Greybeard86

That's simply not true, in this case. Recasters do not have the volume of production, nor the whole logistics + production chain optimization that GW can rely on. Simply put, it is far cheaper for GW to produce the kits than it is for recasters, in general, even though the latter do not need to pay for the true development costs of the product. You do not need to believe me, GW is publicly traded and you have information on their margins. Knock offs are a viable business mostly based on some kits with outrageously high prices; when it comes to typical plastic kits, the "savings" are far slimmer. It is the same for 3D printed stuff, with some people saying it will kill the hobby. Printing at home minis is only viable because GW has monopoly levels of prices, it is extremely inefficient to print models with a home 3D printer machine. Again, it looks "cheaper" because of the very high margins GW is putting on the models, but GW can produce those minis at far cheaper prices. Does not matter, even accounting for this GW is operating at eye watering margins. And honestly, I dislike those types of models. They are prone to breaking, difficult to transport, and often "overdesigned". There is a middle ground between chunky pre-rogue trader and the cowboys (literally, cow boy), and for my taste it was the mid to late 2000s.

Well, GW margins are public information. In any case, blaming on recast ers the demise of those iconic models seems a stretch. Bad rules, uncertainty over updates, high prices, or a history of squashing models are likely reasons why some of the evil entitled gamers turn to recasters. I mean, it is not like knock offs are exclusive to the miniatures market. Here they are a very natural reaction to prices that are, to a large extent, the result of excessive market concentration. The success of GW is bittersweet for hobbiests, since it does keep the game alive and thriving, and creates a certain common home (easy to find games, common interest to large numbers, those are positive externalities) but it also fuels some of the “bad practices” by GW (rules inconsistencies to fuel sales, prices hikes, planned obsolescence of models, , aggressive market domination strategies against competitors). From a selfish standpoint, I want GW to do well, and the hobby to be popular, but I do not want that success to be capitalized by GW too much. I am not a huge fan of recasts, I’d prefer legit companies to enter the fray, but someone is needed to keep GW on their toes.

I want plain looking satyrs and centaurs for Kurnothi, and then valhalla dawi also plain looking...I mean seriously, not like the old ones weren't outrageous anyway I just hope old world isn't all like those magic kislev whatever, but that they recover the more "grounded" aesthetic a tad. I mean, for insanely looking things, we already have plenty of stuff in AoS. To me, it no longer stands out as everything is kinda wacky.

Sadly, normie dwarves and AoS is apparently heading the way of the squat... :(

Centaurs, satyrs and similar things for Kurnoth. Less emphasis on trees and more on animals, I d say. I dont know what is needed to make them competitive, but I hope GW future proofs more the battletomes now that aos is a bit more mature. It freaking sucks all that roller coaster from OP to trash tier.

I understand what you mean and you are probably right. That said, I still find those knights "overly designed" and would prefer fewer details in the armor and shields, and the barding / caparison of the horses. Again, I think there should be an "economy" of details, just some models benefit more than others from certain extra bits. I do not think the knights needed some of those.

We can have the same opinion on GW's stuff too, I don't think it is bias necessarily. Though, at the end of the day, it is a matter of taste so hard to agree. I think brets benefit from a "clean" look. But I do like goblins and trolls having a few more little details here and there, making them look more "messy".

Sometimes, less is more. For example, I am currently painting blood pass miners and they are simple yet I like them a lot, very effective design in my book. As the poster above me says, those brets seem a tad too much for me.

That is what balance and game design is meant to accomplish, to create a diverse game. It is like those all 2d fighting games, if the game was best played by spamming a certain attack, they'd become stale. True, competitive players will gravitate towards that even if it is boring. The question is whether the overall design of the game counteracts this, or not. I am mainly a "hobby" oriented person, but I like to have the chance to play fun somehow balanced games (granted, not these days due to covid-19). I wanted to assemble at least 2 "decent" collections for games, one for Gitz and the other for dwarves (mainly not steampunk). Turns out I hit two of the worse armies: i) gitz players will rightfully point out that you must specialize or have an outrageoulsy weak army, ii) dispossessed synergyze very poorly with fyreslayers, and fyreslayers have incredibly narrow range and list variety. The third collection I looked at, a freeguild army to have room for my old and new empire-related sculpts, also features lots of spammy lists (pistolier spam, demi spam, etc.). I am also painting a bunch of sylvaneth but have no plans to take them anywhere for gaming. I am not as pessimistic. I have seem GW achieve more "viable" compositions in 40k, I am positive they can find a viable role for both trolls and goblins. That is, if they try!

I was unaware of this. Fantastic! It has a DoW flavor to it that I love. I have the majority of DoW RoW that I plan on using as counts as free guild units, I would love to have official rule support and new miniatures to mix in.

Many thanks, to the both of you, for bringing examples and evidence to the table. As a newcomer to AoS, I am eager to learn. I do not think spam is "inherent" to AOS, rather that it is a natural consequence of keyword restrictions and battalion implementation. Those books that do not seem to rely on either, apparently have better diversity. But in the books where they are powerful, narrower lists seem to emerge. Is that a fair assessment?

Preach! I miss my normies, I even bought several mordheim warbands to use as counts as free guild. I like a pinch of outrageous in my models, but don't need it overdone.

Yet every single semi competitive list I have seen relies on battalions. That’s why I am frustrated with the system. Really? Because I look at other armies and I see similar things. Fyreslayers also have HB blocks as the core, or demigryph spam with hammerfall. In fact, among the competitive lists I have read, it is rare not to find spam. I am open to being proved wrong, but nevertheless it seems to me that he current keyword / battalion system does tend to encourage narrow compositions. it makes sense, you pay a tax to bring support heroes and battalions, you need to make most of it by picking mostly along the units buffed by them and decent enough unit sizes to make it work. I mean anyone can see that’s what the system Encourages. Then, there is the further later of unit imbalance and battalion imbalance. Some are better than others so even then more restrictions on what you can bring without handicapping your list. I understand battalions and so on are about trying to make more units competitive. But they are so taxing that they end up eating most of the points pool. Eliminate the taxes and restrict the battalion size and you my then be able to pick more than one theme for a list.

I just want to point out, folks, that it is only about "bad" and "good" units. Following the example of Gitz, you can make goblins, trolls, or squigs moderately competitive (we all know how they do in tournies, but still), you just can't do it for more than 1 type of unit in one army. I guess battalions and narrow keywords precisely did what you guys seem to want (liften underperforming units) but at the cost of sacrificing variety. Just go on any list builder and put in the requirements for a Gitz battalion, with reasonable unit sizes. There just aren't any points to do anything else. How does that lead to fun diverse armies? :(

I would add to this that while this is true, battalions also play a role. For example, if I am a gitz player, I can choose between battalions that buff squigs, spiders, trolls, or goblins. Once you pick that battalion, you pay a tax and, after filling the requirements, you really can't expand much, if at all, into other types of units. That's how you end up with only trolls, only goblins, only squigs, etc. Then there is the issue of internal balance, which further compounds. The newest release for Gitz was a white dwarf battalion for trolls, glogg's megamob. One of the key abilities is the ability to retreat, then shoot and charge. If you fulfill the battalion's requirements, you are left with extremely few points to do anything else. Then, within the battalion clearly fellwater trolls are better than rotguts. Why? Because they can shoot it seems custom made for them. Given that mathhammer already favors fellwater trolls on the offensive in many ways, this completely tips the balance. So you end up with an army that SPAMS fellwater trolls LINK. I would dread having to paint fellwater after fellwater model like that. I would love to have a gitz tribe face my dwarves, perhaps a bit heavy on trolls (of both types!), but including some squigs, some little gitz, maybe even a giant (I have some lovely giants of albion waiting in storage for an opportunity like this). You know, something that might ressemble a bit more a true gitz mob. And I do not want that army to be absolutely terrible on the table top.

Preach! Discontinuing models is in the top 3 worse things GW can do to consumers.

Here there is a key consideration: yes, you can build a diverse army, but it requires that you ignore the game's design, in the sense that you need to make "bad" choices. Creating a trade off between choosing "well" and having "diversity" is a bad thing, IMO. Diversity is obviously not ALL about keywords, but keywords are certainly part of it. I am well aware that this is all by design, hence this thread. They have hyperfocused armies, and I find that unfun. Sure, I can ignore their design and paint, and even play, whatever I want. But I would prefer a game system that encourages diversity, not one that works against it. I mentioned it elsewhere, but to continue with the Gitz example (who doesn't LOVE the little gobbos? and this is coming from a dwarf collector): For example Gitz have the following themes: 1) spiders, 2) squigs, 3) goblin hordes, 4) trolls, 5) big monsters, 6) mushroom magic. I would love for competitive armies to have at least 3 themes. Currently, you get mostly 1 theme within a competitive army, thanks to keywords and battalions. I think softening that would make for far more fun armies to play and collect, though obviously that is subjective. Frankly, I find the current "gaming" lists incredibly boring. While I can simply ignore the game and go on with my dioramas and display armies, I figured I'd come discuss with the community and see if anyone felt similarly.

8th edition wasn't like that either; it is the game's rules, not the edition. That's the part that is shocking to me. Coming from old WHFB, where armies had multiple models in the range, it was already a shock to see how in AoS you could have such narrow ranges. Before checking the new fantasy, I spent some time painting and collecting 40k and spam is not as bad there. But then I looked at the rules and the lists that resulted from following them in AoS (i.e. matched competitive lists, if you are just going to ignore the game design and play whatever you want, that's a different thing), and I was baffled. People running only demis, or only charriots, or 2 blocks of witchelfs and buffers, or 2x2 fyreslayers, or only eels. Those are not rare armies, and then I realized that keywords and battalions did reward focusing the army so much. I am guessing not ALL armies are this way, but a couple of afternoons browsing showed me that they are far more common than in 40k (not even talking about other completely different systems, others have covered that). I get it, spamming "efficient" has always been the competitive way. I believe rules should be making "efficient" as diverse as possible (within an army), not further narrowing it. I looked at the battleforce for gits and it looked nice, some goblins, some trolls, some bosses. Then I read the reviews and checked the rules. The horror!

Again, skew is only as good as you can brute force units into different roles. At the moment, 40k has managed to create fairly diverse armies (granted vehicles are suffering now). The vast majority of winning competitive lists do lean hard on the FOTM units, but they rarely are 6 units of demis and a heroe type of things. So I just don't see the conclusion you point to here as "inevitable"; it is not, and the same company achieved better diversity in their other product. I think this is besides the point. Yes, competitive play tends to lean hard on the best, thus lowering diversity. But AoS has rules that strongly disfavor diversity, on top of it, via keywording and battalion specificity; or you disagree on this specific point? That is the point of my thread. They seem OK, in heavily focused armies. To the point that the battleforce was mocked because it had two cores that do not work together well. The diversity I am talking about is not having one viable list of trolls, another for squigs, and a final one for goblins. Rather, I'd love to see them play together for more diverse lists (within the list, not across lists).

Strongly agree with the battalion point, but somehow you seem to have a different conclusion. Battalions were meant to buff different parts of the army to make those units competitive. However, given the point costs, the "efficiency" of the buffing, and keyword considerations, battalions super-focused armies as a result. We return to the point that if one unit is "the best" then it will be spammed. Only if what is "optimal" is optimal in all situations, against all targets. A unit might be a good horde killer, and bad monster killer. Then even if said unit is very "efficient" at horde killer, you won't simply spam it because you'd be decimated by monsters. I know this is not in the OP, but I do think that unit specialization and diversity are inherently tied. Similar points can be made about defensiveness, buffing units, and other characteristics. Really? Because looking at competitive lists I see a super high prevalence of spam. I do think that "themed" armies are fun, and I do like that they support them; I just dislike when themed becomes spam. I think one of the issues is that currently there simply isn't room for more than a single theme in a lot of armies. Sometimes this is because the base army has a very narrow range, but in other cases this is due to keyword "abuse". Ideally, armies should have several viable "themes". Encouraged armies should be those with at least a couple such themes, and at some point unfocused diversity should be penalized (in relative terms). For example Gitz have the following themes: 1) spiders, 2) squigs, 3) goblin hordes, 4) trolls, 5) big monsters, 6) mushroom magic. I would love for competitive armies to have at least 3 themes. I am just exploring the premise. The specialization bit already is in the game (e.g. high vs low rend). In any case, my main point remains the diversity bit.

That could be certainly a way: not only add variety via role specialization (so that you can't use trolls for everything, or demis, or whatever), but also via the interaction with the objectives of the game. I'd prefer a bit of both, to be honest. In any case, I think a lot of us just want good excuses to field diverse armies other than "I am shooting myself on the foot for the visuals".

Yes, min-maxing is a thing, and it is hard to escape. However, low diversity is more prevalent in AoS due to keyword specificity. You don't see as many entire armies of X in 40k, even though some people attempt it.

This is a general problem; when internal balance is lacking, some units get spammed. In competitive, this is hard to escape. However, AoS adds another layer to it by doubling down on it via keyword specificity and battalions. The funny part of this is that probably this was done to make sure multiple units of an army would be competitive (at least within the battalion). Furthermore, this is accomplished in "themed" armies. The problem that I see is that they are doing this with an excessively narrow focus. One thing is to increase the relative presence of some units (e.g. that goblin tribe is known for its trolls so they have some more), the other is to uber specialize then (e.g. now it is just trolls, or demigryphs, or whatever). Again, the way the buffs are handed is such that attempting to have "diversity" is penalized; one heroe buffing 3 units is "cost effective"; having to buy a "heroe" per unit is not. In the way it is currently done, armies do look a bit like one trick ponies. The HB spam, the eel spam, the demigryph spam, the witchelf spam, the troll spam. It is, of course, still "hard" to pilot them well and have them do whatever they are supposed to do, but the armies look incredibly repetitive to me. It just compounds the issue of them releasing armies with extremely narrow ranges (e.g. slayers on fyre? two models and heroes). For me, the solution is a combination of diminishing the role of "combos" and "deathstar buffs", and making sure there is a bit more unit specialization. Right a lot of units are just good against everything, after buffs. So if you can just use HB and high efficiency against monsters, chaff, and what not, then you will spam that efficient unit to no end. While full specialization can lead to unfun situations, a bit more could be used.

You have the answer below. Squatting models, leaving them unsupported for years, combined with high prices is what turns people away. Sure, some people will buy recast even if the rules and support are amazing. But frankly, as the poster above me says, even those who bought the original models are telling people not to buy certain FW models. It is painful to see. Chaos dwarves are so much more flavourful than some of the, IMO, super bland options in plastic (cough sigmarines cough).

I am well aware of some the internal balance issues. But besides that, why isn't there more synergy between units in an army? Why must I pick between trolls or goblins, between squigs or stabbas, and so on, if I trully want to create a competitive list? I feel this is more due to buffs and keywords than just bad internal balance. Even if there are a few "viable" competitive compositions for an army (so I guess decent internal balance), they tend to go all out but simply on different units. Woudln't it be more fun to see more diversity?