[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

One of my favorite movies growing up was “The Dirty Dozen”, especially the war games scene where they capture the General who has been harassing them by “breaking all the rules”.  Interestingly this was actually based on a real event during WW2 when an intelligence officer used some local irregulars to completely disrupt some planned war games in Puerto Rico.  History is actually full of examples of these broken war games where a creative individual or team finds a new approach that completely disrupts the plans & thinking of the higher ups who set up the game.  Too often those higher ups don’t learn from this but simply reset the game prohibiting the disruptive actions (only to have to learn the hard way on actual battlefields these same lessons).

I’m trying to thread a very fine needle here by specifically referencing war games since bringing up actual historical references seems to really anger some players.  The point is that even when the stakes are much, much higher than we will ever see on the table top designing the rules and learning the right thing is incredibly hard.  I think we lean into arguments of either incompetence or intentional malfeasance way too quickly ignoring again that no war game is fought in Lake Wobegon, where all the factions are strong, all the models good looking and all the war scrolls are above average…

[A Positivity Palete Cleanser]

Want to give a shout out to the other members of Zoom League.  I’m very rarely at a loss for words but last night in the middle of the game I was playing another member entered the stream and gave me the cryptic instructions “look inside your closet”.

Instead of it being the start of a horror movie or a weird gag I found myself staring at a NIB Archaon.  The other members had gotten together to get it for me and then one had driven over, given it to my wife to hide in the room above the garage where the table is set up to allow us to play games over Zoom.

I was truly flabbergasted.  I’ve done Zoom League for love of the game and how it brings friends together.  Won’t deny it is a lot of work setting up two games and week and moving all the pieces, even in games I’m not actually playing.  But I had considered it well worth it.

Their expression of gratitude though was amazing.  So grateful to them for this and a quarantine that saw me playing more AoS than ever.

Now to figuring out how to add Archaon to Tzeentch and Khorne!

[What would you like for AoS 3]

If there is a 10.1 gotta guess there’s a 10.2 and, dare we hope, a 10.3?

Maybe those will have terrain etc.

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

30 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

They forecast sales when they produce units. We know there must be "bad" units in order for there to be "good" units. They run a tighter ship that most think but of course they aren't perfect.

At this point though I think our positions are clear and we can move on to talking about rules, not their business

I think we do both agree that there are good and bad units as well as that too many are quick to point to the bad as evidence of incompetence.  Agree we disagree on the intent behind good and bad units.  

As regards the rules themselves I am actually happy that Lake Wobegon (where all the factions are strong, all the models are good looking, and all the war scrolls are above average) is NOT one of the Mortal Realms (guessing it would be tucked in somewhere between Hysh and Ghyran?).  I get a lot of pleasure riding up and down the unit and faction quality curves.

The positive for me is that I think this spectrum is a feature of a complex dynamic system, not a bug.  At the same time I recognize how easily this could spin out of control until the whole system breaks down. Happily for me it does seem there are enough competent mechanics working at GW burning the midnight oil to keep this from happening.

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

10 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:

Yet every single time I see someone saying X and Y was bad on release, this must mean GW are incompetent and don't use rules for sales.

GW can be competent or incompetent when writing rules without it having anything to do with whether they use specific war scroll rules for sales.  

As @NinthMusketeer has already pointed out GW is actually pretty darn competent.  AoS and 40k are massively multivariate though even the most competent writers will have hits and misses.  Even the most competent writers on a deadline will have hits and misses.  Combine massively multivariate with deadlines and you’ll certainly have hits and misses.

To me at least, that is a simpler explanation than GW intentionally sacrificing some units (paying a high price in inventory costs as a result) to artificially boost others.

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

6 minutes ago, Grimrock said:

As far as the rules driving sales, we might not be able to see all hobbyists everywhere but thanks to GW's recent stock issues we can at least get a glimpse of what's selling well. I've been tracking a few new armies from 40k on GW's webstore and I'm definitely seeing a correlation between what's considered good/OP and what's regularly sold out. For example with Death Guard, they got a  fantastic looking new terrain piece in their new book but it has generally been considered as sub par rules-wise (as is most terrain in 40k for some reason). Unsurprisingly I can't remember ever seeing it out of stock. Conversely, the Blightlord Terminators and Deathshroud Terminators were existing kits, but they got massive improvements in their rules. They've basically been sold out on the web store since the previews dropped the week before the codex release. The correlation was also pretty obvious in Necrons for quite a while after their release, but they're losing popularity now and most of their models are back in stock. Unfortunately it isn't always as clear in AoS factions, possibly because they're getting better stock from GW or possibly because there's more demand for 40k. 

Yeah, I 100% agree there’s a correlation between the value of a WS (which includes points) and sales.  The out of stocks an argument against intent as if you were intentionally trying to drive say, Deathshroud Terminators you would’ve built up more inventory before the tome to avoid the out of stock.

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

I’ve read the article (a few times, because it is interesting) but again Timmy is explicitly described as blind buying.  He gets a pack that he doesn’t know what is in and is excited to find a rare power card.  Left unsaid is what happens when he doesn’t find that rare card.  False scarcity is an explicit part of MtG’s business model.  They could print as many power cards as they want and make sure almost every pack has one but they don’t so people will buy more packs in hope of finding one.

While there are certain limited sets there is zero false scarcity or uncertainty involved in a GW single unit purchase.  Want Kragnos/Archaon/Nagash/Texkis/Kroak/etc. you don’t have to but a bunch of boxes and hope.  You just buy them.

Again, I fully believe GW analyzes sales figures and absolutely it influences the big stuff like which armies get new models etc.  I am just skeptical that it is a major influence on individual WS.  I think that in the end is where we differ.

GW invested a lot of money designing, marketing and producing Kragnos.  I doubt they intentionally sacrificed him to sell more Kroak.

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

It has been literally decades since I played MtG but isn’t the biggest difference that MtG you have to buy the card packs with some uncertainty re:what you’re going to get in the primary market? (Understand there’s a secondary market but WotC doesn’t directly benefit from that to my understanding.). Even setting aside the huge price differential in a retail priced pack of MtG cards and say, Kragnos, that’s a very different business model.  But again, has been 20+ years since I checked in on MtG so maybe I’m missing something…

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

It’s a correlation vs causation question.  Certainly rules influence sales. This does not have to mean that GW is intentionally writing rules to specifically drive sales.  To use a simple example I just do not believe that somebody in inventory management called up the rules writers when they were doing StD and said, “hey, we’ve got a lot of Marauders boxes down here.  Can you tune up their WS so we can clear them out?”  

Completely agree that GW has sales analysts.  But also know that the lags are simply huge here re: the level of fine tuning sometimes suggested in these threads.  

[New Board Size (44x60) - How will it impact AOS?]

With Zoom League we’ve accidentally been playing close to this with a 48”x58” set up.  The points increase to reduce models would be a variation on our general tendency to play elites but what I am more curious about is whether there will be a change in objective control zone (I.e. down to 3” vs current 6”, feel this almost destined since I went out and got the 6” templates…) or more particularly in the deployment zones?

Smaller table size definitely made it a lot easier to screen off board edge ambushes, even with smaller unit sizes.

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, Jefferson Skarsnik said:

Ranged units being able to shoot into melee opponents they're engaged with bugs the hell out of me, the idea that they would be able to switch between ranged weapons and hand to hand weapons on the fly while being attacked and actually be able to hit with the ranged weapons without penalty is so immersion breaking.

Like "oh no, the archers we charged down are shooting us in their shooting phase! We are powerless to prevent this!"

You should have to pick which one (ranged/melee) to use imo, and the ranged weapon should be at a penalty to hit unless it's a pistol or something else designed for close range blasting 😤

This is probably the one thing in switching from historical to AoS that I just can’t “get over” in sense of immersion breaking, whether it is shoot while in combat, shoot into a combat where other units in your army are engaged without penalty, or the whole “god funnel” where 30 archers can target a single Hero somehow…. Add in the non-sensible terrain issues and pretty much I just have to get through the Shooting Phase with brain logic turned off.  Lots o& potential solutions but the area of new rules I’ll read first.

[No Vampire Vampire Armies]

On 5/28/2021 at 5:49 AM, Raptor_Jesues said:

you mean ****** terrifying

My first child’s pre-k teacher was very confused when she showed her a picture of a goose and she called it a daemon spawn like I always have 😂

but now I really want a Terrorgoose for my FEC

[Tossed into the Mawpot! Soup Armies Thoughts and Feelings?]

4 minutes ago, DoctorPerils said:

 

However, what's gotten me most excited is the implied presence of Chaos Dwarves - if they were to soup them with S2D or anything else I'd be fine with that, they definitely seem to have a cult following, but not certain there's enough of one to make a stand alone battletome... But yeee Boy, Furnace Kings on their way 🤞

As a former LoA player would love to see the return of the Chaos Dwarfs.  A good example of where I thought soup could’ve saved something I love as Execution Herd could’ve easily slotted into BoC while the Duardin went to StD.  Looks like later could happen but a fear my Execution Herd has made their last charge

[Tossed into the Mawpot! Soup Armies Thoughts and Feelings?]

2 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

I think we are getting into a slightly different debate (my fault!). For me, soup is an effort to consolidate factions so that you can keep them relevant together, given that you wouldn't be able to support them separately (or wouldn't want to, it is just business, after all). By support I mean a combination of new models and keeping the old models relevant.

And it is the concept that soup has to mean lack of support that I’m trying to push back on because I have seen soup as a potential way to give players more flexibility in how they play and thus increasing the probability that they will get support, both in the form of new models and updates of existing.

It’s an interesting needle to thread.  Soulblight (if that is considered an update of LoN soup) did all three things.  They squatted some old models.  They updated some old models.  They introduced some new models.  Mawtribes so far updated the Tyrant and side-updated the Icebrow Hunter.  Warclans has so far leaned in the new model direction.  In the later cases though it may just be a matter of time before we see more of the rest.

I’m less familiar with 40k but the majority of SM models for sale are still non-Primaris and when, for example, I read Goonhammer’s meta analysis it is rare to find a SM list that is more than 50% Primaris.  (Maybe they’re over represented on the lower tables?). My GW store manager actively discouraged me from trying to build an all Primaris SM army if I wanted to be competitive.

But yes, I think this is where this thread ends up struggling us that a lot of anti-soup seems to include that negative connotation of lack of support in its very definition.  If your definition is inherently negative of course those in favor are going to sound… irrational at best.  Who can be pro-negative after all?

Yet my experience of soup and the majority examples I’ve seen so far, whether in AoS or 40k, are positive.  So my basic definition of soup is more mechanical and neutral in form and from there I look and see what I gained or lost.  With lots of experience with Mawtribes I feel very comfortable saying it was a net gain.

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, Turgol said:

I am not sure if this has been discussed, but doesnt the set also look unbalanced? All sorts of elites by SCE with the same amount of heroes than Kruelboyz, one of which is top tier? Yndrasta or whatever she is called might cost close to an important part of the boyz side by herself!

I can’t find it right now but this seems to be a long tradition for GW where point disparities between the two side are common.  That said who knows what points logic is coming?

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

14 minutes ago, Maddpainting said:

Ambush is going to be much harder actually. Losing 12" means less space to place models, which means less space to have outside of 9". Having played 40k all of 9th with smaller tables, its is noticeable for sure.

This.

exactly my worry unless somehow points, tighter coherency size, etc. somehow compact the space taken up by models in 3e

[AoS 2 - Legion Of Azgorh Discussion]

With Kragnos in destruction I highly doubt the Execution Herd would come back with the Furnace Kings, so my excitement partially diminished.

Ghur also just feels like a weird place to introduce them.

[Tossed into the Mawpot! Soup Armies Thoughts and Feelings?]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

True, but we have a bad precedent with SM. Some elements within the SM soup are pretty bad for extensive periods of time (e.g. Dark Angles SM).

All I am saying is that while new models are cool, more support for existing lines is needed. Sometimes this means adding extra minis to factions like FS, or making sure they can soup well with good rules. Just effort into certain parts of the game that are not precisely thriving.

I think we will all agree that SC did not need new models when some many of the units in the old range are barely used.

I’m happy to keep evolving the discussion as to whether soup makes you more or less competitive and whether we want to define that at the holistic level or piece by piece.

But again, look at the space marine precedent re:existing models.  We get Primaris than 9e and Primaris starts absolutely dominating lists?  No.  Sure you see some Primaris like Eradicators or Bladeguard shine.  But you also see older models like attack bikes and vanguard vets come through as excellent.  And given all the different factions you really do see a diverse mix of units when you start looking across lists whether you’re talking new vs old or any other category.

Fully agree that SCE didn’t need new models just like SM didn’t need new models.  But if I want a better SCE tome that makes more units viable SM/Indomitus/Primaris/9e precedent suggests that just maybe I get it from SCE/Dominion/3e new models.  

Could SCE tome flop?  Of course.  But I can’t look at Indomitus & Primaris in 9e and say it made legacy SM worse across the board.

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

Again, an issue of priorities

I think the tough part is we’re really talking three different parts of GW.  The people making the decisions that keep the lights on and the factories running, the people making the models and the people writing the rules.  The most common points of intersection between these three groups are decisions on new editions, new battletomes and new models.  Even at the prices they charge my guess is rule sets and tomes are a break even equation, and that overtime.  If you understand business break even drives you bankrupt because it doesn’t include all the overhead and other items that are a reality for businesses and ignores the timing if cash flows.  GW has to invest a lot of money upfront long before we plunk down our preorders.

So it is unrealistic to expect a new edition without new models to drive sales to cover those costs.  Similarly we know that the most likely catalyst for a new tome is new models.

So if we want GW to prioritize fixing issues in battletomes (or supplements like BR or WD) we have to accept that these investments in time and money are largely paid for via new models.  Put another way the rules writing team is massively subsidized by the models team.

Which isn’t to say they shouldn’t bolster the rules writing teams.  I think they clearly have.  It really is showing in 9e 40k so I am hopeful for 3e AoS.

That said I recognize how long a cycle it really is.  The most consistent figure I here is GW operates on a three year cycle.  GW has almost doubled in the last three years.  Yet it would’ve been foolish for GW to have budgeted as if they’d achieve the growth they’ve achieved.  As growth has exceeded budget forecasts I am not surprised GW remains a bit behind the curve hiring wise.  As I do expect a slowdown in 2022/23 fiscal year given all the demand pull forward from COVID, 9e, and 3e I am guessing that is when we’ll start to see them catch up.

[AoS 2 - Beasts of Chaos Discussion]

3 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

We're getting a smaller board size in aos 3 too, so our ambush covers more of the available space and bringing in a unit of Gors to tag the edge of a unit, where only a couple of enemy models can fight will be a super useful tool that has the potential to repeatedly gum up our opponent's board.

Been running a Beasts of Khorne Brass Despoilers list and looking at ways to run it as actual BoC.  It brought up the general worry that with a smaller board any board edge based ambush going to be easier and easier to screen off.  Fewer units may be an offset but looking at BoC or even FEC summoning this seems to be a potential snag.

[Tossed into the Mawpot! Soup Armies Thoughts and Feelings?]

9 minutes ago, King Under the Mountain said:

I think you are missing the forest for the trees.  I dont want a soup because I want Kharadron (and also Fyreslayers) to stand on their own and receive all the benefits of being a major faction.  Again your argument with Orruk Warclans hold's no water because  Ironjawz or Bonesplitterz have not received support. 

To break it down simpler.  I am a Kharadron Overlords player.  We get souped.  Suddenly they add a 3rd Dwarf faction of skinny jungle Dwarfs that worship a Dragon and are in no way related at all too Kharadron's theme and culture.  While you would say "See look how much support they are getting now!", I would still be disappointed. 

What I am trying to do is address multiple different parts of the soup argument.

One point that has regularly been raised is that soup tomes don’t get new models support.  I think that one can pretty clearly be set aside at this point as many people have highlighted that soup is not a determinative factor in support.  Now that the one soup people cited as having gotten nothing in the new models category when souped has been about doubled in size hopefully we can move past that.

I’m actually fine with you labeling that a forest argument but I’m also happy to talk trees because your specific concern is whether or not there will be specific sub-categories of models within the soup and that is a narrower part.  I understand there is a lot of debate as regards to how to count them but I would note that both sides of Warclans have now gotten Underworlds models.  I regularly face Ironskulz Boyz on the table so here they are actually played.  And I fully expect to see more IJ and BS coming in 3.0 particularly BECAUSE the Orruk soup is now a bigger part of the game and the narrative.

If you don’t want to count the two new sets of IJ models and one set of BS models Warclans has gotten because you don’t count the warbands (either because they don’t have good rules or are a tax on your drops) I’m not going to argue with you because that’s personal preference/subjective.  But our personal preferences don’t change the reality that those warbands were made.

So whether you want to talk about the Warclans forest double in size or the number of IJ or BS trees increasing it is clear both have happened.

And I think the same would be true in a combined dwarf forest too.  More absolute trees, as well as more KO trees and more Fyreslayers trees.  That’s what the precedents seem to show.

[Tossed into the Mawpot! Soup Armies Thoughts and Feelings?]

4 hours ago, Greybeard86 said:

The new orcs are fine, but I could not help but feel that adding more models in a new faction  while talking about the need to consolidate was a tad odd.

GW was explicit in saying these new models will be playable in Orruk Warclans, a frequently referenced soup tome in this thread because it didn’t get any new models when it was souped.  As far as I can tell the number if models in the Orruk Soup that is Big Waaagh!!! Just about doubled with that announcement.

And if we’re able to look past our AoS corner at other precedents to see if GW tends to support soup with new models we can easily see that GW’s single biggest moneymaker is the ultimate soup called Space Marines.  Again, I just don’t see much evidence no matter where I look that soup in GW means neglect model wise.

[Discussing the quality of rules in AoS]

1 hour ago, Greybeard86 said:

And right as we are discussing this here, we set yet another avalanche of new models.

What gives me some hope is that these are, in one way or another, expansions of existing factions (SCE and Orruk Warclans).  40k hasn’t stopped releasing new models.  In direct comparison Space Marines got a ton of new Primaris models and 40k Orks are going to get Beast Snaggas.  But in each case GW is building on what already exists so while we’ll have to wait and see for Beast Snaggas, Primaris didn’t fundamentally change 40k’s design philosophy and 8e nor was Primaris the prime driver of 9e design philosophy updates.

[AoS2 - Dankhold Troggoth Discussion]

Here’s hoping new Troggoth can at least be ally.

But in looking over these new units thought of a new unit of Troggoths I want for Dankhold.

Trogs with giant frog like bellies and mouths using giant blow dart blowguns that are actually just hollow logs and the darts just primitive spears.  Skinks ain’t got nothing on that!

[AoS3 - Kruleboyz Discussion]

6 minutes ago, novakai said:

yeah its a wait and see since the article said one thing, but Warhammer weekly said that they get their own tome

the only thing is that the Warscroll cards say Kruleboyz on them instead of Orruk Warclan and they don't usually use Sub-allegiance name to name their cards on

 

I have a strange feeling there could be a LRL split/Gloomspite Gitz WD aspect to this.  If I had to guess there will be a slim Kruelboyz tome with cards, dice, etc. to make a nice clean launch product and then in early 2022 we’ll get the new & improved Orruk Warclans tome with all three and I’m guessing a couple new units for IJ and BS (likely heroes).

With all the struggles lately it just seems optimistic to think they’ve 3.0d all of Warclans.  But as long as they are Warclans compatible day zero I’m actually pretty okay with this.