We all moved to the smaller ones. We use the big ones only for bigger games (3000 pts) that's my impression too. Usual GW.
I think the idea that the game no longer has hordes isn't necessarily true. The armies that do it and the units that are effective at it are more specific, but soulblight armies with 100 zombies still exist, nurgle lists with 40-70 plaguebearers are great, and its not uncommon to find lumineth lists rocking 2x30 sentinels. Hordes are still there, they are still strong, and I think not having experienced those particular list archetypes might be more of a "diversity of opponents" issue than anything else. For reference, i've probably played around 50-70 3.0 games with 25 of those being at tournaments.
To be fair, I don't think anyone said that AoS 3.0 doesn't have hordes, but that the 3.0 rules seems to more obviously favor monsters & heroes. I think it's accurate to say that the raised point costs, unit size limits and coherency rules help to curtail horde spams. However, just looking at the warscrolls, I agree that hordes of the units you point out would still be played, especially the ranged Sentinels. I also agree that the more people play, the more they will see different lists, and probably some with a fully reinforced unit or two.
Certainly you cannot make "hordes" of not-battlelines unit, when you can just field twice the size. And battleline hordes have no more a discount, while having the problems of coherency. You can certainly field them, and in certain armies are a must (soulblight zombies, i'm looking at you), but all in all it's a game style that has become less easy to be abused.
Favor monsters & heroes? I think that's totally fair. My mistake if the general criticism isn't necessarily about the existence of hordes but more the state of them. Personally, i've grown to appreciate the coherency rules as it controls the amount of boardspace something like 60 zombies can take up, which was something that was definitely an issue in 2.0. I guess i just look at that as a slightly different issue. It goes back to the specificity i mentioned. Please correct me if i'm wrong, but it seems like you're saying that its not necessarily that hordes are less common or worse it's that they've limited the units that can work within that playstyle. A totally fair criticism, but I also think its something that ebbs and flows. Most people felt like 2.0 was unfair to monsters and mounted heroes and too beneficial to hordes. 3.0 has certainly tilted the balance (perhaps too far in the other direction). I'd also argue that less easy to be abused is a good thing, no? I guess ultimately i'm just curious when people point towards coherency or reinforcements as problems they have in 3.0 what specifically are they looking to do that they can't? for example: "But the additional burden of coherency is too much, it cripples hordes. If you consider the big bonuses given to monsters, it's clear that the decision making process was not aimed to create balance by removing big deathstars, but was simply aimed to sell more monsters because hordes were already sold." is it clear? What horde armies are struggling or "crippled" by this change?
yep, that's totally right. Armies are not crippled, but certain "hordes" yes. (i tend to consider "hordes" all units that were used to excel when fielded in large numbers) The classic one, the blob of 30-40 dudes, is basically unaffected. "lesser" hordes are certainly hampered. Cavalry units with 10 guys are suboptimal... i play saurus knights the same, but you will never attack with all of your models, or they'll die to coherency. If you don't look at cav. but on infantry, one of the best nighthaunt's unit was the Bladegheist revenants... dudes with 3 attacks each, 3+ (wholly rerollable) / 3+/-1/1dam. but with range 1", even 10 of them won't be able to hit due to coherency. 20 is theoretically possible, but no more a option. All in all, i like hordes more in 3.0 than in 2.0... but coherency (which was somewhat needed to stop absurd conga lines) is severely annoying for many kind of units.
Definitely feel you on cav, but i think the added strength of msu cav kind of makes up for it. 20 is totally an option! But i think it does shine a spotlight on one of my least favorite parts about coherency is that it makes base size a much MUCH larger factor than it used to be. I dont know if that was totally taken into consideration when the points and unit sizes were handed out for 3. Feel you on the annoying aspect, for me it's just kind of a "lesser evil" situation. It prevents the massive stringing out that used to happen in 2.0 and I think being somewhat generous with the weapon ranges on units on 32s would go a long way to making it feel less annoying. And i guess all in all, seeing a unit of 20 instead of a unit of 30 isn't the biggest deal in the world. I'm also not sure how you fix the stringing out issue without strict coherency rules, but obvious it's not like i've thought of everything if there's an elegant solution that answers both issues i'd love to see it put in place.
What's the added strength of msu cavalry for you? Is it being able to issue their own commands, or not having to worry about coherency, or something else? Personally, 5 Saurus Knights don't seem to hit better and especially not last longer than 10 Knights.
So 5 man cav units got much better from a screen perspective when compared to 10 man infantry units because of the new coherency rules. Sideways cav bases with a 1'' gap take up so much room. I also think their cost comparative to other things didn't tend to take as much of a hike. kind of anecdotal, but i tend to just rate MSU a lot higher in this edition especially when looking at fast units with flexible footprints. being able to mitigate the damage unkillable monsters and massive damage units like 30 blocks of irondrakes or sents with units they need to worry about overkilling or underkilling is super clutch. Only ever needing to focus on a few points in a game means staggering how many units can be killed on any given objective becomes very strong. It's not about a single 5 hitting harder or lasting longer than a unit of 10. It's about two fives being more annoying from a target priority standpoint leading to them arguably lasting longer, on top of doing similarish damage and being infinitely more flexible.
I tend to agree with almost everything. The only real downside of a 5 knights unit is that is an easy target for the battle tactic "kill a battleline".
I've played a couple of AoS 3 games and as many other pointed out there's both pros and cons. Note: This became quite a long post but I hope it's somewhat coherent I like that the monsters have become better, because we have them and they're really nice to see on the battlefield. It's also nice that we have quite a variety - EoTG, Stegatrons, Carnos and Bastiladons, each with a different role. Best thing so far: I LOVE that the EoTG is a priest. I also enjoy the battle tactics, that's fun and it dictates your play in a quite nice way. I had a really nice experience where I managed to sneak away the skink unit that was nominated by my opponent to "kill a battleline". It feels that it's a lot more tactics going into this and the points gain/loss by them is usually significant and requires some planning to be able to accomplish your tactic each round and not be stuck with battle tactics you can't achieve in the end of the game (however, I need to point out that I'm not playing 40k so I don't know if this is just a step towards 40k or not). The grand strategies have so far not made anything interesting. I have realized that this is quite an interesting target to be able to deny the opponent those sweet points by going after the grand strategy. But they also seem a bit to easy to accomplish. I don't like the infinite armor save buffing. Yeah, it's capped at +1, but really not. The easy access to several sources of +1 just nullifies -1 rend so easily. For seraphon which is an army without much rend it's really tough and drives the play towards Mw's. This is annoying and is further driving the play towards Salamanders, Kroak and using the Serpent staff. I mean, when the Carnosaur has -1 rend, that's nothing in this edition and you can always count on your opponent to have an effective +1 when you finally get to bite them. Seraphon might have an ok way of countering this. By having access to both shooting and melee it's possible to draw out CP's in both shooting/combat phases for the all out defense. But then you have mystic shield as well... Regarding buffs I think seraphon is doing ok. Many of the "old" CA's and other buffs are very nice and since they usually stay activated until your next hero phase they're very useful. I've really enjoyed the skink priest's run/shoot/charge ability since it gives a stegatron a huge threat range. I've only played Coalesced for AoS 3, so I don't have any realy inputs on Kroak/Slann, but since magic = Mws, they should probably be very useful. One other note, I managed to play with the new rules from White Dwarf, and they're a very nice addition. The mystical terrain buff is handy and that primeval domain "overrides" mysterious terrain is good - even if you don't play with the mysterious terrain rules it's active. The coalesced mount trait for a Carnosaur is great, alpha strike on the smaller table size with run/charge is nice. The amulet of destiny is of course nice, but as pointed out earlier it's too good. I've even found myself going for pure coalesced instead of thunder/koatl's just to be able to ignore the mandatory artefacts and taking the amulet. It just increases the carnosaur survivability by a lot. An other thing worth noticing is the crazy amount of healing you can get. EoTG, lifeswarm, priests and heroic recovery. The survivability of our monsters is a lot higher. Especially in thunder lizard with that sweet +2 wounds on monsters. What I think seraphon lacks, is rend. Mws are quite easy to get but it would be nice if your saurus with spears can actually kill something that's not just chaff. Coherency rules is just what? Annoyance. It is theoretically possible to maximize the amount of saurus within 1", but it's just a hassle. It is possible to conga line skinks, but is that intended? Just annoying and adding time. Finally, AoS 3 is bloated. So much to keep track on. Battle tactics, command points, regroup, unleash hell, priest stuff... And with almost every warscroll in seraphon having access to some sort of ability/CA it's just crazy much. I think the monstrous/hero actions are ok, but it also leads to a lot of looking up. Is it a 2+ or 3+ on this thing or what? Is it + to hit or + to wound? On mount and/or hero? I've not won yet, but I blame that on taking fluffy lists and inexperience against the factions I've encountered. I recently painted up my Carnosaur so I just want to put it on the table everytime (https://www.lustria-online.com/threads/carnosaurs.13188/page-8#post-387850). I'm going to play the Kruleboyz at 750 pts soon, and I'm very scared regarding their Mw output, so the amulet is unfortunately going on the carnosaur, again. All in all I try to see the positive aspects. I usually play friendly matches and just try to roll with the punches. Seraphon is doing ok, they're not top of the meta but we have some good tools to work with.
Since I am still working towards my 2000 points of Seraphon I haven´t played any games so far. I hope to start a path to Glory campaign around Christmas. But there is kind of a monthly Meta Review by the Honest Wargamer. The slides can be found here http://thehonestwargamer.com/the-state-of-the-meta-november-2021/ Right now we have a 55% winrate in tournaments which is in the top tier. the top performing subfactions are: -Thunderlizards, played 59% of the time and have a winrate of 58% -Dracos tail, played 13% and also a winrate of 58% the realy intresting part for me are our hardest matchups: -Sons of Behemat 41% winrate -Tzeentch 42% winrate and Ogor Mawtribes 38% winrate
When they say mawtribes what they mean are stonehorns and ally gargant/kragnos. All that army is now is hard to kill monsters that are -1 to hit and count for 10 bodies on objectives. So dont be too surprised. TL is horrible into real monster armies like mawtribes and sons. Our rend does absolutely nothing to them, our monsters die in a single round of attacks to theirs, and their monsters count as more bodies than ours. Additionally TL is slower than they are and will give up too many primary points in the early game before they can kill the big monsters.
One thing to remember about our win rate is that our lists are some of the most diverse in the meta game. While there are popular units like Slann, priests, salamanders and bastiladons, we do not have a "best" list. The army is also very popular so there is a lot of people playing what they want to play. As a result we have many people playing "sub standard" lists. For example in my opinion I would not play a carnosaur, but many people still do. Contrast this with the number 1 army, SoB, where every list is near identical you will see them with much more consistent placings. So we do have lists that bring down our score. Also I think that the orruk and SCE books are going to shake up the metagame and I think we have a pretty good matchup against both. The next month is likely to show a few new top dogs but I think we will still be sitting at the big boy table.
Also I wanna point out that although we are in the top 5 armies we are not a meta defining army. That is to say people don't need to build specifically for us the way you need to build against 40 sentinels, 30 bow snakes or 4 mega gargs. We are a good stuff army and our good stuff is probably better than their good stuff. As a result we will be much harder to shake out of the top spots and we can adapt more to the changing meta. We will likely see armies raise and fall in popularity but we will be staying in that top 5 for a while until a lot more books come out.
I've been in a bit of a drought of games recently, partly due to business, partly due to apathy concerning changing the way I play the game after I felt like I had just gotten reasonably good at 2e, lol! Going to start a Path to Glory campaign with my brother who plays and hopefully a couple other people and see how that goes!
That's the idea I'll be using Seraphon, naturally. And he'll be either Orruks or Khorne. I'm hoping I can get a friend to join in with my Deepkin as well.