AoS How will you be balancing the game?

[Ixt]

My friends and I have agreed on what seems to be a decent balancing system so far. Its basic form goes as follows:

• x battalions (these are the combined warscrolls found at the end of armybooks),
• x warscrolls,
• x wounds per unit max,
• x wounds per army max.

From here, you can do all kinds of stuff:

1. Substitute magic terrain for x warscrolls,
2. Special warscrolls (special characters) count as x warscrolls,
3. Substitute x battalion for x warscrolls,
4. Max number of heroes/monsters/summoners/whatever warscrolls,
5. Duplicate warscrolls past the second cost an additional warscroll,
6. Specify your main army and take only x warscrolls from different armies,
   
7. Summoned warscrolls last three turns, then must be rolled for in order to stay alive (4+ then 5+ then 6+), etc,
8. Summoned warscrolls begin to 'crumble' when they reach half health (additional models flee during battleshock? -1 save? etc.),
9. Summoned warscrolls are limited to x per game,
10. Warscrolls may not be summoned if their original unit is destroyed (if there is one unit of temple guard on the table, once that unit is destroyed you may no longer summon temple guard),
11. Warscrolls may not be summoned if their original unit is below 50% (and so on and so forth),
12. Difficulty of summoning warscrolls increases as the original unit size decreases (100% = 0 modifier, 75% = -1 modifier, 50% = -2 modifier, 25% = -3 modifier),
13. Only x units equal to or greater than x numbers of models allowed (only 3 units greater than or equal to 50 models allowed, for example),

Plenty of ways to customize.

The four basic parameters up top have worked out for Empire, WE, DoC, Lizards, and TK. Haven't tried other armies just yet.

Anyway, I really like this as opposed to the point system, even if we're all still in the phase of fine-tuning things. While you could ignore the points system before to accomplish the same things, it's nice to have a structure that's been penned with that already in mind. Let me know what you guys think! Toss some ideas around. =]

As an example of this plan in action, I posted this as a response in the rules section:

Spoiler

In a two-player battle, lists would be structured something like this:

3 Battalions, 7 Warscrolls.

The parameters could be anything - which, to me, is the beauty of this system - but would typically adhere:

60 wounds per unit max, 580 wounds per army max.

The wound values are up to the players, but these two parameters are going to define each army's versatility. There ought to be some debate as to whether handlers/crew count as belonging to a unit. Since they can be targeted and apparently move freely, I'd think they're independent.

3 Battalions, 7 Warscrolls, 60 Wounds per Unit max, 580 Wounds per army Max - this ought to be a pretty enormous battle! Let's see:

So,

1 Skink Patrol
- Skink Chief (4W)
- 25 Skinks (25W)
- 25 Skinks (25W)
- 8 Terradons (24W)

1 Skink Patrol
- Skink Chief (4W)
- 25 Skinks (25W)
- 25 Skinks (25W)
- 8 Terradons (24W)

1 Saurus Host
- 1 Saurus Oldblood (7W)
- 50 Saurus Warriors (50W)
- 50 Saurus Warriors (50W)
- 50 Saurus Warriors (50W)
- 30 Temple Guard (30W)

1 Slann (7W)

1 Troglodon (12W)

60 Temple Guard (60W)

6 Razordons (18W)

20 Handlers (20W)

8 Ripperdactyl Riders (24W)

8 Ripperdactyl Riders (24W)

Some notes:
Pretty big battle here. Despite the example above, a 'normal' battle may have 4 or 5 warscrolls for every battalion - that would probably be pretty entertaining, and not as redundant as what I've posted. What I've got up there is probably a terrible list to field against something of equal size, but you get the idea.

Take 2: 1 Battalion, 5 Warscrolls, 40 Wounds per Unit max, 225 Wounds per army max.

1 Skink Patrol
- Skink Chief (4W)
- 40 Skinks (40W)
- 40 Skinks (40W)
- 8 Terradons (24W)

1 Slann (7W)

40 Temple Guard (40W)

1 Stegadon (10W)

1 Bastiladon (8W)

8 Ripperdactyl Riders (24W)

Battalions appear to be the meat of most armies - its 'Core' choices. Smaller battles could field just one battalion with more warscrolls, eliminate them entirely, etc.

I'd say that it's a good idea to shoot for at least 75% of the max wounds per army for the sake of Sudden Death, but I'll need to play it more.

A lot of players would likely see that 'wounds per army' as the new overall points value and fill it entirely, which may or may not be a bad idea. It's mostly there to keep single-model warscrolls/multi-wound infantry relevant so that people don't run away with absurd amounts of infantry, but still field a decent amount of infantry.

I might try implementing a wounds-per-battalion cut-off too, although that's a bit overreaching and redundant. Still, this method appears to work.

 

[The Red Devil]

I like the approach, and think this is what looks the most dynamic and promising so far.

Though how do we handle our Slann summoning? I assume those do not count towards the "max wounds" since they are summoned using magic?

 

[Ixt]

Thanks, Red Devil. In time, I'm going to come up with some templates for standard games. The "take 2" that I posted in the spoiler seems to work well for a mid-size/large game. The "take 1" is mostly unplayable, and only there as a benchmark.

Though how do we handle our Slann summoning? I assume those do not count towards the "max wounds" since they are summoned using magic?

I actually haven't tried out the Slann yet, so I'm not certain as to whether its summon ability needs modification. I would think that there's a trade-off at work here: we summon these units capable of destroying things, but they can trigger sudden death if we summon too many. Alternatively, do they disrupt sudden death if they cause us to 'catch up' with our opponent's model count? Even so, these summons are the same as 8th: 'free' victory points for our enemy. That's especially concerning, considering the very small number of models capable of being summoned. While we don't have to worry about Battleshock, our army is very Orky --- strength in numbers.

I'll think about it tonight, and get a game in with a Slann as soon as I can, sometime this week. I'd love to hear from anyone who's used a Slann to summon, and what they think. If it's too powerful, it could be something as simple as, "Summoning more than once per turn inflicts an escalating negative modifier on casting attempts," in order to keep that build mostly viable, or a much more direct, flat out, "Only five summoned units allowed per game," etc.

I just came up with these parameters off of the top of my head, if we do find that Slann summons (or all summons, anyway) are overpowered:

1. Summoned warscrolls last three turns, then must be rolled for in order to stay alive (4+ then 5+ then 6+),
2. Summoned warscrolls begin to 'crumble' when they reach half health (additional models flee during battleshock? -1 save? etc.),
3. Summoned warscrolls are limited to x per game,
4. Warscrolls may not be summoned if their original unit is destroyed (if there is one unit of temple guard on the table, once that unit is destroyed you may no longer summon temple guard),
5. Warscrolls may not be summoned if their original unit is below 50% (and so on and so forth),
6. Difficulty of summoning warscrolls increases as the original unit size decreases (100% = 0 modifier, 75% = -1 modifier, 50% = -2 modifier, 25% = -3 modifier)

Just curious -- how many other armies can summon, and can their summoners also cast three per turn?? If there's some variance amongst armies, this could be intended for ours. I'd check myself, but I just got back from Alaska and I'm busy sorting through/editing pictures.

 

[Slanputin]

My friend and I might just be using the points given in 8th and seeing how that goes. From there we'll adapt.

 

[Ixt]

My friend and I might just be using the points given in 9th and seeing how that goes. From there we'll adapt.

Points given in 9th??

 

[Slanputin]

Points given in 9th??

8th, sorry. Edited to reflect that.

We're going to do a few "play-tests" and see how well it works and adapt if needs be.

 

[Ixt]

Best of luck!

 

[Trociu]

Do you count warscrolls in battalions into overall limit of warscrolls? Can you say what would be good for good old 2500, 2000, 1500 points games?

 

[Ixt]

Do you count warscrolls in battalions into overall limit of warscrolls?

Presently, no. I don't, because from what I've noticed across armies is that battalions appear to be the new Core (to an extent). Because Core was a tax and everything else was fun, I opted to approach this design philosophy with the same thing in mind. In other words,

8th Edition: 25% Core, 75% Fun
AoS: x Battalion (Core), x Warscrolls (Fun)

It seems that the most interesting setup is to have 1 Battalion, and then 4-5 warscrolls for every battalion. Lizardmen are especially interesting - and this rule goes for a couple of other armies as well, the armies you'd expect - because we can field chaff as a Battalion. With that said, being able to field whole Battalions as a single "slot," allows models/their roles to remain 'rock, paper, scissors.'

The example I used in another thread was the Skink Patrol versus things that Skinks like to attack, such as monsters, lone characters, elite units, etc. If I field a Skink Patrol and get my 4 chaff units for a single slot, my opponent's 1 monster choice that he fields for 1 slot has one hell of an uphill battle. The same way that one unit of my chaff in 8th was 1/4 the cost of what I sent it after, one unit of this chaff is 1/4 the cost of that monster.

Of course, that's my choice in the list-building phase. Alternatively, I could field a Saurus Host to absolutely devastate whatever its individual units come across (because, frankly, the Saurus Host is one of the scariest vanilla units I've seen yet). That brings up another point:

It looks like Battalions were intended to be counted separate of warscrolls. Why? The question's best answered with a question: why take Saurus Warriors over Temple Guard? Personally, I'd never use a warscroll slot for Saurus Warriors... but if I field them as a Battalion, they're much, much more appealing. Like the chaff example, that rings true across armies: a lot of the 'inferior' choices in armies are available in battalions, through which you get a lot for a little (if you choose to operate under my proposed list-building setup). In our case, it's the Saurus Warrior.

So, my apologies for the long answer. The short answer is this:

In an effort to keep the "Rock, Paper, Scissors" feel of Warhammer, I do not count the choices within Battalions as warscrolls. Rather, Battalions take up a single "slot," just as warscrolls do. If I say, "2 batallions, 9 warscrolls," then that makes for 11 slots, roughly 20 units.

Can you say what would be good for good old 2500, 2000, 1500 points games?

I'm currently working on this. Right now, it looks like a 2000-2500 point game (remember, there's no wargear) would involve something like "1 Battalion, 5 Warscrolls, 40 Wounds per Unit Max, 225 Wounds per Army Max." The shorthand could be, "1 Bat/5War/40WU/225WA" or something. Haven't given that much thought.

In the case of Lizardmen, 1 Battalion and 5 warscrolls puts 9 or 10 units on the board, with roughly 33% of it being infantry (at minimum). Funnily enough, this describes quite a few of my favored lists in 8th.

I imagine that it could be scaled up and down from here.

To scale up, you'd probably add 1 Battalion and/or 3-4 warscrolls, and flex the wound cap. Again, I haven't tried that, but that's what it looks like. So, now you're looking at something like 16-19 units on the board -- a pretty large battle.

When scaling up WITH a battalion, you'd probably want to slightly increase the number of wounds allowed in each unit, and greatly increase the number of wounds allowed in each army. WITHOUT including a battalion, you could probably go without increasing the number of wounds per unit (maybe increase it a little), and, of course, you'd want to increase the number of wounds available per army, though less than with a battalion.

Hopefully that makes sense. The idea is that battalions carry a lot of wounds, and the benefits wrought by them make players want large units of said battalion... but you don't want players to get carried away and stack them too much, because it underpowers units taken via warscrolls. That's where the balance of wounds per unit vs. wounds per army comes in, so just keep them in mind as you're adjusting the scale of your game. After making a couple lists this way, you'll see how the matrix works.

To scale down, I'd start by dropping the Battalion and adding 1 or 2 warscrolls, again scaling the wound cap. That would be 7 or 8 units on the board, with probably 25% being infantry.

Of course, the beauty in all of this is its dynamism. You can base the size of the game around how much infantry you expect to see down, the number of individual units, and a desired wound cap. Figuring out a wound cap is something that both players will have to experiment with by deciding on the slots, making the lists, counting the wounds and adjusting from there. The wound caps are the most important part for overall balance, in my opinion. You can play with the battalion/warscroll count and still do fine. With experience, ballpark estimates will likely be enough.

I've got a book with 40 or so lists in it, but I'm away from home right now. The easiest thing to do would be to simply convert everything into AoS format, and see what I wind up with most of the time.

Sorry for the long answer! I'm an INTJ. >.>

 

[n810]

This just leaked over at BoLS.

 

[Ixt]

Heh, damn I'm good. ^_^

It is surprising, however, that they made no mention of battalions. I wonder if that's authentic.

 

[n810]

source: http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2015/07/age-of-sigmar-army-comp-rules-leaked.html

yea, I'm with you battalion should be a 1-3? kind of choice as well ...

 

[Slanputin]

Heh, damn I'm good. ^_^

It is surprising, however, that they made no mention of battalions. I wonder if that's authentic.

It reads as an internal memo, so I wouldn't be surprised if it's going to be a stop-gap before more involved rules come out.

Although, similarly, given the more simplistic route GW is taking it wouldn't surprise me if this was just it either

Guess I'm just ambivalent about it all

 

[little-myth]

I'm busy coming up with a slot-type system. Can only have so many of certain models etc.
I feel like a nasty person though; going with a full dragon army. Makes me feel like a child who wants to win
I will keep balanced with Lizardmen, even though the game is supposed to 'balance' itself from what I was told by the manager and co-manager. Might go full Chameleon Skinks.

 

[Scalenex]

The note looks faked to me.

 

[pendrake]

The note looks faked to me.

Could be somebody read a thread or two here, typed up a memo, suggested it to a beleaguered store manager and it finally ended up on Click Bait Of Lost Screenspace. (aka BOLS, I don't know why they leave off the C, least I can do is add it for them.)

We saw this notion here first, @Ixt gets the credit.

I do have one question, "triggering sudden death" ???

Say what?

In my copy of the rules that group of victory conditions can be obtained ONLY AT THE beginning, right after deployment and before anything moves. Am I reading it wrong?

 

[Ixt]

Nah, you're right. Just an early misread of the rules on my part. I jad a couple others too.

I reread the rules as I was setting up and playing my game - it was corrected.

 

[The Red Devil]

It is surprising, however, that they made no mention of battalions. I wonder if that's authentic.

I doubt that it is authentic, it is written in Notepad on Windows, and has the default filename "Untitled".

Even if this was a fast memo, the person would have changed the filename to reflect what it was, and not kept it Untitled.txt

 

[Ixt]

Yeah, no kidding.

... Wait, how do you even do that?

You could write the text in Notepad, then copy/paste it into an e-mail... but there would be no title header.

Alternatively, you could write the text in Notepad, and then save it... but the title header would reflect the file name, right?

Did this beautiful stranger name the file 'Untitled.txt,' attach it as such and then e-mail it? Weird. I'm doubting its authenticity, but we'll see. I mean, a shop owner did confirm it buuut...

 

[n810]

It's the automatic title when you pick "make new notepad file".