Kadeton

Hmm, I think this was true at one point, but the more recent books have tended towards rewards rather than trade-offs. If you're fielding an army of turtles, is it really a concession to be "forced" to take the sub-allegiance which makes turtles stronger? Or the sub-allegiance which buffs sharks if you want to field an army of sharks? Or a dragon-riding General in your army of dragons? Especially when sub-allegiances no longer have a more than one or two abilities, and no mandatory artefact choices or command traits, there's really no downside to picking the one that unlocks the battleline you want while also giving those battleline units a boost.

That's a fair response. It seems apparent to me that the original intent of a battleline requirement was to help make the game simpler to balance, by restricting army building away from excessively skewed lists. But all the conditional battleline entries that have been released since have progressively undermined that goal, so that now it's almost meaningless. I actually think something like that would form a better basis for the division between Matched and Narrative play than the one we currently have. Matched play should aim to avoid skew and promote balance through very tight list-building restrictions; Narrative play should be the arena where stuff like "Oops, All Dragons" resides, because that makes for a cool story experience but a terrible competitive one.

When your battleline choice is anything you want, then what's the purpose of having a battleline requirement in the first place?

I wonder if this is some kind of cultural difference, or if my local area is just particularly blessed with gamers of all stripes? Because at my local gaming club, expressing an interest in pretty much any game, regardless how obscure, will see at least half a dozen or more people getting excited to try it out. Games currently doing the rounds on our tables include 2nd Ed 40K, 6th Ed WHFB, Epic 40K, and most recently Inquisitor of all things... and that's just the GW ones. I know I'm one of the people who have suggested (to you, probably) that people should just look into other games if they're not enjoying this one. But I genuinely can't relate to the idea of not being able to find or start a community of enthusiastic players for any game you're excited about, as that's never been my experience. I'm sorry if it's been yours.

I started a Nighthaunt army - I've always liked the models, and someone locally was selling off their assembled but unpainted models at a good price, so I jumped at the chance. So far it's been purely a hobby project. I'm trying to train myself into some better habits with painting, mainly breaking the habit of taking way too long to get anything done. There's a 1000-point casual tournament next month, so I've set myself the goal of getting a fully painted force ready for that. So far it's going great - incidentally I've just bought a whole bunch of different flowers to use for basing, so I've got your Spring-themed Death army right here.

Thanks, this is great! It confirms a lot of my expectations for Nighthaunt, which is nice. Yeah, this is the big reason to run Emerald Host for me. The Hexwraiths aren't very impressive, but they provide a big pile of ablative wounds (which you can resurrect) for Olynder so she can get into the action and do what she's supposed to do. That wouldn't be enough to keep her alive in a 2000-point competitive game, but I'm hoping it will work at the 1000-point level when soft lists are enforced. Out of interest, why the big block of 30 then? If they're for objective grabbing, why not three units of 10 in the Underworlds, so they can opportunistically go for multiple objectives? Ah, I don't currently have Reikenor. Would you say he's worth picking up? (I don't have the Nighthaunt Endless Spells either, haha.) Yeah, we really don't seem to have much in the way of hard-hitting units. I guess if you can make all your charges 10+ then their punch goes up considerably, but that's hardly a 'strategy'! Fortunately, most of the lists for this specific event are also very soft - people are bringing Beasts of Chaos, Gloomspite Gitz, all the armies that got left in the dust competitively. And the TO is smacking down anyone who tries to bring anything too strong, so in this case a full-on assault might actually work out, or at least make for entertaining games. But yeah, in general I see where you're coming from. Can't wait to see what happens in the new book - fingers crossed indeed! Looking forward to the new hero and crossbow-ghosts as well.

I have to say, the idea of ballistae having "a role in the game" only via their ability to remove squishy support heroes sounds like the exact opposite of how artillery should work. The Kruleboyz' killbow is a much better model for how ballistae in particular could shine more generally - to get the best value out of it, it should be targeting the opponent's biggest single models. Weirdly the Mortek Crawler also seems to spend most of its time on the field sniping out support models, which also feels like the wrong idea for a catapult. Artillery in general should not be precision weapons. So while I fully agree that artillery should be boosted in effect (especially cannons) and given more well-defined roles via their special rules (e.g. catapults broadly as anti-horde, ballistae as anti-monster, cannons as anti-armour), I also agree with @yukishiro1 that it can't really come without an overhaul of the shooting rules. Which would be a good idea anyway!

A radical suggestion: let some infantry units retain their long-range shooting ability, but change their role to Artillery. (Rename the role if you can't reconcile infantry-portable weapons with the term "Artillery" - we're really talking about a "Long-Range Support" role but you can call it whatever.) Change rule 25.5.1 so that the unit retains its previous role, so it still counts against the Artillery (or Monster) limit while counting towards the Battleline requirement.

As far as balance goes, "The game is balanced at 2000 points" is something we tend to accept without too much thought, while on the other hand acknowledging that some armies are tremendously powerful and others are extremely weak at 2000 points. The reality is that some armies would be powerful and some weak at 1500 points or 1000 points as well - you just wouldn't necessarily find the same army in the same relative position.

Thanks! Yes, I wasn't sure whether I was a bit top-heavy with three heroes. I picked these up second-hand, so some of the numbers don't line up with unit sizes, but here's what I currently have available: Lady Olynder Kurdoss Valentian The Briar Queen and Thorns Lord Executioner (x2) Knight of Shrouds on Ethereal Steed (x2) Knight of Shrouds Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (x2) Spirit Torment (x2) Glaivewraith Stalkers (x14) Myrmourn Banshees (x12) Hexwraiths (x12) Grimghast Reapers (x18) Chainrasp Horde (x40) I wouldn't say I had a strong plan in mind with this list - I'd really like to include Olynder because I love the character and the model, and the Hexwraiths seemed an obvious choice as the backbone of the Emerald Host and a bodyguard for Olynder. Beyond that, it was basically just juggling units to make them fit within the points. But I'm very open to suggestions!

As I said, all it takes is for them to tweak the warscrolls or the points and they're "narrative only" in all but name, without any official restrictions. Three months ago, Archaon was the lynchpin of every single competitive Chaos list. And now...?

It wouldn't be taken well initially, but the competitive scene is adaptable and used to conforming to arbitrary restrictions. GW could make gods narrative-only and people would certainly get upset... for about a month, maybe. Then they'd just write new lists and move on. Competitive players are also more than happy to shelve big centrepieces as soon as they become an even slightly sub-optimal choice. Without banning gods and similar uber-heroes, GW could still make them de facto narrative-only just by slightly adjusting their most powerful mechanics and/or increasing their points cost.

I'm just starting out with Nighthaunt, and I've got a casual-oriented 1000-point event coming up next month. The event organiser is vetting each list to make sure that nobody is bringing anything too hardcore competitive. Here's what I was thinking of taking: Any advice on how to make something like this work? I've got a vague plan that the Hexwraith units will bodyguard Olynder while she and the Guardian of Souls keep resurrecting them, so she can get up close to the action and throw out mortal wounds. Beyond that, I'm just at the "throw stuff into combat and see what happens" level of tactical understanding of Nighthaunt at this point. Happy with any suggestions for list changes, spell and artefact choices, and general advice on how to haunt. Much appreciated!

The best way for new players to get into GW games is via the secondhand market, IMO. Sticker shock, assembly and painting requirements are an awful lot to cope with all at once when you're starting out. It's also the best way to keep costs down if you're trying to stay in the GW section of the hobby on a tight budget.

I'm looking forward to a local event which is using a 1000-point format with heavy additional restrictions: no duplicate units (except for up to one Battleline), a single Reinforcement, and all lists are individually vetted by the TO for units that might cause problems. It's deliberately aimed at being a fun event with lots of variety rather than a serious competition, and so far that really seems to be working. People are really keen on it and it's shaping up to be a great event. It's unlikely IMO that 1000 points would ever be commonly accepted as a "competitive" format. 2000 points is the level where the kind of game-breaking gimmicks that you need to invest in to compete at a high level feel "complete" - any smaller than that, and you have to start sacrificing synergistic elements or necessary redundancy. It's also where the game's big centrepieces can be reasonably used, and people enjoy getting them on the table because they're impressive and dramatic. I don't think it actually has much if anything to do with balance, since competitive play is all about focusing on the most unbalanced areas of the game and you can make a broken 2000-point list just as easily as a 1000 or 1500.

As usual, internal balance in the new tomes is all over the place, which makes it difficult to talk about whether any entire faction is better or worse. When you can build a 5/0 list and a 0/5 list out of the same book, how good does that make the faction? Stormcast definitely increased in power, as long as you're talking about lists that field predominantly Fulminators and Longstrikes. If you're talking about the faction as a whole, they're pretty lame, lost a lot of thematic rules and are really only propped up (competitively) by their broken units. Ironjawz are stronger than they were before, especially Mawkrushas. But Warclans overall? Depending on how much you wanted to field Bonesplitters, you'll have a very different perspective on the answer to that question.

No, that's not what I'm saying. I don't think AoS is popular because of the double turn, but the double is part of the game, and the game is popular. Even if AoS is popular in spite of the double turn, its popularity indicates that in that case, the double turn isn't enough of a hurdle to prevent it from becoming popular. In other words, for most players it's, at worst, a minor issue which is easily overshadowed by the game's good points. If it was a major problem, the game wouldn't be popular. That's what I'm generally aiming for, yeah - not so much "nothing can be improved" but "there are flaws I'm content to live with", since that's a more reasonable goal. When a particular game stops being fun for me, I stop playing it and look for something else to take a similar role in my gaming repertoire. Sometimes, when I'm really invested in a game but I'm not enjoying it any more, it can be difficult to get a sense of perspective and see that it's time for a change. This can lead to the kind of self-reinforcing negative mindset that seems common in threads like these - often focused on one particular "flaw" in the game which is "ruining" everything else. At those times, it can be helpful for someone else to step in and say "You seem pretty upset about this, are you still having fun with this game?" I cannot understand how that's "unfair" or "rude". I don't mind if the answer is "Yes, I'm having a great time, I just needed to vent about this one thing," that's cool - the point is to check in. IGYG is certainly one of those flaws I'm content to live with. If GW changes AoS to a structure built on alternating activations, I'll be overjoyed; if they don't, I don't mind. If it really starts to bother me, I'll switch to a different game - probably after complaining about it a bunch, and having someone prompt me to consider whether I'm still having fun.

Adding a single random element to a game that has absolutely none is a completely different prospect to removing one particular random element from a game that has literally hundreds of others. They are not comparable. Sounds like randomness was required in the turn system, then. Do you think the designers added it to the rules by accident? This is a traditional, conservative mindset. "Nobody's tried it before, so it must be bad." This mental framework stifles new ideas and impedes progress. Let the experiment run its course - so far, AoS is proving to be popular, and its turn structure has to be considered part of that. That's not what I'm saying. There's a spectrum - completely random, unpredictable games at the "Unpredictable" end (e.g. Snakes & Ladders), completely non-random, solvable games at the "Predictable" end (e.g. chess). Everyone will have preferences for the types of games they like to play, and where those games fall on that spectrum is a major factor in that preference. (And it may be different games for different purposes - I play chess when I want a competitive, cerebral experience where I don't want to get screwed over by dice rolls, and I play AoS when I want a dramatic, entertaining experience where I just want to relax and socialise, for instance.) When you emphasise or de-emphasise randomness in a particular game by changing the rules, it pushes that game along the spectrum in one direction or the other. I'm happy with where AoS is now in terms of how random it is. If it gets pushed too far towards the "predictable" end of the spectrum, I will lose interest because that's not the experience I'm looking for from this game. The thing that puzzles me is when people treat AoS as if it would be anywhere near the "Predictable" end of the spectrum if it wasn't for that pesky double turn. I don't know why anyone would persist with it if that was the experience they were looking for. If you say so - it wasn't intended as an insult, so I apologise if it came across that way. There are tons of great games out there, I just don't know why you'd play AoS if one of its most fundamental mechanics is not to your liking. Why not pick up a game that works the way you want instead? I still play it from time to time, in fact - there's been a serious revival at my local club, and for a "dead" game it's currently more popular than 40K around here. And that's kind of my point. If you want the WHFB experience, that's still available. Let AoS do its own thing. Hmm. I don't agree, but I can see where you're coming from.

Chess was your comparison, dude. You brought it up. I was pointing out that it made no sense. I'm glad we're on the same page, sort of? Not at all. What I'm saying is that everything is already random, and picking one random element out of the crowd and saying "This one is bad! All others are good!" is nonsensical. "Because other games don't have it" (or, I suspect, "Because it wasn't in the game that this one replaced") isn't a good reason to single it out. Sure. And removing (/not enough) randomness leads to the "I'm bored, let's do something else" issue: the game is predictable, nothing exciting or unexpected happens, and it's not much fun. The game might be more skill-based this way, but you won't get much entertainment out of it since predictability is a counterforce to engagement. There's a sweet spot where tactical planning and random chance interact to make a fun game, and the amounts of each needed to get in the right zone will be different for everyone. It sounds like AoS is a bit too far towards the random side for your liking, but it's in the right place for mine. Perhaps a different game might work better for you? (Have you perhaps considered... chess? It's very tactical.) Yes, absolutely. That is how GW could redesign the game if they wanted to cater to tournament play - minimise the gambling elements and emphasise the skill elements. You present that as if it would be an inherently good thing, but I don't think that's at all clear, as it would alienate a lot of players who are here for entertainment rather than competition. GW seems to agree, so far. I can think of one older IGYG gaming system that did, more or less, have random initiative added to fix and improve the game: Warhammer Fantasy Battles. And it seems to have worked out well so far!

Chess has no randomised elements at all. Nobody has "had the idea" for the Queen to roll for how far she can move or to see if she can deal enough damage to capture an opposing piece - do you think those random rolls (e.g. charge range, attacks) should be removed from AoS as well? If not, why not?

Are we using these terms the same way? IGOUGO: I get to act with all the forces at my disposal, then you get to respond. (e.g. AoS, 40K) Alternating activations: We take it in turns to act with small portions of our overall forces. (e.g. Necromunda, Malifaux, Infinity) In chess, IGOUGO would be getting to move all your pawns, minor and major pieces in one turn. Then your opponent would do the same. Alternating activations would be moving one piece, then your opponent moving one piece, and so on - the way it's normally played. What you're describing with the pawn sounds more like simultaneous activations?

Chess uses alternating activations, not IGOUGO. Or do you think that you get to move all of your pieces and then the opponent moves all of theirs? Yeah, alternating activations is a much better system, as I've already mentioned several times. Most modern wargames use it as well - often alongside random initiative. Kings of War is an actual example of an IGOUGO game without initiative rolls, and it's not bad. The speed and lethality is toned way down compared to AoS, which is really needed to make fixed initiative work (though it wouldn't be a bad thing in AoS either). And still, if you ask any KoW player about single dice rolls affecting the outcome of the game, they'll have stories about rolling double ones on morale and failing to break an enemy unit, which then cost them the game. And that's the fundamental reason why chess is a terrible example. Dice games are a gamble - that's the whole point of using dice. It just baffles me that in a game already packed to the gills with randomised outcomes, people focus in on initiative as if removing just this one random element would suddenly transform AoS into a game of skill.

I'm not really sure about the point you're trying to make here. Obviously competitive players build their lists to play the game, and the game includes potential double turns, so their lists take that into account... meta-gaming in list building is basically what competitive play is about, no? Yeah, the top lists would look different if initiative rolls weren't a thing - because those lists would be designed for a different game. From the way people talk about it, the double turn should be having this "random number generator" effect already, given it's apparently the main thing that determines the outcome of games. And yet, the top players at tournaments are still placing consistently, so clearly they're managing the randomness of double turns just fine. There are usually multiple moments in every game where a single or small handful of dice feel like they're carrying the weight of the outcome. Every time Archaon swings the Slayer of Kings, for instance, or even just whether or not a crucial spell is successfully cast. Making that ward save so your General lives on 1 wound instead of being dead. Rolling snake eyes on a 3" charge. These things can all pivot the game immediately - initiative rolls are just the most consistently occurring of these moments, because you know there will be one every turn. Hmm, I'm not sure it's supposed to be about adding depth. Really, it's about reducing certainty, and providing additional points throughout the game where the players wager on the outcome. It's another big gamble in the series of gambles that make up a game of AoS. AoS is not chess, a pure contest of knowledge and tactical skill where the better player wins, as much as competitive players like to think of it as such. It's closer in nature to Yahtzee, and that's not an accident, or the result of bad design. That's exactly what GW wants it to be, because Yahtzee is a way more accessible game than chess. I have to admit, the main reason I like the double turn is because of the comparison to 40K. I love both settings, but the actual gameplay of 40K bores me to tears. It took me a fair while to work out why I was so much more engaged in my games of AoS, and a lot more of it than I expected came down to the fact that the "future path" of the game was so unclear. But yes, I agree that tons of shooting with limited protection for characters and minimal interaction have been on the rise, and have generally not been good for the AoS experience. Does the double turn make that worse? Eh, maybe, but it sucks either way so I'd rather see those elements pared back than throw out one of the main things that makes the game interesting.

It seems pretty obvious that if you approach the game with the kind of mindset that leads to statements like these, you're not going to enjoy the double turn mechanic. Or AoS in general, I would have thought. Are you trying to assert that AoS without the additional random element of initiative would have a less predictable outcome? If so, please "prove" that, because at face value it sounds ridiculous. There has been no assertion of "entirely predictable", merely less predictable, and yes, in my opinion that's a good thing. I'd love to know how you think this could be proven without the power of omniscience and access to at least one alternate universe. Perhaps, as a demonstration, you could prove the inverse? Show unequivocally that the double does not improve the game, and that fewer players like it than not? The same thing you say to a person watching their army get ripped apart based on a whole bunch of dice rolls? Mine is "Oof, bad luck, mate. Can I get you a beer?"

The most important thing to understand is that it's not about looking back at a specific instance of a double turn occurring to see how it improved the game. The key way in which the double turn improves the game is in how the potential for it to happen (or not happen!) in future turns affects the players' thought processes and decisions. In a fixed-initiative system, things are fairly predictable. You'll be able to hit them roughly this hard, they'll hit back roughly that hard, you'll hit them again with what's left, and so on in a dwindling back-and-forth like one of those formalised Russian slapping contests. In a random-initiative system, both players are forced to take a gamble on what the outcome of the next initiative roll is going to be. As the first player, do you play aggressively, knowing that landing a telling first strike will give you the advantage if the initiative alternates, but risking a devastating counter-attack if it doesn't? Or do you go defensive in anticipation of the double, knowing that you're giving up the opportunity to land that first blow? As the second player, do you over-extend your forces to gain a massive advantage if you get the double, but leaving yourself vulnerable if you don't? Or do you play more conservatively, not wanting to rely on the double turn, but being unable to truly capitalise on it if it does happen? I can't say what was going through the minds of these two players during this particular game, but the fact that those kinds of decisions weighing potential rewards versus potential risks should be on any player's mind during a game of AoS - that's the point of the double turn. The CoS/SCE player in this game had a turn that would have crippled their opponent regardless of whether or not they got the double. That's a much more important issue, IMO - mortal wound spam produces damage spikes which can't be accounted for in terms of balance, and it simply shouldn't be possible for any army to destroy nearly half of the opposing force in the space of a single turn, especially from range. When people look at this game they see the double turn and assume that was the deciding factor, when really the game was already lost before the initiative roll even happened.