whispersofblood
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Posts posted by whispersofblood
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1 hour ago, Deepkin said:
No, though I am slightly surprised by the amount of people who think an international corporation deserves their undying loyalty and defense.
There is no such thing as loyalty in a consumer relationship. Only people who are getting enough of what they want for the time being. What you perceive as loyalty is just humans with a different value calculation. I wish we would stop with the solipsisms in here for a week or so.
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26 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:
Well orruks obviusly. And while i can talk to my friend. It really isn't our job to ballance the game. Sure if we want closer game we can do that. But we kind of spend money on gw's product whit the expectation of them doing that. And yes SCE dragon spamm is going to be an competative stapple cause they are badly designed ( as in they do everything ) and undercosted at the moment.
OW is a superior book to LRL when it comes to playing the game. LRL have a lot more flashing lights and tricks. I play both and there are a lot of IJ and BS lists I would dread fighting with even optimized LRL. KB I think are probably worst faction in the book, especially against LRL.
Because of how Nations work the OW factions are actually significantly more flexible in their builds and the strategic approaches available.
The problem with OW and SCE is that the sign posting isn't as extreme as it is in writing of something like LRL or the last tome. But, the lists really unfold once you start making choices.
With LRL you are really just reacting to the meta or what your opponent is bringing because you can't fit enough of your stuff to really dominate (short of 4 foxes). OW imo you set the tone of games and there is a lot of power in that, but also a lot of risk.
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1 hour ago, Planar said:
IP shall be protected - end of story
Imagine if a company tried to make money by copying Tolkien’s universe creating a tabletop game with humans, elfs and dwarfs battling against orcs and dragons. Or even worse if the same company was trying make money selling a tabletop which copied Herbert’s space opera universe with an immortal emperor of man, space crusaders, religious female orders, and psychic propelled space travel .
That would be scandalous IP infringement and would have to be immediately removed.
Your analogy would hold weight if that game was called The Lord of the Rings, or something so similar it could only be interpreted as the Lord of the Rings.
This is mostly about nouns and how those nouns are used to sell a product. It's not the content or the product itself that violates IP.
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53 minutes ago, Joseph Mackay said:
How many of those saying it’s overcosted now or unusable, play Tzeentch or Lumineth I wonder..
Well I play LRL but I've also played AoS since launch so I've played like 10 or 11 factions, and I've never seen cogs as a good endless spell. Even when people were hammering it onto the table for the movement bonus.
It might be alright in something with a lot of innate MV/charge bonuses and has wizards and those wizards don't have spells they would rather cast.
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Back to the bin.
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6 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:
A lot of people talking about how something could be done to improve the situation, a lot of people making suggestions of how it could be done. But a notable lack of people making efforts to actually do it. And I'm not judging anyone for that, I just think it says a lot about what the task entails for implementing even the most simple of corrections.
Like I said before a lot of posters have been through this whole comp thing before. It's a lot of effort, and the results are dubious at best. It's mostly a feel good exercise.
You buff beastmen maybe, which helps the players who own beastmen but no one is going to buy beastmen because a comp pack makes them playable.
I understand the frustration: GW are seeming unable to take rules writing professionally for any extended period of time. I think we would probably be better off just punishing the sales of factions when they are playable. If something is bad we should be actively steering people away from it and let GW sit on as much stock as possible. But that means talking to grassroots hobbiest and running the risk of upsetting them.
Or we do what we have been doing accept that in the cyclical release there will be moments of disappointment, confusion and outright ridiculousness.
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5 hours ago, NinthMusketeer said:
Here is a practical experiment anyone can try:
At the start of a game, before sides or deployment are chosen, give the opponent a free cogs. Explain to them that it is for an experiment and they are encouraged to make the most of it. At 45 points cogs is less than 2.5% of a 2k game. Making an opponent 2.5% stronger isn't even noticable in a single game behind the natural swings of randomized dice rolls.
Do that a few times then reflect back; did the cogs make a difference? Did they make a 2.5% difference? If they are indeed balanced the difference should be rather subtle.
Let me put it this way. I play MSU Vanari and I dropped cogs for hyshian twinstones because it's better to get the spells you do want cast than just casting more spells.
I can see a world where maybe you go light in heroes and take more Vanari but most of the LRL spells people talk about are 8+ to cast spells. Which is kind of my point about the rule of 1. If I could just try and cast the same key spells repeatedly sure it be great. But, imo to be OP something needs to disproportionately increase a player's ability to affect the game. The more games I play with LRL the less magic I invest in tbh it's just very unreliable and the control elements are either extremely short range or can be shrugged off by the opponent as an inconvenience.
Why cogs is so good with DoT is because they get to cast a whole bunch of useless low casting value spells, not for the spell itself but for the fate dice the casting generates. Which is a DoT problem as they use cogs to create an entirely different economy, by definition an unintended consequence.
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6 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
I don't think that establishing a community rule set would be impossible if there was a serious effort to do so. Other competitive games (like fighting games) without a centralized authority behind them do it all the time.
The problem with this kind of thing is more that, in my mind, the community is usally quite good at identifying problems, but not necessarily at fixing them. We are lucky that the ward stacking situation is a really easy one to solve: Just don't let wound negation abilities stack, done! But other problems seem like they would be a lot harder to tackle.
Exactly this, the comp thing comes up every now and again, even in the WHFB days. But, I think the difficulty of coming to an equitable solution usually just ends up with "you have your thing I hate, and I have my thing you hate" because some of the things the community would want to comp are genuinely unique and interesting things.
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Tbf mate your list of factions doesn't really include any real AoS factions.
There will always be functionally bad warscrolls. And because heroes can only do or be a limited assortment of things their utility will be inherently low.
AoS3 has done a lot for ordinary command and control heroes by increasing CP, and the available abilities.
In the other hand it would be incredibly difficult to build a world where both utility and combat power exist together in similar platforms. Increasing character protection just makes the utility guys more reliable and therefore valuable. Combat is also mostly about taking or defending objectives where Bing a single model worth maybe 2 models on an objective just isn't very high value. Which is why we are seeing more and more heroes get unique abilities and synergies beyound their combat profile. Vanari Lord Regents hits like they wield a legendary Wiffle bat. But they have a lot of command and control elements which means they are always worth considering.
Narrative wise I think the game distinguishes Legendary heroes from HEROes pretty well. Heroes compared to almost any individual in their army are obviously superior combatants. But they don't hit like a whole unit, that would be inconsistent with the world imo.
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1 hour ago, NinthMusketeer said:
Tournaments are currently dominated by a meta focusing on fewer large heroes that need to maintain mobility and/or are casting multiple spells already. That is a hit to the effectiveness of cogs at the top tiers from two sides, and the icing on the cake is that the meta is extremely punishing to small characters who can be easily sniped by sentinels, snakes, and others. Which is to say the tournament meta could hardly be designed to be more inhospitable to cogs.
But tournaments account for ~15% of available entries, if that. To raise up tournaments as an example of the game entire is to imply the other 85% isn't relevant. To defend that implication with 'but there's no statistics on casual armies!' is both untrue and particularly dismissive of people describing their own experience. It comes across as a sentiment of 'if your experience doesn't exist on a data chart it isn't valid' veiled under talk of technicalities. Piled on top of that is how plainly the potency of cogs is displayed on paper, something that was evident and commented upon from the moment the new warscroll was out and now has plenty of people backing it up with real-world experience describing how yes, it does work that way in practice. The icing on the cake was his 'it isn't OP because people will mess up using it' argument which speaks to a dismissive mentality towards other players in general.
Really, the only evidence that cogs are not overpowered is that they don't show up in tournament winning lists. And I very much hope no one needs to explain why the claim 'if it doesn't win tournaments it's not overpowered' is nonsense.
Given that people reasonably tend to look for evidence to support assertions. And, personally I think everyone has been fairly charitable in this thread. Could you give even anecdotal evidence to suggest that having the opportunity to cast more spells than ordinary is "OP", and not simply just a fun option available for less punishing play than tournament level but is unequally worthwhile across factions?
In my opinion the rule of one mostly makes cogs a very niche. Really cogs in my mind has two possible "strong" effects. Turning Vanari units into full utility spell casters for LRL. And, super charging DoT summoning. After that I'd say it's actually pretty underwhelming as it requires a second caster to even enjoy the benefit of the endless spell right away.
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1 hour ago, NinthMusketeer said:
I'd say maybe 1 in 10 matches have been decided by grand strategy, as a rough estimate of my experience. Would definitely be interested to hear what others have found.
In the first 6-7 games zero times. But in my 8th match I realized it was better over all to try and deny my opponent his grand strategy then to chase an uncertain 2 point battle tactic. I failed by 2 wounds but the play was sound.
Since that realization it's come up fairly regularly turns 4 and 5. With the caveat that I haven't played against SoB.
I will add that I tend to play very mobile armies where people can't just back board a unit.
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4 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:
Well, I haven't either: because of the GS system. 🤣
It's rare it gets close to that, don't get me wrong, but it would have happened in at least one of those two games if not for the GS pushing him over the line at the last moment. It was me playing with my off-meta Idolators list that floods the board with tons of bodies and basically move-blocks the opponent from doing anything until he chews through them. It has some punch, but it mainly relies on curse to kill stuff that abuses save stacking, and even in Idolators that's neither super reliable nor does it work against everything - Archaon for example with his 4+ MW protection is almost impossible to kill even when cursed. So in some circumstances the list has to play by just trying to die slowly enough that you get far enough ahead on the mission that even if they chew through almost all your stuff by the end of the game, you can still win. And GSes just make that that much more difficult by kicking you when you're down.
Doesn't your choice of list preclude you from being able to target GS though? Your list is just a DPS check, and those typically require a source of reliable targetted dmg to function . Like you could easily take a list more compatible with the core functionality of the game. For me list design is the final expression of the core rules and I find it troubling when a critic of the core rules comes starts because of a list archetype.
My list have gone through a lot of evolutions to find a way to prevent people from scoring BT and target players where they think they are strong (GS).
I think AoS3.0 unlike 2.0 really punishes what could be described as passive game strategy and given that the game and studio are full of Timmys is probably going to continue being the case.
I do agree that some of the GS are actually quite bad now that the reality of what the game incentives has been figured out. But, the concept is sound, and gives you an alternative game to play against armies that either are better on the objective game or more effecient on the BT. Denying your opponent and retaining yours is basically once turn of either Primary or BT.
In tournament play I think events should use them as we did agendas; you can use each once.
In casual play it's a bit harder to implement but there is more room for negotiation one v one for a personalized solution. Like if your general is over 500 pts you must take sever the head or something.
You do seem to have almost exactly the opposite opinion as Vince does so maybe watch the most recent episode and give your thoughts.
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2 hours ago, yukishiro1 said:
Yes, by the game being focused on killing, I mean that fighting your opponent's army head on is the only way to win, and that the army that does that better will almost always win. Not necessarily that glass cannon lists are better. You can adjust balance along that continuum, but it's still a continuum where the relevant factor is an army's ability to beat up the opponent better than the opponent is beating up them. Having a really survivable unit is a different way to win the killing game, but that's still the game you're trying to win.
And I'm not saying 40k is in a great spot overall. If anything, its balance issues are even worse than AOS. But the difference is that when I play a game of 40k with a weaker army, the base rules give me far more room to still compete on the mission even if I can't compete in a head-to-head brawl. I don't feel that in AOS3. It's still overwhelmingly about who can smash the opponent's army faster than they get smashed. You can take different approaches to smashing your enemy faster than they smash you, but that's really the only way you can win games. More cagey approaches just don't work, because there's no terrain system and the mission objectives are too few and too clustered near the middle, and the secondaries don't do enough to enable you to win in different ways.
Have you tested this theory? You could easy play AoS3.0 by modifying AoS2 battleplans to include the new scoring.
If it is shown that the suggest boardsize from GW negatively impacts games I can see tournaments going back to 6x4s especially considering they are already deeply invested.
I do think however that part of what you are describing is a feature and not a bug. The designers seem quite keen on satisfying the Timmy's need for experience, by forcing impactful combats for the showpiece models.
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1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:
Let's just assume that we are all competent at reading statistics
I think in the data we have in this thread, win percentage seems to be the most interesting stat. Of course ideally, we would like extra info on a variety of other metrics, but even if we want to argue that the win% for Seraphon is not representative of their real strength or potential on the table, it's an interesting stat to be explained in it's own right.
For what it's worth, Seraphon have a high meta%, so that tells me many of the players who were previously playing them and getting results are probably still playing them, but failing to put up the same numbers. It might just be a case of the faction needing to shift to a new strategy. They certainly have enough tools to stay relevant. But it seems like something has definitely happened that made their previous play style less effective.
I'm pretty sure it's largely down to an inability to deal with Archaon. But it could also be that people have a grasp on how to play against Seraphon. I also think they aren't as well placed to play into SoB as they were.
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2 hours ago, Ragest said:
I have two guys going with that kragnos list, and is a very simple one. You go ij with no clan to make your tankrusha with a 2+ save, 5++ ward and 4+ ignoring spells from one side and kragnos to another. Both are winning almost every match, just losing vs my dok.
Talking about lumineth, I haven’t see any lumineth player winning a match in 3rd, including myself. Is the worst army to score in this ghb, i was thinking to place them even lower. Nobody is playing lumineth in my community, i'm going with dok sylvaneth because i got tired of them. Lumineth is the most frustrating army to play with the pure swingy damage.
Slaneesh is pretty good imo, but going the opposite as slaneesh should be. Is not about alpha, you need to stall a little bit and know when to charge. Glutos is an amazing tank and decent wizard, sivgald is the perfect counter to the new 5++ ward spam, tankrusha or gotrek and the chariots are good vs 2+ saves.
I've found with LRL its just as unintuitive as HoS, which is probably why building HoS list has helped me build LRL lists that have been doing a bit better in 3rd.
You have to
a) build to achieve your secondaries; LRL don't really have monsters that people are going to immediately include, so you are not getting tons of bonus points. If you don't include monsters you need to make sure you get every single battle tactic you select, every game.
b) You can't build and play a defensive game and win games. Now that modifiers are limited to +1/-1 to die rolls and army of 4+ saves, is just an army of 4+ saves. So you need to actually engage in combats and be decisive, because if you let people decide when and with which units they are going to fight you aren't going to be able to special rule your way to victory.
c) the magic isn't actually super impactful, and the shooting isn't incredibly impactful either. It's all quite tame damage wise.
Generally you have really plan your list, and include maybe 1 cute thing from the list of things that LRL can do and maximize the efficiency there.
HoS similarly has a bunch of random units that you want to take that probably aren't even worth the read. But, at its core it has a simple, playable, even good strategy if you can ignore all the noise.
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19 hours ago, AngryPanda said:
In my opinion, some of the problems with Slaanesh aren’t actually problems with us specifically, but are defined by larger balancing issues in the game. Teclis, similar to the OBR Petrifix Elite when they first came out, is op and probably didn’t receive the point increase that he deserved. The same can be said about Sentinels, and shooting overall.
Slaanesh does have transparent weaknesses, but there are numerous lists we can make within the casual setting that can go toe-to-toe with most other armies while having a good time, both for the opponent and yourself. Within a competitive setting, the issues begin to materialize more clearly; this is where the debates begin to arise on how to deal with balance.
My best answer is either going some sort of calvary-themed list that takes advantage of our high speed, high damage units, or a list that centers around the numerous named characters we have and one of our best units: Twinsouls. We also have really, really good endless spells that can be used to generate depravity while also dealing scary damage. I personally like Glutos a lot, he’s a beautiful model and is a jack-of-all-trades unit that accomplishes multiple roles (melee, debuff, magic, etc.) I see a lot of people talk about the recent twins that were released, bur don’t see as many people talk about Fatakros. Glutos is a sleeper that people have somewhat forgotten about due the point changes and disruption that the new meta has brought with it. For 475 points, he’s a decent point investment, but brings a lot of value to the table.
I like to pair him with Painbringers because the models are beautiful and it’s fun to have a relatively (if not very overcosted) tanky unit act as a screen for the glutton. If I were playing competitively, I’d swap out the Painbringers for a unit of Twinsouls. From there, I’d explore what option I have.
I dunno HoS combat had always been meh level up to unpredictably and situationally spikey. It was only double tapping KoS that made it reasonable to make a plan off. 5 Slickblades won't reliable beat 150 point battleline units. Combat units need to be able to bully min battleline without support, or very little support.
I think HoS excel at getting around the board, and shooting. Which means you need some combat units to block space more than you need them to actually fight.
The loss of RR saves on the S2D units I think for the most part rules them out of contention, maybe Chaos Knights might be useful still as budget Slickblades.
I don't think you want to be fighting with GoS until you start summoning the better combat units; Exalted Chariots, 20+ Daemonettes, etc. My lists at the moment just keep adding more chaff because the diffused combat hitting power of the book hasn't been cutting it.
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17 minutes ago, Smooth criminal said:
It is a melee-based game with a lot of pure melee armies.
Unleash hell should not exist except for specific units/armies. Pure shooting armies should not exist, no, you are not welcomed. Shackles or anything else should never ban charges but just reduce them by half at most. Pile in from 6" and all other loopholes that ignore charging should dissapear.
Base gameplay should not be warped by those base rules ignoring overpowered mechanics like "strike first" (remember when that one was a gearcheck?), "pile in 6", "unleash hell", etc.
In your opinion*
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Since everyone is using Synessa it seems, I'd recommend looking at bringing in a Chimera and Varanguard as they pair quite nicely with The Voice of Slaanesh Ability.
**actually, does anyone know how The Voice of Slaanesh ability works if I use a second or more command ability on the same friendly unit?**
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1 hour ago, PrimeElectrid said:
I’m struggling to remember a WHFB shooting unit that had anywhere near the same damage as AoS. Most shooting units were small, had at most the equivalent of rend 1, usually one shot each (or came with additional penalties for multishot) and Killing Blow shooting (MWs) was extremely rare (just Waywatchers iirc). They also suffered additional negative penalties for range, cover from other units or terrain, and shooting units were overall more susceptible to penalties to hit.
Stand and shoot also had the restriction that you could only use it against the unit that was charging the shooting unit itself, and not any of their buddies within 9”.
You also could not SnS within the minimum movement range of the charging unit. I can’t remember if that was half or full move value, not that it matters.
Which is a long way of saying the two are not comparable and has little bearing on the value of Unleash Hell. There were far, far more restrictions on SnS and the units using it were much weaker.
The main restriction was -1 to hit and it was a charge reaction meaning a unit needed to declare a charge against the unit so it could react. There were range modifiers but for the majority of shooting units if you were doing a stand and shoot you were within half range anyway as charges were either dbl move (typically 4") or in 8th 2d6+Mv, and a bow was range 24" typically. Also units should make more than one charge reaction if more than one charge was declared against said unit.
Secondly most shooting units in AoS aren't significantly better than WHFB, they *might* be larger though. A handgunner for example might hit and wound better in AoS than WHFB however units themselves are much tougher than they were in WHFB generally speaking. Also the vast vast majority of shooting in AoS is rend -, dmg 1. A few units do MWs on a 6, and even they aren't doing massive damage unless they get to very large unit sizes (really the only time a shooting unit is doing over 4/5 dmg is double reinforced units). We really need to be talking about the corner cases here and each needs its own solution so we don't just make the unit useless for purpose. I think generally Elite shooting units shouldn't be battleline, as the efficiency is a bit extreme.
I've played about 20 games now, and I've not experienced anything resembling the amount of anxiety being portrayed here. My HoS for example love unleash hell, as I can take really cheap and useful chaff units (Godseeker Razorgors 👍), which also produce depravity for me. In my OW Savage Boarboys have been a great utility unit great for dealing with Sentinels and Bloodtalkers.
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3 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:
The reason we need to talk about it is because it's relevant. People will naturally gravitate towards using those units, and you will have to play against them.
As I pointed out already, I understand that there is counter play. A lot of that is highly situational (e.g. MW on charge won't help you when you are charging a screen) so what I am calling for is more counterplay, specifically that the shooting unit can only Unleash Hell when it's actually the unit being charged.
If you had played WHFB you would realise that is a generally useless ability.
The only change needed is that Wardens don't make Sentinels Battleline and we can all move on with our day. I'm fairly certain units of 30 are an oversight anyway
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44 minutes ago, Zappgrot said:
I lover your optimism. But FEC worked great for me in 3 edition. Healing strong monster hero's and having a shooting attack that does not roll to hit whit unleash hell worked great so far.
I suspected using ghouls as walls and using redeploy to bring Flayers into Unleash Hell range was going to be a decent strategy. *Clarifying using Redeploy on the ghouls*
Do you think the output on unridden Terrorghists is suffecient for the points spend?
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2 hours ago, Zappgrot said:
No you don't no body not even you would argue that improving your save from - to 6+ is as valuable as improving from 3+ to 2+ The absolute probability increase of success is the same. But for the evaluation of the outcome that is irrelevant.
That's one of the underlying assumptions of my perspective. But, people aren't finding the discussion particularly helpful so I'll post a reflection of a match I've recently played.
IDK: Fuethan (Allows rr1s in turn 2 and 4, mounts rr1 wounds in combat) (Mine) v DoT: Guild of Summoners
Tidecaster w/ High Priest, and Curse, Enhancement(Heal)
Eidolon of the Storm w/ Cloak of Midnight
Soulrender
20 Namarti Reavers
10 Namarti Thralls
10 Namarti Thralls
3 Ishlaen Guard
3 Ishlaen Gaurd
1 Allopex w/ Razorshell Harpoon Launcher
1 Allopex w/ Razorshell Harpoon Launcher
Leviadon
From memory the list was
Karios
Fatemaster
The Blue Scribes
20 Pinks
10 Pinks
10 Pinks
3 Screamers
3 Screamers
3 Screamers
Cogs
Spell Portal
Basically planning to build summoning points and drop models on me. A bit weaker against me since I don't have any casts, but I don't unbind either so 6 of 1 half dozen of another.
We played The Vice, which was fun, a totally new experience and an interesting way to think about the board. I don't think the lack of mobility in my opponents list was good, and it was only exasperated by how mobile my own list was.
Notes on the list, I basically went for a lot of very flexible drops so that I could keep the opponent from figuring out where I was going to approach from. The small units meant I could move into gaps that my opponent couldn't with his large horror block. Reavers at Mv8 rr runs and run and shoot in turns 2, and 4 meant I could basically apply curse + 40 shots wherever I wanted once the combat lines were drawn out.
I found the range on curse took a bit a getting used to, and I wasn't able to apply it as aggressively as I originally had planned to. Between the Allopex and the Leviadon shooting off his screamers he was very quickly penned. The Ishlaen Gaurd pinned the Horror units, and the Thralls zoned out his ability to summon in important places. Being able to Heal the Leviadon (with Heal) and the Eidolon with Ritual of Rousing, Heroric Recovery and Crashing Upon the Foe meant my opponent didn't really do very much Damage to either. Kairos did 10 MW to the Leviadon in one turn, by the time my Allopex charged and killed him in my turn, I had basically healed all the damage back.
The Leviadon actually just charged and pinned the 20 man unit 10" or so away from the central objective so he was never really able to apply the anvil where he wanted to. We used the scoring suggestion from THW. Because I was able to push really far into my opponent's territory from the second turn I basically always scored more. Meaning turn 4 I was up 3 points on the primary, and the Leviadon allowing me to continuously score bonus points throughout the game. For example shooting off the last Horror for Broken Ranks, or Monstrous Takeover. Also I killed the General with some shooting attacks after my Reavers with curse failed to do so. The value of survival monsters I think is plainly obvious at this point.
The Soulrender was ok nothing amazing, returned like 7 reavers over the course of the game.
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1 hour ago, Zappgrot said:
What? Who the hell looks at absolute probability gains when calculating something to begin whit? Doubling your money from 1 dollar to to 2 is not the same impact wise as from 1.000.000 to 2.000.000 ? For all the impact certain buffs can have on the spread of possible results ( is this what you mean by relative impact? ). Most buffs have such high impact on the expected outcome that the spread becomes less relevant. That being said the larger the poll of dice the less the spread of the outcome. So if you want a big chance for a result that difference greatly from the statistical average less dice is where it is at. So your whole point makes absolutly no ****** sense to me. But maybe that's just me
Well I do for one lol. But, we all do it's part how we assess warscrolls it's why we can have a discussion about how to value Mv9 against Mv3d6. But, you are only taking the point half way. Fewer dice are highly variable in specific outcomes, which is a negative when failure results in removed models, generally speaking.
Because the benefit of All Out Defence is being applied to a pool more at risk to variance you are paying the same price for a less consistent ability to recieve said benefit. The next step is the opportunity cost.
CP usage is an investment decision, which means context and absolute benefit are important margins for decision making. These are the sort of margin calls that are going to determine the outcomes of people's games. AoS 3 is much more similar to economy games like Porta Rico now.
On table when making your decision the question to be answered is does All Out Defence keep more of my models on the table. Determine the answer to that is way more specific than it improves my save by x%; therefore, yes. Especially in face of CMD abilities like Inspiring Presence and Rally.
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4 hours ago, Andrew G said:
Recounting my 3.0 games from the perspective of a fairly competitive Big Waaagh! player (I win ~75% of the 15-25 local events, score in the top 25% at least at GTs). Writing this for fun, rather than any serious, reasoned criticism of the new edition as I'm sure some salt will seep through.
Caveats:- All my experience in 2.0 was Mawcrusherless, board/objective control style, Big Waaggh! I wanted to try out a Mawcrusher Build in IJ for my first 3.0 games
- I'm rusty from the pandemic + playing other table top games
- I know the warclans book is coming out soon.
Game 1 vs. Lumineth
Played against a 1-drop Teclis+30 Archers+Cathallar+stuff to stand in front of the before mentioned things.
Lumineth T1: Shoots all my warchanters off the board and buffs his army (very hard to hide with shortened board + no-LOS restrictions).
IJ T1: Sacrifice a unit 5'ardboyz to unleashed hell. Mawcrusher and a unit of goregruntas get engaged. Net result, 10 spears dead and 0 archers (Archers took 0 damage from 3 goregruntas).
Lumineth T2: I ignored a few of the spell directed at Mawcrusher, but "reroll shooting against target" spell attacks goes through. Archers delete mawcrusher in one turn (this is the defensive build - Ironclad, 5+ Ward, ignore spell on 4+), teclis and spears deal with engaged gore gruntas.
IJ T2: Sacrifice another 5'ardboyz to unleash hell, goregruntas+ a different unit of 'ardboyz sneak around screens and hit archers. I actually kill 6 this time.
IJ T3: All I had left was a unit of Brutes, a larger unit of 'ardboyz engaged with his archers, and a couple 5 man units and wizards. I was ahead on objective points, so figured I'd play it out. I end up not doing much.Lumineth T3: Pretty much tables me.
Take-aways: I have no idea how archers slipped through cracks this edition. They were already good, and just got better with the introduction of unleashed hell, shortened board, more levers to pull to increase defensiveness. Scenario played a big role, as he was able to castle and remain in protection of Teclis with his entire army while contesting half the objectives.
Game 2 vs. Slaves to Darkness: coming once I get some more spare time at work.
Curious what was your actual list. I've been noodling with my Warclans and keep pondering Boarboyz.
Rachmani is closer to what I'm saying, I'm clearly not explaining it very well. I'm not arguing the mathmatical significance of +1 to an averaged D6 roll, and it's commutative effect, but I understand how you might think that I am.
I'm trying to describe the difference in value (the unit of measure for the total benefit of using 1 CP) of using All out Attack vs the value of All Out Defence. These abilities create two pools of dice marginal failures( failures close enough to become success after +1) and true failures (failures too large to become successes. The worse your stat, the more true failures you have, thankfully a '1' is almost always a true failure.
Next submission, historically our math has ignored the distribution of the specific numbers the die roll, as insignificant. A success was a success and a fail was a fail. If you had a 4+ save it didn't matter if your fails were 3-2-2-1 because they all failed. That isn't true any longer. The distribution of fails matters because of the previous distinction. Think of it this way, the Average of 3d6 is approx 10, which can be be rolled in a number of combinations. But, what if suddenly some of those combinations were special, regardless of the total value. That is where we are, where actually what is more useful is improving the total the dice roll rather than the success/failure of individual die rolls. Because a higher total means more natural success or more marginal failures once you look at the rolls.
Because we have the ability to buy +1, we now must consider the distribution (the exact facings that make up the combinations of success and failures) and the potential variance of those exact facings that constitute failures generally. This is because you can spend CP to turn a marginal failure into a success.
Turning as many failures into success as possible, which you can do by spending your CP on the largest dice pool. For the single spend you have the opportunity to touch many more individual dice. Bigger pool also means less volatile outcomes, and more predictable amounts of marginal failures to turn into successes, but also more room for positive variance because you are rolling more dice, and less room for negative variance because your floor includes smaller numbers than before.
@Rachmani explains the difference quite well better than I would have. All out Attack is increasing the rate of success of the largest pool. All out Defence decreases the rate of failure of the smallest pool, and because saves generally in AoS are around a 4+ the distribution of failures can be anywhere between a 3 which is a marginal fail or a 2 and a 1 which are true fails, and the smaller the dice pool the more vulnerable you are to irratic distribution due to small sample sizes.
Because you have to do most of this calculation blind to the actual facings you are going to roll it makes the choice of investing much less straight forward than simply improving how many facings result in a success.
If I was looking to invest 1 CP into a defencive action I think it would go: redeploy, Inspiring Presence, All Out Defence generally speaking.
AoS 3.0 Orruk Warclans: Struggling to see why you would take any Savage Orks?
in Destruction
Posted · Edited by whispersofblood
This doesnt work. The Wurgog Stare is at the start of here phase, so before spells are cast.