tom_gore

I get what you mean, but in-game you will often need to be able to judge if a model will be able to finish off another model or not. That calculation is almost pure guesswork with the crit mechanics swinging the outcome so much. The maximum damage is so far off the average damage the calculation is just meaningless. Analytics behind for an infinite number of games don't really apply when you're playing a single game and need to judge the outcome of just handful of dice. For example, let's say you roll 8 attacks total with a damage profile of 1/4 against lower T. This means that you will do between 0 and 32 points of damage, with the average being only 9,33! Change that to a profile of 2/3 and it becomes a maximum of 24, with an average of 12. Do you see what I mean?

In my opinion, there are not so much "good" or "bad" initiative rolls. You either have high initiative or high amount of abilities. Of course if you roll six 1s it's a bad roll unless you have a godly Quad ability that doesn't care about the value. Add in the Wild Dice with the ability to save them and the initiative roll becomes much less unpredictable and much more tactical. The point is, you can both influence the initiative roll and get an advantage on some part of the game no matter how you roll, so it doesn't really compare of either doing wacky amounts of damage or not doing anything meaningful at all. Yet it has Matched Play and tournament rules right in the Core Book. The beasts are the mitigating factor in some scenarios/twists, although of course if you're unlucky you'll only worsen the situation and they are not present in all games. I do agree there could be some other mechanics in place, too.

Yes it's definitely not the only unpredictable part. Hence I was considering the competitive side. Matched Play games don't use the battleplan cards, which takes that out of the equation, but the reliance on 6s still remains something that you cannot really predict.

The wording would definitely suggest so. If it doesn't work like that, it means Onslaught is always a better choice.

The fact that there is a relatively low number of dice being rolled in the game, combined with the fact that rolling sixes is super important to do well, makes the game quite unpredictable. Which of course might be befitting for a game about Chaos warbands duking it out, but still. Anyone else think rolling 6s in this game is a bit too important? Calculating "average damage" for an attack is pretty useless, since in most cases the curve is so heavily skewed towards rolling those sweet sixes. Many models have a damage profile of 1/4, which means you'll be doing a whopping 4x damage on a crit. Your normal hits might as well just not be there. I'm not complaining. The game is still fun, but I doubt its viability in the competitive scene because of the unpredictability.

Ah right. But it isn't, so we're just officially screwed

But the net dude has just used the net and boom, you cannot make that bonus move since it blocks move and disengage actions.

It's still just 3" bonus move in most cases. Not very powerful. Of course combo it with Waaagh! and you'll have a Brute charging 12" across the board and then hitting something. That's a triple 6 and a double in the same turn though, so...

I like the pre-game mechanics a lot. There is genuinely no two games of Warcry alike. The initiative roll (with the wild dice mechanic) is also pure brilliance and by far one of the deepest tactical elements of the game. In-game mechanics are very straightforward, maybe even too much so. Especially with a band like the Ironjawz there is very little tactical depth in the actual gameplay you can do against faster armies except to slog fowards towards the objectives and hope you stay alive with your high toughness and wounds. Of course it all boils down to the deployment, terrain, twist and objectives. With a lucky pull you get an objective that forces the enemy to come to you and try to kill you all. Most of the time it seems the objectives favour more diverse warbands that are able to adapt to different tactics. Ironjawz don't really have different tactics. It's all slow footslog with 1" melee range. Could also just be that the Gitz are a nightmare matchup for the Ironjawz, which is easy to believe. The 45 point netter able to shut down a 200 point brute with a double and a 3+ from 11" away is powerful, and as I said, their Quad on the Boingrots is just bonkers. I'll have to give the IJ another try against another warband, but I won't be bringing them against the Gitz anytime soon.

Played against Gitz yesterday and can say that their Quad ability on the Boingrot Boss is utterly broken. It's able to plausibly do 30 points of damage on average rolls against T5, starting from up to 10 inches away (and flying) and 40 points against T4. If it's a softer target they can still do enough damage activating 18 or 26" away. The first time your opponent rolls a high triple means your leader or other high value target is dead and there is absolutely jack ****** you can do about it.

Played three games with Ironjawz yesterday. Two games with all brutes and one with all Ardboys. I'm pretty convinced Ironjawz is seriously underpowered at the moment. Their 3" movement and 1" reach across the whole list is a crippling weakness that any smart opponent can easily exploit. The fact that you need to spend a high triple and activate your leader first to get your list moving across the board at any decent speed only pours more salt to the wounds. On top of that, they have pretty lousy abilities. Shield bash is a waste of a Double, no matter how you look at it. Rampaging destroyers is very situational and not even very powerful for a Quad. Duff up da Big Thing is good, but only if your opponent is stupid enough to engage your brutes within 1". Charge is ok, but it's also still limited by your mighty 3" movement and 1" range. Against another short ranged melee-only list the Ironjawz would probably be ok, but against anything mobile they're just screwed. I played against the Gitz by the way and can wholeheartedly say the netters ****** up Ironjawz badly and their Quad is just utterly broken on the Boingrots.

Greenskins saying hi! They will not be featured in the new Orruk Warclans book.

You thinking doesn't change the fact that on average you do more damage against any toughness. It's just your perception. Math doesn't lie It definitely would change the situation if it had 2" range. Would be totally justifiable too since those are damn long polearms they're swinging.

Lol. That would be nasty sure. Gotta keep it in mind if I enter a tournament! Won't be using that in friend games though since I like to keep my friends

I mean comparing to the brute with 2 choppas. They both have 5 toughness, but the one with 2 choppas has 1 extra attack and the one with the gore-hacka has 1 extra strength. The gore-hacka looks cooler maybe, but it's inferior in all situations to the 2 choppas.

Yeah if Brutes are able to pound metal into armour with their bare fists and batter down gates, they should be able to do some serious damage with weapons like they're carrying.

That's easy to fix. Give brutes some MW output

Yeah I am not talking about making everything 1 roll only, but when you roll 90 dice to resolve the attack of a 30 strong mob of Savage Orruk Arrowboyz the second time in the same turn (thanks to Kunning Rukk) your opponent is probably ready to go home. Everything in moderation, I say. Rolling a literal bucket of dice every time you attack is not adding anything significant to the statistical averages after the first 30 dice or so. It's just adding more annoyance and wasting everyone's time.

AoS already suffers from combat dice bloat. GW should seriously try to tone that down and instead offer bonuses on making the existing attacks more powerful instead. Sadly, I know for many GW game players the amount of dice rolled is directly proportional to the amount of fun they will have. Personally, when 50% or more of the time playing a game is rolling dice the system could use some cleanup. Ironically, Warcry with its already fewer models has a lot less dice rolled per attack than AoS, making it super fast to play.

Wasn't that revealed (or just speculated?) to be Lady Olynder?

Yeah and maybe they realize their own mistake in Warcry too and make the gore-hackas (and maybe gore-choppas) 2" range!

Yep. That only makes it even more sad

GW dropped the ball on this one (same with the preytakers on the Beasts). Against any toughness value, the two choppas do more damage on average than the gore-hacka, unless my math fails me really bad. 6,66 wounds average against T3 or less with the 2 choppas vs 5 with the gore-hacka. 5,33 vs. 5 against T4 4 vs 4 against T5 If there would be a T6 model it would be 4 vs. 3 for the 2 choppas again. So don't waste your money buying brutes and giving them gore-hackas. No one uses them in AoS either.

Anyone else notice that with that Beastgrave box, they just gave BoC players new plastic models for a Beastlord and a Bray-Shaman? Anyone hoping they will do the same for Bonesplitters when they enter the fray (and they will, or it is the greatest injustice ever done by GW)?

Yeah I get what you mean. Especially those Brutes in the rearguard will have trouble getting into a fight, although in most scenarios there might be good charge targets for them in the midfield. I'm assuming most players are playing on the minimum size field (30x40") since anything bigger than that means there will be a lot of footslogging and very little combat in the whole game (I bet those fielding lightning fast or shooty armies will disagree, GW should have just given a set board size without any arguing room).