AoS Are Ossiarchs any good? (Practice not theory)

im sorry if im getting wordy but it just seems like you don't think win rates matter at all which is obviously not true. and the only thing else i can gleen from your statements is it should just be based on feelings and opinion which is a very bad way to balance a game. i will conseed that you fined no value in winrates.
iull stop using them if you can give me an objective method to judge army power that does it better. untill then im sticking with what we have flawed thou it may be

 

yes movement is important. But not in literally every situation. There's inevitably going to be a situation where it doesn't matter that they're slow. At which point their drawback is meaningless.

Everything doesn't need to be meh, and of course a unit can be better in a certain area than the average. However, advantages should never be too extreme. Which is the issue here. An extreme advantage is "balanced" by giving an extreme disadvantage. Which I consider to be a very bad design philosphy. Admittadly, it is a common one. Videogames especially tend to favour the approach "if everything's OP then nothing is" and then using a rock-paper-scissor approach to prevent any particular playstyle from becoming too dominant. Which I don't like.

Again, you won't always have the luxury of playing that way. You're going to get into situations where you need to deal with the glass cannon. Hence it aggrevates the armsrace, even if (minor) counters are available.

My point is that most armies are balanced around having their allegiance abilities available. It's why we see very few grand allegiances and even allies aren't overwhelmingly fielded. Of course they're potent and accentuate the flavour of the army. But the units should be made with assumption the unit has the allegiance ability.

I find it bad as "delay with chaff and ignore" is the only viable counterplay. Monsters can be killed by weight of dice most easily, but that doesn't mean rend won't work.

I'm not saying they should necesarly have a good chance. But they should have a chance.
Let me put it this way, 30 fully buffed hearthguard should defeat 40 saurus knights. But the end result shouldn't be 40 dead knights and no dead hearthguard. The result should be an average of say 10 dead hearthguard, and 1 out of 10 times the knights get lucky and accidently win.

 

More usefull measures are to compare stuff to equivalent models. If the difference is too large you have something problematic.
E.g.
- if an average wizard casts 1 spell, Nagash with his 9 spellcasts is probably problematic.
- if an average movespeed of cavalry is 10" than 30" would be probably problematic
- if an average unit charges 7" on average, a buffed up destruction army charging 30" on average is probably problematic.

and so on. It's also important to compare it in specific situations and how that compares in various matchups.

Also, it's important to focus on individual aspects when comparing and not take too much at the same time. E.g. an OP combat unit with terrible mobility might on the whole be "balanced" but it's combat capabilities are still problematic & the moment someone figures out how to mitigate the mobility issue it'l ruin the balance. So better to just immeadiatly ensure the combat isn't problematic. They can remain powerfull, just ensure they're never problematic.

 

So no. got it next time you decry the usefulness of it we can agree to live and let live as you have no alternative

 

I disagree, I have an alternative, but I doubt I'l convince you of that alternative so sure

 

but it is not an objective standerd which is what i asked for. it's not even about judging army power just whether a unit is "problematic"

 

It is objective, all you need to do is define the cut-off point for "problematic" which you can easily do by some objective measure. Arbitrary, but logical and objective, cut-off points like that are used all the time for quite important things. For example the official way to diagnose depression is to see if the patient has certain symptoms for at least 2 weeks. Why 2 weeks? Cuz after 2 weeks 95% of remaining patients no longer randomly recover on their own cuz they were simply sad and they are indeed truly depressed. It's still arbitrary, could've gone for 3 weeks, or 10 days. But that 95% is "good enough" so we go for 2 weeks. And things like this are used a lot in the medical world. You can use a similar approach here to define the cut-off points.

As for judging armies as a whole, you can similarly compare them. For example, the oger armies fielding a fraction of the models of the average army is an outlier that requires special treatment with their might makes right rule. And similarly here you can spot problematic outliers using these comparisons.

 

ok hers the problem you menchend nagash saying he was broken do to having 9 spells when a average caster has one (not why he is good it's his casting bonus) but here is the rub nagash is not good he is not used in LoN armies he is to expensive and to easy to remove from the board and just 1 model.
there is also a cav unit that can move 36" bonesplitas bore boyz and no one plays them
even if you don't agre with this the fact that this argument can be made meens it is not an objective standerd as depending on who you ask the answer changes

 

Problematic units tend to have too many strengths, not necessarily just one huge strength. Mortek Guard aren't problematic simply because of the rerolling 3+ saves, but because they can also be 3s/3s -2 rend with 2 attacks base a pop, AND can move 7 inches fairly easily.

It becomes a unit with above average offensive capabilities, above average movement, and S tier defense. And on top of all that it's battleline.

 

Nagash is OP as a wizard due to his 9 casts & + 3 to cast. With these bonusses he'l always end up breaking the magic system if it ever gets in a good place.

However, since Nagash is quite expensive, easy to kill & wizards aren't all that impressive in AoS to begin with, he ends up balanced-ish as a unit. It also helps that the rule of one makes 9 spellcasts kinda redundant in most cases, but that's due to the magic system being flawed....

The boar riders I can't find. Best I can find is a 12" moving boar.

In general though, just like how OP doesn't mean insta-win it also doesn't mean insta-include in an army. It just means that in (a) specific aspect(s) you're far too powerfull compared to the norm.

 

Breath of Gorkamorka: On a 6+ pick 1 friendly unit within 24", that unit gets double movement and fly, if you rolled a double to cast it gets triple the movement and fly!
sorry i got that rong its a 24" range with a 1/6 chance of 36"

 

that's hilarious. And also quite possibly quite OP.

 

and yet nothing no one uses it an mixed with icefange they can retreat at the end of combat so 48"

 

again, OP doesn't necesarly mean actually usefull. It just means it's overpowered in a certain aspect.

 

Canas I think you may be operating with a different definition of "OP" than most people.

I don't think most people consider things OP in a vacuum - e.g., Nagash's spellcasting. That is simply their strength as a unit.

What people tend to find "OP" is when a unit is capable of many different things and has very few weaknesses.

"OP", therefore, is usually used as a term of aggregation - something is overpowered because it can do X, Y, and Z. Things are not usually considered OP just because they have one strength.

 

or if something is just good but really really cheep

 

Like skinks!

 

no like skaven skinks would only be in the OP category if they cost 50-40 at the moment they are just a good solid pick but not OP

 

I know, the downside of being different. Not the first and not gonna be the last time it happens

Also, people have the nasty tendency of only considering things OP if it actually wins often. Which is quite annoying. It can lead to oppresive mechanics that are annoying to deal with but since they don't win often enough are viewed as "fine". Usually cuz you end up with 2 OP mechanics that cancel eachother out. Both are oppresive and annoying to deal with, especially if you try to play with a thrid mechanic, but they balance out eachothers winrate so it's viewed as "fine". It irks me.

 

Do you guys think mortal wounds would be the answer? Maybe a use for Ark of sotek bastiladons