So in the past you when you were limited to 25% Lords and Heroes you were forced to make choices. At 2400 points you had 600 points to spend in any one category which generally precluded the ability to take two optimised Lords or three optimised Heroes.
That's no longer the case. Now you can use your Special and Rare allowance (in reality the spare points in Rare after you take your optimal choice) and devote them to optimising your characters.
A case in point is Ogres. You could not get both an optimised Slaughtermaster and a optimised Tyrant as you ran into your 600 point cap. That's no longer the case and I expect you'll see around 650-700 points spent on the Lord choices. You can still fit in your two Ironblasters so in essence Ogres likely got stronger.
With Dark Elves its the same. You can now get both an optimised Level 4 - or Morathi AND the fully kitted Dreadlord. The extra 50-60 points comes from your Special choices (if you were taking them other than RBTs....Ha Ha) or by dropping your Warlocks to 18.
So overall we are likely to see overall stronger characters where the lifting of the envelope allows you to remove what compromises you previous had to make.
Most armies won't approach the 1000 points for Lords - the obvious exceptions being WoC and High Elves. In most case we'll see increased spamming of an optimal choice eg. CO Scar Vets but Magic Item Deficit Syndrome will eventually make it a game of diminishing returns.
Comp systems are going to become very interesting....and like the failed socialist governments of yore we will see people try to pick winners, boost losers etc. Over time this will see layers and layers of comp added to band-aid the latest abuse.
A serious question is: Given this sea-change in army construction, are existing comp systems even valid anymore?
Posted with Blogsy
Answer: Every existing comp system is now irrelevant. The best thing we can do now is let this play out without comp for a period of time. If we start auto-comping now it'll turn into a socialist's wet dream.......
ReplyDeleteI fail to see how this relates in any way, shape or form to socialism. Let's play Warhammer.
DeleteI was just playing into Pete's line, but fair call.....
DeleteAgreed - tournaments will need to decide if they are going to comp percentages first, and then decide what else to comp. There will be some extreme builds that may work on an unsuspcticting public like Skrolk and 4 Furnaces or Double Bells, but it'll most likely mean we see the combat lords again that no-one felt they could take once they had their L4.
DeleteThere will still be choices, but the choice may now be between choosing a second cannon or a combat lord, instead of combat lord or L4.
J
Is it worth exploring the idea of using comp to go back to rulebook percentages?
DeleteIf anything I'd rather see the new units/armies from the end times stuff so far than the new percentage system.
Pete- I have never seen anybody run 15 Warlocks let alone 20. Unsure of where you get this from? Please correct me if I am wrong.
ReplyDeleteDitto
DeleteYou obviously weren't taking much notice at Adepticon Jeff.
DeleteThere were a number of armies running around with 20 Warlocks.
There were also armies full of skinks with blowpipes and an OnG gunline on table 1. It doesn't mean it's optimal.
DeleteYou said you hadn't seen it.... I was reminding you :-)
DeletePerhaps strengthens the use of Swedish in regards to it being used as a comping system to my mind.
ReplyDeleteSwedish is all about comping synergy and as it stands it won't correctly account for the increased percentages. I'm sure eventually it'll be usable...
DeleteI'll disagree with the "as it stands" part for now Jeff... have a look and see what additional characters does to the lists. If a "set range" of score is set out by the TO (as it was at Guardcon) then it becomes a little problematic to fit in additional characters.
DeleteI think you're spot on how it'll be optimisation, the more I look at my DE for the End Times tourneys I'm doing over here, I find myself just picking up 40-50 extra points to get the L4 that I want.
ReplyDeleteOh, and all in all it would seem that this is GW's response to armies becoming "too expensive" for people to play (errr collect)... use less models and more characters.
ReplyDeleteIt's called an analogy Rory.
ReplyDeleteHeavily regulated economies with lots of rules and regulations were characteristic of a lot of countries post war. In New Zealand this was best characterised by Muldoon's National Government that in 1982 tried to fix prices and interest rates.
Colour commentary is how I amuse myself 😄
If rules and regulations is your idea of socialism, then Warhammer is already pretty socialist; it has a lot of rules in it already. Comp adds more, but it's normally a few percent over what already exists.
DeleteBut in response to the new rules changes, my gut reaction is to lift all comp restrictions and let the slip the hounds. Once the dust settles, the community can discuss what the more egregious imbalances are (and there will be plenty), and if there is a need (and ability) to restrict them.
There you go, I support your capitalist, market driven solution and analogy.
Ha! Wouldn't the whole 50% "scenario" be more analogous to capitalism then? Big corporate toy manufacturer changes rules (some would describe it as cynically) to sell more of it's big toys to accrue more money! :)
DeleteI was born in 1982...a fine vintage that year... mustn't have been that bad :)
Yep....agree totally.
DeleteWill it break the comp system though, for instance old mate blender vamp at Lvl three is like -57 or something, if I attempt to run an extra guy at a similar build, it will be up in that range again for comp no?... So you'd be looking at ~-100 for 2 guys?
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'll go on record and say I reckon people comp old mate blender too hard...
It'll break it because of the old 1 is ok 2 is awesome effect that occurs and is not budgeted for in Swedish. You can get 2 Bloodthirsters for 46 points, 1 is crap, 2 is pretty good and allows you to take all the filth you want and still get a good score!
DeleteFair dues, well, given you guys are in the know better than I, do people ever generally get a chance to double up on the same lord type? Maybe you could just go the second lord of that type is double, so the 2 blood thristers would pop up to 69 (still seems damn low for 2 bloodthirsters....)?
ReplyDeleteI'm of two minds as to the two options: 1. Remove all comp. 2. Keep the current outdated comp.
ReplyDelete50% lords or Heroes is fine in my view, because there is a natural offset of quality for quantity and as Joseph Stalin said: "Quantity has a quality all its own". Plus the meta will adapt if people take up the hero-hammer option.
However, I'm a little concerned at the special character option becoming available, that will have to be comped. Nagash for example should not be a "lets see how it plays out" option. At 4x the Lore of undead (LoU) summoned and L5 wizard, I'd just sit him behind LOS and summon 1-3 spells of undead summon a turn worth 4x the points. My 1000 points is safe and sound, and pays for itself in 2-3 turns.
Yeah, lets see how the new system plays out but Nagash and his LT that does 3x LoU, should be comped immediately.
May be not jump in the comp options but consider lifting the game to 3000pts instead of 2400pts. Because I feel that people will try to make the most of new rules which means they'll have to let go of the normal units. I don't fancy hero hammer that much (well I only played a WHFB for a year now) but I'd like to see those all mighty heroes thinking about CC resolution before jumping on their mounts and wrecking havoc on the table.
ReplyDeleteCC rules haven't changed nor did the PD rules. You still generate 2D6 and Nagash or not there is so much you can cast with a bad roll. So 5 Lv4 doesn't mean much other than increased usage of feed back scroll et all.