Bosskelot

My entire dissertation was about how winrates in competitive games (specifically videogames) are often very misleading and give a skewed and inaccurate view on what "balance" is like. Indeed, with games like AOS and 40K it's an even bigger issue because it sort of ignores how the majority of people playing tournaments aren't actually hyper-comp meta chasing tryhards. The people placing in the top 10? Absolutely those people. But the vast majority of tournament attendees (in 40K at least) are either matched play gamers taking a slightly tougher list than usual, or they're casual guys who wanna show up, roll some dice, meet new people and have a fun weekend. (which is actually what all 3 types of attendee are there for primarily if we're honest) Those last two types though tend to skew things because they're either making do with the models or factions they have or they're straight up taking bad lists and not playing at a high level either. I remember in the middle of 40k 8th coming across tons of Primaris-only Marine armies in tournies from all manner of different chapters, solely because the people playing them just wanted to play that army because they liked it and/or they didn't have anything else on hand. Because the meta of these games can change so much and be so ephemeral, alongside the inherent expense of keeping up with it, most of the top tier players don't even really own most of the models they bring to tables. They borrow or swap with other people. Great example last night of an Art of War 40k game; it was Nick Nanavati's Aeldari soup vs Richard Sieglers Necrons.... except Nick admitted that the only models in his army that he had actually bought and painted himself were the Harlequin Troupes. Everything else was originally someone else's model. I bring this up because in 40k right now you're even starting to see a divergence in what physical armies look like compared to TTS armies; a lot of the TTS tournaments have been far more cutthroat with some meaner lists on average, solely because people are capable of using whatever they want with no monetary/availability/painting limitations. I'm not saying winrates are useless, but they shouldn't be seen as some absolute either. Taking overall, individual winrates AND tournament placings together allows you to get a more accurate view of a factions power. Are Space Marines in 40k now bad because they have a sub-50% winrate? Well, they're still consistently placing in top 4's and winning events so clearly they cannot be, but it's just clear that their prevalence means an increased amount of mirror matches and a higher percentage of """bad""" players piloting the faction.

With regards to FW, they're now a Specialist Games company. They aren't doing any more 40k or AOS models pretty much ever, unless something drastic changes. (With obviously HH being the weird exception since lots of it is still usable in 40k)

Where did this idea that TOW might be 15mm even come from anyway?

I wouldn't really get too excited. Likely just a re-boxing. GW and FW stuff has been going "No Longer Available" now for a few months, when really they're just out of stock or getting new boxing. FWIW the Blood Knights are still "No Longer Available" on the UK store.

In the stream they mentioned the Bladelords having a similar ability to the old Swordmasters in being able to deflect projectiles with their swords. Really impressed by what they showed off, the only dud being the terrible twin model. Everything else looked fantastic and it's nice that the army has enough variety in it now that you can ignore the models that you dislike while still having a varied and expansive range to choose from.

There's a difference between something not breaking sales records and something being completely unprofitable. The vast majority of what GW releases do not sell anywhere near what Space Marines do. Even Stormcast are a joke saleswise to the Marine juggernaut. What is different about GW now compared to the GW of 7 years ago is that this is seen as acceptable, because those other ranges and models are still profitable. Warhammer Fantasy was never actually unprofitable, it just didn't sell as much as Marines, so for Kirby-GW at the time that was seen as unacceptable. At the end of the day, a release has to see a return on investment for it to be seen to be worth investing in more. It doesn't need to break sales records. Most ranges and factions GW make do generate enough money to see continued support, however, as I say EVERY TIME, Fyreslayers are the biggest sales bomb of any GW release in quite a few years. There are many contributing factors to that, as people have explained above, but it is what it is. Could they add to the army and sort of reignite (heh) interest in it? I guess? Possibly? But the issue is, people's main objections to the range and army are the kind of poor work done on the main battleline units and so any addition wouldn't change that aversion. Okay, you add some cool female sculpts and different unique special units. Fine. Cool. Great. When people still have to buy 40-60 of these bloody things they're still going to bounce off of the army real hard and all that time and investment on GW's part is now wasted. <-- This is EXACTLY what happened with Tomb Kings by the way. Gorgeous new monster sculpts.... and yet the game and the army still basically forced you into buying 80 of those goofy old skeleton models. It's also why the Necron refresh updated the Warriors. All the fancy new C'tan and beasties and destroyers wouldn't matter to anyone if the main thing they'd be encouraged to start out collecting and painting were those bow-legged, green tubed, cheeks-connected-to-the-sprue havin' ass goofballs. And it's not like they'll update the Vulkite kit either. It's barely like 4 years old and has not come anywhere close enough to making a RoI yet, if it ever really will. PLUS aside from this, you also need internal studio enthusiasm for the idea. From various accounts, we know that GSC in 40k were primarily brought back because of one guy who really pushed for it internally. Luckily enough the first release did just well-enough to see a 2nd one, also likely spearheaded by the same person.

40k does absolutely have more interactivity than AOS when it comes to shooting because you have various ways to counterplay it. Terrain, Cover, Look out Sir!, tying up in combat, no shooting into combat etc. None of these things really exist in AOS. See my earlier post in this thread for how AOS, uniquely to perhaps any wargame I know, gets shooting so wrong.

As I've said before, Fyreslayers are one of the biggest bombs in terms of releases GW have ever made. If you could physically go into a GW store or LGS right now (thanks covid) you'd see boxes of them on the shelves from the original release that haven't moved. GW doesn't like to sink resources into poorly selling ranges. Sometimes they misunderstand why this is the case, like with Sisters of Battle, and when they do provide support they're pleasantly surprised because there was a large potential audience waiting in the wings. However, more often than not, if a new model range doesn't meet expectations any further planned releases are shelved. Harlequins were going to have a 2nd wave, the first one didn't sell well enough. GSC sold just enough and had internal studio enthusiasm for a 2nd wave of models. Admech sold incredibly well and got their 2nd wave. But that thing about potential audiences waiting in the wings? That doesn't exist for Fyreslayers. Not only is the core concept not strong enough to carry things on its own, but Dwarfs in general were never one of the most popular armies in old Fantasy. The people who like Dwarfs are very vocal about it, but unless you go really out-there and unique with the concept, like KO, trying to stretch an army of Slayers into its own faction just doesn't work. That's an issue with a lot of early AOS armies; trying to take one specific unit type from an old fantasy army and making an entire range from it. Turns out, it doesn't work too well as the poor performance of Fyreslayers and the combining of Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz or Ogors and Mournfang shows. To get new Fyreslayer models, GW would have to do another customer/community survey again and the AOS players would have to be out in force loudly shouting for a Fyreslayers update. That's how Sisters of Battle got re-done. But I also do not see that happening for Fyreslayers either. Do you really expect all the Skaven players to think new Fyreslayer models should take precedent over their dated range? The Seraphon players? S2D still don't have an updated multipart Warriors kit and still have Marauders from 2002, no way they're going to be screaming for new naked ginger dwarfs.

The real lack of restrictions and downsides on shooting do need to be addressed, because it's not just that some units have powerful range attacks, it's that they really suffer no adverse effects or have any downsides to being ranged. AOS is really the only wargame I can recall that has such loose mechanics for its shooting phase. Not only being able to shoot into combats without penalty but units being able to shoot out of combat as well. Sure, in the latter they have to target what is in engagement range but from a gameplay and even immersion perspective it is completely nonsensical. It's a core concept of wargames, tabletop or video, that ranged units are good because they can cause damage to your opponent without having to put themselves in direct harm and the way to really counter this is to engage and lock them down in melee. Alternatively you lockdown their friendly units so you restrict their number of targets available or make it a risk to keep shooting you for fear of hitting their own troops. Combine this with non-existent actually useful terrain or LOS rules and of course you have a recipe for a shooting meta. 40k 9th manages this whole thing pretty well currently. Only certain weapons or unit types are capable of shooting while engaged in combat, and in a lot of cases with a penalty. Plus, it all makes logical sense what can and cannot do it.

Covid hasn't stopped them from lavishing details in 40k previews, so it's doubtful. However, 40k is a good example here of GW stringing out information for new releases. Death Guard and Necrons main rules mechanics were changed in their new books, but we went ages (months in the Necrons case) without knowing what or how they changed. The change to Disgustingly Resilient was one of the last previews they showed off for Death Guard in fact. Christ, trying to figure out how they changed Reanimation Protocols for Necrons was a nightmare too. We were forced to scrutinize the WD batrep for any concrete details on how the mechanic had changed because it had come out way before the Codex.

Test scheme for my Lumineth, basically taking heavy inspiration from Phil Kelly's. I used Flesh Tearers Red but I think in future I'm going to go with a non-contrast red on things like cloaks and clothes (Mephiston to Evil Sunz to Wilder Rider probably). It's helpful for doing the plumes though.

Quick question, but can Teclis and Eltharion get Great Nation keywords?

Yeah the impact of DoW on the popularity of 40k really cannot be understated. It drew in massive amounts of people to the game and setting and even now, 16 years later, is THE definitive icon of what 40K is all about to a degree the BL books or tabletop game itself are tiny in comparison to. Maybe as the decades go on that'll change, but I'd say it's more likely some other 40K game will come along and take that spot.

I think what yukishiro said about the theory of it is the crux of the issue, especially for people who defend the double turn. The idea behind it is fine, and as I said previously, priority rolls work AMAZINGLY in LOTR because the turn structure is fundamentally different and you also have counterplays within the system if you did not win the roll-off. The actual reality of the seizing of priority in AOS though is that one army gets another uninterrupted entire turn of dismantling the enemy army with 0 counterplays available and the other player has to basically sit there for another 20-30 minutes with their finger up their bum. Some of the suggestions raised in this thread do not really help either of these two issues either. Mentioning 40k provides an interesting contrast actually, because when 9th was announced there were a lot of disappointed voices raised at how the basic IGUGO turn structure wasn't changing and how there was no possibility for alternative activations (AA) as a system. The main reasons why people feel this way is because giving one player an entire turn to do what they want with few counters can lead to very one-sided games but can also lead to excessive downtime for players, neither of which are really desirable design goals. (and the latter is IMO the actual biggest issue with the double turn) The idea of it being a comeback mechanic is just absurd too. Comeback mechanics in games are usually more player controlled and/or have concrete and defined ways to identify when a player is actually behind. In Dota 2, if you're behind in levels and gold, killing higher level higher networth opponents gets you more of both comparatively. The higher level you are, the longer your spawn time too which allows behind teams to exploit that gap. That is a system that can quantify (because computers innit) actual values, but which is still all about an underdog player/team outplaying their opponents and said opponents also messing up and making mistakes which can be exploited. In AOS, not only is this supposed comeback mechanic based on a random roll, but it is just as (if not more) powerful for the winning player than it is for the person behind. It is a win-more mechanic, not a comeback one. If GW are so wedded to the priority roll idea but do not want to change to LOTR's alternating-phases turn set-up (where it works) then there's few possible ways I see it working or being fixed. One idea I kinda like is giving the receiving player specific Command Abilities that are only for when they get double-turned and are about interrupting the normal flow or order of operations in order to do counterplays somehow.

The issue with double turn is that it is never, ever used as a reason to play the game. It is only ever brought up by people disliking it and the hardcore AOS fans trying to defend its inclusion. It is the single biggest reason I see for new players bouncing off of the game and dropping it. If GW and the diehards are so married to the idea of this weird janky priority system then just make the game have the structure as LOTR, because there it works brilliantly. Alternating phases and priority, with heroic actions being able to disrupt the usual flow, works really really well. It keeps both players engaged and avoids long stretches where one player does absolutely nothing, leads to more tactical and dynamic gameplay and allows for more countermoves. If 3.0 comes out and the double turn is essentially unchanged I personally think it would be disastrous for the game as a whole. Other issues are the aforementioned MW spam which feels incredibly egregious at times. 40k and AOS both have a lethality problem, but with 40k it's down to normal weaponry often being too strong and not the prevalence of MW's, but that in itself feels a lot better as MW's as a mechanic often feel like you have little to no counterplay vs them (because some armies have 0 counterplay to them) There also needs to be a restructuring of unit design. Threads have been made on here about the flattening of defensive profiles leading to a lack of diversity and spam in the game, because big monsters or elite troops just aren't tanky or impactful enough when normal mainline infantry can potentially be wounding things on a 2+. For one, some of those types of buffs really need to be reigned in a bit. But in general, unless there is a complete overhaul of unit profile design (like for instance actually reintroducing S and T as stats) there needs to be more incentive to take and differentiate between different unit types. This goes back to the lethality problem above where certain armies are all about finding the most efficient damage dealer and spamming it because really what else do you need? Why bother taking an elite unit when unless they have some kind of insanely strong defensive tool on their warscroll, they'll be getting wounded on 2's and 3's by pretty much everything in the game. I also am not personally a fan of damage overspill but I don't see GW getting rid of it. Oh and Look Out Sir should just be the 40k rule.

To be completely fair, this article was mostly written by Goonhammer guys who do intense, deep analysis of 40k. And while GW's excuse about not enough data feels really flimsy, there has been substantially more data for 40k games being provided, mainly because 40k still dwarfs AOS in popularity.

I'm more interested in the decisions that went into deciding which Lumineth designs were going to be included in the first wave. Did they know most of those designs were going to have a very mixed reception, only for the second wave to come and look more attractive in comparison?

The big expansion to the LRL is just what the army needed honestly, but its also painfully obvious and really scummy that so much was held back from the original Battletome. Regardless, I've mentioned before that the controversial visual design, covid troubles and releasing around 40k 9th Edition probably really savaged the release of the army and the usual AOS issue of factions feeling very barebones and lacking in variety on probably didn't help either. I think now that the model range is seeing a boatload of extra new models people now have options in what they want to collect. Don't like the Alarith models and dislike being stuck with just Vanari (who themselves have no characters)? That problem is now solved. Hate the Stonemage, Cathallar and Teclis? Cool, there's now like 6 new character models to choose from.

The competitive scene is a miniscule aspect of the game. A bunch of tourney players investing in the army basically means nothing, especially as with many of GW's games even the competitive players collect armies because they like them, not solely because they're powerful. Even looking through tournament data Fyreslayers have a minimal footprint in terms of actual numbers.

Numerous statements from GW and LGS store managers and the status of stock of the army from both the US and UK. If you could physically go into a GW store right now you'd be seeing Fyreslayers boxes from the initial release weekend still on the shelves. One LGS near me doesn't even bother stocking the army anymore. I certainly don't think the Lumineth launch did particularly well, just going by Element Games still having 200+ of the "Highly Limited" army box rotting away in their warehouse. That certainly doesn't speak to a successful release. Controversial visual design, Covid delay and being right in around the 9th edition 40k launch probably crippled it.

Don't hold out much hope for new Fyreslayers either. It was the biggest bomb of a model line GW have ever made.

Well, this widens the discussion to how well the aesthetics of AOS have been received in general and yeah, there's lots of mixed stuff there. As for sales numbers from FLGS and even GW stores we know fairly certainly that Fyreslayers are perhaps the biggest bomb GW have ever made, bigger than even Tomb Kings. As for Lumineth, Element Games still have 200+ of the "Limited Edition" release boxes sitting in their warehouse not moving.

As I said in my original post, the issue people have is not with Elves having horned helmets or using a heavy weapon like a Hammer, I even brought up White Lions and many 40k Aspect Warriors as instances of GW not going for the traditional idea of Elven aesthetic and it working really well. Idea and execution are too very different things. You can have the best, most unique idea in the world and it can fall apart in execution. That is the issue many have with parts of the Lumineth range.

I'm very much 50/50 on them. I think the Lumineth are one of the best examples of GW's weird schizophrenic approach to AOS visual design where you can see the obvious start of the idea and then someone came in and tried to make it more "different" and things go off the rails a little bit. The idea of being "different" and "unique" not only leads to some real misses but as is often the case the attempt just makes them look derivative of something else still. The Vanari stuff is basically all a slamdunk success and Eltharion is wonderful as well. The decision to vaguely ancient Greek or Minoan with some of the visuals really works too, although some of the lack of variety in poses for the Archers is a shame. The cow stuff is where a lot of it falls apart and in many ways the individual models are 50/50 themselves. Big cow boys have elements that work very well, only for the legs and mallet to make the entire thing fall apart. The mountain shoulder pads are a bit too obvious and goofy looking too. The stoneguard have some wonderful poses and excellent torsos, only for those mallets to show up again and some of the worst helmet designs I think I've ever seen on models. This isn't me saying Elves shouldn't use cows or bull elements in visual design, or even that they shouldn't use "heavier" armaments and armour. But you only have to look at GW's past attempts at how they've absolutely nailed it previously. White Lions are a very similar idea and executed perfectly well, most of the 40k Aspect Warriors are brilliantly executed and utilize design elements that aren't your typical "Elf" aesthetic. Elves that worship elemental Earth spirits that take the form of giant Bulls? Awesome idea in concept. That doesn't mean they should be given croquet mallets and idiotic helmets. And it's not like there aren't previous models and designs that utilize horns much better. But again, I have a feeling there was an attempt internally to be like "avoid as MUCH of WHFB as possible in design, even the good ideas, just do everything the opposite." (but of course they'll still use character names to score lazy nostalgia points) The character models are almost all perfect examples of interesting ideas with a pretty bad execution. Everything about the Cathallar's sculpt kind of falls flat, where so much effort was put into showing how GW can do cloth effects on faces that the designers forgot to make the rest of the model look coherent or have a good pose or not have that nonsense giant metal thing she's got around and her waist and back. I get the idea and vibe behind the Stonemage, and he is overall "okay", but it's definitely a sculpt that's missing something. Another example of a horned helmet not being done well too. The less said about Teclis himself the better. Shockingly bad work which is weird because Celennar looks great. 50/50 again. And the funniest thing about the Lumineth, the Vanari stuff primarily, is that they end up sharing more design cues and aesthetic similarities with the New Line LOTR Elves than High Elves ever did.

I'd say big imbalance and poorly designed units/armies are a bigger problem for casual and lower skilled players than competitive ones. Competitive players will usually just gravitate and focus on what is good and form less of an attachment to how an army is "meant" to play or what its lore is or anything else like that. If someone gets into AOS or any GW game for narrative and fluff-based reasons, starts collecting based on those reasons and then goes and finds out that that army or that style of play is completely unplayable trash, it's going to basically kill any enthusiasm they have to keep on playing.