NinthMusketeer

Started a thread with the same thing, plus FFA rules, didn't generate much discussion: Probably because they are so simple and straightforward there isn't much to argue about! At any rate it addresses some of the problems you have here and most importantly you can explain it to someone in less than 5 minutes before a game and they can immediately understand it. Used it a ton in my local community, few rough spots that would have overcomplicated things to fix, but really works great and a lot of fun.

Some units do have mechanics like that. I also think they are fun and a good self-balancing mechanism, it would be cool to see more of them.

See the likes of a Frostlord don't just come along every day. The whole point is they are one-in-a-million and having multiples of them damages narrative immersion. And strictly narrative players, despite being fully capable of writing around the issue, rarely do. Because it is writing to excuse what is obviously a balance-driven decision, and it often reads as lame as it sounds. Your second point doesn't work. The Huskard is worth taking. It still gets dropped in favor of a Frostlord because the latter is far stronger for its cost. Your idea is in essence 'if everything was balanced it would be fine' which, while true, will never happen and so is entirely moot to the discussion. WHFB had separate allocations for Lord and Hero options, and even had specific limits on them for quite some time. During the golden age of WHFB you could only have 1 lord choice in a 2000 point army, even more restrictive than what I am suggesting.

Yes, actually, and thank you for asking. Back before the first General's Handbook I worked with one of the three major fan comps at the time, what we had was better than anything since. And I think that is an important factor to understand about my perspective; when GW started doing points the balance of my games went down as compared to when they weren't doing them at all. A lot. I also manage Road to Renown, which is a complete second edition to Path to Glory that rebalances all of the warband tables. Not matched play, but it is still a rather intricate balancing dynamic. So yeah, when I say GW should do better I say it from a position of being able to do better myself. Also, in regards to this: "I played a lot of other tt games over that 25 years. And there is one fact regarding all that games: balance didn´t exist anywhere." This is another rendition of the perfect balance fallacy, where one uses the reality of true balance being impossible to defend balance that is terrible. No one has ever advocated for true balance in AoS. People like me just want it to be better than it currently is. People like me want to lose the chance for games to be decided simply from the lists involved.

Not exactly, because it still misses the point. The likes of a frostlord or archregent are extremely rare, very powerful leaders. They lead entire sub-factions, whole nations worth of their army. They don't just show up to the battlefield in multiples. It doesn't make narrative sense. From a strictly matched play perspective, these are leaders that have a significant points investment and army role such that if they are being used in multiples it is because they are overpowered. There is no other reason to use them in multiples. Accordingly, limiting them to 1 per army is beneficial for both sides. No one loses in that arrangement.

And yet to get the point cost one needs to download the specifically-labelled legends document...

I remember that article! I didn't read it, because I know from the results that it doesn't work.

You are comparing it to a legacy unit that they do not update points for, so it is not a fair comparison. There has been an edition change and power creep in the years since that Liche Priest warscroll was made and costed. Legends units specifically have 'rough estimate' point costs even by GW's admission and are not legal in matched play without your opponent's permission.

Yeah, and they certainly do a good job with that. Unfortunately losing games in the listbuilding phase gets far more stale, far more quickly.

The imbalance is not so organized as new stuff being OP, or 'managed' meta swapping. It is basically random with some genuine effort to curb the worst elements mixed in. Very strange. The best explanation I have seen anyone come up with is intentional incompetence--GW knows it is bad at balance but also feels there is financial benefit from that and accordingly choses not to improve.

Well let's break it down. Beastriders deal an average of 1 damage to a 5+ save with their punches and kicked compared to 0.66 for the Huskard. A stonehorn is putting out 7.6, or a thundertusk 3 (I am using the second degradation line to compensate for that factor). So we can put a rough baseline of damage at 8.6 vs 8.3 for a stonehorn or 4 vs 3.7 for a thindertusk. Pretty small difference in damage output, which does get smaller against enemies with a better save than 5+. Both are putting out additional damage from shooting/stone-shattering charge so relative to the overall damage output the extra punches and kicks (with a worse profile) are largely insignificant. A huskard on stonehorn will also get +1 bravery (meh, though it is useful in some matchups) and more importantly is able to use all the generic command abilities. That is a big deal as the likes to altering a run move to a 6, giving re-roll 1s for a phase, re rolling a charge, or battleshock immunity is worth a good deal. Easily worth 20 points and a tiny decrease in damage. And that is before factoring in eurlbad, which requires one and makes him indirectly viable even at tourney level for how strong it is. A huskard on thundertusk gives a unit +1 to wound for a round every hero phase on a 4+. That is well worth the 30 points extra by itself, and he also gets command ability access and an everwinter prayer to boot. The frostlord being so much stronger may make the huskard worse by comparison but it does not impact the actual effectiveness of the unit. So while a subjective term I find it very difficult to believe that huskards fit into the definition of 'sucking ass'.

Thing is, Petrifax should never have been a matter of tournament data. Everyone knew they were overpowered from the preview and only hoped that the battletome provided something to offset what was clearly far too strong a subfaction. Instead it gave them even more. It is absurd that such a set of abilities could even be a rough draft, let alone make it past playtesting. The sort of thing that would make sense as an April Fools joke it was so comically overpowered. Petrifax went and trampled any attempt that could be made at fine-tuning OBR based on tourney data because did something win because X unit or Y option was OP, or just because Petrifax was? Is something being spammed across multiple lists because it is too strong or because it is too strong with Petrifax? Plenty of balance edges which could have been smoothed now have to wait another year because the first round got wasted on nerfing the painfully obvious.

The army has other heroes than huskards you know. And ways to take them where they are perfectly viable. And they don't 'suck ass' except at tourney tier to begin with.

As long as Slaanesh remains strong it never will...

While all ultimately united under Nagash, there is fighting between forces of Death all the time as various vampires & necromancers compete for power within the overall structure. OBR would be the ones without infighting, but in their case justifying it as a training exercise does make some sense.

I would like to see certain 'lord' choices get a limit of 1 per army. Like named characters but without the other downsides, or it could be a new unit category alongside leader. It hits on benefits for both the fluff and optimization ends of the spectrum. And the points void they leave will still be filled with other models so GW doesn't lose sales. @LuminethMage I tend to be harsher in my criticisms when I know that I and/or the community can do better. And back before the first GHB, we did. I feel it is also a matter of people being used to glossing over the 'wallpaper' options in battletomes--items that are present but never worth taking and may as well only exist to fill page space. There is a lot of it. So many options are not even included in people's minds when they think about balance because they aren't mentally recognized as part of the game (and justifiably so). Give me any battletome and I can give back at least 10 options that could be removed with no actual loss to the army.

Woa there, waaaaay overreacting, I definitely did not make any of those claims. I was not commenting on the veracity of your point, but rather raising that when such a skewed piece of data is used in support of the idea that certain factions are not dominating, there is a problem. Even considering the dearth of data due to Covid, were the balance situation remotely reasonable there would be a huge abundance of data sets better than that. Perhaps ironically, if one feels so defensive as to create straw men over a perceived criticism that will always make me doubt the legitimacy of the position--a valid point needs no straw men. To go on a related but separate tangent, the win % of armies at tournaments is already skewed towards 50. Because winners are matched with winners and losers with losers. The armies with high win % will disproportionately go against other armies with high win %, creating a negative feedback with rounds subsequent the first. To see the 'real' win rate, look at the data from first rounds only. I dare anyone to do that then say straight-faced that AoS does not have a balance problem.

I just want to point out that when the claim is "six factions are not dominating everyone" and the first data set one uses to support that has the top 6 with 3x the number of placings as the rest combined, there may be a problem with the game's balance. Narrative play is your friend!

Oh the balance is terrible. Every time a new battletome comes out I (and many others with similar experience) can read through and pick out at least a dozen or so warscrolls/artifacts/traits that are clearly stronger or weaker than other options. Without even playing them. And despite the naysayers, yes these predictions do tend to play out. People knew the day the last Slaanesh tome dropped that depravity was a problem. Again, this is without even testing anything! It is the nature of the beast. The best thing I ever did for myself in warhammer was accept that matched play will remain horribly unbalanced now and in the foreseeable future. If I want a balanced game I will need to balance it myself and the points are simply a rough estimate to start with. I do not hope for anything else. There has been a lot of relief in that acceptance.

Thank you! I am so glad people are getting enjoyment out of it.

I enjoy the camaraderie that comes from sharing a faction and dealing with the same problems/revelling in the same strengths. Doubly so if those things are done via different army builds. Also both sides understanding the rules of the other is quite nice.

That is both subjective and not what this thread is about. With respect, if you want to talk about how your personal favorite is better take it to another thread.

I really just have to echo what others have said. There is freedom to do generic fantasy all the way up to mega fantasy, and more importantly it is easy to slot in Your Dudes without breaking cannon. WHFB really suffered when it came to fitting in your own kingdom or region, or justifying why & where a given battle was taking place. AoS has designed itself to offer readily accessible explanations for those things. It is much more about creating the idea you want out of the threads the setting offers than trying to angle your puzzle piece so it doesn't overlap established cannon.

Well it has been several weeks without FAQs so I am putting up the new updates without them. Versions 1.5 of the Chaos and Order warband tables are up. Both feature some minor reformatting in several places to use space more efficiently. Order has some minor changes to Idoneth , Free Cities, and KO, and the update for DoK to go with the new battletome. Depending on how they FAQ prayers they may see alterations in the near future. Chaos got a reorganized and updated roster for Slaanesh, as well as new options to allow marked Beasts of Chaos champions/units (since the relevant battalions normally used for the purpose are unavailable in PtG). Let me know what you think!

It is cool to see so much passion and effort come together into a full piece of homebrew content. Especially with such nice conversions. I hope it inspires others to attempt similar endeavors!