tripchimeras

I think this is an exaggeration on the Eidolon. The Eidolon are definitely overcosted, but I don't think they are 100 and 120pts overcosted, I think you are comparing them to skaven in which case everything in the game is over-priced basically, when really I think we should be comparing them internally within the book. At 350 I think people take an Eidolon competitively. Could be wrong, but 100pt reduction seems like overkill. I agree the Leviadon probably should be 300-320, but again in its current state, once you have built the core list I don't know if you are taking as significant a hit to efficiency in taking it, at least in theory. It is definitely something I want to get some test games with to find out. There is certainly some handicap there, but how significant of one? Are 6 morrsarr better then a Leviadon? Yes, but I think the efficiency difference is less when the "leftover" points you have are limited. If you could take a full unit of 9 morrsarr with the points you have left after core construction and taking a Leviadon would mean you could only take 3 more, the efficiency difference there is going to pretty huge. But as it stands with the "flip-tide" build you can't do that, so a single leviadon vs a single unit of 6 morrsarr I think is closer in value, particularly when that leviathon has a potential augment ability on the 18 you already have. Occasionally a little inefficiency is worth expanded tactical options. Again I think probably at the end of the day there is a more efficient and effective use for those 360pts (I'd lean towards the extra infantry or ishlaen guard) but I think the difference is less then it was, simply because there is less that you can do with the extra points available now then there were before.

Completely agree. I think 350-360 is the range that both the eidolons would get some use in, and the Turtle while I think it is viable now, if eidolans go down to 350-360 it'd need to be 300-320 to remain viable. I think at those levels everything in our army would see some competitive play. You still wouldn't see any of the under-used stuff in every list, but you would see all of them in one list or another depending on space left over after the core-list is created. On a related side note I got in 2 games post GHB rules changes where I took the aspect of the sea after the 20pt reduction, and I think that guy is so close to having rules that work its infuriating, but the spell ranges on his stuff are so insanely bad for where he wants to be on the table. I think the 12 inch range would have worked if we were playing warhammer where spell casting happened after movement, but because it has to happen at the start of the phase it takes too long for that spell to become useful and so close to combat is a dangerous place to be for such an expensive caster without a mortal wound save. I think if you extended the bubble on his debuff spell to 24 inches he is viable in that high 300-low 400 range, but as is his rules don't really work as intended, and I think at 350-360 even you would be likely to see the storm more often at the same price-point for the same reason.

The more I play with the listbuilding post GHB, the more I realize I don't think the Deepkin pt changes were off by quite as much as I initially supposed. I think the sharks become a chaffe mainstay at 100pts, but at 120pts there are obviously situations where they make sense to fill in a list, which means GW was at least semi successful at bringing them into competitive play. They shouldn't be a mainstay, GW designed them in fluff and game intending them to be a support unit, and I think they function pretty well that way at 120. I think the trick is that I consistently have found myself with 100-120 extra points after core list construction, which makes allopax a good choice to fill those last points. I think the turtle similarly becomes more of an option. For a flip-tide list (I keep using it as the example because that is how I put most of my energy, in list building and playing), I think the core you want is approximately 18 eels, 3 units of infantry, a soulscryer, and tidecaster. While I think those 18 eels don't have to be ALL morrsarr, assuming they are leaves you with 360pts. Guess what fits extraordinarily neatly into that 360? A Leviadon. The equation here is a leviadon vs 6 morrsarr vs 1 king and an allopax vs 2 more infantry units and 100pts for allies vs 6 ishlaen guard and 80pts for allies. I think all of a sudden you have a lot of different directions you can go, and the leviadon doesn't look WAY worse then the others. I think it still probably doesn't win for sheer efficiency, but I think its not going to significantly reduce the competitiveness of that list, its going to be on the margins. Compare this to the situation before when that same combo left us with 420pts remaining. At 420 in old points you could include a second soulscryer AND 6 morrsarr VS vulturnos and 1 allopex OR 1 infantry unit OR 3 ishlaen guard VS 3 units of infantry (or 2 units of our infantry plus 2 units of eternal guard) VS 9 Ishlaen Guard VS 1 Eidolan VS 1 leviadon with 40 deadpoints to spend on an endless spell for your tidecaster to never get off lol. There is no way if you are playing competitive you would EVER choose the leviadon in this situation, the eidolan, and no way you would choose the allopex over the extra infantry or eels when taking volturnos or king. Despite the list before the GHB having MORE pts leftover to spend, the chances the under-used units were getting chosen were way worse, because of the way the leftover non-core points worked out. This is very important, because every competitive list has a core that is required for it to function as a competitive list, but many of those lists don't require all 2000 pts to function. Flip tide is a perfect example in that the core of the list is approximately 1600pts. its in those 250-500pts after the core where small pt changes are really going to start making things matter, what can you fit in your list with those last points to be least wasteful and augment your efficiency. Its hard to notice how small changes effect this at first glance, and I was definitely quick to judge in this regard. But as I am building lists for Deepkin, I am consistently finding myself in a sweetspot with points left where some of our much maligned units look far more attractive then they ever did before. If you are looking to avoid any inefficiency in your list, I think you still may end up skipping them, but I think the gap is small enough now that even someone looking to do really well in a tourney can likely take one of these options without seeing a huge dip, and I think that is a much better place for us then I initially thought.

Looks good, def let us know how the tourney goes and what you think of the list afterwards. I have a semi-similar list going right now, and one thing I am thinking about is whether the king/volturnos is worth it when not the general. I really want him to be, and I've had some success from his passive buffs and decent killiness so far, but I think there are better options for his points honestly, I just really don't want to build more eels haha (I think its something you are better off rolling with this weekend as is and seeing how you feel about it, then switching up your list again). I haven't seen a ton of examples yet where the new ghb points have actually affected army composition for us, but your new list here is actually a great example. When the allopex was 20 more and the morrsarr were 10 less, I suspect that you would not have considered including the allopex because it wouldn't have fit those last points you had. But as it is I see from your first list you replaced your 6 ishlaen with 1 allopex and 3 morrsarr, I think that is a trade-off where I can see arguing in either direction, which is exciting for sharks getting some use haha. Certainly the second unit of morrsarr is far more effective as 9 then as 6, but the ishlaen are going to be appreciated more then the allopex. But you can't afford both ishlaen and morrsarr, so you have to make the choice between 6 ishlaen vs 3 morrsarr and the shark. I think its a great example of how at first glance the GHB pt changes don't seem to effect our lists much at all, but as we are filling out those last 200-300pts I think we may see situations like this where things we didn't consider before seem to become a possibility. I think when you have more time to playtest after this tournament, running each of those 2 combos in a couple of games would be interesting to see which you feel gives you more versatility, I don't think its obvious which is going to do better for you from just theory hammering your list.

Yeah, because it basically forces you to take a semi-balanced list in return for 1 humongous benefit getting to choose before the game knowing who your opponent is whether you want ASF on turn 2 or turn 3 and if fuethen getting to charge and fight on turn 1 going into asf turn 2. Fuethan is the natural pairing I think, but domhiem is probably good with it too. Without it I think if you are min/maxing there is very little reason at all to take a balanced combined arms list otherwise, but I think the benefits of being able to flip the tides are large enough that as long as you still invest in a sizeable eel contingent (like you are already doing) it is arguably as good if not better then full on eel spam. I was a high elf player since 6th myself too so I think it is a pretty natural jump from how they played to this. I think eel spam is going to be more forgiving, but flip tide is going to give you more versatility and sounds like its much closer to how you would have played combined arms high elves, though in the end you are still going to need to lean heavily on the eels to do a lot of your dirty work. Its like in 8th if there had been no option to play pheonix guard bunker, you would have been forced to take a dragon prince death star no matter what and you would have just been deciding whether to take maxed out pheonixes + star dragon, all cav core + DP death star (eel spam with vulturnos) or still a DP death star but no dragon and only 1 frost phoenix, and some shooting behind it lol. At the core you are going to be pretty eel dependent offensively in competitive play no matter what unfortunately, because we don't really have an alternative build like high elves did, but luckily thanks to flip tide I think we can play at a "balanced" looking list without sacrificing too much. Unfortunately despite being a magic infused race, our magic options are really poor, so you are going to have difficulty trying to mirror the high elf playstyle in that regard. I our magic is going to be mostly "token". Issue is our tidecaster is expensive (comparatively) and gets no bonuses of any kind, while our level 4 archmage equivalent (aspect of sea) is just too costly to do anything but build your entire list around it, but isn't good enough as a centrepiece model to do that imo.

Without knowing anything about you or your model collection, or exactly what your goals for the tourney are I'd say it looks like the list would do pretty well in a tourney and would be pretty fun to use, but that the owner is either: A. Maxing out his deepkin model collection to field it or B. You really are trying to run a balanced all phases list, but still wanted to take advantage of a volturnos turn 3. Neither of those things are going to be a huge issue for you, or are even necessarily a bad thing depending on your goals. I think it is strong enough especially at a local one dayer that you are unlikely to find a lot of lists that are going to make you feel uncompetitive. If you are using all or most of your models in this list, I think you have nothing to worry about going in. But if you were looking at a little optimization and have the models for it see below: I think my primary concern with the list is that, while I think there is enough power here for you to generally do well, it has some elements that feel like they are running a a bit of a cross purposes giving the whole list a bit of a feeling like it is hanging in limbo between the two deepkin power builds unsure of which direction it wants to go. Your general choice and fairly large contingent of eels indicates you are playing an eel spam list, but your inclusion of multiple infantry units and 2 tidecasters looks like the makings of a flip-tide list. Not that you should feel you need to play 100% into 1 of those 2 "net lists" but just that it feels like you are kinda in a little bit of an awkward in between in that a few of your units might not get you a ton of use as the list is currently constructed. I think the infantry is basically going to just sit in your back court guarding objectives, and hoping the enemy doesn't have anything fast to run at them with, I don't think you have enough of it to really provide much support to the eels or put up much of a fight on its own. I could be wrong, but even more so then the limited infantry I suspect you are going to find the double tidecasters not really pulling their weight in this list. And honestly if you aren't planning on making one of them your general for flip tide, I really don't think tidecasters are particularly good especially when you are running so much speed. Max I'd personally be running 1, but really I would nix them entirely If you aren't going to flip the tide and if you want to have some magic to play with/be able to dispel things I'd honestly say you are better off going with either the wanderer mage or the stormcast mage that both come with that 1 time auto dispel ability if you have access to the models. I'd either try to get 1-2 more units of infantry and make the tidecaster your general, or abandon the infantry entirely and commit further to the eel spam with vulturnos. I like the fliptide because it preserves some semblance of army balance, but either way I think those changes put you in a situation where your army no longer has loose ends without a ton of utility. But again can't emphasize enough that your list is already perfectly fine for a local tourney and going to play strong I think. I don't want to dissuade you if you were hoping to test a bunch of different units, really had some fun things planned for the dual casters or are maxing out your collection here. I think no matter what if you've got your tactics down this list will play pretty well.

Again, you clearly don't believe in competitive play so why did you come to a topic asking for competitive reports to push your agenda? This is not the place for a competitive vs casual discussion. But I want to point out, it again sounds like you are refering to games where one guy is bringing a competitive list and one person is not. Or you are talking about kryptonite matchups. In either case for those of us who want to become good competitive players: A. understanding what to do in a kryptonite matchup is extremely important for a competitive player. B. The 2 examples you gave me give me a very strong impression that you like to take "balanced" lists and have been burned multiple times by scew lists. That really sucks for you, but neither of those situations need be so dire if strong competitive players taking competitive lists are playing those games. C. Competitive lists usually involve skill, they just do.

Ummm... I think you may be thinking of round one of a tourney when a top tier player draws a fluff list... We are talking about 2 competitive players bringing 2 competitive lists; there is nothing boring about that imo. Also, great contribution to the topic at hand 🙄.

I have never been able to find much in the way of competitive reports, so I would be interested to hear of more as well. There were tons in 8th edition, but pretty much all of them did not carry over to AoS. The only one I know of is a newish youtube channel that has some decent competitive reports called Dimensional Cascade. They have a couple tournament streams on their channel as well, and are active in the US tourney scene as I understand it. I know one of them personally, and he was one of the top tourney players in the US during 8th edition and has won several AoS tourney's as well, using Tzeentch no less, so I suspect he is just as good with AoS as he was with 8th. Not familiar with the others in the club, but from what I have seen its a pretty good channel to follow if you are interested in competitive. I've learned quite a bit, particularly watching their tourney feeds.

I 100% agree with this. That is why the terrain rules should need to emphasize "random" or purposefully balanced. Ideally a third party sets up the table and rolls terrain before sides are determined. But if its just the 2 players it should be roll on a chart and then scatter the terrain from the center point of each table quarter or something. Personally I have always played with the third party rule and in cases where its just 2 of us just making an equitably agreed upon set-up with whatever terrain is on hand with my opponent before either of us have seen our lists or determined the scenario or know who is on what side. It has never failed to produce a table I didn't feel purposely screwed on, and I've never had an argument over it. Its all pretty simple if you remove it as part of "gameplay".

They only needed to have played 1 game where they tried to do the most optimal thing possible to have the revelation that the rule is terrible. Fixed. I fully believe they played a game with it, I also fully believe they didn't even for a second think about stretching that terrain rule to the most optimal "build", they just set it up in a "fun" way, and were like "yes this is awesome". That has always been how it has seemed GW has approached their own game. The problem is that GW far too often makes wacky assumptions that players are going to follow some sort of ill defined self restraint in addition to whatever rule they write. Its just a terrible way to approach rule writing. That type of reasoning works in open and narrative play, has no place in matched play rules.

The massive faction terrain issue aside, I think the way they are written they are obviously meant to encourage people to spend money on terrain, as depending on what you place it can really give you a leg up in the game without spending any points, only $$$, which is pretty dumb. They are also not nearly specific enough rules for matched play. This sounds like something that belongs in open play tbh. This just seems like a rule that most people are going to ignore when playing friends or have liberal "unwritten" or house rules around its use, and its just going to be a way for "that guy" to be an even bigger ****** then normal when you happen to play randos. It is completely inapplicable to tourney rules, which means an even wider gulf in the logistics of tourney play and normal matched play, which means it is just going to serve as another barrier between tourney players and the rest of the population. Best case scenario, like I mentioned in my previous post on it, this rule was a poorly thought out mistake that they meant to change or remove before publishing. Worst case scenario, this was an extraordinarily poorly thought out cash grab to try to encourage more people to purchase terrain. Either way it looks like it is going to be faqed, but I am not holding my breath that the faq isn't going to introduce as many questions as answers. I am mostly positive on what the new GHB did, but the matched play changes have been a very mixed bag. The tourney template is also pretty sub-par for example. I get why they introduced it, and it also bodes well for GW sponsoring more tourney's themselves in the future, but damn its yet another one of those sections where it makes you wonder whether they actually have any tourney players on staff at all (I know they do, they just continuously make you doubt it as a consumer). I expect most independent tourneys to ignore it (especially for painting I hope), just like I expect many people to ignore the terrain set-up rules, but the last thing you want to see in a wargame is players routinely disregarding entire sections of your games "matched play" rules.

I didn't mean to imply we didn't do that. We did. I just don't think the different scenarios do a lot to change the fact that you are going to want to frontload to tier's 1 and 2, and that the current rules pretty much allow you to do that. Since your list is set in stone, you don't want to leave things stranded on turn three or coming in too late. So overall you are left wanting to front load especially since you can't tailor to scenario. Speed is essential in all of them.

Also on the topic of movement, its not just that fast movers are great at claiming objective points early, its also that they are great at bringing their presence to bear much quicker when deployed in later tiers. A tier three movement 6 unit in many of the scenarios is going to find it difficult to get involved until turn 4, especially if a lot of the action at that point is occurring outside on opponents side of board. I think that is just far too late, so you either need to find a way to deep strike them, attempt to control the battle in a way where you are ensuring they can have an immediate impact turn 3, or deploy your slower moving units early and save high mobility for late, but then you are losing out on potentially projecting board control the first 2 turns and taking an early lead. Granted that the way the tiers are written I think they want you to bring out your foot sloggers early and then bring out your big guns in tier 3, many of which will likely be fast, but their is enough flexibility in tier 2 that often I think this won't happen. In the games I have seen so far, everyone has chosen to be very limited in turn 3 mostly bringing out the minimum possible dregs last, unless there was a non-battle line unit they wanted to double up on or are bringing out artillery (which I will be interested to see how it gets used like that, the closer range right off the bat might help, but the lateness of the deployment has to significantly hurt utility). Perhaps this relegation of the tier 3 wave to the back seat turns out to be a mistake we have been making, but I kinda doubt it. Again I think its an instance of good intentions on rule writers' part, but they gave too much flexibility in turn 2 at such a low point level as 1k to make it necessary. Deny behemoths completely from turn 2 for example would have helped here. In a larger game I think the tiers would have more of an impact, but at a smaller level game I think most armies are going to be able to fill up on most of their list in turn 2 deployment, and they are going to be incentivised to do so to avoid falling behind on objectives and losing all of their early deployers to predatory flyers. Again perhaps if you couldn't score until turn 3 there would be incentive to wait or something, but as it stands for the most part I don't think there will be. I could be wrong on all of this, and I very well may look like a fool in a few months (wouldn't be the first time). I personally enjoy speculating before we already know the facts on forums, so I am happy to be the guy who ends up with egg on his face haha. But I really do think this mode of play needs to keep emphasis on casual, beer and pretzel games and it will be great.

I agree its going to be a while until we can make definitive statements, but I really think you are over emphasizing the "leveling" effect it is going to have on lists from the small sample size I've played and watched my friends play. The meta has changed some with the rule change, but for the most part it serves to strengthen what is already at or near the top of the meta and I don't think it has been levelled much off at all. Movement is so incredibly important in this playstyle, and just because you can't turn 1 alpha, doesn't mean you can't turn 2 alpha strike with just as much efficiency realistically. In fact it is more efficient, because most of the strategies that can be used to counter or reduce the effectiveness of alpha are significantly more difficult in 1000 pts then they are in 2000 and this is only agrevated by the tiered deployment. Only good way to protect something from an alpha now is to hold it back for third wave, and at that point you are potentially significantly reducing the effectiveness of that thing. The fact that multiple of the scenarios put emphasis on doing wounds, combined with the tiered drop, doubles down on high movement and alpha style units even more. The tiered approach also limits your ability to plan for double turns, and screen vulnerable units. There are no situations in which realm rules are ever going to make anything more balanced. Maybe, more random, but that's about it. The battle-plans help a bit, but unlike in pitched battle several of them put a heavy focus on wounds dealt, which actually ends up de-emphasizes the need to hold the primary objectives as much. The changes in meta are going to be mostly on marginal units that aren't OP to begin with from what I can tell. Speaking as a Deepkin player, Eels are even better in this then they are in normal pitched, perhaps counter intuitively. They are so very fast, and at the low point level there is just very little answer for them. This same aggravation of already OP units I can see occurring for the most part across the board. I agree it is early yet, but I think the idea that meeting engagement is going to be at all competitively balanced is wishful thinking, and the games I have seen and played so far have only served to reinforce this idea in my mind. Again though those games were a blast, and the format allowed for most of the turns to get played even with the extreme unbalance present in both of my games. The illusion of balance existed, because the fighting was drawn out it always appeared my opponents had a chance of turning the tide. But I was always so far ahead in VP by turn 3 or 4 and had already cleared out their first tier and significantly weakened the second by the time they got their units in position enough to make any sort of counter charge. I didn't play against a high mobility list, so it would have been interesting to see how balance was against a high mobility list, maybe considered a little less OP then eel spam. But then I wasn't even really taking a true eel spam, I just took 2 units of 3 (1 of each type) in one game and they still were pretty nasty at the 1k level. (Additionally for deepkin players specifically, while turn 3 ASF normally can be difficult to take full advantage of, with the 3 tiered deployment of meeting engagement it ends up happening at the perfect time increasing the leg up our fast movement gives in meeting engagement over many armies even more). Maybe its just a case of my tome specifically increasing in power, but its not like it needed the boost, and I think pretty much all the "OP" armies are going to benefit from this game method just as much. Its definitely very early and I am sure I am putting the cart in front of the horse here, but my first impression upon rule leaks was bad (from a competitive perspective) and everything I have seen has reinforced that opinion, and in fact I think it might be even less competitive then I initially thought it would be.

I'd love to see a narrative driven RPG game in the vein of Dragon Age: Origins. I think the setting and lore are great, and most of the GW offerings have been very game play heavy (makes sense given that they are based on a table top game). But considering the shear volume of quite good lore and novelizations, I would love to see a more narrative focused branching paths bioware/obsidian style rpg or whatever. Travelling through the realms on some epic quest accompanied by a motley crew of companions from a bunch of different factions, developing the characters etc along the way would be great. Would love to have choice of any of the races, but even if they forced you to be in stormcast or whatever, feel like it'd be pretty damn cool.

Yep, all of this. I know when I rage quit after 8th I tried a bunch of different games and none of them ever mixed that pitch perfect cocktail of lore, models, fun, battle size, community, and competitive play that whfb always struck. Malifaux had all the problems several of the posts above have mentioned, and again small scale skirmish just does not scratch my wargaming itch like massed battles do. There was KoW, usually the alternative that I see a lot of people try to push whenever they get disenfranchised with GW, and again all of them almost always come back (its just so boring). Tried infinity, x-wing, 9th age for brief spells too; none stuck. None of them were ever able to do what GW games always did for me. In the end once they fixed matched play for AoS and then 2.0 had come out it was a no-brainer to come back. Really it isn't a lot different then any of the WHFB editions in how the player response has been over time. I just think the change was significant enough and roll-out tone deaf enough that it pushed the 6month - 1 year rage quit window that normally accompanies a new edition to 2-4 years. I remember when 8th came out it took a good year to recoup the player base in our region after a bunch of people rage quit over steadfast and whatever other random rules people were sure were going to make the game unplayable, most of which turned out to just not be that big of a deal (I still chuckle about steadfast sometimes, given how incredibly underpowered and underutilized infantry ended up being that edition with minor exceptions). Everyone was saying because of 8th, warmachine hordes was going take GW's place at the top of fantasy gaming, a year later pretty much everyone I knew was back playing GW games talking about how toxic warmachine had been. 5th to 6th had a similar exodus, 7th was more 6.5 so that wasn't as big a deal from what I remember, but point remains. This happens every 2-4 years with GW, bunch of people get super upset declare something else is better only to come back a year or 2 later realizing they had it so much better with GW. Truth is some of those other games have really tight and competitively balanced rules, but GW has a lot of other things going for it and always has managed to get its competitive ****** together enough to make it all worth while.

Great points! Another thing is that Tournaments and community events get a lot of visibility and are free publicity for the hobby. They get talked about a lot on forums and podcasts. This seeps into the community. So even if we were JUST talking about tourney players here, for better or worse, they have an outsize impact on the game and sales in proportion to the % of the overall population they contain. They often dictate the "net lists" and what is "OP" and what is "bad". The tourney stats you constantly see discussed and posted about on forums, are seen by many more people then those who played in a tourney. Anyone who participates in the online community (or lurks on these threads) is going to be influenced by this one way or another. The plentiful podcasters, even those who are hobby focused, often discuss tourneys on their podcasts. Again anyone listening to them is going to be impacted by this info to some limited degree. That is meaningful and don't think that GW doesn't understand that either.

Realized I posted my meeting engagement thoughts in the general handbook big thread when I meant to post them here:

GHB meeting engagement thoughts after getting 2 meeting engagement games in this weekend: The Good: Way more enjoyable then a 1k pitched battle game. Both were a ton of fun, and I think this is going to be a favourite for "beer and pretzel" nights. It was a nice change of pace and should give some variety when you want a quicker game, keep things fun as you are still building up an army, and for getting some play in for your fluffier units that may actually live long enough to do something. Because of the tiered rollout and how things get deployed it also ensures the games last most of the battle. Both of our games were called before the end, but one lasted till halfway through turn 4 before we called it which at 1k pt level is a record for my group (though in both cases we knew which way the wind was blowing very early on) lol. The Bad: GW calling this a tournament playstyle or using the word competitive in any way shape or form is an extreme mistake. This is a beer and pretzel playstyle through and through. Sure I would totally play a 3 game tourney of this at a local shop, but it would be more appropriate to call it an "event" then a tourney. It is just not competitively viable at all. The balance issues we are accustomed to seeing in 1k are very much still present, and the format if anything actually opens up some new problems I think. There are definitely factions that just do not have very viable roll-out strategies for the tiered approach from the games my friends have had so far. Overall the game type is a net positive for the hobby. I am going to be way more excited to play low pt games then I was before and I think this is a fantastic intro level to the hobby for new players. Luck is a much larger factor in meeting engagements then I think it is normally, and the tiered approach provides the illusion of a closely fought competitive game even when a route is actually in progress. This is going to be great for new players, and for groups with a wide range of competitive levels I think a great player pitted against a new one will allow both to have fun in this setting while in a normal pitched battle it would all basically be over after turn 1. Competitively and balance wise however, I think meeting engagement is a mess from my initial experiences. That same increased luck factor that was a bonus to the casual play, is going to make competitive play more frustrating and less rewarding. I also think balance is if anything worse then it is at basic 1k with high movement models/armies even stronger then they were before as an example. Overall, I am still really frustrated GW billed this as a competitive/tourney experience. while simultaneously pleased with it as a casual game mode at the same time. I get why GW advertised it how they did, and its a lot of fun but it is just not what they advertised.

Its a complete mystery to me how this got past qa, I would go so far as to say that it being included may have been a mistake. Perhaps it was a rule they were working on, and accidentally left in the final version, or it had since been updated but the old wording was left? Idk. Terrain has always been placed by the players in non tourney settings, but dare I say for fantasy that this is almost... too much terrain? Tourneys never would allow player set terrain so this isn't going to have a huge effect on them (though I still think it puts way too much restriction on faction terrain even in a tourney setting). Its not like faction terrain was a HUGE issue that needed to be fixed anyway, like keeping it 6 inches from an objective was enough for me. Putting it in a bottleneck position was just about the only circumstance most factions' terrain was even useful to begin with. Regardless of why though, it was a massive oversight and however minor of an issue it is in the grand scheme of things, its one of those eye-popping mistakes that will be used as fodder for years against GW in saying they don't know their own game. And honestly, it is kinda hard to argue with that in this one instance, it takes about 5 seconds to see the numerous flaws with this change...

Agree that I think a huge point that cannot be reiterated enough is that GW does not make rules first games. They are the biggest and the "best" for a couple reasons which mostly gel with yours: 1. They make the best models. Sure this is subjective, but it is a wide majority opinion. 2. They have the best lore, with mountains of novels, lore, and flavor. 3. And I think the single biggest factor for me, they have a near monopoly on massed battle fantasy and sci-fi wargames. KoW is the only real company owned alternative, with 9th age being the only other if you are willing to risk it on the uncertainty that comes with community rulesets, both of which funny enough are largely populated by GW models. A couple new ones have come out since WHFB died, but good luck finding games, which brings me to #4. 4. In a hobby that requires a large financial commitment and a ridiculous amount of time and energy, GW is one of a very few number of companies you can pretty well depend on that in a decade the models you own now can be brought to a game without almost any meddling and just get played as is. You know on any given weekend if you wander into a gaming store with wargaming support you are going to be able to find a GW pickup game. You know your investment in the hobby is about as safe as humanly possible. BTW for those that were suggesting that GW should have just retired everything from WHFB when switching to AoS, this is why they simply could not afford to do this. It would have been better for the game in a vacuum, but longevity and sustainability of investment would have taken a huge hit, it would have felt like a far bigger betrayal of the WHFB player base then it already did, and a lot of us that did eventually come back, probably never would have if they had full stop retired the old armies. The game rules are not in my list of why GW is successful, because I think their rules are only as important to their success as they need to be to facilitate the strengths above. That is to provide a fun and narratively fulfilling experience, and one that can be played competitively in a setting where skill determines the outcome of the game rather then just blind dice rolling luck. GW rules have always delivered the first of these two things in flying colours, and if there is something GW rules actually do better then its competition it is in delivering flavour through rule mechanics, and list building. I have never played another table top game where building a list felt so rewarding, so personalized, or so unique to my narrative or tactical vision. On the other side GW's great weakness has always been competitive balance and play. They have always managed to stay on just the right side of the line between competitively playable and not (except for a brief stint at the beginning of AoS where it was competitively non-viable), but at times it has been quite the struggle for them. A big part of that issue comes from what @Overread mentions with loosely written rules. However that loose writing style I think is one of the reason their rules are able to convey so much more flavour then those of their competitors, so there is a trade-off here. I think even bigger then this in their struggle in competitive play though, is the shear breadth of their model ranges, and their concerted effort to give the player tons of army variety and customization, a ton of play styles, and making every unit feel unique. This makes balancing of the game extraordinarily difficult, and even in a best case scenario GW games are never going to be as balanced or strategically varied as some of their competitors. But that is okay, because the benefits more then outweigh the downsides for me. I think we as a community need to do a better job of recognizing this, and while GW needs to do a much better job with fixing mistakes (I can't remember the last time GW tried to fix something, where the fix didn't raise almost as many questions as the original problem) , we also need to understand that there is a really good reason that they carried all of the old WHFB stuff over to AoS, but there is also very clear reasons those things still are not very functional competitively. I think the new GHB continued the (much slower then any of us probably wanted) process of refining AoS into doing all of the things that made WHFB the gold standard of fantasy gaming for 25-30 years. But after all of that you still think rules balance means more to you, KoW or Malifaux is waiting for you. I just think with the former you are going to miss the flavor way more then you think and with the latter, so long as you don't mind saying goodbye to massed battles, and ginormous monsters you won't be disappointed (assuming 3rd edition isn't a broken mess, idk). GW is one hell of a flawed company, and I am someone who has absolutely been very negative on them before, and often I still am. Hell I rage-quit after 8th was disbanded, sold off every model I owned and swore off GW forever. But at the end of the day GW understands there player base, and AoS is proof. While it was one hell of a sloppy roll-out, and the executives at the top during that roll-out may have forgotten who their player base was for a minute, within 6 months the bones were in place to fix that issue, and I really don't think GW is going to make that mistake again. As AoS stands right now, the hobby is in the best place its been since mid-8th edition, and in a far better place then it was late 8th. Honestly, it is probably more balanced then Warhammer has been in a very very long time, so I am going to count my blessings haha.

I agree that a lot of people asking questions like this just want assurances what they are getting isn't going to make for completely joyless games, but the answer to those questions is entirely contingent on how good their opponents are at the game in combination with how competitive their opponents' lists are, something they probably don't even know the answer to. I'm not saying I don't disagree that we are all far too ready to just focus on competitive sometimes, but it can be hard to know what the balance is where you are guiding someone away from doing something they will be completely disappointed with, while simultaneously not pushing them down a path that will lead them towards perpetual meta chasing. The "just take whatever you want" answer is not what people are looking to hear when they post a question of this sort online.

I think you are mistaken. In my experience competitive players are by far the most vociferously in favour of any change that is going to bring more balance and strategic importance to the game they play. Most competitive players don't just want to win. They want to win because they played a superiorly tactical game when they win, and 2. they just like strategy in general and want to test their wits against other skilled gamers. None of this is possible without a balanced games. WAAC players exist for sure, but for the most part the definition of WAAC is misused as a catch all for competitive play, and especially at the top of the scene I rarely have seen people advocate for anything less then balanced and fair game-play. Top players tend to like double turns, but not because they mean they win (this is a ridiculous notion considering how random they are). They like them because they are actually extremely strategic, and the ability to limit an opponents option in a double turn/ have enough to strike back can take quite a lot of skill, and the single biggest mistake "casual" players make in the game imo is in thinking double turns are this outside factor completely out of your control. They are not. You know how much an opponent can move in 2 turns, you know exactly where they can move if they get the two turns, making your moves as if you don't know this is a mistake. If you get first turn and make your moves assuming your opponent will not double turn you are making an active tactical decision in the double turn mechanic whether you realize you are or not. You are taking a calculated risk based on the slightly higher percentages of you getting the first go turn 2 for better or worse, you want to guarantee the game goes till turn 3? Force the issue by denying your opponent the opportunity of a killing blow turn 2. And if you take a list that has no tools at all to mitigate the effects of double turns, you again are acting as though list building is divorced from strategy and the game occurring on the table. You know double turns exist, if you do not take that into account when building a list you are not playing the game competitively, which is fine, but there is a reason there are 3 ways to play, and again this goes back to my post about the "spirit" of the game. You know yourself, if you have no desire to play tactically like this, or you want to play the models you want to play you need to make sure your opponents understand that, and you shouldn't be going to tournaments unless you are OK knowing there are going to be people taking advantage of your armies weaknesses, and double turns are going to be swingy as hell for you. I totally understand not liking them as a mechanic on principal, or because you prefer a different type of wargame, its totally subjective, but its not because they aren't strategic or are impossible to plan for. I hate hearing about how double turns remove strategy, they really don't, the strategy is just different. If you hate double turn, you just prefer a different style game, which I do think is one of the areas the GHB has really succeeded in. Lots of great open play and narrative play changes, and even within match play, while I still don't think it is as balanced as 2k Meeting Engagements does much to put limits on what a double turn can do for you even if you choose to ignore them in your list building and strategy. Edit: I am by no means suggesting I exist within this "top player" heirarchy. I am relatively new to AoS, and not going to be winning any tourneys in the near future. Even when I was a seasoned Whfb player I was not a top player though at the time I liked to think I was but I did run in the same circles as many of them in my region and I can tell you none of them ever wanted a rule solely because it benefited the army/playstyle they were using at that moment. In fact many were actively thrilled when loopholes they benefited from were closed/fixed.

See this I disagree with strongly. This may be how you want your competitive games to work, but it does not mean it is how a good competitive game must function. There is no "right" way for a competitive game to work. There is no reason a game with a lot of early turn action cannot be a good game or a competitive one, or even a game that still lasts all 5 turns (or most of them). The type of competitive games being referred to already exist (most of which use alternating activations), GW games have never worked like that. GW games function in competitive play and almost always have (though occasionally a little comp has been required in bad editions). For a competitive game to function as such it simply requires that A. skill is extremely important to the outcome of the game (it is) B. there is skill to list building more then just taking the net list every single time (contrary to popular belief this is true of AoS) C. there are multiple strategic paths to victory D. games aren't usually decided before the armies have hit the table barring garbage list design. AoS does better in some of these categories then others, but in general all of these are more or less true (you can see that in tourney results). It is by no means the height of competitive gaming, and that is either a problem for you, or the things GW DOES do better then everyone else make up for its weaknesses. I think AoS can be more competitively balanced then it is, but that is not at all in keeping with the direction you guys are thinking. You guys are defining a competitive game as how you would like your matches to play out, not based on the competitive merits alone. No competitive games, even the ones that mostly function how you want them to are going to have a highly skilled player going up against a significantly less skilled player going 5 rounds having combat form in turn 3 etc. The game is going to be over very quickly whether the less skilled player realizes it or not. In fact the extraordinarily rigid game structure you seem to desire would make the game significantly less competitive, and curtail the strategy involved significantly. Edit: Also meeting engagements are perfect if you want turn 3 to be primary battle round etc. So GHB def has addressed this issue for those that prefer to play this way.