Balancing AoS, hidden in plain sight?

[grimmas]

Lots of good stuff coming out. My apologies for takings a little while to get back I've had stuff on.

I think in respect of a lot of stuff direct unit to unit comparison is a little misleading and one needs to look at the whole faction. Yes Plague monks are a bit more economical but censer bearers aren't also there's a lot less synergy with plague monks than the Bloodreavers, for example, who surprisingly play very well with others. Also Pestilens only have one wound no save units that makes them much more vulnerable as a faction. The approach I'm proposing is about creating roughly matched forces rather than exact unit by unit balance. Yeah the system can be broken but only if want to do stuff that is obviously a bit pants.

It is quite interesting that the Dryads and Plague Monk are pretty well balanced at their costs, seeing as they were re released at the same time.

Think the comparison NSC makes with Bloodwarriors and Retributors does illustrate that it isn't perfect exactly but it is a whole lot better than the alternative. 10 vs 5 may not be entirely balanced but it is bloody close and more so than wound count, 10 vs 7, or model count 10 vs 10.

Of course a real problem may occur if GW only release some models as part of bundles as we've seen with the 40K campaign bundles. But I'm sure that can be worked out by a couple of reasonable people on the day.

This is also a a starting point there's nothing to stop evolving it further, you could add further restrictions around Keywords like I suggested with the percentages, you could try restrictions on the numbers of repeated Warscrolls. These are making it all a more complicated but the price does gives us a point to start from.

[nsc]

You mention that it's close, but not perfect, and you personally feel that it's better than by wounds, but I would argue that that's not good enough.

Wounds are damn good as a guideline, and you're proposing a guideline, one which has provably had a lot of trouble with the Hero choices as they're often priced much higher than troops. For example is a Herald of Khorne truly worth 10 troops? Are two heralds worth five paladins?

No, it's not even close.

Furthermore using price is an added level of abstraction, but one that is less accessible. For example, which price do you use? Should everyone use pounds or their local currency? Even worse than that is having to look up prices while setting up forces. If you're going off wound count you just look at your war scroll, you have those readily accessible, you need those to play, it doesn't take extra effort to find this information.

Sure if you use any comp system you'll need to lookup another set of information, but these comps are neatly organized into a pdf, the GW site is anything but tidy and I can tell you that I do not enjoy browsing it with my phone. If you told me to lookup the cost for all my models before starting the game I would laugh thinking you were joking, because it wouldn't be quick that's for sure, not with my phone.

I don't think it was a bad idea to examine this, however it's not fully formed truly, there's still no definitive price point for the lord-celestant on the dracoth, the prosecutors, the lord relictor, the mighty lord of khorne, the bloodsecrator, and the khorgorath. so right off the bat things fall apart, and they progress to a puddle quite rapidly when we start looking at things like witch-elves, bloodthirsters, heralds and even empire battle wizards..

[Erik Setzer]

the GW site is anything but tidy

Actually, I have to step in and put in a good word for GW there... When I first saw it I was a bit thrown off, probably because I was so used to the old style. I asked my friend who's a web designer (really into stuff like usability, cleanness of design, etc., did the redesign on our websites and continues to tweak them), and she said that it's a good design, and for someone who doesn't know the products she was able to find things pretty easily.

The mobile point, though... Yeah, you're right on that one. It's a bit clunky. But at least they tried to make it mobile-compatible.

[40kGamer]

Actually, I have to step in and put in a good word for GW there...

Aren't you forbidden from putting in a good word? We're supposed to stay in character.

[grimmas]

You mention that it's close, but not perfect, and you personally feel that it's better than by wounds, but I would argue that that's not good enough.

Wounds are damn good as a guideline, and you're proposing a guideline, one which has provably had a lot of trouble with the Hero choices as they're often priced much higher than troops. For example is a Herald of Khorne truly worth 10 troops? Are two heralds worth five paladins?

No, it's not even close.

Furthermore using price is an added level of abstraction, but one that is less accessible. For example, which price do you use? Should everyone use pounds or their local currency? Even worse than that is having to look up prices while setting up forces. If you're going off wound count you just look at your war scroll, you have those readily accessible, you need those to play, it doesn't take extra effort to find this information.

Sure if you use any comp system you'll need to lookup another set of information, but these comps are neatly organized into a pdf, the GW site is anything but tidy and I can tell you that I do not enjoy browsing it with my phone. If you told me to lookup the cost for all my models before starting the game I would laugh thinking you were joking, because it wouldn't be quick that's for sure, not with my phone.

I don't think it was a bad idea to examine this, however it's not fully formed truly, there's still no definitive price point for the lord-celestant on the dracoth, the prosecutors, the lord relictor, the mighty lord of khorne, the bloodsecrator, and the khorgorath. so right off the bat things fall apart, and they progress to a puddle quite rapidly when we start looking at things like witch-elves, bloodthirsters, heralds and even empire battle wizards..

I would argue that close is the best you're going to get with a GW game. Yes it's not fully formed the game is 6 weeks old it'll develop may be some releases will render it totally moot or it'll continue on the same vein and strengthen the concept. I still think it provides a far better guage than wounds which provides no means of acknowledging the difference better the most commonly occurring units in the game namely those with one wound. Model count is just totally inadequate

I did say just use your local currency (all be it I was a little tongue in cheek) it would probably be easiest and people do tend to have very little trouble counting money. I'm not sure what you mean about the website it's actually set out like an army list. Never had any trouble. Still that's up to you I'm not forcing you to do it. Though I'd probably lend you my phone if you needed to check😉.

I'm finding it quite successful if you aren't that isn't an issue just stick with what you were doing before. I've found at £70 Bloodthirsters are about right.

I'd also admit there's a bit of personal preference going on I really don't mind Heroes being more expensive I prefer them to be support to the troops rather than all conquering

[nsc]

Actually, I have to step in and put in a good word for GW there... When I first saw it I was a bit thrown off, probably because I was so used to the old style. I asked my friend who's a web designer (really into stuff like usability, cleanness of design, etc., did the redesign on our websites and continues to tweak them), and she said that it's a good design, and for someone who doesn't know the products she was able to find things pretty easily.

The mobile point, though... Yeah, you're right on that one. It's a bit clunky. But at least they tried to make it mobile-compatible.

Yeah using a desktop it's a wonderful site, as soon as you're jabbing at a phone screen it's a whole other animal.


As far as money comp though, there aren't prices for Prosecutors, Lord Celestants on Dracoths, Mighty Lords, Bloodsecrators, Bloodstokers and Khorgoraths, so if you want to play with these you're back to comping based on what you personally feel it is worth so it still comes down to a gentleman's agreement, it's not a bad idea, but it has problems as price point can come from other things such as mold creation and maintenance costs and some weaker units (like witch-elves) being overpriced and thus you didn't have a reason to take them before and now you're punished for wanting to play with them.

[grimmas]

Your criticism is fair. I'd keep it in mind though and give it a try a bit further down the line (or with a selection of the existing units). The wounds system does punish pretty much every one of the old "core" units in that they just not worth taking instead of the elite ones. Witchaelves are just down right poor in AoS, you'd only take them in a scenario that required them regardless of any of the "easy" balancing mechanisms we've seen or just in AoS neat as it were, as they are both pants and expensive. I wouldn't discount the whole concept based on that balls up of a unit.

[nsc]

Yeah and even with your daddywarbucks comp system (that's what I'm calling it now :P) witchelves are still garbage.

Clearly for a comp system we just need to measure things in terms of witchelves based on how easy witch elves kill them and how easy they kill witch elves

[grimmas]

Hehe I like it change approved.

I think at this point we can assume GW are just trolling Dark Aelf ( I'm going with it ) players with them.

[nsc]

It's because they're pretty good in bloodbowl, kind of