Kadeton

Yeah, I think there's some really interesting psychology around killing units in games. It's immensely frustrating if a unit dies before it gets to "do" anything, no question. But that feeling is really diminished if the player got to make some kind of action with that unit before it died - even as little as getting the chance to move it into a different position changes the impact of its death. Similarly, there's a weird difference between lockdown mechanics and death. Killing a unit is obviously the ultimate "you don't get to use that piece any more" mechanic, but players don't strongly object to that outcome because it's expected in the genre. But paralyse a unit so that it can't move or take any actions but is still on the board? Players, broadly speaking, tend to hate that. Even if the paralysis mechanic takes as much "effort" or "resources" as just straight-up killing the unit, players have more fun when it dies than when it's rendered unusable. (The other mechanic that really ticks people off is summoning. Something in our monkey brains can accept that the opponent can remove models from my army, but not that they can add models to their army, for "free". Killing models is also free!)

I'm with you, to some extent. Mechanics that evoke a particular image of a special fighting style or unique ability without just being "add some Mortal Wounds" (like the Stoneguards' push) are often great for the game. Rather than just increasing raw damage numbers, they encourage the player to think creatively to maximise the value of their units' abilities. Where I would add a caveat, though, is with abilities that cause the other player's units to be locked down and unusable. These don't offer more lethality, but they're still one of the most consistently negative player experiences across the whole spectrum of tabletop wargames. As we've seen mentioned in other discussions, this is because they reduce player interaction, and that's generally frustrating rather than fun.

I think they need to proceed with caution when making a strong visual or cultural connection to any real-world ethnic group, but more Ogors with Mongolian-inspired elements would be just fine, and entirely in keeping with their existing line. I guess when you get down to it, that's quite similar to just saying "More Ogor models would be good, thanks."

Yeah, those restrictions were pretty brutal. I'm playing in a 7th-edition-with-6th-edition-armies WHFB escalation league at the moment, and my Vampire Counts army can't even be led by a Vampire until we scale up to 2000 points. Great for conveying the sense that Vampire Counts were extremely rare and powerful beings, and Vampire Lords were another step even above that. On the other hand, that was a totally different game. AoS focuses much more on heroes, gods and monsters. Immersion-wise, I find it much harder to believe that Nagash, Alarielle or Teclis show up to a 2000-point battle in person than two Abhorrent Arch-Regents, but it is what it is.

All very fair points! I particularly like skeleton trumpets, since you need both breath and lips to make a trumpet sound. I've always just assumed that the trumpets are inherently magical - they can emit sound (presumably some kind of horrifying, unearthly scream) without actually being blown like a normal trumpet, in a similar way to how a skeleton can move around despite not having any muscles. Having an exoskeleton and an endoskeleton could help the Silent People overcome the scaling problem that otherwise puts a hard limit on the size of invertebrates before they collapse under their own weight, I suppose! So they wouldn't actually be insectoid but they could still look insectoid, which is the main thing.

Very pedantic, I know, but... insectoid creatures don't have internal skeletons. The "skull" of an ur-grub would just be its entire head, the chitinous outer carapace - hollow inside.

Took my Beastclaws to a local 1-day 3-game team tournament yesterday, had a fun time and my team came third overall. I was back to my usual Stonehorn list: Boulderhead, two Frostlords, with one Huskard, one Beastriders, and four and two Mournfangs in a Eurlbad. I experimented with taking the Rime-Shroud for my second artefact, in the expectation that I'd be matched up against Lumineth or Daughters or other armies that deal mortal wounds with ranged attacks, but in the end I wasn't and it was totally useless - should have taken the Skullshards instead. In the first game, the opposing team chose to match me with their Sons of Behemat player for The Better Part of Valour. This had me a bit worried in the early turns, since I'm obviously a bit light on battleline units and their Mega-Gargants still counted for objectives despite the non-standard capture rules. There were at least four copies of almost exactly the same Sons list kicking around the tournament: Taker tribe, two Mega-Gargants, a unit of three Gargants, and two single Gargants, with a Soulscream Bridge - I'm pretty sure that was just because they seemed like a shoe-in for this mission. Unfortunately for them, Stonehorns hit a lot harder than Mega-Gargants, and they were all dead by the end of turn 3. Victory! The second game was Battle for the Pass, and I was put up against Archaon and 3x3 Varanguard, with a Gaunt Summoner and the Chronomantic Cogs. Again, this was the opposing team's choice, and my opponent admitted he hadn't played against Beastclaws before. He used the Cogs to try to get multiple first-turn charges but only Archaon and one unit of Varanguard made it - a big risk with a potentially big reward, but Archaon didn't manage to trigger an instant kill on my Frostlord and the Varanguard could only get into contact with the two Mournfangs, while the Stonehorns just behind them were in range to pile in and fight. Archaon and three Varanguard were all dead on his turn 1, the rest of the Varanguard died on my turn 1, and the Gaunt Summoner couldn't fight my whole army on his own. We finished an hour and a half early and went for a beer. The third game had me up against Nurgle, 30 Blightkings with Gutrot Spume, a Great Unclean One, etc., playing Total Conquest. Since they were fairly elite, I realised early on that I could outnumber them on most of the objectives without even fighting, and was fast enough that I could choose to engage where I wanted. This was a long and grindy game - buffed-up Blightkings can really soak damage! - but the Beastclaws held on long enough to build an unassailable lead and win on points. Very happy with a 3-0 result in this setting, even though my opponents were close to ideal match-ups for my army. Thanks to them for being great sports, especially the Archaon player who took his lumps like a champ. It was heartening to see several other Beastclaw lists too - I used to be the only one there, but there's more every year.

I don't know what to tell you, man - tournaments aren't the reason they suck, it's the fact that Frostlords only cost 80 more points for a vast upgrade. Heck, Beastriders are a noticeable upgrade, and they cost 20 points less. If Huskards weren't mandatory in the Beastclaw battalions, there would be no reason to take them. Sometimes units are just bad.

Yeah, this sort of gets into internal balance problems. Frostlords kick ass; Huskards suck ass. I wouldn't be opposed to forcing "Supreme Leader" type characters to be one per army (and forced to be the General) as long as their subordinate Leaders weren't hot garbage.

Yeah, I'd be curious to see a rundown on how that list approaches the game. You do get to roll a bunch of dice for mortals at range which is very "in" right now, but it's not good at that game plan compared to say Lumineth or Seraphon, and I can't see how it doesn't just fold in melee.

I just wanted to note that these positions don't necessarily oppose or conflict with each other - it's entirely possible for AoS' balance to be the worst it's ever been, while still being basically fine and definitely better than 40K. Right now feels to me like the "end of an edition" phase, where relative power level of armies has crept up and up to reach an extreme endpoint, where we have units with extreme damage output ("rocket tag"), extreme mobility, extreme survivability (2+ unrendable saves) and so on. All sorts of wacky OP stuff going on. Then after several months of escalating madness, we'll have a new edition come out that shakes everything up and disrupts the balance, damping everything back to a manageable level. And the cycle begins anew.

Yeah, IDK are really tough to beat now. The unrendable eels are a total roadblock, and the turtle does more damage than a Frostlord while costing less and buffing everything around it. I think they've just been power-crept to the point where it will always be an uphill struggle.

Yeah, for sure. There needs to be some inherent differences between them. I'm not saying they should have the same set of risks and rewards, just using the risks involved in melee as a touchstone for the kind of factors which make for interesting decisions. I suppose that my position more or less boils down to shooting not having enough uncertainty, and not enough ways that the opponent can interfere with a shooting army's game-plan. This thread isn't about reaching a consensus on what AoS 3 should be - it's about sharing our individual thoughts and opinions on what we'd like to see. (This is why it's been so annoying that certain people have spent the whole thread just trying to shout down other people's opinions.)

Well... yes, obviously. All perceptions about the state of the game, and opinions on what should be changed or not, are personal feelings. There are key differences. For example, with a melee unit you are positioning to reduce the risk of charging - the payoff for success is that you get a chance to utilise that unit, and the penalty for failure is that the unit does nothing. Compare that to a shooting unit, where you can pre-measure everything - there's zero risk that something unexpected will prevent your unit from firing. Your opponent can put a screening unit between your melee unit and their priority target, thus preventing you from taking the choice you ideally wanted. Instead, you have to make a non-ideal choice - charge the screen and leave your unit out of position, or don't charge at all. Compare that to a shooting unit, where the only ways to prevent it from targeting its ideal choice is to be a thousand miles away, or to engage it in melee - see "screening units" above for why this can be difficult. Then, once your melee unit is in combat, there are still hard choices and risks. Choosing to fight with one unit leaves the others open to being attacked before they swing, so which are you prepared to sacrifice? And if your unit is unlucky and flubs its attacks, the unit it was attacking will get to punch it in the face. Compare that to shooting units, where there's no possibility of counter-attack and the only importance of choosing which unit to attack with next is to minimise overkill. As for targeting priority not being easy - sure, sometimes you might have to take some time to weigh up the available options to determine which is currently the best. For your opponent, that process is as fun and interactive as watching someone do a maths exam. They don't get to jump in and punish you for making a bad choice in the way that they can in melee. I think @yukishiro1 covered this really well.

Not really, no. With melee, you have to choose at the very least how you advance (do you push forward to get an easier charge but risk over-extending, or be more cautious but risk being unable to join the fight?), and the order of units to fight with (choosing one will often mean sacrificing another). Target priority without restriction is what I'd call a "boring decision". Yes, it involves some tactical analysis, but there's either a clear answer or a near-insignificant distinction between the choices. The kind of tactical decisions that are "interesting" are the ones where you're either taking a big risk in order to get a big reward (e.g. positioning for a charge), or making a painful sacrifice (e.g. choosing one unit to fight in melee, thus leaving another to die before they can swing). Crucially, the thing that makes the decision engaging for both players is that they must both get to exert influence over how big the risk or how painful the sacrifice is. I don't personally feel that AoS achieves that with its current shooting mechanics. Basically all I'm after is making target priority for shooting into a more interesting decision that involves some risk or sacrifice, and which both players can meaningfully affect. That's why I thought it was interesting when 40k was brought up, since the differences in shooting between 40k and AoS are fairly subtle but combine to make 40k's shooting just interesting enough for me.

Yeah, I think it's important to acknowledge that problems with balance generally cannot be fixed by altering the core rules. Balance is determined by unit profiles, points costs and army special rules. It's equally important to acknowledge that broad mechanical problems generally cannot be fixed by altering unit profiles, points costs or special rules. If the problem is with the core mechanics, then the best solution is to change the core mechanics. People may or may not have a balance problem with shooting, depending on their perspective - I honestly don't care. My problem is with the core mechanics of shooting making for dull, arduous games of dice-rolling instead of fun, engaging games of tactical decision-making. It's not a balance issue, and it can't be fixed with balance solutions. I don't want shooting to be less powerful, or more powerful. I just want shooting to be more interesting.

Cool, so we take 40k's superior shooting mechanics, and then adjust the power level of individual shooting units to suit AoS. Sound good?

Harking back to this, @stratigo - not quite sure what your position is on 40k-style shooting. Because the conversation basically looked like this: You: "Shooting can't be anti-fun, look at 40k." Others: "Sounds great, let's make AoS' shooting mechanics similar to 40k, we agree that would be more fun." You: "NoOoOoOoo, that would ruin the game..." To echo what you said: I wonder how 40k is the most popular GW game if 40k shooting is worse than AoS shooting?

Yep, you can move it - see the rules for Bound Endless Spells on page 60 of the Seraphon Battletome. The basic principle is that you move all your Bound Endless Spells first. Then you and your opponent alternate moving any other (non-Bound) Predatory Endless Spells, starting with the player that lost the Initiative roll as normal.

True. I tend to avoid applying this to new situations, because I think it's the worst design decision in AoS, but you're probably right that it would be ruled that way. So taking that into account, the sequence would be: The Lord of Change makes a casting roll. If the unmodified roll beats the spell's casting number, Loathsome Sorcery forces the Lord of Change to re-roll that casting roll. The Lord of Change can then use Mastery of Magic to modify the lower die result. If the modified result means the spell would be successfully cast, the Khorne player can then make an unbind attempt as normal.

I don't see any problems with the interaction: The Lord of Change makes a casting roll, and uses Mastery of Magic to change the value of the lower die. Then, if the casting roll is successful, the Bloodsecrator's Loathsome Sorcery will force the Lord of Change to re-roll that casting roll. The Lord of Change can then use Mastery of Magic again to modify the lower die of the re-roll. To me, that seems consistent with Mastery of Magic happening "when this model makes a casting [...] roll," (which happens twice in this example), and Loathsome Sorcery happening "before any unbinding rolls are made." That's how I'd play it in normal games - in a tournament YMMV, so ask your TO.

@stratigo And yet, the data we have overwhelmingly shows that players find shooting-heavy armies to be the least fun aspect of AoS. Is there a reason you only reference data that "agrees" with you? I've had some very fun games that I've lost, yeah. Mawtribes versus Beasts of Chaos was the most recent, we both deliberately toned down our lists from tournament standard in order to experiment with different options, and it was a blast. Lots of high-stakes gambles to try to gain an advantage - exciting when they paid off, tragic when they failed. Loads of dramatic moments and agonising decisions, a really entertaining game. More of my opponent's tactical gambits paid off than mine, so he won in the end, but that wasn't why either of us enjoyed the game. It was exciting. I've had some really dull games that I've won, too. I played against Lumineth at a tournament last year, massed Auralan infantry with Teclis. They faffed about with spells and arrows for a couple of turns, then I rolled across the table and crushed them with no trouble. I won comprehensively, but I didn't enjoy the game. The Lumineth basically didn't even move, just rolled dice on and on for ages, then died. Totally unsatisfying. The thing I enjoy most in AoS is forcing my opponent to make difficult and meaningful decisions. The next most enjoyable thing is having my opponent force me to make difficult and meaningful decisions. There just aren't a lot of meaningful decisions in AoS' shooting game, it's basic target prioritisation. How about you? Did you have fun the last time you lost to Kharadrons, Lumineth, etc? What made those games fun for you?

No, so wrong that playing against a shooting-focused army isn't a fun or entertaining experience. So wrong that playing a shooting-heavy army is boring, too. For the umpteenth time, this is about how shooting isn't fun, not whether or not it's balanced. We want to see it made more fun, not less powerful.

You have the patience of a saint. Thank you for your continued efforts to articulate this position - I think the above is a near-perfect distillation of my thoughts on the matter as well.

This discussion is making me think of all those classic archery scenes in blockbuster movies. You know the ones: Two great armies are arrayed against each other on the field of battle. The hero's just given his big speech to get the troops fired up about their specific casus belli. The horns are sounded, the cavalry spur their mounts, and the infantry lower their spears and charge. On the opposing side, a commander dramatically holds up one hand, and the archers nock arrows and draw their bows. As the hand drops, they loose, and the sky is blackened by a cloud of whistling death... ... all of which converges invariably on the lone hero, a thousand arrows turning his body into fresh salsa. Not a single arrow falls anywhere other than his immediate vicinity - even the soldiers advancing shoulder-to-shoulder with him remain unscathed. Because that's how missile weapons have always been used in warfare, right? Inevitable tightly-focused death for anyone in a position of command.