Overcosted Units

[Squirrelmaster]

4 hours ago, Thesockra said:

I just hope they reprice almost all of the Slaanesh Daemons.  They are WAAAY overpointed.  There is no way a daemonette is 20% better than a bloodletter, yeah they get a shot at extra attacks but I would rather have mortal wounds on the same to hit roll.

If my maths is right, the bloodletters will average more damage-per-point against 3+ saves, 4+ reroll-able saves, or 4+ ethereal saves (or better). daemonettes will doa lot better against lightly armoured stuff. They're also faster and get defensive buffs.

So long as the meta favours armoured models and mortal wounds, the bloodletters come out better, but if you want to carve up some zombies, goblins, or similar definitely go with daemonettes.

[Squirrelmaster]

33 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

Ive read a few times that Nagash and other mega heroes are overcosted. I used him for the first time in a game tonight against a Nurgle army, and between buffing the whole army (30 skellies? Pah, try 40 with spears with Vanhels Danse cast on them!) and clobbering the Glottkin in one round of combat, I feel hes about right. The Glottkin on the other hand are also quite a big investment, but not in the same league as Nagash - my opponent is desperate for them to get a Disgustingly Resilient save at least which i agree would make them feel a bit more worth their points, and more Nurgley to boot! I fought Alarielle the other week too and she seemed pretty good value - if you cant kill her before she gets a hero phase she'll heal up to full health in the blink of an eye!

But you could run 40 skeletons buffed with Vanhels, without dropping 900pts on Nagash. In fact he doesn't really add much to that mix.

Nagash is about as strong as Alarielle, but costs almost 300pts more. Unless you're running a really big game where his command ability has a decent-sized army to buff, he's just not worth it.

[Thesockra]

3 minutes ago, Squirrelmaster said:

If my maths is right, the bloodletters will average more damage-per-point against 3+ saves, 4+ reroll-able saves, or 4+ ethereal saves (or better). daemonettes will doa lot better against lightly armoured stuff. They're also faster and get defensive buffs.

So long as the meta favours armoured models and mortal wounds, the bloodletters come out better, but if you want to carve up some zombies, goblins, or similar definitely go with daemonettes.

That is just my point though, since you can have a discussion where daemonettes are better against x but significantly worse against y, z, and w it makes it hard to believe that they are the 20% better than bloodletters that the cost says they are.

[Bradifer]

The GHB wasn't a failure, it was a great start to a (defined by numbers) balanced gameplay.

Obviously it isn't perfect. But man is it miles better than just -nothing- which was the case beforehand.

And certainly the year of AoS tournament play has gotten 'filthier' as lists have gotten refined and power creeped new releases came out, but seriously compare the 1 year of GHB tournament results to like, any year of 40K results. Even to a year of some of the old fantasy stuff. (I didn't play WFB but I hear the game stagnated and was meta reliant.)

Yes obviously some units are overcosted or undercosted.

As well some battalions are undercosted, many are uselessly overcosted too (Seraphon).

But man my local meta has been plenty diverse and fun enough to play against/with. My experience isn't filled with as many hard-filth-cheese etc.. lists but based on podcasts, tournament results, battle reports, etc... even the top tier of efficieny has featured a decent variety between the 4 grand alliances.

Death has Nighthaunt lists popping up, old Ring of Immortailty monster spam lists, Mourngul + VLOZD + best of lists, FEC are sometimes just overwhelming for some armies. Also the Tomb Kings had their pre-nerf era.

Destruction has Ironjawz, the experienced players in EU have told us how they've come pretty close to top spots with a pretty one dimensional army. And in non-top tier games, these guys are still scary. BeastClaw was always scary, mixed destruction became dominant from this alliance. Pure Bonepslitterz is also surprisingly good.

Chaos has seen many Sayl reliant lists. More recently Skyfire spam was powerful. Pure DoT still has plenty of damage output and bodies to win objectives. Khorne BB was plenty powerful before, and the new book is helping to keep in out of the bottom tier. Skyre is always a scary list to go up against, even if you pull out the win. Skaven spam like Verminus Clawpack or one of the Pestilence's battallions has lots of options and sometiems simply too many wounds to beat.

Order has always had Stormcast. Hurricanum can be plopped in anywhere to make a list better (as a general rule). Sylvaneth may get countered by new DoT a bit, but they're very good and can attack on many angles in every objective. Frost Phoenix & friends is quite powerful. Seraphon have fallen, but some armies really can't deal with 2+ rerollable temple guard. New Kharadron seem like they can carve out a role.

That is a buttload of diversity for a year.

If GHB 2.0 can balance a few obvious mistakes, and then apply a bit of tuning to many others, that should shift things enough that players will write the new lists. Something else will eventually be top tier, but if it takes another ~9 months to "solve" the format, I feel like the road getting there was good enough.

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On the case with 30 skeletons vs 10 skeletons cost...Taking Skelly's in units of 30 or 40 over 10 is a tactical choice and generally not one made completely based on point efficiency. If a player has 40 + 40 + 10 skeletons, then he has invested a significant amount of points in making his battleline units into threats, those are points he cannot spend on another monster or hard hitting elite unit etc... If a casual list is a list that has little synergy and has no emphasis on undercosted/efficient units then there is only so much GW can do to limit that. (points).

I remember hearing somebody say once "There are no bad armies, only bad generals." And in that case, if player A just brings casual jank vs. Player B who might just have a strong list I feel like that's the equivalant of two MTG players dueling and one has a pile of random cards + lands while the other has a tuned and successful deck. You can duplicate the analogy to any game honestly, but I feel if a player wants a casual list to succeed, maybe a competitive matched play battleplan/scenario game type may not be the best place...It was literally designed for competitive play.

Maybe you are suggesting a merge between Matched play & open, where Player B will only take 1600 vs. Player A's 2000, that way there is some type of handicap which should bridge the gap...I'm not really sure, it just sounds like two players wanting to play a different way. In competitive video games there is ranked mode and casual/quick mode. MTG has competitive 1 v 1 and also Commander.

I don't really consider open play a viable option.

 

[Captain Marius]

11 hours ago, Squirrelmaster said:

But you could run 40 skeletons buffed with Vanhels, without dropping 900pts on Nagash. In fact he doesn't really add much to that mix.

Nagash is about as strong as Alarielle, but costs almost 300pts more. Unless you're running a really big game where his command ability has a decent-sized army to buff, he's just not worth it.

With +3 to cast, Nagash almost guarantees Vanhels will go off when you want it (making the Necromancer basically a spell battery!)

His 2+ rerollable save (mystic shield plus his command ability) and 4+ save vs mortal wounds make him waaay more resilient than Alarielle (she is way better at healing, granted).

Rerolling 1s to save and hit, plus battleshock immunity for the whole army is way better than the overrated 5+ Death save in my opinion - just making Nagash's hitting more reliable is brutal.

Steal Soul has limited use but is great for hero sniping, along with Arcane Bolt. I never even got to use Hand of Dust which is a game winner on its own.

He can neuter enemy magic, even a Tzeentch army, with 8 Unbind attempts at +3...

He can fly 9" too so hes pretty manoeuvrable!

I cant see anything short of Archaon or the entire Ironweld killing this guy - maybe Gordrakk if he goes first. Only option i see is to feed him chaff, which he will duly annihilate while still sniping and buffing the whole Death army! 

So im not quite sure hes overcosted but am open to suggestions!

[Nico]

Quote

His 2+ rerollable save (mystic shield plus his command ability) and 4+ save vs mortal wounds make him waaay more resilient than Alarielle (she is way better at healing, granted).

Steal Soul has limited use but is great for hero sniping, along with Arcane Bolt. I never even got to use Hand of Dust which is a game winner on its own.

He can fly 9" too so hes pretty manoeuvrable!

I cant see anything short of Archaon or the entire Ironweld killing this guy - maybe Gordrakk if he goes first. Only option i see is to feed him chaff, which he will duly annihilate while still sniping and buffing the whole Death army! 

So im not quite sure hes overcosted but am open to suggestions!

Alarielle does far more damage than Nagash does - his output is a joke - it's lower than a Maw Krusha or Spirit of Durthu for example. Her Command Ability is also brutal.

Quote

Rerolling 1s to save and hit, plus battleshock immunity for the whole army is way better than the overrated 5+ Death save in my opinion - just making Nagash's hitting more reliable is brutal.

Well you're wrong. Not least because the enemy will take first turn against Battalion-free Death and shoot you to bits before you even use the Command Ability/Mystic Shield. Conversely the 5+ bubble is in effect from the start of the game.

Quote

He can neuter enemy magic, even a Tzeentch army, with 8 Unbind attempts at +3...

Except first turn magic, which is often what matters most.

Quote

I cant see anything short of Archaon or the entire Ironweld killing this guy - maybe Gordrakk if he goes first. Only option i see is to feed him chaff, which he will duly annihilate while still sniping and buffing the whole Death army!

Yes - he is tanky.

 

[Killax]

16 hours ago, KnightFire said:

That's a reasonable idea but I'm trying to avoid having many skyfires. My original list was pure arcanites and so I had 1w enlightened, but now I'm thinking only 6 enlightened and some tweaks elsewhere to get two loc in. That gives me the two units of arcanites shooting twice as chaff that can do some reasonable damage, and the two loc to do the damage.

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

I completely understand that, granted I also think that Skyfires are created to be the backbone of Tzeentch to some extend. Likewise I can run Skullcannons in Khorne (there is even a Battalion for them) but they arn't what Khorne seems to be created for, to reflect, they are not a solid backbone for a Khorne army.

Note that in my opinion this doesn´t make Skullcannons overcosted, it makes them a support piece for an army and it´s important to realize what core pieces and support pieces are per faction. The main strenght Khorne draws upon is it´s Infantry.

I think that if you'd mix things up you'll have your chaff to protect Skyfires and I do believe this is a way to return their costs. In that same vein running Bloodreavers with Chaos Totems is awesome and all in theory. However the place of the Bloodsecrator and Bloodreavers isn't always the same. Having the Bloodsecrator 12" near the unit isn't always a viable tactical plan...

7 hours ago, Bradifer said:

The GHB wasn't a failure, it was a great start to a (defined by numbers) balanced gameplay. Obviously it isn't perfect. But man is it miles better than just -nothing- which was the case beforehand.

And certainly the year of AoS tournament play has gotten 'filthier' as lists have gotten refined and power creeped new releases came out, but seriously compare the 1 year of GHB tournament results to like, any year of 40K results. Even to a year of some of the old fantasy stuff. (I didn't play WFB but I hear the game stagnated and was meta reliant.)

Yes obviously some units are overcosted or undercosted.
As well some battalions are undercosted, many are uselessly overcosted too (Seraphon).

But man my local meta has been plenty diverse and fun enough to play against/with. My experience isn't filled with as many hard-filth-cheese etc.. lists but based on podcasts, tournament results, battle reports, etc... even the top tier of efficieny has featured a decent variety between the 4 grand alliances.

Death has Nighthaunt lists popping up, old Ring of Immortailty monster spam lists, Mourngul + VLOZD + best of lists, FEC are sometimes just overwhelming for some armies. Also the Tomb Kings had their pre-nerf era.

Destruction has Ironjawz, the experienced players in EU have told us how they've come pretty close to top spots with a pretty one dimensional army. And in non-top tier games, these guys are still scary. BeastClaw was always scary, mixed destruction became dominant from this alliance. Pure Bonepslitterz is also surprisingly good.

Chaos has seen many Sayl reliant lists. More recently Skyfire spam was powerful. Pure DoT still has plenty of damage output and bodies to win objectives. Khorne BB was plenty powerful before, and the new book is helping to keep in out of the bottom tier. Skyre is always a scary list to go up against, even if you pull out the win. Skaven spam like Verminus Clawpack or one of the Pestilence's battallions has lots of options and sometiems simply too many wounds to beat.

Order has always had Stormcast. Hurricanum can be plopped in anywhere to make a list better (as a general rule). Sylvaneth may get countered by new DoT a bit, but they're very good and can attack on many angles in every objective. Frost Phoenix & friends is quite powerful. Seraphon have fallen, but some armies really can't deal with 2+ rerollable temple guard. New Kharadron seem like they can carve out a role.

That is a buttload of diversity for a year.

If GHB 2.0 can balance a few obvious mistakes, and then apply a bit of tuning to many others, that should shift things enough that players will write the new lists. Something else will eventually be top tier, but if it takes another ~9 months to "solve" the format, I feel like the road getting there was good enough.

I completely agree that the General's Handbook was a very good thing for AoS. This also shows in the folks that appeared on this forum thanks to it.
As per other topics, I also believe that every form of play (Open, Narrative and Matched) is a good part for this game, to each its own. The AoS game doesn't become better by restricting it to Open, Narrative or Matched for example  

What I'm also trying to say is that I see under and overcosted units often appear within the same faction. To me this is an indication of where GW wants Strengths and Weaknesses to be within a faction.
Example: - Khorne has close to no Ranged Attacks. There are 2 Bloodthirsters who have a ranged attack, Skullcannon and a Khorgorath. All of their ranged attacks are nothing to write home about, because this isn't what Khorne is about. Where Khorne 'dominates' is Melee attacks.
- By comparison Tzeentch is vastly superior with it's ranged attacks to Khorne.
- By comparison Nurgle is vastly superior with it's attrition options and survivability to Khorne. 

In regards to new stuff, I also agree but don't see it as a powercreep. What I see is that due to the continuation of Battletomes everybody needs them. Not only for competative reasons, because the book goes deeper into Narrative and Abilities aswell. Meaning you can play your army much closer what the narrative tells you and to me there is a very clear indication that this is what AoS is all about.

Perfect balance is not what AoS aims for at all, the game seems to be designed to offer everybody the type of game they like the most.
In order to give some good restrictions I do believe cost is an ideal factor to include.
 

[Captain Marius]

1 hour ago, Nico said:

Alarielle does far more damage than Nagash does - his output is a joke - it's lower than a Maw Krusha or Spirit of Durthu for example. Her Command Ability is also brutal.

Well you're wrong. Not least because the enemy will take first turn against Battalion-free Death and shoot you to bits before you even use the Command Ability/Mystic Shield. Conversely the 5+ bubble is in effect from the start of the game.

Except first turn magic, which is often what matters most.

Yes - he is tanky.

 

In my experience with Alarielle, her damage potential decreases massively if you soften her up a bit beforehand, more so than Nagash. Her bug's antlers are also not reliable against a single opponent. Her spear could be handy for chipping some wounds off of Nagash but i think its down to who strikes first, and my money would be on Nagash to kill her outright if he gets to zap, shoot, then chop her on his turn, while she would need to be super lucky to get through his defences. With all the dryads and skellies you could put in between it could be quite the game of cat and also cat! I think Nagash would also deck a Maw Crusha and certainly a Spirit of Durthu, but have no in game experience... yet!

If you mean the other guys have better damage output against more general units and heroes, you might be right - making sure Nagash gets into contact with foes worthy of his attention while the opponent tries to prevent that is a game unto itself!

Ive not fought Sylvaneth or DoT with him but I don't think their shooting is much of a threat to him (by deploying first they allow themselves to be outdeployed). His skellies/zombies arent too worried about being shot as they just get back up, tho i guess this is very situational. Maaaaybe an artillery gunline could smack him around a bit, but artillery is not very reliable at the best of times...

Magic should be out of range on turn one, unless theres some long ranged magic spam im unaware of!

I'll try him out against a few more foes and see what happens. I have a feeling the opponent will need to play hard, but should generally be able to beat Nagash on objectives... which could mean he is overcosted after all!

 

[Furious]

1 hour ago, Auticus said:

There are plenty of bad armies.  If I build a 2000 point chaos dwarf list with a couple units of gunners, a couple units of battleline core troops, some centaurs, a demonsmith, the Ashen, and a couple artillery pieces... that is a fun diverse army to run.  And it will be 100% wrecked by anyone with a pulse and capable of drawing breath that is using a Kunnin Rukk or Skyfire list.  

That is the fault of the point system in general.  Because 2000 points of chaos dwarves vs 2000 points of Kunnin Rukk is basically a 3500 point to 2000 point game because teh Kunnin Rukk stuff is grotesquely undercost.

 

Chaos Dwarfs are a pretty strong army. I play them, a varied army mixed with Brayherds as well, and I'll generally stomp all over anyone who isn't min/maxing. However, going up against one of those face-melting armies - Sayl abuse, Stormcast Hammerbros, etc - I get smashed to bits quickly.

I see the issue not being that some things are disproportionately costed - that's bound to happen, especially in a game with so many quantifiable variables - but the things that are, are disproportionate at such an extreme, and seemingly with no regard or understanding, or with blatant favoritism (SCE will always be an overpowered faction with all the best toys - I mean, they have units that cast the equivalence of Mystic Shield, but aren't wizards so there's no change of failing or unbinding wtf). 

[rokapoke]

I suggest that the problem isn't undercosted/overcosted units, but the players who insist on exploiting weaknesses in the point system. Some players use the "rule of cool" and will buy a unit despite it being overcosted just because it looks awesome. And some players will spam unit X just because it's undercosted.

GW and their point system are not the enemy here. Games Workshop has provided us with all the tools to play an absolutely awesome game, and a wide variety of battleplans (for all three game styles) to keep it fresh from game to game. 

Various members of the community have failed the rest of us. Broken lists do not come from GW, they come from gamers that are out-of-touch with the implied social contract in the game.

[Furious]

6 minutes ago, rokapoke said:

I suggest that the problem isn't undercosted/overcosted units, but the players who insist on exploiting weaknesses in the point system. Some players use the "rule of cool" and will buy a unit despite it being overcosted just because it looks awesome. And some players will spam unit X just because it's undercosted.

GW and their point system are not the enemy here. Games Workshop has provided us with all the tools to play an absolutely awesome game, and a wide variety of battleplans (for all three game styles) to keep it fresh from game to game. 

Various members of the community have failed the rest of us. Broken lists do not come from GW, they come from gamers that are out-of-touch with the implied social contract in the game.

This I agree with, too. Unfortunately there's that one person who frequents a local tournament who forces everyone else's hand to up their list building game just so that they don't have a supremely unfun match where they not only lose, but they're tabled in round two. I've seen it, and I've played it. Those games just plain aren't fun. That shouldn't happen when we're bringing "balanced" armies to the table, or even reasonably balanced armies to the table. It is on GW to make it harder and less appealing for those players to do that.

[Killax]

3 hours ago, rokapoke said:

I suggest that the problem isn't undercosted/overcosted units, but the players who insist on exploiting weaknesses in the point system. Some players use the "rule of cool" and will buy a unit despite it being overcosted just because it looks awesome. And some players will spam unit X just because it's undercosted.

GW and their point system are not the enemy here. Games Workshop has provided us with all the tools to play an absolutely awesome game, and a wide variety of battleplans (for all three game styles) to keep it fresh from game to game. 

Various members of the community have failed the rest of us. Broken lists do not come from GW, they come from gamers that are out-of-touch with the implied social contract in the game.

I agree for 80%, the thing is that in some scenarios the social contract can be to present 'broken lists'. If your attending to a 200+ player tournament with a large entry fee, perhaps spanning over multiple days or being the largest tournament you'll attend to in 1 year I can understand the urge to not only 'play' a tournament but win the tournament.

So for me the last part really boils down to that it it's important that players understand what they are getting into. I can recall 2015 stating AoS as an Open Play game. I didn't sign up for a cash game where the player with the largest wallet was local 'game king'. As a result I really like the narrative we recieve now, the point costs we recieve now and the fact that Generals Handbook covers this all.

The moral remains play as you like and make sure that your opponent is aware of this playstyle aswell. If your entering a large tournament players also shouldn't complain to see 'broken lists'. As before, some attend to such large events because it's the only real big event they can attend to per year. 

[Squirrelmaster]

Just a thought here, but what if GW released multiple different points systems, designed to encourage different meta-games. For instance, you could create a version where heroes are cheaper for players who want to play a very herohammer-esque game.

Might that not also encourage players to experiment with their own homebrew points systems more, and maybe discourage min-maxing while still providing a framework for pick-up games and the like?

[Killax]

1 hour ago, Squirrelmaster said:

Just a thought here, but what if GW released multiple different points systems, designed to encourage different meta-games. For instance, you could create a version where heroes are cheaper for players who want to play a very herohammer-esque game.

Might that not also encourage players to experiment with their own homebrew points systems more, and maybe discourage min-maxing while still providing a framework for pick-up games and the like?

Well the thing is that GW said, go ahead, make your own rules. I think this is why I like House-rules. So if you really go through the General's Handbook it's full of these types of encouragements.

What I think is a true pitty is that some seem to see the General's Handbook as 'the point cost book'. For the life of my I can't understand why people would think that. There are more pages on narrative and how to enjoy your game in a non-point cost setting in it than there are pages who cover the costs.

Lastly and I wouldn't say it if I didn't think so, the vast mayority of costs of AoS units is okay. What I agree with is that we have a handful of Units and Battalions who are undercosted, for example Sayl, Skyfires and Kunnin' Rukk. To me it makes more sence to focus on them and have House-rules add costs to them or even outright limit them in better ways.