General Chat Thread

[Arzalyn]

9 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Maybe it's just that I didn't yet play against any of the mega-casters, but it felt to me that I always had a lot of counter-play against Manifestations by just bringing a unit along that can unbind and banish. Plus, Manifestations are symmetrical at base (everyone gets equal access to the best ones, pretty much). I mean, RIP KO, I guess, but everyone else.

I would argue that counting dispelling an banishing as a counter play isn't exactly fair here. Most of the dispelling/unbind bonus are gone, so you aren't in equal footing against a caster with any +x to their cast. Banishing is easier, but you have to loose a cast to do so, which how easy it is to do so depend on how reliant are you on your spell lore for buff and how many wizards/wizards with power level 2 or more you have in your list.

Also, while manifestations by themselves may be symmetrical, factions aren't and this asymmetry make the ability of different factions  to exploit them asymmetrical. Some faction don't have to forego much to abuse it, like most Seraphon lists will bring a slann, which don't need further help, while other have to bring other heroes they wouldn't normally bring, change traits/artefact/formations to get a similar result (like the idoneth example above). Worst still there are some that don't have any of those resources, no +x o cast or no wizards above power level 1. This asymmetry can be accounted for, but by what I saw and played so far I don't fell it is the case.

[pnkdth]

32 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I hope you find some way to have fun with the current rules. I have been having a pretty difficult time finding success with Cities of Sigmar, too, but at the same time I feel like the underlying rules of 4th are really good and fun, which keep me going back to the drawing board for new lists.

With KO underperforming pretty badly right now going by the first tournament results, maybe we can at least expect some aggressive tune ups in the first battlescroll. As I understand that is what happened in 40k 10th.

4th does a lot of things right. It is a shame it gets overshadowed by how poorly endless spells/incarnates were implemented. It is true, the meta goes through its cycles and I am expecting/hoping for a substantial nerf in a near future. Meanwhile I think I'll continue to put AoS on hold because while there is counter-play it isn't my idea of a fun game.

That said, 40k had a bit of a rough start and it is has turned out really well after a few updates.

In my opinion, manifestations should work on a similar level as DoT spawns. Pay the points and through a dynamic scale depending on which army. That would be a simple and elegant way to balance them between the factions who has a lot of casting power and those who do not.

 

[ScionOfOssia]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

a two cast +1 to cast wizard

Literally the only good one and he either already is running the -1 for Enemies, or he’s running the substantially more valuable Armor of The Cythai which lets him act as an actual tank. 
 

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

a +1 to cast subfaction

If two Isharaan units are within combat range of each other, which means minimum 3 drop and you’re cramming all your good units in your General’s battalion, exposing you to the +1/+1 from an enemy unit from the seasonal rules, and making battle tactics easier for your opponent because our units almost universally are not reliably durable. Because Isharaan other than Lotann can’t bring eels, sharks, or the turtle in their battalion. And it’s universally agreed by Idoneth players to be bad, especially compared to Beastmasters or Soul-Raid, which offer bonuses to your actual sources of damage and mobility respectively. 

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

a guy who gives out a +1 to cast aura

Who offers lackluster melee, no spellcasting himself, needs to be within 12” which puts him well within harm’s way of any enemy hammer, is vulnerable to shooting, has 5 health, and a 5+ Save with no ward. His only redeeming quality is that he can be brought as a subcommander. 
 

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

an artefact that gives enemies -1 to cast.

It’s the second best option after the one that straight up shuts off any positive USRs for anyone attacking him, which you’re going to use to keep your 350 point investment and only properly good spellcaster and crucial utility piece on the right side of the grave.

For all intents and purposes, the Idoneth are playing with just the +1 Cast, 2 Cast wizard and maybe a Tidecaster with no bonus, as everything else is either highly conditional, or would require you sacrifice something more vital to achieve it besides maybe bringing Lotann if you can spare the points, and he’s mostly for buffing control scores. 

The Idoneth very much are not capable of competing in the magic game with anyone even decent at it, let alone Seraphon, Nagash, Reikenor, Tzeentch, or Teclis. This isn’t just my evaluation- This is the general consensus of every Idoneth player I’ve spoken to. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

16 hours ago, Tonhel said:

The thing is that you are forced to do it. All Idoneth players are forced to do it. My friend plays Idoneth. His army was always light on casting, now he can't anymore. Now you need endless spells, while before you could if you want to. It was a choice. Now you can't if you don't want to lose.

There is already not much choice in AoS and now it is even more limited.

I think it is fair to say that magic has become a bigger part of the core expectation of what an AoS army needs to bring. I think it is fair to say that you are strongly incentivized to bring at least one wizard (which, personally, I have been doing since 2nd ed, because I already thought it was important back then).

I don't really like casting this in terms of reducing choice, because I think that conflates a few distinct concepts, namely viable list building, optimal list building and number of options during list building.

 

16 hours ago, Arzalyn said:

I would argue that counting dispelling an banishing as a counter play isn't exactly fair here. Most of the dispelling/unbind bonus are gone, so you aren't in equal footing against a caster with any +x to their cast. Banishing is easier, but you have to loose a cast to do so, which how easy it is to do so depend on how reliant are you on your spell lore for buff and how many wizards/wizards with power level 2 or more you have in your list.

Also, while manifestations by themselves may be symmetrical, factions aren't and this asymmetry make the ability of different factions  to exploit them asymmetrical. Some faction don't have to forego much to abuse it, like most Seraphon lists will bring a slann, which don't need further help, while other have to bring other heroes they wouldn't normally bring, change traits/artefact/formations to get a similar result (like the idoneth example above). Worst still there are some that don't have any of those resources, no +x o cast or no wizards above power level 1. This asymmetry can be accounted for, but by what I saw and played so far I don't fell it is the case.

I don't really see how dispelling and banishing are not viable counter play. I get your point that without dispel bonuses that is not as reliable, but it's still a big swing in reliability to have to cast through an unbind, so bringing a wizard and positioning him in unbind range would definitely be one of the most basic steps to take to not make Manifestations totally free to cast. And pretty much any wizard/priest can banish as well as any other. Big casters don't have an advantage here compared to small ones, so that is definitely a viable avenue of counter play.

The point about symmetry that you make cuts both ways, as well. In the new edition, a mega-caster won't be better at unbinding and banishing than a small 1 cast foot dude, so if you can get even one good cast, you can play the Manifestation game. You will just want to bring Krondspine instead of Morbid Conjuration.

In my opinion, this is all still very different from other "literally no counter play" situations of the past, like Lumineth Sentinels in 2nd ed where they had 30" range and mortals on the hit roll, so cover, line of sight and mobility were not really responses to the threat they were bringing.

 

15 hours ago, ScionOfOssia said:

The Idoneth very much are not capable of competing in the magic game with anyone even decent at it, let alone Seraphon, Nagash, Reikenor, Tzeentch, or Teclis. This isn’t just my evaluation- This is the general consensus of every Idoneth player I’ve spoken to. 

I don't want to antagonize you here, but I think you are really selling Idoneth short. The factions you list are literally the top magic factions in the game: Seraphon, Tzeentch and Lumineth have casting as their army identity. Nagash is a god-level caster, as well. Reikenor seems to not belong in this line-up to me, he's just a 2 cast. +1 to cast wizard for (although he is pretty cheap).

But take a real look at which of the remaining faction you think are better at magic than Idoneth. I can see an argument for OBR and Soulblight, who can get a lot of casts, but no +2 to cast. Sylvaneth have a bunch of wizard(2), but not many bonuses as far as I can tell. There are probably some that I am forgetting, but my point is when you take out the three casting factions and Nagash, everyone else seems to require a similar investment to Idoneth into their casting to be as good as them, and many factions can't get to their level at all. Wanting low drops, wizards not unlocking valuable units and not wanting to run casting-related artefacts and formations are not problems unique to Idoneth, either.

Also, I won't stand for this Lotann slander. He's great for his points as a bonus hero. That extra capture aura is so good. I really don't see why running Sea Eidolon, Lotann and a caster in the casting subfaction (Lotann is ISHARANN, so he enables the +1) should not be viable. That's still comfortably a 3 drop, and you can compensate for the trade-offs you need to make in terms of survivability and number of units by filling the board with Manifestations with your 3 good casts.

[ScionOfOssia]

40 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Reikenor seems to not belong in this line-up to me, he's just a 2 cast. +1 to cast wizard

He’s a cheap 2 cast with +1 in an army who craves that for their recursion.

42 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

But take a real look at which of the remaining faction you think are better at magic than Idoneth.

Every single faction with an unconditional +1 to cast has a superior casting formation because it doesn’t require bunching up 2 or more of your Wizards into an easily nuked ball or they have the ability to bring enough bodies to actually screen for them, and the bonus is unconditional.

47 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Also, I won't stand for this Lotann slander. He's great for his points as a bonus hero. That extra capture aura is so good. I really don't see why running Sea Eidolon, Lotann and a caster in the casting subfaction (Lotann is ISHARANN, so he enables the +1) should not be viable.

I’d stop slandering him if he was ever in contention for being good with anything besides a Turtle Castle, including an Eelpocalypse build or Sea++. He might eventually show up, but we’ll need points drops to stop leaving our lists with like 70 points to spare before that happens, and it definitely won’t be in the casting subfaction unless it gets buffed to stop requiring you to put your squishy Wizards within Combat range of each other.
 

That subfaction is not only competing with 2 actually good ones, it’s buffing something the Idoneth don’t have a high volume of and with a restriction on its bonus that’s able to be denied by killing a single Isharaan, something any mildly punchy Cavalry can do effortlessly because only one of them has a good Save and none of them have Wards without bringing the Turtle who actually wants to get mixed up in combat, somewhere they don’t want to be. It’s a subfaction designed by someone who does not understand why Beastmaster and Soul-Raid are so favored, and presumably it was the same person who designed the Namarti Corps, a Formation so bad that short of buffing the Thralls to actually be worth bringing it will never see use. 

[MitGas]

Frankly no army should be on Tzeentch‘s level anyways, he‘s the literal god of magic. Teclis might call himself that but we all know it‘s BS, magic was there looong before he was… and it will be there long after this pretender god is destroyed… let Chaos consume the world! Wait, wrong game. 
 

Ahem, anyways, that insolence aside, I don‘t think Idoneth should be able to compete.
 

Which however doesn‘t mean that manifestations were done right. We‘ll definitely need some change there.

I think we got a few very good ideas in this thread on how to balance them and it‘s a rare thing that everyone pretty much suggests the same things. I don‘t see the point in nerfing basic spell lores into the ground to stop MW spam only to make manifestations so good that magic dominates the game more than it ever did - and I don‘t believe this was intended as it makes no sense. 
 

Which brings me to my next opinion: I‘m convinced GW will introduce point costs and/or other nerfs (no re-summons etc.) in the near future. It‘s not exactly difficult to fix this and make the game more fun for the armies that can‘t abuse them easily. I trust them to realize it. What I find a bit perplexing is that they didn‘t see this while playtesting 4th though. It took fans/players like a couple of hours to realize after all. 

[Arzalyn]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I don't really see how dispelling and banishing are not viable counter play. I get your point that without dispel bonuses that is not as reliable, but it's still a big swing in reliability to have to cast through an unbind, so bringing a wizard and positioning him in unbind range would definitely be one of the most basic steps to take to not make Manifestations totally free to cast. And pretty much any wizard/priest can banish as well as any other. Big casters don't have an advantage here compared to small ones, so that is definitely a viable avenue of counter play.

The point about symmetry that you make cuts both ways, as well. In the new edition, a mega-caster won't be better at unbinding and banishing than a small 1 cast foot dude, so if you can get even one good cast, you can play the Manifestation game. You will just want to bring Krondspine instead of Morbid Conjuration.

In my opinion, this is all still very different from other "literally no counter play" situations of the past, like Lumineth Sentinels in 2nd ed where they had 30" range and mortals on the hit roll, so cover, line of sight and mobility were not really responses to the threat they were bringing.

My point is more that I don't consider "just bring a power 1 wizard so you can unbind/dispell" has a good counterplay. Let me illustrate with a example. Let assume we have to players, one has a power 2 wizard with +2 to cast. The other has a power 1 wizard with no bonus. Let assume both have the purple sun and need a 8 to summon it and both got a cast of 8. The power 2 wizard will have to roll a 9+ to unbind. The power 1 wizard will have to roll a 11+ to unbind. Now lets assume both failed the unbind and go for a banish or their turn. The power 2 wizard can still cast another spell after the unbind, even summon another manifestation. The level 1 wizard can't, he used all his cast trying to take the manifestation out. The mega caster and the basic caster may have the same chance of unbinding and banishing (with the unbinding chance depending on what caster they are facing), but they don't have the same effect on the manifestation competition in the long run. It favors the mega caster, has they can put more pressure both by getting more manifestation outs and loosing less by banishing the opponents ones.

To me saying bring a wizard to fight a mega caster is like saying bring units with a ward to face Lumineth sentinels of old. Sure you may spike some of your wards with big rolls, but is it true a counter play? I wouldn't call bring a power 1 wizard, put him in unbind range and hope to roll a 10+ on your unbind rolls/hope the opponent roll bellow average an actual counter play.

 

[ScionOfOssia]

1 hour ago, MitGas said:

I don‘t think Idoneth should be able to compete.

Neither do I, that’s supposed to be Tzeentch’s big thing (Though pound for pound being an ultracaster is Nagash’s whole deal). But I’d appreciate us at least being able to not get blown out because most armies with decent magical presence can simply cast more Manifestations than we have Banish attempts and then spend 1 CP to run it back on at least 1 if we even succeed in banishing them. 

[MitGas]

38 minutes ago, ScionOfOssia said:

Neither do I, that’s supposed to be Tzeentch’s big thing (Though pound for pound being an ultracaster is Nagash’s whole deal). But I’d appreciate us at least being able to not get blown out because most armies with decent magical presence can simply cast more Manifestations than we have Banish attempts and then spend 1 CP to run it back on at least 1 if we even succeed in banishing them. 

Absolutely agreed - it needs to be fixed so that everyone has a fun game!

[Ejecutor]

The good thing is that, as it is designed with modules, if the magic module is a problem they can ban it from tournaments.

Edited July 30 by Ejecutor

[Tonhel]

23 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

The good thing is that, as it is designed with modules, if the magic module is a problem they can ban it from tournaments.

That's not a solution because than you punish certain armies too. Endless spells just need to cost points and/or one use only.

AoS 4th is great, they just need to fix the endless spell issue.

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, Tonhel said:

AoS 4th is great, they just need to fix the endless spell issue.

Agree. 4th edition seems good and fun to play, with a solid and coherent rules. It just needs to have a more polished numbers and remove/improve some interactions.

[The Red King]

On 7/25/2024 at 6:31 AM, Grimrock said:

I don't know if points quite do it, the issue is that they have different values for different factions.

Suprising nobody I just realized I'm even more mad about this manifestations thing than I thought.

 

GW has systematically destroyed allies, removed cross faction units, etc. All at the cost of flavor and in the name of "balance" and yet somehow, for some reason*, they pushed an ENTIRE module of cross faction units on the game for free** practically forcing people to take them.

 

GW believes in nothing.

 

* Money

** Not money

[ScionOfOssia]

Doing it for money implies they ever have the bloody things in stock and produce more than 5 boxes of each set every 12-16 weeks. This is just massive incompetence. 

[Fairbanks]

11 hours ago, MitGas said:

Frankly no army should be on Tzeentch‘s level anyways, he‘s the literal god of magic. Teclis might call himself that but we all know it‘s BS, magic was there looong before he was… and it will be there long after this pretender god is destroyed… let Chaos consume the world! Wait, wrong game. 
 

Ahem, anyways, that insolence aside, I don‘t think Idoneth should be able to compete.

Agree. Unless we play underwater, in which case IDK should entirely wipe the field. Get ready for GT Atlantis 2025, we’re all going 5-0

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

16 hours ago, Arzalyn said:

My point is more that I don't consider "just bring a power 1 wizard so you can unbind/dispell" has a good counterplay. Let me illustrate with a example. Let assume we have to players, one has a power 2 wizard with +2 to cast. The other has a power 1 wizard with no bonus. Let assume both have the purple sun and need a 8 to summon it and both got a cast of 8. The power 2 wizard will have to roll a 9+ to unbind. The power 1 wizard will have to roll a 11+ to unbind. Now lets assume both failed the unbind and go for a banish or their turn. The power 2 wizard can still cast another spell after the unbind, even summon another manifestation. The level 1 wizard can't, he used all his cast trying to take the manifestation out. The mega caster and the basic caster may have the same chance of unbinding and banishing (with the unbinding chance depending on what caster they are facing), but they don't have the same effect on the manifestation competition in the long run. It favors the mega caster, has they can put more pressure both by getting more manifestation outs and loosing less by banishing the opponents ones.

To me saying bring a wizard to fight a mega caster is like saying bring units with a ward to face Lumineth sentinels of old. Sure you may spike some of your wards with big rolls, but is it true a counter play? I wouldn't call bring a power 1 wizard, put him in unbind range and hope to roll a 10+ on your unbind rolls/hope the opponent roll bellow average an actual counter play.

 

Here are the casting probabilities with and without unbinds (in percent):

Cast Value		Cast Bonus 0	CB 0 with Unbind	Cast Bonus 1	CB1 with Unbind	Cast Bonus 2	CB 2 with Unbind	Cast Bonus -1	CB -1 with Unbind
2		100,0	55,6	100,0	66,4	100,0	76,0	97,2	44,3
3		97,2	55,5	100,0	66,4	100,0	76,0	91,7	44,2
4		91,7	55,1	97,2	66,2	100,0	76,0	83,3	43,5
5		83,3	53,7	91,7	65,2	97,2	75,6	72,2	41,6
6		72,2	50,6	83,3	62,9	91,7	74,0	58,3	37,8
7		58,3	44,8	72,2	58,3	83,3	70,6	41,7	30,8
8		41,7	35,1	58,3	50,2	72,2	64,1	27,8	22,7
9		27,8	25,1	41,7	38,2	58,3	54,1	16,7	14,7
10		16,7	15,8	27,8	26,6	41,7	40,2	8,3	7,8
11		8,3	8,2	16,7	16,4	27,8	27,5	2,8	2,7
12		2,8	2,8	8,3	8,3	16,7	16,7	0,0	0,0

 

Up to you to decide up to what point the unbind makes a significant difference.

I did not add an extra entry for banishing, since that is the same as casting with no CB most of the time and is rolled against a static value (not conditional on prior casting rolls, which I took into account for unbinding). For quick mental math, most manifestations that can be banished outright have about a 60% chance for that to happen.

[Flippy]

20 hours ago, MitGas said:

Frankly no army should be on Tzeentch‘s level anyways, he‘s the literal god of magic. Teclis might call himself that but we all know it‘s BS, magic was there looong before he was… and it will be there long after this pretender god is destroyed… let Chaos consume the world! Wait, wrong game. 

Lorewise it was always between Tzeentch, High Elves, Slanns and Nagash - and each faction's fanboy had his arguments. 

[Flippy]

19 hours ago, ScionOfOssia said:

But I’d appreciate us at least being able to not get blown out because most armies with decent magical presence can simply cast more Manifestations than we have Banish attempts and then spend 1 CP to run it back on at least 1 if we even succeed in banishing them. 

This is an interesting discussion, but I think we should first acknowledge that Wizard (2) with in innate +1 to cast should be considered decent (at least). It generally doesn’t get better then that in the non-named characters group.

[MitGas]

1 hour ago, Flippy said:

Lorewise it was always between Tzeentch, High Elves, Slanns and Nagash - and each faction's fanboy had his arguments. 

Yeah, they‘re all good at it, but Tzeentch is the literal god of magic. He used to hold all magic in existence until his staff was scattered (before he dominated his useless and unworthy brothers). Magic, or as we know it in the fantasy settings, the winds of magic, are seeping from the realm of Chaos(!) into the other realms/setting. I‘m not saying that others shouldn‘t be able to be great at it but lorewise Tzeentchians should be a cut above all the others in general. Which I think is the case anyways as we got multiple decent casters. Yes, Nagash or Teclis are better casters than say Kairos but they‘re ultra-special characters. 
 

I just take huge, even gigantic, no colossal nerd pride damage when Teclis (or anyone) thinks he‘s the god of magic as Tzeentch could instantly end them. It‘s like you squishing a bug, perhaps a very big one but it‘s still not a fight between equals. 
 

I might also not be entirely serious about it. 🤔🤙
 

The only thing that truly matters is that the manifestation problem gets solved by GW. I think weakening the spell lores like that and then making endless spells even better and free is a contradiction in itself. 

[Grimrock]

5 hours ago, Flippy said:

This is an interesting discussion, but I think we should first acknowledge that Wizard (2) with in innate +1 to cast should be considered decent (at least). It generally doesn’t get better then that in the non-named characters group.

Not just decent, I'd say that's pretty well a top tier wizard. Even considering named characters it rarely gets any better than that and most named character wizards are worse. There's only like... 6 or 7 models in the game that are any better and most of those are either god-tier or just under god-tier models that survived from warhammer fantasy. I've got 5 separate factions and only 2 of them even have access to a wizard (2)/+1 to cast, and one of those only gets it through a 500 point named character. I would freaking love to have something as good as an Aspect of the Sea in any of my factions. 

[ScionOfOssia]

2 hours ago, Grimrock said:

Not just decent, I'd say that's pretty well a top tier wizard. Even considering named characters it rarely gets any better than that and most named character wizards are worse. There's only like... 6 or 7 models in the game that are any better and most of those are either god-tier or just under god-tier models that survived from warhammer fantasy. I've got 5 separate factions and only 2 of them even have access to a wizard (2)/+1 to cast, and one of those only gets it through a 500 point named character. I would freaking love to have something as good as an Aspect of the Sea in any of my factions. 

I guess the Bonereapers have spoiled me on 2 Cast/+1, because I can achieve that on 2 units extremely easily for sub 200 points, or 1 Cast at +2 without giving up build options 

[Sception]

Honestly, if you're going to put that many points into magic in obr, I'd rather take Arkhan and save a drop and the battle formation.  But I suppose there is something to be said for Vokmortian/Soulmason lists.  Both obr mortarchs lost enough that I don't think it's obligatory to field one of them anymore.

[MitGas]

Do you guys think it's fair to say that outside of the manifestations magic is kinda inconsequential regarding balance - as in armies that have no access to spells can do well if no manifestations get played? Or is that still problematic?

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

53 minutes ago, MitGas said:

Do you guys think it's fair to say that outside of the manifestations magic is kinda inconsequential regarding balance - as in armies that have no access to spells can do well if no manifestations get played? Or is that still problematic?

If Manifestations stopped existing for everyone, magic would probably be in a similar place as 3rd edition (excluding the Andtor season). I think there would be some armies that go hard on magic and make it part of their game plan, but also some that only run one wizard or a non-wizard unbinder. One equalising factor would be that mega-casters don't dominate quite as hard this edition, since they cast bonuses are lower and there are few unbind bonuses, so even a small wizard has a chance to get a spell through against Nagash or Kroak.

[Vasshpit]

On 7/31/2024 at 7:33 AM, MitGas said:

Yeah, they‘re all good at it, but Tzeentch is the literal god of magic. He used to hold all magic in existence until his staff was scattered

And now the hands of his greatest avatars sit atop Gorkamorkas's krulest shaman's staves bound by sheer orruk will...

Sucka...

😜😁

Edited August 2 by Vasshpit