Making AoS 3.0 Even Better - Warhammer Weekly 10202021

It's time for another week of news, rumors and all things Warhammering! This week, we are talking about some ideas to make AoS 3.0 even better. These are a mix of changes we would like to see and homebrew/TO rules that we can use to improve our own games.
0:00 News
49:00 Pick of the Week
52:32 Hobby Time
1:06:20 Events
1:20:40 Making AoS Events
2:31:00 Terrain
2:52:25 Self-Imposed Restrictions
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Honest Wargamer Ironjawz: • Ironjawz Deep Dive: Th...
Just Play: • Orruk Warclans VS Lumi...
AoS List Labs: • AoS List Lab: Ep 10 Ao...
Terrain Pack: docs.google.com/document/d/1c...

[@Erikjust]

That spider guy and that headcrest of his, i almost expect him to begin to sing "Jeepers creepers, where'd you get those eyes?"

[@briochepanda]

*DISCORDANT GRAMOPHONE INTENSIFIES*

[@VinceVenturella]

You're not wrong.

[@colonelcabbage]

Thanks for featuring my work, and for all the kind words. I agree that actually the save stacking portion of the show is probably more significant, but I went for the Amulet first as I kept seeing people using the ostensible 33% figure and I wanted to get people thinking the right way about the maths. Also, it’s a more provocative title ;) As for the terrain, the obstacles are definitely the pieces that need more attention and refinement. The primary goal of the terrain pack was to find a way to make the best tables possible with the terrain I had. The obstacles were necessary for increasing the number of terrain features on the table in a cost effective manner, since they came in the terrain sets I have. The secondary goal was to create a resource for other TOs, and anyone who wants to use my pack should absolutely feel free to use or jettison whatever they want. Obstacles are probably the first thing to swap out for better pieces, but they are fairly good for providing thin lines of cover, and soft lane blocking since you can’t land on top of them. Anyway, thanks again. Hopefully we’ll get to meet again sometime (I said hello briefly at Darksphere once), and I’m looking forward to the rescheduled monster painting class!

[@VinceVenturella]

Really great work sir, and wonderful show. Thank you for bringing Rob along as well. :)

[@foreverquesting_]

Appreciate the unexpected Dark Souls reference! Always happy when someone points out that being a "hard" game is not really the main focus.

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you. :)

[@Steve_Keen]

"Someone says Tyler's too quiet." Tyler is ALWAYS quiet!

[@VinceVenturella]

He is a quiet but thoughtful man. :)

[@courtneybrightwell9669]

Awesome show. Favourite Moment - 45:48 - Oh my God man, pigs are just so attractive...

[@VinceVenturella]

I mean, yeah, they are. ;)

[@jacksummers6464]

I LOVE the 2+ ward until you fail a roll idea. Reminds me of the Mindstealer ability where both players suddenly have this minigame they're playing seperate from "How many models are removed from the board" monotony. I'd love for AoS to have more "fun" abilities for unique units instead of just giving them big numbers.

[@VinceVenturella]

It just sounds so fun right. :)

[@jjnumber10]

At Chrimbobo (the Christmas BOBO) they had a podium for naughty lists (very strong armies like when Slaanesh was OP) and a podium for nice lists (fat middle kinda lists)

[@VinceVenturella]

Love it.

[@matthewprice4566]

I'm calling Scourge Privateers warband set in Ulgu. Just saying...

[@VinceVenturella]

That would be amazing. :)

[@cyriltournier5784]

About terrain: Although it has far shorter ranges (16' is long range) and far weaker ranged attacks compared to melee attacks, Warmachine had a problem with gunlines. They solved it by mandating one line of sight blocking terrain in the middle of the board. Plus different kinds of terrain boost your defense (make you harder to hit). Note that this is a game without the 6 to hit nonsense. In Aos that's harder because the boards are larger but putting meaningful rules on terrain seems like a good start.

[@VinceVenturella]

Agreed, tables should have larger and meaningful terrain.

[@thatoneguynobodylikes8553]

My hot take on amulet of destiny. +5 wounds. Wildly powerful on a small hero, but much less impactful on a massive model. Makes it still function with existing wards, still makes you harder to remove, and still makes your dude feel more heroic, and has the added bonus of not slowing down the degradation of a monster.

[@thatoneguynobodylikes8553]

My hot take on the "Nuzzlocke" system is that I think it'd be cool to make "battleline if" units only give you 1 unlock. So in the case of Flesh Eater Courts, my main army, if you're running a Blisterskin army you'd only be allowed 1 unit of flayers as battleline. You'd be allowed to take as many more of them as you want, but they'd not count as battleline.

[@VinceVenturella]

I like both of these ideas.

[@gaijin_lfc]

Thoroughly enjoyed the ep. One thing about terrain-I’m afraid of using it to fix bad balance. “Unit is visible = unit is dead” is my least favorite thing about 40K. I hope shooting alphas can get pinned back through methods other than putting your dudes behind a huge rock.

[@VinceVenturella]

Sure, I don't think it's the only thing you do, it's just part of a healthy balanced breakfast. ;)

[@cyriltournier5784]

So about Underworlds. Season 1 and 2 had few faction cards and these were fairly underpowered. Season 4 (and maybe 3 I don't remember) had enough faction cards to make a deck, and their level rose considerably. So you could already play with "Pre-made decks" but there was no official format for it. The 2 format existing, championship and relic, were the equivalent of standard and legacy in Mtg. The problem with the rivals format is that I can't imagine playing it competitively. The first season warbands will have to buy a separate identical Pre-made deck with no synergy to their play styles and later warbands will get to play with their cards that have a lot of variations in power. Warbands themselves have always been wildly unbalanced, which deckbuilding helped mitigate. As for the price tag. It is now 80 euros, which is a lot more than the contents are worth, and this twice a year since there are now 2 core sets a year.

[@theDackjanielz]

Yes not to mention the new card backs for no good reason, i have quit underworlds along with AOS, now all they have to do is ruin Warcry and ill be out the hobby.

[@cyriltournier5784]

@@theDackjanielz you're right I forgot the change in card backs for no reason. Also curious to see if 2 core sets a year means 2 seasons a year and a rotation every year for the championship format.

[@VinceVenturella]

Intersting all around.

[@tgiffin]

Thanks for the great show and discussion as usual. Looking forward to seeing your army on display at holy havvoc.

[@VinceVenturella]

I am excited to see everyone.

[@warpseer]

What if mystic shield was a four-up invulnerable save rather than plus one to save. It would be useful for every army while not being completely busted on some of the other armies, and I think it would have to go off on a seven.

[@jordivermeulen2519]

It would still be useless for all Nighthaunt units except Chainrasp Horde, as they already have a 4+ ethereal save.

[@People3004]

A 4+ ward is better than a +1 save for most armies imo

[@warpseer]

@@jordivermeulen2519 sure, but it's better than what they have now which is nothing.

[@jordivermeulen2519]

@@People3004 I think the idea is that you either use the 4+, or whatever save you have, but not both.

[@VinceVenturella]

Might be a bit too strong, but it might be just it makes them Ethereal with their current save or a cap of 4+ whichever is higher.

[@Anjoffs]

Fun show as always! On the Nuzzlock self-imposed list restriction I would add, "only one or no named characters". But otherwise it looks like a fun challenge!

[@VinceVenturella]

Yeah, I think there are some great options here for sure.

[@tobek284]

How cool would pirate ship nighthaunt and KO or IDK set duking it out be? Pirates vs pirates.

[@VinceVenturella]

I am all for this.

[@ZK-sz8vs]

I do think limiting all the generic enhancements to sub commanders is probably the way to go. It's a quick, concise rule that would solve a lot of problems. On the save stacking issue, I think the solution is just that you cannot stack bonuses or penalties from more than one source, and if units are still coming up too vulnerable after that you address them on a warscroll basis. The "saves cap at 3+ but sometimes they don't and you still have to play the stacking minigame" solution sounds good on paper, but I feel like it adds another conditional bracket that you have to keep in the back of your mind in an edition that's already got a lot to keep track of.

[@VinceVenturella]

You are right that it's a risk. My fear there is when you limit a unit catching +1 to save max, you empower shooting. THe ability to counter red and still end on the positive is actually one of the things that is somewhat keeping shooting restrained, with only the MW spam shooting sneaking through. This is the big second order consequence for the change.

[@ShenanigansFox]

After listening to the amulet of destiny stuff, i think it should use saint celestines revival mechanic from sisters of battle. No extra save stuff but when slain remove the model as normal but at the end of phase, roll a die and on a 2+ set the model back up outside engagement range of melee as close to death location as possible with 6 wounds remaining. It stops alpha strike shooting/magic but allows for smart play like popping the amulet in shooting/magic then closing in for a melee kill.

[@VinceVenturella]

Love this idea.

[@elias1579]

Oooh where is that Chaos Daemons Warband? AOS lore has done a good job making chaos Damons into actual characters, less push that even further.

[@VinceVenturella]

Agreed. :)

[@davidwasilewski]

I’m an old WHFB player, like many who play AoS currently. What attracted me into AoS was the opportunity to play a horde army that has an Old World feel. I play BoC and love fielding armies with large blocks of Gor and msu Ungor. Armies with 100 - 200 figures. Without the ability to field lots and lots of minis on the table, the game becomes hero hammer skirmish and I’d stop playing it, re-base and retreat to Kings of War or the Warhammer Old World when that comes out. I wonder if a lot of the older and less competitive players feel similarly? Not dissing players who like smaller skirmish games btw, just saying how I feel about the game atm.

[@cyriltournier5784]

I started playing at the start of 5th ed, so not sure I count as an old WFB player, but skirmish, hero hammer and hordes are all fine with me. I play Aos not because of a deep love for the system or the lore but because I can't stand 40k and nothing besides these 2 has players around here.

[@davidwasilewski]

@@cyriltournier5784 that’s a shame. Have you tried bolt action. That’s a ‘historical light’ alternative that 40k players might get into?

[@cyriltournier5784]

@@davidwasilewski I didn't play it since ww2 isn't my jam but occasionally play Test of Honor (which is a similar system) with my brother.

[@VinceVenturella]

I agree we need to be able to handle everything, from elite to horde, it all should be there. :)

[@ProrokLebioda]

Great show! Amazing board!

[@VinceVenturella]

Thanks so much!

[@dornjr]

Sounding good Vince!

[@VinceVenturella]

Glad to hear. ;)

[@Leviticushateford]

killer display board! I hope you did a video on it. Super cool!

[@Leviticushateford]

guess i should have watched the full video.... you should do a new video on display boards. ..as always thank Vince!

[@VinceVenturella]

No issue, yes, this one would have been impossible to film, but I will do another video on them for sure.

[@kalzacreations]

Amazing display board !!

[@VinceVenturella]

Thanks!

[@Tyranidus7]

I would say my Commander Mode (MTG inspired) would be: -Limit to 1 unit per Warscroll, 2 for Battleline Units(Mega-Gargants can have more than 2 Battleline for reasons about limits later) -Limit to 1 Universal Thing (Artifact, Spell, or Prayer, etc) -No Battle Regiment -No Special or Named Characters of Any Kind (This does apply to Gotrek and Mercenary Mega-Gargants, no to them) -Only 1 unit per 3 units in your army can be a Hero (example, Unit+Unit+Hero+Unit+Unit+Hero, if you can only hit 5 units in an army you are stuck at 1 hero so you need to hit the threshold before adding the hero) The last 1 I think is the missing piece that can really glue this together. I think the limits of 2 of everything then 3 battleline are not limiting enough to really change 90% of the meta lists out there. Limited everything to 1 and making 2 battleline forces you to find backups from other combos and units rather than being able to create a backup of the spammed units. Since I play Seraphon Skink hordes come to mind with their starpriest support. Should be able to do only 1 of those monstrosities. The last one I think is meant to better reflect a "real world" army construction where there are very few heroes in a sea of chaf. This is the rule that will hit some armies incredibly hard and others I know can easily shrug it off but I think it is worth considering. Mega-gargants are tied to this and thus are forced to bring more of the smaller baby giants in smaller units. There's my hant in the ring. I do really like this idea, I got into Magic on Commander format alone and don't play standard just commander so I am hoping this can take off.

[@VinceVenturella]

Yeah, I think there are real options here, these are some solid suggestions. :)

[@jesseshelton9302]

I feel like a decent fix for the amulet might be to keep it as is for models with 9 or fewer rules and then make it a 6+ wound shrug for models with 10 or more wounds. It might still be too good for Sons: it's a, what, 20% wound increase at that point, so it gives them an extra 7 or 8 wounds. That way it stays good for little guys and is still an option for big guys (though a much weaker one). The Archon shadowfield 2+ shrug is cooler, but less likely. Also, was Highlander style a thing with Warhammer Fantasy back in the day? It's a not uncommon thing in 40k, so I'm surprised it doesn't show up in AoS. I guess due to the size of the player base at the big Cons, 40k can support more of these little side gameplay styles with added restrictions. The rule is usually max of 1 of any type of unit except troops (the Battleline equivalent) and dedicated transports. Sometimes the rule is that you have to take one of each type of troop before you can double up (so if you only have one option, you can immediately double up; if you have two options, you have to take one of each and then can double up; if you have three, etc), sometimes transports can't be doubled. It works really great and is a ton of fun.

[@VinceVenturella]

So I think that fix on the amulet would also be fine, giants already have a 6+ ward in the book and it's not lighting up the charts, it's amazing that 1 point of difference. The issue with pure highlander now is Battleline, some books only have one battleline choice, so that limits it (if you want to stay within the existing rules).

[@starslayer2438]

That is the fix that I have come up with. Keeps the original flavor of the Amulet of Destiny. Stays as a powerful defensive option for smaller heroes, but is no longer as oppressive on bigger ones. GW, please just add the sentence: "If the bearer has a wounds characteristic of 10 or more, they have a ward of 6+ instead."

[@Slampiece88]

I hope GW listens to this!

[@VinceVenturella]

One can hope. :)

[@cmleibenguth]

That's an incredible display board. *bows to the master* Link to where you got that from?

[@VinceVenturella]

The designs are from MyMiniFactory, you should hit Tom up on Twitter, he was the one that chose the buildings.

[@cmleibenguth]

@@VinceVenturella Thanks!

[@querldox9300]

Whew, great discussion, will try to keep this short. First, agree with the comments from Zandos and James and Vince's response below. I've pondered alternating activations based on those units within X from the 2(+) Generals acting first, then those within X of Heroes, and then anyone else? Coming from military board war-games, I've despaired at how far AoS has moved away from the war-game concept - to just a battle game where the best players are those who can best exploit the rules. Eel spam is the epitome of this. Generally a cavalry heavy army is great on the charge, but lousy at holding objectives - but that's not represented in AoS. So, I think list-building requirements should be mandatory within a competitive scenario - and narrative scenarios can investigate how a cavalry unit holds out on their own. Regarding terrain - it seems that the rest of the wargaming hobby figured out terrain effects a long time ago. I cannot understand why it's this hard to get it right in AoS or 40K. It seems such an integral part of the game. Yes - at my house there are a LOT of house rules that build off the base game!

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, there is never anything wrong with houserules. :)

[@frankpatton8372]

Great show as always!

[@VinceVenturella]

Thanks!

[@justincrawford5992]

I'm not a very competitive player and have never taken the Amulet of Destiny. I play DoK and run Zanthar Kai 9 out of 10 games. I normally take the faction artifact on a Blood Wrack Shrine, Crystal Heart on a medusa, and Arcane Tome on another character because oops all wizards is fun.

[@at3969]

When your whole army has a 6+ ward, you don't really need the Amulet of Destiny.

[@VinceVenturella]

Fair, although as said, DOK does have some of the lowest reason to take it. :)

[@justincrawford5992]

@@VinceVenturella That's why I wanted to clarify that I play DoK. I never did the math on it for characters with higher wounds. I'm always a rule of cool person when it comes to list building. You had some awesome examples of how to fix it and where it's busted.

[@VoltekCastles]

Maybe obstacles as far as movement could simply be. If a Unit moves across an obstacle each model in the unit can not be further than 6" from that obstacle after the move. Easier than the up 2 down 2 doesn't hurt infantry really which makes sense. Hits cavalry the hardest which makes sense to me. Obviously Monsters and Flyers would ignore I would think.

[@VinceVenturella]

Interesting idea.

[@ElrohirGuitar]

Nuzzlock? I have always played Magic or Age if Sigmar with self-imposed rules. Never use somebody else's list, play to the level of your opponents, don't use things that will upset your opponents, and use different lists all the time. It all boils down to: play for the fun of all, not to crush your fellow players and hear their lamentations.

[@VinceVenturella]

Totally agreed, but it can sometimes be good to have a system to help people out. :)

[@NapGod]

I like a lot of these suggestions. Even as someone who runs IronJawz, I don't mind mystic shield becoming harder. I do think a truly balanced comp would require battletome editing and best case scenario no warscroll editing. Otherwise, there's likely to always be a 60% win rate gargant problem. But, I also think we should make everything as Timmy as possible, and GW's terrible rule writing would be much less impactful if everyone decided to play narrative instead of matched, so maybe I should be exclude from participating in the conversation. You should launch VinceCon and test out several different comp packs.

[@VinceVenturella]

Future con coming. ;)

[@starslayer2438]

I totally agree on the need for a better set of terrain rules. Like the one that was mentioned in the video. Also, please remove/trash/ban all faction specific grand strategies and especially battle tactics. Faction specific battalions can stay though. They are fine as they are. As for save stacking, I agree that it is a problem. Devalues rend too much, which makes mortal wound spam feel mandatory. While better than the status quo, I am not a huge fan of your suggestion though. Yes, it prevents some models from being virtually unkillable by regular ( non-mortal wound) attacks. But it makes the rules a bit clunky and does not help against devalueing rend. My suggestion would be: 13.3.3 - A save roll cannot be modified by more than +1 or -1, with the exception of rend (this is an exception to the principle that abilities take precedence over core rules). Rend is applied after all other modifiers and up to its full value. That way, the +1/-1 limit is the same on all attack related rolls, hit, wound and save. Clean and elegant rules = good rules. And then it adds one single exception to save rolls by applying rend seperately and without being limited. Yes, with this, rend 0 attacks would still have no chance against rerollable 2+ saves, but rend matters cause even the lowly -1 brings it back to a 3+ save, even four +1 boni are stacked on it.

[@TylerEmerson]

I think we discussed how this seems like the most likely approach by the studio, if one were taken, but I fear it would go too far in the other direction, especially if these first 3.0 battletomes were an indication of the baseline of rend generally increasing. With that said, I think it is the other, clear potential option, which could be experimented with to see if it does go too far the other way. From a rules standpoint, it is simpler, cleaner…and that often wins out, but my sense is that it wouldn’t be better relative to the other approach we discussed. It’s definitely worth consideration, though. Appreciate your comment and clarity.

[@starslayer2438]

You two made some good points in the video. And I am aware that my choice would be more likely to require some points adjustments. It is just my inclination and personal preference to go with the cleaner rule, if there are multiple options. Great video, btw. Love watching those long talks while assembling some miniatures.

[@VinceVenturella]

As tyler said, it's the easiest fix, one of the challenges is that it would make shooting more powerful, which is a dangerous down-side in teh state of the game right now.

[@OpticFusion]

Busy building my Marshcrawla. Now I need to fit him in my list some how.

[@GaryP336]

My condolences:p

[@VinceVenturella]

You really do.

[@nathanhayes1836]

Hi, where did you guys get aos rules for the two warhammer underworlds harrowdeep warbands?

[@VinceVenturella]

In the app.

[@mwyler3390]

They want ideas huh? Well lets see. List building is a great design space. You guys talked about self imposed list restrictions, the subtractive approach. That inspired me to think in the opposite direction, in the additive version, where we are inspired to add to our list to do a thing that is orthogonal to the primary objectives. I dont know what johnnys think of that approach but my examples are too many to list here.

[@VinceVenturella]

It's interesting, I am going to be thinking about it myself. :)

[@adamjackson260]

Completely agree. I have problems getting in touch with the Owen Jackson. He is just a busy guy.

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, that's what you get with THE Owen Jackson. ;)

[@sebastiandodson189]

Great episode. I just started collecting iron jawz, how many pigs do you think I need? I was thinking 12 total.

[@VinceVenturella]

Always a dozen.

[@stevekoss1855]

I think you could make a fun format that is 1000 point limit , only able to bring one hero and all units must be msu. Something that contains faster games with less combos better suited for getting people into the game. Not sure if that’s it but it’s a start into what other formats could be.

[@VinceVenturella]

There is definitely something there.

[@ClockworkBananaMoon]

OK, so how about this one... A small change, but replacing most D6 rolls (not Battleshock) with 2D3 so the min is always 2 and you're more likely to average at minimum 3. Then, similarly, things like 2D6 Move could become 4D3, so the max is still the same, but we double the min in each case. Still swingy, but less frustrating.

[@VinceVenturella]

It would be a lot better for the damage tables, that's for sure.

[@thesaltyseagames]

The cool thing if you love the Underworlds models but prefer Warcry as a game is that 6 UW warbands just got official rules for Warcry in Germany. The English language versions should be out in November when the Barnes&Noble exclusives get released.

[@VinceVenturella]

Very nice. :)

[@Zand3rParkour]

GASP! Vince didn't call out the awesome new Skaven model being up for pre-order this week?

[@VinceVenturella]

I had mentioned it in a previous show, but glad to see it. :)

[@slainemacroth9360]

Mystic sheild is definitely the most powerful spell. Thats why I wait till last to cast it to try bait out unbinds

[@VinceVenturella]

Exactly.

[@paulp.8493]

Teclis watch and laugh

[@paulp.8493]

The most impactful. Not the most powerful.

[@josh5142]

chaos spider pirates

[@VinceVenturella]

Now we're talking.

[@OldManRogers]

The best VG RPG being of course Final Fantasy IV on the SNES :D Isn't a thematic army sort of imposed restrictions? Like old WFB all skink/no saurus host of Sotek/southlands type army, or Running Sacrosanct Chamber only SCE in 3E? Like old school a thematic Khorne army was just a chaos army not using the other gods units or magic. Now we have specific god-centric books which help balance these things (Khorne in 8E fantasy or 7E 40k would have been baaad) I think EDH spawned from the 'judge' format which was what TOs and Judges used to do after hours or between rounds, I think the idea was to use as many bizarre interactions as possible for the lolz. Finally in terms of 'scaling back your army' that Tyler mentioned, I think it depends, if you *have* to take a top meta army to have fun then there's going to be an issue with you or your meta, unless it's a tournament. Its sort of like taking a knife to a gunfight. I think one would want it to feel balanced and that both people have a chance of winning.

[@VinceVenturella]

Definitely different best RPG pick (if we're going back there, I prefer Ultima 4, playing as the sheperd of course). And yep, thematic armies are very much a self-imposed restriction. Agree on your final point.

[@ageofsigmarlistlab1706]

Pokey-man. I lost it hahahah

[@VinceVenturella]

Thank you, glad you enjoyed. ;)

[@joemagill4041]

The Universal Traits should just not be better than what shows up in battletomes and looking at the Stormcast book (where you will almost never take a Command Trait from that book and there is only 1 really competitive artifact) and the Orruk book that isn't likely to stop anytime soon. As far as self imposing limits to list building... I still think you risk making each INDIVIDAUL list more varied but then all lists in aggregate don't look more varied, they actually do the opposite and end up all looking the same. In my opinion, that variation between list is significantly more important than making each individual list more varied (especially where that risks making thematic/narrative/fun lists impossible to run). Oh, one more thing, battle tactics in battletomes just make the whole mechanic less compelling. Choosing 5 from 8 forces your to make difficult decisions and sometimes you won't have anything. Choosing 5 from 13 or more just makes it too easy to pick one you actually want.

[@VinceVenturella]

Totally agree on the battle tactics.

[@briangehring5190]

I honestly don't think save stacking is a problem, and in fact it has addressed a lot of the problems associated with 2.0. Your army is pinned in by an unkillable unit - teleport away, retreat out of combat, utilize flying units, walk over them (SOB). You can't kill an unkillable hero with +3 to save - focus on support heroes that cast mystic shield, play for the objectives, use mobility and shooting to kill the army around that unit. A hoard unit with no rend trying to fight and kill a Mawkrusha probably shouldn't be able to kill it, but what they can do is win the objective they are on and hold the monster until you can chant curse on it to bring it down. Save stacking has allowed players to bring cool, big models to the game without them just being taken off the board in the first or second turn and that makes the game more fun in my opinion. Winning the game isn't all about killing a specific unit or hero, so why is that the focus of the debate?

[@VinceVenturella]

Okay, so let me walk through this. THe issue isn't save stacking really, that's what we were getting to and why our suggested solution didn't involve removing it, it involved capping it at 3, because when you go to 2+ (especially if there are rerolls around), that unit can truly become unkillable (like 1000+ Rend 2, damage 2 attacks don't kill it, that's a problem). Now, this can be a problem of course if the unit is also an offensive powerhouse killing one of your units per turn (most armies can't withstand losing 10 units and still win the objective game and that is very possible for a mawcrusha or Archaon or something like that to do, especially with countercharge for IJ). So what we have here is the ability to combine unbreakable defense with top tier offense, that's a challenge. I agree with your points, save stacking is good when it allows a unit that is a 4+ or something to survive and go to 3+ so they can be tougher, I love it in that case, it's when we get to 2+ and ignoring all rend that we have an issue.

[@jjnumber10]

@Vince. what changes to your list are you thinking after the Translocate change? Great show as always x

[@VinceVenturella]

None, I think it's still great. :)

[@nickr689]

Save stacking is annoying but so is mortal wound spam. I was thinking mortal wounds should be limited to heroes or remove mortal wound to hit and make it mortal wound on wound rolls. It reduces the amount… potentially.

[@VinceVenturella]

Yes, this is one of the problems save stacking can lead to, the proliferation of mortal wounds.

[@nakedsnak]

Dark Souls I would argue is difficult but fair. There is a kick to skilling up. Age of sigmar can feel quite unfair at times, with restricted room for skill growth

[@VinceVenturella]

This is the challenge, properly walking the line between challenging and letting skill matter and making the barrier too steep.

[@noops9220]

69k subs... nice 👍

[@VinceVenturella]

Nice

[@Phalanx167]

Would be sick if GW is throwing a sick curveball with that Q2 lightning hex graphic and somehow giving us Thunderscorne

[@VinceVenturella]

It would certainly surprise me. :)

[@briochepanda]

Check out Arbitor Ian's idea for filthy casual play if you haven't for a self imposed format idea. Its for 40k but i feel it hits a similar sentiment.

[@VinceVenturella]

I'll have to check it out.

[@paulrobert5373]

Can you do a tier list or cohosts please?

[@VinceVenturella]

That's a solid show for sure. :)

[@Basil_Ghothickovitch]

I'm so worried about the future that I've even lost my appetite and sleep. About future of Warhammer, of course. Today I read the discussion "Should I start acquaintance with 40k with Horse Heresy?". Such an argument is not worth it, because the books of Heresy were written to show "what was before" and how it became what it is in the 40k now. But what does GW do? I don't understand. Creating Heresy as a separate "universe" now? So that everyone sits in their echo chamber, so that to get acquainted with Heresy you don't need to know anything about 40k, even about the existence of this? After all, this has been happening for a long time with the Warhammer Age of Sigmar. For many (very toxic) people, this doesn't exist and is completely ignored. Like fo some people hate Primaris and ignore them. It all depends on whether the GW will show the connection between the past and the future as a chain of events or will prefer to "stand with the suffering" without reminding them of their "pain of loss" (sarcasm here).

[@VinceVenturella]

I suppose time will tell.

[@Pennydude99]

Going back to the 2+ ward save trigger on final wound for Amulet, maybe a caveat is added so that once it triggers, the hero can't be healed anymore?

[@VinceVenturella]

I wouldn't even be worried about it honestly, because it would be more controlled.

[@tanzmanz3469]

Would you ever do a primarch or legion series sir?

[@VinceVenturella]

Probably not, my interest in 40k is not deep enough to do that justice.

[@deerspirit7560]

Between sons and ironjawz I'm honestly worried about the fun of the game going forward. Armies that tend to play as "I push my models forward, you make or fail a dps check" and that's it aren't great for the health of the game at all imo. It's bad enough with the crazy powerful monster heroes and gods running around, but I feel like more and more armies are just being added to the list of armies I don't enjoy playing against

[@VinceVenturella]

I think IJ are a better experience, as they do still need to actually play the game (i.e. engage to win), but I completely understand where you're coming from. :)

[@jocelynsiouville8499]

i will keep beeing mad about the fact that there is no rule for fight between levels (my daemon prince just being on top of another miniature thanks to ruined building)

[@VinceVenturella]

There shoudl be a volume rules clearly.

[@sirbobulous]

I have no clue how you beat Sons of Behemat at 1kpts. Unless getting lucky on the mission being one that has enough objectives their 2 megas can't sit on enough. Generating the damage output to kill one takes a lot of points and that often can't fit into 1k alongside the minimum battlelines and such. And this becomes doubly troublesome in doubles games where one side brings 4 megas... Yes, yes, 1k sucks, I am an awful human being for not playing 2k, Blah blah.

[@VinceVenturella]

Not at all, I don't play 2K at least 1/2 of the time like I've said. I play lots of 1 and 1.5K, its great fun. They are very tough at 1K no issue.

[@just_gut]

I think there might be value in making the 3 max of any one Battleline and 2 max of any one Non-Battleline a full rule I'm tentatively calling the Countdown rule. It looks something like this: 3 max of any one Battleline 2 max of any one non-Battleline 1 max reinforcement to each Battleline unit 0 max reinforcement to each non-Battleline unit I'm not familiar enough with all armies to know if this has any real impact or not (I find myself playing basically under these constraints already in my G-Lords army). If MSU turns out to be the best long-term list building strategy, it would have basically no effect, but it might be fun if it turns out non-Battleline elite units reinforced once is the competitively optimal build for many armies. Maybe it incentivizes different sub-factions or generals to shift an important unit to battleline when you would normally look at something a bit more optimal. EDIT: This wouldn't replace the rulebook maximum of 4 reinforcements across the army, it would just modify how much and what you could reinforce.

[@davidwasilewski]

Problem: this cripples horde armies that rely on msu to survive past turn two. I play Beasts of Chaos which is a horde, msu army. Battle line should be allowed in any number as they tend to be the weaker and more vanilla units. Agree that spamming can be a problem though. The 40k approach of ‘max 3’ of anything except core and transports would be ok with me.

[@just_gut]

@@davidwasilewski I mean, you know this is a for-fun, you-don't-have-to-do-this-yourself setup, right? It would be like saying "The problem with Commander is it is incredibly hard to mill out an entire table because I can only have one each of my combo pieces and everyone has 100 card decks". The purpose is to expand your army construction horizons by voluntarily taking on build restrictions. If it didn't change how you built your army, what would be the point?

[@VinceVenturella]

I think there are options here, good thoughts for sure. :)

[@ODA204SBD9]

What would your thoughts be on this change for Save Stacking? "After modifiers, your save cannot exceed your save characteristic"

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, thats basically what we were suggesting if you have a 3+ save, the key is the hard limit of +1 is already there, and when you're a 4+ or higher, it doesn't cause the same mathematical issues.

[@eltrumpeteer]

So as far as fixing amulet of destiny, what about making wards like how invulnerable saves work (or maybe worked, as I'm a tad behind). Namely, make armor and ward saves an either/or choice when rolling?

[@cmleibenguth]

The whole point of a ward save is to have some form of mitigation against mortal wounds or damage inflicted by high rend weapons. It's the same idea as Feel No Pain in WH40k.

[@eltrumpeteer]

@@cmleibenguth making it either/or would still protect against mortal and high rend. It just wouldn't be an after save anymore.

[@VinceVenturella]

That would have very significant consequences. My short answer would be the cascading effects of something like that would really require a total redesign of many game elements and at minimum, complete reevaluation of the points. It's not that it can't work, it's just that the system has to be built with that assumption.

[@eltrumpeteer]

@@VinceVenturella true. And as a Bonesplittas player, I would be sad to have what little I have left after the new book get even weaker. But it does seem like a possibility, even if it is a tough one to do

[@cmleibenguth]

On Save Stacking --- I disagree that it's a problem. It is one of the few ways of mitigating against an alpha strike on a lynchpin piece in your army. Given that Age of Sigmar is an "I Go, You Go" system where your opponent has an entire turn to alpha strike you (potentially 2 in a row via random priority mechanic), there is a reason this system with save stacking and a generic Amulet of Destiny (5+ ward) for everyone came into being. There were numerous armies via their allegiance abilities and so on who could handle this and many who couldn't. Having the save stacking and the amulet helps even the playing field in the meantime as armies are re-designed for the new system. In the past, I only spoke in chat, so here, let me elaborate on my reasoning a bit more. A lot of what I am about to point out is known to everyone, but bare with me as I don't think people are thinking about this information the same way. Your army has multiple resources: - Points in army creation - Relics - Spells - Prayers - Auras / Abilities (i.e. Castellant Lantern) - Heroic Actions - Command Points In order to stack a hero to have a good save (2+ or 3+) that also ignores most rend (-2 to -3) in the game, requires a significant investment of those resources at various levels to achieve, not to mention placement. By utilizing those resources for that save stacking, you are also preventing yourself from being able to use them to do something else (teleport a unit with a prayer or spell, make more units durable instead of just 1 if you're pressed on multiple fronts, etc.). Can you get, on some characters, a 2+ save that ignores the rend on even the Slayer of Kings (rend-4 if i recall)? Yeah. Do you know how hard that is? And how many times in a battle can you reliably get that level of durability? Very. Very high resource cost, some of which could be better used elsewhere. You have to have a wizard for Mystic Shield, at least 1 CP available for All Out Defense, you have to carefully time and know in advance to use Heroic Moment, and from there have a Prayer or Aura ability that adds yet another +1 to your save (likely from yet another hero, and also likely not the same one, barring Arcane Tome, that was casting mystic shield). Do you know how many points of your army through heroes (or potentially hero + relic) and CP you collectively had to spend for that 1 turn of super durability? At least a few hundred. A few hundred points of your army for that turn were dedicated to durability (as compared to 40k where it's just 10 pt or so Storm shield). That's in addition to the cost of whatever unit you are super boosting in durability. Which means, in the end, you have your 800 point super unit bouncing against what is effectively now also a 600-800 pt super unit via all the resources invested into its durability. (And if you want to reference someone like Nagash or Archaon who can do several of these things on their own, you do realize that part of the reason those models cost so much is PRECISELY BECAUSE they can do so many of those tasks on their own). Even with save stacking + the amulet of destiny. A point that was made in an earlier video was that, "this high number of dice, representing damage 1 attacks, should never be what is statistically necessary to guarantee the ability to take out this durable character." My counter point then, and now, is still the same. If your opponent has forced your hand such that you are only able to engage them on ONE FRONT, and it is the ONE front of THEIR choosing, with the ONE model / unit that they can super boost in durability (armor save stacking + a good ward save) with all their resources, and there is nothing you can do about it (no other fronts or units you can press on or threaten, no means of mortal wounds to bypass the armor save, unbinds to stop Mystic Shield, monster Roars to stop commands, etc) --- you were already losing the battle. You were outmaneuvered and outplayed. The fact that you can't topple their invulnerable wall is just insult to injury (the injury being you already lost). Alternatively, if you already threaten or control other points on the board, and are already winning on objectives, then the fact that they super boosted their last bastion is at best a nuisance. Okay, so you were not able to table your opponent. Big deal. Age of Sigmar does not have an invulnerable save mechanic like in WH40k. In WH40k, the primary method of getting an invulnerable save is to spend points on gear (Storm Shield). This mitigates the effects of dangerous weapons on your key models because even if the enemy is hitting / wounding on 2's (via high strength weaponry and other bonuses), they still gotta get past that 3++ or more often that 4++. Save Stacking, and any spell that puts Ethereal on one of your units, is effectively AoS' version of an Invulnerable save. The difference from WH40k, is that getting this invulnerable save requires resource investment from NUMEROUS places, some of which are very scarce and have highly competitive uses elsewhere, and isn't just some 5-10 pt upgrade on a single model. Yes, the opponent can effectively get a 2++ invulnerable save on a unit (via rend mitigation and having a base 2+ or 3+ save), but refer to the above --- how much in key resources did they have to spend (that now cannot be spent elsewhere) and invest in order to get that? And if they out maneuvered you to the point to where that target was your only choice of target (and you have no sufficiently viable source of mortal wounds to bypass that armor), then you already lost even before the saves were stacked. You lost by being outmaneuvered throughout the game and potentially even in list building. I think there is too much focus on the end effect and not on the process that leads to that effect, thereby preventing people from focusing on adapting their strategies. This is an objective-based game. Destroying the opponent's army, or at least key pieces, is part of winning but not the ONLY part of winning. (And while sufficient to help win, it's also not necessary)

[@VinceVenturella]

So a few points (small point, Archaon is Rend -2, there is no Rend 4 in the game and very little Rend 3). Okay, so let me walk through this. THe issue isn't save stacking really, that's what we were getting to and why our suggested solution didn't involve removing it, it involved capping it at 3, because when you go to 2+ (especially if there are rerolls around), that unit can truly become unkillable (like 1000+ Rend 2, damage 2 attacks don't kill it, that's a problem). Now, this can be a problem of course if the unit is also an offensive powerhouse killing one of your units per turn (most armies can't withstand losing 10 units and still win the objective game and that is very possible for a mawcrusha or Archaon or something like that to do, especially with countercharge for IJ). So what we have here is the ability to combine unbreakable defense with top tier offense, that's a challenge. I agree with your points, save stacking is good when it allows a unit that is a 4+ or something to survive and go to 3+ so they can be tougher, I love it in that case, it's when we get to 2+ and ignoring all rend that we have an issue. The chalelnge we have is that it isn't actually a large expenditure of resources in many cases. There are armies that have between 5-8 of these to hand out and though the game is objective based, you can often achieve this on units that are also top offense performers in the game. These are units cabale of destroying basically one unit each turn (even in the opponents turn) and are very to nearly impossible to bring down. Most armies can't compete on objectives when they are losing 10 units (or basically their army). And that's just one hammer, armies that have multiple capable of this sort of stacking and offense are out there. My issue is ultimately not with things that can save stack, there are many fun units that this can enable into the game. That's why our rule was limiting at 3, just making sure that we can keep things also somewhat vulnerable. Making units that are normally at 4+ or 5+ actually survivable is wonderful and should stay, I just don't like when you have units like the Knights of the Empty Throne for example that are 30 wounds and can basically threaten multiple objectives, move 22" each turn, retreat/run and charge and kill anything they touch (that isn't something save stacked in the same way with the same capability).

[@cmleibenguth]

@Vince Venturella I don't think the system needs to change because of a few outliers. (As for Archaons rend, doesn't matter to my argument if I didn't remember it, the point was a weapon on a powerful model with a lot of rend having all the rend ignored specifically through save stacking) I think the Outliers simply need to be identified and brought into line. Points adjustments for starters (i mentioned earlier the power houses like Archaon that are already very expensive) Second, removal of access to rerolls to any unit that can get (either base such as Kragnos or through save stacking such as anyone with a base 3+, like Varanguard) a 2+ save. As for armies that can get such an unrendable save (2+ or 3+ ignoring up to 2 or 3 rend) on multiple units a turn that are also power houses? I haven't seen an army with that kinda resources. The armies I have seen at best can get 1 unit like that 1 a round, some cases 1 a turn. The closest could be Iron Jaws with the whole give 3 units a command thing or Iliatha with 2 units nearby each other get the same command. Even those cases I think can be brought into line with the system. Easy example is that these cases may be the one work around of a command can be issued 1/phase to 1 unit / phase, but you still have to use a CP for each unit that gets it. Now we are back to scarce resource management. Unless they army build with skilled tactician, relics, and battalions with strategists (which removes access to other relics & bonuses and increases drops), then most armies will still only have a few CP a round. And the big CP farms tend to lack these great Anvils or the ability to make multiple of them a turn super durable. And whether the unit is durable and dangerous simultaneously is irrelevant. Points adjustments. Scarce resource investment into 1 unit limiting what the rest of the army can do or withstand. From there, my argument still stands. If you are forced to only be able to engage on the 1 front of your opponent's choosing with their 1 super unit, and you had no ability to stop any of their buffs, then you already lost. If your army has no ability to position and withstand the onslaught through a combination sheer wound count, saves, positioning, and model count, then it sounds like either the list isn't strong (and is attempting to fight above its weight class) or perhaps the army needs a buff. As for their ability to make these changes to outliers? I mean, did you see how different the Stormcast book is from 2.0 to 3.0 start to 3.0 official book? No rerolls, numerous stat adjustments, and lots of point changes. They can do it if they know it's a problem or think it will be.

[@VinceVenturella]

@@cmleibenguth So let me explain why this isn't just points adjustments (though we are in alignment that units like Archaon should be more expensive) and I definitely agree with you on the removal of rerolls. Two things, first, this isn't sequestered to a few armies. Many armies that are going to be very powerful and tournament successful that are on the upswing can do this and many can do it without significant expenditures of resources. Stormcast, Ironjawz and S2D (the last doing especially well of recent with upwards trending stats) amongst others. Part of the challenge is it is indeed the new books that are becoming the worst offenders. The other challenge is you can't do this completely through points. You can't point units according to their maximum potential synergy, because with most of these abilities, it can move and jumpt to a host of different units every turn. SCE are a great example of this, you'd have to move the whole army up. This isn't about not fighting their super unit (their traditional death star), these abilities can hop from unit to unit or spread between a few units, meaning they can both push and absorb. When these armies run into armies that don't have insane DPS or MW, those armies are very much on the back foot and likely to lose. They can't achieve the objectives often because they can't actually push onto the objectives. Again, this isn't one unit, you can fix Archaon with points adjustments, you can't up every unit that can do this in S2D up 50 points, the army falls apart. Our solution of capping at 3+ means that things remain killable, but lesser units still remain viable and encourages the type of play you are discussing without the ability to create units that are cabale of withstanding an entire enemy army without damage.

[@cmleibenguth]

@@VinceVenturella If an army can spread a buff, such as +1 to save for instance, to multiple units that can easily be fixed by limiting it to just 1 unit. The old Staunch Defender for Stormcast that allowed +1 to save for everyone nearby? That's just completely gone. The main +1 save mechanism left is just the Castellant Lantern and that's just 1 unit. Further, you have to have said Castellant around (he's a nice and round 155 pts) and positioned such that he can buff whomever he needs without being left in the open. Part of what I mean by points by resource allocation isn't just the individual cost of a particular unit. It's also the cost of whomever is buffing the unit (such as a Lord-Castellant buffing some nearby Fulminators --- btw Fulminators likely are a bit too efficient and need a slight hike, but I digress). I am not advocating entirely just for pointing for max potential synergy, nor that an entire army needs a flat adjustment (going for outliers doesn't mean going for the entire faction, it means going for the individual unit --- for S2D that would be Varanguard). I am simply observing that there are other means of measuring how expensive a unit is when you consider the resources invested into it. This includes the points of OTHER models used to buff it. Also, there is bound to be a transfer function that we could calculate for Command Points, Relics, and so forth that gives a direct "points" related output of how much a Mystic Shield is, 1 CP for all out defense, etc. That's why I mentioned earlier, whenever an 800 point super unit bounces off of what is nominally just some 200 pt unit...well, once you account for all the bonuses accrued on that 200 pt unit, it's likely also effectively 800 pts as well (or nearly). As for running into armies that lack the DPS? Those are supposed to be armies that are able to tarpit through various means. If these armies can't then what happened is that the army list was either put together in a way that doesn't synergize well OR perhaps that army in general needs a face lift. I am definitely in favor of bringing in the outliers. I think it's possible to do so without being overly punitive (by pointing for max synergy) and without punishing the entire faction, even if every army has a few outliers. Further, I think it's possible to reign in the outliers without necessitating an entire system change. However, I don't think it's necessary to nerf the entire system of save stacking (nor, for that matter, the Amulet of Destiny) because a few armies need a radical redesign to be able to compete fairly (Gitz, Beasts of Chaos) due to lacking DPS or durability or model / wound count themselves. I think even the most reasonable system proposed in this video would still not fix the problem of armies that need redesigns and sub-optimal lists from any army (but esp. a sub-optimal list from an army that needs a redesign). In my opinion, changing the system from what it is would simply move us back closer to AoS 2.0 where ranged units would dominate too heavily. Aside from Nighthaunt, who have Ethereal, and maybe some of the more glass cannon armies (such as FEC), I don't think re-rolls should be in any army for armor saves. The S2D one seems to be an oversight. One that's easily fixable by just having it be another +1 armor save aura (and perhaps refining it even further to only +1 armor save aura for particular type of attacks --- ranged or melee). There's even an argument even for the two exceptions I listed to have their re-rolls limited and instead find other ways of enhancing their durability (easier ways to rez / heal models, a better deathless save, just lower points and go horde, etc). You don't redesign for the outliers (the too strong ones or the too weak ones) and minority cases. You reign the too strong ones in and you lift the weaker ones up.

[@gorganhorn6872]

Stop smokin or else papa nurgle gonna grab yo lungzzzzz

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, I am in trouble then. ;)

[@ZacharyEvans]

If I were creating a format I would do the following: You choose 2500pts pool Missions are given on registration Grand strategies can only be used once in each event Battletome battle tactics/grand strategies don't exist You build your list for each game and can only use each battalion once per list.

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, if you TO an event, you can do just that. :)

[@titansquirrel4408]

It actually made me sad when Tyler mentioned breathing into the mic cuz I made fun of him for it weeks ago

[@VinceVenturella]

We listen. ;)

[@Zand3rParkour]

Ok going through things: - Save Stacking: I'm still annoyed they chose to just wipe most rerolls for modifiers. Yes, modifiers are less rolls so in theory less time spent, but modifiers are more math and therefore more mental load. I think either fix you offer could work well, or just change the cap to A +1 modifier, not cumulative +1. - Amulet of Destiny: I'm definitely in favor of either the limit to non-Monsters or the cost-benefit assessment with the "2+, artifact destroyed on a 1". Maybe make it a 3+ w/perma fail on 1, if 2+ really is too powerful. - Nuzlocke: lol, I basically already do this and always have in my list building. I never take more than 2 or 3 of the same thing because I prefer to have a varied army, both for variety in gameplay and while hobbying (I do not understand how anyone can paint 120 of the same thing and maintain their sanity). I don't care for Megas. The only exception is the Battle Regiment restriction, but at the same time I never really built for low drop battalions in 2E so it wouldn't be a huge loss. My current lists w/Battle Regiment are still 4-6 drop since I like to include Warlord.

[@VinceVenturella]

Yes, with Nuzlocke, I am honestly not sure it's strong enough and honestly, it's how i often play as well.

[@mjpegasus1079]

It’s such a simple idea but capping saves at 3 outside of Warscroll prints is a superb idea. Initially I thought ‘but now my stuff dies quicker’ but then the light went in in my brain…’ahh but so does theirs, so now we have a game where skill comes into it more’. There also then a great conversation about the value in higher wounds numbers determining toughness and damage charts becoming more relevant again and Feral Roar having greater value.

[@VinceVenturella]

Exactly.

[@w4rmachine76]

Mortal Wounds are the answer to silly save stacking 🤷‍♂️

[@VinceVenturella]

They are, but we don't want a MW arms race and many armies don't have access to them in a reasonable amount.

[@lukask7887]

The amulet should be 6+ on 10 wound heroes imo. I dont think casting value is supposed to mirror power in all cases and it doesn't rly have to because of the limitations to spell casting.

[@VinceVenturella]

That could be a solution. I don't know if it doesn't match to that, then I am not really sure what it's supposed to represent. :)

[@MrUnreal9111]

Maybe the second stormcast warband is just the same as the first one but actually looking good?

[@VinceVenturella]

I love this. :)

[@morzorkatvfm]

*squint* I'm pretty sure that's not what you said about Aventis XD

[@VinceVenturella]

You're right, I was cooler on him, but I was the only one repping the Lord on Tauralon.

[@thomasd2851]

There is literally no other unit in the entire game where you go "oh but X, Y and Z doesnt work because Sentinels".. Like when it comes to discussing the power of artefacts, warscrolls or when doing list building. Can this unit just already get nuked please. Im really tried of having to devalue loads of things that could be fun because of one single unit in the game.

[@ryangoss7891]

Archaon? Nagash? Bow snakes with Morathi? Mega gargants? Sentinels need a fix for sure, but there are plenty of units that you have to consider that come from a single army when list building. "Devaluing fun things" is just what you have to do when metagaming.

[@VinceVenturella]

They are the ever present boogeyman, but Ryan is also right that there are other challenge units. :)

[@christophertaylor3770]

I suppose getting rid of reroll saves would hurt nighthaunts , but I don't think it saves them right?

[@VinceVenturella]

It doesn't (though if any army was going to keep it, they are fine to keep it)

[@battleready7214]

I think just getting rid of Amulet of Destiny is probably the best way to proceed. I think that Universal Enhancements should be either weaker or more situational. That way, you're encouraged to pick from your battletome in general. But maybe they'll be a good pick for particular lists, or for those who new to the game who maybe haven't purchased Battletomes yet.

[@VinceVenturella]

I was trying to keep the concept but weaken it so it's a better baseline, I agree with your larger point, they should be fall backs or occasional strat enablers, not defaults. :)

[@morzorkatvfm]

As for Amulet of Destiny: change it to Glowy Howsit. It's a 4+ ward but if you roll a 1 it breaks.

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, that's where we were going with the Archon ability. :)

[@morzorkatvfm]

@@VinceVenturella yeah I typed this right before you said it XD

[@christophertaylor3770]

could mystic shield not just be a invulnerable save from 40k something like 5+ at least?

[@derekgehring2771]

Mystic shield is a basic 5+ cast. Just make it a 6++ just like the bonus mystical terrain grants. It's not great, it's not bad, it encourages you to cast warscroll spells or lore spells.

[@VinceVenturella]

There are many options. :)

[@zandosdwarf-king]

Hard disagree on banning stuff because some ppl don't have it. Battle tactics are part of allegiance abilities. Sure some armies don't have them, but on the other hand, some allegiance abilities are awesome and some are terribly bad. Would you ban allegiances altogether because they aren't balanced? Moreover, various armies have different strategies, goals and methods in lore, and own GSs/BTs can reflect that. Also, bonus stacking and rerolling solution is quite simple really - finally ditch the outdated d6 and start using d10s. This way +1 isn't as much impactful. BTW, reroll saves shouldn't dissapear, they should transform - instead of rerolling 1s you get reroll 3s. Instead of full reroll you can reroll everything but 1s. This makes units with ridiculous saves unable to reroll, but gives chances to those with terrible saves that melt instantly. Lately I'm playing lots of Star Wars Legion, and I have made myself restriction, to never have heroes that haven't met or wasn't active at the same time (like, Luke never met Sabine Wren, so they can't be in same list, and Jyn Erso died before Luke joined rebellion, so they're out too).

[@VinceVenturella]

So many thoughts here, let me tackle them individually. 1) I am not suggesting we get rid of these because they are inequitous only. I am suggesting they don't belong because they are simply an incorrect design element. Allegiance abilities are part of the base expectation of the game, a way to make the army act and function in a unique playstyle as per it's identity (at least, ideally, that's what they are). These are nothing more than additional mechanical expressions of a core group of rules that don't need to exist. The beauty of the system for things like battle tactics or grand strategies (which is far from unique to this game, many games have this sort of mechanic), is when they are a shared, limited pool. By having a single shared pool, you can push it to a skill test where you have a good ratio over a series of games or rounds. The challenge to these existing is that they throw off the ratio and testing balance of them amongst all armies. In general, there is a value to having a balance of skilled mechanics that are universal and a set of unique abilities that are sequestered into an army to create it's identity. 2) I would love a bigger dice, but we have to live in the world of the real, and GW won't move away from D6s, the stats and dice are seen as indemic to the game itself. Sacrosanct. 3) Your reroll other faces on the die is very interesting, it's tough for some people to grok (it doesn't flow as naturally as the lowest and highest number which have a sort of sensibility). That isn't impuning your idea, it's quite good, it's just not as easy for some people to grasp, they are going to see "3" and think so I get "3 or less", it doesn't have the natural easy mental flow, but that's always the challenge with some really good ideas. 4) Love your self-imposed restriction, that's fantastic.

[@iskiebae]

I am reminded of the old AP system from 3rd Ed 40k. There weren't save modifiers on weapons. You either got an armor save or you didn't based upon the AP of the weapon vs your armor save. I think there's potential for that to work here

[@VinceVenturella]

That was an interesting system, it was where I started playing 40K. :)

[@paulp.8493]

I love this show, watch all of them, however it get get ridiculous when Vince and co push their ideas on how the game should be. For example save stacking is a problem that you need to solve by list building and how you approach the game: you can unbind mystic shield, you can kill support heroes, you can play in the combat+shooting phase so that it gets harder to spend cps everywhere etc.. It is ridiculous to mention >= +3 save when it can be done only in few lists, and then those lists lack other things. Getting back to the Rock paper scissors discussion then. Anyhow... good to trigger these discussions I guess, not good to push extremely strong pov...

[@cmleibenguth]

Agreed I think rather than rework a more complicated version of the system, or nerf it to where it no longer matters and the problems it was meant to address come back, it is better to just fix the Outliers. Armies that need an upgrade? Buff them. Armies that can overly abuse the system? Find a way to limit how they abuse it (removing rerolls if they still have any for instance) Stuff like that.

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, I mean, I am always going to push my ideas of how the game should be. I've been a game designer for about 15 years now, I have a very in-depth knowledge of this game and do this at least partially for a living. Deeper than that, I love this game passionately and believe in agitating for positive change in a positive way. When I see a challenge that the majority of the player base acknowledge, I look into it. That doesn't mean I always agree with it, sometimes large numbers of people can be wrong, but I when I believe there is a problem, I am going to advance the problem and propose potential solutions, but I in now way think I am the final arbiter of solutions nor do I have all the answers, I am proposing the best things I have come to after hours and hours of critical thinking and discussion. We don't take this lightly. Tyler and I had about 10 hours of discussion before this episode. Now, to answer your point - Sure, list building can handle some of that, but that's a poor fix. 1) Not all armies are capable of building such lists. 2) There are many armies that can't crack these things at all, literally the math has pushed into territory that it's basically impossible to kill that unit (not that it's necessarily the end of the world, the game is objective based, not killing based, but that can often get intermingled when to when, you need to remove a model/unit and simply can't, no matter what, even with most of your army at your disposal). 3) That relies on player knowledge, which is frankly, not a great solution. The vast majority of players are low information players. They wont' be aware of the solutions or the proper way to construct their lists. There aren't many Bill Souzas in the world. So those players will necessarily have a bad experience a higher percentage of the time and be turned off the game because it feels "broken" 4) THis can be done in a good number of lists. The proliferation of the ability to save stack and reach 2+ ignoring rend 2 is not uncommon and what's worse, it's sequestered into a decent but not all encomapssing list of armies that can use this ability to dominate when combined with their offensive capabilities (IJ, SCE, S2D all come right to mind, but that is far from an exhaustive list). In the end though, my goal is to foster discussion, not present dictum. That is why we often try to talk it through, so if people are disagreeing and providing me with good reasons and information, it will often change my mind.

[@paulp.8493]

@@VinceVenturella Thanks for taking the time Vince, great answer. That's because your voice is heard and your point of views repeated by those who don't have one (lots of players) that I feel sometimes just saying how you see things is like pushing your opinions - that's just the ransom of glory I guess. We can agree or disagree on how many lists are able to reliably stack saves like every turn in a non-manageable way for the opponent. I don't think there will be efficient builds to stack saves in SCE or StD - nothing we have seen really in competitive lists (No Astreia or Castellant so far for example...and I would not play them in a highly competitive environment). I am looking mostly at Sylvaneth or StD I guess for their best builds. But overall nothing in the top meta is really using intensely this mechanic. So it is not a real problem for me. In short, 1- and so what? we are not born equal in Aos and we will never be, and that should not be an objective, 2- it is fine not to kill a piece, it is an objective and movement game as you mentioned, 3- I will get back to that, and 4- I answered above. Again, we can agree or disagree I see it as healthy, just pushing my point of view now ;) The main point where I have a different opinion and see things conceptually differently is when you point to Bill Souza. You mention the mass of players with low information. These players if not playing competitively can just find their ways to play good games with ad hoc rules/adjustments. Job done. If they find a real problem and love the game they will just come up with the right solution. On my side, I see the game as a chess game, and thinking of how to deal with certain situations is the essence of the game. It starts with list building and true knowledge/understanding of the game. Then a great execution. There must be some level of complexity to handle, there must be space for brilliant play, for smart combinations and sequences. I see a lot of players happy their MK destroyed another unit, but I see equally lots of players proud of their decisions, amazed by other players moves, and constantly looking for playing smartly. A lot of satisfaction comes from here. A game can be designed for the mass and work good, however, there must be a true beauty (more or less reachable) in playing the game right and making great plans and decisions. Great memorable moments can be made by dice rolls in critical situations, but also how you handled certain situations, how your plan worked, or became a fiasco. I understand how you look at it, however, some of your suggestions feel like it would simplify the game a lot, too much (I remember when you advocate against pile in 6" or the 2,9", I disagree fundamentally). Bottom line I feel I am not playing the game just to push plastic models on a table and throw dice - anyone can do it and adjust rules from the base GW provide - I want to improve how I play and try to play it smart with (models I love) what's given and what's possible, even if I know I cannot always have a solution to everything. And the game, for the game, needs problems to solve. I think GW did a fantastic job solving lots of problems of Aos2 for the mass actually - there are still some issues (like the Amulet, I love your suggest of Ignax scale - or removing Lambient light from Lumineth and you dont need to fix Sentinels) but save stacking is not one in my opinion. Take care and looking forward to hearing more from you as always! :)

[@jamesn2830]

I think this game could be made a lot better by changing the format to alternate activation. The time spent waiting to play during your opponents turn is way too long and makes it easy to become disengaged from the game.

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, that is how combat is and I will say, since the change to 3.0, you're really not waiting anymore. Between heroic actions, rally, redeploy, unleash hell and monstrous actions at minimum, you are actually quite active in your opponents turn.

[@jamesn2830]

@@VinceVenturella perhaps I just need to get more games in to learn what I could be doing during my opponents turn

[@Xenaisthebusiness]

Str/tough & invulns

[@VinceVenturella]

What's that now?

[@arcus9590]

Let's make amulet of Destiny not work on models with 10+ wounds. We really need to hammer home the theme of it being the worst wound value in the game XD Honestly though I think I would be happy with it not working on monsters/ behemoth. I like things like Tauralons or Breaker Bosses that arnt exactly lighting the world on fire getting a big boost to survivability.

[@VinceVenturella]

It's a fair point.

[@mrigank3855]

definitely agree cycle shouldve been taken out if they were going for simplification. But why not just make Lord Arcanums , leaders of the sacrosanct, 2 cast wizards. theyre all like 200 pts, and now theyre utterly useless for that cost. I genuinely dont know why they kept cycle of the storm over spirit flask

[@VinceVenturella]

I have no idea, it's the one thing that stumps me, why not remove that ability (and the flask, it didn't need to be there either) and give them solid abilities. Just make them 2 cast and/or something.

[@beachedsam]

Amulet of destiny becomes 4+ ward against shooting and mortals on turn 1, 5+ against mortals and shooting turn 2, and 6+ turn 3, then gone. Give heroes survivability that degrades, makes them live into mid game to achieve their destiny

[@VinceVenturella]

That's fun!

[@chelseahouston4982]

Cool🌺 👍🍉🤣

[@VinceVenturella]

:)

[@nl3869]

Instead of saying “no more than 3+”. Why not say “you cannot modify a save better than your warscroll save after modifiers”. And just make Mystic shield “ignore 1 point of rend”. Really like that on the new petrifex elite, it’s good but not OP!

[@VinceVenturella]

Well, because there is great value in being able to push a 4+ to a 3+ or a 5+ to a 4+, we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The ability to do that makes some characters/monsters and units more playable (and tamps down on the shooting meta) without pushing into mathematical absurdity. The mathematical break point is at the 3+ to 2+ line.

[@ghostmutton]

The fact that a unit with a 3+ save (or better) can take a hit from a -2 rend weapon and still have a 3+ save (pretty easily) is total nonsense. I don't know how anyone can defend save stacking as healthy for the game. As you said, it just ensures that mortals are at a premium and anything that doesn't do mortals falls to the bottom. I unfortunately don't think the capping at 3+ solves everything. Much of the issue is countering rend and in essence making that stat almost worthless, which it would continue to be, it still isn't that much work to negate it. Now if we're also talking about removing METHODS of getting +1 save (like mystic shield), then it's worth further examining. Make Mystic Shield negate the single next wound suffered. For Amulet of Destiny, simply limit it to non-monster heroes.

[@VinceVenturella]

I like when you can save stack on things that are 4 or 5+, that's where I would defend it, it can make those things actually survive as opposed to evaporating, thats good and widens the playing field. When you're at 2+ ignoring basically all rend, that's just a clear problem.

[@inquisitorsz]

WARNING - WALL OF TEXT WILL CRIT YOU FOR OVER 9000 I wrote an essay. Sorry. Save Stacking I think it’s a problem, I think mostly only a problem at the high end (2+ and 3+). I like the idea of capping the bonus to +1 save for 2+ and 3+ save while 4+ and lower can go to maybe +2 or +3 save. I think it might need a bit more workshopping…. I don’t want a Rend arms race and I don’t want more MW spam, but we have to be careful to not make whole armies get wiped out on turn 1 either. Perhaps we need abilities that give -1 or -2 rend instead of +1 save? So you still sit on your 3+ or 3+ or whatever and that doesn’t get better, but you can shrug off a bit of the reduction coming your way. So it would be similar to current save stacking, but you wouldn’t get that initial improvement essentially. Someone would have to math out all the options and find out which one makes the most sense statistically. This isn’t an overly complicated mathematical problem. It should be solvable. Currently, the math shows how broken it is pretty easily. Amulet of Destiny I like the simple fix of restricting it to 9 wound or less models (or no Monsters). That fixes the main issue without changing the actual item. I like the suggestion of Ignax Scales or the Dark Eldar Shadowfield, but those should just be different items, just like we have the mirror shield. Maybe the next GHB can have 6 items in each enhancement category instead of 2-3. Part of the problem of “must take” items that set a benchmark is that the item pool is tiny. I don’t want the 64ish items we had with Malign Sorcery, because that’s just bloat. But a slightly larger pool, maybe 6 universal and 4-6 faction ones should be fine. Especially if factions continue to have sub-factions like different stormhosts/bloodlines or clearly defined army types like stormhost vs scions or shooting heavy vs melee heavy, there should be items and abilities that support each archetype. Terrain YES YES YES. agree on all fronts. Current terrain rules are just bad. 40k did a better job but suffers from a lot of unnecessary bloat. Just have the 4-5 main terrain rules and be done with it. 40K has 4 terrain types - Hills, Obstacles, Area Terrain and Buildings, each with a set of rules. That’s fine. Then they have 12 terrain traits (eg Obscuring), including 3 different types of cover That’s about 6-8 too many. So I love these ones you’ve suggested. I would probably also just remove the random mystical buffs to terrain unless TOs were going to make them fair/even…. It can be really silly if one side has all mystical and arcane while the other side has deadly everywhere. It’s dumb bloat that can also have significant impacts in a bad way. At best, ignorable, at worst, game breaking. Check out Star Wars Legion for great terrain rules. They can’t be completely copied and used in AOS because movement is quite different in Legion, it uses a modified version of True Line of Sight and unit types are much more standardised, but the general design philosophy is very straight forward. Nuzzlock/Highlander Self imposed rules or challenges are great in games/formats where you have relatively fast play and relatively low initial investment. Video games, card games, board games work well with alternate formats and rules. I think it would get tricky for something like warhammer where a game takes 2-3 hours and the initial investment to get an army purchased/built/painted is huge both in time and money. If you already own 3k pts of 3 different factions, then sure, you’re in a position to try different formats, and maybe that’s the case for most players, but I’m not sure that it is. In theory, I like all the suggested changes (eg limiting unit spam), and I do like the idea of some tournaments running with alternate rules, but I don’t know if an environment where everyone is making their own formats is sustainable. Perhaps the big TOs come up with some universal ones, which we’ve already seen before on various games and various editions…. 40K does it too with ICT having their own extra rules. One drop battalions are a separate problem, that comes from the auto selection of who goes first. I preferred the old version where you got +1 to your first turn roll (or something like that). But I also think it’s less of a problem these days outside of a few alpha strike problem lists. Perhaps the Battle Regiment should be fixed by making it a much smaller number of units…. So you could still get to a 2-3 drop but you’d need to fill out 2-3 Battle Regiments and do away with 1 drops completely? It would be interesting if more lists hovered around the 2-5 drop range rather than 1-2 drops or 10+ Right now it just feels like a single choice between an extra artefact vs a 1 drop, and that’s boring. That also means that the other battalions are pretty much useless (apart from maybe Hunters of the Heartlands). Rule of 3 and Rule of 2 - are fantastic and 40K already has that limit (I think). Spam armies tend to be strong, because people just find that one or two undercosted unit and spam it. The other way to potentially solve this is to do minor point/balance adjustments more regularly than 6 months. If your 15 Fulminator list becomes impossible in 2-3 months, then you might be less likely to drop all that time and money on it…. Or at least you’ll see much less of it at tournaments. Another solution would be scalable points costs, although that can be tricky/annoying mathematically (but army building websites/apps help solve that a bit). Eg, 1st unit costs 200pts, 2nd unit costs 220pts, 3rd unit costs 250pts. You can still take eel spam lists, you just pay a tax for spamming the one unit. Ultimately these self imposed limits just come back to player type to me. Some people will alway netlist, some will always power game, some will take only the things they own etc… So unless it’s forced by a Tournament Pack, I don’t think it ends up benefiting anyone. The people who would use these systems are already not WAAC or netlist players. They already build thematic or more rounded lists. I’m all for different formats and different list building restrictions - I just don’t think it being self imposed achieves anything in the grand scheme of AOS. Side note - even playing 1500pt or 2500pt or PtG formats can hit the same positive points you’ve discussed. Legion did something similar. The standard game is 800pts with a bunch of limits on the number of troops/elite/heavy etc units. Then they released a skirmish format which is 500pts with some smaller limits. It’s a very popular game mode and not just because it’s a bit smaller/quicker to play. One could also argue that the design theory behind having GHB seasons focusing on different aspects of the game is effectively a yearly (or whatever) format change. Maybe that’s not often enough? But this time we have monsters, like it or not, we have to consider that fact in most list building and during the game…. If next season focuses on caster or hordes or whatever, then that might be enough of a format change. Battle Tactics / Grand Strategies I think the problem with these is not that some factions get more… it’s how many of these are auto complete with zero interactivity, and therefore adding more would increase the occurrence of this problem. Battle tactics need to be better designed, period. They are not like Stratagems, but like Stratagems they do add a lot of necessary knowledge to the game. Although AOS already does that by having all the rules on individual warscrolls and very few common rules between armies/units (eg how every single shield in the game does something different). Battle Tactics function just like 40k Secondary Objectives which are really quite interesting (and generally much harder to complete…. At least to complete fully). But the AOS ones are too easy and offer almost no counterplay outside of Redeploy and to a lesser extent All Out Defence. I think the whole system needs to be reworked to be more like 40K, maybe not quite as complicated but adding more interactivity in AOS scoring is difficult because of the priority roll. Generally in 40k, you score after your opponent gets a turn to try and stop you, both in primary objectives and secondary ones. I wonder how AOS would play if we just straight up used 40K scoring rules/missions. That could be an interesting test.

[@VinceVenturella]

That is certainly an essay, but some great thoughts in there. The point about the 40 method is very interesting.

[@redsven7624]

Appreciate the discussion but until GW is committed to decent balance you are always going to be patch x or y hole. That will only happen once they are finicially motivated to do so. On the amulet it's yet another example of why universal artifacts are bad. Keep this stuff in army books and the item can then be tailored to specifics of the army. Simply dropping them though causes same issue that it hurts the have nots in general more. 3+ on the armour sounds fine. However, gets back to the real issue is you need a better design process to prevent these vast range of viability issues.

[@VinceVenturella]

We definitely need to see them refine their process, but even if they are now, we won't see it for a while.

[@theDackjanielz]

Unit coherency is awful. Rally allows everyone to regenerate like they worship nagash for some reason. Flee from WFB is back for no good reason, bravery was supposed to replace this. Mystic shield is something that was removed in earlier AOS for good reason. Monster/hero abilities are pointlessly complicated. Battalions added fun n flavour to the game, not all of them were broken ye know... Another round of shooting was the last thing the game ever needed. Command point system was perfectly fine, we never wanted OBs RDP system thanks. Points increase is good but without battalions its basically redundant. Reduced table size is good, about the only positive i can actually think of. Being interrupted during your turn with endless "GOTCHA" moments. New battalions and objectives clearly taken from 40k, never wanted that either. Difficulty curve is steep as hell now, no more casual play for me or new people. Game is simply a head ache to keep track of. Red strip look for tomes is ugly. To be perfectly honest i don't understand why 3.0 exists at all apart from as an excuse to sell another line of tomes and a big box to everyone again. Don't understand the point of any of these mechanical changes. If they wanted to make the game more fun and interactive then why not just do what the community has been saying to do since the dawn of time and try out an alternating turn based system like Warcry and Underworlds? i don't GET 3.0 at all. EDIT: Sorry for the large block of text m8 - but i just wanted to get my entire opinion out there once and for all.

[@VinceVenturella]

No, that's all fair, many of the things you described either don't bother me or I consider a positive, but if they don't work for you, well, there it is.

[@theDackjanielz]

@@VinceVenturella Which is a fair reply of course, you are a much better player and hobbyist than i am :) Although we can both agree on the save stacking bit - To jokingly quote yoda "Only the beginning, The war for rend, Age of sigmar has. " - lol.

[@VinceVenturella]

@@theDackjanielz I don't think it's better or worse, I completely understand your concerns, I think most to all are fair, it's just taste. :)

[@sirbobulous]

People's confusion around Cycle of the Storm is that they *want* it to actually be relevant and useful and *cool*. It's current form is just stupid and doesn't even feel good. The model would probably feel better just removing the ability because there would not longer be this block of text that just makes you disappointed.

[@VinceVenturella]

Yes, sadly, it should have been cut and replaced with something useful (or just make them 2 casts)

[@23nacho23]

It can’t possibly get any worse, I think AOS 3 sucks.

[@VinceVenturella]

I'm still having the most fun I've had, what's pushing you away?

[@tomb4610]

If I was a new player thinking about getting into this game and listened to one of these podcasts... I pack up and run. Vince shits on anything he can as much as he can lol... except for Chaos of course.

[@VinceVenturella]

I hope that's not true, I try very hard to be positive but honest. The game is really great, but we are always pushing for things to get better.

[@niilofriden4465]

.

[@VinceVenturella]

:)