Thoughts on 4.0's New Rules

[ScionOfOssia]

10 hours ago, Tonhel said:

 

There you have it. It's all about named characters.

I use Chaos Lord as example as that is the most obvious one, but the Soulblight Vampire lord is also a good example and it's not only about being to weak. Its about the usefullness of foot heroes in game, besides being a buff token and how it will be changed in 4th.

In AoS 3 all of them are more or less clones in combat prowness. The only difference are the buffs they provide. But basically broadly taken all non named foot heroes have more or less the same damage output and survivability.

 

Verminlords. Mega-Gargants. Eidolons of Mathlann. All can be brought in duplicate (Minus the Akhelian, the command trait is locked to the general) and don’t have mounts, and are generally pretty good in melee. 

[Tonhel]

@Neil Arthur Hotepis correct. Guarded hero has two effects and one is ignored. The -1 to hit is still a active. 

[Tonhel]

5 minutes ago, ScionOfOssia said:

Verminlords. Mega-Gargants. Eidolons of Mathlann. All can be brought in duplicate (Minus the Akhelian, the command trait is locked to the general) and don’t have mounts, and are generally pretty good in melee. 

Lol, 2 of the 3 examples have the monster keyword and Eidolons have 12 wounds. Not really comperable with 99% of the foot heroes😂

[ScionOfOssia]

1 minute ago, Tonhel said:

Lol, 2 of the 3 examples have the monster keyword and Eidolons have 12 wounds. Not really comperable with 99% of the foot heroes😂

Your criteria was “Not Mounted” and “Generic”. All 3 aren’t mounted and the only reason the eidolon doesn’t walk is because it can fly instead so that’s just a skill issue for everyone else. 

[Tonhel]

16 minutes ago, ScionOfOssia said:

Your criteria was “Not Mounted” and “Generic”. All 3 aren’t mounted and the only reason the eidolon doesn’t walk is because it can fly instead so that’s just a skill issue for everyone else. 

Ok, you are right. With those fine examples I finally see the light. 😉

[ScionOfOssia]

21 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

Ok, you are right. With those fine examples I finally see the light. 😉

No less disingenuous than saying your 40mm model should be a melee combatant par excellence when any heavy hitter probably has at least a dozen of their heads mounted on trophy racks or bodyguards as strong as he is. Especially given how everyone else has gotten much stronger since Fantasy. 

[pnkdth]

6 minutes ago, ScionOfOssia said:

No less disingenuous than saying your 40mm model should be a melee combatant par excellence when any heavy hitter probably has at least a dozen of their heads mounted on trophy racks or bodyguards as strong as he is. Especially given how everyone else has gotten much stronger since Fantasy. 

There's a big difference between wanting them to last longer/be punchier in melee and boosting their power towards mega-gargants/greater daemons/avatars of a chaos god(demi-god) levels.

I'd, for instance, love to see more characterful Vampire Lords which some extra teeth (heh, sorry). 

[Tonhel]

18 minutes ago, ScionOfOssia said:

No less disingenuous than saying your 40mm model should be a melee combatant par excellence when any heavy hitter probably has at least a dozen of their heads mounted on trophy racks or bodyguards as strong as he is. Especially given how everyone else has gotten much stronger since Fantasy. 

Imo, foot heroes are mostly buff tokens. Almost all foot heroes that enter combat are worthless. The damage output is for most more or less the same. Same as survivability. Imo, it's wrong that Chaos Lords, Vampires and etc.. have to avoide combat, even with the lowest creatures as they will die.

If you think with saying that foot heroes are just fine and throw some examples of Verminlords, Mega-Gargants and etc around. Good for you. I don't agree and imo it's a shame that you can't really do some heroic stuff with your foot heroes.

Hiding, avoiding combat and try to buff their troops, but not fight, otherwise they die.

@pnkdth Exactly 😄 

Edited April 22 by Tonhel

[ScionOfOssia]

Just now, Tonhel said:

Imo, foot heroes are mostly buff tokens. Almost all foot heroes that enter combat are worthless. The damage output is for most more or less the same. Same as survivability. Imo, it's wrong that Chaos Lords, Vampires and etc.. have to avoide combat, even with the lowest creatures as they will die.

If you think with saying that foot heroes are just fine and throw some examples of Verminlords, Mega-Gargants and etc round. Good for you. I don't agree and imo it's a shame that you can't really do some heroic stuff with your foot heroes.

Hiding, avoiding combat and try to buff their troops, but not fight, otherwise they die.

Then stop throwing your melee hero into combat with stuff that costs substantially more than it and canonically probably has killed a sizeable number of them and expecting it to win. A 110 point Chaos Lord will not win against a unit of Necropolis Stalkers, and that's still canonically accurate. They probably won't fare much better when they're getting overrun by more Skaven and Grots than they can swing a sword at either. Especially not one who hasn't done much to earn the eye of the gods yet.

[Beliman]

I think that we are missing the point here

[Painbringer]

4 hours ago, Poryague said:

It literally does. "Ignore the effects of "guarding hero"  ability  when picking the target for thier shooting attacks". It literally says ignore that rule when picking targets. If you ignore the rule you get zero benifit from it. When you pick a target for their shooting attack you ignore the effects (plural) of guarding hero .  There is clear case guarding hero is entirely ignored as written not just the targeting aspect.

I agree with you - the ability is ignored completely (not just the part of it). I also think it's stated pretty clear - any effect provided by "Guarding Hero" does not apply. 

Edited April 22 by Painbringer

[JackOfBlades]

Heres what id do:

1. Copy 40ks system of ATTACHED UNITS, EPIC CHALLENGE stratagem and PRECISION keyword.

2. Rework the buffs of certain combat heroes like the lord of pain to reward being in combat, like the beastlord (foot chaos lords need particularly a rework as they dont actually do anything).

3. Add more sensible granularity to different hero profiles, so a loonboss isnt deadlier than a lord of plagues or equivalent to an abhorrant archregent as is the case now. No one thinks small combat heroes should effortlessly slaughter units of elite troops and be invulnerable against attacks from huge hordes of clanrats, thats just a strawman retort. But for example a chaos lord on foot should have a fighting chance against a dankhold troggoth, because their lore says so: "When challenged they will even stand in the path of a frenzied troggoth". Currently the dankhold will instakill the chaos lord on average, and suffer about 3-4 damage per turn in response before its healing.

As their lore and black library novels describe them doing, this would have combat heroes leading from the front, fighting cinematic battles with each other, and the most powerful types of them holding their own against the kind of enemies theyre said to.

Edited April 23 by JackOfBlades

[Chikout]

7 hours ago, Poryague said:

It literally does. "Ignore the effects of "guarding hero"  ability  when picking the target for thier shooting attacks". It literally says ignore that rule when picking targets. If you ignore the rule you get zero benifit from it. When you pick a target for their shooting attack you ignore the effects (plural) of guarding hero .  There is clear case guarding hero is entirely ignored as written not just the targeting aspect.

I've gone back and forth on this but now I'm pretty sure you can't ignore the -1. You can't stop reading a sentence half way. If I say I ignore the rain when it's light, that doesn't mean I ignore the rain all the time. I think this will become clear when we see the declare and effect stages of shooting. We had the same thing for charges and the full rules quickly resolved the issue. 

I imagine the declare step will just be pick a viable target. At this point the warlock engineer can ignore the guarded hero restrictions.  The effect step will be  resolve shooting attacks that target the unit, which is how combat does it.  The - 1 is applied here and warlock engineers can't ignore it. 

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

I've gone back and forth on this but now I'm pretty sure you can't ignore the -1. You can't stop reading a sentence half way. If I say I ignore the rain when it's light, that doesn't mean I ignore the rain all the time. I think this will become clear when we see the declare and effect stages of shooting. We had the same thing for charges and the full rules quickly resolved the issue. 

I imagine the declare step will just be pick a viable target. At this point the warlock engineer can ignore the guarded hero restrictions.  The effect step will be  resolve shooting attacks that target the unit, which is how combat does it.  The - 1 is applied here and warlock engineers can't ignore it. 

Exactly, we even have the Fight ability to reference, which clearly shows that "picking a target" is part of the declaration, whereas resolving attacks is part of the effect.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

 

12 hours ago, Poryague said:

It literally does. "Ignore the effects of "guarding hero"  ability  when picking the target for thier shooting attacks". It literally says ignore that rule when picking targets. If you ignore the rule you get zero benifit from it. When you pick a target for their shooting attack you ignore the effects (plural) of guarding hero .  There is clear case guarding hero is entirely ignored as written not just the targeting aspect.

 

Spoiler

It seems to me that, when looking at Sniper-Master, Guarded Hero and Fight (as a stand in for "Shoot") next to each other, it is fairly clear that the effect of Sniper Master is limited to the target selection in the Declare step of Shoot.

 

Maybe this helps you see where I am coming from. What's the difference between these rules:

"For the rest of the turn, this unit can ignore the effect of the Guarded Hero ability (full stop)."

"For the rest of the turn, this unit can ignore the effect of the Guarded Hero ability when resolving its shooting attacks."

"For the rest of the turn, this unit can ignore the effect of the Guarded Hero ability when picking the target for its shooting attacks."

IMO, it's fairly clear that these three rules would interact differently with Guarded Hero, disabling all of its effects, only the -1 to hit and only the targeting restriction, respectively.

 

Since I don't think it's very fruitful to discuss rules in-depth before the full core rules are even out, this will be my last post on this particular topic. In the end, I think it's confusing enough that we will get an FAQ ruling, anyway.

 

Edited April 23 by Neil Arthur Hotep

[Satyrical Sophist]

11 hours ago, JackOfBlades said:

Heres what id do:

1. Copy 40ks system of ATTACHED UNITS, EPIC CHALLENGE stratagem and PRECISION keyword.

2. Rework the buffs of certain combat heroes like the lord of pain to reward being in combat, like the beastlord (foot chaos lords need particularly a rework as they dont actually do anything).

3. Add more sensible granularity to different hero profiles, so a loonboss isnt deadlier than a lord of plagues or equivalent to an abhorrant archregent as is the case now. No one thinks small combat heroes should effortlessly slaughter units of elite troops and be invulnerable against attacks from huge hordes of clanrats, thats just a strawman retort. But for example a chaos lord on foot should have a fighting chance against a dankhold troggoth, because their lore says so: "When challenged they will even stand in the path of a frenzied troggoth". Currently the dankhold will instakill the chaos lord on average, and suffer about 3 damage per turn in response before its healing.

As their lore and black library novels describe them doing, this would have combat heroes leading from the front, fighting cinematic battles with each other, and the most powerful types of them holding their own against the kind of enemies theyre said to.

Aren't felwaters and rockguts still troggoths? Why do you assume it has to be the biggest troggoth. 

 

If the chaos lord has a fighting chance against a dank hold or other equivalent then it would have to be really very expensive. It would also be a lot of force on a tiny base. There are some blenders that size, but I can really only think of Gotrek and Light of Eltharion, and those are much easier to notice.  People already complain about how deadly they are, and having just some not particularly distinctive heroes be super deadly is a minefield. Oh no, I didn't realise it was the chaos lord, I thought it was the aspiring champion. One of them is a fully capable of murdering 200 points of combat unit and the other is chip damage. Both are caped chaos warriors in heavy plate. Even before you get into people with converted models for it.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Here you go, guys:

 

[The Lost Sigmarite]

So far I like what I'm seeing from the core rules. I just hope GW won't cut down points to force players to buy more minis.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

So far I like what I'm seeing from the core rules. I just hope GW won't cut down points to force players to buy more minis.

I wonder how it will go. What do people think would be a good point cost for a unit like the new Vindictors?

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

25 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

So far I like what I'm seeing from the core rules. I just hope GW won't cut down points to force players to buy more minis.

I second that... if only for the ease of transport. The current size of a 2000 point army is a comfortable amount to haul around (often using public transport) I feel. 

[Marcvs]

52 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I wonder how it will go. What do people think would be a good point cost for a unit like the new Vindictors?

I think if you were to put them in the present game they would be pointed as they are already -they get potential ASF and better rend if charged but lose mortals on 6s- and would rarely see play because they are not the cheapest battleline.

[The Lost Sigmarite]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

What do people think would be a good point cost for a unit like the new Vindictors?

I'd say around 100 pts like what they are now. 20 pts/SCE is a good metric for points and to help players quickly gauge a model's power.

[Boingrot Bouncer]

To be honest I lack having units in the 40-50 points range in most armies, so I would love if they could make some units bad enough to warrant that low point.

Often you end up at 1950-1960 points and it just feels bad having that gap. Previously you could add a bad endless spell, but that just felt like a bad solution most times. With the apparent change in magic  that seem to be gone as a solution too.

And I know that there is a risk that some people might spam low points units for board control/screen but it feels like a solvable problem with some kind of army building restrictions.

[JackOfBlades]

On 4/23/2024 at 1:15 PM, Satyrical Sophist said:

Aren't felwaters and rockguts still troggoths? Why do you assume it has to be the biggest troggoth. 

 

If the chaos lord has a fighting chance against a dank hold or other equivalent then it would have to be really very expensive. It would also be a lot of force on a tiny base. There are some blenders that size, but I can really only think of Gotrek and Light of Eltharion, and those are much easier to notice.  People already complain about how deadly they are, and having just some not particularly distinctive heroes be super deadly is a minefield. Oh no, I didn't realise it was the chaos lord, I thought it was the aspiring champion. One of them is a fully capable of murdering 200 points of combat unit and the other is chip damage. Both are caped chaos warriors in heavy plate. Even before you get into people with converted models for it.

I saw the new thread for small heroes after finishing my reply to you, so ill just delete it and go to that thread... 😅

Edited April 24 by JackOfBlades

[Ferban]

Today's article is up and all about battle plans.  

Basically .... they are the same as now.  Even the scoring stays the same points for one objective, points for two, points for more than opponent, and points for battle tactics.  All points have doubled so that you can get 10 in a round.  Apparently to make tournaments easier to score.  

Good.  I like that scoring system and I'm glad its staying.  However, I'm a little disappointed battle tactics seem to be staying in about their same incarnation.  We'll get a further article on battle tactics later this week (probably Friday), but that wasn't the best news. 

Also, if battle tactics are worth 40% of your potential points in a turn, then missing out on a tactic is a HUUUUGE disincentive to take the double.  Sure, there may be games where it still makes sense.  But I think this game is going to be I Go You Go the majority of the time.  

They did mention better terrain rules, but no details.  So I'll reserve judgment there, but I'm glad we're getting some real rules.  Terrain in AoS has always been lackluster and ad hoc. 

Lastly, they seem to indicate that the General's Handbook is a relatively light touch.  They imply that it just adds one rule - the Honor Guard rule.  Giving a buff to one unit is interesting and maybe some battle plans will focus on that.  But its certainly much less impactful than Bounty Hunters or Primal Dice.  Probably a good thing.  The GHBs were so heavy that they often greatly changed the usefulness of units, which then changed their points, which then impacted people playing non-GHB games negatively.  So a lighter touch is quite welcome.