Agree on all points with @Putzfrau - The game needs to move forward to stay interesting. I dont agree there is a hard powercreep happening, but designers do need to evolve and produce new rules and/or mechanics. Sometimes they might get a bit too wild and then they get reeled in with FAQs later down the line, but if they never went haywire you would have a bunch of reskinned factions that play close to the same = Not fun. But that is the thing - The basic Wizard isn't supposed to compete with those. The basic Wizard is maybe a 100-140 points model and is just a simple support piece where as the guy with +3 is a 600-800 points model. Much more of the army is dedicated to magic, so obviously said magic needs to be significantly stronger. So many people complain about Kroak (he is extremely good, no doubt) and laugh that he is pointed at 320 which is just wrong. A naked Kroak at 320 is not gonna cause the same kind of damage he is currently doing. You need to invest 600-800 points for him to be a powerhouse which is close to half or one third of your entire army. If a basic Wizard at 100-140 pts could compete with that, what is the point? Armies are different and armies need to be different. Considering how many factions there currently are in AoS (~20?) I think GW is actually doing a rather reasonable job at keeping them all somewhat interesting, different and somewhat viable. The tournament scene has never been so diverse as it was pre COVID-19. All armies should have some kind of bonkers and badass mechanics that makes them special and forces you to play around. I do think there is a fine line between creating new and interesting rules vs creating rules that are flat out not fun and provide a negative player experience.
A 3+ to casting bonus is in itself, not problematic. But it becomes an issue when this stops being a rarity. At that point, regular wizards end up facing a godlike wizard every other game making the regular wizard just kind of pointless because it becomes too likely that a random opponent will just wipe the floor with him. On a sidenote, the fact that the expensive wizard costs X more points isn't really all that relevant. As I said earlier, the fact that a specific rule/mechanic is broken by a unit/faction doesn't guarantee it'l be dominant and always win games. It does however ruin that mechanic as there now is no way to compete in that aspect without bringing something equally broken yourself. It creates an arms-race where those lagging behind are de facto locked out of entire mechanics/strategies/etc. which imho is bad design. Now obviously I'm not expecting a single basic wizard to keep up with a fully supported Kroak. But I would also not expect that wizard to be completly and utterly useless, which is the case right now. There's a big difference between the fancy wizard simply being significantly better or it being absolutly untouchable magic-wise for the minor wizard. Also, more in general, due to the way casting works modifiers might simply just be too powerfull seeing as it can yield results that are literally unachieveable without modifiers. In contrast I like the lord's of change Mastery of Magic better. It's still a considerable bonus for him, but it doesn't make him outright untouchable without needing similar bonusses yourself. As for the saves, a 4+ rerolling 1's (or something comparable, like the lumineth wardens with 4+ and -1 to hit) doesn't need to be the absolute best. But it should at least be decent. Yet the lumineth wardens have been called "rather squishy" on here because in comparison to the OBR it's nothing. Imho, that shouldn't be the case. So you're saying a unit that has a 1.000 wounds would be fine? What about something that has an attack which has a 1/20th chance of instantly killing something, regardless of saves etc. and does nothing otherwise? Or an army where everything has the base ability to teleport? Or something with -6 rend? Or a faction that only does mortal wounds? Because that's what it means to not have any hard caps. Anything becomes, in theory, acceptable. Provided of course it has sufficient drawbacks and a adequate pointcost. Point being, hard caps, design rules, or whatever you wanne call em are always needed when designing something. Otherwise you're just going to break your game over and over. And although that might be exciting and keep the game fresh it also creates a game with no vision or course. Where every new release can break the game in completly unexpected ways because the designers just throw whatever they come up with at the game and hope it doesn't end up breaking the game. Resulting in wild meta & playstyle shifts. Don't get me wrong, those caps may themselves change; new insights can always happen. But those should be carefull changes, that come along occasionally in big updates where everything's brought up to speed at once. It should not be something that happens every other update where 1 faction/unit runs away with a (new) mechanic and everyone else desperately chases after the newest gamebreaking meta-shift. Also, having design rules doesn't mean you can't come up with new stuff and have to stagnate. It just means you can't come up with stuff that's 10 times better at X than any existing faction. That's not what I mean, if someone does that don't play with him. What I mean is that the more tweaks and homerules you need to make to keep it casual, the more you need to consciously take the decision "I shouldn't field X cuz that's broken and will just steamroll a casual army" the worse the game is designed. In a well designed game a "competitive" list should not outirght steamroll a "casual" list. It'l have a significant advantage sure, but it should not be a (nearly) guaranteed win.
I guess it comes down to what you would define as a rarity. I think at that point, the discussion is kind of arbitrary, right? There's nothing that inherently makes X number of wizards having access to +3 to cast better or worse than Y number outside of personal opinion. I could, and would, argue that if you rely on magic for some part of your list, than yeah. You need to build in a way for your list to reliably get that magic off. If you can't for whatever reason, then it's a bad strategy. Don't rely on unreliable magic. If you have a basic wizard to cast mystic shield and the occasional support spell, than its fine if you don't get those spells off because they weren't necessary. You're making it seem as if this situation is black and white when there are thousands of shades of gray. It's not a choice between +3 or uselessness. And when you say random opponent, what do you mean? Do you think that every army composition should have an equal chance against every other army composition? Not all armies need to compete equally in all parts of the game. That wizard isn't completely and utterly useless because its still possible to get those support spells off, spells that aren't necessary for your army to function because your list was built to not rely on magic. Evidenced by your basic support mage with no modifiers to cast. Personally, I find casting modifiers to be way better because its more predictable and consistent. You know what the averages will be and you can plan around that better and utilize your dispells more intelligently. But I can totally see how that could just be a matter of preference. They aren't squishy unless they have no buffs up, so there you go. It's not the case. A 3+ rerollable save in melee is not inherently problematic. Mortek guard are problematic because they can easily have 3 attacks each at 3's 3's with 2 rend ON TOP OF a 3+ rerollable save, making an anvil unit suddenly an everything unit. A unit with a 4+ with a rerollable 1 is fine! Who is saying it isn't? You seem to be the only one saying its either a 3+ rerollable or its nothing. It's either a +3 to cast or it's nothing. If you feel that way, cool dude, but that's your opinion not the fact of the game. I wasn't trying to say hard caps shouldn't exist. I was merely saying that in my opinion, the way you are describing hard caps would stunt the game's growth and I prefer the more aggressive approach GW is taking, at least for the moment. You keep saying every update as if every book breaks the game. That doesnt happen. It isn't happening now. We've just now had a meta-shift after nearly a year when THREE extremely powerful shooting armies got released back to back to back. And more importantly, the meta doesn't matter for 99% of players in 99% of games! At the end of the day there are a tiny, tiny fraction of armies that are completely nonviable. Painting any other picture is just flat out untrue. In my heart of hearts, i just do not feel that "every new release" drastically breaks the game, has units that are "10x better" than previous ones, and makes other armies "useless." I'm genuinely curious in what gaming experiences you've had that makes you feel that the situation is so extreme.
An evolving game is good, but… caps are needed. Maybe not hard ones, but they would help. Bolt Action is a game with very hard caps, the troops are rookies, basic and veterans. Each army got the same stats for each of this units. German veteran are no different from USA veterans. Weapons and vehicles are not that much different between each army, the main differences lie within each army peculiar rule. it works for bolt action, it wouldn't for fantasy, but still could be achieved. Set a limit, avoid to surpass it, change and play with the rest. But AoS is not doing that. It creates a thing, and then to answer to that thing, it creates counters to it that (too often) break the core rules. good save can be overcome by multiple attacks. but 3+ rerollable with dead models that can be raised, cannot simply be beaten by guys with no rend, no matter how many Attacks you deal. The answer? spam MWs… to a point where MWs spam is becoming again a problem for balance (and please remember that MWs spam was one of the main reasons why the rule of 1 was introduced in the first place) GW sets a rule for activation during combat. Then inroduces a hero that breaks it. Fun, let's add a whole core unit that does it. Cool, let's add a whole army that does it. Don't you see the issue? You call it "evolving game", i call it "a monstrosity that with each addition that pushes forward the limits, is becoming impossible to balance". rock paper scissors is not a balanced game, but it's fun because each game lasts 2 seconds. if each game would last 2 hours, it would be a much less fun game.
True, ultimatly the exact limit is arbitrary, but at this point it seems like we're starting too see too many powerfull wizards. Or at least, too many factions with acces to them. Lumineth, Seraphon, Undead, Tzeentch CoS, Skaven, Grots, all have lists with wizards who either baseline have great modifiers (or an alternative bonus like the Lord of Change) or have acces to combo's to gain these modifiers. not sure if they can go further)That's at least 7 factions out of 20-ish that have far better than default wizards, which imho seems a bit much. And i've probably forgotten some as well... In this case I was saying that the wizard needs to at least be usefull regardless of what we face. And not just be shut down permanently cuz he happenend to face say Kroak. More in general, any sensible list should stand a fighting chance against anything else. Obviously you can be at a significant disadvantage, but it should not be hopeless. Equally no, but personally I prefer it much more when I have a fighting chance to compete on X. When a minor wizard is faced by say Nagash he only has 3 options 1) hope he gets ignored 2) hope he gets extremely lucky 3) just forget about competing on magic and hope you can survive without it. Imho that should never be the case. It also doesn't help that on top of the modifiers Nagash has 9 spellcasts. So Nagash would dominate magic even without any modifers. Leave the poor lesser wizard his one puny spell and unbind while Nagash unleashes 9 of em each turn. And yes, the army might not fall apart, but I severly dislike it when a certain unit/mechanic/strategy/etc. gets hard countered to the point you are forced to play under the assumption it basicly won't work at all. If a 4+ is squishy without buffs then what the hell is a 6+? Or a -? Imho a 4+ shouldn't be "squishy". Obviously it also shouldn't be the sturdiest thing ever, but it definitly shouldn't be "squishy" either. The issue isn't a rerollable 3+, it's a re-rollable 3+ on top of a 4+ ressurection on top of a ward save at which point less than 1 in 20 succesfull atttacks actually does something. Which basicly means any attempts to attack it are wasted as most units are literally going to need 100's of attacks to succesfully run the gambit of hit, wound, save, ward save & ressurection rolls once for a single wound. Which imho, is too much. The fact that on top of being ridiculously good defensivly it's also a good offensive unit just adds insult to injury. See what @Killer Angel just posted above me. Essentially GW doesn't seem to have much of a long-term plan or any rules within which they design stuff. They just release whatever cool thing they came up with today and if it turns out to be a problem they'l just release something to counter it tomorow. That simply won't hold up forever.
I guess I just dont see the state of the game as being in such a fundamentally flawed state as either of you @Killer Angel and @Canas I like that there is an element of good and bad match ups. I like that at the highest level an army like OBR can be totally oppressive to other melee lists but struggle against powerful shooting. It allows the game, in some senses, to self correct because a massive element of list building is planning for that top table meta. Wild things can suddenly become good just because this unique combination happens to be strong against whatever list archetype is good at the moment. And I like that ultimately that only really matters if you're trying to podium at a tournament. If you're playing lists with 90 mortek and double harvester in a casual game when the expectation isn't to see how that match up goes, the problem rests on the players shoulders. It feels like your describing a problem only the top tables see, but looking at it from a casual POV. It also feels like your examples and explanations are exaggerated to prove your point, rather than a reflection of the actual state of the game. But at the end of the day we don't have to agree. It just seems odd to me to describe a game you enjoy as a "a monstrosity that with each addition that pushes forward the limits, is becoming impossible to balance". I loved world of warcraft. I raided 5 days a week for 3 years. I was on a guild that regularly competed for top 50 kills, and I had a blast. But over time the game evolved and changed until it became something I didn't enjoy as much. It took a while, but eventually I stopped playing. It wasn't the games fault, it had just evolved past some arbitrary point I had decided I liked. It feels like if the game has entered such a disastrous state, maybe the solution is to take a step back. I guess my point is, you don't have to like the state of the game, but there are some people that do. You've outlined a lot of things you both find contentious. It's hard to tell without literally seeing the game in that state, but the solutions youre describing sound like they would stagnant the game to me. Is a game you enjoy that I don't any better than a game I enjoy that you dont? Either way, thanks for the chat I think our basic disagreement stems from looking at the same problem from two vantage points. I dont think theres a problem giving an army a way to mess with activation (slaanesh or LRL) or a +3 caster as long as in context its not wildly out of balance. And i think at the moment, there are relatively feel examples of this "extremism" that are universally poor and oppressive playing experiences. I guess this passage from my last point still kind of sums it up nicely. "You keep saying every update as if every book breaks the game. That doesnt happen. It isn't happening now. We've just now had a meta-shift after nearly a year when THREE extremely powerful shooting armies got released back to back to back. And more importantly, the meta doesn't matter for 99% of players in 99% of games. At the end of the day there are a tiny, tiny fraction of armies that are completely nonviable. Painting anyother picture is just flat out untrue."
I think this might be the biggest disagreement we have. And its one I commonly have with people. I generally dislike it when 1 army/unit/etc. becomes the ultimate at X to the point others cannot even begin to complete on X with him. Even if its "balanced" by giving it a glaring weakness in Y. In my experience that kind of design encourages abuse of X. It also often flat out isn't fun as it often means the overpowered model dictates the game. You can no longer use X yourself, and the only viable counter is Y, you want to do X yourself or try using Z as a counter? Tough luck you can't. Also for clarity, when I say "breaks" the game. I didn't mean the entire game fell apart and now the only wat of playing is to use that one army. I mean the same thing that @Killer Angel mentioned. They regularly release things that break what should be limits. Then to fix the issues caused by breaking these limits they have to break another limit. See @Killer Angel example of GW slowly increasing save values to the point they're now forced to increase Mortal sound spam again just to deal with that. Also I really really dislike it when people claim the meta doesn't matter for anyone except the top 1%. Yes most players won't need to play optimale lists, but the meta will affect them, often in a more problematic way since they frequently don't have the skills to respond appropriatly to a threat by taking advantage of whatever weaknesses one of these overpowered things might have. And yes of course you can agree not to use X, and bringing a proper tournament list to a casual game makes you that Guy. But seemingly more "minor" issues Will still creatie problems. For example I wouldnt be surprises if Teclis ends up mostly irrelevant in high level tournaments, but is still viewed as broken by the community at large since a lot of players simply won't manage to figure out how to deal with him in a fun way. Minor sidenote, if this post is littered with errors I blame autocorrect, cuz I'm typping this on my phone
@Putzfrau I cannot say i disagree with most of the things you say. One of the main selling poit of fantasy has always been the difference between various armies, and AoS is not different. That is a good thing, even some unbalance is good, as you should know better than to face an apponent at his own game. But my general impression is that these differences are growing wider, and this cannot (imo) be denied. Actual armies are stronger than armies made with battletome that are 4 years old, and when you increase the power, it's easier for things to get out of hand. But in the end, i would like to quote you on just one thing: Top vs top is not a problem Neither casual vs top is, as it's unbalanced by itself My issue is casual vs casual, when one of them does't have realistically the instruments to win because the other player uses something that has been pushed in power
Pretty much what i was trying to say. A real example that is not a theoretical case limit, but a real and common one.
Thankfully, if one army is the best melee army they probably suck at other things. Maybe try to beat them with your combination of good things instead of only trying to beat them in the one area they are better than you at. You can always use X, it just might not be as effective as you want. Nagash doesnt make other spell casters obsolete. He makes spell casting harder to use against him because he costs 800 points and is intended to be a powerful spellcasting model. He has OODLES of other weaknesses that you can exploit. Exploit them. But they didn't really do that. MW spam was worse when original changehost was around, and armies like KO and OBR and warclans are doing just fine without MW spam. If you're saying more units have access to MW, absolutely. But thats a good thing. MW shouldn't be relegated to a tiny handful of units because its an important tool that lists need access too. The average save being 4+ for a standard battleline unit vs 5+ when the game FIRST WAS RELEASED is not this extreme example you're making it out to be. There is 1, literally 1 unit in the game that is problematically tough and their biggest problem isn't even their toughness! It's that they are an equally "strong" unit as a tough one. If mortek had 1 or even 2 attacks each at 4s/4s no rend 1 damage no one would care about them. I don't know what else to say here other than i'm sorry? It doesnt really matter if you like it or dont like it, it's the truth. The meta doesnt matter to most players because most players shouldn't be playing cutting edge meta lists if they aren't in a situation where a cutting edge meta list is demanded. OBR's existence doesn't stop people from playing melee lists anymore than tzeetch's existence stops people from playing OBR. OBR is problematic for other melee lists when you're running 90 mortek and double harvester. So just don't do that. If you're not playing in a tournament, why is that a problem? I'll say it again for the people in the back. HAVING BAD MATCHUPS IS OKAY. It's why competitive events are built around multiple games. It's why casual games should treat the social contract more importantly. And teclis is bad and if you can't deal with him you should get better at the game not complain that the game should cater to you. And by better at the game i don't mean bring more overpowered units. I mean literally understand the game better. Or maybe that matchup is just particularly shitty for your army. In that case you, as an individual playing 1 game with another individual, can talk to the other player about a situation thats more fun for the both of you. And honestly the solution probably isn't "don't play Teclis" because there isn't a single unit or model in the game that creates that drastic of an impact without other compounding factors. As @Grotpunter said, Kroak isn't overly oppressive on his own. He's overly oppressive with a saurus guard unit protecting him, an astrolith to make his casts better, a balewind to make his range better, and teleporting range units to distract from him. Nagash, Archaon, morathi, teclis, Kairos, mortek, flamers, harvesters, salamanders, KO boats, rogue idols, 'ard boys, etc etc etc etc etc none of these are gamebreaking on their own. I think you could have an argument for salamanders or flamers or other units that are just blatantly undercoasted, but those are certainly outliers and generally those outliers get knocked down. It sounds like you just don't like age of sigmar, which is fine. But that doesn't mean we have to change age of sigmar from something a lot of people already like. Better for you doesnt mean better for everyone. This idea that "i should be able to play X and do okay with it in spite of everything" is frankly, absurd. Casual vs casual simply isn't an issue unless you're incapable of talking to your opponent. At this point everyone is familiar with my list from the first book. No one would call it competitive. I played it at all levels with no problems. In casual play i told people to play whatever they wanted cause i liked the practice. If i didn't like the practice I would have no problem asking people to not play tournament level lists when we aren't in a tournament. Basically, if you're a casual player and this stuff is dramatically impacting your playing experience you need to do a better job of dealing with the social contract between the two players. It's not hard to say "hey the army i like to play can't really deal with 90 mortek and double harvesters. Would you mind taking a different list?" and if they say no you can decide whether or not you want to play them. If they say yes, then problem solved. Final edit: this conversation has been great, but I think we're starting to get to that point where we just swirl around the same topics so i'm going to politely make this my last response. Sorry for derailing a thread about realms (which are pretty whatever IMO). If there are specific questions, i don't mind answering those, but If i want to respond to this just kind of general, larger topic it'll be in PMs I lied, one more: I fundamentally don't think this issue actually exists unless theres little to no communication between the players at all. Nagash isn't an "i win" button anymore than morathi or any other example you might have in mind for this scenario. Nothing has been "pushed in power" so much that nothing else can compete with it. Certain combinations of elements can be impossible to compete with for other certain combinations of elements. This is a problem that's easily solved with a simple conversation.
I agree. It has been an interesting debate, now let the thread turn back on track... if It's able to!
I think there is still a lot to talk about in regards to realms, but it will take play testing and getting used to them to really figure it out imo. My only issue is that it is a 50/50 dice roll. It is sorta like figuring out proper tactics for our RSE. Not something that is reliable every game but still something you can optimize to gain an edge depending on what you fight. When I look at realms I consider these things: 1) Does this realm benefit me at all? I find Shyish very interesting and I doubt it will generally be that big for my opponent. 2) Does this realm benefit my opponent at all? Maybe my opponent doesnt even have a proper caster to benefit from the spells. Maybe the terrain is worthless for my opponent like mystical terrain vs a death army. 3) Who will it benefit the most? Getting +1 save on my Skinks is probably not that good compared to getting +1 save on Mortek Guard or HGB. Maybe Im better off feeding my opponent garbage. 4) Any funky interactions with my own or my opponent's Endless Spells? We are generally running with bound endless spells that dont get empowered in a specific realm, so giving the opponent an unlimited range Umbrall Spellportal is likely not the best move. On the flipside it might even be worth running a specific non-bound endless spell that has a crazy empowered version just for the 50/50 since it will give a big boost in every other game. I havent played with the new realms yet but will going forward. Just received my Warlord's Edition yesterday (those battleplan/realm cards are amazing tbh). The problem with realms as I see it is that it will likely be pre-determined in tournaments and if that is the case we will likely randomize the realms to imitate this.
Always pic the realm that gives the enemy -2 to charges. Edit: it's chamon. Metal realm. Makes terrain entangling.
the chamon spell buffs your saves by one. It helps against them as well. I always choose it for the role off. The shadow one that makes terrain overgrown is good but a lot of the best shooters fly.