9th Age 9th Age - Saurian Ancients Sneak Peak

To be fair, I think a lot of these were needed and balance wise I'm pretty sure we'll come down to about the right level, but...

The complete change in flavour upsets me. No longer are we the sneaky jungle predators, we're just big brutes that smash things in the face.
I've played with skirmishers so much now that I forgot we could try the melee option.

I also really hate the random combining of troops for balance purposes. Spearbacks and Salamanders aren't the same thing, they just need to be regulated. Given there are so many things with this issue can't we sort it out properly???

Also, will anyone actually take temple guard now? With only melee units in core I really don't think they add any value to the army now. And we've got so many S4T4 units now that it feels like we're becoming a really bland army with entirely S4T4 units unless we go for the monster mash.

 

I think the odds of this all going back is slim.
If you send me playtesting I csn pass it on though.

 

What annoys me aswell is the fact that all of this was done by one person?

 

I think that, if I came back to Saurian Ancients, this is the approach that I would take. I threw a quick list together last night that looked something like:

2x Ancient Stegadons (1 rare with Engine, 1 BSB with +d6 impact hits). With impact hits, S/T/W6 and Stubborn, I think they are still solid options.
Oldblood on foot with halberd, 4++, Steg helm, Divine Icon, HA. Solid character killer.
Lv3 Beast mage on a palanquin with the Hatred upgrade.
Both characters sit in 30+ Saurus with 3+AS, Spears and triple march banner. It's not as good as a Feral Orc horde... but its close.
20 Skinks waving a flag at the back of the board, accompanying an Iceshard Priest with a Scroll.
2x Skink Heroes on Terradons with 2+ AS and lances that can fly around getting up to mischief and charging exposed flanks (one has the Egg).

Which leaves about 300 points. I'd like to get a second combat unit in, but the list also needs chaff, so... I dunno. 100 points of Skinks/Swarms plus a baby Steg might work, or a small Cav unit with a flag.

What irks me is that the sneak peek talks about emphasizing combat units over the Cloud. But then it goes and increases the points value for Temple Guard, the only combat infantry unit over S4 in the book...

 

Pretty much my thoughts above. If all the good chaff is in Special, and TG are more expensive, why bother? Just take your big combat block in Core (Saurus), take your cheap chaff in Special, sprinkle with support units. If you want high S that can score, surely everyone is going to take Halberd Kroxigor instead, with Skinks or Saurus serving to provide ranks. What role is there for TG in all this?

 

Personally I still love 8th edition, it is a really fun game. 9th Age has been an roller-coaster ride of ups and downs for me. At first I didn't feel that I would go for it, then it became my front runner for a new game and now I'm not so sure. I might end up going back to 8th, but I won't make any decisions until I see the final product in April.

The fracturing of the community is very unfortunate. Very few people play 8th edition and very few people play 9th Age. AoS has a more significant following, though it all pales in comparison to what we had prior to the end times. Very sad.

That's a good point. It feels like we are being forced to play a specific play style with the changes made to our core. Since we have to take combat blocks in core, Temple Guard seem a bit redundant. They weren't all that powerful to begin with and now they get a nerf on top of that.

That is unfortunate. Personally I don't need all these things to reversed, I'm more interested in the top 3 gripes I listed earlier (and the Slann changes are still up for debate). Some of the changes were actually good, but poisoned skink skirmishers have to be moved back to core. Why are they so against anything that even remotely resembles a Skink cloud? Do all armies have to play in the exact same way?

That's the crux of it. IMHO (and some will definitely disagree), it was easier to accept a "poor" decision/rule/unit from GW than it is from the 9th Age folks. I find that I hold them to different standards because GW was the real owner/creator of the game, an true "authority" if you will. When a poor unit/rule change is rolled out my reactions seem to be:

GW: this sucks... how can I adapt to it or what else can I take instead?
9th Age: what gives these people the right to ruin my unit?

I'm not saying this is correct or proper, but that is the way it is.

 

As an army moderator I have been very quite and really only hovering above the discussion for a long time now. I knew this new update would be hard to swallow, their are really only nerfs to the army as a whole, sorry :/ But I also see that this is an entirely new team that has been developing these new rules and as such there is bound to be some difficulties in the progress. Pink mentioned that we pretty much has one guy on the job and that is a tremendous challenge on his part.

However! (Now this is no moderator talking) I feel as though this level of power that the board has set is way too low, it leaves perfectly interesting armies in a weird position, in that even though they are "perfect" they still need to remove such option for the sake of "balance". Balance is very subjective to the level of power that is desired and I do not buy this idea, that a low base power is better for balance, not when we are dealing with an adaptation of an existing game. Here the problem is that, if that should have been done, that is low power level to get a starting grid for balance, first we should have tried making ONE army with no differentiations, what so ever, and then moving on to recreate all the races/species of the old warhammer world, within this setup and balance them accordingly, to this base army.

 

Well, that seals it... I'm never playing "9th" edition...

 

I haven't given up on 9th age just yet. It will depend on the final book that will be released in April. I do think that they are going in the wrong direction with their definition of "balance". If they wanted a balanced army then they should have broken down every army at the start of the whole project and then start tweaking and buffing accordingly. Now its just "release nr 1, x unit is OP -> nerf" followed by a meta change which in turn comes to the following "release nr 2, x unit is now considered OP because it is an insta include -> nerf". I wouldnt be surprised that if there were a shift in the meta to run for instance, 2x 30 Saurus warriors with a spawning for core, that the next release would introduce a nerf to Saurus warriors. Or that Skink Braves with Poison are deemed too strong because everyone is taking them -> nerf.

They keep on nerfing the useful things until we are left with the same crappy stats all over. If it continues like this it won't even matter if you pick Saurus Warriors or Skinks. They will all be equally crap.

 

They should have gone the other way and just made everything OP
by buffing up all the weak units.

 

So why was only a single guy tasked with writing the rules for our army?

The great Slann has spoken... prepare the exodus. Unless our mighty Mage Lord is leading us to AoS... in which case I denounce him.

I still have a slim glimmer of hope, but that is fading rapidly as more and more info is released.

For sure, although now that we're hearing that things will likely not improve by then, I'm a bit worried.

Definitely too much change. Hopefully they can fix things before April's release and then things can settle down a bit. If they take out the nerf bat every time someone comes up with a powerful strategy/build it will get annoying really fast.

 

Yea it makes no sense that they only had one guy working on it. I would rather wait another week or two or not get a sneak peek at all if it means having it done properly. It seems that the guy who made it only listened to the non SA players. I tip my hat to him considering it is a huge effort and challenge to do it alone, but I feel he should have checked some more input from SA players. Most of the non SA players on 9th forums are just complaining about how strong SA are.

 

At least 9th Age required no investment on our parts. It will be easy to leave behind if it turns out poorly.

 

I hope that the 9th age team just listens to what people are suggesting, instead of bullheadedly shoving their changes through.

 

I wonder if those 8.5 guys ever finished ...
and those Warzone rules where looking rather promising...

 

I hope so too... but the million dollar question is... would you bet on it?

 

No

 

My thoughts exactly (unfortunately )

 

Is that true that AoS has a significant following? I honestly have no idea how well it is doing; whether it's being compared to say: WHFB in 2013 or 9th Age in today's scene. I live in an isolated bubble or floating alone in the void....with almost no opponents left available to me to play 8th Ed.

 

Personally I know nobody who has even the slightest interest in AoS. However if you go to a GW store you might find players around.