Tournaments, Balance, and Curating our Community

[BaldoBeardo]

Unfortunately, this idea illustrates just how completely our awesome AoS hobby has backslid to 8th ed. post-GH.
The only way this argument holds any water at all is if you dismiss narrative and open play entirely. If, on the orher hand, you recognize that all three types are perfectly valid, you see that this rule and the GH rule work just fine together.

To be fair, my post wasn't intended as a snipe against Matched Play. It's more that for Matched Play, the rules have to be absolutely watertight and clear - narrative/open play can handle the odd rubber sword, but in a matched/competitive environment kinda the whole point is it's predicated on a universal understanding of the rules, and best command of them.

(But I have to empathise with your overall point.)

[Double Misfire]

15 hours ago, BaldoBeardo said:

Not to my knowledge. Compendium warscrolls have been updated/outdated, but I don't know of any that have been updated after being released in print.

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Flesh Eater Courts, Bonesplitterz and Beastclaw raiders have all had Battletomes that have completely overhauled the warscrolls presented for these factions in their respective Grand Alliance books.

[BaldoBeardo]

Flesh Eater Courts, Bonesplitterz and Beastclaw raiders have all had Battletomes that have completely overhauled the warscrolls presented for these factions in their respective Grand Alliance books.

My knowledge evidently lacking... [emoji15]

[wayniac]

16 minutes ago, BaldoBeardo said:

To be fair, my post wasn't intended as a snipe against Matched Play. It's more that for Matched Play, the rules have to be absolutely watertight and clear - narrative/open play can handle the odd rubber sword, but in a matched/competitive environment kinda the whole point is it's predicated on a universal understanding of the rules, and best command of them.

(But I have to empathise with your overall point.)

Correct.  Which has the effect, whether we want it or not, to sliding back to the discussion of Matched Play subsuming the other two styles, because for so many people Matched Play is the only style, and the General's Handbook started on page 98.  So rules like this seem contradictory in that mindset, because "the rules" (i.e. what is commonly used in all situations, all the time) preclude the ability of working as its written.  The rule is fine, the playstyle is what is being discussed here.  They have to support all the styles of play (although not always see: Grombrindal not having points and not ever going to get points), not just one.

I don't have anything more to say other than what I already said, that things like this seem to make it clear there are three ways to play, and one is intended for leagues/tournament type games where you want as close to "balance" as you're going to get in a GW game without needing to discuss things with your opponent beforehand.  Most of the issues I see about rules, FAQs, etc. are always in the context of Matched Play.

[PJetski]

Top 3 things I think are Not Very Fun and should be examined:

1. Thundertusk shooting attack

2. Stormfiends with Warpfire Projectors + Sayl the Faithless

3. Lord Kroak + Balewind Vortex

They put out too many mortal wounds too reliably with too big of a threat range. They completely warp the meta and are taking the game down a road that is not fun.

My suggestions:

1. Reduce Thundertusk shooting range to 12"

2. Limit Warpfire Projectors to 1 in 3 Stormfiends

3. Special characters cannot summon the Balewind Vortex

[BaldoBeardo]

Most of the issues I see about rules, FAQs, etc. are always in the context of Matched Play.

Which is what you'd expect.
Ambiguous or unclear rules are far more of an issue when you're relying on them to provide structure.
It's just that in narrative/open, "X ability seems too powerful, am I reading it right?" can normally be handled with responses A (Yup, we house rule it) or B (Isn't it cool?! Took out a Thundertusk with it!), but local meta/interpretation is meaningless if you're looking to spend money and time on travelling to THE RULES IS THE RULES events.

Discussion around power creep, OP/UP, nerf, broken etc. are firmly within the realm of "proper" matched play because they all radiate from the central abstraction of worth/efficiency.

The equivalent in the open/narrative scheme of things would be "could I do a force of traitor Stormcast?", and you'll get responses "GW SAID IT CAN'T HAPPEN", "You might want to try X", or "yeah, go for it, just make up the background".

Tighter rules benefit everyone, but Matched Play is the hardest hit if they aren't.

But that shouldn't factor into what rules get written.

[mmimzie]

17 hours ago, Sleboda said:

Unfortunately, this idea illustrates just how completely our awesome AoS hobby has backslid to 8th ed. post-GH.

The only way this argument holds any water at all is if you dismiss narrative and open play entirely. If, on the other hand, you recognize that all three types are perfectly valid, you see that this rule and the GH rule work just fine together.

 

16 hours ago, wayniac said:

Correct.  Which has the effect, whether we want it or not, to sliding back to the discussion of Matched Play subsuming the other two styles, because for so many people Matched Play is the only style, and the General's Handbook started on page 98.  So rules like this seem contradictory in that mindset, because "the rules" (i.e. what is commonly used in all situations, all the time) preclude the ability of working as its written.  The rule is fine, the playstyle is what is being discussed here.  They have to support all the styles of play (although not always see: Grombrindal not having points and not ever going to get points), not just one.

I don't have anything more to say other than what I already said, that things like this seem to make it clear there are three ways to play, and one is intended for leagues/tournament type games where you want as close to "balance" as you're going to get in a GW game without needing to discuss things with your opponent beforehand.  Most of the issues I see about rules, FAQs, etc. are always in the context of Matched Play.

This is quite off the topic of this post which is specificly matched play tournament related. Let not stir up stuff that already has its own thread currently active. As I've said before i dont see folks going into narrative/open play discussion pooping on those styles of play. However, it is quite evident the inverse is true by your remarks on this thread that is decidely not narrative or open play. Please reframe from stirring the pot.

It is my opinion that acting in this way is the sort of behavior is toxic to my community. Though this is not for me to judge, but as a juror of public opinion I've cast my vote plainly, as thus.

@baldobeardo it gas been stated previously that thes hierarchy is as follows: AoS core rules>Core FAQ>War scroll> Warscroll FAQ> Genarals hhand book> handbook FAQ

Cronilogical order only matters in some cases when comparing war scrolls to themselves or rules/supplements to themselves.

[BaldoBeardo]

@baldobeardo it gas been stated previously that thes hierarchy is as follows: AoS core rules>Core FAQ>War scroll> Warscroll FAQ> Genarals hhand book> handbook FAQ
Cronilogical order only matters in some cases when comparing war scrolls to themselves or rules/supplements to themselves.

I had not seen that - where is it? It's inferred in a number of ways, but I wasn't aware it had been set down. I'll happily retract the example if that's the case, but the fact I hadn't seen it kinda proves the issue as a concept, if not a discrete example; if you're playing MP as a competitive endeavour, you need a structure that can't be shaken by things like that - I can imagine how much it would suck to build a list based on a misinterpretation.

[Ollie Grimwood]

I actually think it quite important that things aren't exactly balanced. What would be the point of army selection or different factions otherwise. There needs to be imbalance for this to be worthwhile.

Also I'm not keen when it's suggested changes are made to mirror other systems (warmachine, MtG whatever) simply because they aren't AoS if I want to play those games I will. AoS is supposed to different as are those games. Variety is a good thing.


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[BaldoBeardo]

Also I'm not keen when it's suggested changes are made to mirror other systems (warmachine, MtG whatever) simply because they aren't AoS if I want to play those games I will. AoS is supposed to different as are those games. Variety is a good thing.

Oh god, if that's from my comments I really don't want AoS to be more like Warmachine!
My point was more that from a technical standpoint, the WM rules are extremely well written and tight, which is something I feel AoS could do with adopting. Semantics and phraseology are consistent, etc.

It's been a while, but the general scheme of any thread in the WM rules forum when I was dabbling was:
OP Question
Post post post post post
Infernal (Rules Guru) butts in with "Erm, reread page X para Y, that covers it."
OP "Oh yeah, cool, cheers."

[AkumaKaze]

On 1/17/2017 at 6:50 AM, wayniac said:

One thing to remember is that a well-balanced rule set benefits everybody while a poorly balanced rules only benefits the people who find combinations to break.
 

This right here should be priority number one.  Even fluff players will find ways to win (we are talking about a war game).  Nothing sucks more than buying your favorite faction because of the Rule of Cool and finding out after multiple games that your choice of faction is just whole-cloth not that good.  That is how you turn off both competitive and casual players and chase them back to other games.  

[jazzy128]

Coming from a MTG background myself, and just having started AOS, I think it's interesting to have these discusisons with non-mtg people. There are so many aspects of metagaming and balancing formats that MTG-players are used to, which in several ways are applicable for AOS as well. As you state, one of the key differences is that GW is able to nerf things without banning them completely.
So fra I've been overwhelmed by how well the armies compare in AOS. I see tournaments with wide open metagame, I go to communnities were everybody plays different factions (I take the Stormcast prevalence because of the starter set). All in all I think the game is absolutely fantastic as it is right now, and I think GW can produce very strong new factions without "breaking the format" because of the amount of answers there is around.
Personally I hope people will not complain enough that too much is changed, and then a little power creep to Wanderers would not hurt either;)

Anyway, great discussion, and excellent put by OP.

[amysrevenge]

Yeah, I reckon a minor tidying up of a handful of "legacy" warscrolls would do wonders.  But Balewind Vortex is the only one so far that has been updated without being re-designed for a new book.

[HERO]

I have another question guys.

I used to be involved heavily in the competitive WHFB scene and have played everything from SCGT, Ard Boyz, local house rules, ETC, Swedish, and basically every comp this side of whatever.

Does something like this exist for Age of Sigmar now that the points system and everything has been introduced?

The reason I ask is because there's some seriously questionable lists that are in the meta, like Skyre Stormfiend, Frostlord ice lance, Mournghoul or Stormcast doomdrops, or whatever else that's out there.

Something like ETC or Swedish would be nice.. thoughts?

[mhsellwood]

5 hours ago, HERO said:

I have another question guys.

I used to be involved heavily in the competitive WHFB scene and have played everything from SCGT, Ard Boyz, local house rules, ETC, Swedish, and basically every comp this side of whatever.

Does something like this exist for Age of Sigmar now that the points system and everything has been introduced?

The reason I ask is because there's some seriously questionable lists that are in the meta, like Skyre Stormfiend, Frostlord ice lance, Mournghoul or Stormcast doomdrops, or whatever else that's out there.

Something like ETC or Swedish would be nice.. thoughts?

To be fair in the past the need for the additional comp has always been driven by the relatively static nature of the games. An Army Book that does not change for 4 - 5 years with static points and restrictions is relatively quickly broken and optimal choices made. Things like Swedish was more about adding in additional restrictions and 'costs' for different choices to encourage different builds.

We know though that GW are planning to release the Generals Handbook every 12 months or so, which allows for much more rapid and wide ranging changes to the optimal builds and what armies you can construct. In addition we have to think that every new battletome released represents a much more wide ranging change to the available builds then was the case in the past. E.g. the new Disciples of Tzeentch battletome is going to have an impact on every player with a Chaos Alliance list rather than just players who play Tzeentch.

[swarmofseals]

On 1/17/2017 at 5:49 AM, buffalozap said:

Agree to disagree that balancing the points in an objective impartial way (with minimum subjectivity) is impossible.  There are ways to look holistically at the global set of units in the game and make categorical sub sets with ascribed values and with some fancy matrix math find coefficient points vectors with minimized R² but its technical and WAY over the heads of 99.9% of people who will just look at the complex data set and think it must be impossible.

Agree to disagree again.  Like you yourself said, "Factions also have differences in what they have access to" and that + random dice factor + smart decision making on the field are in my opinion what brings the flavor and fun, as opposed to the fun being brought by bringing overpowered units that dominate games due to poor points balance.  Frankly I don't see how anyone can objectively think that a game system where planned obsolescence i.e. cyclical new releases are overpowered relative to all prior releases is "fun".

 

Sorry, have taken a couple of days away from the thread. I know what you mean regarding using advanced math to create a more strictly objective points system. There are definitely comp systems out there that are aiming to do this and do a solid job of it (PPC, for example). The problem in my mind is twofold:

 

• Certain abilities defy simple quantification even with advanced math. For example, if you have a buff that relies on an outside circumstance then you need to know the probability of the necessary conditions being met, which is *very* hard to accurately calculate across all possible matchups and gamestates given how dynamic the game is. You either need a ton of data or you just make a guess and hope you are correct. 
• Correctly weighting different things against each-other is very challenging. Weighting stats within category (ie: to hit, to wound, damage, etc.) is fairly easy, but figuring out how to weigh something like damage vs. movement is much trickier because you need to know how important each one is to winning, and if you make a mistake suddenly an entire category of units is OP or UP. For example, if the designers underweight movement, pretty soon all of the top lists will be very heavily focused on fast stuff because that's the only efficiency in the system. This all is further complicated by the fact that different things have different values depending on the battleplan. Having a fast, tanky hero is super valuable in Three Places of Power, for example. Any time you want to introduce a new battleplan, you'd suddenly need to reweight everything and repoint everything based on the new weights in order to take into account the new battleplan. It'd be even worse for tournaments that are using a fixed set of battleplans, as you'd want to have your points spread set by the weightings for only those individual battleplans rather than the entire set of possible battleplans.

In any of these situations, introducing error into the system is really upsetting. If there is only one advantage to be had, then the metagame becomes warped beyond recognition as soon as people realize what the error is. A system with a degree of flexibility is more resilient because there are a number of efficiencies built into the system from the start, so adding a new one won't disrupt the entire system to as great a degree. 

Ironically, I think that a really strict pointing system (well at least as strict as we can manage given the above challenges) would be better as a toolkit for people to help design narrative scenarios. When the goal isn't competition, having such an accurate points system would allow designers to get a really fine degree of control over their battles. Imagine an app that did all that under-the-hood math and allowed you to dynamically weight things like offense, defense and speed, range, etc. and immediately generate a full list of points values based on your specific weighting. I'm sure it wouldn't be 100% accurate, but it would sure allow narrative designers to get a really strong sense of how their battle is balanced etc.

 

_______________

 

As far as your second point goes, my problem with this is that in a completely strictly pointed system, then it's strictly better to have access to something vs. to not have access. You can't have a jack of all trades, master of none faction. If a Free Peoples Knight has the same points efficiency as a Chaos Knight, but Free Peoples get access to gunners and Chaos doesn't, then Free Peoples is a strictly better faction that Chaos. Pretty soon in order to maintain balance you just have to give everyone access to everything, and running a theme army from a narrow subfaction would pretty much be a strict disadvantage. 

 

Basically, I think that the points system could and should be mathematically tighter than it is, but I also think there is a sweet spot. Attempting a completely tight system is a mistake for a lot of reasons. 

[buffalozap]

5 hours ago, swarmofseals said:

Basically, I think that the points system could and should be mathematically tighter than it is, but I also think there is a sweet spot. Attempting a completely tight system is a mistake for a lot of reasons. 

I agree that it could and should be tighter.  You're right that there are things that defy strict mathematical objective quantification, however those things can be evaluated either categorically and treated uniformly or evaluated on a case by case bases and some limited applied subjective decision making can bridge the remaining gap. 

 

I hear your point about some factions not having access to things other factions do and in a purely uniform points efficiency there could arise situations where that could be an issue.  However, I think that every faction gets things that others don't, and the ones that don't should be addressed.

 

Right now from my cursory analysis there doesn't seem to be anything to suggest the current points were allocated to create anything resembling a level playing field between factions even considering the differences in access to options like you mentioned being taken into account as a possible cause for efficiency differentials.

 

We are like 95% on the same page here.  Great OP by the way! 

[Nevvermore]

On 2017-01-17 at 1:34 PM, BaldoBeardo said:

I definitely think GW made a rod for their own backs here.
Everything plugs into the 4-page core rules.

Just look at the rules thread.
A big chunk of the posts relate to poor semantic control of terms around causing/inflicting/suffering wounds/damage in the core rules, for example.

Warscrolls that have special rules that then link in to that mechanic have even more work to do to try and clarify things, if they try at all.

To players who understand this, it's an annoyance but you can live with it.
If you're playing competitively or use matched play as a Lingua Franca to enable pick up games against people you don't know well, it's a factor that can seriously damage your experience - you need clarity.

Another example is the Tzaangor shaman being able to cast the same spell twice.
This rule is in conflict with the matched play rules of one. But the GHB predates the warscroll. There's an argument to be had that the ability is a 'special dispensation' under matched play based on the concept of most recent rules having seniority. But there are older warscrolls with the ability on, and then the GHB trumps them on the same logic. And so on.

When AoS was initially released the apparent design of the rule system (small core, digital add-ons) made me hopeful that frequent updates/amendments would be possible.

But I think that we're now too far past the tipping point so we're stuck with a ruleset that needs an FAQ/errata of comparable length, and the sheer number of warscrolls that would need to be worked through to check for required updates is pretty insurmountable now.

?For V2!
 

You have a point, but there is no need for confusion around the Tzaangor Shaman. There is no concept of recent rules taking precedence in AoS, and we already know that similar rules (Lord Kroak) don't work under matched play. So it follows that the Shaman's doesn't either. The GHB trumps all abilities under Matched Play. 

[SuperHappyTime]

IMO, if something is horribly broken you aren't going to know about it. Unlike Magic, AoS tournaments are few and far between and many of them keep little track of the lists that show up.

[buffalozap]

3 hours ago, SuperHappyTime said:

if something is horribly broken you aren't going to know about it.

why not? Why do you think this?

 

Lots and lots of people know how to crunch efficiency numbers to pick out the min max army compositions and that info isn't hard to find on the internet.

 

Also thanks to the internet the most gross examples of such things are common knowledge (bonespitter arrowboys spring to mind).

[swarmofseals]

I do think that SuperHappyTime has a point. Magic is played on a scale that is far greater than Warhammer, so WotC has a lot more data to make balancing decisions on. That said, I think that ideally we (and GW) are hoping to grow the hobby and hopefully more data will become available over time. Also, theorycraft and math can usually point us in the direction of things that are likely to be problematic (like buffalozap says). That said, I do think that we need more data too. If that means that tournament organizers need to start putting more effort into publishing and compiling results then maybe that's something we should be pushing as a community.

[SuperHappyTime]

On 1/21/2017 at 4:07 PM, buffalozap said:

why not? Why do you think this?

Lots and lots of people know how to crunch efficiency numbers to pick out the min max army compositions and that info isn't hard to find on the internet.

Also thanks to the internet the most gross examples of such things are common knowledge (bonespitter arrowboys spring to mind).

I've heard Bonesplitter Arrowboys Spam and Beastclaw Raiders too. Here's the last tournament I could find that provided the Top 5 lists (Blood and Glory): https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/12/07/looking-at-the-top-5-lists-from-blood-and-glory/

Straight-Stormcast, Mostly Nurgle Chaos, Destruction (Beastclaw and Moonclan), Straight-Sylvaneth, and the same Beastclaw/Moonclan Destruction list. When Magic was BAD, back with Jace the Mind Sculptor and Stoneforge Mystic, the deck list in question went 7 out of 8 and all eight used Jace.

During the normal go-to for Magic, with the new release of a Magic set we know the top decks worth sneezing at on the first or second week thanks to widely spread US State Tournaments shortly after a new set release. And just two weeks after this, the meta is "solved" before the next major tournament (Things may have changed since I last played two years ago).

Based on the Top 5 list above what I gave you, we can establish that BCR/MCG Destruction is a defined part of the meta. But it isn't broken, not yet.

[swarmofseals]

25 minutes ago, SuperHappyTime said:

I've heard Bonesplitter Arrowboys Spam and Beastclaw Raiders too. Here's the last tournament I could find that provided the Top 5 lists (Blood and Glory): https://www.frontlinegaming.org/2016/12/07/looking-at-the-top-5-lists-from-blood-and-glory/

 

UK Masters results is more recent than that, you can find the lists in the events section of this forum I think. It'll paint a pretty similar picture though. I'd say that the current AOS meta is like a medium to medium- Standard metagame in Magic with a decent but unspectacular number of viable lists.

I agree with you; I really don't think that the current metagame is broken -- there isn't sufficient evidence of a "Tier 0" list. That said, I do think there is a lot of evidence that most competitive lists are pretty unfun in that they involve heavy alpha-striking and largely uncounterable sniping. 

[scrubyandwells]

Hi all, had the pleasure last week to talk with @swarmofseals, author of this thread's original post.

Here's the podcast of our chat (...and wow, that logo is obnoxiously large in this embedded form, sorry for that):

iTunes version:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/scruby-wells/id1150865873?mt=2 

Re: the part on sylvaneth, my personal sense at the moment is they're a low tier 1 or top tier 2 army, but things could change, and I could be wrong! 

Hope you find the discussion interesting. And thanks so much to Tom for starting this thread and sharing his thoughts.

[Nico]

I don't know how I completely missed this post until now - oh yes I was flat out busy with real life (which killed my preparation time for Heat One from 11+ games to 2) - will read properly in the Tube.

Sounds like I agree with a lot of the opening post, but will take some time to digest. I'll start with the podcast. 

Quote

Well, you need to remember that there have been people playing Tomb Kings throughout AOS last year, and to my knowledge, at least this last 6 months, there hasn't been anyone who won a tournament with them. 
It wasn't until someone like Russ Veal, who has placed high with pretty much every army he has played with, played them at the masters and won. 

I think this is called sample bias or something like that. In the UK AoS scene, TK players seems to be rarer than in the USA - my impression from going to my first ever tournament about 3 months after AoS dropped and being a TK and Death player (amongst the other 3 allegiances) and listening to a lot of US content producers - probably some 8th Edition reason for that difference.

They were also obviously broken in the narrow sense that a rule was causing an infinite loop, so that one generic archer unit could (make that "would"!) delete an entire army by itself that they needed a comp when the game was released (as were Bullgors (yes you missed a once in a lifetime chance to autowin with Beastmen) as were Ripperdacyls. A modest comp fixed this acknowledged problem very quickly (no bans were needed) - I pushed for this change early on. My first tournament was the one when Steve Follows managed to outfox the TK on the final table by I gather deploying in a corner and some very clever moves and probably a lot of luck (I was many tables away from this action learning how garbage The Glottkin were and still are).

This infinite loop issue probably drove people away from collecting them (ditto Seraphon). TK were nerfed repeatedly thereafter in smaller increments. I tried them at SCGT - the highlight was doing this to the Godfather of Beastclaw Raiders (Paul Whitehead) @Soup Dragon's undercosted Thundertusks and Stonehorns in turn one:

So Paul worked out he could fit in 6 Monsters into a list of which 4? were Stonehorns:

 

I put damned terrain on the Necrosphinx (since it also halves wounds) and can usually make a first turn charge.

My knights rocked up. The little man on the left is the Necbromancer who made what you're about to see happen.

So 2 Dead Stonehorns, 1 Dead Thundertusk and another half dead Thundertusk. That was with the Necroderp failing its charge and doing nothing. The 6 Knights did this alone.