Joseph Mackay

I think There are enough units in the game that are problematic when spammed, that we can say spamming is a problem

Yeah this. A lot of solutions seem to be specifically targeting the Stormdrakes but completely ignore the other things that would be hurt if it applies to everyone (eg limiting duplicate warscrolls), or make no sense as a specific nerf only for dragons (eg the flyer idea above, why shouldn’t all flying units have this? Also no, I disagree with the idea that you can just walk away from anything, retreating from combat needs to have a consequence-no shooting or charging)

2 of these abilities are already on some unit warscrolls, which makes me wonder if we’re going to see some massive changes?

1. I don’t agree with, because gw marketed them as being able to run a full dragon list. 2. Hero phase move I can agree with, but why shouldn’t flying dragons move faster than dracoths? 3. 4+ doesn’t make sense as all Stormcast units with shields have a 3+ don’t they?. As for the 4+ spell ignore - give it to Krondys and Karazai too or take it off

I don’t know about AoS, but with 40K 9th edition, the play testers said all the codexes were written at the same time, so theoretically should be balanced against each other. But because gw release them piecemeal and so slowly, certain books are stronger than maybe they should be, because the other books aren’t out yet, and so they have to keep adjusting points or erratas which changes how things were supposed to play out

This. We had tournaments regularly getting 40-50 players in Wellington NZ, we struggle to get 20ish now (depending upon who the TO is) as most of the people who play AoS only went to tournaments for fun, to play more games, more experience. They stopped going when the competitive players became too much and ruined the fun as it got to a point where you couldn’t avoid playing them (the ‘weaker’ players used to end up playing against each other at the ‘bottom’ tables, while the better players/armies would knock each other out. It seems that’s no longer the case as the bottom players somehow end up against the top players, and I think that’s what drove them away)

I don’t really think they are a problem, but if it’ll kerb some of the hate I’d go with B on the condition they receive a points drop (I’m not sure they’re worth 340pts as it is, let alone getting nerfed). as for what changes -drop the hero phase move, it’s not really needed -give the 4+ spell ignore to Krondys and Karazai, or remove it from the Stormdrakes - doesn’t make sense for them to have it if the bigger ones don’t -remove the Knight Draconis ability to let them shoot in the hero phase -drop Krondys and Karazai to 550pts each i think they’re fine otherwise, in fact I actually think the dragons themselves are a bit weak

Eels, Evocators, 2+ rerolling saves and pile in 6” after running Varanguard, Morathi, almost the entirety of Lumineth, Tzeentch, Slaanesh are just some examples (admittedly all AoS2 books but still). Now sure, a lot of that isn’t on the units warscroll but rather allegiance abilities, command abilities and other buffs stacked onto them, but the end result is similar

Because the narrative players generally don’t need to discuss the most op units/lists online, or argue about rules interpretations. They simply don’t NEED the internet like the matched players seem to. matched play is the loud minority and narrative is the quiet majority

This is exactly what I was talking about earlier when I said the competitive/tournament players think they’re more important. Matched Play is the vast majority that gets talked about, not what is actually played. The internet as a whole, is a very loud, but very small minority of overall players. matched play was them throwing you guys a bone, but it is 100% NOT how AoS is intended to be played. That’s not to say you can’t or shouldn’t play that way, but you need to realise and understand that the game wasn’t designed for that, and as such there will be ‘bugs in the system’ that gw probably won’t address, because they don’t need to. i personally don’t think the dragons deserve the negative attention they’re getting right now, and I think 90% of it is just anti Stormcast bias. People getting salty if the poster boys they don’t like beat them. we have a few of them in our tournaments who get really mad about it if the good Stormcast player beats them simply because ‘Stormcast suck and shouldn’t be able to win against me’ and I think a lot of that is what’s going on here, with a sprinkling of jealousy that Stormcast get an army of dragons and everyone else doesn’t. People were, and probably still are, legitimately angry that the dragons ended up being Stormcast units just for openness sake, these are the armies I play: Cities Of Sigmar (Disspossessed exclusively), Fyreslayers, Stormcast, Seraphon, Flesh Eaters, Ogors, Gloomspite Gits (Squigs and Troggoths), Bonesplitterz, Kruleboyz, Beasts Of Chaos (Warherd exclusively), Kharadron Overlords, Sons Of Behemat. So I’m not bias because I play them

Over the years there have been many times where we’ve seen that the GW rules writers are horrified by what the community (more specifically, the competitive/tournament scene) are doing. fact is, the rules writers play mostly narrative, and so they write rules with that type of play in mind. AoS is largely a narrative game (AoS1 before the GHB is proof of that), matched play was simply them throwing a bone. They don’t really care about the competitive scene, and frankly I don’t think they should. if the rules writers are mostly, or even, purely narrative players, they are never going to be able to write rules with the competitive scene in mind, because they don’t think the same way about the game.

Part of the problem with spam is how small a lot of the armies ranges are still. im going to use fyreslayers as an example because of how much it annoys me and goes against their lore. Fyslayers have: Vulkite Berzerkers (Battleline), Hearthguard Berzerkers (conditional Battleline), Auric Hearthguard (conditional Battleline). The other 10~ warscrolls are all heroes. GW can’t restrict the use of Hearthguard or Aurics because you would create a situation where they literally have NO options or variety and every Fyreslayer list would be the exact same with only a choice of heroes (I’m assuming a Rule Of 3 like 40K, although I suspect if AoS did it, it’d be Rule Of 2). The issue with Hearthguard spam is that in the lore, they are a bodyguard unit not the main fighting force, and therefore in game SHOULD be restricted. Additionally, both the Auric Runefather and Auric Runemaster, there is only EVER one of each per lodge in the lore, but in game you can take 6 if you wanted AoS3 just made Hearthguard spam better and even more of an auto take +ward save (vulkites lost theirs in the latest book) +min size 5 so don’t care about coherency +2” melee just to add extra insult to the above +cheaper than vulkites (less models but how much better they are makes up for it) Vulkites -lost their ward -1” melee on 32mm bases -min size 10 -instead of the ward they used to have, they got a once per game ability to attack upon death - however you have to activate it at the start of the phase so they might not even take any casualties (should have just been a copy paste of the Blood Warriors ability or kept the ward) -more expensive than Hearthguard -shields are +1 save rather than changing the characteristic so All Out Defense is largely unusable as a side note, I feel Fyreslayers have been broken (not op, just they don’t work properly) since their AoS2 book. It is my belief that they did the points based on what the army was doing and how it played, THEN, they changed the rules and didn’t adjust the points - this is mostly visible in the cost of the foot heroes who saw the biggest changes in what they did vs do now

GW games, except Warhammer Underworld’s, are NOT meant to be competitive games. matched play, and the GHB in general, along with the tournaments gw run, are purely about throwing you guys a bone covid showed that the tournament players aren’t as important they like to think they are, gw sales were greater during a time where there were no tournaments controversial opinion, but AoS1 (pre GHB) was the best form of AoS, as for one thing it was absolutely clear what the game was intended to be, and it turned off a lot of the hyper competitive tournament focused players who tend to ruin the experience of other players. Matched Play, and the apparent widespread adaptation of that style of play has harmed the game more than it helped back on the topic of Dragons though, I’ve played 2 games using them (only one unit with lances) and here’s my thoughts -game 1 was vs Knights Of The Empty Throne. This game just exasperated the reasons why save stacking needs to go away, the Varanguard in this list were always on a 2+ rerolling saves even AFTER the dragons rend, and as such I couldn’t get through them. The 6” pile in they had, that they can seemingly do even if they ran without needing to charge, AND being able to attack twice was just an utter trash experience of a game. Everything else in the list wasn’t worth targeting/was hidden behind the varanguard anyway, so they had to be focused on - everything other than the dragons did even worse. -game 2 was vs a heavy shooting based Freeguild Cities army. This game was more enjoyable, and the dragons just folded under weight of dice. I don’t know what the right points for them is, but I’m not convinced they’re worth 340pts while Dracoths are only 220-240pts. Additionally, the 2 named ones are missing abilities the little ones have which doesn’t make a lot of sense to me? (the 4+ ignore spells, and the ability to slay a model after fighting)

Because some people only play in tournaments and believe themselves and those like them to be more important than anyone else, and that the ‘casual’ players are just a myth and don’t actually exist, sadly 🙄 there’s a bunch of armies in the game that are terrible in tournaments, but bring it to the local gw store and the casuals are going to have a terrible time against it. The tournament players don’t consider these armies to be a problem because it doesn’t affect them

Only one model per unit can use a Monsterous Rampage. They’re weak to mortal wounds, like pretty much everything. Their attacks aren’t very good compared to other options in their book. I love those models, but I actually find them quite underwhelming for their points

Why is everyone seemingly so obsessed with named characters having to have a Ward or they’re considered trash? why isn’t the conversation instead that mortal wounds are a problem (there’s too much of them flying around these days) that needs to be addressed?

Magmadroth is MUCH larger than a Stormdrake, at least 2x the body mass (the wings on the Stormdrake does a lot of the heavy lifting to make them look big)

I do consider Soulblight Gravelords/Legions Of Nagash a ‘soup’ book, because like Cities, it was made up of a lot of smaller subfactions that they could have expanded out eventually - take the Soulblight subfaction for example, all the new vampires we got after Cursed City was enough that they could have made Soulblight it’s own expanded book like Nighthaunt or Flesh-Eaters how long ago something was souped or not isn’t really relevant, because the point I was arguing against was that soup means less books gw can sell to people, but that all the armies I listed above don’t support that line of thinking

Ironjawz, Bonesplitterz, Kruleboyz, Orruk Warclans, Disspossessed, Wanderers, Darkling Covens, Order Serpentis, Freeguild, Ironweld Arsenal, Cities Of Sigmar, Soulblight, Deathrattle, Deathlords, Deadwalkers, Soulblight Gravelords/Legions Of Nagash all disagree with your reasoning. Not saying dwarfs will or won’t get souped, but the reason you say they won’t I certainly not the case. with Fyreslayers, it really comes down to what GW are going to do with them. If they aren’t going to expand them with new units, then they need to be souped with the other dwarfs as a Band-Aid fix for their lack of options. If they do expand them, then they should remain separate

A few thing I’d like to see in a new battletome -Loonboss on/with Giant/Mangler Squig, Mangler Squigs, Squig Hoppers, Boingrot Bounders, Skargrot The Loonking, Sneaky Snufflers, Fungoid Cave Shaman to all have both the SQUIG and GROT keyword -Squig Herders become a separate unit from the Cave Squig models - the herders having 2 wounds like the squigs feels off, make them heroes that don’t use up LEADER slots (like Grimwrath Berzerkers) or something. -Loonboss on Mangler Squig to have more wounds than a regular Mangler. -Squig Hoppers and Boingrot Bounders go to 3 wounds each (1 for the rider, 2 for the Mount - it feels odd that cavalry have the same wounds as the unmounted beasts). Squid Hoppers minimum size goes back to 5. -Squig base save goes to 5+ (they’re tougher than a goblin so should have the save to reflect that). Boingrots and Manglers keep their 4+ and the mounted Loonbosses go to 3+ -Loonshrine no longer relies upon your general (at least for keywords anyway). An example of what I mean is currently if Skargrot is your general then you can’t bring back Squig units, that needs to change. -Rockgut Troggoths need at least 3 attacks each but otherwise seem fine. as a side note, I would expect to lose the Alegazzler Gargant (not saying I want this, just what I think will happen) in a new book and they just became Sons Of Behemat only (they would of course be an ally option for Gloomspite). I’ve been enjoying messing around with squigs lately, but the age of the book is causing some frustrations with the current edition of the game - so many redundant abilities now you can’t stack modifiers for example

I feel like this is the same reason Boingrot Bounders can’t be Battleline - no one would take Hoppers. I think this points towards a bit of bad internal balance within the book, which is interesting because upon release Gloomspite Gitz battletome was considered the ‘golden standard’ of how everyone wanted the rest of the books done

My thoughts are this: if we get new units (not heroes, or at least not only heroes) then I want them to remain separate. However, if all we’re getting is a single foot hero, I’d probably prefer a Duardin soup book as a Band-Aid for the issues fyreslayers have that rules alone can’t fix (we need more non-hero units damnit!)

The big difference between Dark Eldar and anything like that in AoS, is that Dark Eldar are paying for that item also, you can’t seriously think that item is too strong when the bearer is a T3 W5 5+sv HQ right?

I like Arcane Tome because it gives me access to wizards for my narratively themed armies that don’t normally have a Wizard (unless you break theme). Stuff like Warherd exclusively or Squig units exclusively, that can’t otherwise get magic. Lets take Gloomspite Gits as an example - more specifically, units with the Squig keyword only (Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig, Loonboss on Mangler Squig, Squig Herd, Squig Hoppers, Boingrot Bounders, Mangler Squig). In the Moonclan spell lore (which the 2 Loonbosses have the keyword), there is the spell Squig Lure that lets squigs run and charge. If they nerf or remove the Tome, I would have to include a non-squig Wizard - like Skargrot The Loonking. Skargrot doesn’t have to be my general, but he loses half his warscroll if he is not. Making him my general, I lose Squig Hoppers as Battleline leaving only Squig Herd

If we only get a new foot hero, I’m gonna be hugely disappointed