General Chat Thread

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I would support a balancing pass to the manifestation lores, but I think people need some more time to cook with the current manifestation rules before it's time to nerf their basic mechanics in any way. The manifestation meta definitely needs to develop more before any "fixes" are implemented. Although the current rules do seem to skew armies towards high magic.

 

2 hours ago, Acrozatarim said:

A general clean-up pass around the rules for when they count as units and when they don't.

Would be good, but also the designers just didn't express the ideas around manifestations very well. I think the basic intentions are like this:

Mobile manifestations are units, but appropriately to their nature as living spells you can't buff them, give them commands or capture points with them.

Non-mobile manifestations are destructible terrain. You can charge, attack and shoot them, but they don't mess with your movement other than physically occupying some space. You can just walk up to them or away from them like any other terrain.

People always try to explain this with bulleted lists about when they are or are not units, but that's just a really unintuitive way to express the above ideas. I think there are probably some edge cases somewhere, but I am pretty confident the above is at least 95% accurate to how the rules work.

[PraetorDragoon]

Purge the Plunderers From the Gnarlwood With the Wrathful Warriors of the Twistweald - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

Warcry tree people preview article. 

[Ejecutor]

2 hours ago, Acrozatarim said:

Something I'd be quite interested to see would be no-named-character tournaments or leagues. Just lists of Your Guys, no Teclis or Zenestra or Nagash or whatnot. I appreciate people want to use the cool centrepiece models they've bought, but I'd personally also be keen to explore the playspace and experience when they're not featured. It'd open up lots of options that currently suck because the named character steals all the metaphorical oxygen in list design as it is.

Right now I think it is impossible, with the current way the army builder works.

[Ejecutor]

10 minutes ago, PraetorDragoon said:

Purge the Plunderers From the Gnarlwood With the Wrathful Warriors of the Twistweald - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

Warcry tree people preview article. 

I was expecting their rules as well, as they tend to go out on Thursdays, but they weren't there.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Right now I think it is impossible, with the current way the army builder works.

No, every army has martial heroes that unlock basically all units. The list building restrictions don't prevent you from running no unique heroes.

The bigger problem is that some armies just rely on their uniques really heavily to unlock core strategies. OBR usually wants to bring either Katakros or Arkhan, for example, and then build around that. Running a bunch of small guys instead isn't really equivalent in terms of the functionality it unlocks.

Of course, a meta without any unique units would look different, but that is to be expected.

[Vasshpit]

8 hours ago, Mutton said:

Manifestations should only be summonable once per game.

Or add +1 to cast after each banishment. 

[PraetorDragoon]

19 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

I was expecting their rules as well, as they tend to go out on Thursdays, but they weren't there.

You mean the AOS rules that are in the faction pack already?

[Ejecutor]

3 minutes ago, PraetorDragoon said:

You mean the AOS rules that are in the faction pack already?

Ah lolz. True. I forgot they were so late that they were already in.

[Flippy]

2 hours ago, Acrozatarim said:

Something I'd be quite interested to see would be no-named-character tournaments or leagues. Just lists of Your Guys, no Teclis or Zenestra or Nagash or whatnot. I appreciate people want to use the cool centrepiece models they've bought, but I'd personally also be keen to explore the playspace and experience when they're not featured. It'd open up lots of options that currently suck because the named character steals all the metaphorical oxygen in list design as it is.

That would be great and it's how the WHFB used to be played (at least in my area) - no special characters was a common limitation. That was a different game, though, with an option to really build your characters to your needs (e.g. you could take a generic High Elf mage and make him almost Teclis-level; try that now!). In AoS, some factions are designed around specific characters (faction engines) and would suffer greatly as a result (OBR, DoK, Lumineth?).  

[PraetorDragoon]

4 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Ah lolz. True. I forgot they were so late that they were already in.

Fashionably late. 

[Ejecutor]

4 minutes ago, Flippy said:

That would be great and it's how the WHFB used to be played (at least in my area) - no special characters was a common limitation. That was a different game, though, with an option to really build your characters to your needs (e.g. you could take a generic High Elf mage and make him almost Teclis-level; try that now!). In AoS, some factions are designed around specific characters (faction engines) and would suffer greatly as a result (OBR, DoK, Lumineth?).  

Could it be because we are quite early into the game (yeah, I know it is already 9 years, but once all armies have 2-3 waves, it could be easier to do not build around them).

[PraetorDragoon]

2 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Could it be because we are quite early into the game (yeah, I know it is already 9 years, but once all armies have 2-3 waves, it could be easier to do not build around them).

More focus on named characters is a design decision that was made for AoS. I don't see that changing anytime soon. 

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

2 hours ago, Acrozatarim said:

Something I'd be quite interested to see would be no-named-character tournaments or leagues. Just lists of Your Guys, no Teclis or Zenestra or Nagash or whatnot. I appreciate people want to use the cool centrepiece models they've bought, but I'd personally also be keen to explore the playspace and experience when they're not featured. It'd open up lots of options that currently suck because the named character steals all the metaphorical oxygen in list design as it is.

Once upon a time (I think around fourth/fifth edition of Fantasy) it was commonplace for tournaments to prohibit Special Characters. But that was a different universe. Those were the days when you could tool up your generic characters from barrow-loads of magic items and all that. 

I'd really like to play more with My Guys. But no matter what I do, a Lord of Pain is never going to be a fraction as slicey as Sigvald. 

[Clan's Cynic]

New Skaventide-themed diorama at Warhammer World.

 

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, PraetorDragoon said:

More focus on named characters is a design decision that was made for AoS. I don't see that changing anytime soon. 

Imho, all armies should be equally functional with and without named characters. The main problem is that named characters usually have unique skills that define the whole list (no problem with that), and basic characters usually are plain better or worst without any option to customize them (because 1 artefact and 1 trait per army doesn't help this type of stuff).

[CommissarRotke]

7 hours ago, Rachmani said:

If that layer is needed… I don’t know. I think it kinda is fuel to the tabletop game vs boardgame debate.

very funny to see that's what the debate is called, because to me wargaming has always felt like a combination of tabletop gaming and boardgames. like they synthesize aspects of both to create an analog RTS.

7 hours ago, Flippy said:

Maybe they should start with one manifestation per wizard per phase limitation. This way they are still powerful, but you need more wizards to summon multiple manifestations, which somewhat limits the uber-casters. 

I do like this as a Manifestations fix, feels like a better middle ground if they're being kept pointsless.

[PraetorDragoon]

3 hours ago, Beliman said:

Imho, all armies should be equally functional with and without named characters. The main problem is that named characters usually have unique skills that define the whole list (no problem with that), and basic characters usually are plain better or worst without any option to customize them (because 1 artefact and 1 trait per army doesn't help this type of stuff).

I agree. I would prefer if all named characters were just a variant of regular heroes but with some special rule/equipment. I just don't see it changing at this point.

[Ejecutor]

The same post about rules but this time OBR: Enact the Will of Nagash in the Gnarlwood With the Bestial Teratic Cohorts - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

[Ejecutor]

Looking for something completely unrelated, as I had no clue this Italian bad existed, I got a promo about this "Trollslayer" album: Wind Rose | Trollslayer - CD DIGIPAK - Heavy / Power / Symphonic | Season of Mist (season-of-mist.com)

[Ejecutor]

Pinterest just suggested me this pretty cool approach to the Gargolians:

Edited July 27 by Ejecutor

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

14 hours ago, PraetorDragoon said:

I agree. I would prefer if all named characters were just a variant of regular heroes but with some special rule/equipment. I just don't see it changing at this point.

See, I like the big over-the-top unique unique heroes like Glutos and Katakros and Zenestra... in theory. But I don't like it when they're automatic choices for a lot of armies (eyeballing you, Teclis). 

Don't know how to fix that, though. That's probably one that needs to be sorted out by people with a better grasp of rules than me! 

[Sception]

my proposed manifestation fix is that each manifestation summoned by a wizard reduces the summoner's wizard level by one for as long as it's on the table.  So a double cast wizard becomes a single caster until the manifestation is destroyed or banished, while a single caster would stop being a wizard altogether.  This restriction wouldn't apply to priests - mechanically because prayers just seem weaker than spells right now, but narrativrly because the magic powering the manifestation is being provided by the priest's deity rather than the priest themselves.

I would combine that with a limitation of summoning each manifestation only once per game.  Once banished or destroyed, they're just gone (unless they have some other ability to come back, like obr's Nightmare Predator).

I also don't think even mobile manifestations should zone out enemy movement or deployment, nor should they lock enemy units in combat.  The gravetide occupies enough of the board just on its base size.

regardless of fix, i do think something is needed.  Right now they're a problem, and frankly the game would be better without them altogether.

[Ejecutor]

1 hour ago, Sception said:

my proposed manifestation fix is that each manifestation summoned by a wizard reduces the summoner's wizard level by one for as long as it's on the table.  So a double cast wizard becomes a single caster until the manifestation is destroyed or banished, while a single caster would stop being a wizard altogether.  This restriction wouldn't apply to priests - mechanically because prayers just seem weaker than spells right now, but narrativrly because the magic powering the manifestation is being provided by the priest's deity rather than the priest themselves.

I would combine that with a limitation of summoning each manifestation only once per game.  Once banished or destroyed, they're just gone (unless they have some other ability to come back, like obr's Nightmare Predator).

I also don't think even mobile manifestations should zone out enemy movement or deployment, nor should they lock enemy units in combat.  The gravetide occupies enough of the board just on its base size.

regardless of fix, i do think something is needed.  Right now they're a problem, and frankly the game would be better without them altogether.

They can be unbalanced and problematic, but I think it is interesting that they are part of the game. It is something unique from AoS and IMO we don't have to lose it.

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

55 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

They can be unbalanced and problematic, but I think it is interesting that they are part of the game. It is something unique from AoS and IMO we don't have to lose it.

I agree. There's some really great models amongst them, too. 

To be honest, I think they were mostly fine in the third edition rules. I don't know why they felt the need to completely re-shape the way they work when they seemed OK. Just my viewpoint, of course. 

[JackStreicher]

22 hours ago, Flippy said:

That would be great and it's how the WHFB used to be played (at least in my area) - no special characters was a common limitation. That was a different game, though, with an option to really build your characters to your needs (e.g. you could take a generic High Elf mage and make him almost Teclis-level; try that now!). In AoS, some factions are designed around specific characters (faction engines) and would suffer greatly as a result (OBR, DoK, Lumineth?).  

In AoS one has to rely on special characters since all meaningful customization has been stripped away.