Kadeton

Core Rules Errata, 27.3.3 – Artefacts of Power Add: 'An army cannot include duplicates of the same artefact of power.'

Yes, of course it does. But you shouldn't factor that into the cost of armour. Instead, you increase the cost of units that can inflict mortal wounds (because that's a very valuable ability). Mortal wounds become expensive, and therefore rare... thus increasing the effective value of armour again. The point is that you baseline the unit's cost based on its own abilities, not what's available to certain other armies - because then your heavy armour will be balanced against just those armies but overpowered against everyone else. If heavy armour is devalued because mortal wounds are too common, the solution is not to make armour too cheap, it's to make mortal wounds less common. Anyway, I think we're off topic.

I don't think you factor mortal wounds into the price of armour at all. That doesn't really make sense - you're not baselining the unit based on its own capabilities, but on the capabilities of every other unit in the game. That's too volatile a calculation. Instead, just factor mortal wounds into the points cost of the units inflicting the mortal wounds. Basically, those units should only approach cost-efficiency when using their mortal wound output to attack high-armour targets.

It certainly allows existing shooting units to be stronger on paper, no question. But mechanically, I don't think "shooting" was ever the problem (other than the NPE of it being tedious and dull, and being far too deadly to small heroes). Specific armies were definitely over-tuned for it and encouraged into a non-interactive playstyle, and yeah, that sucked. But loads of other armies had shooting elements that were totally fine. What Unleash Hell does add, which I think is important to acknowledge, is more interactivity and meaningful decision-making to the shooting aspect of the game for all armies. They certainly could have added more decisions to shooting in areas that would have impacted it in other ways - I would have loved to see a command ability that let a nearby unit tank hits for a hero who was being shot at, for instance - but at least it's a step in the right direction. The choice of exactly when to Unleash Hell is not a brainless one in the way that most AoS shooting is, and that's great to see. The threat of Unleash Hell also makes the decisions on when and where to charge less brainless too. The relative strengths of shooting and melee are constructed on top of the core rules, in the battletomes. GW could snap their fingers and erase all the shooting armies in the game from the competitive scene instantly, just by giving them some unfavourable points changes. Unleash Hell wouldn't remotely save them. Or, GW could decide that shooting armies should still be the top of the meta, as they already demonstrated could be done without Unleash Hell towards the end of 2nd Ed. That's what I mean when I say that balance happens in battletomes, not the core rules. What the core rules are for is determining where the important decisions of the game are created, and that's the context in which I think Unleash Hell is a good thing - it creates moments of tactical decision-making for both players that didn't previously exist. Times will probably be tough for melee-focused armies for a while, yes. But they were tough for us already, and would still have been tough without Unleash Hell. And when the balance shifts again and times get better for melee, Unleash Hell will still be an interesting addition to the rules. I get that it's "salt in the wound", but maybe worry about the actual wound, you know? The salt hurts, but it's not why you're bleeding.

I still haven't managed to get a game of 3rd Ed in to see for myself, but... this just doesn't feel right to me at all. First - "very devastating". Is it? People in this thread have run the numbers on arguably the worst scenario you're ever likely to face: 20 Sentinels with Power of Hysh, and your charging unit is affected by Lambent Light. And that's about 10 wounds, on average. That's enough to put a dent in something, for sure, but it's not going to wipe out a hammer unit. Second - "little counterplay". It seems to me there's quite a number of obvious and simple counterplays to mitigate the effect of Unleash Hell. For instance: Charge with more than one unit. Bait out the Unleash Hell with less valuable skirmishers. Other tactics available will be more specific based on the army you're playing (use units with 6" pile-in moves, disrupt with the Geminids, and so on), but any army can do at least those two. Force your opponent to make difficult decisions about how and when they use Unleash Hell, and also carefully consider your own difficult decisions about how and when you invite its use. It's all on your terms! "Counterplay" doesn't have to mean you nullify your opponent's ability to do something - in fact, I'd say that's generally the "bad" kind of counterplay, the Blue Deck control-based paralysis that Lumineth get a lot of stick for. Counterplay for Unleash Hell doesn't have to mean not getting shot, it can be as simple as forcing your opponent to Unleash Hell at any target other than the important one. I do think the design of Sentinels is a mistake and GW seems hell-bent on doubling down, but that's a battletome-specific problem. In the general case, I think Unleash Hell is a good addition to the game, simply because it warrants careful consideration on both sides - anything that increases the amount of tactical decision-making in the game is a plus, IMO.

"The designers buff the armies they play so they can personally win more games" is such a flimsy take. I'd bet that they rarely play the game outside of work, if at all - certainly not enough to 'main' an army.

While (as a player of primarily melee armies) I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Unleash Hell toned down, I do think having it in the game creates opportunities for units that otherwise don't have much of a role. I'm thinking stuff like Fell Bats, which a lot of people argued were just pointless garbage in AoS2 - cheap, fragile, high-mobility flanking/harassing units with little to no combat punch. Yeah, those units could be used as objective-grabbers (though not objective-holders) in a pinch, but that was rarely a valuable enough role to justify putting them in a list. You can still use them for that, of course, but now I feel like there's actual potential value in using them to harass shooting units. There's still some tactical manoeuvring and luck required, of course (though I think those are things that tend to make the game more interesting), but getting into a position where the harassers can fly over a screen and hit a shooting block with a charge puts the opponent in a tough spot, and leaves your main force of chargers free to smash through screening units without fear of getting shot. Anyway, I could be totally wrong, but it's nice to think that this sort of tactical play is the sort of thing the rules could support in theory, even if the current unit choices and prices might not make it entirely feasible. I think it's pretty reasonable for melee units to suffer if they charge face-first into a hail of bullets or arrows, and the threat of Unleash Hell means you have to be more thoughtful about planning your charges. But at the same time, the fact it can only be used once per turn is a glaring weakness that leaves plenty of room for clever tactics... I hope. I really need to get some games of AoS3 in.

For real, though - what are you on about? The belligerent, hostile tone is coming through loud and clear, but I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say. Can you explain in a bit more depth?

Yeah, people really often make a leap from "I hate playing against Lumineth, it feels unfair," to "Lumineth are overpowered." Not really, they just feel bad to play against even though they struggle to win games. That's still a big problem in their design.

While the core of this (be careful how you do your analysis) is good advice, it's kind of annoying to see it applied only on this specific analysis because it's a bit more sophisticated and harder for people to understand, when the naive analyses of tournament results often seem to pass without comment even though they exhibit far less rigour. Not having a go at you for being critical of the Listbot stats, but it's worth remembering that none of the data available actually holds up for the purpose of drawing strong conclusions. Absolutely agree. I've found Lumineth to be competitively mediocre, but I still think they're bad for the game in their current state. Just because something isn't OP doesn't mean it's fine.

There's nothing wrong with Mournfangs, they're just not as good as Stonehorns at... anything, really. That doesn't make Mournfangs bad, it just means Stonehorns are awesome. No synergy possible, unfortunately. Both CAs are used in the Combat Phase, so they can't be received by the same unit.

I've certainly used Mournfangs with ironfists against glass-cannon melee units in this way - they often die, but they bounce back enough damage to cripple the enemy in the process. They're the least useful things in my list, so I don't mind throwing them away. In AoS3, I think they'll make a great tarpit if that's what you need them to do. Throw All-Out Defense on them, and you've got 24 wounds with a 3+ save that bounce mortals on a 6 - that's not easy for anything but the scariest combat units to deal with. They'll certainly tie up most hordes for a significant portion of the game, and put out quite a bit of damage in the process (if your Stonehorns don't arrive to wipe the horde out first). Mine are modeled with gargant hackers, so I'm quite keen to see if those can work well in the new edition (I proxied them as club & fist most of the time in 2nd). The extra rend and reach are potentially very relevant.

It can be so easy to lose sight of the fun when you get heavily into a game. I burned myself out on Malifaux during the playtests for their third edition, and AoS was my low-pressure 'rebound game', much like it sounds Dystopian Wars will be for you. A change is definitely as good as a holiday. Best of luck in your future hobby endeavours!

Absolutely. +1 to hit is huge for us. +1 to our already solid saves is also very nice! It's worth noting that a unit can only receive one Command in each phase. Since both All-Out Attack and Line-Breakers are both used in the combat phase, you can't stack them on the same unit. So you'll have to choose between 3+/3+/-1/2 (with +1 to hit for all the Ogor attacks as well) and 4+/3+/-1/3. I think All-Out Attack is clearly better, so you'd only be using Line-Breakers if there's a better target for All-Out Attack (which I guess there almost certainly is, like any Stonehorn).

I've used that command ability maybe once or twice in the last twenty games, just either wasn't in position to use it (spread thin across objectives) or couldn't spare the CP. Given we've got a lot more CP available now, yeah - it could definitely do some work. Gotta make up for all the damage the Mournfangs lost when the Eurlbad went away somehow...

In fairness, they did force Gluttons into units of minimum size 6, so there are definitely some mixed messages from the designers on that front.

Nor have I stated as such. I've only said that core rule changes and balance changes happen separately, despite interacting with each other. The fundamental reason for changing the core rules is not to tweak game balance. No, I don't think so. There's nothing inherently unbalanced about strong horde mechanics, or weak hero mechanics, or vice-versa. These changes are about altering focus, not balance. They've decided that heroes and monsters are more exciting and provide a more engaging experience, so the new rules are designed to emphasise the role of those unit types over others by giving them more ways to interact with various aspects of the game - more "screen time", to draw an analogy. How strong any particular hero or monster or horde unit becomes under the new ruleset is still entirely down to its unit warscroll and its matched play points cost, and can be changed accordingly. I hope beleaguered factions get balance improvements as soon as possible, and I'm not trying to suggest they shouldn't or to brush off concerns of people who feel their favourite faction is struggling. But we really don't know anything about the new state of balance in the game right now, because the only balance changes we've seen are points and we have no idea what else (if anything) is coming. And the core rules give no indication of what the future state of game balance will be, because that's not how they work.

GW could release simultaneous updates to all the battletomes as well as the core rules, but again - that would be addressing individual battletomes, which is where game balance happens. It doesn't happen in the core rules, which only provide the framework within which the armies exist, balanced or not.

There's a strong disconnect here. Your view is based on the idea that GW undertook an edition change specifically to improve game balance, and therefore screwed it up. I think that's entirely misguided. The core rules don't control balance, they're about establishing the fundamentals of gameplay. The purpose of an edition change isn't to shift the balance of the meta, it's to make improvements to the basic infrastructure of the game.* That will obviously have a strong effect on balance, but not necessarily a leveling out. Balance is then addressed in the individual army rules, as they interact with the core rules. To update the game's balance, GW will need to release new battletomes, or otherwise update them through FAQs or campaign books. There will always be a period of adjustment during an edition change, where some armies (including some strong ones) get stronger and some (including some weak ones) get weaker. That's not a failure of intent in the new edition, just a natural and unavoidable consequence of any change to the rules. * Whether or not GW failed at their goal of improving the basic mechanics is definitely still open for debate.

To be honest, neither of those is an 'army' in my mind. A hundred humans is barely a village. Four giants is just a bunch of lads looking for trouble. A thousand humans, fifty giants - that's the lower end of the army scale. AoS and WHFB have never been army-scale wargames. AoS 3 is a skirmish-scale game, same as before.

I quite like unit sizes of 1 monster, personally. But for units of lesser creatures, 5 makes the most sense to me. You can run them small to stay under the coherency restriction, or get the benefits of greater numbers with the tradeoff of more restrictive coherency. The worst unit size is 6, closely followed by 3. I think 20 is too many (especially when double-reinforced) to properly 'fit' in AoS' scale and mechanics.

Yeah, agreed. Or at least give it a profile that's not strictly worse than the Beastriders. I can't think why I'd take one, now - might have to break the Stonehorn's head off and replace it with a Thundertusk.

Big winners: Frostlord on Stonehorn! Picture: Huskard on Stonehorn. Good job, GW.

The points changes are rough for trying to fit my Beastclaws neatlyish into 2000 points, but they seem pretty fair overall. A Frostlord at 430 is still excellent, considering the boost they received, and the lack of a Eurlbad means I don't have to take a Huskard any more. Poor Gluttons, though. In 2nd Ed, you could chant both. In 3rd Ed, every Priest can chant one prayer only per round, full stop.

Ouch, yeah that's really nasty. I'm very glad I have a command ability available to make one of my monsters fight at its top profile regardless of wounds, and loads more command points available to use it!