AoS NEW *rumor*

What's the alternative for Tzeentch though? Pink horrors is the only thing Tzeentch has that makes for a decent tarpit. It's not like you can do that with Kairic acolytes or Tzaangor.

At least we have alternatives for the Salamander. They're strictly worse alternatives, but at least they exist and aren't completly horrible.

The basic idea of giving extra VP for killing specific targets as a mechanic is, fine.

For example, I think it's an interesting thing to add to nearly the complete the SoB army. It's a nice trade-off for their ability to just dominate objectives cuz they count as 35 models, making it impossible to quickly steal objectives.

Similarly, I think it's interesting to add to the SCE dragon guard spam armies, as it's a clear disadvantage to just bringing a mono-army. And mono-armies are kinda lame, so discouraging that is good idea.

And I can imagine it'd work well on certain specific units, like the god-models. It's a fitting trade-off for how much power you pour into 1 model, thus resulting in a guaranteed local point-supremacy, wherever that unit is.

However, adding it to seemingly random units like Salamanders and Pink Horrors simply because they're supposedly OP is questionable at best.
It doesn't adress whatever is making that unit OP. And it's a rather weird mechanic to put on certain unit types. The pink horrors probably being the worst example of this as it directly conflicts with their role as tar-pit as well as there not being any real alternatives for Tzeentch anyway.

Anyway tl:dr; as a mechanic added as a trade-off to specific factions or exceptionally powerfull units this might have some potential. As a general balancing-tool it is a questionable band-aid solution that doesn't actually fix anything, and is going to have some weird interactions with certain unit-types.

O and it is a decent tool to discourage spam like the dragon-guard or eel nonsense (e.g. "if more than X% of your army is the same unit they're worth an extra 1 VP each)

 

You should check the tzeentch list Kaleb ran all last competitive season. Didn't bring any pink horrors and had great placings at da boyz, summer slaughter and the new orleans open.

Its only weird on a unit like pinks if the idea is to never give up that VP and not as an inherent cost of adding that power to your list. You'll give up the VP. It's a matter of is it worth it and 9 times out of 10 the answer is probably still yes.

I agree it'll need some finessing for sure. Definitely far from perfect but I'm excited to see what kind of impact it might have. Good idea bad execution maybe because I don't know if the reward/punishment being tied to killing stuff really makes sense.

 

I'm not saying a Tzeentch list without pink horrors is unviable.

I'm saying that Tzeentch doesn't really have any alternatives for the role Pink Horrors fullfill as an effective battleline tarpit.
Nothing else brings the same, or even similar volume of wounds for their pointcost, even blue horrors don't come close to the same tarpit level.

The issue isn't the giving up of VP for kills in itself. That is fine, both from a fantasy as well as from a game-y perspective in certain situations. It can work as a mechanic on certain unit-types which represent something important being killed (e.g. generals, key-heroes) or which are sufficiently powerfull to count as an achievement to take down (e.g. big scary monsters, god-models, or even elite formations). It can also work as a general objective for a game (e.g. 1 VP per destroyed unit), though this last one is difficult to get right in an assymetrical game such as AoS.

However, Pink horrors don't fit those catagories, they're cannonfodder, a big part of their purpose is precisely to die. And giving away VP for your cannonfodder dying is rather counterintuitive and weird.

On pink horrors it's an extra, random, relativly marginal, illogical cost that solely exists for the sake of pushing its winrate slightly lower. And that isn't exactly great game design. It doesn't fit with the unit's fantasy, is game-y beyond believe, and doesn't even do anything to adress whatever makes the unit OP (assuming everyone even agrees it's OP and actually needs nerfing, but that's an entirely seperate discussion )

It is a prime example of why balancing explicitly around winrate is tends to have rather silly results. It often results in weird game-y and illogical stuff like this that only has a marginal impact, usually on something completly unrelated to what actually makes the unit good.

Will it push Tzeentch his winrate down? Yeah, slightly.
Will Tzeentch survive? Definitly.
Will Pink Horrors survive? Probably.
Is it in any way fun or interesting? Not particularly, maybe for some die-hard min-maxers if you're lucky.
Does it make any semblance of sense outside of a purely winrate focused frame? Nope.

 

I 100% hear where you are coming from. I just don't think the use case of the unit necessarily should come into play here. I fundamentally disagree with the assertion that a VP cost "makes sense" for some units and not for others, based entirely on what role that unit is supposed to play. It's only counter intuitive under a specific lens that i happen to not few it under. It addresses what makes the unit OP by giving up points for taking it, i'm looking at it from the perspective of VPs being just another currency in the game. Is it weird that a cannon fodder unit costs 250 points? I'm looking at this in the same way.

If anything, GW's repeated attempts at managing that warscroll through any other means should show that something new needed to be tried. Is this right? I have no idea, but i enjoy that there is an additional cost for bringing powerful units. If you want the best tarpit in the game, you gotta spend at least one VP to make it happen.

I'd like to see how they evolve the execution of this. Maybe it turns out that it is in fact overly punishing for some units and irrelevant for others, and we can adjust from there.

What would you do differently?

Soulblight doesn't need anything on this list right now because they aren't nearly as oppressive as any of the armies that did have multiple pieces show up.

Pinks really should have been just prime targets in legion and nothing else. Tzeentch hasn't done anything in a while.

 

I'm just glad they left my cities alone, several very common units they could have hit if their goal was to make us diversify

 

The game represents battles.
VP represent winning a battle, or at least getting an upperhand on the battlefield. By slaying the general, controlling a strategic point, fullfilling strategic objectives etc.

Killing cannonfodder is generally not something that is considered strategicly important in any way shape or form, in fact people will usually agree that killing cannonfodder is kind of a waste of time and effort. Hence it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to reward the killing of cannonfodder in a meaningfull way.

Obviously this is putting it a bit black & white, but it is the underlying reasoning as to why giving cannonfodder VP's is weird.

Aren't they 215? The app says they are.
Anyways, they get away with their high cost, while still retaining the title of cannonfodder by simply bringing a very large amount of wounds. It's not like say skinks would be any cheaper if you'd want to bring enough skinks to have a similar amount of wounds. But yes, their high cost is also a tad odd, at least at first glance.

In general I wouldn't be messing with VP too much if I could avoid it. Thats something that should be relativly consistent across factions.

If you are adamant on using VP as a "cost" then there's three situations in which it has some potential:

1. Limited to specific lists/factions where you can incorporate it into the faction's identity such as SoB.
   
2. As a very heavyhanded way to discourage particular unwanted lists. E.g. discourage mono dragon-spam lists by making each dragon worth 3 VP if it's a mono list.
   
3. As an inherent limitation to particularly expensive units, to accentuate the risk-reward of spending so many points on one unit. This would also make it easier to accept that these extremly costly units get to bend the rules (e.g. Teclis gets to auto-cast, but he also gives away VP if he dies). This would result in a rule like "If a unit costs 350+ point it's worth 2 extra VP when killed"

O and lastly, I absolutly would not tie this to winrate of specific units. Cuz that's a good way to get weird results.

As for specific "problematic" units, like the Salamanders and Pink Horrors. Imho, neither of those is really broken, and the main issue is that the alternatives simply aren't there. Increasing their costs won't really fix anything, not unless their costs becomes so high they're simply no longer worth it. What would probably fix things would be to improve the alternatives (e.g. buff Razordons enough to be a viable alternative to Salamanders)

 

Pinks aren't cannonfodder, they are the backbone of the army. Troops are always the backbone of the army and are predominantly what holds points. Killing them is strategically important. Killing screens and the things that hold points is often a crucial component of winning the game.

Not at all married to VP, just desperately want them to try something outside of point changes to help balance things. It's obvious just point changes isn't working.

Appreciate your suggestions tho, can definitely see how some of those makes for a more impactful/meaningful situation. I can dive in further on my thoughts when i have time!

 

In those cases killing the screens isn't the important bit. It's getting to whatever is behind them that is important.

Let me explain it by comparing two scenarios:

Scenario 1) A screen of 10 skinks is holding an objective.
Scenario 2) A bloodthirster is holding an objective.

In the first case, all you need to do is steal the objective, the skinks don't need to die. Simply putting 11 models on the objective is enough to hold the objective pretty much indefinitly. The skinks will never be able to take it back on their own, no matter how much time you give them.

In the second case simply stealing the objective isn't enough. The bloodthirster is more than powerfull enough to take it back on his own. You will need to kill the bloodthirster or it will take it back after a turn or two.

The difference is that the cannonfodder is essentially harmless, and all you really need to do is get past them. But assuming they are not directly in your way you can basicly just ignore them. Of course in practise it doesn't all work quite that neatly, but hopefully you get the point

Also, to further complicate things. Pink horrors are a bit of a weird unit, in terms of wound efficiency they're cannonfodder. But their other stats are considerably better than regular cannonfodder. Making it even less black and white than the simple example

If you want to try other ways of balancing via costs/rewards during list building, especially when focused on spamming units, there's some other options:

1. More specialized roles (e.g. add "elites" to the exisiting battleline, artillery, heroes catagories) with specific limits
   1. Additionally, this could be dynamic. E.g. the first 3 units of X count as a battleline pick, the 4th count as an elite pick.
2. Improving battalions so "healthy"/thematic combo's are actually rewarded (the current battalions are both too open and too weak to really achieve this)
   
3. Limiting spam by flat out forcing the use of battalions, possibly alongside stricter battalions
   
4. Just flat out ban spamming by introducing hard limits on specific unit(type)s (e.g. max 30% of an army may be the same unit, max 3x the same unit, max 30% cavalry etc.)

And lastly there's 1 very fundamental change they could introduce to counteract spam, unfortunatly it touches the core-rules of AoS and would require a lot of work to make work so I doubt we'll see it any time soon

1. Introduce rules that explicitly reward mixed martial forces. For example, introduce a rule that cavalry can't hold objectives, thus forcing people to bring infantry.

As for balancing stuff like the big god-models. Personally I think those will always remain problematic, and the only real solution is simply to avoid such powerfull models that get to bend the rules.

 

Having fought Soulblight a lot, that's kind of where I fall on those units as well. But, it appears that this VP mechanic is an ongoing platform. Units/models will be added and removed as it evolves. I guess, to the point of @Putzfrau, SBGL aren't quite as "oppressive" as some other units or armies.

 

I think the underlying reason is their basic approach to creating this particular mechanic.

They very explicitly mention that they're specificly targeting units that are common in lists with high winrates.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's simply a matter of Horrors being Tzeentch's only option for anything resembling a tarpit, and thus being a very noticeable and reasonably populair choice, no matter what the other options are. Plus, they can be summoned. Plus, the lesser horrors are at their most effective when they originated from Pink ones (1 unit of pinks gives move blue horrors per point than 1 unit of blues).

So they're pretty much guaranteed to be populair, and impactfull.

They kind of stand out by default. And thus are a prime candidate for an approach like this that only cares about popularity and winrate.

 

Just wanted to touch on this real quick. Those scenarios are probably less convincing than you may have originally thought! A lot of the times you aren't going to simply "move 11 models" onto a point being held by 10 skinks because all the opponent needs to do is kill 2 models to be able to hold it back. It's probably super advantageous to actually plan on killing the skinks. They are easy to kill, lets you pick up an easy battlepoint and let you take the point with something your opponent then needs to fight off OR with your own screen, leaving you up 1 on the screen game.

The first turns of the game are often built around how to safely remove those throw away pieces without putting your juicy stuff in kill range.

In scenario 2 you might actually be better served just moving 10 "cannonfodder" units onto the point, outscoring it and forcing the blood thirster to charge closer to you or blocking its charge into your juicy stuff. This stuff is all especially relevant for seraphon where just the 12inches of space on the objective is often the difference between your stuff being in threat range and there stuff being in yours.

Anyways just a fun strat tangent lol.

I would truly love if there were more rules that benefited a more balanced mix of units in a given army. I think there's a lot of cool suggestions in what you posted, but like with the priority target idea it's just so hard to see how it all works across the board, for every player, in every army, etc etc.

I certainly don't envy them, but agree that as it stands priority targets/prime hunters is far from perfect. faaaaar from it. Personally, for me i'd use it as a way to provide risk to a scroll that needs more risk than just "swingy damage." Longstrikes for example. It's already "only" a 12 wound unit with a 4+ save. That warscroll is never going to be fair. It's going to be too good right up until its so expensive no one will ever bring it. Same with bowsnakes. Same with dragons. Honestly, same with sallies and pinks.

Would it be better to just rewrite scrolls? Maybe. But i think there's some truth to understanding that your players are also buying a fixed product in the actual models. Is it fair to fundamentally change a model someone has spent a ton of time and money on because they liked it? Personally, i'm in the yes camp but thats because my seraphon collection is extensive and i can easily pivot to other builds.

This solution, as half-hearted as it is, represents a good step in the right direction (at least for me) so i'm willing to look past some of the intuitive problems. I'm gonna be using it relatively soon, so i'll let you know how it goes!

As mentioned above, I think it's better as an internal balancing/risk creating tool than a "these units are too powerful" tool. I don't think any of those units actually need more risk involved, as all of them feel pretty fairly pointed with the small exception of maybe zombies. But I do think its something that can be solved with points. I dont necessarily know if something like Longstrikes or giants can.

Just my two cents!

 

Yep, and IMO a salamander is not a unit that can be solved with a simple point adjustment while zombies can.

Its why I talked about adding a new layer of risk to scrolls like Salamanders, foxes, horrors, longstrikes, dragons, etc. These are units that are always worth it right up until they never are. I think it comes down to just the unique natuee of their scrolls most of the time. We need to be able to build risk into their inclusion in ways outside of points adjustments because of that fact.

A unit like zombies can be fairly pointed, and IMO almost is.

 

Did anyone ask why they targeted pink horrors with that extra victory point thing for tzeench instead of say. Oh idk. A lord of change? In fact I would be okay with archaon getting a bounty vp since ya know he's the harbinger of the apocalypse in all.
Don't get wrong I'm a war vet and I understand firsthand how devastating psychology it is to have a line platoon wiped out. I'm just trying to wrap head on it a little

 

Given that they did target kairos, and very explicitly mentioned the whole "we only look at what's populair in high win-rate lists"
I'm guessing the lord of change simply isn't that populair in the winning lists. Or at least not as omni-present as it's occasionally swapped out for say Kairos, or some other wizards.