AoS Alternative Army Building: Composition Limitations

[ChapterAquila92]

Anyway, moving onward.

Kharadron Overlords

I have to admit that there's not much going for the sky-dorfs other than airships and steampunk marines. With that said, in some respects they don't need much else.

Characters: all KHARADRON OVERLORDS HERO units.
Infantry: Arkanaut Company
Skirmishers: Endrinriggers
Support Infantry: Grundstok Thunderers, Skywardens
War Machines: all KHARADRON OVERLORDS WAR MACHINE units
Allies: all DISPOSSESSED, IRONWELD ARSENAL, FYRESLAYERS, and STORMCAST ETERNAL units

Limitations:

• You may not have more Skywardens units in the army than you have Arkanaut Company units.
• No Skywardens unit may have more figures than the smallest Arkanaut Company unit.
  
• The total number of wounds invested in Support units may not exceed the total number of wounds invested in Skirmisher unit

Options:

• If the army's warlord is an Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit, Skywardens count as Infantry instead of Support.

I seriously considered making it a faction-wide requirement that at least 50% of any points spent on war machines must be spent on Grundstok Gunhaulers, but I think it'll be sufficient for a Barak-Urbaz army instead. Other than that, the subfactions will have quite a bit of access to war machines, which all of their SKYVESSEL units count as.

Barak-Mhornar
Characters: Up to 25%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 25%
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Barak-Mhornar army must include at least one AETHERIC NAVIGATOR.

Barak-Nar
Characters: Up to 25%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 25%
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: Grundstok Thunderers count as Infantry in a Barak-Nar army instead of Support. A Barak-Nar army must include at least one NAVIGATOR.

Barak-Urbaz
Characters: Up to 25%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 25%
War Machines: 1 per 500pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Barak-Urbaz army must include at least one AETHER-KHEMIST. At least 50% of all War Machines in a Barak-Urbaz army must be Grundstok Gunhauler units.

Barak-Zilfin
Characters: Up to 25%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 25%
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Barak-Zilfin army must include at least one ARKANAUT ADMIRAL, and may include 1 Arkanaut Frigate in addition to any War Machines it can normally take.

Barak-Zon
Characters: Up to 25%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 25%
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

I haven't included Barak-Thryng here in no small part due to it secretly being a Duardin coalition army.

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Kharadron Overlords: Barak-Thryng

The most "traditional" of the Kharadron, Barak-Thryng has closer grumbling ties to other Duardin factions as fellow grognards. As a result, a Barak-Thryng army tends to have a little more going for it as a Duardin army than one that is strictly Kharadron. Interestingly, this makes Barak-Thryng a unique counterpart to Tempest's Eye, which I will cover shortly.

Characters: all ORDER DUARDIN HERO units
Infantry: DISPOSSESSED Infantry, FYRESLAYERS Infantry, KHARADRON OVERLORDS Infantry
Skirmishers: DISPOSSESSED Skirmishers, FYRESLAYERS Skirmishers, KHARADRON OVERLORDS Skirmishers
Support Infantry: DISPOSSESSED Support Infantry, FYRESLAYERS Support Infantry, KHARADRON OVERLORDS Support Infantry
Monsters: all ORDER DUARDIN MONSTER units
War Machines: all ORDER DUARDIN WAR MACHINE units
Allies: all IRONWELD ARSENAL and STORMCAST ETERNAL units

Limitations:

• No more than 25% of all units in a Barak-Thryng army may be DISPOSSESSED, FYRESLAYERS, or IRONWELD ARSENAL

Barak-Thryng
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Barak-Thryng army must include at least one SKYFARER HERO.

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Cities of Sigmar: Tempest's Eye

A reversed Barak-Thryng sub-faction, albeit with Stormcast replacing Fyreslayers as part of the coalition force.

Characters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Characters, KHARADRON OVERLORDS Characters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Characters
Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Infantry, KHARADRON OVERLORDS Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Infantry
Skirmishers: CITIES OF SIGMAR Skirmishers, KHARADRON OVERLORDS Skirmishers, STORMCAST ETERNAL Skirmishers
Support Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Support Infantry, KHARADRON OVERLORDS Support Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Support Infantry
Cavalry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Cavalry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Cavalry
Chariots: CITIES OF SIGMAR Chariots, STORMCAST ETERNAL Chariots
Monsters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Monsters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Monsters
War Machines: CITIES OF SIGMAR War Machines, KHARADRON OVERLORDS War Machines, STORMCAST ETERNAL War Machines
Allies: all DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE, FYRESLAYERS, IDONETH DEEPKIN, and SYLVANETH units.

Limitations:

• No more than 25% of all units in a Tempest's Eye army may be STORMCAST ETERNAL
  
• No more than 25% of all units in a Tempest's Eye army may be KHARADRON OVERLORDS
• At least 50% of all units in a Tempest's Eye army must be FREEGUILD

Tempest's Eye
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: Up to 25%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 25%
Cavalry & Chariots: At least 25%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Cities of Sigmar: Misthåvn

This is one of the odd Cities that came out as part of the Broken Realms series, specifically the one focused on Morathi, and further expanded upon in one of the supplements for Soulbound. Functionally a flotilla of ships, Misthåvn is even more of a pirate haven than Anvilgard.

Characters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Characters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Characters
Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Infantry
Skirmishers: CITIES OF SIGMAR Skirmishers, STORMCAST ETERNAL Skirmishers
Support Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Support Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Support Infantry
Cavalry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Cavalry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Cavalry
Chariots: CITIES OF SIGMAR Chariots, STORMCAST ETERNAL Chariots
Monsters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Monsters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Monsters
War Machines: CITIES OF SIGMAR War Machines, STORMCAST ETERNAL War Machines
Allies: all DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE, FYRESLAYERS, IDONETH DEEPKIN, KHARADRON OVERLORDS, and SYLVANETH units.

Limitations:

• No more than 25% of all units in a Misthåvn army may be STORMCAST ETERNAL
  
• At least 50% of all units in a Misthåvn army must be DARKLING COVEN, FREEGUILD, DUARDIN, ORDER SERPENTIS, SCOURGE PRIVATEERS, or SHADOWBLADES

Misthåvn's main special rule is an interesting one: Underhanded Tactics - for every Darkling Coven, Freeguild, or Duardin unit in the army, you may set up an Order Serpentis, Shadowblades, or Scourge Privateers unit in reserve.

Misthåvn army composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 50%
Cavalry: Up to 25%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Cities of Sigmar: Har Kuron

Anvilgard post-Morathi. Unit-wise, It's practically a revival of WFB's Dark Elves as a whole in Age of Sigmar:

Characters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Characters, DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE Characters.
Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Infantry, DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE Infantry.
Skirmishers: CITIES OF SIGMAR Skirmishers, DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE Skirmishers.
Support Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Support Infantry, DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE Support Infantry.
Cavalry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Cavalry, DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE Cavalry
Chariots: CITIES OF SIGMAR Chariots
Monsters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Monsters, DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE Monsters
Allies: all IDONETH DEEPKIN units.

Limitations:

• No more than 25% of all units in a Har Kuron army may be DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE
  
• All units in a Har Kuron army without the DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE keyword must be DARKLING COVEN, ORDER SERPENTIS, SCOURGE PRIVATEERS, or SHADOWBLADES.

Har Kuron Army Composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 33%
Cavalry: Up to 25%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
War Machines: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

 

[Canas]

Except not really? Maybe it's just been part of the bad experience I had with Hail Caesar the one time I played it using my Britons, but I tend to find that game systems that define army composition by unit ratios (taken in blocks no less) tend to require more figurines overall, even when the focus of the game isn't on model count.

The issue with point-based limits is that even the cheapest units cost rather a large amount of points. Even skinks come in increments of 70. So solving a problem where you're 10 (or 20, or 30, or 40 etc.) points under/over budget is rather awkward cuz you have no options that will fill the gap. You'll constantly be under/overshooting. And this will be worse the more expensive units are as you'll be under/overshooting the limits by a larger margin.

A unit (or model) based cap doesn't have that problem as being 1 unit under/over budget can always be fixed by simply adding/removing 1 unit. So there's no under/overshooting. With the minor caveat that low unit count factions, like SoB might be a tad awkward, but that's kind of unavoidable as their armies consist of like 4 units in total. There simply isn't a whole lot to work with there.

On top of that, basing army composition on how many of what kind of unit you take is also how you get issues like this:

"No more than 25% of the army can be characters? You better have at least 3 units per hero to keep that number down."

Not really an issue as far as I'm concerned. In fact, it's kind of the situation I'd want to achieve where powerfull unit-types are concerned (not necesarly just heroes)

Also, an important factor to take into account is that a well-designed faction should naturally gravitate towards this (or a similar) number. For example I think most of the competitive seraphon lists floating around online already are in the 25-33% range for heroes.

As a final note, this does potentially mean that some factions need a (slight) redesign if currently they don't gravitate towards a "healthy" balance (where "healthy" is of course subject to the faction in question. A behemoth focused faction needs slightly different limits than say an infantry focused faction)

Given that you absolutely need to have a warlord to field a viable army in AoS, and the fact that some factions require specific units (especially heroes) to pull them through a game, this would be even more crippling than it absolutely needs to be.

Hence certain factions will need different limits. If needed you can even work with a flexible system depending on what kinda hero (e.g. minor support heroes get a bit more wiggle room) it is or what kind of (sub)faction your playing with.

That's generally why I've been assigning hero-heavy (be it points-wise or not) sub-factions higher caps on how many points they can spend on characters, and even then I would argue that you should be debating whether or not an expensive unit like the Stegadon Chief is worth taking over other options when list-building. This isn't anything new either - list-building articles on GW's website from 2004 had their authors mulling over the decision of wanting awesome models on the table vs having an effective tabletop army overall (incidentally, one of those articles was Lizardmen-related).

O true, it's always a balance. My point is just that with a pointbudget per role expensive units are inherently difficult to use as you can't easily fit them in. Like I mentioned earlier. And yes, there'll always be question of "is this expensive unit worth it". But for example that stegadon chief will cost you nearly 50% of your hero budget with the point-limits you've shown. At which point it better be freaking amazing, cuz it's not going to get a whole lot of support from other heroes.

I'm fairly certain a big part of it is due to GW pigeonholing themselves into using the archaic system they've been using since Warhammer Fantasy without really giving much thought into unit roles within an army. By comparison, for all of my begrudging of the current state of the game, 40k at least provides roles and unit slots that are much better defined, with nothing to say of how the detachments system is objectively better than AoS's battalion warscrolls.

Maybe they think if they use a similar system to 40K (or LoTR) it'll make the games too similar and they're afraid of that?
Which is a pretty bad reason, but it's the only explenation I can think of why they don't use the lessons from 40K/Lotr to improve the battalions in AoS.

 

[ChapterAquila92]

The issue with point-based limits is that even the cheapest units cost rather a large amount of points. Even skinks come in increments of 70. So solving a problem where you're 10 (or 20, or 30, or 40 etc.) points under/over budget is rather awkward cuz you have no options that will fill the gap. You'll constantly be under/overshooting. And this will be worse the more expensive units are as you'll be under/overshooting the limits by a larger margin.

Unless you're having issues filling up the point allotment in compulsory non-hero units (that is, unit types requiring at least X%), I see this as a non-issue. Again, scale-ability is what I'm after here, not unit access - if you want to play with big toys, plan on playing big games with them.

On top of that, remember that outside of the compulsory unit points tax and whatever hero you choose to be your warlord, there's typically no guarantee that you'll be able to max out any other unit type allotment before you reach the point limit for the army as a whole. Just taking my Ancient Britons for example, whilst their unit point allotment for cavalry & chariots (<50%) would allow me to take up to twenty 62-point chariots in a 2500pt game, after the minimum 50% infantry tax is paid in 10-point warriors (which I typically exceed by ~100pts) the remaining points also have to be shared with 6-point skirmishers (<10%) and ~100-point characters (<33%). As such, by the time the rest of the army is finally accounted for I'm only able to field 6 chariots (372pts) at most.

Same difference here, only that AoS has you paying for X-sized blocks of models instead of for individual ones (even when X = 1).

A unit (or model) based cap doesn't have that problem as being 1 unit under/over budget can always be fixed by simply adding/removing 1 unit. So there's no under/overshooting. With the minor caveat that low unit count factions, like SoB might be a tad awkward, but that's kind of unavoidable as their armies consist of like 4 units in total. There simply isn't a whole lot to work with there.

If we're just focusing on one set of limitations (i.e. a hero/non-hero unit ratio), this would be understandable. However, simply adding/removing 1 unit becomes less of a viable means of balancing a unit budget when additional unit limitations are implemented, on account of their requirements becoming more interdependent of one another. While I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there who would jump at the chance to jump through hoops to make it work somehow, that's a game in and of itself that many others would rather not play just to play another game.

Hence certain factions will need different limits. If needed you can even work with a flexible system depending on what kinda hero (e.g. minor support heroes get a bit more wiggle room) it is or what kind of (sub)faction your playing with.

If the past three thread pages were any indication, I'm far from opposed to this.

O true, it's always a balance. My point is just that with a pointbudget per role expensive units are inherently difficult to use as you can't easily fit them in. Like I mentioned earlier. And yes, there'll always be question of "is this expensive unit worth it". But for example that stegadon chief will cost you nearly 50% of your hero budget with the point-limits you've shown. At which point it better be freaking amazing, cuz it's not going to get a whole lot of support from other heroes.

No offense, but that should probably tell you everything you need to know about trying to field a stegadon chief in a 2000pt game, especially if what you say is true about most competitive Seraphon lists already allocating 25-33% of their total points value to purchase hero units anyway.

Setting aside the composition limitations I've been posting here, unless you're planning on packing as many cheap skink characters as possible alongside that stegadon chief, my personal recommendation on that front is to consider playing at 2500pts instead - that way you'll be able to comfortably allocate between 625-825 points (up to 3 stegadon chiefs worth IIRC) to purchasing hero units.

Maybe they think if they use a similar system to 40K (or LoTR) it'll make the games too similar and they're afraid of that?
Which is a pretty bad reason, but it's the only explenation I can think of why they don't use the lessons from 40K/Lotr to improve the battalions in AoS.

Maybe. Certainly not helped by GW deciding that things like strength and toughness should be a thing of the past and that every attack should behave like it's going into a human target regardless of the actual unit being attacked, either.

 

[Canas]

Unless you're having issues filling up the point allotment in compulsory non-hero units (that is, unit types requiring at least X%), I see this as a non-issue. Again, scale-ability is what I'm after here, not unit access - if you want to play with big toys, plan on playing big games with them.

The issue also appears when trying to stay under a particular limit, but fielding relativly expensive units (or combo's that require 2-3 units to start working and thus are "expensive"). For example, you've given several seraphon armies a 25% limit, which at 2000 points means a 500 point limit. A slann + Astrolith is already 415 points. There's very little you can still fit in there due to the point limit, and I wouldn't say you're trying to do anything impressive yet. This combo is kind of the bare-minimum core of a starborn army.

And changing the limit to say 33% doesn't necessarily solve the issue. Sure at 666 point limit you'd have 251 points of playroom, but that's still only going to be a maximum of 2 additional heroes (or well 3, if you want to "spam" priests for some reason) but only if you pick the cheap foot heroes. On the other hand something like slann + astrolith + EoTG would still be impossible despite it being a fairly straightforward and basic combo. All this is is 2 dedicated support heroes and 1 support focused behemoth hero. That isn't exactly the most impressive set of big toys to ever be fielded.

And if you want to focus on scalability, that's fine, but then what exactly is considered a "big" game?

On top of that, remember that outside of the compulsory unit points tax and whatever hero you choose to be your warlord, there's typically no guarantee that you'll be able to max out any other unit type allotment before you reach the point limit for the army as a whole. Just taking my Ancient Britons for example, whilst their unit point allotment for cavalry & chariots (<50%) would allow me to take up to twenty 62-point chariots in a 2500pt game, after the minimum 50% infantry tax is paid in 10-point warriors (which I typically exceed by ~100pts) the remaining points also have to be shared with 6-point skirmishers (<10%) and ~100-point characters (<33%). As such, by the time the rest of the army is finally accounted for I'm only able to field 6 chariots (372pts) at most.

Same difference here, only that AoS has you paying for X-sized blocks of models instead of for individual ones (even if X = 1).

What probably helps there is that you pay on a per model basis. This allows you much finer control over your army, and avoids a lot of the downsides.
It allows you to avoid overshooting (or undershooting) the cap by large margin, on accident, because you're not buying 200 points at once, but increments of 6, 10 or 62, for the three non-hero units you mentioned. If AoS did this too then a point-based cap would be much more acceptable (there's still the problem of the 200-300 point behemoths, but at least your infantry would be fine now )

If we're just focusing on one set of limitations (i.e. a hero/non-hero unit ratio), this would be understandable. However, simply adding/removing 1 unit becomes less of a viable means of balancing a unit budget when additional unit limitations are implemented, on account of their requirements becoming more interdependent of one another. While I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there who would jump at the chance to jump through hoops to make it work somehow, that's a game in and of itself that many others would rather not play just to play another game.

I don't think that would be an issue as long as you keep the individual limits relativly straightforward.

For example a rule like "At most 1 in 4 units is a hero" should be fine, as it allows you to bring infantry/cavalry/monsters/artillery/whatever to fill those other slots providing the necesary flexibility to make it manageable for the average player. Especially if GW would balance with limits like this in mind (and honestly.. I kinda expect them to do that given that it makes sense to design the army with ideas like this in mind to get the right style of gameplay... I mean, the alternative is to simply design random nonsense and hope it becomes a functional and interesting faction )

However, "For every hero you need 3 infantry units", would be problematic as then it becomes far too rigid to work around.

No offense, but that should tell you everything you need to know about trying to field a stegadon chief in a 2000pt game, especially if what you say is true about most competitive Seraphon lists already allocating 25-33% of their total points value to purchase hero units anyway.

Setting aside the composition limitations I've been posting here, unless you're planning on packing as many cheap skink characters as possible alongside that stegadon chief, my personal recommendation on that front is to consider playing at 2500pts instead - that way you'll be able to comfortably allocate between 625-825 points (up to 3 stegadon chiefs worth IIRC) to purchasing hero units.

See above example of a Slann + astrolith already taking up roughly 80% of your hero budget at 2000 points.
What exaclty would you expect people to field at 2000 points? Again, fair enough if you don't want people to field 3 stegadon chiefs at 2000 points, but with a 25% limit fielding 1 stegadon chief is already iffy as you only really have room for 1 extra hero (or well, 2 if you want to "spam" priests...)

As for most lists naturally gravitating towards 25-33%, a lot of them do. But heavy behemoth hero lists can gravitate closer towards 50%.

Maybe. Certainly not helped by GW deciding that things like strength and toughness should be a thing of the past and that every attack should behave like it's going into a human target regardless of the actual unit being attacked, either.

To be honest the worst of that is the fact that they decided that damage carries over.
Strength & thoughness not being there could at least still be salvaged to some extend with appropriate hit/wound/rend/save/etc. values, as well as the occasional special rule (e.g. "attacks targeting this unit have -1 to wound").

But damage carrying over results in the very weird situation where a 1/4+/4+/-/5 is exactly as effective as 5/4+/4+/-/1. And that kinda makes it impossible to actually distinguish between anti-horde and anti-tank weapons (outside of fullblown dedicated special rules).

 

[ChapterAquila92]

The issue also appears when trying to stay under a particular limit, but fielding relatively expensive units (or combo's that require 2-3 units to start working and thus are "expensive"). For example, you've given several seraphon armies a 25% limit, which at 2000 points means a 500 point limit. A slann + Astrolith is already 415 points. There's very little you can still fit in there due to the point limit, and I wouldn't say you're trying to do anything impressive yet. This combo is kind of the bare-minimum core of a starborn army.

And changing the limit to say 33% doesn't necessarily solve the issue. Sure at 660 point limit you'd have 245 points of playroom, but that's still only going to be a maximum of 2 additional heroes (or well 3, if you want to "spam" priests for some reason) but only if you pick the cheap foot heroes. On the other hand something like slann + astrolith + EoTG would still be impossible despite it being a fairly straightforward and basic combo. All this is is 2 dedicated support heroes and 1 support focused behemoth hero. That isn't exactly the most impressive set of big toys to ever be fielded.

And if you want to focus on scalability, that's fine, but then what exactly is considered a "big" game?

Fair enough.

Truth be told, I gave up on playing 2000pt skirmishes in Age of Sigmar a long time ago in favour of having at least another 500pts to work with army-wide. Like I said before, 25-33% of 2500 gives you between 625 and 825 points to work with (750-990 at 3000), as opposed to the 500-660 you're stuck with at 2000.

What probably helps there is that you pay on a per model basis. This allows you much finer control over your army, and avoids a lot of the downsides.
It allows you to avoid overshooting (or undershooting) the cap by large margin, on accident, because you're not buying 200 points at once, but increments of 6, 10 or 62, for the three non-hero units you mentioned. If AoS did this too then a point-based cap would be much more acceptable (there's still the problem of the 200-300 point behemoths, but at least your infantry would be fine now )

Oh, definitely! There might have to be some finagling with the points and what can be taken (command blocks were generally +5 points per champion, +5 points per standard bearer, and +5 points per musician), but I'd be hard-pressed to consider it a net negative if AoS actually pursued this method instead of its current "get multiple of box, no more, no less" approach to things.

On the topic of behemoths, 150-200 points was roughly the usual point cost range for an elephant in WHAB, so it's not far off the mark either for low-end behemoths. Artillery and war machines on the other hand... let's just say that there's a good reason why the point allotment for them in WHAB was usually intermingled with mercenaries and allies - before paying 5pts per crew member, ballistas were usually 32-42 points (requiring at least two crew to operate), while stone throwers were likely 62 points and needed at least 3 crew.

I don't think that would be an issue as long as you keep the individual limits relatively straightforward.

For example a rule like "At most 1 in 4 units is a hero" should be fine, as it allows you to bring infantry/cavalry/monsters/artillery/whatever to fill those other slots providing the necessary flexibility to make it manageable for the average player. Especially if GW would balance with limits like this in mind (and honestly.. I kinda expect them to do that given that it makes sense to design the army with ideas like this in mind to get the right style of gameplay... I mean, the alternative is to simply design random nonsense and hope it becomes a functional and interesting faction )

However, "For every hero you need 3 infantry units", would be problematic as then it becomes far too rigid to work around.

I'll consider it, but I likely won't get around to MacGuyvering something up with it for the time being.

To be honest the worst of that is the fact that they decided that damage carries over.
Strength & thoughness not being there could at least still be salvaged to some extend with appropriate hit/wound/rend/save/etc. values, as well as the occasional special rule (e.g. "attacks targeting this unit have -1 to wound").

But damage carrying over results in the very weird situation where a 1/4+/4+/-/5 is exactly as effective as 5/4+/4+/-/1. And that kinda makes it impossible to actually distinguish between anti-horde and anti-tank weapons (outside of fullblown dedicated special rules).

Damage carry-over is indeed a concern, but I would debate the case for 1/4+/4+/-/5 having the same damage output as 5/4+/4+/-/1 as a matter of probability - the first is an all-or-nothing single attack with a 25% chance of threatening with 5 damage, while the latter has a 0.0976% chance to achieve the same effect.

 

[Canas]

Oh, definitely! There might have to be some finagling with the points and what can be taken (command blocks were generally +5 points per champion, +5 points per standard bearer, and +5 points per musician), but I'd be hard-pressed to consider it a net negative if AoS actually pursued this method instead of its current "get multiple of box, no more, no less" approach to things.

Yeah, honestly I don't quite get why AoS does it this way. It's simple sure. But it does make it rather awkward to fit things in at time. You're constantly dealing with increments of a 100 or so points. So moving around some units to free up an additional 20 points to get a fancy hero or something is impossible.

On the topic of behemoths, 150-200 points was roughly the usual point cost range for an elephant in WHAB, so it's not far off the mark either for low-end behemoths. Artillery and war machines on the other hand... let's just say that there's a good reason why the point allotment for them in WHAB was usually intermingled with mercenaries and allies - before paying 5pts per crew member, ballistas were usually 32-42 points (requiring at least two crew to operate), while stone throwers were likely 62 points and needed at least 3 crew.

AoS keeps giving me the feeling that they want to go too grand, too spectacular. 300+ point units seem to be extremely difficult to design around when units that only cost a 100 points also exist.

Damage carry-over is indeed a concern, but I would debate the case for 1/4+/4+/-/5 having the same damage output as 5/4+/4+/-/1 as a matter of probability - the first is an all-or-nothing single attack with a 25% chance of threatening with 5 damage, while the latter has a 0.0976% chance to achieve the same effect.

Sure, the all-or-nothing nature provides some small differences. But the actual overall effect is generally somewhat limited.Especially as generally speaking you'll have multiple attacks to smooth out the curve at least a little bit (e.g. 3/4+/4+/-/5 is a lot smoother already).

But yeah, it could be used to create some high risk-high reward-type attack. But that's about the extend of it. Plus, GW never actually does that since the high damage weapons tend to have amazing stats. It's not like they ever put out attacks like 1/6+/6+/-/5. It's always stuff like 2/3+/3+/-2/5 or something. Which kinda removes the whole risk/reward difference.

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Yeah, honestly I don't quite get why AoS does it this way. It's simple sure. But it does make it rather awkward to fit things in at time. You're constantly dealing with increments of a 100 or so points. So moving around some units to free up an additional 20 points to get a fancy hero or something is impossible.

Given enough time, I'll probably get a spreadsheet set up for something like that.

One step at a time though.

AoS keeps giving me the feeling that they want to go too grand, too spectacular. 300+ point units seem to be extremely difficult to design around when units that only cost a 100 points also exist.

Agreed. I've also mentioned elsewhere that GW has some focus problems with who they're trying to appeal to - unusual units with wacky rules and gimmicks are often next to impossible to balance for competitive play, but the spectacle they offer is also what tends to draw in the casual players.

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Moving on, we've got a couple more Cities of Sigmar left to cover: Settler's Gain (Broken Realms: Teclis) and Excelsis (Broken Realms: Kragnos). Since I will need to cover Lumineth before touching on Settler's Gain, Excelsis will have to be the focus for now.

Cities of Sigmar: Excelsis

Characters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Characters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Characters
Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Infantry
Skirmishers: CITIES OF SIGMAR Skirmishers, STORMCAST ETERNAL Skirmishers
Support Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Support Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Support Infantry
Cavalry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Cavalry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Cavalry
Chariots: CITIES OF SIGMAR Chariots, STORMCAST ETERNAL Chariots
Monsters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Monsters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Monsters
War Machines: CITIES OF SIGMAR War Machines, STORMCAST ETERNAL War Machines
Allies: all DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE, FYRESLAYERS, IDONETH DEEPKIN, KHARADRON OVERLORDS, and SYLVANETH units.

Limitations:

• No more than 25% of all units in an Excelsis army may be STORMCAST ETERNAL
• At least 50% of all units in an Excelsis army must be HUMAN

Lore-wise, it seems that Excelsis is a very Freeguild-dominated City with a token Duardin population and a functioning naval port. Apart from that, it's also got a heavy prophecy theme.

Excelsis army composition
Characters: Up to 25%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 25%
Cavalry: Up to 25%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Lumineth Realm-Lords

Characters: all LUMINETH REALM-LORDS HERO units
Infantry: Vanari Bladelords, Vanari Auralan Wardens
Cavalry: Hurakan Windchargers, Vanari Dawnriders
Skirmishers: Vanari Auralan Sentinels
Support Infantry: Alarith Stoneguard
Monsters: Hurakon Spirit of the Wind, All LUMINETH REALM-LORDS MONSTER units
War Machines: LUMINETH REALM-LORDS WAR MACHINE units
Allies: all IDONETH DEEPKIN units.

Limitations:

• You may not have more Vanari Bladelords units in the army than you have SCINARI HERO units.
• You may not have more VANARI units with the AURALAN SENTINELS or DAWNRIDERS keywords in the army than you have AURALAN WARDENS units.
• The total number of wounds invested in Support units may not exceed the total number of wounds invested in Skirmisher unit

Ymetrica army composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 35%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: Alarith Stoneguard units count as Infantry in a Ymetrica army instead of Support. At least 50% of all units in a Ymetrica army must have be ALARITH.

Syar army composition
Characters: Up to 50%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 35%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

An elite sub-faction in a somewhat elite faction, Syar lives and dies with its HERO units, especially given the emphasis on high-quality equipment.

Iliatha army composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 35%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: At least 50% of all units in an Iliatha army must be either VANARI or AELEMENTIRI

Zaitrec army composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 35%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: The warlord of a Zaitrec army must be a WIZARD.

Alumnia army composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 35%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: At least 50% of all units in an Alumnia army must be either VANARI or SCINARI

Helon army composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: Up to 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 35%
Cavalry: At least 30%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: At least 50% of all units in a Helon army must be HURAKAN

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Cities of Sigmar: Settler's Gain

Settler's Gain is unique to the Cities in its association with the Lumineth Realm-Lords, hence my previous entry.

Characters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Characters, LUMINETH REALM-LORDS Characters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Characters
Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Infantry, LUMINETH REALM-LORDS Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Infantry

Skirmishers: CITIES OF SIGMAR Skirmishers, LUMINETH REALM-LORDS Skirmishers, STORMCAST ETERNAL Skirmishers
Support Infantry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Support Infantry, LUMINETH REALM-LORDS Support Infantry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Support Infantry
Cavalry: CITIES OF SIGMAR Cavalry, LUMINETH REALM-LORDS Cavalry, STORMCAST ETERNAL Cavalry
Chariots: CITIES OF SIGMAR Chariots, STORMCAST ETERNAL Chariots
Monsters: CITIES OF SIGMAR Monsters, LUMINETH REALM-LORDS Monsters, STORMCAST ETERNAL Monsters
War Machines: CITIES OF SIGMAR War Machines, LUMINETH REALM-LORDS War Machines, STORMCAST ETERNAL War Machines
Allies: all DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE, FYRESLAYERS, IDONETH DEEPKIN, KHARADRON OVERLORDS, and SYLVANETH units.

Limitations:

• No more than 25% of all units in a Settler's Gain army may be STORMCAST ETERNAL
  
• No more than 25% of all units in a Settler's Gain army may be LUMINETH REALM-LORDS
  
• At least 50% of all units in a Settler's Gain army must be either COLLEGIATE ARCANE or FREEGUILD

Reading through the rules and lore, it seems abundantly clear that Settler's Gain's special rules heavily incentivize taking Coalition units (particularly Lumineth) as part of a small yet elite army.

Settler's Gain army composition
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 33%
Skirmishers & Support Infantry: Up to 35%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
War Machines: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Fyreslayers

Our resident flaming berzerker lifestylers.

Characters: all FYRESLAYERS HERO units
Infantry: Vulkite Berzerkers
Skirmishers: Auric Hearthguard
Support Infantry: Hearthguard Berzerkers
Monsters: all FYRESLAYERS MONSTER units
Allies: all DISPOSSESSED, IRONWELD ARSENAL, KHARADRON OVERLORDS, and STORMCAST ETERNAL units.

Limitations:

• You may not have more Auric Hearthguard units in the army than you have FYRESLAYER HERO units.
• You may not have more Hearthguard Berzerker units in the army than you have FYRESLAYER HERO units.
• The total number of wounds invested in Support units may not exceed the total number of wounds invested in Skirmisher units

Options:

• If the army's warlord is an AURIC RUNEFATHER, Hearthguard Berzerkers count as Infantry instead of Support.
• If the army's warlord is an AURIC RUNEMASTER, Auric Hearthguard count as Infantry instead of Skirmishers.

As it is, it's rather hard to justify there being any real Skirmisher units in a straight-up Fyreslayers army, seeing as that's not exactly how the army plays. Auric Hearthguard are unfortunately their only real ranged option, and a bodyguard unit on top of that. This is primarily why the limitation on Support units is instead tied to Infantry for this army.

Other than that, yikes! This is definitely a faction that absolutely requires allies to be able to function. Their only other saving grace is their heavy reliance on HERO units.

Greyfyrd Lodge
Characters: Up to 50%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support: Up to 50%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: N/A

Hermdar Lodge
Characters: Up to 35%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support: Up to 50%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Hermdar Lodge army must include at least one AURIC RUNEFATHER

Lofnir Lodge
Characters: Up to 50%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support: Up to 50%
Monsters: 1 per 500pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Lofnir Lodge army must include at least one PRIEST.

With most of its emphasis on Magmadroths, there's not much to be said about a quasi-monster-heavy Lofnir army where the venn diagram of MONSTER and HERO units is practically a circle. It's also unfortunate that Lofnir also restricts you to using nothing but Magmadroths as your Behemoths in the normal roster profile, otherwise I'd consider adding at least one Magma Dragon.

Vostarg Lodge
Characters: Up to 35%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers & Support: Up to 50%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Vostarg Lodge army must include at least one AURIC RUNEFATHER

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Rounding out Grand Alliance Order, Idoneth are next.

Idoneth Deepkin
Characters: all IDONETH DEEPKIN HERO units
Infantry: Namarti Thralls
Skirmishers: Namarti Reavers
Cavalry: all AKHELIAN GUARD units
Monsters: Akhelian Allopexes, all IDONETH DEEPKIN MONSTER units
Allies: all CITIES OF SIGMAR AELF, DAUGHTERS OF KHAINE, STORMCAST ETERNAL, and SYLVANETH units.

Limitations:

• You may not have more Akhelian Morsarr Guard units in the army than you have Akhelian Ishlaen Guard units.
• No Akhelian Morsarr Guard unit may have more figures than the smallest Akhelian Ishlaen Guard unit.

Options:

• If the army's warlord is AKHELIAN, the army may include up to one unit each of Akhelian Morsarr Guard and Akhelian Ishlaen Guard in addition to any Cavalry it can normally take.
• If the army's warlord is ISHARANN, Namarti Reavers count as Infantry instead of Skirmishers.

Atlantean Bretonnians is probably the best description I can give of what Idoneth Deepkin tend to play like.

Ionrach Enclave
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers: Up to 25%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: An Ionrach Enclave army must include at least one WIZARD.

Dhom-hain Enclave
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 45%
Skirmishers: Up to 25%
Cavalry: Up to 45%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: At least 50% of all units in a Dhom-hain Enclave army must be either AKHELIAN or NAMARTI.

Fuethán Enclave
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 45%
Skirmishers: Up to 25%
Cavalry: Up to 50%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: At least 50% of all units in a Fuethán Enclave army must be AKHELIAN.

Mor'phann Enclave
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 50%
Skirmishers: Up to 50%
Cavalry: Up to 25%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Mor'phann Enclave army must include at least one SOULRENDER. At least 50% of all units in a Mor'phann Enclave army must be NAMARTI.

Nautilar Enclave
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 25%
Skirmishers: Up to 25%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 750pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Nautilar Enclave must include at least one TIDECASTER. A Nautilar Enclave army may include up to 1 Akhelian Leviadon in addition to any Monsters it can normally take

Briomdar Enclave
Characters: Up to 33%
Infantry: At least 45%
Skirmishers: Up to 50%
Cavalry: Up to 33%
Monsters: 1 per 1000pts
Allies & Mercenaries: Up to 20%
Additional: A Briomdar Enclave army must include at least one SOULSCRYER. At least 50% of all units in a Briomdar Enclave army must be NAMARTI.

 

[Canas]

Have you considered giving upper and lower limits for particularly annoying units?
Because most of those Idoneth enclaves can spam eels without any limits (they only have a minimum)

Also as an aside, I've noticed that you keep defining monsters as "all monsters without a hero keyword". You might want to reconsider that. People are going to use that as a loophole to bring more monsters than you're expecting

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Have you considered giving upper and lower limits for particularly annoying units?
Because most of those Idoneth enclaves can spam eels without any limits (they only have a minimum)

I'm merely following what I have available to me for information. Idoneth actually tend to be piss-poor when it comes to unit variety, so there's not much I can really do to rein in their spamming of what few units they have, especially considering that most of their Battleline conditions in AoS are not tied to subfaction but rather what the army's warlord is. The only thing I'd really be able to do is slap a minimum on Infantry instead, and even then you're still going to get eels after the tax.

Also as an aside, I've noticed that you keep defining monsters as "all monsters without a hero keyword". You might want to reconsider that. People are going to use that as a loophole to bring more monsters than you're expecting

How so? The "All [Faction] MONSTER units without the HERO Keyword" phrasing is specifically because all HERO units (MONSTER or not) are already accounted for under Characters and thus you'd have to pay for them using the amount provided for the army's Character budget anyway. Regardless, I don't see how much of a loophole this really is; most of the time, the Monsters allotment has really just been 1 unit for every X amount of points the army has access to, and stacking monsters through Characters is questionable when said monster units eat up the limited points very quickly anyway.

 

[Canas]

I'm merely following what I have available to me for information. Idoneth actually tend to be piss-poor when it comes to unit variety, so there's not much I can really do to rein in their spamming of what few units they have, especially considering that most of their Battleline conditions in AoS are not tied to subfaction but rather what the army's warlord is. The only thing I'd really be able to do is slap a minimum on Infantry instead, and even then you're still going to get eels after the tax.

True, I guess the infantry minimum is the only thing you can do. But imho, it is an important limit alongside hero minimum. I guess basicly every faction should just have a "at least X% of fodder" kind of limit to prevent true mono lists.

How so? The "All [Faction] MONSTER units without the HERO Keyword" phrasing is specifically because all HERO units (MONSTER or not) are already accounted for under Characters and thus you'd have to pay for them using the amount provided for the army's Character budget anyway. Regardless, I don't see how much of a loophole this really is; most of the time, the Monsters allotment has really just been 1 unit for every X amount of points the army has access to, and stacking monsters through Characters is questionable when said monster units eat up the limited points very quickly anyway.

To give an example:
Dracothians tail has 33% characters, and 1 monster/1000 points.
At 2500 points this could be:
- 2 Stegadons
- 1 EoTG
- 1 Skink chief on Stegadon

It's twice as many stegadons as you'd expect based on the monster limit alone. And it's nearly half of the entire army.
Seems like a lot for a subfaction that isn't supposed to be monster focused.

And while yes, this does come at the cost of the other heroes you can bring, it can still create problematic scenarios whenever the monster in question is powerfull.

 

[ChapterAquila92]

To give an example:
Dracothians tail has 33% characters, and 1 monster/1000 points.
At 2500 points this could be:
- 2 Stegadons
- 1 EoTG
- 1 Skink chief on Stegadon

It's twice as many stegadons as you'd expect based on the monster limit alone. And it's nearly half of the entire army.
Seems like a lot for a subfaction that isn't supposed to be monster focused.

And while yes, this does come at the cost of the other heroes you can bring, it can still create problematic scenarios whenever the monster in question is powerfull.

I'm honestly surprised that you didn't go for the triple Scar-Vet on Carnosaur with that.

It was debatable to consider enforcing, mostly because I've been flip-flopping between "Up to X%" and "1 per Y points" for Monster and War Machine units. It makes sense though.