AoS Second Edition

[Canas]

I can't even remember the last time I lost against Ironjawz.
Their lack of shooting and the nerf of their movement ability makes them suck against most lists I played.

Granted, if my poor buddy had a bit more luck he could have won a few games I guess. I think in the past year it is 12-1 in my favour or so when he played IJs.
And I cannot imagine that am _that_ much better of a player, and I am not playing our best lists either. No Kroak (yet), no Rippers (Terradons), Thunderquake usually with Troglo+Stega+Basti instead of way better combos like EotG+Basti+Basti.
He tried mass Gore-Gruntas (almost beat me with that once), mass Ardboys, Brute-centered, Allying with Bonesplitterz, Allying with an Aleguzzler, Rogue Idol (never did a single point of damage I think), allied artillery (Everyone makes fun of those Scrap Launchers but in one game the two things killed ~20 Skinks in a single round

I hope the recent changes make his army more viable.

aren't the casters they have fairly decent to use against our stuff? A weirdknob might not be the most reliable, but whenever he does go off he should dish out a significant chunk of damage. And the allied grot and orruk shaman or wurrgog prophet have decent spells as well. With a disturbing amount of AoE.

Also yeah, scrap launchers are good when faced with a horde of easily killable stuff like skinks. It's just that that's all they're good for

 

[Aginor]

aren't the casters they have fairly decent to use against our stuff? A weirdknob might not be the most reliable, but whenever he does go off he should dish out a significant chunk of damage. And the allied grot and orruk shaman or wurrgog prophet have decent spells as well. With a disturbing amount of AoE.

Also yeah, scrap launchers are good when faced with a horde of easily killable stuff like skinks. It's just that that's all they're good for

That one time he won he put a Weirdnob on a BWV and Foot of Gork stomped me, like, six times or so, killing a Slann, my Skink Chief (yes, at that time he was still viable, that's how long ago that was), an Astrolith Bearer and a Starpriest in one turn. I waved the white flag at that point.
But I wasn't even angry, it was epic!

But most of the time the problem is:
- Green Puke needs the wizard to be very close. He will very likely not survive getting that close, and even if he does: It is quite likely there are own units in the way.
- Foot of Gork is strong, but has a high casting value and needs some luck to really stomp more than twice and do decent damage.
- he needs a lot of Orruks around him to have a good chance to pull it off. That's not easy because he will mostly try to get them into combat ASAP in order to not get slaughtered by shooting. So they run ahead (using their bataillons that improve their move), and the Weirdnob gets left behind.
- No spell lore IIRC because the Battletome is rather old.


Allied Bonespitterz wizards can work, but until now it didn't. The problem is that those guys are too big to hide effectively so my Bastiladon just shoots them. They have a crappy save.

I hope that the new abilities and spells, and the changes in the GHB2018, make them more viable. "Look Out Sir!" will protect the heroes a bit for example.

EDIT
About Scraplaunchers: My buddy painted them beautifully and they look rather cool on paper (artillery that isn't squishy, they are rather fast, and they can even fight in melee!) but.... unfortunately they suck most of the time.

 

[Canas]

That one time he won he put a Weirdnob on a BWV and Foot of Gork stomped me, like, six times or so, killing a Slann, my Skink Chief (yes, at that time he was still viable, that's how long ago that was), an Astrolith Bearer and a Starpriest in one turn. I waved the white flag at that point.
But I wasn't even angry, it was epic!

But most of the time the problem is:
- Green Puke needs the wizard to be very close. He will very likely not survive getting that close, and even if he does: It is quite likely there are own units in the way.
- Foot of Gork is strong, but has a high casting value and needs some luck to really stomp more than twice and do decent damage.
- he needs a lot of Orruks around him to have a good chance to pull it off. That's not easy because he will mostly try to get them into combat ASAP in order to not get slaughtered by shooting. So they run ahead (using their bataillons that improve their move), and the Weirdnob gets left behind.
- No spell lore IIRC because the Battletome is rather old.


Allied Bonespitterz wizards can work, but until now it didn't. The problem is that those guys are too big to hide effectively so my Bastiladon just shoots them. They have a crappy save.

I hope that the new abilities and spells, and the changes in the GHB2018, make them more viable. "Look Out Sir!" will protect the heroes a bit for example.

EDIT
About Scraplaunchers: My buddy painted them beautifully and they look rather cool on paper (artillery that isn't squishy, they are rather fast, and they can even fight in melee!) but.... unfortunately they suck most of the time.

Meh, still feels like they shouldn't be that helpless, especially if you bring a back-up caster.

Having said that, the look out sir & endless spells will definitly help them a lot (much like they'l help us). And they could probably use some numbers tuning.

 

[Aginor]

Man, I just read a bit over at TGA and it seems that now after the "six nations" event people are really getting out the pitchforks and torches there, because of Kroak, Rippers, and EotG mainly.
Well, we all have seen it coming without even playing the game, but neither GW's rule team nor the so-called playtesters did it seems.
Seriously, it took us only a few hours after the first leaks and the faction focus to come up with potentially game breaking lists.

I am angry about it a bit, because I am a person who feels bad playing broken armies or lists, and it seems we only have bad/mediocre stuff and broken stuff.
I want a balanced game and from what I've heard that's not really the case right now.

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

Man, I just read a bit over at TGA and it seems that now after the "six nations" event people are really getting out the pitchforks and torches there, because of Kroak, Rippers, and EotG mainly.
Well, we all have seen it coming without even playing the game, but neither GW's rule team nor the so-called playtesters did it seems.
Seriously, it took us only a few hours after the first leaks and the faction focus to come up with potentially game breaking lists.

I am angry about it a bit, because I am a person who feels bad playing broken armies or lists, and it seems we only have bad/mediocre stuff and broken stuff.
I want a balanced game and from what I've heard that's not really the case right now.

Perhaps it was a Seraphon player who wrote the new rules and wanted his army to be stronger - I call this the “Bruce Quarrie” syndrome after a Napoleonic Rules writer who made the Russian army super strong, even though they were pretty weak in actual history, because he played Russians and had an urge to play the strongest army. The rest of the rules were pretty balanced, but for this one mistake he was given quite a hard time by the wargaming community.

 

[Canas]

Man, I just read a bit over at TGA and it seems that now after the "six nations" event people are really getting out the pitchforks and torches there, because of Kroak, Rippers, and EotG mainly.
Well, we all have seen it coming without even playing the game, but neither GW's rule team nor the so-called playtesters did it seems.
Seriously, it took us only a few hours after the first leaks and the faction focus to come up with potentially game breaking lists.

I am angry about it a bit, because I am a person who feels bad playing broken armies or lists, and it seems we only have bad/mediocre stuff and broken stuff.
I want a balanced game and from what I've heard that's not really the case right now.

It might be that in their own internal meta it simply isn't "broken". Balancing across different meta's and levels of play is rather complicated. It's something you can see a lot in for example e-sports due to the massive differences in skill, but most importantly in playstyle across the various tiers that exist. A certain mechanic can be utterly broken in one tier of play while borderline useless in another. For example, a mechanic that can be countered simply by staying levelheaded and using teamwork and CC to stop the enemy in it's tracks tends to be very weak at the level of pro's, who have the required organisation, but horrificly and utterly overpowered in the lowest levels of play where all the idiots scatter in fear the moment an opponent uses the mechanic cuz they lack the organisation to execute the teamwork.

Similarly if we take Kroak and our game. If their playtesters prefer to use ward-save mechanics alongside fodder-units then Kroak wouldn't be particularly powerfull. If the people at the tournament mostly ignored ward-saves and only fielded small elite units that are easier to hit and "lose" more per wound then Kroak is suddenly a lot more powerfull in the tournament.

Same with summoning, if the playtesters were biased towards summoning big bad dinosaurs for 20+ points but the people at the tournament just bury their opponents under a Thousand skinks you'l get vastly different meta's and thus the mechanics will appear very different in terms of power.

And you can make similar arguments for the EoTG & rippers.

For all 4 of em it's the case that their effectiveness depends heavily on what you're up against, what's supporting them and what the circumstances are (e.g. near the bloat toad? is kroak screened by skinks so he doesn't get pummeled to dead immeadiatly afterwards? Does the EoTG have a slann helping it's rolls?). Much more so than say skinks do, those will perform nearly the same in any given situation. It wouldn't be surprising if the meta the playtesters operated in was vastly different from the meta those tournament players played in.

And lastly, tournament players, especially the "pro's", tend to abuse the hell out of any mechanic they can. Their results in my experience generally aren't the most representative for the actual state of balance in a game as their abuse tends to lead to very specific meta's where either you play along and abuse the exact same stuff or get utterly annihilated as other playstyles have been made all but impossible by the abuse. And whenever an alternative does pop up that happens to perform well against the reigning playstyle in those circles the pitchforks and torches come out.... Hence not the best group to balance around...

 

[Aginor]

It might be that in their own internal meta it simply isn't "broken". Balancing across different meta's and levels of play is rather complicated. It's something you can see a lot in for example e-sports due to the massive differences in skill, but most importantly in playstyle across the various tiers that exist. A certain mechanic can be utterly broken in one tier of play while borderline useless in another. For example, a mechanic that can be countered simply by staying levelheaded and using teamwork and CC to stop the enemy in it's tracks tends to be very weak at the level of pro's, who have the required organisation, but horrificly and utterly overpowered in the lowest levels of play where all the idiots scatter in fear the moment an opponent uses the mechanic cuz they lack the organisation to execute the teamwork.

Similarly if we take Kroak and our game. If their playtesters prefer to use ward-save mechanics alongside fodder-units then Kroak wouldn't be particularly powerfull. If the people at the tournament mostly ignored ward-saves and only fielded small elite units that are easier to hit and "lose" more per wound then Kroak is suddenly a lot more powerfull in the tournament.

Same with summoning, if the playtesters were biased towards summoning big bad dinosaurs for 20+ points but the people at the tournament just bury their opponents under a Thousand skinks you'l get vastly different meta's and thus the mechanics will appear very different in terms of power.

And you can make similar arguments for the EoTG & rippers.

For all 4 of em it's the case that their effectiveness depends heavily on what you're up against, what's supporting them and what the circumstances are (e.g. near the bloat toad? is kroak screened by skinks so he doesn't get pummeled to dead immeadiatly afterwards? Does the EoTG have a slann helping it's rolls?). Much more so than say skinks do, those will perform nearly the same in any given situation. It wouldn't be surprising if the meta the playtesters operated in was vastly different from the meta those tournament players played in.

And lastly, tournament players, especially the "pro's", tend to abuse the hell out of any mechanic they can. Their results in my experience generally aren't the most representative for the actual state of balance in a game as their abuse tends to lead to very specific meta's where either you play along and abuse the exact same stuff or get utterly annihilated as other playstyles have been made all but impossible by the abuse. And whenever an alternative does pop up that happens to perform well against the reigning playstyle in those circles the pitchforks and torches come out.... Hence not the best group to balance around...

Normally I would agree, but this is the age of the internet and the so-called net-lists. People in stores and clubs around the world will play @darren watson 's (or any other winning) lists if he wins with them.
In tournament threads most of the questions are about winning lists for a reason. After darren made 3rd and 4th places with his extreme Kroaknado it suddenly appeared in tournaments everywhere, and half of the threads here in the forums asking for help were about how to play Kroaknado.

And yeah of course GW may overlook some obscure synergies. But I expect from them that they at least look at the common ones, and ask players of that army what they would try to do. Simple question lists would even help, with questions like: "if someone takes more than two of unit xyz what can happen" and doing a bit of math.
I had a 3xEotG list written down a few hours after the change was announced (I wasn't as crazy as darren and didn't make it four) and I already wondered what the hell GW was thinking.
I don't think it is asking too much from GW to take that into account.

Sure, the different levels of meta still exist, but it is rather rare in AoS that you find a list that is super broken in the hands of an experienced player but utterly harmless otherwise. Many of the really strong lists are kinda faceroll. Kroaknado, Kurnoth Spam, Skyfire Spam, 4xEotG and unleashed Rippers don't require special skills to use, compared to their nerfed versions, you have to know the list and that's it. Just place your stuff and roll dice, and if you roll well there is not much your opponent can do against it.
That will affect the meta on all levels.
I would even say it affects the lower levels even more. Darren (a top player himself) could probably beat all of my lists in turn one, even those I regularly win with and that are called cheese by my opponents.
He played Kroaknado against the top players in the world and they were the only ones that could stop him, even they struggled and one even cheated to win.

....I guess I am just sad that this happens over and over again.

 

[Crowsfoot]

Man, I just read a bit over at TGA and it seems that now after the "six nations" event people are really getting out the pitchforks and torches there, because of Kroak, Rippers, and EotG mainly.
Well, we all have seen it coming without even playing the game, but neither GW's rule team nor the so-called playtesters did it seems.
Seriously, it took us only a few hours after the first leaks and the faction focus to come up with potentially game breaking lists.

I am angry about it a bit, because I am a person who feels bad playing broken armies or lists, and it seems we only have bad/mediocre stuff and broken stuff.
I want a balanced game and from what I've heard that's not really the case right now.

@darren watson is a very talented player but he is even better at coming up with a list no one else would dream off, but is it his fault, the list he came up with is designed to try and win so nothing wrong here, GW got it wrong or maybe they didn't look at the exposure Seraphon are getting now.

Kroak is fine it's the rippers and EotG, I said it last week EotG is our best unit atm especially with a Slann.

My guess, I can see it becoming a Unique Hero so we can only take one, the rippers will go back to not generating extra attacks and Kroak will stay the same.

 

[Canas]

Normally I would agree, but this is the age of the internet and the so-called net-lists. People in stores and clubs around the world will play @darren watson 's (or any other winning) lists if he wins with them.
In tournament threads most of the questions are about winning lists for a reason. After darren made 3rd and 4th places with his extreme Kroaknado it suddenly appeared in tournaments everywhere, and half of the threads here in the forums asking for help were about how to play Kroaknado.

And yeah of course GW may overlook some obscure synergies. But I expect from them that they at least look at the common ones, and ask players of that army what they would try to do. Simple question lists would even help, with questions like: "if someone takes more than two of unit xyz what can happen" and doing a bit of math.
I had a 3xEotG list written down a few hours after the change was announced (I wasn't as crazy as darren and didn't make it four) and I already wondered what the hell GW was thinking.
I don't think it is asking too much from GW to take that into account.

I agree with that GW should look at the various Obvious combo's and take into account how they should be abused. And the EoTG one is something that should be one that recieved quite some testing given the sheer amount of Obvious synergies we have with it. And needless to say if a Darren comes up with some abusive nonsense they should look into how to curb the abuse. However, that doesn't mean they should balance around what the Darren's of the world think is weak/powerfull. That tends to result in situations where the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater when a new mechanic is introduced that happens to be powerfull in the current meta but for whatever reasons displeases the Darren's. Or in situations where abusive mechanics are never retuned because "it's fine at the competitive level".

To be honest, I'm curious how they playtest, Kroak should be fine as far as I can tell (or at least not be exceptionally more powerfull than just general magic spam...). But especially the EoTG should have been tested extensivly given the amount of modifiers we can throw at it to gain the right result. Hell, it surprises me that the other abilities stayed the same, it's still rather an incoherent unit...

@darren watson is a very talented player but he is even better at coming up with a list no one else would dream off, but is it his fault, the list he came up with is designed to try and win so nothing wrong here, GW got it wrong or maybe they didn't look at the exposure Seraphon are getting now.

Kroak is fine it's the rippers and EotG, I said it last week EotG is our best unit atm especially with a Slann.

My guess, I can see it becoming a Unique Hero so we can only take one, the rippers will go back to not generating extra attacks and Kroak will stay the same.

Meh, I think the EoTG just needs a full rework, and would benefit more from that than just becoming a unique hero. It needs to be more coherent. It'd also make it less problematic if the other abilities were of comparable power, or at least bit ib a scale from "do d3 damage" till "do double your attacks this turn" till "summon a free 100-140 points worth of stuff"

As for the rippers, they should just get worse stats… 75% of their bites will generate another attack thanks to the swooping dive rule and a 4+ base hit (ignoring potential other modifiers). That's just ridiculously effective… E.g. just change foracious appetite to be "on a succesfull wound" instead of on a succesfull hit. It then drops from 75% to 50% which is already far better, if still rather high. Or change it to be similar to a scar vet on cold ones warpick, roll a dice on a 4+ do another round of attacks, it'l drop off quicker as well... there's quite a lot of ways to fix the issue without breaking the spirit of the Original rule.

 

[darren watson]

That tends to result in situations where the baby gets thrown out with the bathwater when a new mechanic is introduced that happens to be powerfull in the current meta but for whatever reasons displeases the Darren's.

The 'Darren's' of the scene don't get displeased about anything, quite the reverse

 

[Canas]

The 'Darren's' of the scene don't get displeased about anything, quite the reverse

Well I had to use someone's name for it, blame @Aginor for pointing me towards yours

And it wouldn't be the first time that the "hard-core" or "pro" part of the community manages to drive a game into the abyss by demanding certain things and shouting down any and all opposition. Which was the point. My apoligies if you do not identify as part of that particular group, again, blame Aginor for putting your name in my head when writing the post this

 

[darren watson]

Well I had to use someone's name for it, blame @Aginor for pointing me towards yours

And it wouldn't be the first time that the "hard-core" or "pro" part of the community manages to drive a game into the abyss by demanding certain things and shouting down any and all opposition. Which was the point. My apoligies if you do not identify as part of that particular group, again, blame Aginor for putting your name in my head when writing the post this

It isn't, the 'hard core' or the 'pro' part driving anything down into the abyss.. they are calling for balance, for the benefit of all

the only pissing and moaning I see anywhere is from people that by-on-large don't even play competitively at a high level any way.. Frankly it boggles my mind

 

[darren watson]

I play hard, absolutely. But my list designs come from trying to either anticipate the meta or play in it once it's established. I try and use things people don't and make them work. I used Kroak pre GHB2 when he was 540 pts, not because he was broken (no one used him at the time, no one hardly used Seraphon) but because he could take on Kunnin Rukks and Tzeentch, even Skyfire Spam.. Anti-Meta

There are also plenty of competitive players that like to net list, claiming it's just them that are demanding changes to keep their lists competitive simply isn't true. a large part of the community like to be out spoken about lots of different aspects of the game. I think that should be encouraged to happen in a positive manner rather than demonising others hobby. Who does that benefit?

For future ref bracketing my name and using it as an example of whats wrong with the hobby wasn't cool and won't be in the future

 

[Aginor]

Sorry @darren watson I am sure neither @Canas nor me intended to use your name for something bad, you are a very respected member of this community.

I mentioned you because you are _the_ competitive Seraphon player, with high skill and creativity to come up with unusual and strong lists.

 

[darren watson]

Sorry @darren watson I am sure neither @Canas nor me intended to use your name for something bad, you are a very respected member of this community.

I have put a lot of effort into writing reports on here because I enjoy the thought it may help someone improve their game of they may simply enjoy reading about Seraphon success or failures. If I wanted to be a super power gamer, I wouldn't share how to play and I'd just of used Tzeentch in the previous edition..

I was proper buzzing about 6 nations still and today was the first time I have read a thread on Lustria and been proper bummed out by it.

I was going to write up the experience, now I'm in 2 minds if it's just made me come across as one of 'power gamers' that don't care about anyone else

Thank you for the apology, I know you weren't targeting me specifically

 

[Aginor]

Please don't let me being incompetent using the english language deter you from writing your reports here. We all enjoy them and the competitive scene is something we all look to, to see what is possible in the game.

I think the point mostly was that people react to what happens in the competitive scene and it has a big impact on GWs balancing attempts. An impact that can be negative or positive.

 

[darren watson]

Please don't let me being incompetent using the english language deter you from writing your reports here. We all enjoy them and the competitive scene is something we all look to, to see what is possible in the game.

I think the point mostly was that people react to what happens in the competitive scene and it has a big impact on GWs balancing attempts. An impact that can be negative or positive.

I could well be being overly sensitive as I have been travelling up and down the country and mentally exhausted from the lead up to the weekend and the games themselves.. Appreciate your message buddy , thank you

 

[Crowsfoot]

I was proper buzzing about 6 nations still and today was the first time I have read a thread on Lustria and been proper bummed out by it.

I was going to write up the experience, now I'm in 2 minds if it's just made me come across as one of 'power gamers' that don't care about anyone else

Thank you for the apology, I know you weren't targeting me specifically

I don't think either party would intend to upset you on purpose, your a very valuable member of this community and you are not seen as a "power gamer" we love reading your reports and we know you do care about the game and not just winning and we value your lists, even if some do seem whacky.

Please write the batrap I for one am very eager to read about the six nations.

 

[Crowsfoot]

I could well be being overly sensitive as I have been travelling up and down the country and mentally exhausted from the lead up to the weekend and the games themselves.. Appreciate your message buddy , thank you

Now that's sorted get that Batrap up

 

[Aginor]

Now that's sorted get that Batrap up

+1