whispersofblood

1. Listbot has been pretty good at assessing list strength. I'd also push back against the best players pick the strongest list. The vast majority of tournament players even regulars are playing factions they like and want to play. Seraphon and DoT make up like 7% of the meta, so unless your inference that number is the totality of skilled players I think you'll need to back away from this argument. Skill is largely defined in the data set apparently as likelihood to achieve a particular result. In this case 5-0. Because we have some data with players playing multiple factions we can distill the expected result of the player and the faction and therefore disti what they player impact is on results. It's basically the same form of statistical analysis used in any skill sport. Including profession analysis of football players, chess, etc. So I don't think it's a particularly strong argument that it's not identifiable, just because the underlying specifics are identifiable. The data shows Ronaldo and Messi score 60% of the time where the average player scores 20% of the time, on the same spot of the football pitch. Whatever they are doing individually is making them standout, that is defined as skill. 2. I can only speak for myself and my gaming group or the players I've met in the UK or at events like Adepticon but none of us are solely motivated by winning. More than a few members of my gaming group are regularly up for best painted, and enjoy a diverse range of factions some of which aren't very good. And they will still win 4/5 matches. I think we are quick to identify good players as hyper competitive, when the reality is the bulk of them just give more effort at the hobby. That isn't to effort shame anyone but effort produces results, and a lack produces a lack. I say this for myself as well, I don't play enough games to go 5-0, I'm lacking the sharpness and mental durability to win when I'm tired. So I often don't win one of my 3rd or 5th games at a 5 game event, that's the nature of competition. 3. This question is explicitly answered in the data. This happens 10% of the time in recorded results, with a difference in player skill of at least 15%. Which given that most of the data is about 5 game events is an expected result of less than one game different. I believe this is a lot of people's game 3 experience, where the difference in player skill isn't obvious but still having some effect and the stronger faction just RNGs its way to victory. 4. It's important when looking at data to have a question rather than coming to data for an explaination for what you feel. An appropriate question for this thread is: Are games being decided by what we can call mechanical imbalance? The data emphatically says the vast majority of games are won by the better player. But, that the strength of the opposing faction is more determinative the closer an individual player is to the average person. Which passes the sanity check, they have less ability to see there way out of mechanical challenges. But, the data does not show that the faction strength effect dominates the average players results. Most people's (like 80%+) games are determined by their level of skill against their opponent's, but yes some percentage of gamers are losing games more regularly because of imbalance. I want to be clear I've not made the argument that imbalance doesn't effect people's outcomes. The point I've been trying to make is that it is not as determinate as people would like it to be. @Battlefury for example Blades of Khorne have been out preforming LRL since Dec, and Big Waagh which people generally have a perception of as "good" has fallen far down the winrate table (personally I think this has a lot to do with its match up with Archaon but I'm not sure that is the case because they are losing other games as well. Something has changed). As to why your friend lost with Khorne well there could be a few reasons. A) you biased his list construction B) He plays a faction which boosts his apparent results C) He didn't really give it much effort D) He played against people relatively close to his own level and Khorne has a negative impact on player skill in the data a small one mind you. Him playing Khorne is only part of the equation. You made me curious about Khorne and I wrote a list I thought would be a good skeleton while on the tube yesterday. When I looked at the Khorne thread no one was even on a similar tangent so Khorne's problem may just be group think. Which is a death spiral even for objectively good factions.

That isn't exactly accurate. It still matters less than difference in player skill. It was between 50-40% in the "average" gamer range, so on average its still less impactful than player skill, meaning the better player is still winning more often than not. It does imply that the middle is vulnerable to RNG results, which better factions are naturally resistant to, to some degree or another. Further who is to say these players actually know what is wrong? For example one of the things that came out of this was player power. The factions we should be looking at are the ones where players are doing worse than you would expect, a lot of those fat middle books seem to make player's results better than you would expect. I think one of the critical findings was that when the difference in player skill is obvious (more than 15%, which is debatably the difference between someone who usually goes 3-2 and someone who usually goes 2-3) the worse player with the better faction is winning 10% of the time, thats 1 in 10 games, that isn't even a 1 match at a 2 day event, and likely not even relevant at a single day of action. So when people say better balance will be better. I don't disagree some specific abilities are way out of bounds. But, the stats are not suggesting that the actual outcomes of games are being affected by our current level of balance. That is massive! The more data that comes out, the more it seems that the cries of imbalance are an expectation problem, and not a mechanical problem. So yes if you lose to the same 4 people every week, then the problem is probably you, not the game, not your faction. The good news is if you really are bothered you can fix that, the bad news is it will take effort.

I think people need to keep in mind that a lot of mechanics in AoS are by choice. For example @Turragor, total unsaved damage being applied to units is for simplicity purposes and to keep wound allocation problems out of the game. MWs are a bit janky but they work, and just need to be policed a bit. We want to I think in general exclude spike MW dmg like Darkfire Daemonrift.

What's your response to WHW and Listbot? Basically they've demonstrated that 90% of games are determined by who is statistically the better player (the player most likely to win the game). Yes, Faction matters but not the way people want it to matter, they've also shown meta chasing doesn't produce results. As a feather in my own cap, I'd just like to point out the data confirms my perspective that the Zilfin build is a low skill build. So maybe I'm bias towards believing their results. I think they missed when discussing the "fat middle" of players that even there faction is only between 40-50%, that still means player skill is between 60-50% determinate in the outcome of games in that segment. Meaning overall the way to improve your results is to be better at the game. This starts at list building as I've said before, grinding out your own list. My LRL list is nothing like anything I've seen anywhere else, to the point I struggle to understand the underlying logic of a lot of builds I come across. Lastly I'm very frustrated by the lack of attention paid to quality of win, and the continued trend of players not finishing games. The final score is important when discussing how to improve lagging factions.

That's because you can't control for player skill.

Here is the thing, only the very best faction ever has that possibility. Once there is something that can be defined as a meta it automatically categorizes everything into useful and productive and not useful and not productive. If you look at the units that aren't good in a book, you can find examples of similar units. But, those units have some other thing that lets them be productive. Take for example Blightkings and Wrathmongers (both the same points). They are only better in a few keyplaces on their characteristics, have access to rend from a battalion and run+charge from the allegiance. Instantly useable. But, let's say Nurgle didn't have run+charge access there is a good chance they aren't good enough at the objective part of the game to be useable. Do you see how fine the margina can be on warscrolls between productive and not? Which is why everyone would be better off (assuming winning matches is your objective) by be as open minded about the units you are taking as possible. Because if you insist on taking specific non-productive combinations of models then you are holding yourself back not the game, not balance, not the battleplan. Like it should go without saying that a constructed list will beat an unconstructed list.

Warshrine gives a 6+ DPR, so you build each unit for its job.

There is really two seperate streams of thought here. The narrative, and mechanical design. Giving "elite" units MWs lets the builder of the warscroll map pretty accurately how much damage said unit will do in almost any context. I think this can be supported from a narrative perspective so long as the idea of "elite" is reasonably well maintained. And, it adds real value to the idea of "eliteness". I think where were we run into narrative problems is when things like exotic posions or such pump out mws. I think things like skinks would be more acceptable if they did an auto wound on a 6 to hit. It also means skinks aren't doing like 8 mws to the opponent in their turn. Generally I think we should do away with things that complicate dice pools. Like 6s to wound do dmg2 or change rend values, except on heroes since we are talking about relatively small pools of dice. On the other hand I think every combat hero should be dmg 2 so maybe I'm the crazy one.

Yeah it's more using the list as an example of how decision trees lead people to do things that aren't going to contribute to victory. So once I write a list the first thing I do is go back and ask why for each warscroll, CMD Trait, Artefact and weapon option. Is it part of a power pair? Is it a combination that pumps a good warscroll far beyond its normal capacity? Questions like this. So my first question is: why this collection of heroes? What do they get you and are their better ways to get it into a list. So for example Slaughter Priests are terrible, but Blood Blessings and Judgements are good. So why not take Warshrines? Which are harder to kill, and provide additional benefits, including a DPR, and Favours. You can easily have Chaos Knights on a 3+ save rring, hitting on 2s, rr hits and wounds for example. Chaos Warriors are good enmass, and a good platform for prayers, they have decent baseline stats to buff Including a RR save on the warscroll and 2 attacks with rend. You want units to trade for Bloodtithe but you want them to do something while there are on the board. Spawn and Chaos Chariots are better than Reavers for this in the current meta as shooting has proliferated and battleshock is a thing. Chariots do MW on the way into combat which bypasses a lot of rules as such, and can clip units and have their full output, importantly are fast 12" plus run and charge once per game. Turn 1 I would be Using Blood Sacrifice on a 5 man CW unit, hopefully negating a wound with my DPR and starting to build my blood tithe early on. The long and short of it is when the game changes you need to chuck the bad and retain the good.

@Battlefury cool that helps a lot. The thing a lot of players struggle with is being trapped by their collections. So lots of Khorne players are left trying to build competitive armies out of models that structurally (ie having little to do with their warscroll) are not competitive. Part of what made Khorne heroes viable at the time was the absence of effective shooting. The more widespread useful shooting becomes the more quickly their relative value tanks. So at list design you need to ask yourself a series of questions. Why do I want those buffs? Are they actually useful or just nice to have? How many of them do I actually need? A lot of times people lock themselves into unproductive chains of behaviour and then reverse justify the behaviour by saying I wouldn't have done it if I thought it wasn't necessary. But when I examine most Khorne lists there isn't much reason for any of the choices beyound it was good or I prefer it. Which is fine, but it's not a sufficient grounds to be reactionary about the whole construct imo. Let's take your last build a part and we can see how this works? Do you have the full list?

The bulk of the best factions are books from the end of AoS 1. DoK has only recently left that club.

The first response doesn't really answer if you are as good as them, or good enough to make up any differences in the raw materials you are using. My Zilfin perspective is important here, it's possible you are just playing skill based lists without sufficient skill. It's not every person with a license that can drive F1. For example; I came to football late, and was better than my peers by the end of the season. Do you have any examples of you playing with other factions and getting substantially better results? Skill is obviously difficult to quantify, but indications would be sufficient. Just putting in the work isn't enough. The rest is good. What is the best example of a competitive list you have recently used and what have you used it against? Including battleplans.

I'd ask a series of questions. Starting with Why do you think you are good enough to win against the people you play? How much do you play/practice/read vs the players you play against most regularly? In what context do you play games? Tournaments? Casual but TAC? Casual but tailored? Narrative? Match play? Match play but peer pressure to not take allies? Is it 7000 points of BoK or models with access to *KHORNE*? The crux of which is that there is no reason for a listener to leap to imbalance as the foundational reason for you losing all your games.

I was using a 10 man clawspesr unit back in the 19/20 season. It was a good cheap blocker and wall for 200 points back in the day but it does basically zero damage. And, once the opponent recognizes that they will get removed. They are extremely fast though, but at the new cost I can't see how it would be a good investment. You might be better off going pleasurebound and taking Marauder horsemen. I'd also not take the splinterfang or the darkoat chieften both are cute but ultimately not effective. Pleasurebound Warband Chaos Lord/Sorcerer Lord 3*20 Marauders 3*5 Marauder Horsemen Keeper of Secrets Seeker cavalcade 2*5 Slickblades This has the advantage of being 3 drops, lots of bodies, movement and CP.

And, who wins between those top lists? A player who goes 3-2 consistently and one who goes 4-1 and one who 5-0s are all taking basically the same lists. That is a 20% margin, or over a year of events between 8-10 victories between each segment of players. And, it's not luck of the draw, most people's tournament results are quite consistent. If you are talking about casual play which is for all intents and purposes unskilled play then sure if you minimize skill, you obviously maximize other factors like wallet, faction strength and list strength. We can look at the lists for Hammertime 8 if you want anecdotal evidence, the one major benefit of TTS is all this information is open to people who don't regularly attended events. Are 2-3 and 4-1 players taking the same quality list? Probably not, but I would not definitely rule it out without research. Further, list construction is a skill as well, as is research and data collection. Have you considered *you* have compelling reasons to suggest skill is more marginal than it might be? Most players like a staggering amount are not good at AoS, this is true of almost every endeavour mankind has put it's mind to. And, many players take builds that don't provide a good platform for decision making. For example the standard Zilfin build is a low skill build, which means it folds to any build that can screen and trade against shooting. Because the list itself minimizes skill, not because the game does, this also means a mediocre player might over perform against players of similar skill, but even that isn't necessarily true in the long run. This is why I believe the best skyport is Barak-Thryng actually as it provides more opportunities for high skill play at list construction.

All that can be true and some people can have more ability, experience, and relevant immediate practice. I'm pretty sure when the AoS statistics took off THW stats indicated something like a .7 correlation between player skill and results. I was skeptical of that number as very few things in the world have a correlation that high but I wouldn't be shocked if it was .6, that is a very strong correlation. Take for example the mirrormatch top table match from the weekend. Decision making decided that match, imo the stronger list lost. See also Fangs of Sotek v. Boulderhead. Most people lose games because they aren't as good as the person across from them. What "good" means can incorporate a lot of things. But, I've played a lot of games of Whfb, a lot of games or AoS, and other games besides. Player skill is a dominant indicator of success, once you give players the capacity to make free choices. But, realistically if you can't buy models you are at an insurmountable disadvantage, so it's not really worth discussing in regards to "balance".

@stratigo just because something isn't measured doesn't mean it's not impacting your life. Separately from that though we are really talking about margins here. And, that discussion is almost impossible to have when people have outlandish beliefs about certain segments of the game.

Perhaps if people generally were less hyperbolic the conversation would make some progress. A couple months ago we got pretty close to a real discussion identifying real things and making abstract concepts a bit more solid. Either way, the number one determinate of the outcomes of tournament games is player skill, a combination of player knowledge, experience and x-factor mental durability. Day 2 we are talking about 5-10% difference in skill. Which is where build strength comes in, build strength is only somewhat influenced by factions. Most factions have at least 2 competitive builds that would let a skilled player compete against another skilled player regardless of faction. The obvious question is what happens at the unskilled level. Where faction strength in the internet age probably plays a bigger role. But the obvious solution here is good mentoring and solid community to grow in. On power creep, before the new DoK book 4 of the top 6 books were released before or at the start of AoS2 DoK, Nurgle, Fyreslayers and IDK. So let's move on from the meme please. Lastly a lot of books are way better than the community gives them credit for. They just don't have the PR or history that other factions have. OM are a really solid Johnny army with Timmy builds, but lack the obvious Spike builds that gets factions the competitive thumbs up. Nurgle was always 10% more bodies away from being a fantastic book. Imo there are really only two factions that have serious fundamental mechanical (which is different from what WHW calls design) problems right now,SCE and Sylvaneth.

I did say closed meta, we are talking a gaming group between 2-6 players. Both these comments assume that "doneness" is an objective, the game is always growing and changing, the expectation from the onset is that your collection should as well. At least if people are being honest about it.

This is impossible. The very act of liking one thing automatically precludes the possibility of another thing being viable. When you repeat this across an army and a gaming group the affect is magnified not minimized. Expectations are only kept in line through honest, and informed communication. Rules create effeciency a lack of rules reward inventiveness and creativity. Everything has an incentive structure. If you are playing in a closed meta lists should be tailored to the meta as it is for the most part open information. The only limits are effort, and money a lack of either *should* decrease an individual's expectations of winning matches because it's impossible for it not to. Lastly it doesn't matter how much worse choosing models by visual appearance is than by strategy so long as it is worse the outcome is a lopsided game. And since no one seems to measure the closeness of games by VPs we are left with people's feelings on how close games are.

The problem with all these stats is there isn't a unifying statistic for "competitiveness". There isn't a way to use the available stats to deal with a single player placing top 3 with various factions, let alone builds, and strength of competition. The stats as they are can only ever be a guide in this regard. But I agree windows or seasons are necessary for analysis.

It's more to do with the constant transient of the game. For a long time small heroes were essentially invulnerable we are in a space where that isn't true and like any change people are uncomfortable with it. Slaves to Darkness and the 4 God books have some tension between what is and isn't those factions. But, imo it's better to look at all the warscrolls you can use in your book. Khorne is actually the most flexible in this regard when it comes to keywords. Also I suggest having a look at Wrath of the Everchosen for the extra subfactions and see if either get your creative juices going.

Games are a series of questions each player is asking each other. Your lists presents very little early game pressure which means any army with shooting can leisurely shoot off the limited complements of your army which might present a problem if left unchecked. You want to include units that interact with the LRL rules, but I wouldn't suggest you buy/build/paint otherwise useless units. Single chariots are good pinning units, cheap fast and tough. They also don't take battleshock which negates one of your opponent's greatest weapons. Knights are resistant to MW, fast and therefore must be addressed early taking more pressure off your heroes. 10 Chaos Knights are actually a big problem for LRL as they don't really have high spike dmg and rely and chipping away at units which isn't a good strategy against Chaos Knights. Other units you can look into are Chaos Furies, and Marauder horsemen. Blood reavers are a good battleline unit cheap with rend. I generally would avoid expensive single models though like bloodthirsters. But, if you are open to allies a Great Unclean One or Rotigus might be good for you. Last I'd ask your friend such as he is to maybe take it easy a bit. He's playing a highly tuned netlist and a simple conversation might go some way to making games more enjoyable. But, that includes you taking steps to close the gap on your end as well. Dealing with emotional transferance can be difficult but my general suggestion is focus down a unit, don't damage a few units. Focus on removing units in one turn via doing dmg across a bunch of phase. Pin units you don't want to fight yet with chariots or cheap Blood warrior units. Mate I have to be honest. I'm a bit tired of seeing you on the forum. By your own admission you don't play the game. Have no valuable insight or experince beyound recycled garbage you can't explain the logic of. And, when a player is here asking for help your contribution is to slag off another poster who may actually have something useful to say I play and have played many armies across multie editions of AoS and WHFB including Khorne more than once, a resume a person of your... anyway if you need validation go find yourself a romantic partner. Doesn't Frostgrave have a forum you can troll?

The short answer is yes your list is that bad. Even the most basic fat middle list is stronger than this. AoS is about combining warscrolls and battle traits so that units are more powerful than the base abilities on their warscroll. This list would have been meh in the first GHB almost 4 years ago. My suggestion if you haven't already is to pop into the Chaos forum and read through the Khorne thread, so you can get a good understanding of the underlying synergies available to your faction. Khorne are not great but they do have some competitive strats. If you're regular opponent plays LRL I might recommend Chaos Chariots, Chaos Knights and Warshrines.

LRL aren't overpowered, if anything these are actually underpowered. I'll give you the lack of "interactivity" of the rules.