Absolutely. As much as many people are saying the Solar Engine is viable (which we know it is, it just increased 15 points), I think there is something to be said for how the Ark of Sotek can hold its own and manage to attract the attention of the opponent for more than one turn.
Except that in case of bastiladon there's nothing to be neutered. It is literally a pile of wounds, nothing more. I also don't buy the arguement on mission at all. Most missions require monsters to kill something, which bastiladon with ark, well, can't. It counts as only 5 bodies on an objective and will be easily outnumbered by any cheap chaff unit. 20 skinks on an objective can outnumber quite a bit of stuff. Also skinks will serve as a good screen, preventing enemies from reaching your important stuff. Ark is way worse at that. We have nothing to offer them, which we can't offer for a better units. Things like 3 terradons were already used sometimes as outrider units. 10 pts will change absolutely nothing. It can be benifical with overall point drops on an army. What would this 10 pts give me? I already had like 20-30 pts nothing to spend on. Knights have 10 wounds in 4+ save vs terradons' 9 wounds in 6+. They also hit harder and counts as 5 bodies on an objective vs 3 and serve as better screen. The only benifit of terradons is their fly with high speed, which could be utilized to threaten some far-away objectives, but in any other case I'd take knights. Only if the opponent is a newbie and doesn't know, how this game work. Any midskill player will just completely ignore it. It is not like seraphon has need in cheap monster, which does nothing, when they have several good monsters.
As evident by Kroak being one out of 2 gods not to get an update Seriously, if the other gods deserve various updates, both big and small then why can't Kroak at least have some small stuff, like say an update to his melee profile so he can actually reliably kill a single skaven in 1v1 combat...
I understand your point on the raw stats of the riders but depending on the subfaction you're running and the various wizard/priest combinations we can run, I think you're undervaluing the rider's ability to run, shoot, be teleported, escape and not be subject to the aforementioned damage. Sure, it might be wise to take the knights because of their raw numbers. I totally understand that point. But to the extent you can utilize the Skink Starseer, Skink Starpriest, Skink Priest along with Kroak on both our battleline (Skinks) as well as translating it to the riders -- there's value. I see your argument as you likely run Coalesced Thunderlizard, but I think there's a lot more value in some lists that GW opens up with these point reductions... you might've jumped ship when they nerfed Skinks in Fangs of Sotek, but I think GW's edge with the units that received point reductions is to make a Starborne list more viable. Sure, I might be new to understanding the fullest extent but I think it's good food-for-thought here.
Once again - if flyers were that good, the extra 10 points wouldn't be a barrier to use them. Actually, my mate, who used 3 terras dropped them from list, when he found out about basti+sallies price hike. Good job at divesifying lists, GW!
I'd prefere it to be limited to 10 or less wound models, so it would be easier to protect squishy buff characters. Now with 6+ it gives practically nothing to small characters and still more or less viable on stuff with 12+ wounds. I don't think that we will be taking it at all now. Cloak seems better on stegas by a mile. When running chief, stegahelm would be better as third artefact.
I will still be taking the Amulet I just enjoy the safety that a ward save gives me even though it's dramatically worse now. But then again my army has 3 artifacts so I can afford to do it still
So I was able to read through everything, and pretty much all the factions were only point decreases, not increases. In fact, only Slaves to Darkness and Seraphon got point increases on more than one unit. Amulet change is disappointing to everyone who used it, but the fact that *everyone* used it is pretty indicative that it needed to happen. Sounds like the general theme of this update was to reduce the point cost on named heroes and weak units while increasing points on units seen as "problematic." Arguably, the only two units that actually deserved increases were Sentinels and Gore-Gruntas. Of course, Goonhammer and pretty much everywhere I can find a comment about the Salamander point increase is just going "yep, they needed it. Still worth the cost." I disagree. Bastiladon I could maybe have seen going up 10, 15 is a bit much but doesn't make him unusable. Does this mean I technically have to cut him out of my Path to Glory list since him going up 15 points makes my list illegal now? *Edit:* Actually, I really would like to know what the generally accepted etiquette when this happens. We'll probably be playing PTG again soon, and my opponent's really chill about stuff like this. But I've been trying to stick to official rules as much as possible to make sure I get a better handle on 3e rules, so now I'm really wondering about it, lol!
Disagree and give a nonbiased viewpoint on the subject is the best, most professional way to go about discussion. But issues come up when people discuss via text. Since a lot of the time it comes off as condescending which may or may not be the intention. If this helps then yay if not then I'm sorry
Meh, if everyone uses it then maybe you should consider limiting who can use it, or at least a target nerf towards the problem cases, as opposed to a flat global nerf. A flat nerf hurts legitimate use-cases to bring the broken OP cases back in line. Creating a problem for the legitimate cases. Dissallowing the broken OP cases solves the main problem without hurting the legitimate cases. Which you can see nicely with this artifact. Like @Nart pointed out, the artifact is now more or less worthless on squishy support heroes, who desperatly need some survivability. While it is still more or less useable on the big scary monsters that were the problem cases to begin wtih... Maybe a better solution would've been to for example say "only heroes with 10 wounds or less can take this".
Thats why i cant stand people who demand balancing based on "stats". They gather all this data and go look these guys have a 55% win rate and they took salamanders in 90% of their lists so obviously the reason they are winning are the salamanders cause they are too good for their points. The problem with that is it takes none of the other circumstances into account. The truth is our book is pretty bad from a high competitive standpoint, Its not nearly as good as people claim. It only has 2 viable comeptitive builds that put up consistent results and both of those lists use slamanders because they are the only relevant rend we have in the entire faction. But their stats dont show any of these factors and so salamanders get nerfed cause "stats" and a 55% seraphon gets nerfed to a barey 45% win rate(i dont know what we are yet this is just an example) army just like that cause they made the one lynchpin unit too expensive to take in numbers that matter. You have to take the big picture into account when balancing the game and stats dont do that. you want to make people take less salamanders, you give them an alternative. you buff carnos to -3 rend. you make saurus warriors better. you present alternatives so that things can be actually balanced after you implement changes.
very much this. are salamanders to cheep? doesn't matter we have very little that can replace them. keep pumping that price guys we will still keep taking them.... maybe if they had buffed anything worthwhile this time round but no.
what. A thunder lizard list with 0 salamanders literally just went 5-0 at austin and 4-1 at everwinter. It was needed to stop spam lists. We are still arguably the best (or one of the best) books/lists in the game. With sce/dragons and IJ being so popular coalesced is going to be even better. I usually try not to be this definitive, but if you're saying we were only competitive because of salamanders you are flat out wrong. We 100% do not need them to be competitive, ESPECIALLY after the amulet nerf. We've arguably gotten better after these changes, not worse.
This is the other mistake they made alongside the focus on stats (and ignoring the context of those stats).. nerfing by increasing the cost of something is often not really relevant because cost simply isn't relevant in a linear way. The only buff/nerf that really matters if happens when that buff/nerf causes the cost to cross a certain treshhold. Simply put, if the treshhold for being viable for salamanders is say 150 points, it doesn't really matter if it's a 110, 120 or 140, all of these are still viable. Nothing of significance has changed, they're still going to be a dominant part of the faction. This similarly holds for the "buffs" to rippers & the bastiladon, but from the other side of the spectrum.
Thats great to hear, and i hope people continue to find success with lists like that, The list i am talking about is this one. Spoiler Allegiance: Seraphon - Constellation: Thunder Lizard - Mortal Realm: Ghur - Grand Strategy: Beast Master - Triumphs: Inspired Leaders Engine of the Gods (265)* - Artefact: Fusil of Conflaguration - Mount Trait: Beastmaster - Universal Prayer Scripture: Curse Slann Starmaster (265)* - General - Command Trait: Arcane Might - Spell: Stellar Tempest Skink Priest (80)* - Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal Skink Priest (80)** - Universal Prayer Scripture: Heal Battleline 20 x Skinks (150)* - Boltspitters & Moonstone Clubs - Reinforced x 1 10 x Skinks (75)** - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers 10 x Skinks (75)** - Boltspitters Celestite Daggers & Star Bucklers Units 2 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240)* - Reinforced x 1 2 x Salamander Hunting Pack (240)* - Reinforced x 1 Behemoths Bastiladon with Solar Engine (235)* Bastiladon with Solar Engine (235)** Endless Spells & Invocations Emerald Lifeswarm (60) Core Battalions *Battle Regiment **Battle Regiment Total: 2000 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 3 / 4 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 111 Drops: 2 It has repeatedly gone 5-0 in bcp events and shown up at top tables around the world. I consider it to be the optimized competitive thunderlizard list, and it was the one affected most by the changes.
Sure, but its by no means the only thunder lizard list. That lists three 5-0 performances have all been by the same (very good) player, and there's no reason to assume the other forms of thunderlizard (that have done well in other areas) won't continue to perform well. I just think this sort of general idea that somehow seraphon was supported by salamanders is wildly incorrect and not even supported by the data. Why even put it out there? We just saw a KC list go 5-0 with no salamanders, numerous TL lists as mentioned. If it was an army supported on the back of one strong unit you wouldn't see the amount of variability in list building as we do.
AoS app was updated to the new points changes. If a unit is solid at both range and melee, it's going to see the "nerf bat". GW's nerf bat is usually points. Hello, Salamanders. I'm more concerned that one day GW will change their range to 8". Range effectiveness plus defense of the Solar Bastiladon must have bumped it closer to the Stegadon's points. I don't like it, but I guess it makes sense. I think GW just needs to go back to the drawing board with the Ark Bastiladon. I understand that some see it as a relatively cheap bag of wounds to tie up their opponents, but it's design/use feels flat to me. However, in AoS, range and rend is king. Unless GW makes the melee Bastiladon a beast or a battlefield control nuisance, I bet the ranged Bastiladon will still see more play. Similarly, the Razordon is 18"/2D6/3+/4+/–(-1)/1 compared to the Salamander's 12"/4/3+/3+/-2/D3; their melee profiles are identical. Why doesn't the Razordon see play despite the better range? My untrained eye says "consistency". Razor is more swingy, less likely to wound and less likely to damage. Right now the two units are practically 50 pts apart, but I bet will players will pay for the consistency.