whispersofblood

Fair. But I think as a community we are bad about communicating and identifying reasonable consequences of behaviour. If you prefer to play the game as specific way that has consequences. The more specific the larger the consequences.

@RuneBrush in that case you and your opponent are at cross purposes. If you both had were aiming for that goal a simple conversation would suffice in a way points would not.

I play DoK so I understand these mechanics. They don't deep strike because then they lose out on the save increase. You mitigate run charge by slamming something 3.1" away limiting their movement even more. They only get 5 turns of movement, if you don't limit their extra 2d6 of movement from charging they can get at best maybe 18-20" from their dz, in the whole game. The only mission I can see as difficult would be take and hold or knife to the heart. At a tournament you just play for the minor, get your secondaries and accept you got a bad draw. The same way my local dealt with dwarf gunlines. Just deploy on your board edge and take the draw. Eventually people stopped bringing dwarf gunlines.

I don't really understand the spirit of the game argument... The rules make characters targetable therefore it is within the spirit of the rules to target the characters. You don't have to build your army to do that, just take some shooting and an endless spell or two, it's 5 wound heroes with meh armour. Making HGB beserkers more expensive doesn't change the nature of the army. Even if you don't take the attack twice wsb the deathstar remains, it just doesn't kill as fast. You'll still charge it and die, and your issue will remain. I had assumed we had dealt with deathstar in the mist of time. You just don't fight them. But the question remains do you play the game to defeat the army or win the battleplan. Matched play isn't about killing the army, it's about getting more points on the board.

It's a MV 4 deathstar... And some soft, targetable heroes. I really don't see why people are struggling. If your armies only ability to attack at range is an arcane bolt that is a construction issue that you created.

The short answer is mostly yes, but slightly no. I think DoK are a very good example of this, they are the personification of great over short distances. They are very fast, across medium distances, going forward. But take a battleplan like the new shifting objectives, where you are generally ok in the middle, but that could change on a die roll. Now they have to move laterally (the objectives are further apart now) , stay in range of your buff heroes, and generate enough attacks to kill big units, or not get chaffed up. You can see how there is a lot more play in there for non-top tier factions to play the mission. Arcane power, the objective is available to any hero now, so factions have a lot more flexibility in how they take on the Cauldron or Morathi when they are sat on an objective, and they aren't exactly going to take yours with one of their Hags. You can see how these small changes in the battleplan open up space for strategies to be a little more applicable even when the distance between the factions remain large. IDK got two of its most important pieces when it comes to mobility hit by point increases, the soulscryer and Morrsarr We are still waiting for Skaven and FEC of course. SCE got a boost to their vanguard which gives them very good mobility

The changes to the battle plans are actually pretty significant to how the game is played, and therefor the relative utility of units. Where previously you could get away eschewing movement, I don't think that is viable anymore and people building for attack/defence efficiency are going to lose a lot of games on points.

Why would you consider the rules as not part of the product?

Sorry Mecha is a Vallejo line. You can try adding flow improver directly into the bottle if you are having issues. I find you really have to shake it but I've never had problems with it rubbing off.

If you are having problems with Vallejo primers I suggest switching to the mecha line, and using a touch of flow improver. Best primer coats I've ever had.

I'll edit the post just for you. Realistically your name is less important to me than your argument.

Let me make this statement more specific. The most competitive builds include units who are the strong in their role mechanically, and at a price that fits the list. This is especially true of combat units. It is an important distinction, and I hope I am communicating it decently. No one would care that the GKoTG if it realistically only put out 2 points of normal damage, even if it was under priced for its 2 dmg output. Even it is was priced to the point that you could field 50 of them, and thus 100 dmg. For two reasons; a) the mechanics of the game don't benefit that kind of unit, and b) its counter narrative so the designers won't price it that way anyway. A lot of that makes the GKoTG so strong is outside the warscroll, primarily it is two things, the factions ability to generate bodies without buying them in the list building stage. And, the ability to heal the factions important models. Without those two things for all the vaunted power of the GKoTG, FEC as whole would have a much worse winrate because you would have to spend resources on things besides directly supporting the model. I think the various Bloodthirsters are a perfect example of this. They aren't bad really from a mechanics point of view on their warscroll, and they are competitively priced I would say. They are just really mediocre at applying their dmg because you need multiple activations to apply the dmg that their points costs gives you. Tyrants of Blood is so popular because it bypasses this weakness of their power/point equation. (I don't think it actually solves the problem though.) The idea solution would be 1 BT that applied the dmg of all of them, so longs as its reliably get it to combat. On the other hand from a design perspective they got the KoS correct, in regard to everything that is wrong with the Bloodthirster.

I think @swarmofseals would be wise to avoid this or if you could more narrowly defined the question? Faction evaluation is usually about how strong it's best loadouts are. But there are a lot of reasons why say GSG may never fully actualize and with therefore forever look like a weaker 2.0 tome. So I guess my criticism is maybe what you want evaluated. Competitiveness? Internal consistency? Etc.

Its funny because one of the first things I said was that effective points drops would bust the narrative, and @swarmofseals essentially confirmed GW has a similar point of view. You can check the time stamps, it is a critical data point to the conversation I am trying to have. I also think people are misunderstanding my position on points or more accurately resources expenditure. I have never said there is a point where any unit could be made cheap enough to be viable, if you can quote me and show where I have said that I would appreciate it and I will edit it out. Enoch has created some strawman to attack my argument, and it is derailing what I'm trying to get across. Price is obviously a critical component. Cost is about competitiveness, capacity or capability is the first consideration ie; role. No one is going to choose Namarti Reavers as their main damage dealer, regardless of the point cost. Especially as @swarmofseals confirmed there is a floor when it comes to point cost. They could theoretically be priced at a point where they could be the main dmg dealer. But, that place is so low it would fray the narrative and is thus untenable. So in a world where their cost is in line with the narrative they can't fill the role. In a series of critical measures, cost is the last to consider given the context I've previously established. That doesn't mean it isn't critical at all. Cost should be used determinate of how well a unit is fit for purpose. Gors vs ungors is the perfect example. Both are effective chaff units, and light combat units, relatively close in output. Either could fill the role well, but one is just cheaper and it's weaknesses are manageable or marginal in comparison. But, you never reach the points if ungors couldn't do the job, and you would take gors even if they were 1 pt per model overpriced. On the other hand you could price Gors as a heavy combat unit, and they would never see the light of day because their rules and points would be at cross purposes. An example of points trying to assign role.(Closed world example) Cost is often the determiner of competitiveness, the best factions tend to have good rules first and foremost though. But, if your battletome is in the middle of the rules deviation you still need a hammer even if you have to overpay, or you don't play the game.

@swarmofseals Thanks a lot for this, it confirms a lot of what I suspected. I'm curious if you have any experience you can share about dual role and escort type units and how they are priced. I think units like the Allopex and gunhauler stand out, units that are just fundamentally not suitable for purpose in game. While they might have a strong role and place in a faction from a narrative stand point. Do these sorts of units have an relief in the future?

Haha some things logic, reason and interpretation can't explain. But I expect there to be an exalted Celestant Prime coming since he got smashed in Forbidden Power.

There might be some gap in my explanation, here. I am categorically not saying hordes are non-viable or non-existent in competitive play. I just played 240 odd rats, I know they are there. The observation is if you are building your list, what consideration do you give the possibility of facing a true horde. At the moment its is probably at the utility level. As in you are taking a unit you would take to deal with the majority of the meta, but you take a spell (like hysterical frenzy) or when deciding between two relatively similar units you err towards the one with some utility in the horde match up. You don't take Hurricanes over Longstrikes because you might fight hordes at the moment at least.

@Enochi you are misunderstanding, But I will first point out some misconceptions you are making about my position. I address the chaff role in my third paragraph. The comment about horde armies is an incorrect interpretation of what I said. I never said that they don't exist, that they aren't competitive, but your point belabours my own. They are viable but we only need to look at faction representation (available on The Honest Wargamer) sample the lists available for those factions from events and we find that true hordes of single models in the competitive realms are extremely rare. And, that fact has a distorting affect on what selections are worthwhile in faction books, and those distortions cause distortions and so on and so forth. The same is true of real range damage. As to your PT example. Riderless Phoenix are the perfect example of a unit culled at the role stage. The are unable to fulfil a role effectively. Lower the point cost of the unit, makes it a compromise choice can it provide enough in the role, that the something else I get is worthwhile. What if I get 2 or 3? Etc. But the game provides counter balance to that because drop count matters, so dropping the cost of something, letting you take more of that something to the fill the role still has other costs. Again your Anointed on foot example displays the same principles, what role can it effectively fill. If the answer is none, then there isn't anything else on the flow chart. If he was 200 points, it doesn't matter if he was the best at his role, you might determine that the cost you have to bear to get the best isn't worth it, or having looked at your options holistically you might determine the trade of in effectiveness is to steep and that you have to take him for whatever cost you can. This likely would mean your faction has structural issues, not that he is worth 200 pts. This is all very well known stuff, its the basis of money ball, and why Liverpool and Manchester City from an organisational stand point leagues ahead of the rest of the Premier League. And, why on the field they are successful. I @Overread Cost is an important factor, but its not the FIRST factor, basically its convincing a person looking for a car to drive, that a non-functional car has value as scrap.

Because you are incapable of understanding or have no experience by which to offer rebut? The same theory of analytics are used in everything from sport to economics.

Not all units are capable of being viable though. This goes back to my original comment. Some units based on their narrative function, don't have a viable function in the game as played. Fiends are a perfect example of this. They aren't a "bad" unit by any measure, they check all the boxes, but once you leave the context of the book and points and play the game in the manner that we the players have created, they fall flat. People refuse to admit how much of the game is influenced by how we choose to play the game, and the choices people are making in the game from the perspective of their own faction, not singularly rules and points. IF the game was mostly about single wound combat blocks, sure Fiends could prove a good unit when compared to say a second KoS. But that isn't how we the representations of the meta have chosen to play we value certain attributes over other, and not all of those attributes are rules based attributes. Most people aren't interested in painted 200 single wound models, and thus the strength of the KoS increases in real world value, compared to say Fiends. Again the example Blood Stalkers, how cheap would they have to be before their 5 shots, and low body count would be relevant in the way we choose to play the game. I would argue less than 90, and even then it would be a marginal choice. Pricing these units so low that people take them, runs into the problem that players are taking them for reasons other than the narrative role assigned to them. The designers are reasonable loathe to do so, and I can't help but agree with that principle. GW has historically struggled with dual role units as well, but I tip my hat because dual rule units are notoriously difficult to price .The problem here is what the unit does, based on its warscroll, not how the designers priced that warscroll. IDK competitively are probably the best representation of a traditional Aelven force we have had to date. 8th edition HE might also be close. The best build includes like 20-40 infantry models mostly in faction. Yes the skew build exists but that just got a price increase, 18 eels cost an extra 90 pts extra which brings you from 18 to 15, which doesn't sound like a lot, but I can tell you as a competitive IDK player a unit of 6 morrsarr and a 9 morrsarr or a unit of 3 and unit of 6 are completely different units. Not to mention the soul scryer went up 30 pts a pop, bring us to 150 pts over what the build cost previously. I have this discussion in a lot of faction threads because being able to understand this is fundamental to competitive gaming. If you want to play competitively first you have to understand that the points cost of a unit is almost the last consideration. Its in the is it viable to do so phase of list construction. You start at role, and lots of units are going to get culled at the role stage of list construction. The bigger your tome the more warscrolls are going to get cut.

You misunderstand. What you mentioned are the competitive builds. The point changes are as you mention unlikely to drastically change those main crux of those builds. But the tip of the skew is not the same as the top competitive builds. Competitive builds skew enough to be strong at what the faction excels at, while maintaining enough flexibility to play the objective game. The top of the skew is say something like Volturnos and all eels. Which I don't think is IDK best competitive build but is the tip of the skew. Which if you did the math isn't a legal list. Even something like Jack Armstrong's DoK list which I would argue isn't the tip of the skew is now illegal. He can't play the list as is, full stop. You are arguing that his list isn't illegal enough, which is tbh a terrible place to have a discussion. I don't think it's a reasonable goal to destroy competitive builds. The goal should be identifying what makes those builds good. Determining if those reasons are in the scope of the intent of the rules, and distributing those reasons to factions who are struggling. Unit diversity is a complicated game and it's not just predicated on in book factors. Blood stalkers are functionally a dead unit. It doesn't matter what they cost the have no role is Age of Sigmar based on their warscroll abilities, not their point cost. Maybe if it was 10 points per 5 you could mass enough shots to be some sort of gate keeper list.

The point changes are about the skew lists, at the end of the spectrum. It's not even about competitive lists it's about changes that stop make the most extreme skews non-starters. Competitiveness or lack there of is a battletome issue.

English app and warscrolls have no language prohibiting the unit from moving in the movement phase. Perhaps the German translation team just assumed that text was included because it was included in similar mechanics.

Also Bestigors need to be within 3" to activate, they just get 4" of movement.