Balance Update - NEW Update, June 10

[Giladis]

I miss the days when having a combat lord prevented you from having a caster lord. Not to mention certain characters and mounts "eating" character slots. It made the game at least characters wise scale better than 8th ed onwards.

For me ideally, it would be both percentages and slots for all categories.

[Ielthan]

I miss the days when having a combat lord prevented you from having a caster lord. Not to mention certain characters and mounts "eating" character slots. It made the game at least characters wise scale better than 8th ed onwards.

For me ideally, it would be both percentages and slots for all categories.

Completely agree.

I think the character system from 6th and 7th worked very well. Also helped make lvl 2s and hero level fighters much more common than now, though that was also helped by the magic system.

[Prince of Spires]

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.

It would also still let you bring a prince on stardragon to a 1000pts game. That just feels broken to me. A 500pts character shouldn't really feature in a 1000pts game unless you agree with your opponent to bring it beforehand.

I miss the days when having a combat lord prevented you from having a caster lord. Not to mention certain characters and mounts "eating" character slots. It made the game at least characters wise scale better than 8th ed onwards.

For me ideally, it would be both percentages and slots for all categories.

Completely agree.

I think the character system from 6th and 7th worked very well. Also helped make lvl 2s and hero level fighters much more common than now, though that was also helped by the magic system.

The reverse issue perhaps was that it punished armies with cheaper, weaker lords and hero's. Of course you could give them a different nr of slots, but that very quickly makes the game even more complicated. But there isn't really a reason to be limited to the same nr of Elf Nobles as you are to Night Goblin bosses.

Though of course, with how magic works, it does give an advantage to an army that can spam cheaper casters. All in all, it's hard to balance.

[Ielthan]

True but I think that is an easily solvable issue, e.g. 2 night goblin bosses count as 1 character choice, similar to how bolt throwers and tiranoc chariots worked back then. Or just have different force organisation for different armies.

[bkevs84]

I feel the issue is not so much how many points or slots one can dump into characters it is the scaling of point costs, and right now there is no downside.

There is no cost beneift really its do i want to try something or a wierd combo. And hope for a lot of luck or..... fuck it dragon and sisters cause i can. It's either arch mage x2 or prince on a dragon and arch mage. And if I am thinking combat the prince on a dragon wins. It i am worried about point denial it wins, a 3+5++5+++ is really hard to beat when they also have S6 and a dragon platform. No if that dragon came at a cost to items maybe I can build a better x to solve y instead of z just beats everything.

Take the cost of items, some are auto includes, like the dragon Helm for 10pnts on a T3 elf lord/hero not an issue on a T6 elf lord or hero it is. Similar with the seed of Rebirth or any of our wards. Their value increases substantially when pairs with more wounds and more T. It's why dwarf lords suck to fight and big angry dragons. I don't think split profiles is the answer as nobody will take a griffon ever again.

Maybe the answer is selecting a big old mount decreases your magic item limit. I don't inownif you set the bar to behemoths, mounts that grant + (2?) wounds, large mounts, any character or mount that has or increases the T to 5+, etc. It could stop power creep and Mayne give heros on foot or horse back a chance vs lords on dragons, wyverns, griffons, etc. Or is it your 2000pnt army can take x% of magic items (like 250) including unit champs and banners have fun, or it is limited to x% of optional mounts and magic items.

Explain it by saying big mounts/monsters/dragon orges, eat a lot and upkeep is high, had to sell half your magic items to pay for the extra stat line, or the army only has so many fancy things.

You don't need to re cost any items or have two costing paths, just a simple check.

[bkevs84]

The use of the words optional mount was purposeful as it gives some hero riden monsters with stock mount options some space to play.

[Velmates]

I think, in order to truly balance upgrades and magic items etc for characters on foot, horse, griffon, dragon you need to go the route of T9A and account for different situations by grading units and characters according to size (models per unit and actual height). T9A tried, as most will know, to build a truly balanced game. In its course, they destroyed the flavor of each army and the soul of the game which is having fluff choices and casual games. At least from the perspective of a casual gamer like me. To be honest, the game is fine, even infantry, as long as your opponent also brings these sub-par choices. You will never get a tournament ready rule system from GW and -at least as I see it - this is totally fine.

[bkevs84]

I don't think it needs to go down the T9A route, but a few more thought out changes could help vs the 500pnt cap on behemoths. Is the issue dragons or thay there is no choice that makes sense other than dragons in some cases. I personally don't run one. Try to make other options work, maybe some inf. It's a slog but and lots of failure. Point for point, click and go type options will be the default.

Perhaps you are right Vel, after all it's a new game system simpler options will preval. Brets and TK are easy to use. Not sure what to do or how all the things work, the Lance or a giant brick with no modifiers to shooting can solve that. Play elves, well then have you heard the good word about T6 non split profiles, remember when your hero would get sniped off a dragon or your griffin would get shot out from under you. Well no more, place and run forward. This is very tongue in cheek, and with a lot of sarcasm

The skill gap exists as it did before, but I feel it is much smaller than before. As we all learn and get more games, we are slowly recalculating combats and how they work. A lot of us played in the whirl wind of death and crushed units in the previous editions. Elves were okay at times great at others back then.

We didn't have to play for a prolonged combat it was hit, smash, repeat. We and many other armies lost that. The trench warfare style of ToW is not a place for elves. So we pivot to things we do well dragons. We look and hope to build the hammer units of old but they just don't fair well.

We are like horse calvary on the western front in ww1, its not a place for us but we can roll some stuff if used correctly, or current heavy armour being mob'ed by fpv drones or atgms (fondly remembering when we used to slice thru stuff in ww2 or desert storm)

[Prince of Spires]

To be honest, the game is fine, even infantry, as long as your opponent also brings these sub-par choices.

Very much this. If you play the same game as your opponent, then the game works. Balance is very much an issue though if you play a random opponent or if you start the game with a different perspective of what to expect. Which makes it a bit hard, since everyone comes at this from a different perspective.

Overal, I have no issues with the balance or any of our units (except probably WL). I've tried them all and have little issue running infantry. However, that's the case because my regular opponent plays the same game. I know I can expect blocks of units on the table and stuff that looks great. We're not aiming for the strongest or most overpowered options, which makes it work.

Still, some semblance of balance would be nice. Sometimes you want to bring a big flying lizard and not feel like your opponent doesn't stand a chance.

[Velmates]

Also, very much agreed. It's interesting to see the various pov of players. I only have a small radius of gamers and I usually know what they will bring. I am totally fine to change lists accordingly and even discover some things I didn't know or haven't thought of. With HE it's totally possible to bring soft, fun, weird or very strong lists and everything challenges you differently. I discovered, at the end of the day, it's usually more of luck and skill that wins the game, not so much the list itself. However, the list sets the starting ground and difficult level and, importantly, is the only factor that can be changed reliably and discussed beforehand. That's why things in this forum revolve around it I would gladly see more actual battle reports and/or tactic discussion. So everyone could learn more of how to play and not with which to play (and whine about it).

[Francis]

I miss the days when having a combat lord prevented you from having a caster lord. Not to mention certain characters and mounts "eating" character slots. It made the game at least characters wise scale better than 8th ed onwards.

For me ideally, it would be both percentages and slots for all categories.

Agreed.

[Anduil of Elithis]

I actually agree as well. It would not fix everything, but I did like that restrictive system more than what we have today.

[Tethlis]

Hmm. Not sure I agree, regarding the Lord versus Archmage thing.

The reason for that is that magic isn't what it used to be anymore. Previously, even if you only had a Hero-level caster, you could still save all your Dispel Dice to stop 1 or 2 key spells. Things like Dispel Scrolls were also more reliable and accessible. And you could even have a decent magic phase using only low-level casters.

Now though, Magic is Level 4 or nothing. Even dispelling is basically impossible without a full on Lvl4 caster to contest your opponent's phase.

So if we only had a combat Lord or a casting Lord, I think the fighting Lord would be close to unplayable. Some magic phases are just too strong to let them go completely uncontested.

I'd rather see the magic phase get redesigned.

[Csjarrat]

Nah, all games workshop games are terribly balanced so you'd have some factions that are badly hit by it and others that really aren't penalised at all.

[Momo]

I am a bit torn on the debate, because I think the game isnt instantly "fixed" if you stop the dual-lordlevel-playstyle and you still need fixing if you go either route.

I prefer having only 1 centerpiece-character and that should define the rest of your army espacialy your other lords, but more in the realms of "if you have a lvl4, you can only go moon dragon on a prince" and vice versa.
Maybe "griffin or sun dragon max if you have an AM" but I would not want it to be Archmage vs Prince. We could have a different discussion if that dumb Dragonmage gets his act together and stops being impetuous or the Loremaster gets a substantial buff, but without these you dont have a real mid-tier you can fall back on, if you go maxed out AM or Prince.

If you would do anything like that and give lvl 1-3´s better ways to compensate we´d be talking, but now? No thanks.
There is already a debate about making magic items cost differently depending on the character you take it on, so why not give low-lvl mages that as well?
Have stuff like the lore familiar cost 10pts per wizard level or make dispel- and power-scrolls be cheaper or better on a lvl 1-2.
Make an item, for 1´s and 2´s that doubles your dispel-bonus (and increase dispelrange), maybe for the cost of losing a spell, so you can have a lvl2 dispel-mage with 1 spell, but +4 to dispel.

I think the game would suffer noticably if you just make it "Oh, you want a Prince? Then I guess you dont have magic. Sucks to be you"

[Turion Rilyaloce]

I am a bit torn on the debate, because I think the game isnt instantly "fixed" if you stop the dual-lordlevel-playstyle and you still need fixing if you go either route.

I prefer having only 1 centerpiece-character and that should define the rest of your army espacialy your other lords, but more in the realms of "if you have a lvl4, you can only go moon dragon on a prince" and vice versa.
Maybe "griffin or sun dragon max if you have an AM" but I would not want it to be Archmage vs Prince. We could have a different discussion if that dumb Dragonmage gets his act together and stops being impetuous or the Loremaster gets a substantial buff, but without these you dont have a real mid-tier you can fall back on, if you go maxed out AM or Prince.

If you would do anything like that and give lvl 1-3´s better ways to compensate we´d be talking, but now? No thanks.
There is already a debate about making magic items cost differently depending on the character you take it on, so why not give low-lvl mages that as well?
Have stuff like the lore familiar cost 10pts per wizard level or make dispel- and power-scrolls be cheaper or better on a lvl 1-2.
Make an item, for 1´s and 2´s that doubles your dispel-bonus (and increase dispelrange), maybe for the cost of losing a spell, so you can have a lvl2 dispel-mage with 1 spell, but +4 to dispel.

I think the game would suffer noticably if you just make it "Oh, you want a Prince? Then I guess you dont have magic. Sucks to be you"

Agreed. The way Level 4s are not properly separated from any other caster or character in price or capability would kill the rest of the choices.

[Prince of Spires]

I don't mind so much, but then I play a lot more fluff games. I do agree that magic this edition tends to be take a lvl4 or nothing. 2 lvl2 mages simply don't have the same impact. You'll get some spells cast, but not many.

I would personally keep the current % system, except that I would decrease the %. 50% is just way too much to be able to spend on lord level characters. If you reduce it to 25% lord level characters, and up to 50% characters in total, then you'd be getting rid of the worst excesses out there, while still letting people play around with different options. It would just mean you need to think about what you pick. You can't then bring both a star dragon prince and a lvl4 in lower points games. (even even a star dragon in something like a 1000pts game).

The 50% is a hold-over from The End Times (maybe I should rename it to the times that must not be named...), when they increased the % to that 50%. That's the main issue.

[Velmates]

Actually, I quite like the 25% lords, 50% heroes idea.

[TowerGuard]

Seen some people hoping for a blanket fight in 2 ranks. I think that is actually fundamentally bad for the game without some caveats.

It encourages units to have to be larger (more models) because you want to be able to absorb a few casualties so you can still take advantage of the rule. This in turn raises the cost of entry for newcomers both monetarily and effort because instead of buying, assembling and painting 10 - 15 models to make a unit, it's now double that amount.

My thought/hope for such a balance patch is that the 2 ranks fighting is conditional. For instance make it a ,"greatly outnumbered" rule where if your unit outnumbers the enemy 2:1 you can strike with an additional rank. Maybe this only applies to Monsters and Behemoths.

In addition, allow models that are stepping up to still fight but at -1ToHit or require 6s toHit or some other clever disadvantage. This keeps initiative relevant so striking first still helps but the opponent still gets to roll attacks. And you avoid those feel-bad moments where the opponent's fighting rank is wiped out completely and they don't get to even make a single attack back.

Finally there should be a cap of 10 models that can fight in the fighting rank so we don't have line hammer.

[Serathail]

It encourages units to have to be larger (more models) because you want to be able to absorb a few casualties so you can still take advantage of the rule. This in turn raises the cost of entry for newcomers both monetarily and effort because instead of buying, assembling and painting 10 - 15 models to make a unit, it's now double that amount.

I don't really see your point? In an e.g. 2000pt army there's going to be so many models, whether you make many smaller units or a few bigger ones fundamentally doesn't change that number. If anything this would be an argument against 2k+ point games or infantry needing many models itself, but nobody is forcing newcomers to play either.

In addition, allow models that are stepping up to still fight but at -1ToHit or require 6s toHit or some other clever disadvantage. This keeps initiative relevant so striking first still helps but the opponent still gets to roll attacks. And you avoid those feel-bad moments where the opponent's fighting rank is wiped out completely and they don't get to even make a single attack back.

My thought/hope for such a balance patch is that the 2 ranks fighting is conditional. For instance make it a ,"greatly outnumbered" rule where if your unit outnumbers the enemy 2:1 you can strike with an additional rank. Maybe this only applies to Monsters and Behemoths.

-1 to hit after step up would of course be an alternative I could get behind. Though it mainly fixes the issues on the defense imho while fighting in two ranks could also give the infantry some much needed punch when charging. If you get your shock cav tied up by infantry, the cav shouldn't be able to kill four times as many models and tie combat (that's the average result of 20 empire state troops (sword/spear & board) charging 5 silver helms with equal frontage and cost. The cost of the average slain models on each side is exactly the same. The former getting pretty much the best engagement it can hope for, the latter getting the worst and still almost winning). So monsters & behemoths really aren't the only problem, it's pretty much anything that hits hard enough on the charge and has more than 1 attack per base with a hint of toughness/armour.

Only being fight while doubly outnumbering an enemy skews the infantry usefulness even further towards chaff. The units which already get warband, horde etc. and arguably need the least help among infantry with the current rules.
Narratively swarming an enemy is of course a cool idea, but you could also say smaller more elite units should be able to fight in two ranks as well due to their superior experience/training.
Finally double outnumbering anything with infantry is pretty hard (the example above just barely manages it). Unless you mean double outnumbering as in literal models, at which point it would be always the case except vs other infantry, so you might as well write the rule as "fight in two ranks except vs other infantry whose tight formation prevents them from being swarmed, unlike the ranks of cav/chariots/monsters (as a lore justification)".

Those are my thoughts on the whole ordeal
Cheers.

[TowerGuard]

I don't really see your point? In an e.g. 2000pt army there's going to be so many models, whether you make many smaller units or a few bigger ones fundamentally doesn't change that number. If anything this would be an argument against 2k+ point games or infantry needing many models itself, but nobody is forcing newcomers to play either.

I don't think I articulated what I meant here very well. Starting over. It's the same problem, I think, that eventually killed Warhammer. 9th age had trouble attracting new players because of this too. The game starts getting too killy when everything fights in 2 ranks. Most units become approximately 2x more killy. So in order for me to absorb those kills, i need to make my units roughly 2x as big, so I can still strike back with a fully effective unit after casualties, etc.

Following this trend, even as a veteran player, if I want to try a new infantry unit out, it's tedious knowing that i need to paint and assemble blocks of 30+ of the same model for that unit to be competitive. It's boring too. And new players are turned off when they realize they need to do the same thing to make an effective unit. Newcomers tend to be more than happy/willing to assemble/paint 2 different units of 10-15 models each. It's less fun to assemble/paint 20-30 of effectively the same model/unit.

Yes you're right that in a 2k point game you'd have roughly the same number of total models assuming it's made up of mostly infantry but I'd much rather prefer the game encourages rules-wise 2 different and district units of 15- 20 models each rather than 1 unit of 30-40 to be effective. It looks better on the tabletop for one. Also it's easier for someone to then pick up 1 box of new models and feel they can get some utility out of it. I think this is why 40k does so well. I buy a box of 10 models and I can make an effective unit with those 10 guys. I don't have to buy 2 boxes of them if i don't want to and they're still effective in the game.

-1 to hit after step up would of course be an alternative I could get behind. Though it mainly fixes the issues on the defense imho while fighting in two ranks could also give the infantry some much needed punch when charging. If you get your shock cav tied up by infantry, the cav shouldn't be able to kill four times as many models and tie combat (that's the average result of 20 empire state troops (sword/spear & board) charging 5 silver helms with equal frontage and cost. The cost of the average slain models on each side is exactly the same. The former getting pretty much the best engagement it can hope for, the latter getting the worst and still almost winning). So monsters & behemoths really aren't the only problem, it's pretty much anything that hits hard enough on the charge and has more than 1 attack per base with a hint of toughness/armour.

Only being fight while doubly outnumbering an enemy skews the infantry usefulness even further towards chaff. The units which already get warband, horde etc. and arguably need the least help among infantry with the current rules.
Narratively swarming an enemy is of course a cool idea, but you could also say smaller more elite units should be able to fight in two ranks as well due to their superior experience/training.
Finally double outnumbering anything with infantry is pretty hard (the example above just barely manages it). Unless you mean double outnumbering as in literal models, at which point it would be always the case except vs other infantry, so you might as well write the rule as "fight in two ranks except vs other infantry whose tight formation prevents them from being swarmed, unlike the ranks of cav/chariots/monsters (as a lore justification)".

Those are my thoughts on the whole ordeal
Cheers.

I'm glad you appreciated my idea for step up models still striking but at -1 ToHit or some other disadvantage.
I could even get behind you're idea that infantry fight in an extra rank against everything except other infantry.
With these 2 ideas combined I think this game would be great and much more balanced to infantry.

[Serathail]

I don't think I articulated what I meant here very well. Starting over. It's the same problem, I think, that eventually killed Warhammer. 9th age had trouble attracting new players because of this too. The game starts getting too killy when everything fights in 2 ranks. Most units become approximately 2x more killy. So in order for me to absorb those kills, i need to make my units roughly 2x as big, so I can still strike back with a fully effective unit after casualties, etc.

Following this trend, even as a veteran player, if I want to try a new infantry unit out, it's tedious knowing that i need to paint and assemble blocks of 30+ of the same model for that unit to be competitive. It's boring too. And new players are turned off when they realize they need to do the same thing to make an effective unit. Newcomers tend to be more than happy to assemble/paint 2 different units of 10-15 models each. It's less fun to assemble/paint 20-30 of effectively the same model.

Yes you're right that in a 2k point game you'd have roughly the same number of total models assuming it's made up of mostly infantry but I'd much rather prefer the game encourages rules-wise 2 different and district units of 15- 20 models each rather than 1 unit of 30-40 to be effective. It looks better on the tabletop for one. Also it's easier for someone to then pick up 1 box of new models and feel they can get some utility out of it. I think this is why 40k does so well. I buy a box of 10 models and I can make an effective unit with those 10 guys. I don't have to but 2 boxes of them if i don't want to and they're still effective in the game.

Ah I see, that makes sense I suppose, though unfortunately the game already incentivizes either very large (or tiny) units with ridden monsters walking over anything else (and getting their points back). Cav etc. does so too, but against those step up with -1 to hit (or something similar) might already suffice to even the scales to a managable degree.

The biggest possible buff to infantry would probably come in the form of monster nerfs but that one is a tough nut to crack. Limiting saves is difficult because how do you handle single use items? How do you prevent every dragon character from just taking 1-2 potions of healing instead? How is e.g. the dawnstone considered?
Alterantively you could of course cut the magic item allowance based on whether the character rides a monstrous creature, heavy chariot or behemoth (or a royal pegasus because that should have been a monstrous creature to begin with), or limit the maximum cost of a character with any magic items alltogether. The issue with that is, that you have tomb kings and chaos lords with innate saves running around.
Finally you could of course just axe the number of wounds on all ridden monsters & chariots by a certain percentage, say 20-30%. Make them killable again, though that forces them even more to max out every possible save.
I honestly don't know what the simple and fair solution would be here without rewriting every monster/chariot mount statblock so I'm interested in hearing everyone else's opinion.



I personally would tend towards the limited saves option, e.g.
"When mounted on a chariot or monster, you may increase the inherent saves of your mount by no more than a combined 3* degrees between armour, ward and regeneration. This includes any saves of the character themselves, be they inate or granted by magic items or other means such as elven honours/valours/gifts of chaos/vampiric powers.
In addition, any inate abilities, magic items, honours etc. which a) force rerolls to hit or wound against the model (e.g. armour of ages), b) allow the model to reroll any of its saves (e.g. dawnstone, luckstone), c) grant it a single use save (e.g. opal amulet, luckstone, charmed shield), d) allows the model to regain lost wounds (e.g. healing potion, Arise!, Invocation of Nehek) or e) increases the model's wounds or toughness count as a single increase. (or simplified: if it makes the model tougher in any way: counts as 1)
Note that special rules which are already part of your mount (e.g. dust cloud on the TK dragon) do not count towards this limit as they are considered part of the mount's inherent saves."
*4 is probably a valid alternative. A bit more flexible for some factions I imagine.

Pretty unrefined for now and I'm sure there's some items which aren't properly considered here, but I think it reduces the impact of monsters while still being rather intuitive. And of course there would need to be a special clause for those damn royal pegasi .-.
A prince on a dragon, lion chariot or frostheart is now limited to a 3+ armour and 5+ ward/regen, or a 2+ armour and a 6+ (blood of caledor) ward instead. Flamespyres, Tiranocs and Griffons to one less point instead. As for mounted eagles... you can't kill what's already dead.

For reference, instead of 120 white lion attacks, it now only takes 65 to kill an optimized star dragon prince. 26 attacks to kill an optimized griffon prince. Still considerable numbers, but nowhere near as unkillable before. Also there's no opal amulet, so multiple wounds and monster slayer are on the table, unless the model reduces its standard save by 1 more point to get that protection.

[Francis]

If I were to change things I would nerf cavalry and monsters first to stop messing too much with the infantry balance. Cavalry would lose First Charge. That simple. They may need a bigger nerf but I would start there. I hate that rule like you wouldn't believe it, it makes no sense in my mind. If they want a rule to represent heavy cavalry being better when they are fresh, have lances be a first charge/first counter charge weapon only or something like that. First charge takes away the ability of deep infantry formations holding back cavalry charges and that does not feel right to me.

Monsters I would go to town on. Remove stomp and thunderstomp, period. Increase the attacks if needed but just get rid of all stomp stuff. It is an 8th edition thing that I never liked and it makes monster too killy both against infantry and against cavalry. Then, cap the wounds of monsters at their un-ridden profile, so a mounted star dragon is around wounds 6 or 7 rather than 9.

I would probably keep the items working as they do and hope that reducing the wounds and taking away a lot of damage potential would make them more manageable.

[Corvalent]

If you match monsters to their unridden wound profile, a star dragon would be 8 wounds.

This is shown by eagle mount providing 1 toughness and 1 wound to the noble, t4 3 wounds matching eagle, and the phoenixes: frostheart mount gives 3T and 3W, ending at t6 5W matching unridden frostheart.

When a prince or Archmage rides them, they get an additional wound from the rider, so any mounts for them have 1 more wound over unridden version (prince on frostheart would have t6, 6W).

This means that if you could take an unridden star dragon, it would be t6 8W. But it's a 290 point monster that matches the same wound count as the 300 point bone grinder giant at t6 8W, though the star dragon would stomp most things much more reliably than the bone grinder.

[Prince of Spires]

The problem with monsters and balancing them is that they veyr much tend to be all or nothing. Either a monster can stomp all over your enemies army, or it doesn't get taken. It's why we basically see Star Dragons, a handful of Moon Dragons, the occasional Griffon in fluff lists, and not much else. How many phoenixes or eagles, ridden or unridden, have seen the table this edition? Same with monsters from other armies. They're either overpowered or not worth taking. And this has been very common across editions I feel.

Thing then is that if you hit monsters with a nerf-hammer, they simply stop showing up. So I would personally be very careful with limiting stuff on them. Removing stomps effectively reduces half the combat power of a phoenix for instance (2 stomps roughly equals 3 attacks), and then you're left with a 200+ pts mount that does only 4 attacks (or 3 for the flamespire). No one will bring one.

I think having character armour (and regen maybe) not affect the mount is fine. It removes the excesses.

[Csjarrat]

The problem with monsters and balancing them is that they veyr much tend to be all or nothing. Either a monster can stomp all over your enemies army, or it doesn't get taken. It's why we basically see Star Dragons, a handful of Moon Dragons, the occasional Griffon in fluff lists, and not much else. How many phoenixes or eagles, ridden or unridden, have seen the table this edition? Same with monsters from other armies. They're either overpowered or not worth taking. And this has been very common across editions I feel.

Thing then is that if you hit monsters with a nerf-hammer, they simply stop showing up. So I would personally be very careful with limiting stuff on them. Removing stomps effectively reduces half the combat power of a phoenix for instance (2 stomps roughly equals 3 attacks), and then you're left with a 200+ pts mount that does only 4 attacks (or 3 for the flamespire). No one will bring one.

I think having character armour (and regen maybe) not affect the mount is fine. It removes the excesses.

Seconded, thirded and fourthed.
This is the first edition I've played where monsters are actually useful and don't got get cannoned off the board on t1.
Imho weak units of infantry are weak because of game rules. You could improve the base game rules to fix this without nerfing monsters or adjusting points costs en-masse (which GW have never ever been good at balancing in any edition or any decade of their existence)

[bkevs84]

If I recall some of the chatter from GW around the end of WFB and the start of AOS it was kinda due to ppl not playing centre piece models, and AOS was to be more along that lines. It's a hazzy sad time so my memory can and probably is flawed.

Fundamentally, I don't think GW hits monsters with the bat because showing the power of a dragon I feel is the point of ToW.

I would also prefer a change to Inf as opposed to a nerf to the offensive power of monsters. I am not sure the best way to go.


That said it is prob easy to lower the combat power of ridden monsters than trying to fix all infantry.

I could see removing the plus wounds a monsterous mount gives you but retaining the saves of magic items. Reducing the damage soaking power. But keeping the smash.

Or you leave monsters as is, but limit stomps to charges, like a monsterous impacts, or only allow stomps till half wounds. Treat them like shock cav. Your dragon may be a big bad ass but do you really want it tied up with a blob of pointy sticks.

Thematically, it's like swooping down from the sky and ripping into the enemy or thundering into the combat. Once stuck in the slog how much stomping is happening, once you get injured enough the focus of the giant beast goes from all out murder machine to self preservation. You could flavour and increase points on some non sentient mounts or constructs where maybe they don't get the loss of stumps at partial wound loss.

It could allow for the pile on effect and the mental image of riders being pulled from mounts by infantry

[Serathail]

I could see removing the plus wounds a monsterous mount gives you but retaining the saves of magic items. Reducing the damage soaking power. But keeping the smash.

I agree that the tankyness is the main issue. Offensive power can somewhat be countered by champion challenges and e.g. ward save spells to a lesser extent, so there's adequate counterplay there (and if you don't have that, the 500pt monster should be absolutely able maul most units, just like 500pt of anything that isn't infantry would), but it's practically impossible to kill most ridden monsters with anything but another ridden monster, a lucky monster slayer, some very specific magic missiles or a huge investment into war machines (or say a sister death star).

One of the big issues with monsters compared to any multi-model unit is also that they retain their entire unit strength throughout the entire game. So unless you kill the beast outright, they double as a 500+pt denial unit, as well as a constant 7-9 unit strength with 1 passive combat res, which is a serious issue when you get to turn 6 where most other units are bound to be below half unit strength and have lost ranks and potentially attacks.

So I think the easiest first step to make the game more balanced without turning them back into cannon fodder would imo be to make them unit strength = current wounds (rather than starting wounds).
It just seems sensible, that the same restrictions apply to monsters as well after all; A monster at 1-2 wounds is basically a limping, dying beast, that should no longer have the "sheer power and destructive ability" (to quote the rulebook) of its healthy counterpart.

Essentially, when combined with all other rules this would have the following effects:
- Monsters below 5 wounds loose their close order combat res bonus.
- Monsters must now take panic checks when loosing over a quarter of their remaining wounds (at -1Ld or double 1s at the respective thresholds).
- Monsters will be more easily double outnumbered in a loosing fight and can no longer contribute big numbers of unit strength to a winning fight in later stages of the game.
- Monsters will give up 25% of their points when being reduced to 1-2 wounds (depending on the monster).

I don't think this would make monsters anywhere near unplayable, but it might be something to keep them a bit more honest, especially in the later stages of the game. And it's basically changing one word in the rules.

Or you leave monsters as is, but limit stomps to charges, like a monsterous impacts, or only allow stomps till half wounds. Treat them like shock cav. Your dragon may be a big bad ass but do you really want it tied up with a blob of pointy sticks.

I quite like this as well, especially considering how simple it is. Maybe removing all stomps would be a bit much, especially against undead, but making thunderstomps (so the AP-2 on stomps) only work on the charge would be kinda cool. The big (but also cumbersome) beast can only bring its full force to bear with its initial inertia and gets bogged down too much thereafter against an enemy who stands their ground. It can still swipe and stomp, just not as forcefully as when it first crashed into its foe. This would ofc only affect behemoths, but other monstrous creatures aren't really as troublesome and have far less stomps to begin with (and for the narrative reason: Far less cumbersome).
This would help elite infantry especially, as they usually have the leadership to hold the monster in the turn it charges, along with the armour to better endure in in following turns of combat (unless they Fbigo of course)

[Francis]

Right, so I find myself agreeing with a lot of stuff here. Maybe reducing stomp instead of removing it is a better idea, though I do like using impact hits instead of stomp. Maybe a combination. D3+1 stomp attacks from the Star Dragon and D3 impact hits could be a solution. Makes it actually more reliable on the charge but potentially weaker afterwords.

Reducing wounds is a must I think, I also think Close order bonus should be limited to only infantry, or units with at least a unit strength of 10.

As for infantry, I don't really know how to fix them. Giving them step up will hit our elite infantry pretty badly. Maybe just a straight up fight in 2 ranks is better, but I remember that one of the things I didn't enjoy at all in 8th was just removing loads of infantry every time there was a combat. I don't think the game is improved by improving deadliness.

[Jedra]

I'd rather they lean into existing roles and give tactical options instead of straight up boons/nerfs. Improvements to static res for infantry blocks (extra rank bonus maybe) and allowing characters to decline challenges from behemoths (or infantry charclacters deny Mounted?) would make it easier to bog down the character for a turn then pull it down with supporting charges. I agree that having their unit strength drop as they lose wounds, to increase the chance of breaking in a lost combat etc, is also a good way to lean in to their role as ultimate shock troop. Removing close order bonus entirely from lumbering may also work.

Fundamentally think a 500pt monster charging in to an unsupported infantry block SHOULD win... and that the trick needs to be finding ways to not leave them unsupported.

Right now if ive managed to bog it down for a turn and eg flank charge with the DPs, the presence of a champ allows the monster to stay safe and blunt the charge entirely (can't decline if it's only 1 rank)... learnt this the hard way so stopped taking Cavalry champs... or lets the opponent retire a character that would be very useful for pulling down the monster.

And from a fluff side... I don't feel like there's any shame in your wizard declining to go toe to toe with a chais lord on two headed dragon!