Thoughts on 4.0's New Rules

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Lucentia said:

Do I think melee foot heroes have historically been a weak spot in AoS?  Yes, certainly, I think that's a fair assessment.  Do I think the solution to that is to make every random priest or wizard with 'Blood' in its name into Conan the Barbarian?  Probably not.  Let's see what vampire lords actually look like before jumping to conclusions.

Thanks for saying it, because I also don't really see the problem with the Slaughterpriest. Seems to me that between his attack profile, prayer and ability he has a chance to take down a Kroxigor. But after all, he is just a Khorne priest. I certainly wouldn't expect any random priest to take down a melee elite. Especially one like Kroxigors, which are slow bruisers that can't pick their engagements and need to absolutely wreck when they get in.

I would like to see dedicated melee units be morw viable in 4th. But I don't see a need for every priest or wizard to also have an inflated attack profile. Even in Khorne, you need to leave yourself room for the actual melee heroes.

[Marcvs]

1 hour ago, Lucentia said:

Let's see what vampire lords actually look like before jumping to conclusions.

My bet is: same profile as now with +1 wound, weapon profile: 5/3+/3+/-1/2

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

24 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

My bet is: same profile as now with +1 wound, weapon profile: 5/3+/3+/-1/2

As someone without any priming in what a vampire should be from WHFB, that seems about right to me. It seems like this kind of vampire would be a serious threat to a group of normal human vampire hunters, but they would still have a shot at taking it down.

[Flippy]

18 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

As someone without any priming in what a vampire should be from WHFB, that seems about right to me. It seems like this kind of vampire would be a serious threat to a group of normal human vampire hunters, but they would still have a shot at taking it down.

Based on WHFB? With the right setup (Blood Dragons bloodline) you had a killing machine like no other, save perhaps a Chaos Lord. Slaughtering whole blocks of infantry in single activation was not uncommon. Think Megaboss on Maw-krusha level of melee threat with some magic abilities on top of that.

[MotherGoose]

2 hours ago, Lucentia said:

Right, but you can kinda say that for everything, 'Oh, a slaughter queen is a chosen martial leader of the arisen blood goddess, she should be able to solo a slaughterpriest no problem,'   'An Abhorrent Archregent is a bloodthirsty monster swollen with unholy power, he should be able to kill 20 clanrats per combat!'  Marrying the rules to fit the lore as much as possible is all well and good, but at some point you're just playing playground rules with whatever your pet factions happen to be.

Do I think melee foot heroes have historically been a weak spot in AoS?  Yes, certainly, I think that's a fair assessment.  Do I think the solution to that is to make every random priest or wizard with 'Blood' in its name into Conan the Barbarian?  Probably not.  Let's see what vampire lords actually look like before jumping to conclusions.

You also raise good points but IMO foot heroes in AoS are completely the opposite of what they should be. Not to say they should all be amazing, and it's impossible to differentiate them too much without more stats like WS and S/T profiles so it's just a bit of wishlisting.

Currently foot heroes work more like you're playing a buff in a card game. A vampire is a +1 attack buff being played on your grave guard for instance, rather than actually being a beast like they 'should' be. But when you're confined essentially to two d6 rolls on their combat effectiveness, they just can't be different enough to other heroes. I'd like a vampire to be stronger, faster, tougher than a human warrior lord or goblin warlord or even a skaven for instance, but those days are gone and now they're just generic 4 or 5 attacks 3s 3s r1 d2 or similar across the board, same hero different skin. Gone are the days of racial differences and matching lore to profiles etc. For better or for worse is a matter of opinion and what you personally prefer really.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

16 minutes ago, Flippy said:

Based on WHFB? With the right setup (Blood Dragons bloodline) you had a killing machine like no other, save perhaps a Chaos Lord. Slaughtering whole blocks of infantry in single activation was not uncommon. Think Megaboss on Maw-krusha level of melee threat with some magic abilities on top of that.

I'd love something like that for Radukar the Beast, but wouldn't petsonally expect it from the likes of Kritza or a generic Vampire Lord.

[Tonhel]

38 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

As someone without any priming in what a vampire should be from WHFB, that seems about right to me. It seems like this kind of vampire would be a serious threat to a group of normal human vampire hunters, but they would still have a shot at taking it down.

14 minutes ago, Flippy said:

Based on WHFB? With the right setup (Blood Dragons bloodline) you had a killing machine like no other, save perhaps a Chaos Lord. Slaughtering whole blocks of infantry in single activation was not uncommon. Think Megaboss on Maw-krusha level of melee threat with some magic abilities on top of that.

As Flippy said, it's not really comperable + the damage output overall is much higher than in TOW. So in AoS your heroes will receive a lot more attacks back. A lot more.

I don't want unkillable goodlike foot heroes, but they have to be something more than just walking and hiding buff tokens.

With the StD Chaos Lord you had the ability to make a retinue. Very cool fluffwise and for immersion. But you would never use a Chosen unit for it. As a Chosen is way more useful than a Chaos Lord. So trying to deflect the wound to a Chosen would be absurd. It's just so conflicting Chaos Lords are on the top the food chain, but game wise they need to avoide combat as it wouldn't do much damage en would die quickly.

Chaos Lords and Vampires should be in the high end of melee threats on the battlefield, but they are not. It are buff tokens.

 

8 minutes ago, MotherGoose said:

You also raise good points but IMO foot heroes in AoS are completely the opposite of what they should be. Not to say they should all be amazing, and it's impossible to differentiate them too much without more stats like WS and S/T profiles so it's just a bit of wishlisting.

Currently foot heroes work more like you're playing a buff in a card game. A vampire is a +1 attack buff being played on your grave guard for instance, rather than actually being a beast like they 'should' be. But when you're confined essentially to two d6 rolls on their combat effectiveness, they just can't be different enough to other heroes. I'd like a vampire to be stronger, faster, tougher than a human warrior lord or goblin warlord or even a skaven for instance, but those days are gone and now they're just generic 4 or 5 attacks 3s 3s r1 d2 or similar across the board, same hero different skin. Gone are the days of racial differences and matching lore to profiles etc. For better or for worse is a matter of opinion and what you personally prefer really.

Well said, you explained it so much better than me. Thank you. Sadly I am out of likes.

[Tonhel]

8 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I'd love something like that for Radukar the Beast, but wouldn't petsonally expect it from the likes of Kritza or a generic Vampire Lord.

The problem is that lorewise, Vampire Lords and Chaos lords aren't generic at all. They are killing machines, but now they are units that avoide combat. 

Edited April 20 by Tonhel

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

6 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

The problem is that lorewise, Vampire Lords and Chaos lords aren't generic at all. They are killing machines, but now they are units that avoide combat. 

I don't think that's true anymore for vampires in AoS. At least not to the extent it was in WHFB.

I would like to see vampires be a bit more fighty, but they are already on a 3+ save and heal from combat. I don't really see a need to up their melee pofiles to the point that they need to be 200+ points, personally. They are already really good units.

[Tonhel]

1 minute ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I don't think that's true anymore for vampires in AoS. At least not to the extent it was in WHFB.

I would like to see vampires be a bit more fighty, but they are already on a 3+ save and heal from combat. I don't really see a need to up their melee pofiles to the point that they need to be 200+ points, personally. They are already really good units.

I am not a Soulblight player in AoS, but I would love to see my StD Chaos Lord be a real melee threat in AoS. Currently he is just ignored by my opponents. So double the point cost if necessary, but make them worthwhile.

[MotherGoose]

14 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

I am not a Soulblight player in AoS, but I would love to see my StD Chaos Lord be a real melee threat in AoS. Currently he is just ignored by my opponents. So double the point cost if necessary, but make them worthwhile.

The trouble (in my opinion) is without drastically increasing wound profile in addition to attack damage they'd be too hard to balance and would potentially be a huge waste of points because (currently) foot heroes are so easy to snipe with magic and/or shooting, and extremely easy to kill in melee for the most part.

Again, might sound like a broken record, but without different stats and profiles it's too hard to do. If we had S vs T then your chaos lord could have high toughness so he doesn't necessarily have to worry about weaker units and can happily go into combat. When you're playing with just two d6 rolls to get attacks in and nothing to really change anything based on what you're fighting against, you end up with what we have now. A naked ghoul can slap your chaos lord just as easily as he can slap archaon, just as easily as he can slap a clanrat or zombie. There's no change for what he's fighting against which makes dealing 5 damage incredibly easy when you throw a few more ghouls in the mix. If this ghoul was wounding your chaos lord on 5s or 6s then suddenly the damage massively drops down, add in WS vs WS and it goes down even more.

This also adds to list building and more balanced armies as you generally have to take a variety of units with different 'jobs' like anti tank, anti horde, anti hero etc. etc.

I'm also an advocate for how AoS do it as its so easy especially for newer players, it's just a shame to have to lose out on the fluff of the units (especially heroes like we say). However I realised years ago that if beastly fluffy foot heroes is what you *really* want from the game, then AoS is simply just not that game. I now play 40k and ToW to scratch that itch, and AoS for quicker games with crazy magic and awesome models.

Edited April 20 by MotherGoose

[Tonhel]

2 minutes ago, MotherGoose said:

The trouble (in my opinion) is without drastically increasing wound profile in addition to attack damage they'd be too hard to balance and would potentially be a huge waste of points because (currently) foot heroes are so easy to snipe with magic and/or shooting, and extremely easy to kill in melee.

Again, might sound like a broken record, but without different stats and profiles it's too hard to do. If we had S vs T then your chaos lord could have high toughness so he doesn't necessarily have to worry about weaker units and can happily go into combat. When you're playing with just two d6 rolls to get attacks in and nothing to really change anything based on what you're fighting against, you end up with what we have now. A naked ghoul can slap your chaos lord just as easily as he can slap archaon, just as easily as he can slap a clanrat or zombie. There's no change for what he's fighting against which makes dealing 5 damage incredibly easy when you throw a few more ghouls in the mix. If this ghoul was wounding your chaos lord on 5s or 6s then suddenly the damage massively drops down, add in WS vs WS and it goes down even more.

This also adds to list building and more balanced armies as you generally have to take a variety of units with different 'jobs' like anti tank, anti horde, anti hero etc. etc.

I'm also an advocate for how AoS do it as its so easy especially for newer players, it's just a shame to have to lose out on the fluff of the units (especially heroes like we say). However I realised years ago that if beastly fluffy foot heroes is what you *really* want from the game, then AoS us simply just not that game. I now play 40k and ToW to scratch that itch, and AoS for quicker games with crazy magic and awesome models.

Lol, again your post nailed it. I agree!

[The_Tallest_Ork]

6 hours ago, Tonhel said:

Have you seen the Slaughterpriest mini? The Kroxigor isn't twice the size at all. In AoS 3rd almost no foot hero could have a chance to a Kroxigor.

Yes, I own both models. The Kroxigor is much larger in both height and volume. I'm fine with the giant dinosaur smashing a smaller human priest when the dinosaur wields a mace that is, on its own, larger than the priest.

You're just talking in circles to justify why you want something that has never been the case in-game in AOS, and has made for notoriously un-fun editions of WFB back when it was the case.

[Beliman]

2 hours ago, MotherGoose said:

Again, might sound like a broken record, but without different stats and profiles it's too hard to do

Just to add something of interest. There are A LOT of games that, without using SvsT, their heroes have enough tools and stats to be diferent and unique enough.

Btw, I don't have problem with S vs T.

Edited April 20 by Beliman

[Sarouan]

There are indeed other games where heroes on foot are absolute untouchable gods by troopers, but neither AoS or WHFB / TOW are them. You're thinking more about Lord of the Ring, and even so it's debatable. Design of such games are very different and tend to talk about actual gods / demi-gods or mythical history flavour like Achille against the Troyens.

IMHO, they tend to have very one-sided battles where the hero is indeed completely cleaving his way through multiple "mere mortals" and can effectively be stopped only by another hero. Depends where you find your fun.

It's true AoS foot heroes are more about combos / synergies with other units than real battle beasts (though some do that job actually well, when handled properly). I don't mind it.

[Beliman]

40 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

You're thinking more about Lord of the Ring

I never played LotR. And I didn't mean to say that I want Superheroes, I just pointed out that other games, with similar stats and a few abilities, can have a lot of diferent heroes that feel completely unique.

4oS has Abilities and USR with a bunch of stats and characteristics, it should be enough.

Edited April 20 by Beliman

[Baron Klatz]

3 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I'd love something like that for Radukar the Beast, but wouldn't petsonally expect it from the likes of Kritza or a generic Vampire Lord.

Yeah, the main reason the World-that-was vampires were so broken is because they Were the lynchpin of the army.

You killed the vampire and the whole army literally crumbled away without their presence. So had to be super hard to even hurt.

In AoS not only are there entire warbands of vampires & common cavalry squadrons of Blood knights but the units themselves like skeletons are very self-sufficient(many actually being sentient skeletons from a Deathrattle kingdom that joined up with the vampires to protect them from the Ossiarchs who want to turn basic skelies into golem parts)

So the vampires are watered down as there’s already so many of them instead of one or a handful being a super rare sight(on the contrary there’s entire empires of them in Shyish, I imagine eventually we’ll see a proper vampire infantry unit too. We already technically have some)

But we can get insane legendary heroes like a buffed Radukar since they’re heroes of heroes and close to nigh on gods of power.

Similar situation for chaos champions now and we’re even seeing new Stormcast legendary heroes with near a thousand years  of deeds & experience turned into units(Reclusians)

it’s the whole “everything’s special so nothing’s special” thing at work so the pros & cons of that are pretty much up to your tastes and which aesthetics you prefer.

[Tonhel]

1 hour ago, The_Tallest_Ork said:

Yes, I own both models. The Kroxigor is much larger in both height and volume. I'm fine with the giant dinosaur smashing a smaller human priest when the dinosaur wields a mace that is, on its own, larger than the priest.

You're just talking in circles to justify why you want something that has never been the case in-game in AOS, and has made for notoriously un-fun editions of WFB back when it was the case.

Indeed, it was never the case, but I hoped with the reset (indexes) that something would be done about how foot heroes are handled within AoS. From Marshall to Chaos Lord all have more or less the same stats / damage output.

What we know so far:

• 3" weapon range for everybody increases lethallity.
• You are not forced anymore to split your attacks when charged by multiple units.

If nothing is changed for the survivability of foot heroes, than they will die even quicker with 4th edition and continue to be buff tokens running around and hiding/avoiding combat.

Sadly foot heroes in AoS are just buff tokens and easily replaceable. Just a simple token to push around. 

 

[Tonhel]

2 minutes ago, Baron Klatz said:

Yeah, the main reason the World-that-was vampires were so broken is because they Were the lynchpin of the army.

You killed the vampire and the whole army literally crumbled away without their presence. So had to be super hard to even hurt.

In AoS not only are there entire warbands of vampires & common cavalry squadrons of Blood knights but the units themselves like skeletons are very self-sufficient(many actually being sentient skeletons from a Deathrattle kingdom that joined up with the vampires to protect them from the Ossiarchs who want to turn basic skelies into golem parts)

So the vampires are watered down as there’s already so many of them instead of one or a handful being a super rare sight(on the contrary there’s entire empires of them in Shyish, I imagine eventually we’ll see a proper vampire infantry unit too. We already technically have some)

But we can get insane legendary heroes like a buffed Radukar since they’re heroes of heroes and close to nigh on gods of power.

Similar situation for chaos champions now and we’re even seeing new Stormcast legendary heroes with near a thousand years  of deeds & experience turned into units(Reclusians)

it’s the whole “everything’s special so nothing’s special” thing at work so the pros & cons of that are pretty much up to your tastes and which aesthetics you prefer.

Every foot character is watered down in AoS the game.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Just now, Tonhel said:

Every foot character is watered down in AoS the game.

Gotrek is pretty solid.

[Boingrot Bouncer]

Yes, Gotrek is an example of how you make a near immortal fighting hero. Having played against him and watched him be played I myself find him to be rather unfun since the tactics is simply to never let him get in a fight with you at any cost.

I much more prefer all the heroes that can transfer wounds since you get a hero that lives longer bit still have a chance to kill it.

[Tonhel]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Gotrek is pretty solid.

That's an extreme example and certainly not what I want for foot heroes. It says enough about the AoS design team that they can only make weak foot heroes or extremely overpowered ones.

[Satyrical Sophist]

9 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

That's an extreme example and certainly not what I want for foot heroes. It says enough about the AoS design team that they can only make weak foot heroes or extremely overpowered ones.

It says that they want heroes to be buff pieces rather than murder machines? 

[Tonhel]

4 minutes ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

It says that they want heroes to be buff pieces rather than murder machines? 

Which is fitting for some heroes, but not for all. Which is the case now. 

[JackOfBlades]

8 hours ago, MotherGoose said:

The trouble (in my opinion) is without drastically increasing wound profile in addition to attack damage they'd be too hard to balance and would potentially be a huge waste of points because (currently) foot heroes are so easy to snipe with magic and/or shooting, and extremely easy to kill in melee for the most part.

Again, might sound like a broken record, but without different stats and profiles it's too hard to do. If we had S vs T then your chaos lord could have high toughness so he doesn't necessarily have to worry about weaker units and can happily go into combat. When you're playing with just two d6 rolls to get attacks in and nothing to really change anything based on what you're fighting against, you end up with what we have now. A naked ghoul can slap your chaos lord just as easily as he can slap archaon, just as easily as he can slap a clanrat or zombie. There's no change for what he's fighting against which makes dealing 5 damage incredibly easy when you throw a few more ghouls in the mix. If this ghoul was wounding your chaos lord on 5s or 6s then suddenly the damage massively drops down, add in WS vs WS and it goes down even more.

This also adds to list building and more balanced armies as you generally have to take a variety of units with different 'jobs' like anti tank, anti horde, anti hero etc. etc.

I'm also an advocate for how AoS do it as its so easy especially for newer players, it's just a shame to have to lose out on the fluff of the units (especially heroes like we say). However I realised years ago that if beastly fluffy foot heroes is what you *really* want from the game, then AoS is simply just not that game. I now play 40k and ToW to scratch that itch, and AoS for quicker games with crazy magic and awesome models.

Agreed. Since they almost certainly wont add I, WS, S and T back, i hope interaction changes like paired hero-unit activations and reduced hero sniping, plus their claimed systemic rebalance of the profiles throughout the game to match the lore, will reach a similar endpoint.

My bottomline is that no matter how they do it, combat heroes should be incentivised to lead from the front as they are depicted in the lore. You shouldnt be incentivised to use something like a lord of pain, slaughterpriest or vampire lord as a non-combatant (unless the vampire is supposed to be a frail caster). Chaos lords happen to also need a glowup to merit taking them in general.

Edited April 20 by JackOfBlades