AoS Realms

Also if you don't feel the +3 unbind everywhere Kroak is fun and fair in your environment you don't have to field everything it takes to get there. And in the highest level competitive play basically all good armies have things without a "good" counter in other armies, and that's where the players skill comes in, limiting the impact of your opponent's advantages (or so it appears to me, as a super non-competitive player).

 

I dunno, for some reason spell casting has always been a controversial subject. Even tho it's more interactive than something like command traits its always seemed to draw more controversy.

 

But that is my point - The choice is completely removed from my opponent since it is +3 and boardwide. He cant do anything to limit the impact or play around it.

Sure, I could nerf myself but then we run into a situation where I would want him to possibly nerf X, Y and Z. To me it is much easier just to play by the rules. At my club we are all kinda competitive and like to go to tournaments, but that doesnt mean some rules are absurd and frustrating to play against.

 

Prayers dont shut down your opponent in the same way that +3 boardwide unbind does and in general they dont have the same kind of impact on the table that spells do. My only beef is the Fyrewall which has terrible RAW. Even Khorne skulls arent that bad - You can place yourself out of range and/or attempt to snipe the Khorne priest.

Any time there is a situation where you are left with no counterplay or interaction from your opponent, it is kinda shit. Command abilities etc dont have a counter, but they dont have the same kind of impact. I know every army (pretty much) got something absurd they can do, but the vast majority is something you can play around and try to prevent.

 

Alot of combat things can be avoided or played around - You can prevent yourself from getting charged by a Terrorgheist and instead ensure you get the charge off, so it doesnt hit you twice first. In general Im not a fan of Fyreslayers, it is an incredible boring army to play against all around due to terrible rules.

As said, it isnt just Seraphon. I find any mechanic with zero counterplay to be extremely bad for the game. Teclis autocast or Destiney Dice are no different. Hand of Dust is one of those things you can do something about - Either stay out of range or attempt to unbind. Unlimited range portal is an issue though, which also suck.

 

With respect to magic v.s. prayers/command abilities/regular abilities/artifacts.etc., I'd say that magic needs to (generally) be more powerfull as a reward for them being the least reliable (in general) compared to the other options, as well as reward the fact that wizards are generally fairly bad in combat (with the caveat that certain monstrous wizards don't need this as much).

Alternativly, I'd say the various options should at least have a focus on different effects. E.g. command abilities have the best offensive buffs, spells the best damage, prayers the best defensive buffs. That sorta distinction. Something that allows you to read a description of an effect and immeadiatly be able to tell it's a spell or a prayer or an artifact or something else because it exhibits certain traits.

As it stands there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to why a specific ability is a spell, prayer, artifact, command ability or regular ability. And as a consequence there's little that makes a wizard stand apart from a priest, or a commander.

Something is indeed needed to stop people from spamming a particularly powerfull spell. But the rule of one does at least as much harm as it does good.

Spell lores help alleviate this particular problem to some extend assuming you have a good lore (and unique warscroll spell), but it doesn't completly negate it.

No I mean that the rule of one makes it impossible to field say 2 units supported by 2 wizards who cast their buffs on both of them so you can present a frontline with multiple fully supported units. The only thing the rule of 1 allows for is fielding 1 deathstar fully supported by 1 wizard or 2 units who are at best partially supported.

O sure, if Nagash gets unlucky you might stand a chance. But that's the point. The only thing that matters is if he gets unlucky. You're at such a disadvantage that you'l have to work under the assumption that he will succeed with 90% his casts no matter what kind of clever thing you try to pull. Which imho, is a bit much. Obviously it's fine for Nagash to dominate a single puny necromancer, but it'd be nice if for example a coven of necromancers could put up a fight. Or if you could buy an upgrade for your necromancer so he might stand more than a snowball's chance in hell.

 

IMO, this problem is super-simple to resolve. If you think that something is oppressive, just don't field it or use its powers to their full extent. +3 to unbind is oppressive? Don't take second slann or celestial equilibrium, don't use an Asterism with +1 to unbind. Kroak is oppressive? Take Slann. Universal unbinds? Refuse to unbind anything which was not cast within 30" of the Kroak. Salamanders oppressive? Take razordons. That what I do and I have absolutely no problems. You need GW's permission or opponents permission if you wish some parts of your army to be stronger, but you absolutely don't need any of them if you wish to nerf your army yourself.

 

Back to the topic of the realms. Leaks finally reached me, and I don't like the result at all. If the previous iteration was too unbalanced, this one has such a small impact, besides several cases, that I just wouldn't bother.

Shyish:
- you have literally sacrifice cast to give +1 to casts for endless spells. Ha-ha, no (but kroak with +6 to cast total is ridiculous, sure). Would be more interesting, if it worked liked Celestial equilibrium;
- nullification terrain everywhere? Ok. No Vortex in cover and you can actually hide from ES. Maybe helpful against some armies;
- reroll save rolls of 1 for artifact. I wouldn't bother.

Hysh:
- ok, now we have two mystic shields atop of CA's (if they were not removed, of course);
- mystical everywhere is ridiculous, especially for us, CoS, Lumineth and Tzeentch;
- artefact at least grants rerolls for all weapons. Which is still not worth it, assuming everyone still have all-out attack;
- ignore cover... I don't know, cover is so rarely impornant in my games at least. But could be nice as additional -1 to save sometimes.

Chamon:
- +1 save is actually interesting. I bet, Nagash and every other army, that has to rely on one big model with good save, will pick this one. I would call this one closest to the "broken";
- enangling on any scenary... Interesting against armies, that like massive charges from reserves, so you can hide and make their life harder;
- artefact is good, but only when you already have good saves. So you can go to 2+ with spell and ignore -1. Not on named heroes though;
- additional +1 to-hit in combat is nice, when you have lot's of CP, but nothing special. Could make starborne saurus a bit better;

Ghur:
- basic spell is good, but armies, that could teleport in hero phase will benifit from it way more than us. We still can cast it on something and use LoSaT. Nice for coalesced for quicker movement;
- deadly is the worst type of terrain after volcanic. "Roll d6 to roll d3" type;
- artefact, once again, only for concerving CA's. I'd still take one from our list;
- ignore damage table could be very good for armies, that rely on monsters. We are not one of them, unfortunately.

Ghyrran:
- nothing changed much for CA and spell. All terrain healing, but once again, roll d6 to roll d3. I don't see anything special.

Aqshy:
- fireball is unchanged. It is still better Arcane bolt. Way better;
- Volcaninc terrain - once again, roll d6 to roll d3;
- okayish artefact, but we already have this effect on most of our best fighters;
- CA may be helpful, combined with Hunter's Steed.

Ulgu:
-spell is nice hero sniper. Both good and dangerous for us. Better than Lumineth one;
- overgrown is bad for shooting armies. Would be helpful against CoS;
- artefact, at least, has an effect, which is not replicated by CA, but still meh;
- CA is good for additional mobility, but our opponents won't benifit more from it, than we do.

In general, effects will, of course, impact the game, and if you chose the realm, you can adjust it, depending on your opponent. But, mostly, they are still imbalanced and will benifit some armies way more than other. I would still just ignore them, becuase GW didn't make things much better, but destroyed some fun builds, that revolved around realms artefacts. I am disappointed.

 

Having a look over the realms, seems like a fun way to add some overall themes for our matches as right now the terrain itself feels like a non factor. Hopefully what we see now though will get some later refinement, but right now its good to see that the rules for the realms are being used in a more open manner.

side thought: chamon's plate armor could be a fun artifact

 

There's 1 major issue with this though. And that's that purposefully hamstringing yourself is rarely fun. Plus a lot of the stuff is balanced around using the oppresive stuff, without the oppresive ability the unit often becomes rather underwhelming. Especially when your opponent is still using his oppressive nonsense.

Admittadly, if you're with likeminded players this is less of an issue. But that's always the case.

 

Im overall not very impressed with the GHB20. The changes to the realms feel super rushed - It looks like it is an attempt to streamline things and try to promote people playing with the realms. Unfortunately it just created a situation (IMO) where you might include realms but they have insignificant effect and overall just feel really bland. Some of the realms have ok effects you can play around with, others feel super lackluster. I think one of the most important things to take into account when picking a realm is if your opponent has any endless spells - None of our bound ones are effected/empowered by a realm, but if your opponent has Umbral Spellportal, Bridge etc. you might think twice about picking Ulgu or Shyish. The Chamon artefact isnt "too bad", unfortunately if you decide to go for it, it means 50% of the time your opponent will dictate what artefact your guy has since you locked yourself into a realm artefact at all times for that hero. That seems bad and you would overall want to pick something from our tome to ensure something semi decent every game.

In my list I play with Slann + Kroak + Knight-Incantor, so I could see Shyish being "OK", at least for turn 1 when Kroak cant really reach anything anyways. As I read the spell it boosts every friendly Wizards cast by 1 when attempting an Endless Spell. That with Celestial Equilibrium ontop would make the Everblaze go off on a 4+, Balewind cant fail on Kroak (even if Celestial Equilibrium fails) and my Slann would be +3 to get Geminids off. Not being able to have Kroak on Balewind in Cover kinda suck, but meh Im OK with that. Every terrain having nullification could have some interesting plays when you move Bound Endless Spells between battlerounds. You could hit a unit with Geminids for -1 to hit and auto dispell by running it into terrain, then recast in your turn for -2 to hit. That way you dont have to sacrifice casts to dispell.

Chamon is semi interesting for me too since entangling is actually incredible strong when screening. Like if your Skinks stand on a piece of terrain and the opponent moves up, he has to be 3" away from you, but due to the terrain it is actually a 5" charge. Can make a difference.

At the end of the day I might just take whatever realm benefits my opponent the least.

 

I wouldn't call it "major". TBH, it is just a choice of yours - either you tone down your list or you oppress your opponent. Honestly, I'd prefere to use weaker list for the sake of the challenge. It would be always more fun than roflstomping. I see no difference between hamstringing myself and being hamstringed by GW. I really cannot imagine someone saying "Look, I really don't want to table you in 2 turns in a friendly game, but I don't want to tone down my list too, so we probably both won't have fun, but blame GW". Yes, in general, we should blame GW, but not that we cannot do anything with this.

IDK, how the games are held in official GW stores, but in our community we either play with friends and always can reach agreement on our lists, or go to events. If event is narrative, we take fun lists, if it is a tournament, you cannot blame players for taking oppressive stuff. Take oppressive noncence against oppressive nonsence and take fluffy stuff against fluffy stuff. Super-simple in my area.

Actually, no. You chose artefacts in your list just as you did before. The only difference is that you have to chose out of 7, listed in the MP section.

The best thing is that we can chose terrain effects before the battle. It somewhat saves my thunderquake list, because I can chose commanding on both sites of my deployment or in the centre of the battlefield and get bonus CA every turn.

 

The realm rules say that you must replace your Malign Sorcery artefact with whatever artefact is available in the realm you have chosen. So if your hero X is going for a realm artefact, it will always be forced into the artefact from whatever realm the roll-off winner picks? You cant just suddenly go "oh this realm has a shit artefact, nevermind I will pick something from my tome".

Well yes in theory, but as this wont be the way tournaments actually play, I doubt this is how the majority of competitive players will do in matched play. Im certain my club will just say "nah, no thanks GW" and continue plopping down 6-9 pieces of terrain and roll for it to imitate tournaments, just like we ignored GHB19 rules.

There will obviously be people that play according to the rules and do the player A and player B thing, and there is nothing wrong with that. From what I have seen on various social media though it that there are many who arent happy about this rule and will just ignore it. It is super prone to abuse.

 

No, the rules state, that you must pick artefact "from the following pages". You still write it down in your list, like before.

 

What do you mean? So you can pick the artefact from Chamon even if the chosen realm for the game is Shyish? I thought it said your artefact must be whatever realm is chosen for the game.

 

it's the artifact from the realm your army is from not the realm you are fighting in