What are the worst Warscrolls and Why?

[Kyriakin]

8 hours ago, heywoah_twitch said:

That's a staggering 370 points to ambush one hunter and four frost saber models. You can get 30 witch aelves and a hag queen for 40 fewer points.

I would say, like many things in AoS, you have to go "all in" or not at all.

Skal with, say, fourteen cats for 570 points would be far more viable, as its points-to-effectiveness ratio becomes more favourable with increased investment in the damage dealers (i.e. the cats on a 6" charge).

It's still not great, but certainly better value than Hunter + 4 x cats + Skal for 370 points, which is indeed a complete waste.

[ledha]

On 9/27/2018 at 1:58 PM, Mcthew said:

Yeah, the new updates this year didn't really do much to improve any of the weak warscrolls which is a real shame, and a lost opportunity. Not sure why either.

I've previously posted annoyance at the SE Prosecutors "flannel-attack at distance" (the ole flinging celestial hammers thing) as being just a bit wee-poor, but SkullCrushers were pants. And are still pants.

What gets me is that GW must realise that people aren't just buying these models 'cos they look cool. They've also got to play cool too. A scary looking brute who prances into battle like a pansy is going to be shelved and gathering dust within a month, so why do it? Doesn't make much business sense to me. I've stopped myself from buying heavy cavalry for Khorne for precisely that reason, and another Kharadron Frigate (because for a big-ass gun, on the tabletop it's about as effective as throwing a custard-pie at the enemy).

I don't mind paying higher points for something that should play as effectively as it looks, and this stops me from shelling out on big monsters and machines, which should be a licence to print money for GW. Sense wise, you get more bang for your buck on mid-powered units of troops than behemoths or war machines.

Which is a truly weird way to go about any business. If they don't want people to use them, why make 'em at all?

skullcrushers are 140 pts for 15 wound, a 4+ save, good movement and ignore spell on 4+. They are FAR from being bad. They only need offensive power, and the brass stampede give them that

[Nico]

8 hours ago, heywoah_twitch said:

Nostradamus over here calling the shots mostly right, athough even he didn't realize how far down bcr would fall. Rock bottom as essentially ally-tier for mixed GA. One frostlord with a realm artefact sometimes appears in mixed destruction, everything else is 404.

I can't miss an opportunity to grumble about my army, so here we go:

Stone Skeleton Fluff: "there are few things that can do them any real harm. Even if a Stonehorn’s skin is shorn away, the hard mineral skeleton beneath remains unharmed. The price for this hardiness, however, is that if the beast stands still for too long its joints might fuse together as its rock bones grow."

On The Table: the crappiest, rustiest 1-damage battleline weapons will drop a stonehorn with the greatest of ease, completely bypassing stone skeleton.

They really missed an opportunity to make stonehorns the anti-horde tanks we desperately need. Though now that I think about it, before the nerf that's what they were. Effectively having 60% of the wounds of your average massive regiment for a similar cost, though now it's just 12.
 

Icebrow Hunter bears special mention as a comically bad warscroll. As the only cheap hero we have, he is a 140 point footslogger with no CA/spells/prayers, a 5+ save, bad attacks with no rend, two short-range single shot bad ranged attacks, a 6" range 4+ d3mw that you have to give up your other two ranged shots to try for, and an ambush that can't bring anything else along, unlike, say, a 100 point hero who can bring 30 vulkites or two different IDK units of any kind. But for another 150 points you can bring cats (only) along with a battalion.

That's a staggering 370 points to ambush one hunter and four frost saber models. You can get 30 witch aelves and a hag queen for 40 fewer points.

And he locks your cheapest battleline behind a paywall of him being your general, which works anti-synergistically with everwinter's master so you can't reroll the dice while he's not on the table turn 1.

2nd edition updates to the old battletomes can't come soon enough.

To be fair, clubmate Maxime at the South London Legion has been putting them back on the table following recent point reductions.

Snowballs are very strong in a world of Look out Sir.

[calcysimon]

Compared to point cost beast of nurgle, no rend for 100 points... When it was 60 none was playing it Now its even worse

 

Followed by all 3 maggoth lords

Orghott's axes are far from beeing good, pliz, 1 damage - 1rend,a 140 points Chaos lord with weapon half those in size do 2 times that damage

[XReN]

On 9/30/2018 at 1:19 PM, ledha said:

skullcrushers are 140 pts for 15 wound, a 4+ save, good movement and ignore spell on 4+. They are FAR from being bad. They only need offensive power, and the brass stampede give them that

Sadly, they are equally far from being decent, they need A LOT more offensive power to wipe out units on the charge, otherwise you are not winning objective game and brass stampede is not giving enough, on our local tournaments the only thing being stampeded is Khorne player running Jugs
Edit: haven't played them in the 2nd ED, they are sure going to be scarier as I can't screen my wholle army with 30 2+ Vanguard Wing libs beating them to death with all those additional wound rolls anymore

[XReN]

I'd say desolators, not comparing to other similar units, which they might outperform, internally they are the worst dracoths because of poor design.
It is expensive elite heavy cavalry with bonus from numbers, cmon. That bonus is the only thing that can put them above their dracoth riding counterparts and just feels wrong, stormcasts should never be large unit size army.

[Aspirant Snaeper]

Harpies if they haven't been mentioned yet. 

Take the already bad Furies warscroll and then make it worst in every measureable way except movement with little to no points difference to justify it.

[HollowHills]

There are two IDK units that I think are pretty terrible.

Reavers 140 points

1w 5+ s 6b, 8' m range attack 18' 1 4+ 4+ -. 9' 3 4+ 4+ -. Melee 2 3+ 4+ -. They can reroll runs so they are really fast for archers / foot troops, however this is entirely pointless in an army that can take eels 14' move run and charge on turn 2, reroll all failed charges. The range attack requires  you to be within 9' to do anything useful, which is basically requiring you to get into combat with them, and even at that point a unit of 10 will do an average of 3.75 wounds vs a 4+ save. The 5+ save, 1w and bravery 6 also ensures that you're not going to be sticking around long either. There is just zero reason to take them, ever.

Lotann

My favourite model in the entire range unfortunately is, utterly useless, first he is a named character which makes him inherently inferior to non-named characters at the same point cost. I won't even bother writing his combat stats because they are awful. He only has two abilities, the first is a 5+ up FNP, which is admittedly good but only desirable if you would already want the unit. The second allows NEMARTI (thralls and reavers) to reroll hit rolls of 1 while wholly within 12" and gives them 1+ bravery. 1) How many 32 mm bases do you think you can get wholly within 12" and make a charge so that the buff range isn't disrupted? Realistically only one unit of ten or maybe at a stretch twenty, and as I say this would require you to either be charged or to charge Lotann somewhere in the middle of your own unit. 2) +1 Bravery isn't going to help if your running units of ten with a 5+ save and 1 w, even in a larger block this is very dubious and again it requires wholly within 12". 3) There is something called a "fuethan enclave" this gives you reroll hit rolls of 1 for your entire army in both shooting and combat on turn 2 and 4, this requires no points and imposes no restrictions on your list. He also lacks any useful keywords like wizard or priest.

Fixes

For the Reavers I would literally just reduce the points and leave the warscroll the same. Dump them down to 100 points for 10 and 270 for 30, this gives you a cheap source of battleline if you want to go for a tidecaster build.

For Lotann I would chage his ability to "within 12" instead of "wholly within", I also feel he deserves a command ability given that IDK only have two heroes with command abilities (king and volturnos are very similar). I'd give him something like... and increase his points to 140.

Command Ability: Soul Burst

Use this Command Ability at the start of the combat phase when the High Tide effect from the Tides of Death allegiance ability would be in effect, choose a friendly NEMARTI unit. That unit can be chosen to pile in and attack twice.

[Icegoat]

Orghotts daemonspew I sadly built him during end times. For his price point he is really quite poor. Needs a heavy reduction or to just be better. Especially with all the named and unnamed character options nurgle has. 

[Arkanaut Admiral]

I want to chime in here:

1.  The Arkanaught Frigate.  A great big warship loaded with guns, bombs and mines...with a pitiful save and damage outfit.  No joke, with its current rules I'd shave 60pts off it's price!  Mine die the second anyone actually targets them with anything, and before that happens they're lucky if they kill more than 3 models.  The Ironclad also suffers from the same problems to a lesser extent.  In the fluff Overlords fight from their ships and are famous for them, but on the table they're under performing point sinks.  Might as well leave them at home and just spam troops. 

2.  Aetheric Navigators.  Beyond dispelling enemy magic, they're useless.  Utterly useless.  They don't boost the speed of the ships enough to be worth taking, and their storm ability is pretty poor too.  Which is all a terrible shame as they're sweet models and fluffy to boot.

3.  Mighty Skullcrushers/Bloodcrushers.  Elite heavy cavalry that are said to be unstoppable in the fluff, but on the table are just tarpits.  I've never managed to get the Mortal Wound mechanic to go off.  Ever.

 

[AverageBoss]

On 10/4/2018 at 3:05 AM, XReN said:

Sadly, they are equally far from being decent, they need A LOT more offensive power to wipe out units on the charge, otherwise you are not winning objective game and brass stampede is not giving enough, on our local tournaments the only thing being stampeded is Khorne player running Jugs
Edit: haven't played them in the 2nd ED, they are sure going to be scarier as I can't screen my wholle army with 30 2+ Vanguard Wing libs beating them to death with all those additional wound rolls anymore

It is sad when a Tzeentch unit (Tzaangor Enlightened) outdoes a Khorne unit in close combat for the same points.

Juggs need quite a bit of work and should not have to rely on a battalion to be good.

And I am going to have to 100% agree on Desolators. They are just a very flawed (from a design standpoint) scroll that needs a complete and total rules overhaul from the ground up.

[Arkanaut Admiral]

It would be a terrible act of hubris to go through every warscroll in the game and redesign them to something more appropriate, wouldn’t it?

[JackStreicher]

15 minutes ago, Arkanaut Admiral said:

It would be a terrible act of hubris to go through every warscroll in the game and redesign them to something more appropriate, wouldn’t it?

Give me two days and a proper pay.... it‘s incredibly easy to do (as mentioned before)

[Arkanaut Admiral]

4 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Give me two days and a proper pay.... it‘s incredibly easy to do (as mentioned before)

I would like to get in on that.  

[mastercrafted]

2 hours ago, Arkanaut Admiral said:

've never managed to get the Mortal Wound mechanic to go off.  Ever.

 

Lol, not just me then! Not my juggerlord either, its only a 4+ it shouldnt be so hard!

Still, i do quite like them as a tar pit 

[Arkanaut Admiral]

5 minutes ago, mastercrafted said:

Lol, not just me then! Not my juggerlord either, its only a 4+ it shouldnt be so hard!

Still, i do quite like them as a tar pit 

I always dread having to roll dice for anything. XD

Although this opens up an interesting discussion in unit power.  Because whilst I hate to see units being underpowered to the point of being useless, I also hate ridiculously op units too (obviously). 

 

[Roark]

It's absolutely insane to me that Skullcrushers are in this thread. They're a great little package for 140 and I use them all the time without the battalion. They're mobile tanks, not assault units. Saying that a warscroll is terrible because it doesn't match the fluff is irrelevant for gaming purposes.

[Tailessine]

How about liberators? In that sequitors have an identical purpose but are just a teeny bit more points efficient...

[Ravinsild]

4 minutes ago, Tailessine said:

How about liberators? In that sequitors have an identical purpose but are just a teeny bit more points efficient...

I seriously doubt Liberators are in the camp of worst warscrolls ever.... come on now. 

[ledha]

5 hours ago, Tailessine said:

How about liberators? In that sequitors have an identical purpose but are just a teeny bit more points efficient...

liberators are not bad, honestly. 10 wounds and 4+ save for 100 pts is decent, their damage output is not very good but it's just mediocre/average at worst and having one special weapon can sometime give them a surprise boost of damage. Compare them to chaos warriors, ardboys, bloodwarriors and others 2 wound troops and they are not THAT bad.

They look bad because sequitors exist and i'm pretty sure Sequitors are in the top5 of the most broken units of Age of Sigmar right now

[Arkanaut Admiral]

Yeah, liberators are actually quite a balanced unit if you ask me.  Their price to durability to damage output ratio is spot on.

Sequitors however are very unbalanced.  They’re quite a bit better than liberators for only a 20% price increase.  

It’s the little things that bug me, like the extra point of  bravery.  Same for Vanguard Hunters.  Why’s that a thing?  Is there a fluff reason for that?

[ledha]

20 minutes ago, Arkanaut Admiral said:

Yeah, liberators are actually quite a balanced unit if you ask me.  Their price to durability to damage output ratio is spot on.

Sequitors however are very unbalanced.  They’re quite a bit better than liberators for only a 20% price increase.  

It’s the little things that bug me, like the extra point of  bravery.  Same for Vanguard Hunters.  Why’s that a thing?  Is there a fluff reason for that?

to be fair, liberators have a 7 bravery now. For the vanguard-hunter, each of them is supposed to be a hardened veteran able to operate alone during several month or even year if needed, so the 7 bravery make sense.

The most ridiculous thing is the output damage of the sequitors, with 3 special weapon (instead of 1) with 3+/3+ instead of 3+/4+ or 4+/3+. Their damage output is like more than 200% better.

But while the rerollable save make them infuriating in melee, it work only in melee. Against shooting attacks, spells, or out of phase attacks (like DOK or Khorne attacks in hero phase for example), they have the same resilience than liberators, while being more expensive. At 140 pts however, they should be fine.

[erasercrumbs]

On 10/6/2018 at 12:55 PM, Arkanaut Admiral said:

I want to chime in here:

1.  The Arkanaught Frigate.  A great big warship loaded with guns, bombs and mines...with a pitiful save and damage outfit.  No joke, with its current rules I'd shave 60pts off it's price!  Mine die the second anyone actually targets them with anything, and before that happens they're lucky if they kill more than 3 models.  The Ironclad also suffers from the same problems to a lesser extent.  In the fluff Overlords fight from their ships and are famous for them, but on the table they're under performing point sinks.  Might as well leave them at home and just spam troops. 

2.  Aetheric Navigators.  Beyond dispelling enemy magic, they're useless.  Utterly useless.  They don't boost the speed of the ships enough to be worth taking, and their storm ability is pretty poor too.  Which is all a terrible shame as they're sweet models and fluffy to boot.

3.  Mighty Skullcrushers/Bloodcrushers.  Elite heavy cavalry that are said to be unstoppable in the fluff, but on the table are just tarpits.  I've never managed to get the Mortal Wound mechanic to go off.  Ever.

 

It's true, it's all true! My Frigate is a big, (barely) flying marshmallow that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn in Amish country. And the Navigator is a second-rate Runepriest.

 

The Frigate should inspire something like intimidation. But it doesn't. It's a Space Marine Rhino without the reputation for toughness. Granted they could keep reducing the points until it's worth it, but that wouldn't change the fact that it's a flying marshmallow.

[Bohemond]

18 hours ago, Arkanaut Admiral said:

Sequitors however are very unbalanced.  They’re quite a bit better than liberators for only a 20% price increase.

Yeah, and their points cost will probably be rebalanced as soon SCE get some new shiny toys. Next week perhaps? ?

[Arkanaut Admiral]

On 10/7/2018 at 9:55 PM, erasercrumbs said:

It's true, it's all true! My Frigate is a big, (barely) flying marshmallow that couldn't hit the broad side of a barn in Amish country. And the Navigator is a second-rate Runepriest.

 

The Frigate should inspire something like intimidation. But it doesn't. It's a Space Marine Rhino without the reputation for toughness. Granted they could keep reducing the points until it's worth it, but that wouldn't change the fact that it's a flying marshmallow.

I know right? 

I can tolerate the average accuracy.  What I can't tolerate is the poor damage output, the slowness and the softness.  A frigate should be a tarpit/artillery combo.  It should be tough and fast, comparable to a small unit heavy cavalry from the other factions, and it should be able to inflict a fair bit of damage too.  Instead it's about as tough as a small unit of regular infantry (meaning it dies easily) and even less killy.  The guns will inflict about 1-4 wounds a turn if you're lucky.  That's not good enough to me, especially because I think that Frigates should be the back bone of the Overlords, not a points sink that's best left at home. 

Right off the bat I would:

- bump its save up to 4+.  

- bump its Wounds characteristic to 16.

- make the 'Tireless Endrinrigger' ability automatic.

- increase the range of its main guns (cannon or hook) to 32".  They're artillery weapons.  They should have artillery weapon ranges.

Now, the ship is a tough, durable tank unit, able to reach out far with it's weapons whilst being able to withstand a bit of a battering before going down.  And this is just for starters.  I'd also adapt it's bomb rack to make it more aggressive, and look at the Aetheric Navigation ability too.  Make it faster, and make it more capable of getting stuck in too.

Naturally you can upscale this to the Ironclad.  Wounds up to 20, main guns up to 40" (24" in the case of the volley cannon).  I'd keep it's save at 4+ though.  Oh, and -2 Rend for the Aethershock Torpedoes, matching a Freeguild Outrider's Grenade Launching Blunderbuss.  Because they're high explosive torpedoes.