AoS NEW *rumor*

But what are artefacts that really needed to be broken so badly? I can only think about Etherial amulet on 3+ stuff. If an artifact is on squishy hero, it is better to snipe it with meteoric convocation+arcane bolt+some shooting. If it is on a Monster, just feed it with skinks so it won't bother you. Finally, there's an artefact of the realms that negates effect of other artefacts, but it works only in 3". I never saw anyone use it in any list.

The idea of shattering artefact maybe cool, but if you need to sacrifice a warlord trait for it. I see more worth in taking Vast Intellect to increase chances to cast astral tempest, because it can deal more damage than couple of summoned units and teleports.

 

I'm being negative cuz of two reasons

1) There's a decent chance that this spell, which unique selling point is supposed to be the potentially breaking artifacts, is going to kill the hero before ever breaking it's artifact. Which kind of defeats the purpose of it's unique selling point. Which is bad design. This also ties in to what I mentioned earlier about something needing to feel good. This spell doesn't feel good as what it does baseline diminishes the value of what it can do conditionally (and which is supposed to be the major draw to choose it over a different damage spell) on top of being unreliable.

And

2) It's an interesting spell with potentially massive pay-off balanced out by poor reliability or difficulty of use. And those type of abilities tend to be problematic in any game that aims to have a competitive scene. For starters it's difficult to balance as competitive play will abuse it the moment it becomes decent, but average players will struggle to use it at all due to the difficulty of using it properly. Due to it being interesting it also has the nasty habit of causing other things to get nerfed in an effort to keep the interesting mechanic while keeping it's power in check. An example could be that starpriests with this spell (and only this spell, the other options remain fine) become oppressive, so we up a starpriests cost by 20 points. Which further increases the gap between how well it works in competitive and average play and occasionally ends up gutting entire characters/units/strategies/armies/etc. as you end up in a situation where they are only useable in higher levels of play as the average player will just never be able to pull it off due to lacking the necesary skill (this also works the other way were certain strategies are basicly unstoppable in normal play while completly useless in competitive play)

Both of which are things I vehemently dislike.

 

I agree; I think the point is that if your opponent puts too much of their strategy into a combo with an artefact we now have a pretty good way to threaten that strategy without needing to have the means to kill the hero holding it. Which is nice to have sometimes.

As you say, with Arcane Vassal and a bit of reasonable positioning we should have no issues with unbinding unless we are up against another Slann. Later in the game an opponent can close down the distance and make it hard to pull off that trick but there is usually a window of opportunity at the start of the game.

 

I would argue that all the popular artefacts are worth smashing. Just off the top of my head there's the Ethereal Amulet, Ignax's Scales, Gryphfeather Charm, Doppelganger Cloak, Ragged Cloak, Aetherquartz Brooch, Smoldering Helm - all of these are included in lists because they are very impactful. Most lists choose their artefacts very carefully and the ability to deny your opponent a carefully chosen advantage is a great tool.

1. It's really unlikely that D3 mortal wounds will kill somebody before a 5+ (4+ with Curse) can break their artefact. That's really just nonsensical. Even if you don't have an artefact to break, targeted D3 mortal wounds is not a bad thing - more focused fire is always good, even if it casts on an 8.

2. It's a spell that every Seraphon wizard can use so there's no reason to assume any one wizard will be balanced around using it. Lizardmen/Seraphon are a faction that has always been defined by good casting so it's unlikely they will change that. Your concern is valid but the 2.0 book isn't even out yet, so there is still time for changes. I expect all the Seraphon warscrolls will be updated so I don't think it's worth any time worrying how this spell will effect the future balancing of the faction.

The sky isn't falling... keep calm and play warhammer

 

I think you're extrapolating a little bit too much. If this spell gets anything nerfed i'll be amazed. To your own point, it's hardly reliable enough to be a huge issue. Besides, there's tons of high risk, high reward mechanics in AoS and this is hardly the most egregious example.

I particularly enjoy it because there's a psychological component. Is it worth putting my hero in range of the slann? Do I need to screen him out? Should i just ignore it? You force your opponent into making decisions more complicated for them and it increases the likelihood of mistakes.

Will I use the spell every game? Honestly, probably not. But I'm massively looking forward to the mind games and the ability to use it if I want to. And I think that's really where the magic (pun totally intended) is. We've been begging for a lore for ages and we finally have one AND it's not complete garbage. It makes summoning a more difficult choice, it gives us tons of tools our toolbox didn't have before, and I think ultimately it makes seraphon a much more "complete" army. We don't need to mindlessly say "i cast nothing and gain 9 summoning points" every turn.

Either way, i'm super excited to try it out.

 

JUST AS PLANNED!

 

With a 5+ you'l on average need three succesfull casts, which will average 6 damage. Quite a lot of things die to 6 mortal wounds and that's just the average. I'm not saying you're likely to kill a great unclean one, or a terrogheist before breaking its artifact, but a lot of heroes, especially those not riding giant monsters, are more likely to die to the damage output than they are to have their artifact broken, or will end up at least mortally wounded.

With the 4+ it gets a bit better. But it still leaves the spell in the weird place where it's baseline effect is liable to make it's unique draw irrelevant.

Imho the baseline effect should've been to weaken the artifact with the conditional effect being deal some damage.

It was merely an example, I doubt any one wizard will be balanced around it given that all of em can use it. I'd be more concerned for the faction as a whole getting balanced around it.

That's what they always say and then it suddenly all gets dark

In all seriousness though. I'm used to these kinda concerns being dismissed as the group that likes these kind of abilities tends to be fairly vocal. So you know, yelling into the void in hopes of someone important listening

And for clarity; I like the psychological aspect of this one. The effect is neat. But I simply dislike the high-risk high-reward balance philosophy behind it (as in my experience it's often not fun in most games due to the playstyles it tends to encourage) and I really dislike the weird way the baseline effect negates it unique conditional effect.

 

What I personally really dislike about it is that it tends to have a tremendous effect on balance & gameplay as a whole, spreading quickly and starting to enforce a meta revolving around these high-risk/high-reward strategies. They tend to them become favoured alongside a play style in which you only engage whenever the risk is minized. Which tends to be increadibly boring and annoying to deal with.

 

I feel that. But this spell either requires another spell to make it good (lower odds), or if not, low odds of it working. So, it's not going to be the domino that starts the Rube Goldberg machine of nerfing seraphon units.

Its a 'situationaly better than arcane bolt', that, under all the right circumstances might create a "oh damn!" table moment, rather than something folks build strategy around. Which is cool.

(And someone earlier had said Slaan can swap out spells? Am I noobing out here or does that mean you get the full Swiss army knife spell list? What am I missing here?)

 

Might be that AoS is relativly immune to it. With only 5 turns & things like the rule of 1 there isn't much room to get in multiple tries while also playing it safe and avoiding a commitment unless the odds are stacked as much in your favor as possible. That does help keeping it in check. Does still make it an balancing approach I don't like

 

Obviously everything with involve a general rebalance and pruning as well seeing as it's bound to have some consequences.

Rule of one:

To counter mortal wounds spam I'd introduce the concept of physical vs magical damage and give every unit a physical and magical save. As everyone now has a save spell offensive spam shouldn't be much of an issue. Also it has the benefit of (partially) removing the need for mortal wounds (or excessive amounts of rend) as it'd be possible to deal with a unit that has re-rollable 2+ physical save by simply throwing magic damage at it. and take advantage of it's worse magical save. And it allows for interesting units by specialising them in one type of damage (both offensivly and defensivly) and would even allow for spells doing physical damage (say you launch a rock at someones face) to allow for some interesting strategies. This concept should also be applied more broadly to damage in general.

To counter spell stacking: the same buff doesn't stack on the same target (and imho, this should also go for certain command abilities, though some command abilities could potentially get the option of "pay more points for a more powerfull effect" seeing as some of them do create interesting uses of certain units)

To counter nonsense like Nagash: don't make nonsense like Nagash who on his own can cast more spells than the entire enemy army combined unless he faces a tzeentch army (and even then it's gonne be a close call unless you play very large games). Seriously who though it'd be a good idea to have a model like that?

As for the rule of one surrounding artifacts, I've never really seen an example of why picking the same artifact twice would actually be problematic (and I can't really think of any unless the artifact is just broken to begin with at which point maybe fix the artifact). So that one I'd just remove. Possibly with some exceptions for particularly powerfull artifacts.

In my opinion that should solve most of the potential issues with spells in their current form.

Also, I'd try to create more (spell) effects like some of the new slaanesh abilities that introduced an element of choice for the target (e.g. the seeker's dark temptation ability). Those could be extremely fun and the choice could be used to keep the ability in check, especially if the choice is utility focussed or gives opponent a potential advantage.

As for the 5 turn system. I don't think that can really be done without making it a completly different game. And the few ways I can think of that would at least sorta work would also make the game take way too much time.

Edit: I forgot to mention; a mechanic like kroak's celestial deliverance progressivly becoming harder to cast with each attempt is something I like as well

 

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned but I can see artefact shattering being useful in the very situational use of the Places of Arcane Power battleplan, shatter your opponent's hero's artefact so they can't claim objectives any more Pretty sure doing that would led to a few choice words from your opponent.

 

I'm so confused on what the issue is. D3 mortals and destroying an artefact is in no way a spell you build your army or strategy around. It's something you grab at the end of turn 1 because your opponent has a tree Lord with a 2+ save, ignore rend 1, rerolling 1s. Maybe you destroy his item maybe not. If you don't that tree is probably never going to die.

At the end of the day we are only better off in this situation then we were before the new GHB.

Also I think making a spell like that auto destroy or any more reliable would break it. Spells are not meant to be a surefire thing. They have always had a casting roll then a dmg roll or an effect roll. If you can just point at a spot on the board and say "now your heroes loses his artefact cuz my dude said so" it would be broken and extremely unfun.

The ability is extremely strong but at the same time it looks pretty balanced. You know you will do d3 dmg if you get it off. Cool that's better then arcane bolt. The chance to blow up an item is an awesome addition. Only need it to go off once and my friend will think twice about charging in his tree Lord.(or mayve not cuz we still aren't a killy army).

Honestly mayve not even use it. Our dmg potential elsewhere isn't the highest so taking away a tanky heroes defensive item might not be enough to win a game for us or effect the outcome. I think the17yak is onto something. This spell might be our ace in the whole for Arcane Powers and seen very little elsewhere.

 

IMO bring back 6-dicing dwellers every turn


... just kidding. Don't do that.