always only part of the process. Yeah, it makes sense for hail a spell that summons hail to be affected by armour. But a spell already requires a casting roll, and getting through an unbind. Adding a save roll on top of that makes three potential rolls only for nothing to happen in game. This may not sound like a lot, but over the course of the game it adds up. Individual games in AoS already take a few hours. Adding extra dice rolls that further prevent changes to the game state from happening might not make the game better overall, even if it increases the degree to which the game world logic fits the mechanics.

I believe from the designer's perspective, those are two competing factors that need to be balanced. Do I make the rules match the world, or do I make the rules such that they maximize playability? Since the aesthetics and game world of AoS are a significant part of its draw, I don't think it's always clear which aspect should get priority. I don't know that the amount of mortal wounds in AoS at the moment is mainly a game play problem. Arguably, the game is the most balanced it has ever been at the moment, so I definitely don't think it's a balance problem, but then again (competitive) balance is not all there is to game play. A high lethality game is not necessarily bad, either. If anything, I think a game where nothing dies is generally more problematic. However, I think the regular attack sequence and everything that is involved with it (hit, wound, save, rend...) is getting devalued by the over-abundance of mortal wounds on regular units. It feels weird that offense in AoS depends on so many characteristics, but then the really good offensive units just skip the whole sequence rather than engaging with it.

In general we can ask ourselves: Why is it a problem that a unit like zombies deals about 1/6 wounds per zombie pretty reliably, regardless of the target's armour? I honestly think the answer to that question is not mainly gameplay-related, but rather that it is a mismatch between what the mechanics and the fantasy that the unit portrays. This does not have to be the problem with mortal wounds in every case, but I think it's valuable to distinguish "gamist" downsides of mortals (too high lethality, less counterplay, mortals/wards arms race, devaluation of normal wounds) from "simulationist" downsides (the mechanics don't match the fiction).

[Clan's Cynic]

Like many things, the problem isn't that Mortal Wounds are inherently a bad concept in AoS, it's that GW are physically unable to stop themselves from doubling down on something until long after they should have dialled it back.

 

[Bayul]

@Neil Arthur Hotep Fair enough, but my intention was just to seperat mortal wounds from attack sequence and limit them to certain use cases, like magic. Their amount wouldn't escalate this way because we don't spam Wizards in this game.

If I don't missunderstand you I'd disagree with your argument about the additional save roll, because ward saves already represent this third dice roll.

[Beliman]

I feel that Horus Heresy has more lethality with more dice rolls (no mortal wounds and each combat can end with someone running and the other trying to catch them).

The games are a bit faster (2hours) with a lore more units and models on the table. 

But overall, everything feels OK unless one side uses crazy stuff like Dreadnaught Rites or Titanic stuff.

[NinthMusketeer]

I don't see it as a balance problem on a faction wide basis. After all, part of the premise of the whole thread is that everyone is unloading MWs easily.

I do think it creates a problem when selecting options within a faction though. After all, why go with something my enemy could save against when I could go with the option of dealing MWs instead? We can see from Kurnoth Hunters the magnitude of difference needed to make the non-MW option attractive.

It also doesn't tackle the issue of rend being so rare by comparison. Why is it OK to be handing out effective rend -8 in the form of MWs more frequently than rend -2? 3rd has been better about handing out rend, but also given out better saves and more MWs as well.

As for gameplay speed, 3rd has definitely helped with the massive dial back of rerolls, something I feel they have handled quite well in transitioning to bonuses instead. However 6+ ward saves (5+ or better remains suitably rare imo) slow down gameplay a surprisingly large amount given how easily they are gained by large portions of an army. Healing also slows down gameplay; heroic recovery and rally alone likely account for a significant portion of game slowdown we've seen.

In theory MWs speed things up by skipping the wound and save roll... except a huge amount of these MWs are happening on 6s to hit, coming from attacks which are almost always still rolling wounds and saves. It is the MWs on 6s to HIT that are really getting tiring for me. 6s to wound I don't have a problem with.

[JackStreicher]

6s to hit wounding automatically is strong, faster and your opponent can actually interact.

[Marcvs]

I hven't really thought this through but following this discussion, what would you think of: remove all MWs based on the standard attack sequence and at the same time remove the All out Defense command?

[OkayestDM]

All Out Defense still has some play and tactical use due to Rend. I'd rather keep AOD, but change the way it interacts with Rend: saves can only ever be improved by 1, and any save stacking beyond that is ignored when applying rend.

This allows the defender to try to protect key units in a pinch, but keeps high-rend attacks valuable and useful.

[JackStreicher]

19 minutes ago, OkayestDM said:

All Out Defense still has some play and tactical use due to Rend. I'd rather keep AOD, but change the way it interacts with Rend: saves can only ever be improved by 1

Agreed.
Mystic Shields should be a 4+ MW shrugg. They really went overboard with save stacking this edition.

[woolf]

On 2/22/2023 at 1:47 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I believe from the designer's perspective, those are two competing factors that need to be balanced. Do I make the rules match the world, or do I make the rules such that they maximize playability? Since the aesthetics and game world of AoS are a significant part of its draw, I don't think it's always clear which aspect should get priority.

Think this is a good point, from my side they should probably start more with gameplay actually and then tailor the lore a bit to match it, which in most cases should be quite easy. E.g. instead of a summoned hailstorm (as someone mentioned) where it doesnt quite make sense that armour gives no protection, you can just write it as a summoned "magic XYZ" hailstorm and then have good alignment between rules and lore..

[NinthMusketeer]

I don't think save stacking is a problem--I think save stacking for a 2+ is a problem. IMO, make it so saves auto-fail on a 1 or 2 against attacks with any amount of rend and the issue is neutralized.

Also give out more rend in general rather than MWs, but I think most of us are on board with that.

[Dolomedes]

I'm in agreement that there's an overabundance of MWs in the game, and it's certainly having an effect on strategic gameplay. 

I play Beastmen, and have done since day 1 of AoS. What I love about them is using all the little movement mechanics and ambush shenanigans to win by out manoeuvring your opponent. It's a hard craft to master, but when it works it feels great.

In the new BoC book, Bullgors lost their super high rend (they were one of the first units with rend -2 damage 3). Now they deal truckloads of MWs instead. 6s to hit deal either 2 or 3 MWs, depending on the damage characteristic of the weapon. Bullgors also deal MWs on the charge on a re-rollable 2 up. If your Bulls have a Doombull nearby, you can charge with them in the combat phase and deal all those impact hit MWs again.

So, a unit of 9 Bulls (in Galletian Veterans) can ambush in, roll a 5" charge (Bestial Cunning command trait), deal 9 MWs and kill their target, then charge again to deal another 9 MWs, then roll their attacks to deal another stack of MWs to whatever isn't vaporised on the charge. Obviously this is hideously powerful, and now 6-9 Bullgors have just become an auto include in any beast list. There's practically zero counter play to it - I just drop 9 Bulls and the opponent takes 18 MWs on 2 charges, followed by combat where I'll probably deal double figures of MWs in combat. Predictably this annihilates the opponent's key pieces, and if the Bulls don't get killed by a counter punch, they'll probably do it again.

Competitively, I absolutely love my murder herd of cows, but it sets a standard that no other damage dealing hammer unit in BoC can compete with. It's such high output, with practically zero counterplay, that all the other damage dealers are just irrelevant. Using all the cool little movement shenanigans and ambushing our book has is a waste of time when you can just drive a trainload of MWs right into your opponent's face and kill them on impact, then do it again! Bulls used to be a glass cannon, but now they have such massive MW output that they just don't give a hoot about getting hit back.  

 

[JackOfBlades]

1 hour ago, Dolomedes said:

I'm in agreement that there's an overabundance of MWs in the game, and it's certainly having an effect on strategic gameplay. 

I play Beastmen, and have done since day 1 of AoS. What I love about them is using all the little movement mechanics and ambush shenanigans to win by out manoeuvring your opponent. It's a hard craft to master, but when it works it feels great.

In the new BoC book, Bullgors lost their super high rend (they were one of the first units with rend -2 damage 3). Now they deal truckloads of MWs instead. 6s to hit deal either 2 or 3 MWs, depending on the damage characteristic of the weapon. Bullgors also deal MWs on the charge on a re-rollable 2 up. If your Bulls have a Doombull nearby, you can charge with them in the combat phase and deal all those impact hit MWs again.

So, a unit of 9 Bulls (in Galletian Veterans) can ambush in, roll a 5" charge (Bestial Cunning command trait), deal 9 MWs and kill their target, then charge again to deal another 9 MWs, then roll their attacks to deal another stack of MWs to whatever isn't vaporised on the charge. Obviously this is hideously powerful, and now 6-9 Bullgors have just become an auto include in any beast list. There's practically zero counter play to it - I just drop 9 Bulls and the opponent takes 18 MWs on 2 charges, followed by combat where I'll probably deal double figures of MWs in combat. Predictably this annihilates the opponent's key pieces, and if the Bulls don't get killed by a counter punch, they'll probably do it again.

Competitively, I absolutely love my murder herd of cows, but it sets a standard that no other damage dealing hammer unit in BoC can compete with. It's such high output, with practically zero counterplay, that all the other damage dealers are just irrelevant. Using all the cool little movement shenanigans and ambushing our book has is a waste of time when you can just drive a trainload of MWs right into your opponent's face and kill them on impact, then do it again! Bulls used to be a glass cannon, but now they have such massive MW output that they just don't give a hoot about getting hit back.  

 

Have your opponents tried to adapt? Though i suppose youre referring to the internal balance as well if the other units are just not viable, but they seem to be.

Edited February 27, 2023 by JackOfBlades

[Dolomedes]

20 minutes ago, JackOfBlades said:

Have your opponents tried to adapt? Though i suppose youre referring to the internal balance as well if the other units are just not viable, but they seem to be.

They have with screening and blocking off deployment zones etc, but the MW output on the charge is so massive that you just blitz straight through and then into whatever is next. The MW output makes screening almost pointless. No matter how good the screen is, or how combat effective it is, taking 9 MWs that's basically unavoidable is likely to outright kill it. You could probably tailor a list that could stop it, with multiple screens and wards, or some big tarpits and movement debuffs, but the fact is that in AoS, if you've got the ability to point and click 30 MWs wherever you want, there's very little your opponent can do other than take the punch to the face.

Getting glass cannon Bullgors into their target used to be a fine art, but now they deal so many MWs, it makes so many other layers to the game almost irrelevant. The same can be said about the LrL Teclis + Sentinels castle list that's doing so well. If there's some way your army can project mass MWs without much counter play, it's so powerful that it's difficult to justify anything else, or spend your time working out all the other little shenanigans that make your army interesting.

 

[JackOfBlades]

5 hours ago, Dolomedes said:

They have with screening and blocking off deployment zones etc, but the MW output on the charge is so massive that you just blitz straight through and then into whatever is next. The MW output makes screening almost pointless. No matter how good the screen is, or how combat effective it is, taking 9 MWs that's basically unavoidable is likely to outright kill it. You could probably tailor a list that could stop it, with multiple screens and wards, or some big tarpits and movement debuffs, but the fact is that in AoS, if you've got the ability to point and click 30 MWs wherever you want, there's very little your opponent can do other than take the punch to the face.

Getting glass cannon Bullgors into their target used to be a fine art, but now they deal so many MWs, it makes so many other layers to the game almost irrelevant. The same can be said about the LrL Teclis + Sentinels castle list that's doing so well. If there's some way your army can project mass MWs without much counter play, it's so powerful that it's difficult to justify anything else, or spend your time working out all the other little shenanigans that make your army interesting.

 

9 Bullgors can deal a max of 9 mortals on the charge which wont wipe out a 10 wound screen, and so the bullgors cant fight the juicier target in the combat phase, but i suppose you are getting around that by softening the screen with ungor raiders first (unless im completely missing some damage source). I am not disagreeing with you per se, im sure your opponents have tried stuff. But for the cost of that combo: 585 + 160 + presumably 110 for ungor raiders + command trait + command point, youd certainly expect it to do some damage right? I do agree that maintaining counterplay through gameplay as well and not only list tailoring is important.

With the Lumineth castle, isnt that basically a skew counter against elite armies? genuine question.

Edited February 27, 2023 by JackOfBlades

[Dolomedes]

10 hours ago, JackOfBlades said:

9 Bullgors can deal a max of 9 mortals on the charge which wont wipe out a 10 wound screen, and so the bullgors cant fight the juicier target in the combat phase, but i suppose you are getting around that by softening the screen with ungor raiders first (unless im completely missing some damage source). I am not disagreeing with you per se, im sure your opponents have tried stuff. But for the cost of that combo: 585 + 160 + presumably 110 for ungor raiders + command trait + command point, youd certainly expect it to do some damage right? I do agree that maintaining counterplay through gameplay as well and not only list tailoring is important.

With the Lumineth castle, isnt that basically a skew counter against elite armies? genuine question.

Aye there's plenty of ways to soften things up - raiders are just one option. There'a an abundance of 8" range attacks too that'll do the job, as well as a few D3 MW spells and abilities you can go for. You're right about the cost, it ain't cheap - pretty much everything that does reliable damage now costs an arm and a leg in BoC, but that's a rant for another day. We haven't seen many tournament lists with the new BoC tome yet, but I'll wager that the bulk will have this combo in to some degree, because it's the thing that dishes out a truckload of mortal wounds. 

[Popisdead]

On 2/12/2023 at 8:04 PM, NinthMusketeer said:

 For decades, Warhammer Fantasy understood that the sequence is hit-wound-save

Do you have the same issue, or am I just crazy? Does your local community have any particular house rules or techniques for dealing with this? Remember to keep all discussion friendly!

If you want to keep the discussion "friendly" don't guise it in complaints and comparing two different games that have evolved over 20 years when you are getting to a point that maintaining a competitive edge isn't one of the highest priorities in your life.  

Warhammer Fantasy was subject to abysmal dice spiking.  20 goblins could win Combat Res over 10 elite elves through cause you just needed those 4 goblins to roll 5s and the 4 elves to roll 1s and 2s....  with 5 dice each.  The points cost disparity was terrible; 60 points of goblins compared to 180 points of elves.  And then the fixes were ASF, then ASF being a mechanic to RR hits which of course caused an uproar of complaints that extended to Horde formation, the power scroll, 6th spells in lores.  

Very little about Fantasy was actually a good combat mechanic as far as game design.  If you look back to Fantasy for this century there will be someone older complaining about unkillable Greater Daemons or Chaos Lords or Rhino Rush or magic spell cards from editions 2 through 5.  Games Workshop players love their rose coloured glasses.  

What was good was GW continually evolved the game and when it came time rebuilt it so it worked in a modern age better.

 

The #1 sign someone needs introspection is when the come to the Age of Sigmar discussions sub-forum to complain about the state of the game.

[JackStreicher]

How is the MW-Situation in the two new Battletomes?

[NinthMusketeer]

11 hours ago, Popisdead said:

If you want to keep the discussion "friendly" don't guise it in complaints and comparing two different games that have evolved over 20 years when you are getting to a point that maintaining a competitive edge isn't one of the highest priorities in your life.  

Warhammer Fantasy was subject to abysmal dice spiking.  20 goblins could win Combat Res over 10 elite elves through cause you just needed those 4 goblins to roll 5s and the 4 elves to roll 1s and 2s....  with 5 dice each.  The points cost disparity was terrible; 60 points of goblins compared to 180 points of elves.  And then the fixes were ASF, then ASF being a mechanic to RR hits which of course caused an uproar of complaints that extended to Horde formation, the power scroll, 6th spells in lores.  

Very little about Fantasy was actually a good combat mechanic as far as game design.  If you look back to Fantasy for this century there will be someone older complaining about unkillable Greater Daemons or Chaos Lords or Rhino Rush or magic spell cards from editions 2 through 5.  Games Workshop players love their rose coloured glasses.  

What was good was GW continually evolved the game and when it came time rebuilt it so it worked in a modern age better.

 

The #1 sign someone needs introspection is when the come to the Age of Sigmar discussions sub-forum to complain about the state of the game.

...I also do the 'AoS appreciation thread' which is only about complimenting the game. I feel like there is an axe to grind here that has nothing to do with the context of this thread; perhaps you can start another?

[NinthMusketeer]

8 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

How is the MW-Situation in the two new Battletomes?

I had been thinking about starting a thread about this for a few months but those releases are what finally pushed me to do it.

[Dolomedes]

8 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

How is the MW-Situation in the two new Battletomes?

Scroll up to see my posts on BoC. TLDR is Bullgors do truckloads of MWs so they'll be auto include, and the MW output is so powerful that you can effectively bypass counterplay.

[Dolomedes]

15 hours ago, Popisdead said:

Warhammer Fantasy was subject to abysmal dice spiking.  20 goblins could win Combat Res over 10 elite elves through cause you just needed those 4 goblins to roll 5s and the 4 elves to roll 1s and 2s....  with 5 dice each.  The points cost disparity was terrible; 60 points of goblins compared to 180 points of elves.  And then the fixes were ASF, then ASF being a mechanic to RR hits which of course caused an uproar of complaints that extended to Horde formation, the power scroll, 6th spells in lores.  

I once blew up a unit of 100 clanrats by flank charging with 5 Ungor Raiders. I somehow won combat and my opponent failed 2 leadership tests on box cars. It's one of my fondest gaming memories, but it does show how busted certain mechanics were in fantasy

Edited March 1, 2023 by Dolomedes