8th Ed. anyone else wanting to stop playing lizards ?

Some really excellent points and insights from Sleboda, SpineyNorman and others. I really think that the LM army book is one of the more balanced books. Yet, they kind of missed opportunities with some existing and new models in ways that seem too obvious to experienced gamers.

As a financial analyst who has spent more than twenty years analyzing and valuing companies, including large public companies, I have to say that GW's business stratgey and lack of business acumen totally baffles me. I do not understand how spending more time writing sound and balanced rules is somehow inconsistent with a good marketing and business strategy. GW loses too many customers to frustrating and poorly written rules and imbalance issues than anythnig else from talking with old ex-GW store managers, FLGS store owners and long-time players (both tournament and casual). It simply does not cost that much more to do it right. The cost of mistakes is too great such that, if I were running GW, I'd have a review committee of gamers with authority over final release of each rule book and army book wrt to point costs and rules conflicts. Then I would have a group appointed to monitor each game system and aggressively clarify and amend rules and, when advisable, adjust point costs (which GW almost never corrects) as obvious errors in balance (both internal to the book and externaly overall between books) and rules disputes arise. [When I write reports, my work is typcially reviewed internally before gping final by someone with veto authority and by representatives of my client or multiple clients (often attorneys). ]

Consider this: when the 8th ed BRB for WHFB was printed, the victory conditions were contradictory and so poorly thought out that they printed an insert to be provided with the BRB to correct the error and had to FAQ the issue. Yet, they still never got the victory condition quite right. Any marginally competitive gamer would have spotted that mistake immediately. How did that occur in a public company of this size and with a significant new edition for their second largest game system? Also, simply looking at the 7th edition book should have told them that the victory condition in 8th edition was poorly written and insufficient, not scaled to the sizes of the armies and the type of battle. Is that a reflection of the hostility of the design team or primary author of the BRB to anything other than casual play for fun?

The report from someone that play tested is very similar to a number of other stories I've heard from ex-GW people and stuff that has leaked out over time. Is it too much freedom combined with arrogance and British stubbornness that causes the design group to so consistently miss the mark? It takes a lot to accept constructive and even hostile criticism and respond affirmatively to it, but that is what good businesses have to do to survive and grow. I have no problem with the models and style of the book driving the rules. I understande GW, as a business, will want to trot out new models and get us to buy them (shoot Magic-the-Gathering does that to the extreme). At the end, the issue is one or writting the rules clearly and setting the point costs of models and upgrades and options correctly. It is very hard to write rules clearly and get the point costs right, so I appreciate that errors will occurr, and GW is getting much better. But GW os not close to where they should be compared to others with a lot less resources., and the refusal to address issues as they arise with FAQ's is mystifying.

I think the most telling point is that GW makes certain new modelsand prints new army books that it would like to sell/should want to make us buy for business reasons. But, yet, GW often writes rules and sets the point costs for those new models and armies such that they are uncompetitive and effectively reduces the sales of those models and armies.

I did analyze GW over time. 1. They let a horrible War of the Rings book go out without adequate testing or ignored the feedback. Then GW had its stores in the US try to force players of Lord of the Rings intto WOTR in order to get them to buy more models and play larger games. LOTR was a great and fun introductory skirmish game my son started gaming with when he was young. It should have stayed such and been used to draw poeple into trading up to 40K and WHFB, which is what happened in our case. The WOTR rules so favored certain armies and army builds that the in-store 3 game events were all being won by either Mordor or an army with cheap Golbins with a few characters that were undercosted and a Flying Dragon (that was very hard to kill, had flying, had flaming shooting attacks, could cast magic spells, etc) with Mordor allies. Mordor Ring Wraiths had the ability to cast certain spells cheaply that esetially prevented targetted opposing units from charging and shooting. In addition, each Ring Wraith buffed the unit it was in, with one giving a ward save that (when successful) transferred the wound to the enemy unit if within range. Almost everyone playing the LOTR game that we knew quit, and, despite GW trying to resuurect LOTR, now with Hobbit, we find no interest in playing the game. 2. They poorly managed and promoted the WHFB and 40K business and began to see erosion to other games. The result was losses and marginal profits in fiscal years (end in late May early June) 2006 through 2008.

GW reacted by raising prices and changing strategies a bit. The roll out of new WHFB and 40K rule books led to a partial recovery in profits in fiscal 2009 and 2010. But GW is essentially flat in projected growth and profitability. depsite price increases. In real terms, GW has never recovered to its peak in 2003 and has not grown in real terms relative to where it was ten yesrs ago. GW should be as much as two to three times larger in revenues and profits and would be much larger if GW ;properly embraced the gaming community (including ETC events and tournaments), properly priced and promotted its products, and if game design was more balanced and scalable. GW is losing WHFB players over time due to the entry costs being too high (in money, time to collect and build and paint the models, and complexity to learn the rules), some long time players objecting to 8th edition rules (which always happens to some extent with significant new rules, and I personally like 8th edition except the OP magic spells like dwellers and purple sun), and the 8th ed rules not being scalable to playing smaller battles (new players find the game clunky and difficult to work at the lower point cost levels, especially for some armies relative to others). Their management of relations with FLGS has also been quite poor and they have lost previously loyal retailers that no longer carry or promote their games in inventory.

 

Look at the internal balance within the Lizardmen book.

If you were to play Lizardmen vs Lizardmen, everything in the army would be viable, including the Troglodon. Some things might be a little bit stronger from a points standpoint than others, but not so much that it makes other units useless.

Trying to compare the army to every other army is a different matter though. In match ups against armies without any warmachines, all of the monster options have quite a bit of potential, while in match ups against armies with cannons, particularly accurate cannons, such as Dwarfs and Empire, none of our monster options are particularly good choices.

The Carnosaur is a great choice against Warriors of Chaos, Lizardmen, Bretonnia, Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings, and Beastmen, despite being a rather weak choice in other match ups unless you get lucky. (These armies all are either unlikely to kill it until after it kills it's points, or run a lot of multi-wound models that it can kill easily.)

The Troglodon is likely pretty good against Beastmen, Lizardmen, and Tomb Kings, but isn't likely very useful against other armies. (Infantry oriented armies that are likely to get into close combat with our Saurus blocks, and where that bonus to PF can really make a big difference)

Knowing that one of the armies that was play tested against frequently, if not the most, was Tomb Kings (see the Lizardmen White Dwarf), the points cost for all of our units is actually very understandable.

That said, they should have tested everything against every army many times, so rather than pointing certain units based on their potential, they could point them based on their overall value.

As far as how well balanced books are based on the Author, Jeremy Vetock is one of the best book writers at GW, and Matt ward is one of the worst, though Matt Ward has written the most books.

It doesn't excuse the rules clarification issues, but every book released has had a lot of issues with rule clarity. Right now, the new Dark Elves can re-roll wounds with shooting attacks from within 6" of the cauldron, despite murderous prowess only working in close combat, because of a rules clarification problem.

And if you want to look at an army with pointing issues, look at Daemons of Chaos and Warriors. Almost everything in both of those armies was either underpointed or overpointed.

 

I agree. For a company of its size and resources, there really is no excuse to not be able to come up with not just beautiful miniatures, but also a set of tight, balanced rules. There really isn't.

There is absolutely no downsides to having good rules to go with good miniatures. I'm still struggling to figure out their failure for doing so. Like I mentioned before, is it total lack of ability/ineptness or some obscure, secret, brilliant plan that is beyond common comprehension that only GW knows? I have no friggin' idea...

 

I would disagree that the LM book is particularly well balanced internally, but that is another topic of discussion.
But even then, being able to achieve internal balance means nothing without external balance. This game is not just played with 1 faction. The responsibility is on the company to be able to create balance between all of the factions in the game.

In fact, IMO internal balance is much less important than external balance. I can live with having some poor choices in an army book, I'll just have to adapt my army by using the better units. As long as by doing so my army has as good a chance as winning as any other, I see little problem with that.

But when the best of certain books regularly curbstomps the best from other books (or vice versa), then we have a problem. Players have to either persist with the losing army while becoming increasingly frustrated and disappointed, like TK players, or change armies entirely to avoid repeatedly losing games and tournaments.

Hmm... Maybe that is the master plan of GW? Having such poor rules and multiple balance issues to force players to constantly jump onto the bandwagon and change armies to keep up with the times, and in so doing spend more money on GW products? But this will only work for players who are willing to put up with GW's failings instead of simply quitting or moving on to another game system, and there seems to be many at least according to online forums. Is the revenue from people starting new armies truly enough to offset the revenue lost from disgruntled customers?

 

I have to say I disagree with that, as someone who also owns an empire army it annoys the hell out of me that I have to field armies composed entirely of core knights, demigriffs, steam tanks and other warmachines if I want to be competitive this edition. Lizardmen actually has a wider selection of viable units than e,pure despite having about half the number of units in total to choose from.

And as someone who plays Tomb Kings and O&G as well I can tell you the 'external balance' between the 8th edition books really isn't as bad as the forums make it out to be. The only book that gets regularly 'curb-stomped' at the moment is wood elves and that is because they were screwed hard by the edition change. All the 8th edition books can compete on the level, and any external balance differences a relatively minor compared to the vast gulfs that existed in 7th edition for example.

 

=> Interesting. I have both experienced and seen far greater success with Wood Elves in this edition than I have Tomb Kings. TK truly are the bottom of the barrel in 8th, and there's nobody else even in the same barrel with them. Wood Elves do rather well...if one is wiling to evolve one's playstyle to fit 8th. No longer can you play guerrilla games, true, but the dual treekin foundation is extremely effective.

 

Even if you find empire even more poorly balanced internally doesn't mean that LM is balanced internally, its just more balanced internally. Anyway as mentioned whether LM is balanced internally or not is another topic entirely.

With regards to external balance, yes, it is less than the huge imbalance that existed in the last days of 6th and 7th ed. But that is likely due to the increased randomness in games as a result of the 8th ed core games mechanics. From random charge ranges to random magic pool to devastating magic spells to snake eyes on break tests, all these have the potential to swing games one way or the other in spite of differences in power levels of the armies involved. But the difference still exists. And it still doesn't excuse the designers from doing their job right and getting external balance right between books as much as they can.

But perhaps even more frustrating than poor external balance is the poorly worded rules that result in heated debates, differing viewpoints and RAW vs RAI arguments. And their inconsistent, and at times contradictory FAQs that makes you go "Huh?" sure as heck doesn't help things.

All in all these problems add up to give the customers the impression that the game designers either don't know what they are doing, or simply don't care. Frankly I don't know which is worse.

 

Nice stuff again- this topic is rocking, despite the poor start of "WAH- my army SUCKS!"

About this:

It's funny, because the Dark Elf forum is complaining that the Kharybdiss isn't that useful, and they're struggling for an advantage to it. The thing is- it's Leadership 6. Beat it in combat ONCE, and it's probably gone. Also, the math is a bit in the DE creature's favour, but actual play seems to imply the opposite. Doing some play-testing, a Carnosaur has won in a single round multiple times- it tends to take 2-4 Wounds every time (the Kharybdiss goes first), but the Carnosaur doing even 2-3 Wounds multiples quickly and finishes off the monster.

In 10 "battles", the Carnosaur has killed the Kharybdiss in 5, and done more wounds in 3 (and this is an unfrenzied Carnosaur)- it's highly-unlikely to drop all of its wounds in one round (though in 2 the Kharybdiss hit & wounded with every attack thanks to that Re-Rolling 1s thing), and can do a TON of damage back- their equal Strength & Toughness makes for an ugly battle. And generally, a Carnosaur will always have a rider.

I think the Carnosaur is quite lethal, though I agree that the WS 3 thing is a major detractor from it. It's equaled against infantry with a HUGE Thunderstomp, but against other monsters it needs that D3.

 

No offence, but carnosaurs are built for taking down other monsters, so running it solo against the Kharibdyss wasn't really what I had in mind. You may even have a case for saying in some cases the carnosaur might do better, but are there any situations where it will do 60pts better? I wouldn't have minded if the carnosaur was say 20pts more, but 60? Its just a major slap in the face, and if the Kharibdyss 'isn't that useful' at 160, what does that tell you about a Carnosaur at 235 (because swift stride really is that important)?

Also the DE players you describe probably need to just figure out how to play their units together rather than in isolation, a Kharibdyss backed up by a dreadlords Ld of 10 will take a lot to make run, but quite apart from that, if you are trying to win combat against large infantry blocks with nothing but a 160pt monster its really not the monster's fault, its your understanding of how the game is supposed to work.

 

I'm probably giving too much credit to GW, but it could be that a Carnosaur is more because it always will have a rider and there are probably some default synergies there, not to mention ways in which it might benefit from items the rider has.

Just spitballing here, but by having a rider, the Carnosaur does gain en effective 5+ ward against many things (since a third of the hits go to the rider), and of those hits, some may be saved by the rider's items.

Also, in order get the points for that Carnosaur, including the extra 60, you need to kill both the beast and the rider, so, even if the beast dies, the rider can hop into a nearby unit and preserve the points of the monsters.


One other thing (and I don't actually want this one to be true) is Apotheosis. Dark Elves are not likely to have ways to heal their Kraken, but Lizardmen will quite often have ways to keep the Carnosaur alive. Maybe that's a factor.



TL;DR - A Carnosaur is in the Lizardmen army, the Kraken is not, and vice versa. Even 100% identical things in different army contexts are not always the same points, so it's not shocking that these two different monsters have different point values.

 

Having a rider is, in many ways a disadvantage compared to fielding the monster on its own. There are a few armies in the game that can field a monster both as a mount option and as a standalone choice, and as a Tomb King player yourself would you consider 230pts better spent on a warsphinx from the special section or as a mount for a tomb king/prince and why? Its worth noting that a warsphinx does not cost more when taken as a prince/king mount neither does a Flamespyre Phoenix cost more of it is taken as a mount for an anointed.

Generally putting a character on a monster is seen as a disadvantage because of eggs-in-basket syndrome and because the most effective monster-counter in the game, cannons, will obliterate both the monster and the character in a single shot, sure the character improves the overall value of the model, but that increase in value is represented by the cost of the character itself, not by hiking up the price of the monster.

While this is true, I do think that a difference of 33% is a little bit more than inter-army comparison, maybe if the difference was around the 20pt mark that might hold some weight.

 

I only choose Spiney to quote for one example. A lot are questioning the point value of this or that, as well as the rule-writers writing and game development quality. The two are related. Fundamentally, there is no objective point system based on a rational valuation of stats and powers. Thus the writers must constantly tweek with the rules, powers, etc. to attempt to bring temporary balance to an inherently unbalanced system. A 3 stat-across-the-board model with a hand weapon should cost the same in any army. Yet I believe you could find that they don't. A special ability, like predatory fighter, makes a model a certain amount more effective, so its point cost should be adjusted accordingly. The game developers have never done this kind of rational analysis of their own game.

And every new release of an army book or rule set throws some major piece of the system completely out of whack.

The proposition was put forth, do they (the game designers) just not care, or are they just incompetent? I think it is both. Which brings us back to the Beer and Pretzels mentality. Also, if you keep changing up the armies, and changing what's cool or what's killer edition to edition, you also satisfy the stock holders by, presumably, selling a bunch of cool/killer models periodically.

 

=> Since you asked...

Taking a sphinx in general is a bad idea. Just bad. No save to speak of. No marching. Easy pickings.
But to your point, I'd rather spend it in special than as a mount. Why?

Because as a mount you make both worse. It's an Epic fail.

The Tomb King pays points for My Will Be Done, and on a sphinx he cannot make use of that.
The Sphinx pays points for 4 Tomb Guard with Killing Blow and spears (about 50 points worth of stuff) and these are completely lost when you put a King on it.

You literally, factually, make both worse when you put them together.

This does not happen with the Carnosaur + Hero combo.

The Saurus has no built-in rules that are eliminated by being mounted.
The Carnosaur has no crew or other rules it loses when it is mounted. In fact, since the Carnosaur has no option to be used without a rider, it actually gets a bonus for being ridden due to the fact that its low Ld is ignored because its rider will be Ld8. The one and only downside is a downside for all monsters with character riders, and that's cannon double-hits.

A carnosaur is likely costed as it is because it will gain synergies beyond its own rules and its own stats. It cannot help this as it has no way to take the field straight up as it is listed. Comparing just a Carnosaur to anything, let alone something in another army, is pretty much impossible because we will never, ever, field just the set of stats and rules that we call "Carnosaur." It will always be better than its own raw stats and rules, no matter what you put on top of it.

=> Respectfully, I completely disagree. There was a time when even GW agreed with you, and you could build your own stalines for models and pay the points to do so. Over time they saw that an identical thing on one model is worth a different amount on another model. We see that today when a Great Weapon (which is effectively a stat-changer to +2S and -All Initiative down to 0) costs different amounts even within the same book depending on whether a hero or lord holds it.

The same stat is worth more or less depending on what it's on.

Just as another example, look to the years of complaints from High Elf players who paid premium points for a premium stat line on models who would never use those stats. What good was a high BS on a spearman? How about a high Initiative in a system where charging models went first or high WS on archers who were expected to almost never fight?

Even now we see it in the problem with Undead and anti-undead stuff. It's really too complicated to get into here, but the general sense is that Ld, and even BSBs at all, are less useful to Undead than other troops. Even ranks, which give other units Steadfast, are much less meaningful to undead. And what about Fear? How can Fear be accurately costed when it's utterly irrelevant versus many forces? Heck, even the Movement value of undead troops doesn't mean as much as it does to another troop. M4 on an Empire Swordsman means 8 inches of movement in many, many circumstances, but always means 4 inches to a Tomb King skeleton.

How do you account for the loss of importance of the M value of, say, a Tomb King on a chariot. Does he get a 'credit' of sorts back for his M value (which you suggest should have a universal value across all books) when he buys a chariot?


I'm not trying to have a go at you specifically, just the idea that it's even remotely possible to assign a universal point value to a stat no matter which army that stat is in.

Can't be done.

 

Oh, I know yu are not having a go at me. It does seem very complex, I'll agree. But a colleague and I are actually doing it. We are debating a tournament set of D6 fantasy rules to directly compete with GW. Not for money mind you, but as "open source". The things you describe, especially what happens when you give a high strength weapon to a uber BS character, have always been a problem for GW. But I'll just leave it that I think they have very little imagination when it comes to game mechanics, and how to cost something.

I have been playing competitive miniatures for close to 40 years now, and have seen quite a number of different rules systems for tourney play. I have yet to see a system that could not be boiled down to a rational cause/effect/cost formula. My friend, who has worked as a developer for Steve Jackson believes we can do it. Will it be perfect? No way. Will it make more sense than what GW tosses out? I believe so. Will anybody care? Probably not. But ya never know.....Maybe its just a mental exercise for us, but we decided we had to try.

 

I actually made the switch to start playing Lizards, from Ogre Kingdoms. I am still keeping my OK army on standby, but its just so one dimensional and with hordes these days its tough to break that one dimension. I do enjoy small number of model armies, so I will probably do dual carnos, or dual Bastiladons with Steggies. All in all, I love the new Lizardmen book.

Really looking forward to talking with you all and enjoying the new army.

 

And I see Wood Elves get curbstomped and My friends TK's win quite often.


Also it should be added that any d6 system leaves lot of room for areas of contention such as the fact that Saurus warrios should be stronger than any elf but due to the limited possibilities of the d6 system such does not translate.

 

=> What house rules are in play in your group?

=> Yeah, as convenient as D6 systems are, they really do limit things. Gimme a good old %-based system any day.

 

Actually No house rules. I Will say that the guy who runs TK is one of the best fantasy players I know and he does have an uncanny ability to break statistics in game. (no his dice aren't loaded I've seen when they go bad and its not pretty.)

So I will say in my Opinion Tk are the weakest 8th editon book but they are not impossible to use as many think. They are just extremely hard.

(Also as a note our Meta doesn't use many warmachines. I don't know why.)

 

=> Wow, I wish my opponents were like that. It would have a huge effect on my lists. Right now I can't even consider fielding a Sphinx or a Heirotitan because of war machines. Really limits the list.

I know they are not impossible. I've won tournaments with them and had winning records at others, but the hill is so steep that it's not worth climbing, knowing full well that if I put that kind of effort into other armies, I will do muuuuuuuuuch better.

In fact, check out my Path to Awesome thread in the Battle Reports section to get a feel for how happy I am to be playing Lizardmen.

 

The reason is that GW's business plan is to leverage its market share, and rely on IP laws (cease & desist letters) and marketing themselves as the "best" to keep any other game systems down. They still make some nice models, but this isn't their central goal - if it were, Forge World would not be a separate legal entity and Finecast would have never seen the light of day. Nor do they feel it is worth their trouble to focus on rules nitpicks - this is very time consuming and allows the design team and the "fanboys" too much power - those guys are mere employees and we are mere customers, and we both need to be kept expendable. I believe if there is a solution it is to support independants and use alternative models - without competition things will only get worse. But the majority of long time players do not buy that many models a year, while the newcomers to the game are largely brought in with allowance money from parents who are just looking for what seems like a stable company with a long history and really fancy posters all over the local gaming/hobby store.