Age of Sigmar FAQ update

[Nico]

Good spot @Donal - another twist in the Zombro debate. I think it's at least arguable that you can merge two units up to 60 models but no more in matched play, but a more specific answer would be helpful.

[Arkiham]

why is there so much hatred towards allowing the zombies to do it ? 

[Andreas]

6 minutes ago, Arkiham said:

why is there so much hatred towards allowing the zombies to do it ? 

I don't think it is because it is OP. It's just that it could be the one and only warscroll rule that might override the GH rules, if it is ruled in that way.

Edit: You need 3 battleline units (2000pt), you cannot go beyond the starting number of models in a unit etc...

[wayniac]

I maintain that the solution to many of these problems is to either talk with your opponent, or be open (pun intended) to styles other than matched play.  Now if you only want to play in tournaments, then you're kinda screwed but as I had mentioned earlier in the thread (it got lost in the discussion) many of these weird nerfs/changes make sense if you consider them as only applying for a tournament setting.  They feel out of place when you want to apply tournament rules (e.g. Matched Play itself and all that it brings with it) to every game that you play.  But if you consider it as balancing a tournament environment, then they become less "woah WTF" and more "Okay I see why this is the way it is, even if I don't necessarily agree with it".

The solution IMHO Is to use Open/Narrative Play more, and put less reliance on Matched Play/Pitched Battle stuff being the rule of the day.  Many of these issues go away if you remember that Matched Play is one of the playstyles, not the only one, and that if you aren't playing in a tournament or preparing for a tournament, maybe you don't need to adhere so rigidly to points and battleline and the like.

[Kamose]

5 minutes ago, wayniac said:

"I maintain that the solution to many of these problems is to either talk with your opponent, or be open (pun intended) to styles other than matched play.  But if you consider it as balancing a tournament environment, then they become less "woah WTF" and more "Okay I see why this is the way it is, even if I don't necessarily agree with it".

Amen to that!  

[Arkiham]

id just be happy for someone to point out the specific, actual ( not theoretical )   benefits of a unit of 60 zombies compared to 30 zombies, other than more bodies, which arent going to do alot tbh, what do you gain? 

obviously for smaller units combining into a unit of 30 you gain benefits but its zombies.... who cares

[Andreas]

I dont think it's about the zombies. For example the new Tzaangors shaman have a rule that explicity says that he can cast the same spell twice. Should he be able to do that in matched play. Override GH rules via warscrolls rules might open a whole new discusson on several other warscrolls. But I am not for or against zombies. I would say let all warscrolls rules override the GH or none. That would be easiest.

[Ollie Grimwood]

1 hour ago, Arkiham said:

id just be happy for someone to point out the specific, actual ( not theoretical )   benefits of a unit of 60 zombies compared to 30 zombies, other than more bodies, which arent going to do alot tbh, what do you gain? 

obviously for smaller units combining into a unit of 30 you gain benefits but its zombies.... who cares

It makes them more resilient for maintaining their buffs and it will increase their bravery, but yeah they're zombies, I'd let someone combine them up to 60 in match play, they're making a new unit rather than increasing one beyond its starting size in my mind. 

[kozokus]

2 hours ago, Andreas said:

I dont think it's about the zombies. For example the new Tzaangors shaman have a rule that explicity says that he can cast the same spell twice. Should he be able to do that in matched play. Override GH rules via warscrolls rules might open a whole new discusson on several other warscrolls. But I am not for or against zombies. I would say let all warscrolls rules override the GH or none. That would be easiest.

Sadly they have already stated that the GHB > all. The best exemple of this is KROAK who cannot cast his special spell as much as he want. Pretty much like the Tzaangor Shaman.

[Warboss Gorbolg]

I don't see the Moonclan Fanatic controversy.  The question was asked about fanatics in the same unit.  The answer should be read in the context of the question.  

[daedalus81]

3 hours ago, Arkiham said:

id just be happy for someone to point out the specific, actual ( not theoretical )   benefits of a unit of 60 zombies compared to 30 zombies, other than more bodies, which arent going to do alot tbh, what do you gain? 

obviously for smaller units combining into a unit of 30 you gain benefits but its zombies.... who cares

I think the rub is as such -

Everyone else has to take 3 battle line units.  If you choose to make those minimum sized you risk them not being useful.

Zombies on the other hand can take 3 units of 20, fulfill their BL req, and then merge them into a functional unit of 60.

[Sleboda]

23 hours ago, Nico said:

There's little point in building a Death army now based on compendium units surely given the huge risk of them being not allowed at events - certainly in the UK.

Sure there is.  They are fun, the models are neat, and (despite appearances) Matched Play at events is not the only, or even best, way to play.

[CoffeeGrunt]

Matched Play is what brought a lot of us to the game though. Especially at my local, it's pretty much the only way to play.

[Squirrelmaster]

Sorry, but matched is the only way I'm interested in playing.

[wayniac]

18 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

Sorry, but matched is the only way I'm interested in playing.

There's nothing wrong with that, but then the FAQ changes are something that has to be lived with as a result.  That's all we (at least myself) am saying.  Matched Play is one option and has its own pros/cons.  If you're only interested in playing Matched that's fine, but then the weird/nonsensical/nerfs that people are complaining about are something you have to deal with if you choose to do that.  Not saying you in particular, but as I said I see a lot of "This FAQ is stupid" from people who in the same breath will say how Matched is the only "real" way to play.

The options are:

1) Only play Matched Play, deal with the FAQ and any fallout it brings

2) Play a different style since Matched is only 1/3 of the available ways to play Age of Sigmar.

[chord]

12 minutes ago, wayniac said:

 If you're only interested in playing Matched that's fine, but then the weird/nonsensical/nerfs that people are complaining about are something you have to deal with if you choose to do that.  Not saying you in particular, but as I said I see a lot of "This FAQ is stupid" from people who in the same breath will say how Matched is the only "real" way to play.

I agree.  I'm new to Warhammer (less than 1 year).  But all the comments about balance, etc strike me as odd.  I play Chess which I find to be a perfectly balanced table top wargame.  I've come to learn that no matter how much I love the Lord Relicator model he is not "balanced".

[daedalus81]

26 minutes ago, chord said:

I agree.  I'm new to Warhammer (less than 1 year).  But all the comments about balance, etc strike me as odd.  I play Chess which I find to be a perfectly balanced table top wargame.  I've come to learn that no matter how much I love the Lord Relicator model he is not "balanced".

If you're using chess as your barometer then you're going to experience a lot of pitfalls.

[Squirrelmaster]

You absolutely do have the option to use Matched Play as a starting point, and tweak the rules/points by mutual agreement. You don't have to choose between absolute, rigid adherence to the rules on one hand and completely ignoring them on the other.

Also: I have bought AoS from GW. GW's dominance of the market makes it hard for me to find opponents for any other game system. I want to play AoS, I want to play Matched Play, and I have invested both time and money into being able to do so.

Sure, I could play a different AoS version, if I wanted to (and if I could find opponents who were similarly willing). I could play another game entirely (again, opponents willing). But since I have invested time and money into Matched Play AoS, since I want to play Matched Play AoS, since GW are offering "Matched Play AoS" as a product which they sell and claim to support, and since GW's dominance of the market make it hard for me to find any alternatives:

I don't think it's unreasonable for me to complain, at least a little, to my friends and/or strangers on the internet, if GW make obviously stupid decisions that make Matched Play AoS less balanced, harder to play, more ambiguous/confusing, or less fun. Especially if I feel like they could easily improve with little to no effort.

The existence of alternative versions of AoS is irrelevant; If I complain that a company makes shirts that unravel, telling me they also sell decent quality trousers that I could by instead is beside the point. Also, telling me that I can always go and buy my shirts elsewhere isn't helpful, if I've already bought shirts from them. Remember, "Matched Play AoS" is a product that I have already bought, on the understanding that there would be ongoing support for it.

Do you think only people who don't actually want to play Matched Play should complain if GW "FAQ" it up? Or that no-one should ever complain about a product that wasn't literally forced upon them, ever?

[Andreas]

59 minutes ago, chord said:

I agree.  I'm new to Warhammer (less than 1 year).  But all the comments about balance, etc strike me as odd.  I play Chess which I find to be a perfectly balanced table top wargame.  I've come to learn that no matter how much I love the Lord Relicator model he is not "balanced".

Chess is not balanced. ?

Black and White do not have an equal chance of winning.

Edit: Chess tournaments solution to this could actually be quite interesting for some TO to try, ie switching sides and do two (or more) games.

[Squirrelmaster]

Just to throw it out there:

I don't want points as a way to ensure that the game is perfectly balanced and everyone can play all-out as competitively as possible and still have an equal chance of winning no matter what faction they chose.

I want points as a quick and easy way for me and my opponent to choose two armies that will be balanced enough against each other for the game to be "fun" for both of us. I do not enjoy playing one-sided massacres where strategy just doesn't matter, and where luck during the game doesn't really affect the outcome. Regardless of which side I'm on.

I do not want to invest the time and energy to learn every warscroll in the game by heart, to just be able to look at two armies and say "yes, that's a reasonable match-up", or "no, that will be horribly one-sided". I don't want to spend 45 minutes before each game reading all the relevant warscrolls, crunching the numbers, and trying to work out what "should" be balanced. I don't want to have to play 4 or 5 games against the same opponent, with the same armies, "just for practice", to learn each other's armies, before I can have a game against that player that's actually fun for me.

I want to be able to meet a total stranger in a store, club, or tournament, say "2000pts?" and have a game that's actually balanced enough for me to care about the strategy I'm using, and the dice I'm rolling, because it feels like it's actually affecting the outcome of the game. I don't care if it's perfectly balanced, but I at least want both of us to have a fighting chance.

That gets tricky when some players pick whatever models they like and then work out the points cost, while others go out of their way to build the most power-gamey army they can, but even then, at least "2000 points" is a good starting point for figuring out what is or is not at least somewhat balanced.

[wayniac]

But no version of Warhammer, either flavor, has been or ever will be balanced to just do that.  There are always exceptions.  2k points of X isn't the same as 2k points of Y, the points just mean you can use the general baseline and hope that you didn't both pick "2000 point" forces that are imbalanced.  It's the illusion of balance, because you can create a killer 2k list with Matched Play that will be way more unbalanced than any serious (i.e. not boogeymen like ten Nagashes or spawning hundreds of Pink Horrors) Open Play list could be.

Look at 40k as an example, you can have the same points and lists are grossly unbalanced because the rules/stats aren't balanced, even when points would allow it to be balanced. 

[Squirrelmaster]

Every pointed version of Warhammer I've played, since I started in 6th edition, has been balanced enough to do that, most of the time. Even 40K does a more than half-decent job of it. Sure there are exceptions, but I'm not expecting 100% of games to be balanced. I'll happily settle for most of them.

With a decent points system, it's hard to choose a seriously overpowered list by accident, and even if you do, you'll probably figure out that you've done so after a game or two. Which means two players, experienced with their own armies but unfamiliar with each others, can easily end up having a reasonably balanced game (not "perfectly" balanced, just "balanced enough to be fun"), far more often than not, without spending hours analysing each other's warscrolls, without playing a bunch of "practice" games first, just by agreeing a points cost. I've not ever been able to do that with Open Play.

With Open Play, I can stick 20 skeletons on the table, and my opponent can stick 10 Chaos Chosen on the table, and if he doesn't know undead and I don't know chaos, neither of us will know if that's a fair match-up. 20 "basic" troops vs 10 "elites"? Sure. 20 wounds vs 20 wounds? Sounds fair to me. But with points, we discover that it's 160pts of Skeletons vs 320pts of Chosen and guess what? It turns out 10 Chosen will slaughter 20 Skeletons with ease.

How are we supposed to know that in advance? Or are we not supposed to know that, I'm supposed to enjoy a game where your army has roughly twice the power of mine and I simply stand no chance? Your list might be a perfectly fun, balanced, 2000pts, while mine is a perfectly fun, balanced, 1000pts. Without having those points, neither of us will know until we actually try to play.

Or are we all supposed to have experience of every unit out there? Or only play against the same group of 2 or 3 people, with the same armies, week after week? Or spend hours before each game analysing each warscroll to figure out whether the matchup is remotely fair?

Seriously, how do people play Open Play and not have it turn into a one-sided slaughter every time? Because that's basically been my experience of it.

[pforson]

Yet another person here staring at half painted Bullgors intended to be used as part of a Stampede.

If GW don't reverse this ruling (or update outdated battalions / warscrolls to make them still function), then I'm going to burn my army and post a video on Youtube.

[Nico]

I'm looking at like 45 Ardboyz that were going to masquerade as Orruks for a Greenskinz Battalion. I don't think you need to light the Warpfire yet. They are still decent even outside the Battalion.

The best solution would be if some new battalions were dropped out of the sky as an interim solution for some of the non-compendium armies that don't have any battalions as of yesterday.

A Battletome Grots would be nice.

[Thomas Lyons]

16 hours ago, StealthKnightSteg said:

Well if you look at both warscrolls for the 2 Prosecutors, then you'll see that the Warscrolls are named: Prosecutors

And then added with a subname for their intended weaponry (in smaller font). So I think this will still apply. And in this way might still apply to other Warscrolls where the name has the same structure.

By that logic, the Abhorrent Ghoul King on Terrorgheist and the like should likewise count for an Abhorrent Ghoul King for all battalions, which they've ruled against.