Usually the problem in 40k doesn't lie in the core rules (which are pretty solid) but in the codexes, which suffer from power creep in each edition. ATM the... fluctuations in power levels are more limited, and while it's true that when a new codex arrives, it rocks the tables for a month or 2, the extreme things are almost immediately dealt with and for what remains, people take the right countermeasure against the new threats. This wasn't a so common thing in previous editions. When there was a thing like fish of flurry, SM drop pods, triptides or the rhino-DP combo, you were doomed to suffer.
We should also take into account Cogs going up to 70 points for Kroak lists. Excluding any takers of the Sun with the TL Basti's as that's worse again Would loved to have seen the Trog drop more as the Slann went up, you could have argued to take the Arcane Tome on the Trog for x2 casts, still take an AB and drop the Slann. That would save you 115 points (or maybe 35 points) as you can also replace the necessary x5 Guard with x10 skinks as battleline.
Point changes rarely does much of anything. Kroak is still busted to bits, priests are still good, Engine still insane in TL. This just means you trim the fat a bit, maybe downgrade a Solar basti to an Ark, drop an endless spell or downgrade the knight screens to skinks. The core is still intact. As for priests being 120pts for 4 wounds, it doesnt make much difference to go up to 5-6, any lists that is build to take out support heroes will kill the priest anyway and lists that cant touch him still cant touch him. 120pts seems fair for a priest with 2 strong abilities. Seraphon are still going to be top tier, and the internal balance will still favour fangs and thunderlizards.
I think it says a lot when the meta chooses skinks over saurus due to the former being a better tar pit as chaff than the latter could ever hope to be, especially in a skirmish game like AoS.
Agree on all accounts, doesn't mean we can't have a wishlist though The only real problem we have as any army is internal balance, and that will require battlescroll changes to mostly redundant models or to subfaction rules. But that said, Seraphon are definitely not the only army with that problem. We are very far from being the worst offender in that category in AoS3.
Better balance than before isn't better balance than aos. I think podium showing from aos GT's consistently shows the aos balance is much, much better than 40k.
Yeah, as annoying as the imbalances and power creep are in AoS, they're still a lot worse in 40k. GW even had to make an apology video before the new Leagues of Votann codex came out because of how broken the Squats were. But they also revealed the reason everything tends to be so broken in 40k. Each new codex that comes out is balanced against the previous releases, but when each book gets nerfed almost immediately after release, the books that come out after were balanced against the previous books pre-nerf. So it just leads to a vicious cycle where each book releases too strong, gets nerfed, and then the next book gets the same treatment.
They have had a mixed bag of codices on release, chaos demons was decently balanced on release, Votann (a brand new army) was a hot mess of golden guns on wheels. Fortunately nerfed release week. Chaos space marines came off looking scary, but were closer to a paper tiger. Both Knights codexes were close to a 50% win rate out of the gate. Just before that was the worst offenders one after another though, which led to the worst game balance in statistically recorded 40k history, what with Tau, Custodes, Eldar, and Tyranids all coming out and taking turns in groups of 3 with 69-78% win rates. Each of these were great examples of "playtested against prenerf armies" that lead to codex creep. This has gotten drastically better in the last 6 months. I think it has to do with the 40k community picking up pitchforks and torches. It has gotten to the point where the podium diversity is looking pretty dang good. Here's the tops of this last weekend (ignore the chaos demons, tzneech flamers somehow missed the nerf hammer, but even so...)
STD are getting a relativly interesting, but possibly immensly frustrating, new mechanic in their new tome. Looks neat, but the randomness might be a tad annoying. Very fitting though.
Nothing new there - Warriors of Chaos had this in 7th and 8th Edition (though it specifically applied to characters in those games). @NIGHTBRINGER take note, another example of AoS returning to Fantasy for inspiration...
I think we've seen something similar to it in an earlier form for path to glory or something as well.
Yeah, stats look good. i think the "top" 40k players tend to gravitate towards those top lists which isn't necessarily the case in aos so you still see a lot more podium diversity.
Agreed, besides, I have 2½ armies for 40k, but I will only ever play one in AoS. I am part of the problem
I have carcharodons and world eaters. When angron drops will probably be the last bit of shit I buy for 40k for a while
The goblins are finally getting their wolfriders as a proper unit, and not just an underworlds warband.
We already talked about it on the 'propa' GW News thread: https://www.lustria-online.com/threads/gw-news-fifteen-battleforces.17322/page-306#post-424101 In all seriousness though, it's great to see an old Fantasy kit be resurrected like this (though having some of the old ones already means I can't get them because the old ones will clearly show through as being naff in comparison). I wouldn't be surprised if TOW had something to do with it. @NIGHTBRINGER these new ones even have Hobgoblin hoods on them - deserving candidates for your Chaos Dwarf army!
Sigh, why do I sometimes lose the various notifications for threads I watch But yeah, they do look rather neat