Ferban
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Posts posted by Ferban
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2 minutes ago, The Red King said:
Also can't be certain but there's a real chance khorne can't ignore endless spells now because what would that rule look like?
I think it would be pretty easy to craft such a rule. Look at the prosecutors who have a 4+ chance to ignore any non-CORE ability. You could do the same thing saying Khorne units have a 4+ (or whatever number) chance to ignore any abilities, including fight abilities, from endless spells.
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Endless spells and faction terrain this time.
Overall, really like the changes. I've been advocating that endless spells shouldn't cost points (or cost waaay less) for a long time. So I'm glad to see that. Breaking it into lores means each army will get a few that they can bring. So we'll get more use out of our models which is always good.
Also, they will be much more like units on the battlefield. So they can be charged, fought, damaged, and killed. Love this change. If you bring an army with no or few wizards, the only way to deal with an endless spell before was to try to kill the controlling wizard and then move the spell on your turn. Eh. But now, it can be killed. So a melee focused army has a way to deal with endless spells. I like it.
Same with faction terrain. They are units that can be attacked and destroyed. Which is interesting. It'll make many armies want to keep their terrain in the back away from enemy attacks. Which may or may not be good given the terrain's powers. Some terrain (like Seraphon zaps or Ogor heals) often want to be closer to the battle to have a greater effect. I like this change, too.
Overall, super positive about this preview. The actual warscrolls for the spells and terrain is going to be very important, and they only showed off a few. But assuming those scrolls are decent, I think this is a great system.
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I subscribe. The amount of content vs price was always a little questionable. But I really like the animations - even the 40k ones although I don't play 40k much. However, in the last year(ish), it feels like the animations have really slowed down. And that was the best part of the service, to me.
In the beginning, the total content was small, but it seemed like we were getting new shows fairly frequently. Blood Angels, Interrogator, and a bunch of others. As long as they continued to come out, I was OK with subscribing. But it seems like the content has gotten shorter and shorter, and there are more and more long breaks with nothing new. At least my kid likes the battle reports. Loremasters also used to be better. It doesn't seem like they could run out of interesting topics with the lore as vast as it is, but the new episodes do seem to be on the decline.
I'm subscribed through August, but I have serious doubts that I'll continue subscribing without some increase in content.
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17 minutes ago, Mutton said:
I'm now waiting for the article that tells me how I can modularly delete Battle Tactics from my games.
Both Spearhead and PtG games don't use battle tactics. Matched Play is great and I get a ton of those games in. But I typically enjoy the more narrative focused games more anyway. I want my goal to be "Kill that general" or "desecrate their walls" or "protect the artifact" or "Escape before you're killed." Those always bring more fun moments than just seeing who can stand in circles better.
Speaking of PtG, I wasn't a huge fan of the 3.0 system. After playing about 30 games, it sort of felt like Warhammer with additional homework. Meh. But I very much enjoyed the more narrative battles. Would love to see more support for those in the next edition.
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Battle tactics article today. A disappointment, but not nearly as bad as it could have been.
Essentially, the 3.0 system of tactics is staying. You pick one each turn, you have one turn to do it. You get points. So, I imagine some of the current criticisms will stay. For me, the biggest is that it can start to make games feel homogenous if you build a list and just do the same five tactics every game. In the same order. That makes the game feel samey even across very different battle plans. So, not ideal.
Looking on the bright side, though, this system has some modest improvements over 3.0's system. Yes, tactics are staying. But they are getting rid of book tactics. I disliked those not only because of the disparity in difficulty (there were haves and have-nots), but also because GW used them as a balancing tool. Army underperforming? Here's an easy battle tactic. It's lazy and artificially inflates the data without addressing the underlying weaknesses or problems of the army. And if you're playing PtG, it does nothing to help the army. They stay just as bad as they ever were.
The GHB will also add two per grand alliance. Maybe that's good? But I worry if games started to feel samey with the battle tactics that lasted one season, how samey will it feel with battle tactics that last an entire edition?
On balance, this is the biggest disappointment. But I think its unlikely to be much worse than the current edition. So it doesn't stop me wanting to play 4.0 (there have been so many huge improvements announced). I think overall 4.0 will be better. It's just disappointing this one area of complaint didn't see significant revision.
Also, losing out on 40% of the turn's points is going to be too much to recover from in most cases. Double turns are going to be far, far more rare.
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6 hours ago, Beliman said:
It is weird that we talked about Magic, Commands, Movement, Fighting, Battle Traits & Formations and Battlepacks/Battleplans... but we still don't have any article about the Shooting Phase?
I think it is notable. But I'm taking it to mean that there are few changes in the Shooting Phase so the article wouldn't have much to say. Probably sticking with true line of sight, etc.
Maybe they'll do an article on the new terrain module and shooting will get covered within that. If they talk about "Obscuring" or "Covering" terrain, that might be the needed hook to talk about the (presumably) minor changes to shooting.
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5 minutes ago, Gutsu17 said:
You are looking at it wrong, faction tactics *are* the balancing tool, a faction has a very low winrate? give them a super easy secondary, they are winning too much? give them a harder one
Oof. This reminds me of the "Hunter and Hunted" battle scroll where they straight up just gave extra points to the low performing armies. Yes, maybe this meant they got more points and won more. But it didn't address the substantive reasons for the low performance. Rather than look at addressing warscrolls, battle traits, and the like - the things that would make the army play better and be more enjoyable - they simply tacked on a few extra points to artificially skew the win rates. Even while the army had the same underlying struggle.
I would much rather see balance applied to armies and units directly rather than simply tossing a few extra points (in the form of easy tactics) on low performers to artificially boost numbers.
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Today's article is up and all about battle plans.
Basically .... they are the same as now. Even the scoring stays the same points for one objective, points for two, points for more than opponent, and points for battle tactics. All points have doubled so that you can get 10 in a round. Apparently to make tournaments easier to score.
Good. I like that scoring system and I'm glad its staying. However, I'm a little disappointed battle tactics seem to be staying in about their same incarnation. We'll get a further article on battle tactics later this week (probably Friday), but that wasn't the best news.
Also, if battle tactics are worth 40% of your potential points in a turn, then missing out on a tactic is a HUUUUGE disincentive to take the double. Sure, there may be games where it still makes sense. But I think this game is going to be I Go You Go the majority of the time.
They did mention better terrain rules, but no details. So I'll reserve judgment there, but I'm glad we're getting some real rules. Terrain in AoS has always been lackluster and ad hoc.
Lastly, they seem to indicate that the General's Handbook is a relatively light touch. They imply that it just adds one rule - the Honor Guard rule. Giving a buff to one unit is interesting and maybe some battle plans will focus on that. But its certainly much less impactful than Bounty Hunters or Primal Dice. Probably a good thing. The GHBs were so heavy that they often greatly changed the usefulness of units, which then changed their points, which then impacted people playing non-GHB games negatively. So a lighter touch is quite welcome.
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I mentioned this in the other thread, but the preview makes no mention of the magic "module." So is this the "module" you use with PtG and Matched Play and the Core rules have no magic system? Or is this the core system and there is some other "module" we'll be using for PtG and Matched Play?
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Magic rules are up. Casting and unbinding are basically the same as 3.0. Prayers work a little differently. Instead of single chant roll, the model can do one per turn and accumulate chant points. Some prayers have bonus powers if chanted with a greater number of points. It's an interesting idea. And I like that a priest will have something to do in that first turn. Most of their prayers might be out of range, but at least they can still warm up the chanting engines.
One disappointment, though. I was hoping we'd learn how spells function as a "module." I had assumed (perhaps wrongly) that there would be a basic spellcasting system for the core rules and then a "module" that would make changes to it. Almost like the way Andtor changes spellcasting by adding primal dice and whatnot. But the article didn't make any such distinction. So either this is the "module" and the core rules have no magic system. Or this is the core system and the "module" we'll be using for matched play and PtG is something else entirely. In which case, I'd want to know about that.
I liked what I saw today, but I'm disappointed that the most pertinent question (to me) wasn't answered.
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3 hours ago, Satyrical Sophist said:
You can’t leave combat by piling in towards another unit. It says you need to remain within combat range of any units you are already in combat range of, so you could pull away and make it harder for the enemy to get in range with the full unit, but you can’t escape combat.
Yeah, I don't think it spares the "pinned" unit from receiving any attacks. They are going to get hit with basically everything. Same as before. I think the change is that the "pinned" unit can focus all its attacks on one enemy unit.
Previously, you attack from two sides. And the "pinned" unit has to split attacks between the two adversaries because it can't pile. Splitting attacks that way generally makes the unit less effective. Now, the "pinned" unit can simply pile towards one side and get all (or nearly all) of its attacks in. So "pinning" a unit is far, far less effective. Maybe it'll be positive on balance, but it does seem to remove some significant tactical play.
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New article up today on the combat phase. For the most part, it seems pretty similar to what we're used to. But a few call outs.
Charge seems to roll the 2D6 as part of the "declare" so you'll roll first and then decide if you want to Forward to Victory. Good. That'll be far more useful.
No more abilities are "start of combat" or "end of combat" phase. Instead, they are sort of all "start of combat" with the active player using all theirs first and then the opponent using theirs. On balance, I think this is positive. I cannot count the number of times I go to activate a unit and have forgotten some "start of phase" ability they were supposed to use. Now, you sort of get all that done first and then go to fighting. So less likely to be forgotten.
Damage is allocated to the unit instead of to the model. Then when it gets high enough, you kill a model. It's a small change that I think will have very little impact on the game. But the small impact is positive. You won't have to worry about piling in and putting the guy with damage in the middle and risking a coherency break. Now, when they take damage, you can just kill a guy on the end. No coherency issue.
Speaking of which, coherency is now half an inch. I think this is positive. It'll remove even more shenanigans and also prevent small bases from lining up next to each other. So everything over 6 models is going to have to fight in ranks. Really like this one.
Retreating out of combat now requires you to take D3 mortals. Also good. Retreating should be a valid tactic. But it should also come with a cost. This is a game about fighting and killing. So a free retreat always felt a little gamey.
Pile ins. This is a major change. Now when you pile in, you pick one enemy unit and that's the unit you need to get closer to (or, technically, no farther from). That's huge! No longer can you charge with two units and pin the enemy models. Now they can simply select one of your two units and easily pile away from the other without restriction. I'm not sure I like this one. I like the simplicity. But I think it comes at the cost of tactical decision-making. I thought everything in today's article was positive except for this one. I don't like that models can simply walk away during a pile-in. Especially when retreat causes damage. Piling away should too (or come with a similar drawback).
But, as always, we don't have the full story just yet. So final judgment is reserved, but I think these changes are overall very positive but will still be familiar and easy to grasp for current players. And should be at the same level or even easier to teach new players.
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8 minutes ago, Beliman said:
There is no "wrong" or "right" about this. You are not wrong, you just have diferent preference.
Yeah I know. I'll keep painting mine in the Hammer style. I meant "internet wrong." Strongly in the minority of opinion. Thanks!
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OK. I've seen the reaction to switching up the Hallowed Knights as the default color scheme instead of the Hammers of Sigmar. So I know that this is an unpopular opinion. But am I the only one that prefers the golden boys?
The silver looks good too, don't get me wrong. But it feels sort of like ordinary knights in ordinary armor. Whereas the gold "sigmarite" armor felt otherworldly and rare - both evocative of the Stormcasts themselves. Plus, I never understood the hate for blue (capes) and gold (armor). Blue and gold isn't a totally unknown color pairing among sports teams.
Anyway, I'm OK being wrong on this one. I'm just hoping that there's at least one other person out there who likes the Hammers paint scheme.
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Today's topic covers battle traits and battle formations. Battle traits are more or less as we would expect them to be. Rules that give a particular faction special abilities. And they show off one that requires a command point. I'm not sure I'm super in love with additional command point abilities for each army, but if they are limited to one per army, maybe it will be easy enough to share the one with your opponent before each game.
The battle formations (new subfactions) seem like a miss for me. I was excited that they would no longer be tied to lore or color schemes and would instead be based on how you want to play. But the ones they showed off aren't like that at all. They are tied to Stormcast chambers. They show off one for Warriors and one for Extremis. Both seem fairly bland. For me, that's really the first rules reveal that hasn't seemed like a dramatic improvement. If anything, it's a slight downgrade as it seems to have the same problem of focusing the player down one path (all Bladegheists get mortals!) while losing the fluff that at least gave you a narrative hook to play that style.
Oh well, they can't all be bangers.
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Command points are up today. It looks like you get 4 per battle round with the one behind in points getting an extra. But that's it. no ability to get more. And no need to have a unit champion or hero nearby. Its sad to lose that fluff, but it rarely mattered in game anyway. So I think it's cleaner to just do away with that rule.
The command abilities are very reminiscent of 3.0. Although I really like the ability to charge in your opponent's charge phase. Not only will some armies absolutely love that, but I think it's powerful for nearly anyway. If someone makes a long bomb charge and barely toes in, they are often not yet grouped up on the target. Maybe one or two guys are there, and they plan to pile in the rest during combat. But if I can counter charge and hit those guys in the back with another unit, that will likely split their force and render the unit less effective. Like it!
Also, the ability to cast or pray in the opponent's turn is pretty neat. And I'm in favor of the change to Rally. It looks like it'll be a good way to heal a unit or rez a few chaff. But you won't have large models returning or 10 wounds of fighters. Probably for the best.
One hesitation is that Forward to Victory now apparently requires you to spend the command before rolling the charge. That's lame. I could see that command easily being the weakest of the bunch and rarely used.
Overall, though, a lot of good stuff here. If command points stay constrained (e.g. battletomes don't start introducing abilities to get more or have tons of army specific commands), I could see this being a really good system.
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38 minutes ago, EntMan said:
Is there any lore on if Stormcast have to be killed to be upgraded to Thunderstrike armour? Or can they just take their old armour off and put on new?
I think they can theoretically take off their armor at any time. They aren't bolted in there or anything. That said, most stormcast aren't making a return trip to Azyr without being killed. And that's where the Thunderstrike armor is being made. So, from a practical perspective, I think most stormcast probably get their new armor after being reforged.
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Today's article was light on rules but did show off the new warscrolls. While I like the updated formatting, there isn't a lot of change here. To hit, to wound, and rend are all present. As is save.
The only major difference is "Bravery" has been replaced by "Control." And "control" is how many points they count as when contesting objectives. It'll be interesting to see how (or if?) they include Morale in the game. Maybe you'll need to make tests once half your unit is killed or half your army (as in MESBG).
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1 hour ago, Sarouan said:
Now, the question is if the "loss" of one command point is worth it or not.
I think the article said it was one "per round." So that could be a pretty major incentive. Especially if command points are rarer than in the current system. That said, we don't yet know the value of a command point in the new system, so we'll have to wait and see before we can evaluate that.
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New update on Army Composition today.
It certainly seems like a good idea and addresses one major problem. Battle Regiment. It was so much more powerful than most of the other battalions that it was far and away the one to take. You'd sometimes see a sporadic Warlord or one of the GHBs. But it was like 90% Battle Reg. Glad that this system is doing drops by regiments (effectively one drop per hero) which should allow for a more interesting decision.
Units being tied to leaders is ... fine. I don't like or dislike it. I'll be interested to see whether there are further restrictions. Like a hero can only issue commands to their regiment. That might not be as good. I do like the elimination of reinforcement points. I didn't run up against that limit very often, but it was annoying when I did.
One possible area of concern, though, is the loss of a "battleline" tax. For experienced players, I don't think it'll be any issue. But with new players, they might gravitate toward monsters or heavy hitters. Those can be great, but you generally need something to just stand on an objective or screen out a potential deepstrike. The removal of the battleline requirement could be detrimental to those learning the game. But maybe there will be some heavy suggestions for new players in the core book.
Overall, this seems like it will be both freeing (you don't have to worry about Behemoth limits or battleline requirements) but also potentially constricting (if heroes only buff their own regiments). So we may have something here that is easy to learn but can provide a lot of nuance and strategy in the list-building phase.
Still need to know more about it, but I'm liking this change so far.
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Today's article didn't provide much new info. The double turn is staying (which I'm in favor of). They do say that if you take the double, you can't score a battle tactic. That seems pretty punishing under the current system, but I think we'll need to learn more about battle tactics before we can evaluate how much of a disincentive that is in 4.0.
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I think that's a legit concern. And probably at its worst when you're layering on whatever GHB changes there are. But I think PtG games and even standard Matched Play games are probably going to greatly benefit from the modular system. Time will tell.
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This may be total hopium, but I'm strongly encouraged by the PtG system that looks to use all rules except battle tactics. While I love matched play, it does feel sorta samey. Your motivation is always just to stand in circles better than the other player (and hit the same BTs your army was built to hit every game).
But PtG battelplans have been really good. Storming castles, disrupting rituals, defacing monuments, running from or pursuing the other army, and so on. Those narrative battles really cleanse the pallet and have some of the funnest moments. I really hope they lean into that.
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New article up today. Modular rules. Basically the core rules cover the basics - moving, combat, objectives, etc. Then there are add-ons that you can use including: commands, terrain, magic, army composition, command models, and battle tactics.
It's interesting that "battle tactics" are back. I hope they are implemented differently than the current system. I like the idea (in principle, at least) of a secondary scoring system. So I'll reserve judgment until we learn more about them.
But what I thought was most interesting is that there will be a "Terrain" system. AoS has long lacked a solid terrain rule system. And, at least as written, models could be all over the place and end turns half way up a sheer wall. Silly. Hopefully the terrain module will bring us a cohesive set of rules that can be used to enhance the game.
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Thoughts on 4.0's New Rules
in Age of Sigmar Discussions
Posted
Today's preview is Spearhead.
High level: it's combat patrol for AoS. However, a couple of good points. The units all have re-balanced warscrolls and armies even have different abilities. They note that something with a lot of small units might have the ability to revive. And armies with power hitters (like the Annihilators) have restrictions on when they can come into the battle. That's a touch heavier than in combat patrol and probably for the better.
Also, they show off spellcasting. Since the Magic Module won't be used, spells are basically just warscroll spells. Roll 2d6 and get an effect if you pass the target number. There doesn't appear to be any unbinding. That seems fine for the condensed Spearhead game.
More interesting, they say that the launch box will include Spearhead cards (not explained in the article, sadly) and terrain. As well as the Core Rulebook. We already know that the launch box will also include the first season GHB. And with the number of models anticipated, that's a beefy box. Of course, I'm sure it will come with an even beefier price, but getting so much of the game in one place is really enticing.