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

[Pinktaco]

oh, and about the "rushed book" thing..

fell over this at dakkadakka.com

"Went to Gamesday and spoke to him about the book (this was back in late July). He told me his intention in writing the book was not to nerf the lizards but to balance them by removing some of the broken stuff (example he gave me was Cupped Hands) and adjusting some of their pt costs for units.

I think he did a wonderful job IMO and the more i look at the book the more I like it. He also said he had written it a year and a half ago after which he just played tested and adjusted it."

dated 2013/08/13 21:12:38

If this is true then it is in no way rushed.

How do you explain the troglodon? Was it a 1½ year of avoiding it until the release?

 

[Mr Phat]

, but its sort of hard to see how when the Kharibdyss is objectively better in just about every sense but costs 60pts less.

As mentioned ive been out of Warhammer for a time so havent caught up on the DE release...but now that I have...allow be to express my slight dissatisfaction by screaming into a pillow for 15 minutes for the complete unfairness of this atrocity, and then ram my head into the wall as the bitterness takes over.

How do you explain the troglodon? Was it a 1½ year of avoiding it until the release?

That was my exact thought.

 

[Pinktaco]

About the DE's New monster toy. I suppose the biggest difference is that it doesn't come with an old blood. Although I do think we could've at the very least gotten T6 on our dino :/

 

[VampTeddy]

...

If this is true then it is in no way rushed.

If that is true it might still be rushed, play testing and adjusting for 1½ years but he wrote it that long time ago?

seems to me he could as easily has quickly written the book and halfheartedly tested it through.

looking at the front of the book - 6 playtesters and vetock, for a book of this size and price - now i really like the book but i really felt when i read that the first time that it's a very small player base to define what is powerful and what is not powerful.

These guys might have had a 4+ roar troglodon, or a on the charge troglodon, never figured out how to keep him in combat so he didn't just charge again, and without further testing since "everyone" (all 7 of them) agreed, nerfed the poor sod out of it?.

I feel that's a VERY limited playtesting group. But i still like my book, and i'll still try my troglodon, and hope it's better than we assume.

 

[olderplayer]

The interviews I've seen, including comments in the White Dwarf, suggest the author was careful and did not rush this book. I actually think the author did pretty good in point costing existing units in the LM book and most upgrades and items makes sense roughly in terms of point costs.

However, you have to remember that the GW team still thinks in terms of a "beer and pretzels" casual game. Looking at the battle reports, you can tell that they simply do not play enough competitively and do not think like a competitive player. They do not see armies with two ironblasters, two skullcannons, two empire cannons or an empire cannon and a hellblaster volley gun, or a dwarf army with two runed cannons and a grudethrower with +2S on it. However, they do respond to feedback they hear and receive as to what is OP and, in some cases, underpowered. Given this, they tend to overvalue monsters and fail to appreciate the importance of the look our sir to characters because they do not appreciate how much the ability to premeasure in 8th edition makes most monsters and characdters without look out sirs (and the new super chariots) too vulnerable to war machines and magic to be reliably played in most armies. They also do not appreciate the importance of ward saves and regen saves on characters and monsters at times. Finally, they tend to overcompensate at times for previoulsy undercosted and OP units by both nerfing their rules and then raising their point costs (see, for example, empire mortars, DoC flamers).

The natural results is that new units tend to be mispriced a lot , both undercosted and overcosted. The failure to appreciate the vulnerbility to cannons and tendency to overvalue impact hits and thunderstomp has led to overcosting and over-promoting monsters and new super chariot models on average.
-In the new DoC army book, they took away the ability to effectively and reliablly protect most characters and essentially force you to now consider running a greater daemon general, despite their vulnerability. They also overcosted most heralds and nerfed them by making one pay too much for the locus benefits in most cases.
-In the WoC book, they clearly wanted to promote the new dual monster kit and new war shrine dual kit but undercosted the common and special chariots (gorebeast) enough to shift the meta to playing those. I bet GW is wondering why it is not selling more of the WoC monster kit, Slaughterbrutes and Mutalith Vortex beast, and not seeing more sales of dragon ogre shaggoths.
-In the new DE book, you will not see many people playing the new rare monster (Kharibdyss) and new superchariots (scourgerunner and bloddwrack shrine). Fewer people will be playing the new cauldron of blood model than GW probably expects. You won't see many manticore mounted characters, will see few beastmasters, and almost no fleetmasters even though GW seemed to want to promote those new models.

Thus, if you look at the pricing of the troglodon and carnosaur for 5 wounds and T5 with all the bells and whistles (D3 wounds, blood frenzy, 4+ scaly skin, S7) it fits with the GW pricing of a Manticore (4 wounds and no save) and other similar monsters in some other books (with 5 wounds and a model on top). but makes no sense when compared with some other monstrous models. Similarly, the bastiladon is slightly overcosted given the 8th edition metagame with heavy war machines able to reliably kill monsters.

We should probably be happy that GW is trying to be better at achieving balance and is achieving some overall balance in the game. But we should probably also realize that unless the historical beer and pretzels, casual game mindset has not changed and there is still an apparent tendency to let the book author set the points costs, rather than using a thorough review committee to potentially over-rule and revise point costs prior to publication. Until this changes, GW wiill not appreciate the importance of being very careful and exacting in setting the point costs of each model, unit, upgrade and option. They have not evolved to that state yet and do not appear willing to go there based on their most recently issued books, but I've heard of at least some future emphasis on it. (I have always been amazed at how uninformed the guys in GW stores are about basic army design and choices in terms of what is good and works and what is not good and does not work in actual competitive play. Given that, the feedback GW receives is probably limited and not the best and may reflect the radically different audiences, opinions, and gaming communities playing WHFB). Just basic advanced simulation modeling would spot some of the obvious miscosting issues and ccncepts.

 

[Mr Phat]

Given that, the feedback GW receives is probably limited and not the best and may reflect the radically different audiences, opinions, and gaming communities playing WHFB).

while the rest of your post is probably among the most well written and thought through I have read on any WHFB forum anywhere I must declare the wrongfulness of that sentence.

The internet is overflowing with Warhammer forums, and each army has its own Capital-site.
The info is there.
The opinions are there
The table-experience is there.
The data between all of these is there.

If they had a customer relation department that knew what it was doing they could harvest pure gold by looking through what people write on these forums.

how about this very thread?
"what are people telling about their reasons for wanting to stop playing Lizardmen"

Its not hard, not at all.


And please note that saying that
"our monsters arent strong enough" dosnt means that they should read it straight and beef up all monsters.
It rather means "monsters in this book has a problem- FIND IT".

 

[cryocube]

The internet is overflowing with Warhammer forums, and each army has its own Capital-site.
The info is there.
The opinions are there
The table-experience is there.
The data between all of these is there.

True however the average quality is equivalent to the remnants of a frat party in a toilet. As such it can be incredibly time consuming to sift through it all.

I agree with you that there are some fantastic and well thought out posts out there, However there's also so much chaff to get through that it becomes cost inefficient.

 

[Spiney Norman]

We were having a discussion at our local club this week about why there is such a seeming discrepancy between GWs various armies, one of those proper, epic, setting-the-world-to-rights talks, and we came to the following conclusion

GW doesn't churn out balanced rules because they have little to no interest in doing so. For Gw rules are not about creating a tight balanced game that people can enjoy, they are just a way of giving its customers something to do with their models after they are done painting them.

GW is all about the models, and they do it very well, they're just not bothered enough about what the game looks like because their aim is not to produce a great game, its to produce great models.

If you look at the privateer press stuff you find something that is absolutely the opposite, a company that is committed to maintaining a great game, and keeps churning out weak, samey-looking, badly designed models because all they really want is pieces to play a game with.

Is the troglodon profile irredeemably screwed up, yes it is, but its still a jaw-droppingly awesome model and that is why I bought one. At the end of the day the reason I play warhammer and not warmachine is because GW's emphasis fits me so much better than PP's does, I couldn't really care less whether my army is Tournement standard or not, for me "dude your army looks awesome" is a far greater compliment than "congrats on your 20-0 victory".

I'd say if the numbers on the profile are making you want to quit then you're probably more of a PP kinda guy than a GW kinda guy when there are so many beautiful new dinosaur models to be painted.

 

[cryocube]

We were having a discussion at our local club this week about why there is such a seeming discrepancy between GWs various armies, one of those proper, epic, setting-the-world-to-rights talks, and we came to the following conclusion

GW doesn't churn out balanced rules because they have little to no interest in doing so. For Gw rules are not about creating a tight balanced game that people can enjoy, they are just a way of giving its customers something to do with their models after they are done painting them.

GW is all about the models, and they do it very well, they're just not bothered enough about what the game looks like because their aim is not to produce a great game, its to produce great models.

If you look at the privateer press stuff you find something that is absolutely the opposite, a company that is committed to maintaining a great game, and keeps churning out weak, samey-looking, badly designed models because all they really want is pieces to play a game with.

Is the troglodon profile irredeemably screwed up, yes it is, but its still a jaw-droppingly awesome model and that is why I bought one. At the end of the day the reason I play warhammer and not warmachine is because GW's emphasis fits me so much better than PP's does, I couldn't really care less whether my army is Tournement standard or not, for me "dude your army looks awesome" is a far greater compliment than "congrats on your 20-0 victory".

I'd say if the numbers on the profile are making you want to quit then you're probably more of a PP kinda guy than a GW kinda guy when there are so many beautiful new dinosaur models to be painted.

I disagree with your assessment of PPs Models. They really are not as terrible as you say for the age of the company. When GW was 10 (in 1985 when I was but a baby) they were releasing models pre-Adeptus Titanicus. PP I think is in that in between area of fledgling game company and power player.

GW I think is all about a beer and pretzels game; with models arguably a close second (their modern style of sculpting is really worlds apart from where they started).

 

[Sleboda]

looking at the front of the book - 6 playtesters and vetock, for a book of this size and price - now i really like the book but i really felt when i read that the first time that it's a very small player base to define what is powerful and what is not powerful.

These guys might have had a 4+ roar troglodon, or a on the charge troglodon, never figured out how to keep him in combat so he didn't just charge again, and without further testing since "everyone" (all 7 of them) agreed, nerfed the poor sod out of it?.

=> I can try to shed some light on the playtesting thing. I worked for GW for about 12 years, and during the 6th edition run, I was also a playtester. We had a group they called "The Geeks." GW would send us versions of rules with specific instructions to play standard games and report back. We were also told to point out mistakes.

It depended on the designer, but sometimes the feedback was welcome and sometimes it wasn't. We would (often) make suggestions on how to better phrase a rule only to be told, in essence, to shut the hell up and stop acting like game designers. All the guys in the studio wanted, for the most part, was to have us tell them how our games went. We were viewed very much as machines, not people with actual insights. I can't tell you how many times we pointed out actual honest to goodness mistakes in their wording and were ignored.

We pretty much never even got to test any special characters. I remember that Khalidas was popped into the TK book without any of us having ever seen her rules.

Another interesting thing was how much the models drove the books. Back then, there was a mandate that if there was no model, there would be no unit/option in the book. Using TK as the example again, we reported back that the incredibly short range of their spells was a real problem and that liches should be allowed to at least ride horses. We were told that there would be no mounted liche model and thus it would not be an option in the book. (Incidentally, it's not like they then changed the ranges of the spells - even though we all told them that this was a serious problem and offered a solution, we were ignored.)

Then one day, lo and behold, we were told to test using mounted liches because one of the sculptors had made one on a lark and it was good enough to sell - so the option was in.



Maybe things have changed, maybe they haven't. I happen to personally know one of the current designers and very much like him and respect his passion. I don't believe he would dismiss playtester advice out of hand like some of the others used to, but I can't be certain. He may not have the autonomy he should have.

Point is, they do test and they do get advice from the testers. What they do with it is the real question.

At the end of the day the reason I play warhammer and not warmachine is because GW's emphasis fits me so much better than PP's does, I couldn't really care less whether my army is Tournement standard or not, for me "dude your army looks awesome" is a far greater compliment than "congrats on your 20-0 victory".

=> Ah, but here's the thing. GW is a public company now. Their #1 Prioroty is increasing shareholder value. That's it. End of story. No matter what you or I or the designers may like or not like, if there is a way to increase value, they are obligated to do it.

So, here's the thing that bugs me...

If they can turn out incredible models that satisfy hobbyists such as yourself who don't care all that much about what the rules are like, and there are plenty of gamers out there who gravitate toward great rules systems despite sub-par models...why not create a rules set that is tight and balanced to appeal to that crowd while still supplying great models to the first group?

In other words, if gamers like you are willing to play with whatever rules are present, why would GW not keep you AND recruit gamers who want better rules?

For the crowd that is willing to go with the flow or change rules on the fly just, tighter rules won't diminish the enjoyment of the game at all - you can still modify to your heart's content. For the crowd that wants better rules, it would keep them playing GW games because on top of awesome models they would get to enjoy rules they like.



I just don't get why GW refuses to give a damn about balanced rules. NOBODY loses when the rules AND the models are great.

 

[Andrinor]

I think a lot of the complaints about the book are valid. Certainly some of the rules need clarifications (hopefully by a soon to be released FAQ or changes in a future edition) and the Troglodon is just a sub par choice out of the book and its rules are disappointing.

But I disagree with some comments: The Slann is now balanced IMO and the versatility you can have with him is really cool. I like units of Kroxigor now. Ripperdactyl's are actually pretty good and their rules are very cool. Salamanders are still very good. The bastiladon, EoTG, access to Lore of Beasts and Tetto Eko actually make No Slann lists viable.

Overall, the book is a disappointment, but there is some good stuff in there and I'm having a lot of fun with it. The army is still competitive and with good list building and generalship we can take on any other army. With the old book I was winning about 75% of my games and now it is right about at 50% and I'm fine with that because even the ones I lose I'm still very much in them.

 

[Asamu]

Some complaints may be valid, such as the Troglodon not being good enough, and Carnosaur still being over pointed, but for the most part, Lizardmen is possibly the most balanced book released in 8th ed. Nothing in the army is really overpowering, and the only things that might be a bit underpowered can still be very strong given the right circumstances.

Comparing Lizards to Daemons of Chaos, Warriors, and Dark Elves, the book is incredibly well balanced. Yeah, there are things that are unclear, and the book might not be quite as strong with the strongest list, but everything in the lizardmen book is at least playable and has the potential to be effective.

For Warriors, the Slaughterbrute and Mutalith are both worse than the Troglodon, and the chariots and skull crushers are too good.

For Daemons; bloodletters are hardly playable now, Heralds can't be protected, everything is incredibly random, making the army more dependent on luck than many others. Most of the slaanesh models either got worse or didn't get enough better to warrant playing, and the Nurgle models are almost all underpointed by some amount; not to mention skull cannons being incredibly undercosted.

Dark elves got Warlocks, which are an insane value for the points, and Executioners are amazing as well, but the new characters aren't even worth putting on the table. Fleetmasters might be the worst lord choice in the game, and Beastmasters are forced to ride a manticore, or a Chariot, and not be efficient either way.

People can complain about the lizardmen book having errors in the rules being written, but it has the most internal balance of any of the 8th ed army books.
The only real issues for the Lizardmen book is that most of our special characters are still terrible for their points, (though, more often than not, special characters aren't allowed anyway), and the few unclear rules.

 

[Jabroniville]

Olderplayer & Sleboda, those are two incredible posts. Kudos.

Very interesting stuff all-around, too- it seems like some things are just poorly-tested, and I can certainly imagine a stubborn writer here or there not changing the rules based off of the recommendation. It seems hard to believe that a mis-step like the Troglodon (a key model in the new line that GW would have a vested interest in being strong and thus worthwhile to buy & use) would pass more than a couple eyes- even on my first look at the rules, I was like "WTF? Am I missing something here?"- but that kind of thing could be hard to "test" right if the writer figured he'd made a good rule-set for it.

I mean, does someone come up to the writer and say "this thing sucks"? Because then he'd probably not listen. Or would they go "this thing died in all of our games, and didn't make much of an effect on anything"? It's too hard to imagine all the possibilities that went into making this one unit (or, in the big picture, ANY unit with questionable rules & wording), despite how difficult it is to believe that it passed through the writers, editors & play-testers without somebody going "hey, wait a minute..."

It sometimes surprises me that GW takes these expensive new models it wants to push and sell well, but makes them too expensive or not good enough- you'd figure they'd err on the side of being like the Dark Elf Hydra and making them WAY too cheap. So it seems like honest mistakes that cause these errors, however annoying they can be.

There's also the trickiness of "Unit-cost is dependent upon how important they are to the army" or however they word it- Elven Spearmen cost almost as much as Saurus Warriors, but Saurus would ANNIHILATE that unit- it's all relative, and hard to figure out what is worth however many points to each army (ie. a semi-elite Spearman might be worth more to an army that generally lacks such things). It's hard to say if the Dark Elf Kharybdiss being better than a Carnosaur (only the D3 Wounds things keeps it even remotely even) despite being 60 points cheaper is that big a deal, given what each brings to their respective armies (DE have multiple Monster options and this is just a loner with poor Leadership, while in the LM's case, it's an elite Mount). 160 points to a Dark Elf player might not be what 160 points is to a Lizardmen player.

Overall, I agree that the book is generally quite well-balanced, most units are viable, and multiple lists can be used. Predatory Fighter needs to be addressed (though the main rulebook is quite clear that "no special rules" can alter the fact that you get ONE Supporting Attack, there's also the general tendency for new Rulebooks to go against Main Rules). They should've at least brought it up, since that's what EVERYONE immediately guessed as a questionable rule.

 

[Mr Phat]

If they can turn out incredible models that satisfy hobbyists such as yourself who don't care all that much about what the rules are like, and there are plenty of gamers out there who gravitate toward great rules systems despite sub-par models...why not create a rules set that is tight and balanced to appeal to that crowd while still supplying great models to the first group?

My thought exactly. From both business and a hobby point of view: It just cant be defended in any way to any one why they wouldn't try to do achieve this this.


it hurts me so much that they just neglect to face these problems. Look at this thread: it has a (former?) employee from GW pointing out problems in their process that the fanbase has picked up on without knowing.
Imagine the innovation they could reach for by acting on this!
I could spin gold from this...hire me GW!

Comparing Lizards to Daemons of Chaos, Warriors, and Dark Elves, the book is incredibly well balanced.

Lizards: Jeremy Vetock
DoC: Matt Ward
Dark Elves: Matt Ward
WoC: Matt Ward
HE: Matt Ward

see a pattern?
of the two Jeremy Vetock is no doubt the best balancer, but Ward has a flair for creating big shiny things and create stuff with (often too much) impact.

Oh how nice it would be if Ward wrote the first draft and Vetock got to look it through afterwards....
afterward...
after-Ward
.............yes

(though the main rulebook is quite clear that "no special rules" can alter the fact that you get ONE Supporting Attack, there's also the general tendency for new Rulebooks to go against Main Rules).

Thats the problem: It IS clear, but the head-to-wall part about this that it clearly wasnt the intention for it to work that way, which is so terribly stupid.

 

[Mr Phat]

I HAVE IT!



After Matt Ward has done his math Jeremy Vetock should be allowed to balance after Ward afterward!
Thus Vetock would be able to do the math after Ward in an aftermath after Matts math !

 

[Spiney Norman]

=> Ah, but here's the thing. GW is a public company now. Their #1 Prioroty is increasing shareholder value. That's it. End of story. No matter what you or I or the designers may like or not like, if there is a way to increase value, they are obligated to do it.

So, here's the thing that bugs me...

If they can turn out incredible models that satisfy hobbyists such as yourself who don't care all that much about what the rules are like, and there are plenty of gamers out there who gravitate toward great rules systems despite sub-par models...why not create a rules set that is tight and balanced to appeal to that crowd while still supplying great models to the first group?

In other words, if gamers like you are willing to play with whatever rules are present, why would GW not keep you AND recruit gamers who want better rules?

For the crowd that is willing to go with the flow or change rules on the fly just, tighter rules won't diminish the enjoyment of the game at all - you can still modify to your heart's content. For the crowd that wants better rules, it would keep them playing GW games because on top of awesome models they would get to enjoy rules they like.



I just don't get why GW refuses to give a damn about balanced rules. NOBODY loses when the rules AND the models are great.

Well here's the thing, the question really is this, is the GW design team just incompetent, or are they intentionally releasing a mixture of overpowered/underpowered rules interspersed with typos and bad grammar for some obscure reason best known to themselves? The favoured assertion that they overpower new units to sell more of the new plastics doesn't really work when you consider the Troglodon kit, a brand new set with two options and both of them pretty terrible.

Is it just that GW doesn't allocate enough money to design studio wages to actually employ someone with real ability in that area, or is there genuinely some genius business strategy behind producing crap rules?

I disagree with your assessment of PPs Models. They really are not as terrible as you say for the age of the company. When GW was 10 (in 1985 when I was but a baby) they were releasing models pre-Adeptus Titanicus. PP I think is in that in between area of fledgling game company and power player.

GW I think is all about a beer and pretzels game; with models arguably a close second (their modern style of sculpting is really worlds apart from where they started).

In a sense player opinions of models are mostly subjective, but I tried getting into WM a few years back when a bunch of the guys at out club were playing a lot of it, but I could never settle on a faction. All the warjacks are virtually identical with slight stylistic difference (and different colour schemes), and the prices are actually higher than GW's models, the only thing that makes the game cheaper is that WM is generally played in much smaller scale battles than GWs core systems, which is not something I really like either.

I find much more space for creativity in your army and themed model conversion in GW's back story, the background of WM is extremely 1 dimensional.

 

[Sleboda]

Well here's the thing, the question really is this, is the GW design team just incompetent, or are they intentionally releasing a mixture of overpowered/underpowered rules interspersed with typos and bad grammar for some obscure reason best known to themselves?

=> There is another option.

Putting aside the pressure they feel from being a public company, I truly believe that most of the designers are neither incompetent (even the TK author has shown enormous progress with his subsequent works - something would have bet was an impossibility for him) nor trying to create intentionally unbalanced rules.

I believe that they are just trying to make rules that reflect the look/feel/fluff/coolness factor of the models, and if that means that sometimes the rules trade off balance for style, so be it.

I'm sorry I keep going back to Tomb Kings for examples, but it's what I know best. In this case, I'll mention the Necrolith Colossus. He has a rule called Unstoppable Assault. In brief, it says he can make extra attacks for each wound that gets through, but only on the charge. If you close your eyes and picture it, it's pretty cool! There's this huge stone behemoth that starts to swing its blades as it charges forward, gaining momentum and generating a deadly storm of blades that rain down on the heads of his foes. With each limb he severs or head he cracks open, the Colossus' rage is fueled further, perhaps capturing a bit of the victims soul as it departs. Very cool!

But wait.

He's only WS3 and his opponents get to make armor, ward/parry, and regeneration saves before additional attacks are granted. With 5 attacks that usually are hitting on 4+, he's rarely going to do more than about 3 wounds with his special rule. Adding to the problem is that he only gets this on the charge - which fits the vision described above but really hurts his damage output. Plus, he cannot march and is therefor unlikely to get into a position where he does the charging, meaning his rule really almost never pops up. It's a complete failure of a rule from a gaming perspective, but it perfectly fits the "story" idea.


My belief is that this mindset is more prevalent than we think.


Another angle on this comes to light when you look at the things Jeremy Vetock has created. He's an incredible passionate and creative individual who has been painting toy soldiers and playing Warhammer longer than most people on these forums have been alive (I'd wager). He loves this hobby like very few others can claim to. To him, randomness and crazy effects are a huge pile o' fun. He fully embraces the Dice Factor of the game. In fact, an oft-used quote of his when people ask him how to do better in Warhammer is this: "I can tell you one thing to do that will guarantee you win more games - Roll well." It's cheeky, but it's funny and tells us a lot about him. He knows that those little devil cubes are a big part of the game and he rolls with it (pun intended). He did the Skaven book. You can't tell me that there is any way that the points values of the stuff in there are balanced in any way. How could they be? When sooooooooo many of the units and items in there have widely variable effects, both positive and negative, I don't believe it's even possible to accurately assign point values to them. In one game a Doomwheel might spin around, crash into a wall and kill itself, while zapping a nearby Abomination into oblivion. In the next it might park near a Dragon, a Phoenix, and a Griffon and kill all three in turn one. How the heck can one possible give that thing a proper point cost? I'll tell you what though, it COMPLETELY captures the feel of a mad Skaven engineer's crazed invention, doesn't it? That's what I mean.

Take a look at our Bastiladon. Even though the Lizardmen book doesn't have as many crazy tables and charts as the Skaven book, the Bastiladon gave Jeremy a chance to put his design stamp on the book with a chart that just so happens to fit the fluff. The fluff tells us that the crew have lost the knowledge on exactly how the thing works, but still manage to coax some power out of it. One can easily imagine the skinks manning the laser cannon of burning hotness trying various tweaks as they go along, hoping to unlock long lost secrets. This results in unpredictable variance in what the thing shoots out. Fits nicely! Too bad it means we cannot count on the thing to do its job when and where we want. Again, I don't think this is incompetence or malice, just a designer placing story-fit ahead of game utility or power level.

 

[Pinktaco]

@ Sleboda - I actually think that you're right. The Bastildon is supposed to be the lizardmen's most heavily armoured unit. Well I tihnk that when most people see that they're like T6 AS+1, but fact is that while our units are generally decently armoured, we don't really come with any "natural" AS2+ not to mention AS1+. The point is that the bastiladon actually IS our most heavily armoured unit. The only reason our CORs have a 2+ AS is because old the COs thick skin along with light armour and a shield - the individual model itself isn't heavily armoured.

I'm mentioning this, because when the model was first released people on this board and warseer were disappointed - as I said they wanted it to be this super heavily armoured T6/AS1+ beast, however, if we look at things they way you see it, the model actually fits the description within the lizardmen fluff.

It's just a shame though that the Ark of Sotek is, in most circumstances, useless.

Personally I'm quite happy with the book so far. The biggest issue I have is the Troglodon, but otherwise I find any other unit in the book to be decently balanced.

 

[shortlegs]

Well here's the thing, the question really is this, is the GW design team just incompetent, or are they intentionally releasing a mixture of overpowered/underpowered rules interspersed with typos and bad grammar for some obscure reason best known to themselves?

=> There is another option.

Putting aside the pressure they feel from being a public company, I truly believe that most of the designers are neither incompetent (even the TK author has shown enormous progress with his subsequent works - something would have bet was an impossibility for him) nor trying to create intentionally unbalanced rules.

I believe that they are just trying to make rules that reflect the look/feel/fluff/coolness factor of the models, and if that means that sometimes the rules trade off balance for style, so be it.

I'm sorry I keep going back to Tomb Kings for examples, but it's what I know best. In this case, I'll mention the Necrolith Colossus. He has a rule called Unstoppable Assault. In brief, it says he can make extra attacks for each wound that gets through, but only on the charge. If you close your eyes and picture it, it's pretty cool! There's this huge stone behemoth that starts to swing its blades as it charges forward, gaining momentum and generating a deadly storm of blades that rain down on the heads of his foes. With each limb he severs or head he cracks open, the Colossus' rage is fueled further, perhaps capturing a bit of the victims soul as it departs. Very cool!

But wait.

He's only WS3 and his opponents get to make armor, ward/parry, and regeneration saves before additional attacks are granted. With 5 attacks that usually are hitting on 4+, he's rarely going to do more than about 3 wounds with his special rule. Adding to the problem is that he only gets this on the charge - which fits the vision described above but really hurts his damage output. Plus, he cannot march and is therefor unlikely to get into a position where he does the charging, meaning his rule really almost never pops up. It's a complete failure of a rule from a gaming perspective, but it perfectly fits the "story" idea.


My belief is that this mindset is more prevalent than we think.


Another angle on this comes to light when you look at the things Jeremy Vetock has created. He's an incredible passionate and creative individual who has been painting toy soldiers and playing Warhammer longer than most people on these forums have been alive (I'd wager). He loves this hobby like very few others can claim to. To him, randomness and crazy effects are a huge pile o' fun. He fully embraces the Dice Factor of the game. In fact, an oft-used quote of his when people ask him how to do better in Warhammer is this: "I can tell you one thing to do that will guarantee you win more games - Roll well." It's cheeky, but it's funny and tells us a lot about him. He knows that those little devil cubes are a big part of the game and he rolls with it (pun intended). He did the Skaven book. You can't tell me that there is any way that the points values of the stuff in there are balanced in any way. How could they be? When sooooooooo many of the units and items in there have widely variable effects, both positive and negative, I don't believe it's even possible to accurately assign point values to them. In one game a Doomwheel might spin around, crash into a wall and kill itself, while zapping a nearby Abomination into oblivion. In the next it might park near a Dragon, a Phoenix, and a Griffon and kill all three in turn one. How the heck can one possible give that thing a proper point cost? I'll tell you what though, it COMPLETELY captures the feel of a mad Skaven engineer's crazed invention, doesn't it? That's what I mean.

Take a look at our Bastiladon. Even though the Lizardmen book doesn't have as many crazy tables and charts as the Skaven book, the Bastiladon gave Jeremy a chance to put his design stamp on the book with a chart that just so happens to fit the fluff. The fluff tells us that the crew have lost the knowledge on exactly how the thing works, but still manage to coax some power out of it. One can easily imagine the skinks manning the laser cannon of burning hotness trying various tweaks as they go along, hoping to unlock long lost secrets. This results in unpredictable variance in what the thing shoots out. Fits nicely! Too bad it means we cannot count on the thing to do its job when and where we want. Again, I don't think this is incompetence or malice, just a designer placing story-fit ahead of game utility or power level.

I remember I posted on the daemonic legions forum asking the same thing. It is virtually impossible and unthinkable that GW designers are as inept as many think them to be (I mean, they ARE normal adult human beings with a normal intellect, right?). And yet the rules continue to be flawed and unbalanced. I've always attributed it to some obscure marketting strategy that is beyond my ability to comprehend because any other reason just doesn't make sense.

Its always a pleasure to hear others share their insights on the issue. But it still doesn't explain why rules must be so unbalanced.

Fluff IS what drives the idea behind rules. It is supposed to explain everything, from why elves have higher initiative and movement, dwarves have higher toughness, ogres get impact hits, trolls get regen... In most situations fluff gets converted to rules and points are assigned to said rules that, hopefully, reflect the value (or lack of) of the rules adequately. All is then well.

In some situations, however, the transition of fluff to rules and then to points goes completely askew. In your colossus example, I don't think anyone is disagreeing that the fluff behind unstoppable assault is cool as hell. No one is saying that the fluff shouldn't have a rule to represent it. But then the transition from fluff to proper, workable rules fell flat on its face. Why is this so then?

In your example of the doomwheel, let's look again at the fluff-rules-points transition. Fluff is good, everyone likes the iconic doomwheel. Rules, ok, maybe not everyone likes the sheer randomness of it, but as you said it is Vetock's "style", so let's just say the rules represent the fluff properly. But when we come to points, here it falls flat on its face. Yes, it is difficult to give something that totally random a perfect point cost. But I think it is not too difficult to realise that 100 points IS too low no matter how you cut it. Esepcially when the designer chose to give the rules certain attributes like d6 wounds per shot, toughness 6(!) etc. (how can a rickety spinning wheel made by crazed rat-men driven by a rat-man sitting all exposed within the spinning wheel possibly justify a toughness of 6?! But I digress...)

Back to the point. No one is going to argue that the doomwheel should be exactly 125.5 points, or 205 points etc. But for 100 points? That's really too cheap, so cheap that if it does nothing, no biggie to the skaven player (who only has himself to blame for parking his HPA next to the damned thing if it gets shot off by the wheel..). But when it really works, it is game changingly good. When something has such a potentially game changing effect, the points cost must reflect that potential.

Similarly, the HPA has been one of the most-complained about monster for a long time. Again looking at the fluff-rules-points transition. Fluff - cool. Rules - a bit too powerful, but still salvagable if points are fair. Now points - way too cheap. Again, why is this so?

In Warhammer, everything has a points cost. And this is THE saving grace in that no matter what fluff a unit may have, and no matter what rules the designer comes up with to reflect such fluff, the points system is there to keep things balanced. You can have a fluffy as hell rule that is powerful to the extreme, but if you tag on a hefty price tag, less people would complain. You can also have a rule that totally failed to reflect the fluff behind it, but if the points reflect the actual effect of the rule on the game, again, less people would be unhappy.

Essentially, no matter what happened in the transition from fluff to rules, if the transition from rules to points is properly done, game balance is maintained. Whenever people complain about rules being unbalanced or broken or OP, it is simply the result of points assigned being wrong and failing to reflect the in-game effect of the rule.

The question is then, why are designers finding it so hard to get the points right?

This is what I fail to understand.

Sorry for the long post, got a little carried away...

 

[Spiney Norman]

@Sleboda, in some ways I agree with what you're saying, but it doesn't explain the totally bizarre ineptitude of the designers when assigning points values. I love the carnosaur profile, its great, characterful and fits a therapod apex predator very well. What I don't like is the points value. It was pretty obvious from playing the carnosaur in the 7th edition book that it was overcosted then, to increase its points for no advancement and then slap on some near mandatory upgrades (swift stride, the lord roar thing is not mandatory, if useful) which make it even mo expensive.

My problem is that surely if Mat Ward can see that the Kharybdiss is fairly costed at 160pts why can't JV see that the carnosaur, which is objectively worse in every way apart from its movement char, cannot possibly be worth its points at 60pts more?

The fact that there is such a massive discrepancy between cost and worth points to some kind of mistake or extremely insufficient play testing, I wouldn't even argue that the troglodon was a bad choice if it was costed the same as a Bastiladon. If the roar is fluffy as a one-use ability that's fine, but the cost needs to reflect that. For me the Bastiladon is pretty near perfect. The beast is physically smaller than the Steg so lower T and W is fair, I'd have preferred it if they had kept it as S5, but I can live with it at S4. I think it would also have been nice to give the tail attack a multi-wound value (maybe D3) so he could actually be a threat in combat, but overall I'm happy with what he does. The ark of Sotek could have done with something to make it the equal of the solar engine I guess, a DD attack of negligible range and a spawning ability for an almost useless unit isn't a very tempting proposition.

I'm a great believer that a special ability can work exactly how the designer thinks it should as long as its cost is appropriate, for me that's where the failure is in the Lizardmen book, the cost vs effectiveness on a few of the units. I'm probably one of the few that quite likes the fact that in the and scheme off things they didn't change too much, it means I don't have to spend tons of cash updating diffrent bits of my army.