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Mutton

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Posts posted by Mutton

    The Rumour Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    I think anything with a 2+ save that can be re-rolled is a negative play experience. I had hoped the original intent behind nerfing Mystic Shield in 2.0 was to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. It appears that whole mantra has slipped by the wayside.

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    The Rumour Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    39 minutes ago, Koradrel of Chrace said:

    I'm going to echo something that Vince from Warhammer Weekly said.  I don't want Azyr to be invaded.  I'm actually kinda miffed that Azyr was the only hold out during the Age of Chaos, but then the setting is called Age of Sigmar, so I guess Sigmar should be allowed to have the spot light in his own setting.  But Azyr's survival is one of the cool differences between AOS and the Old World in my opinion.  See, once the End Times kicked off, the ending was pretty much already a done deal.  You walked into the setting knowing that Chaos was eventually going to win.  Where as in AOS, Sigmar has at least managed to create a bastion capable of holding Chaos off, and even striking back from it.  I think it would do a huge disservice to the setting if the manage to crack Azyr, especially since early into the story's overall lifespan.

    I think static story elements are dull. Azyr is dull. Nothing bad ever happens there. Nothing ever really happens there at all, and it's just a bunch of foppish bluebloods arguing over who has the better title. There have to be some stakes. There's war everywhere in the Realms and it's such a mess we don't really know who's winning or where. The Eight Points was entirely held by Chaos, but now it's been co-settled by Death. Azyr doesn't need to fall or anything, just show weakness. There's nothing exciting about a sanctuary that is completely invulnerable.

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    Why are Hit Rolls and Wound Rolls separate?

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted · Edited by Mutton

    The simplest answer is that "to hit" and "to wound" have been around since the beginning, but when they decided AoS was going to be the more accessible of their two wargames, it meant removing things like WS vs WS and S vs T. I'm no math man, but I'd also wager having two separate rolls helps to even out value distribution, i.e., if we only had a single hit roll, we might see greater spikes or failures in each batch. How many times have we rolled spectacularly to hit, only to even out the score on our to wound roll, or vice versa?

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    The Rumour Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Beastmaster said:

    I still find the whole idea of killing off an extremely popular setting, building up a completely new setting, then re-releasing the old setting 5 years later completely insane. 
    Maybe I’m just getting old. 😅

    Everything's gotta be reboots and sequels---the familiar is warm and safe. Nothing can stay dead. Gotta clap when you see Talabheim!

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    The Rumour Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    I think there must be some element of the Sons of Behamut release we're not seeing. While I wouldn't be surprised if the army was simply Bragg and the aleguzzler kits, it doesn't seem...feasible as a whole faction.

    1) There'd be zero diversity or ways to play the thing, aside from potential mini-faction rules, which, even in themselves would be highly limited with so few warscrolls.
    2) They're selling us warscrolls for the army. So are they going to sell us 2 cards and maybe one sheet of tokens? Seems like a stretch. Although GW's greed knows no bounds, so who can say?
    3) It feels unlikely anyone would be able to convince John Businessman that they could release an entirely new army (warscroll cards, tome, and all) with only two models in the range. It's not enough to build up marketing hype.

    So my guess is that there are going to be more models than we can anticipate (or multikits), OR the whole Sons of Behamut thing isn't a full army, but rather some kind of mercenary sub-faction for Destruction.

    The Rumour Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    3 hours ago, novakai said:

    Rumor is that Sons of Behemat is going to be reveal at Adepticon probably along with Scions of the flame and the last Beastgrave warband

    40K is stated to be a new edition along with Primaris landspeeder and maybe a new Primarch 

    That gives me time to save some cash for a whole lot of big lads.

    A Suggestion on Balance

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted · Edited by Mutton

    Having as much information as possible certainly helps. I'd also like to note that Infinity has a very different design philosophy compared to AoS. Despite having a number of factions with various specialties that give them different play styles, the game still revolves around ingrained rules that don't really change. Factions are varied because they have better or worse hackers, infiltrators, etc., and units are unique because one might have Holoprojector Lv1 while another has Mimetism---static skills assigned like keywords. Infinity is a tighter, leaner wargame with fewer paths of error by virtue of the restricted design space.

    Age of Sigmar's factions and units, in comparison, all have strikingly different rules, and are really only limited by the writers' imaginations. Khorne have blood tithe, Ogors count more for objectives, Slaves have Chaos Marks, Idoneth have a whole chart of phases, Tzeentch have destiny die, etc. Units can go first in combat inherently, when they charge, if they spend a command point, etc. There's a gulf of disparity between two warscrolls in AoS compared to the narrow gap between two models in Infinity. GW rules writers are always pushing the bounds of what can be done within their rule set, which can often mean breaking it in places.

    These two methods by Corvus Belli and GW don't mean either is better than the other, but it does mean they're shooting for different goals and that the road to balance isn't equally obtainable. Can GW do better in assuring us that things like Slaanesh, Tzeentch, Petrifex, or what have you don't crop up? Of course. I also don't believe they could ever attain the balance of a game like Infinity, but I also wouldn't want them to. Trying to achieve perfect balance would mean reducing all warscrolls and abilities to a deeply limited selection of things like, "reroll 1's to hit" or "add 1 to wound." 

    The GW designers aren't ignorant of what goes on in tournaments, that's been shown time and time again, which is why I don't think even more statistics would contribute much to their thought process. They've already moved from yearly changes to bi-yearly, and I think it's been working. The massive cracks in the process come from not enough development time, editing, and QA. These are things that, though I have no evidence to support this, I believe partially lies at the feet of the corporate GW system itself; and it very well may be that the rules writers simply don't have the time (or staff) needed in the early phases of each project. All things considered, they do a laudable job at keeping every faction playable (not to mention completely unique).

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    The Constructive AoS Feedback Thread

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted

    Suggestions:

    1) Battalions are too impactful.
    1b) Drops affecting who gets to choose the first turn isn't fun or thought-provoking---it's a test to see which factions have the better battalions. I think the entire "# of drops" mechanic needs to be...well, dropped.

    2) Price non-hero monsters appropriately. That is, big, single model units with fewer attacks need to be sub-200 points, unless their warscrolls are really efficient or have some other nuance that makes up for their inherent downsides. Because objectives mostly rely on number of models, and because number of models = more attacks = better statistical average to do something, monsters are always immediately at a disadvantage. Monsters also tend to have damage charts, so they get worse over the course of the game (shorter move, less reliable attacks, worse abilities, etc.). The latest change to Ghorgons and Cygors was the right direction to steer.

    3) More serious analysis of statistics when designing weapon profiles. Aka, why a single attack that does d6 damage is usually terrible. Nothing more to add, except why on earth are recent unit champions getting worse weapons than their underlings?

    4) More serious analysis when designing sub-factions. These sub-factions tend to be the make or break factor for an army. This is where we see the game-shattering combos unfurl, and it's also where we see entire swathes of a book languish in their sub-optimal graves. Petrifex, Hagg Narr, Gristlegor...we know how seriously they affect the entire scene.

    5) More crazy off-the-wall stuff. You've made a fun, popular wargame---now think of ways to break the rules. Stuff like Drakfoot, Spell in a Bottle, or Morathi's Iron Heart are all really interesting abilities that change the way we look at the game. Sure, rerolling hits is fine, but it's not interesting. Not everything has to break the mold, but it's something to keep in mind.

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    Sons of Behemat Discussion 👣

    in Destruction

    Posted · Edited by Mutton

    14 hours ago, TheadTheOgorSlayer said:

    I kinda want drunkenness to stay, in order to have an excuse for even more powerful allegiance abilities then normal.

     

    The current iteration of drunkenness is too crippling. It's the #1 reason no one brings gargants. We're talking about a rule that makes your unit sit there and be useless about 16% of the time; and it also makes 12" charges impossible---it's not a fun rule. Most abilities in the game enhance a unit's effectiveness, and I think a gargant's drunkenness should likewise work in favor of its destructive power, not against it. There are so many other ways they could go about it that would naturally include the gargants' allegiance abilities.

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    Battletomes from last 2 years: From "best" to "worst"

    in Age of Sigmar Discussions

    Posted · Edited by Mutton

    Best: Orruk Warclans - A huge range of depth in its options and unit choices, seamlessly merges two entire factions into one cohesive force, and lifts the orruks into the top echelons of the competitive scene without being massively busted (some might say a little too strong, but that can be easily fixed). I don't play orruks, but every time I look at the variety of tribes and list-building opportunities, it gets me excited.

    Worst: Beasts of Chaos - Somehow this book kept me from playing beastmen, despite loving them since the early days of Fantasy AND already having a sizable army. Even when it came out, most units underperformed from lackluster abilities and warscrolls. Despite being the "chaos monster" faction, had some of the worst monsters in the game. On top of all of that, the lore constantly reminds you how despicable it is for beasts to align themselves with any one god, but then forces you into taking marked armies because they're simply superior. To this day it's still languishing near the bottom, and even die-hard beast lords rarely bring out their toys. I honestly don't know what they could do to even fix them at this point, which is part of why they dive beyond even the legendarily miserable experience of Hedonites.

    Good: Fyreslayers, Cities, Sylvaneth, Slaves, Khorne

    Okay, but problematic: DoK, Idoneth, Nighthaunt, Legions, Skaven, Ossiarch, FEC

    Poor: Hedonites - Shouldn't have left anyone's desk with how completely broken the base mechanics of this faction were, and the fact that players were shelving their armies in protest goes a long way to illuminate how poorly thought out this thing was. At least it can theoretically be fixed in FAQ (and maybe already has).

    Most Disappointing: Mawtribes - Though I won't deny the power boost the Ogors received as a result of this book, there were simply too many missed opportunities exhibited at every turn of the page. Cool rules addendum'd to be useless. Unnecessary restrictions on just about every trait or artifact. Only 2/6 tribes are playable (maybe 3 if you have a zillion ironblasters lying around). About half of the warscrolls felt like they weren't even looked at and copy/pasted over from 1st edition and will never see the table in any significant number. Nerfs to things that didn't need them. You're mostly pigeonholed into a handful of list types, with little way to experiment beyond that. I love the Ogors, and Mawtribes are in a decent place power-wise, all things considered, but when you look at how much of the book you're really ignoring to get that power, it can't be anything but disappointing. The book I'd give the "most squandered potential" award to.

    Favorite: Gloomspite Gitz - A smorgasbord of units, battalions, and army compositions that essentially combine 3 small factions into one. There are so many ways to build this army, and it feels like you could spend years expanding and trying new things. Its only downsides are its lack of competitiveness in certain areas (namely anything that isn't hordes of grots), overpriced units, hyper-specific battalions, and some lackluster random mechanics. But even with these foibles, the spirit of the faction shines through and can make for some brilliant games of AoS (so long as you aren't going full 120 greenies).

     

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