Balance Update - NEW Update, June 10

[Axiem]

There's a rules update incoming. Capping armour and points on behemoths, boosting armour for HW&S, infantry fighting in 2 ranks etc, etc.

Quote from someone claiming first hand knowledge. Image from event pack at the April Grand Tournament at Warhammer World. Beta rules all but confirms "something"!

Kind regards,

Axiem

[Sea Helm Jeff]

I'm for all the supposed changes.

Hoping for something that also addresses Brets on Pegasus, but I'll take what I can.

[JolofNar]

Were some of these the rumours that were infantry would fight in an extra rank, so spearmen 3 ranks normal 2. And hand weapon& shield gives +1 armour.
Seems like a good move towards balance. But does that help our frail elite infantry? Or does it make them comparatively worse?

[anorexia]

Wow! Great news. Tnx for sharing!

[Giladis]

They must have updated the event pack because in the one I have from earlier the "beta rules" part is missing.

[anorexia]

They must have updated the event pack because in the one I have from earlier the "beta rules" part is missing.

Yes. I checked the same thing.
This can be fantastic, or not xD Cant wait!!

P.S.
I hope they will add some comp rules. For behemoths and cav.

[Lorthermar]

I have great hopes for a balance update. I love playing dragons, monsters, cavalry and infantry. That is what is so darn cool about fantasy. Adding more viability to infantry without absolutely gutting stuff like dragons and other units is where I would love to be. But done with care... as example latest Faq regarding LLO is not punishing dragons as much as it absolutely wrecks chariots'
main source of output, impact hits. So here's to hoping it is done good and proper to make a game where we can field all troop types without cringing.

[Velmates]

Maybe I'm just stupid but where do you see these supposed changes?

[JolofNar]

The discord channel Speculation and Rumours has a lot of chatter about this at the mo. As far as I can tell its pretty uncomfirmed. There are also suggestions about some cap on Behemoth saves being capped (hopefully not too much, I totally got back into this to paint a whole bunch of Dragons and Creatures).

[Giladis]

The discord channel Speculation and Rumours has a lot of chatter about this at the mo. As far as I can tell its pretty uncomfirmed. There are also suggestions about some cap on Behemoth saves being capped (hopefully not too much, I totally got back into this to paint a whole bunch of Dragons and Creatures).

Limiting Behemoth armour saves to their natural armour would be a good thing so we can avoid 2+ saves on Dragons and the ilk.

[JolofNar]

Yeah, I feel like maybe if they were stuck at 4+ but could still have ward and regen that would be cool. Maybe they could add to it with magic item saves, maybe. Keeps Dragon Helm on Dragons?

[Jedra]

I hope they make it so you can decline a challenge from a behemoth without penalty. My first plan to deal with one was to dogpile on it and it failed because I couldn't refuse the challenge with my cavalry unit (no back line) and my poor champ became chickenfeed (griffon). It would be nice to be able to in princople combine forces from your little people to pull one down.

[Velmates]

I would even prohibit behemoths to fight in challenges except against other behemoths. You either bring the dragon for burning units (no challenge) or fight epic battles in the skies against other dragons. If you must challenge a foot-guy, at least dismount (a la LOTR Eowyn against the Witch-King).

[foreverthesceptic]

I would even prohibit behemoths to fight in challenges except against other behemoths. You either bring the dragon for burning units (no challenge) or fight epic battles in the skies against other dragons. If you must challenge a foot-guy, at least dismount (a la LOTR Eowyn against the Witch-King).

but then why would you restrict that to behemoths? Why not all mounted units? either way, not really a balance, but a major nerf to the unit and rendering them pointless. Not sure why there is so much obsession to nerf dragons, when there are mechanisms in the game to deal with them. What should be nerfed or rebalanced are Brets and Tomb Kings.

[Axiem]

Maybe I'm just stupid but where do you see these supposed changes?

In this case, this image was posted to reddit. It is then being discussed on the discord channels that cover rumors. Don't know anything about the guy who posted it, but the people collaborating it have some track record of getting things right.

Grain of salt as always.

Kind regards,

Axiem

[Tethlis]

Rumors seem to be:

-Behemoths capped at 500 points
-Behemoths capped at 3+ armor
-Infantry fighting in 2 ranks
-Return of hand weapon + shield armor bonus

Possibility that these changes would get a 6+ month trial period, possibly implemented fully based on player feedback.

All hearsay but certainly interesting.

[Turion Rilyaloce]

Rumors seem to be:

-Behemoths capped at 500 points
-Behemoths capped at 3+ armor
-Infantry fighting in 2 ranks
-Return of hand weapon + shield armor bonus

Possibility that these changes would get a 6+ month trial period, possibly implemented fully based on player feedback.

All hearsay but certainly interesting.

I really dislike nerf based comp especially something like this. Princes are given a 100 point magic allowance which would now be penalized for them being on a dragon. Why would a Prince on a Griffon or lower tier dragon be give more Magic Items?

Comp should be buff based in my opinion. Bring infantry up. This feels bad for me personally who was playing monsters even when they were terrible getting 1 shotted.

Now when they are good we have to suffer again. I’m fine with the armour cap, I really dislike the points cap, it also shrinks the sandbox for wacky builds that weren’t just tanky.

[foreverthesceptic]

Rumors seem to be:

-Behemoths capped at 500 points
-Behemoths capped at 3+ armor
-Infantry fighting in 2 ranks
-Return of hand weapon + shield armor bonus

Possibility that these changes would get a 6+ month trial period, possibly implemented fully based on player feedback.

All hearsay but certainly interesting.

I really hope Behemoth nerf is not true, but goes to show if you whinge enough things will change. Ironically nothing that would hurt GW's precious Bret and Tomb Kings.

[Jedra]

A 3+ armour cap doesn't make a *huge* difference. I hope the 500pt cap isn't true that's kind of an unprecedented and weird move if so.

Infantry in 2 ranks might make sense but plays weird with all the "fighting rank", "base contact", "supporting attacks" distinctions.

[bkevs84]

It was rumored before that a 25% cap on "units" could be a thing. I hope the broader approach is taken, don't limit just behemoths but all giant point denial blocks of nearly unkillable stuff.

I feel limiting stuff to a max 25% which is kinda what 500pnts is is not really an unprecedented manouvre when rare, special, heros all have total limits. Some units are 0-1/x.

I wonder if the only reason it seems like behemoths are being targeted is there is few units that reach 500 that are not. I feel that the 500pnts if brought in per unit is fine. It also stops spam units to a certain point. It will punish big angry lords on big monsters or arch mages on things but it should be viewed more as should 1 single unit take up more than 25% of an army... probably not...

You can still build a 2k army with 2 princes, each with a stat dragon, GW, plate, 2x opals, and a seed for a 3+/2++(×2)/5+++ (490pnts each).
You lose out on 30pnts of magic gear for ridding one of if not the biggest angriest thing in the game.

Chaos lords on a dragon are 480 before any gear.
Glade lord on a dragon 410 before any gear.
HE lord on a dragon 420 before any gear.
Dark elf lord on a dragon 410 before any gear.

Nobody would get to bring all things when you are riding an angry T6 thing.

[anorexia]

Limiting Behemoth armour saves to their natural armour would be a good thing so we can avoid 2+ saves on Dragons and the ilk.

Its only 1 dragon. Lets not panic xD

[anorexia]

You can still build a 2k army with 2 princes, each with a stat dragon

I think its 500 for all behemoths. When lord is on a behemoth, it becomes behemoth, co no more behemoths xD

[Giladis]

...

That really does match the gaming approach of the Dev studio that I used to interact with back in the day.

The most revealing sentence that showed me the difference between the overwhelming majority of gaming circles I interacted with in over a quarter of a century of gaming and GW's dev studio was "Why would I max out equipment/magic allowance on my character? Armour save of 1+ is good enough on its own."

To me at least so far ToW looks far more as a game managed for the taste of the designers than what WHFB 8th and 7th were as they spiralled ever further into an open sandbox army selection approach.

[Prince of Spires]

25% as a limit makes sense to me as a balancing mechanism. It creates a more natural limit on big monsters in smaller games. I think for many people facing a fully tooled up Star Dragon at 1500 pts, or even an almost fully tooled up one at 1000 pts is just no fun. Or at least, no fun if you're not expecting it. I would be in favor of such a change at least.

Capping their armour at 3+ makes no difference at all. It's already one of the more common SD builds as it is, meaning little to nothing changes. Always using the monster's armour sounds more sensible, and makes sense from a fluff perspective at least.

As for Challenges, why would you want to prevent a monster from ending up in a challenge? It's one of the primary ways of stopping one. Have him charge your unit. You challenge. He gets at most 5 overkill, for 6CR total, best case scenario. More likely is winning by 2 or 3. You either lose by a small margin and fall back in good order, or you actually win on combat res. A unit of spearmen, 2 ranks, banner, war banner, has 4CR and is likely to tie or win against a challenged Star Dragon. Removing that slight advantage simply makes the dragon more powerful.

To me at least so far ToW looks far more as a game managed for the taste of the designers than what WHFB 8th and 7th were as they spiralled ever further into an open sandbox army selection approach.

This is my feeling for the whole edition as well. A handful of designers who decided they wanted to play some WH Fantasy and simply designed a game they would love to play. A passion project they worked on and played during their lunchbreaks

[Jedra]

It was rumored before that a 25% cap on "units" could be a thing. I hope the broader approach is taken, don't limit just behemoths but all giant point denial blocks of nearly unkillable stuff.

THAT makes much more sense and is far more consistent with other army composition rules. Yeah for us it would functionally be the same as I can't think what else would top 25% in a 2k point list, but it's much less arbitrary

[bkevs84]

...

Well summed up. ToW does seem like a game that is played different in design at GW then the tourney scene or even in fun games. They seem to have allowed just enough free reign to bring what ever you want and as long as everyone agrees to bring a bulk of useless inf it all sucks together vs is there an issue with how inf interacts with center piece behemoths etc.


And if it is all behemoths and not units, I guess we will just pivot to one prince on star dragon and then a prince on a frost bird. To max our T6 elf lords.

Time will tell if it is a focused hate on behemoths or big units.

[Jedra]

As for Challenges, why would you want to prevent a monster from ending up in a challenge?

To be clear I'd like to be able to decline them but still offer them, precisely because static res is the only way to win reliably in melee against them right now. I think this is stupid for a bunch of reasons, not least that they can just... not charge into the big infantry block. I also hate the aesthetic of "giant monster charges in, absolutely destroys the leader, takes no wounds then runs away scared because of too many snacks lying around"

But more importantly i want there to be more valid counter strategies than just one. Much like in the shooting phase the big disadvantage of being a large target with tons of wounds and high toughness is that your enemy can focus fire on you, I think you should be able (if you can set it up, which is a challenge) to pull one down by a combined-forces charge of several units against them, OR by having a unit that can tackle it head on by having characters in it (probably both).

It SHOULD be that if I can get an equivalent pointd value of combat troops in to combat with them they pose some kind of threat. Like say charge a couple of chariots and some dragon Princes in at the same time, or a block of infantry with some key characters in it. But right now it's too easy to negate that threat by offering a challenge - as soon as they do it goes from 500pts vs 500pts to 500 vs much less and an obvious conclusion.

[Turion Rilyaloce]

It was rumored before that a 25% cap on "units" could be a thing. I hope the broader approach is taken, don't limit just behemoths but all giant point denial blocks of nearly unkillable stuff.

I feel limiting stuff to a max 25% which is kinda what 500pnts is is not really an unprecedented manouvre when rare, special, heros all have total limits. Some units are 0-1/x.

I wonder if the only reason it seems like behemoths are being targeted is there is few units that reach 500 that are not. I feel that the 500pnts if brought in per unit is fine. It also stops spam units to a certain point. It will punish big angry lords on big monsters or arch mages on things but it should be viewed more as should 1 single unit take up more than 25% of an army... probably not...

You can still build a 2k army with 2 princes, each with a stat dragon, GW, plate, 2x opals, and a seed for a 3+/2++(×2)/5+++ (490pnts each).
You lose out on 30pnts of magic gear for ridding one of if not the biggest angriest thing in the game.

Chaos lords on a dragon are 480 before any gear.
Glade lord on a dragon 410 before any gear.
HE lord on a dragon 420 before any gear.
Dark elf lord on a dragon 410 before any gear.

Nobody would get to bring all things when you are riding an angry T6 thing.

Percentage makes much more sense for scalability. A flat cap just tosses builds out of the window.

I still am a proponent of inclusive comp rather than punishment comp. If infantry aren’t good comparatively, make them good. Get peoples models off the shelf, don’t make changes that encourage some of them to put models back on.

[Anduil of Elithis]

It might not even need percentages, just limiting lists equally to one lord level character below 2001 points and then scale from there would already help. Suddenly you have to decide between fighty lord on large monster and L4 mages. We can compromise though with Archmages on dragons

[Velmates]

It might not even need percentages, just limiting lists equally to one lord level character below 2001 points and then scale from there would already help. Suddenly you have to decide between fighty lord on large monster and L4 mages. We can compromise though with Archmages on dragons

This would also prevent e.g. horse mounted prince and foot arch mage which should not be. I'm with those who vote against punitive comp. If you offer viable alternatives, the monster mash will go away by itself.