stratigo

It's a pretty darn big nerf, and one I saw coming sadly. Tying an army's allegiance ability to anciliary rules in the BRB was always a terrible design decision. That they literally did better for another faction shortly afterwards. Also, heard a few scary rumors effecting our movement

I hate that GW always nerfs KO wrong XD

You are almost literally describing kings of war which you can literally do away with models and use just movement trays and the models exist more for visual appeal (which is a very strong incentive, people will not play you if you show up with movement trays and no models on them, but it is quite common to make a KoW army with models glues right into a movement tray and dioramaed up) It turned out to not matter for elite units that could almost always end up without half an inch of an engaged units and it did reduce the melee capabilities of hordes, but that also turned out not to matter because the damage isn't what matters to a horde, but its resistance to damage. AoS is, unless they show us different, rather more restrictive in melee than 40k is, with smaller coherency range and weapon ranges meaning this actually dramatically hurts 6 to 10 man elite units. It doesn't matter that much to a horde though, they'll adapt fine. Also 40k biker units do, in fact, move around with the goofy drifting models in the back rank. There's way less bikers and cav in 40k than there is in AoS though, so it's gonna show up in all its goofy horse drifting glory way more often than it does in 40k. Or it eliminates their existence from list building as their viability is too damaged to be worth considering. Always a danger. funny thing is, they have a skirmish game that makes great organic formations. And this is Middle earth SBG. You ever play that game, almost every army naturally organizes into a shield wall with spearmen in a second rank cause of how the game works, both in how certain units support others in combat, but also in how combat gets split off. If you have gaps tween your models, they can get ganged up on and that's always a bad thing, so there's a strong incentive to keep models shoulder to shoulder so every fight ends up as equal. It's pretty great and so well thought out. 3 manskewers, probably not a big deal. 9 man skewers in a unit doing 2 mortal wounds per 5 rolled, much bigger deal. Depends on if they can get up to 9 or not. the 20th actually. It wasn't until ww1 that most of europe abandoned rank and file formations. The early clashes between german and french forces involved rank and file formations. The British got a bit of a headstart after the boer war showed them that rank and file doesn't work, most others had to learn fast in early WW1. Older books are not written with the new edition in mind and get to enjoy weird rules interactions like this They're also minus one to hit, don't forget that They also largely invalidate entire army strategies and only armies that don't rely on characters, have just endless redundant characters (seraphon), or are IDK don't care about Lumineth. Also this is deliberately ignoring the ease at which a lumineth list can increasingly stack buffs on units, even multiple units in a turn. There's a lot of units in the game that aren't super impressive on their own. Like skinks. But I doubt anyone thinks skinks are weak because they don't do great without all the buffs since the buffs are so reliable and easy to put on them. It also makes those two notoriously terrible never taken pieces, teclis and kroak, dramatically stronger. As a KO player I am sad at how much it narrows KO list building, but fails to actually address what makes the faction overperform. Oh, no, I guess thunderers are off the table now, but, like, balloon boys don't care and they have always done fine shooting too. Albeit I remain convinced triumphs are going away, which WILL ****** KO pretty hard. Uh, this effects melee and shooting largely the same. Sentinels don't care. Actually, wait, sentinels got a whole bunch better if they lose their 20 man cap, but that's essentially just a sentinels problem. This hurts another dominant shooting army in the snake lady DoK list. And it does hurt one of the KO builds. And it might hurt skinks. Sadly I think you are gonna be out of luck here. GW is pushing monsters super hard right now It's a problem propelled by possibly 30 man sentinel units. And to a lesser extent, an ironclad, though the 'clad is way less points efficient a killer. This is how I know you have never played middle earth sbg. But, being clear to everyone, legality and morality are not the same thing, and people who equate the two are dangerously wrong. Advocating piracy is, however, a liability issue and not worth a website opening themselves up to (it may or may not be actually against the law, but what is legal and what an individual or small business can be sued into oblivion for are quite different.). This is, IMHO, immoral on the part of the law, but just the reality we live under. I mean, boy do I really hope they wise up and drop physical books. The problem with unleash hell is that 20 (or 30 now?) sentinels can be standing behind a screen of wardens and use it to get a free shooting attack with no risk of themselves. Shooting is no more immune to being deathstar buffed than melee is. And all the problematic shooting units get some radical buffing. Without the buffs, they tend to not be impactful, but with them strong to overpowered. Sentinels are a unit that gets access to a lot of buffs. As are stalkers. As are thunderers (but thunderers only get a single turn of deathstar buffing compared to the other two units) Also it looks like sentinels are going to be able to get 30 man units, doubling down on the buff power. While both stalkers and thunderers are taking a hit in their unit size. Sentinels are going to become an even larger issue in the new edition because GW has simply decided not to address them. We'll see where they are pointed, but, well, the current head rules guy is a big ol' elf megafan. Your phalanx metaphor is really bizarre and not super reflective of historic reality. Like, what's an ordinary phalanx? Phalanxes aren't properly a think until the pike phalanx, which gets anachronistically applied farther back in greek warfare. Are you talking about the order of battle in a very specific battle between the thebans and the spartans that the thebans won? The battle of Leuctra? Cause what the thebans did was mass their forces agains the spartan's elite and smash them super hard by surprise. The depth of the line was mostly a function of the attempted breakthrough. Being 50men deep didn't make it better at fighting. The changes as previewed will make lumineth better, KO are worse with weaker triumphs (But maybe not worse enough to knock them out of the top), it hurts competitive DoK moderately hard, makes competitive IDK better, and is a wash for seraphon who already had a strong monster heavy list that's clear better now. it's not gonna change the standings much except maybe drop DoK out of it. None of these descriptions are super reflective of the reality of the ancient militaries being referenced Double turn is stronger because choosing to go second the first turn is a lot less damaging. Teclis can mega buff himself to be very difficult to kill outside mass mortal wounds (so, like, other lumineth lul).

This is always smoke and mirrors though. They do this every edition and then walk it back immediately. It’s more for maintaining the current point cost than anything my else, every book comes out significantly under pointed and every bi yearly adjustment adjusts points down for the armies that have yet to get their new tome to offer some competition to the power creep of new books si higher point costs will last, realistically, maybe 6 months, for those factions not getting updates yet

Or you balance an army around a mechanic that goes away and that army drops into trash tier. This is a problem KO has experienced before. Like specifically having rules the army was reliant on getting dramatically changed or outright deleted

I just want to know what is going on with triumphs since GW made the army entirely reliant on them, but, like, they're kind of a bad mechanic for the game the way they work now IMHO. GW did aetherquartz better, to mys salt, by making it consistent to rules in its own book.

It means we need to give up everything else and triple down on alpha dropping because if everything else gets weaker, to stay competitive, you have to excise anything not suited. It's a problem with certain kinds of nerfs. Thunderers are weak without triumph support, and 10 are just gonna be subpar no matter what. As a unit they have a really bad return on investment without stacked buffing. Something of a common problem in AoS.

I mean filling a clad with thunderers is super powerful in an alpha drop

They increase unit size 4 times So 3 6 9 12 for balloons and 5 10 15 20 for thunderers. That's what I meant by multiple of 4 XD. It hurts thunderers especially to be stuck at a size of 10 to 15.

I think they are overpushing big hero monsters, and it is gonna make the ones that are already good just way too good. Also, as a KO player, the unit multiples gives me a bit of indigestion, and I can't imagine how it screws skaven players. Some armies (with, say, a solid lineup of big hero monsters and units that used to be in multiples of 3) are winning big, and some are losing big. KO has no big heros or monsters. Or, ironically, artillery. And has an important unit that is in a multiple of 4. Also I think triumphs are going away.

Yeah, I feel like triumphs are going away and GW will throw some minor consolation at KO that in no way makes up for it and KO will be relegated to living in a trashcan for a year again until a new book appears.

"I play AoS, and thus 40k has to be the worst game EVAR!" Man I wish this sentiment would die. Like come on guys, just stop. Playing a game isn;t politics, you don't have to pick a side and then kick down all the other games.

The meta is gonna be 1 to 3 shooting units with 1 to 3 shamans to give them mortal wounds on a 5. Welcome to AoS.

What? No companies mega rush products all the time and often to the detriment of that product. Have you seen video games. Or, heck,, talked to former gw rules writers who are quite clear the time pressure they are under. Rules are second fiddle to models and get much less time or love.

The reduction in long range shooting was missions requiring taking and holding for an entire turn objectives. This boosted melee a lot because a melee unit get an extra move and can then steal an objective, very strong for scoring. The best a shooting unit can do is return an objective to neutral. Shooting can still be super deadly, but without a strong melee component, you will lose on objectives. They always do this. And it is annoying. I agree with this. AoS is super dominated by teleportations and ultra mobility and other ways to nullify the effect distance has on the game, so a smaller board doesn't have the same effect in AoS as it does in 40k.

That's the point

I'm not entirely sure you understand game design here. And while I agree that the AoS rules writing team doesn't seem to have the plan that the 40k team does and their releases just have this feeling of being haphazard, you need to create winner models and looser models to differentiate the two, especially within factions. People are comparative, they need things to compare. I mean GW is also not trying to blow the power curve up (usually, sometimes a suit seems to tell the designers to do this, but the anecdotes I know are all kirby era), but here they DO fail. There is, however, like, a clear pattern of power growth for both games and there always has been. It's why they had to slam the 8th ed reset button and why in like 4 to 5 years they'll have to slam that button for AoS (and 40k again). Power creep is super obvious.

Eh, not really. I think the primary issue is recency. Drukhari are RIGHT NOW and Iron hands was, uh, like a year and a half ago, but also only like 4 months because time is meaningless and 2020 didn't happen. But I remember tzeentch days. And how tzeentch just wouldn't stop trashing everyone through nerf after nerf until their back finally broke.

They provably have in the past. And they probably still do? Why wouldn't they? GW isn't stupid, you push a model, people buy it. They need to not make it too obvious. But, like, they don't have to hide it too hard either. 40k right now has this the most obvious with dramatic power boosts every codex, but each new cycle being better than before (drukhari and admech stronger than before). Albeit I think the rules writers of 40k are just writing with a more coherent vision then the writers of AoS. Also, Gav thorpe might burst into the writing room and shout "MORE ELVES!" AoS and 40k ping pong on who is actually worse based on actual statistics. Usually down to a god codex. Old Slaanesh had win rates that only drukhari are putting up right now (beyond old ironhands even). And put them up for something like a year, so we'll see where drukhari end up in a month. Actually the GW only thing I see most pushed is models, and this is the most damaging to consumers. But, like, obvious why GW pushes it so hard. People actually play it :D. Samer with 40k really. Especially as we tease out of covid era. I have looked at other wargames, but the effort to get into and find a community to play them is significantly higher. Warhammer is a huge convenience. I have a place to go filled with, well 50/50 people I rather like and horrible scumbags. But that's life. Other communities require a LOT more effort to break in to. Maybe as I try to get involve more with the people I actually like in my locale I'll find other games to play with em. But, man, lot of these folks have young kids these days, so, it's not exactly easy to get any games. being fair, while they don't have the lore dominance, elves have been the top power army in 40k for most of that game's history. Right now even it is the evil elf flavor's time to shine. But if you pick any given year of 40k, most of the time it would be an elf army winning top tables. I just think GW design space has always super graced elves because they have always been the combo specialist faction, and that has usually led to them outperforming. Kings of War has always done rank and flank better than warhammer fantasy. And I guess it now wins the default of rank and flank king since GW abrogated it and ninth age was always a meme. But, as a game, generally Kings of War has more solid balance than AoS. You are quite wrong. Space marines tends to rock the power of the early meta by virtue of having the first book out. But this drops precipitously as an edition goes on. 5th had eldar rocking the top far more than the wolves ever did, though GK were, indeed, OP. No marine combo, from Smashf* to all the free razorbacks to droppod assault could touch eldar or the truly gross taudar in 7th I mean, for funsies, compare AoS to Middle earth SBG and wonder why the heck a company that makes such a poorly balanced game made such a well balanced one. I mean the answer is that SBG doesn't churn its meta so massively radically and its writers have historically been just better at competitive gaming.

more rules DO NOT lead to more competitive games. Adding more rules is actually one of the issues AoS is having, a strong example being all the bespoke teleport or deep strike tricks factions are getting. Cutting away movement decisions through adding those rules to units has a direct negative effect on balance. It is easier to balance a tighter ruleset. Rules right now are being tossed almost adhoc without a lot of thought of effect.

I know people who like bretonians that are starting to get quite upset that every time they mention the army they liked people go "LULUL but they are ghoulkings. LULZ"

I don't think it will be the dwarves turn for quite a while. The person helming the game now really likes elves. Like really really likes elves.

Funny, 40k is dominated by melee right now

I imagine fly high goes away or changes radically in the next battletome, but there really isn't anything you can do with it now unless your goal is literally to just make KO unplayable. Which, I mean, they did this before, so not impossible, but I'd like to think GW doesn't have that specific a hate ******.

HAHAHAHAHAHA The double turn's a sunk cost fallacy.