Would more flexible detachment rules for heroes hurt the game?

[Sception]

When 4e was first being hyped up, one of the advertized selling points was more flexible list construction.  No more minimum battleline requirements, no more artillery or behemoth maximums, build the list you want how you want it.  A few months in, though, and in practice, to me at least, list construction feels wildly more restrictive than before, particularly when it comes to heroes.  Only one hero per detachment, with each detachment being a new drop, is highly disincentivizing of small support heroes especially.  Every faction has some slight mitigating factor in the form of a limited selection of minor heroes that can be taken as part of the detachment of another often even more limited selection of major heroes.

I like this concept, but the restrictions on who gets to be a major and minor hero seem excessively restrictive, and in some cases rather arbitrary, if not outright contrary to the narrative.

EG, take the soulblight gravelords.  Why was the critical subcommander utility restricted to only a single bloodline?  Why does Radukar have access to Subcommanders, but Mannfred and Neferata - mortarchs of Nagash and the highest ranking commanders in the faction by far, cannot?  Why can Torgillius be taken as a subcommander, but a generic necromancer cannot?  Why can Ivya Volga be taken as a subcommander, but a regular Vampire Lord cannot?

Or take OBR.  Liege's are explicitly the battlefield commanders of OBR armies, why can they be taken as subcommanders instead of being able to take subcommanders themselves?  Mortisan Soulmasons - the skeletons with fancy hats riding their walking chairs - are often depicted as commanders and overseers - for example the popular Petrifex legion is led by a Soulmason.  Why can they not take subcommanders?  Lesser Mortisans - Boneshapers and Ossifectors in particular - aren't leaders in the lore so much as they are artisans, serving a utility support function.  Why can they not be taken as subcommanders?

 

So the decisions on who gets to take or be taken as subcommanders feels very arbitrary, and the whole system just feels super restrictive and punishing in practice.  What if it weren't?

What if instead of every faction having its own named category of minor heroes, we just had a generic word for that the way we have a generic word for General.  Lieutenant, maybe?  And then what if we said any detachment could include a lieutenant regardless of the hero chosen to lead it, and that any hero could be taken as a lieutenant so long as they were not a behemoth, had a maximum power level of 1 (so no double casters or double chanters) and had less than 10 wounds.

Would that break anything?  Would the ability to take twice as many minor priests or wizards break the magic or prayer systems?  Are there support heroes with force multiplying powers that are only kept in check by requiring a whole new detachment to field them?  Or am I right and the game - especially the list construction element of it - would just feel a lot more open and fun?

Edited September 29 by Sception

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I don't have a long-form reply in me right now, so:

- Yeah, they could open up list building more. It would not break the game, because AoS is just not that tightly tuned.

- Making small heroes easier to run would probably be nice. But making wizards easier to run would probably not help the magic meta that people already dislike.

- On the other hand, list building really is super free right now if you actually engage with the tools available. Just try going high drops for a few games. You don't have to participate in the race to 2 drops. A 50/50 chance to get priority is not game deciding.

- Finally, people once again have short memories. Remember when some of the main criticisms of list building during 2nd and 3rd were how lists don't "look like armies" and how easy spamming certain units was? The regiment system is a response to these problem, but through soft incentives rather than hard limits like the force organisation charts of WHFB.

 

[Beliman]

I can only talk about Kharadrons, but I must say that I love it, even if points are a bit higher that I would expect. We have Commanders and Officers:

• Commanders: Admiral, Brokk and Drekki Flynt (even if he can only take Frigates as his skyvessel).
  This are the ones that can't be officers but can take all other stuff, included 0-1 officers and skyvessels.
• Officers: Khemist, Codewright, Navigator, both Endrinmasters.

Completely lore-friendly and I love that. But take in mind that we don't have magic/prayer/manifestations, that means that we don't have tools to ressurect, teleports, ward, etheral, mortal wounds on range, etc.... And even if all of this seems so good to take as many Heroes as we would like, we mostly play with 2, because our small and expensive roster has some other issues:

• At least one slot taken by our battle Traits (aka, Skyvessels)
• One dispell (Navigator)
• Everything else is about utility (roll a 3+, and get 1 rend on shooting attacks, 1" run, etc...). That's another problem because if all Heroes are made to buff our units, and 50% of our units have a low number of wounds behind a 4+save, we are better doubling our units than taking another Hero to buff them.
• No Heroes are a threat by themself (duelists, big monsters-heroes buffing 20" around them, etc...). 

Not sure if it helps, but that's my POV.

Edited September 28 by Beliman

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

I suspect the system affects some factions a lot more than others. Personally, I like it as is. It feels... fluffy. But that's just for me and my army. I know an Idoneth player of my acquaintance loathes the way heroes are picked now. But that could be just generic aelven moaning... 

[Grimrock]

They could definitely open things up more and it probably wouldn't break the game, but I don't think it would necessarily make the game better either. I think the tension in the current system is absolutely intentional. Sure it feels a little bad not being able to run exactly what you want, but that forces you to make decisions and sacrifices. If you really do want to run that extra wizard it's going to cost you an extra drop or maybe an auxiliary. Is it worth it? If not, then what do you need to get rid of to get that wizard? Maybe you need to drop your warmaster and tinker with the units you're bringing. If you have to do that, is the wizard worth losing access to the high-value beat stick unit that can only be taken in your warmasters regiment? The hard decisions are definitely something they talked about wanting to give to players to make the system more rewarding. 

That being said I do think they're going to ease up a little going forward. They've already curbed the Priority Target bodyguard ability because it was impacting your choices for the general's regiment too much. They've also added in a highly spammable priest into the skaven roster. I'm pretty confident we'll see more wizard/priest sub-commanders as the army books start to get rolled out. 

The problems I've had with the current system are mainly due to my collections built for previous editions. I have a smattering of factions I collected and not all of them were very hero heavy. In a number of cases it turns out I need to buy a couple heroes just to give proper access to the units I own, which is definitely a bit of a feels bad. I don't like that I need to go pick up Glutos or a Shardspeaker just to be able to run all of my mortal Hedonite units. Things like that are pretty common for edition changes though and honestly this isn't the worst. I can remember dropping my Tyranids entirely when they go their 5th edition codex because they nerfed my favorite units into the ground and then released a bunch of brand new models that were, surprise surprise, wildly stronger than anything else in the book. 

 

Edited September 28 by Grimrock

[PraetorDragoon]

I'm not the biggest fan of listbuilding. The limitations provided by the Regiment system aren't that limiting, but are limiting enough to be.. annoying. Its annoying enough to make me not want to bother with non-spearhead 4e. 

[Tonhel]

I like how it's done in AoS 4th, but it's sadly not lore focussed, but balance focussed. Like you proof with your SBL and OBR examples.

It makes no sense that you can take a Marshall in a regiment as a leader, but the only other hero you can add is fusil-major on Ogor. Same with Tahlia the only option is again the fusil-major.

It would be much cooler and immersive that you could atleast take a battlemage as a second hero in a regiment led by a Marshall. But as @Neil Arthur Hotep said this would unbalance the game. Although this is imo because of the unbalance of those free manifestations. Give those a point cost and there would be zero problems with adding more second hero options to a regiment.

I love magic in games. Be it AoS or ToW, but I really dislike those free manifestations.

[Sception]

I'd be inclined to say that the problem is with the manifestation rules, and arbitrary restrictions on wizards aren't the solution - especially when those restrictions aren't universally applied.  There are already factions who can take casters leading detachments with subcommanders who are also casters, so this problem, to the extent it is the problem, already exists.  I fail to see how manifestation spam would be any worse if Lauka Vai were able to take a Necromancer in her detachment than it already is now with Beladamma Volga - a more efficient caster than Lauka - able to take Torgillius - a better necromancer.

Consider also that more factions having access to subcommander wizards could help level the playing field with more unbinds/dispels to help keep manifestations in check.

But if it really is priests/wizards specifically that are the problem, then fine, instead of 'lieutenants' being limited to power level one, say they can't have a power level, period.  Level the field in the other directions, with the factions currently able to leverage subcommander wizards for way more spell/prayer power no longer able to do so, & meanwhile at the very least random small fighty heroes like Wight Kings or whatever would be more playable - if not good then at least not punished by the army construction rules ~on top~ of being bad.

To the extent that magic is a problem in the game, some factions being able to cram 6 casts into two detachments while others can fit at most 2 dispels/unbinds into those same two detachments can't be helping.  I'd rather let the have nots have more, but I'd be nearly as happy with a generic lieutenant system that excludes casters entirely and for everyone - if at the same time it also opened things up much wider for all the non-casters.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

Personally, I don't see the exclusion of wizards from bonus hero status as mainly a balance concern. I think it's more about the dev's vision of the game. Which I think is that, as a rule, you don't get wizards and priests super easy during list building. At the same time, AoS is a game where being good at something frequently manifests as breaking the rules in some way. So I see the existence of 3+ cast wizards and bonus hero wizards as an expression of that: Usually, you don't get casts for cheap, but some armies do. Like in the case of Vyrkos, it's an expression of their identity. Since the 2nd ed book, they have (for some reason) been a magic-focused subfaction with a wolf/pack theme. This is expressed in 4th by them getting pretty good magic, but distributed among a bunch of different small heroes.

I don't think that it's a balance concern mainly because I think nobody getting bonus wizards, some armies getting bonus wizards and everyone getting bonus wizards is probably about equally balanced. Of course, the feeling of the game will change: More wizards definitely means more magic flying around. But  it's not like the game absolutely has to be one specific way to be playable.

By the way, I don't think you have to have a lot of casts to compete in magic right now. Given that unbind bonuses basically no longer exist and manifestation banishment is also against static numbers, I find that running even weaker wizards is still worth it. I ran a cities list with 2 +1 to cast dudes against Teclis recently, and it didn't feel nearly as oppressive as you might imagine. Then again, I don't go for low drops.

[Sarouan]

On 9/27/2024 at 6:37 PM, Sception said:

Would that break anything?  Would the ability to take twice as many minor priests or wizards break the magic or prayer systems?  Are there support heroes with force multiplying powers that are only kept in check by requiring a whole new detachment to field them?  Or am I right and the game - especially the list construction element of it - would just feel a lot more open and fun?

The more options you give, the more difficult it is to balance. And since GW puts so much focus on balance in how they advertise 4th...I believe that's the answer.

It wouldn't break the game for sure. It would just give more fuel to players obsessed with balance to complain about it.

That said, I believe the current system gives room for GW to actually design some future heroes to be in that "minor / major" category, and a way to "balance" them by limiting some of the more powerful ones in how you build the lists (like having heroes with similar capacities, but one being a major one and another being a minor one giving them distinct roles in the list structure and, thus, an interest to include both in your armies in different ways).

I'm still an advocate for more openness in the game doing more good than bad, no matter what some competitive players may say.

Edited October 1 by Sarouan