Thoughts on 4.0's New Rules

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

8 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Yeah. Every unit moves, every unit fights. One way to stay away from enemy units is to kill them.  I think they've struck a reasonable balance so far.

That said AoS and indeed all Warhammer games are fundamentally assymetrical by design. That death battle tactic looks easy unless you're up against 4 megas. Having to take one down from full health in a turn is going to be tricky. 

It looks like that at first glance, but the condition is "pick a unit that had no models slain", not "pick a full-health unit", so going up against hero spam makes that tactic easier if anything. It really seems like the designers want to enable very free list building, but are definitely making it most optimal to run fluffy mixed arms lists.

[Chikout]

38 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It looks like that at first glance, but the condition is "pick a unit that had no models slain", not "pick a full-health unit", so going up against hero spam makes that tactic easier if anything. It really seems like the designers want to enable very free list building, but are definitely making it most optimal to run fluffy mixed arms lists.

Oh right. That's down to me being stupid then.  The opposite is true. Targeting a weakened gargant is easy. 

[Chikout]

1 hour ago, Tonhel said:

Which is really unfun when you have that match up. So it's either easy or impossible. This isn't good game design,. No matter how people try to explain it.

Well ignoring the fact that I had that rule wrong, I feel like you're arguing both sides of the coin at once. All Warhammer except perhaps 1st edition adeptus Titanicus has fundamentally different factions. Some are good at shooting, some at moving, some at combat etc. Unless you change that basic premise of Warhammer you are always going to have missions and objectives that favour some factions over others. 

The job that GW has is to avoid pushing those differences to extremes while still keeping the objectives tactically interesting. 

I don't think there are any tactics we've seen so far that are impossible for any faction and aside from the player going first in turn one I don't think there are any that are automatic. Even in the first turn scenario, you can prevent take the flanks by stacking your army on one half of the board during deployment and blocking access to a flank. 

The first instinct is that a high movement army would be good for reclaim the lands but a really good way to make sure there aren't any enemy units nearby is to kill them. A Fyreslayers army might be going for that tactic in turn 4 instead of turn one. 

A valid complaint about the tactics is that they can be a solved system where you pick the same tactics in the same order every game. A set of tactics that have some way to counter them should help with this. Refreshing the list once a year should also help. 

[Tonhel]

9 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Well ignoring the fact that I had that rule wrong, I feel like you're arguing both sides of the coin at once. All Warhammer except perhaps 1st edition adeptus Titanicus has fundamentally different factions. Some are good at shooting, some at moving, some at combat etc. Unless you change that basic premise of Warhammer you are always going to have missions and objectives that favour some factions over others. 

The job that GW has is to avoid pushing those differences to extremes while still keeping the objectives tactically interesting. 

I don't think there are any tactics we've seen so far that are impossible for any faction and aside from the player going first in turn one I don't think there are any that are automatic. Even in the first turn scenario, you can prevent take the flanks by stacking your army on one half of the board during deployment and blocking access to a flank. 

The first instinct is that a high movement army would be good for reclaim the lands but a really good way to make sure there aren't any enemy units nearby is to kill them. A Fyreslayers army might be going for that tactic in turn 4 instead of turn one. 

A valid complaint about the tactics is that they can be a solved system where you pick the same tactics in the same order every game. A set of tactics that have some way to counter them should help with this. Refreshing the list once a year should also help. 

I am certainly in favour in having secondary objectives and I am happy that faction specific BTs are gone. I just don't think that those 2 Alliance factions are a good solution. As imo it already creates an unbalance, that isn't imo necessary.

That said I also have no good idea/solution to keep secondary objectives in these case BTs balanced for all factions.

I am hoping that there is a easy way to ignore BTs and still play matched games. For our group these are still the easiest to play.

[Chikout]

6 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

I am certainly in favour in having secondary objectives and I am happy that faction specific BTs are gone. I just don't think that those 2 Alliance factions are a good solution. As imo it already creates an unbalance, that isn't imo necessary.

That said I also have no good idea/solution to keep secondary objectives in these case BTs balanced for all factions.

I am hoping that there is a easy way to ignore BTs and still play matched games. For our group these are still the easiest to play.

Path to glory and spearhead won't be including battle tactics. Even if you don't play those modes it might be worth looking at how they do scenarios and possibly importing them into matched play. If you've got a regular group who plays together it's a perfect opportunity to play fast and loose with the official rules. 

[Tonhel]

21 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Path to glory and spearhead won't be including battle tactics. Even if you don't play those modes it might be worth looking at how they do scenarios and possibly importing them into matched play. If you've got a regular group who plays together it's a perfect opportunity to play fast and loose with the official rules. 

We did one time try a whole day PtG campaign. We were with 4. I played StD. The three other armies were SB, NH and Idoneth. It was an unpleasant experience for the Idoneth player. Everybody did 3 battles. My StD did well (it was before the new StD battletome) lol and in the summer. The rest I forgot. 🙂 I liked it, although the general conclusion was to stick with matched play and that we would have had a better day if we just played matched play with winners vs winners.

So sadly I can't force my group to play PtG only, as I think it would be indeed more my kind of game. We still have to see how PtG will be in 4th.

Spearhead sounds something I would try with my 8 and 11 year olds, but not with the gaming group. Although again, we don't know how Spearhead will or how dumbed down it is.

[Chikout]

27 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

We did one time try a whole day PtG campaign. We were with 4. I played StD. The three other armies were SB, NH and Idoneth. It was an unpleasant experience for the Idoneth player. Everybody did 3 battles. My StD did well (it was before the new StD battletome) lol and in the summer. The rest I forgot. 🙂 I liked it, although the general conclusion was to stick with matched play and that we would have had a better day if we just played matched play with winners vs winners.

So sadly I can't force my group to play PtG only, as I think it would be indeed more my kind of game. We still have to see how PtG will be in 4th.

Spearhead sounds something I would try with my 8 and 11 year olds, but not with the gaming group. Although again, we don't know how Spearhead will or how dumbed down it is.

I'm not suggesting trying those modes wholesale rather that  you look at how they do scenarios and scoring in 4th and perhaps import them into matched play in place of battle tactics. It's sounds like you've got a group who actually talk to each other. That's the envy of many players who are limited to pick up games. Why don't you try a few practice games with various adaptations of the rules and find something that makes all of you happy? 

Edited April 27 by Chikout

[Frodorowski]

On 4/27/2024 at 9:07 AM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It looks like that at first glance, but the condition is "pick a unit that had no models slain", not "pick a full-health unit", so going up against hero spam makes that tactic easier if anything.

I'm following some discussions regarding the death BT, and I don't know I'm fully understanding it.... The requirement to accomplish it is pick a "NON-HERO unit with no models slain"... You can pick a hero only if there are no other units to choose.... I don't see how you could accomplish it by killing a hero besides last turn if the rest of the enemy army has been killed and there are just a couple of heroes left. Even if the enemy runs a hero spam list, if it has a 3 miniatures non-hero unit in a corner of his drop zone, you still have to choose that one instead of the heroes.... 

Personally, playing SBGL I see this BT really difficult to accomplish for all the conditions it has... Either the rival positions a very fragile 10-wound unit in front on his first turn to kill, or the more the battle advances the more units won't be eligible to pick due to having some random miniature killed at some point.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

17 minutes ago, Frodorowski said:

I'm following some discussions regarding the death BT, and I don't know I'm fully understanding it.... The requirement to accomplish it is pick a "NON-HERO unit with no models slain"... You can pick a hero only if there are no other units to choose.... I don't see how you could accomplish it by killing a hero besides last turn if the rest of the enemy army has been killed and there are just a couple of heroes left. Even if the enemy runs a hero spam list, if it has a 3 miniatures non-hero unit in a corner of his drop zone, you still have to choose that one instead of the heroes.... 

Personally, playing SBGL I see this BT really difficult to accomplish for all the conditions it has... Either the rival positions a very fragile 10-wound unit in front on his first turn to kill, or the more the battle advances the more units won't be eligible to pick due to having some random miniature killed at some point.

I agree, people treat the Death tactic like it is just "kill a unit", but it is not. I imagine it will be fairly hard for a bunch of the grindier Death lists.

The tactic primes you to think that you should be trying to kill a multi-model unit full to dead. But actually the prime targets for it are probably non-hero single entities, like artillery, war machines or monsters. You are allowed to weaken those and still pick them for the tactic.

[Frodorowski]

Fully agree with Neil... Artillery, single chariots, monsters on later turns for the final blow...

My feeling with the BTs is like with the latest releases of rivals decks for underworlds, that there are a few easy ways to score, but if you want to fully score everything in every turn it becomes harder or at least not that evident, with more corner cases rather than straight conditions

[Ferban]

Endless spells and faction terrain this time. 

Overall, really like the changes.  I've been advocating that endless spells shouldn't cost points (or cost waaay less) for a long time.  So I'm glad to see that.  Breaking it into lores means each army will get a few that they can bring.  So we'll get more use out of our models which is always good. 

Also, they will be much more like units on the battlefield.  So they can be charged, fought, damaged, and killed.  Love this change.  If you bring an army with no or few wizards, the only way to deal with an endless spell before was to try to kill the controlling wizard and then move the spell on your turn.  Eh.  But now, it can be killed.  So a melee focused army has a way to deal with endless spells.  I like it. 

Same with faction terrain.  They are units that can be attacked and destroyed.  Which is interesting. It'll make many armies want to keep their terrain in the back away from enemy attacks.  Which may or may not be good given the terrain's powers.  Some terrain (like Seraphon zaps or Ogor heals) often want to be closer to the battle to have a greater effect.  I like this change, too.

Overall, super positive about this preview.  The actual warscrolls for the spells and terrain is going to be very important, and they only showed off a few.  But assuming those scrolls are decent, I think this is a great system.  

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

Not sure I like the idea of Endless Spells being fightable. 

"Oh look, there's a giant magical hand holding a magical mirror coming towards us. But don't worry, we can hit it with a club and kill it!" 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

26 minutes ago, Ferban said:

Endless spells and faction terrain this time. 

Overall, really like the changes.  I've been advocating that endless spells shouldn't cost points (or cost waaay less) for a long time.  So I'm glad to see that.  Breaking it into lores means each army will get a few that they can bring.  So we'll get more use out of our models which is always good. 

Also, they will be much more like units on the battlefield.  So they can be charged, fought, damaged, and killed.  Love this change.  If you bring an army with no or few wizards, the only way to deal with an endless spell before was to try to kill the controlling wizard and then move the spell on your turn.  Eh.  But now, it can be killed.  So a melee focused army has a way to deal with endless spells.  I like it. 

Same with faction terrain.  They are units that can be attacked and destroyed.  Which is interesting. It'll make many armies want to keep their terrain in the back away from enemy attacks.  Which may or may not be good given the terrain's powers.  Some terrain (like Seraphon zaps or Ogor heals) often want to be closer to the battle to have a greater effect.  I like this change, too.

Overall, super positive about this preview.  The actual warscrolls for the spells and terrain is going to be very important, and they only showed off a few.  But assuming those scrolls are decent, I think this is a great system.  

These changes are very difficult to evaluate in a vacuum. I think I will just have to try them out and see how they feel at the table.

First impressions, this new way of running endless spells seems more attractive than the old. I previously never used them, but feel like they might be fun to try out now.

[Beliman]

24 minutes ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

Not sure I like the idea of Endless Spells being fightable. 

"Oh look, there's a giant magical hand holding a magical mirror coming towards us. But don't worry, we can hit it with a club and kill it!" 

It sounds good to me. I had the same thought. 

If endless can hit my units (and most of them are completely corporeal), why my models can't hit back?

[OkayestDM]

38 minutes ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

Not sure I like the idea of Endless Spells being fightable. 

"Oh look, there's a giant magical hand holding a magical mirror coming towards us. But don't worry, we can hit it with a club and kill it!" 

Fair, but when you consider the lightning-enfused weapons of Sigmar, warpstone armory of Skaven, thrice-blessed bladed of the Cities of Sigmar, corrupted weapons swolen with the power of chaos, the fact that ogres canonically eat ghosts, etc, etc . . .

I think it works.

[TechnoVampire]

Interesting changes and like @Neil Arthur Hotep said, impossible to evaluate without testing, or the complete set of rules. 

Im assuming they will be much more ubiquitous than before, being free to every faction, but those with less casting potential might suffer. 

I wasn’t a particularly big fan of endless spells before, as they kind of just felt like additional stuff to keep track of. I’m not sure if I’ll prefer this system, but I’ll definitely feel more obliged to play with them. The fact that they’re more interactive is probably a positive. 

[Landohammer]

I like the idea of endless spells you can actually interact with. However I think the success of them is going to lie on how well the universal ones are balanced.

Because if they are all free, then there won't be a points system to help mitigate stronger ones. So the highest performers will become apparent super quickly and potentially be in every army's list.

I guess the casting cost could be used as a balancing measure to some degree. I think Wizards with casting bonuses could end up being the power players this edition. 

[TechnoVampire]

36 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

I like the idea of endless spells you can actually interact with. However I think the success of them is going to lie on how well the universal ones are balanced.

Because if they are all free, then there won't be a points system to help mitigate stronger ones. So the highest performers will become apparent super quickly and potentially be in every army's list.

I guess the casting cost could be used as a balancing measure to some degree. I think Wizards with casting bonuses could end up being the power players this edition. 

That’s definitely one of my concerns; if they’re not well balanced we may end up seeing the same few lores in every list and it becomes almost a necessity to get certain spells off to win. 

Edited April 30 by TechnoVampire

[Landohammer]

3 minutes ago, TechnoVampire said:

That’s definitely one of my concerns; if they’re not well balanced we may end up seeing the same few lores in every list and it becomes almost a necessity to get certain spells off to win. 

Yea I guess it also boils down to just how crazy some of these get. If all of the rest of the endless spell warscrolls are roughly close to the swords and palisade in terms of power level then it shouldn't be a problem. 

But I just can't imagine them giving the Krondspine a derpy profile lol. 

[TechnoVampire]

10 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Yea I guess it also boils down to just how crazy some of these get. If all of the rest of the endless spell warscrolls are roughly close to the swords and palisade in terms of power level then it shouldn't be a problem. 

But I just can't imagine them giving the Krondspine a derpy profile lol. 

It was krondspine that made me think of it, but you’re right and I’ll reserve judgement until we know more. Regardless it wouldn’t be very fun to see nearly every army spamming the same endless spells. Hopefully there’s enough of a spread of power and themes that there’s a real choice. If the different lores lend themselves to a particular playstyle then that will make them much more interesting. 

Edited April 30 by TechnoVampire

[ScionOfOssia]

I get the feeling you'll need like a 10 to actually summon the Krondspine, and they let it keep almost the same killing power, but I hope to god that they nuke Teclis's autocast if this is the case. I get the feeling that the Lumineth will abuse this system harder than anyone else if they get to keep near-universal wizards in every unit as well.

[Greyshadow]

I really like what they have done here. Bloat comes from having multiple systems tacked onto the core system. Be interesting to see how they handle points values for these things. I hope faction terrain gets points.

[Baron Klatz]

5 hours ago, Landohammer said:

But I just can't imagine them giving the Krondspine a derpy profile lol. 

I mean they can justify it now since the Era of the Beast is coming to a close and the wild energies from the Beast Realm are calming down a bit. So it lorefully can get weaker.

My bets are it’ll end up doubling down on it’s abilities to “rampage” & eat spells so it becomes a high level battering ram you can summon to blast terrain & enemy living spells to have more control over the battlefield(probably big for Disciples of Tzeentch)

But not a boss-level threat so can be taken out by average units & outright deleted by spell hunter units. Making it a Distraction Carnifex in other scenarios.

 

But otherwise yeah, I’m really loving this new take on endless spells & (especially) terrain for what they can do match and Narratively. 👍 

(also really happy they connected the Silver Swords to Elixia and the silver banshee, I was okay they had another origin with that Chamon queen but reading about them defending the city in Quest for Ghal Maraz 2 years before they got models made it a bit odd they didn’t build on them more then)

Edit: on the “hit spells with a club” thing, remember back in Malign Portents sometimes smaller cities were hiring spell bounty hunters to take down those supernatural disasters with literal swords and a bit of runic/prayer paper to help them corral the living spells. 😄

Hoping we’ll see more on that now with warbands of Freeguild schmoes with blessed hammers being the only thing standing between a city (paying them) and a Purple Sun that’s hungry for souls. 💀 🔨 

Edited April 30 by Baron Klatz

[Lord Krungharr]

2 hours ago, Baron Klatz said:

I mean they can justify it now since the Era of the Beast is coming to a close and the wild energies from the Beast Realm are calming down a bit. So it lorefully can get weaker.

 

Love that word, I'm adding it to my lexicon!

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

I find myself wondering if generic terrain will be attackable in the same way as Faction Terrain.

Edited May 1 by Big Kim Woof-Woof