Ideas for balancing AoS (for friendly games)

[N_Man79]

Hi all,

I was wondering how different groups are tackling the issue of trying to get balanced matches with your opponents.

I'm not asking how you can run a tournament level of perfectly balanced sides. I'm just asking for friendly games against your mates.

I've seen some suggestions about using an agreed level of wounds but the obvious flaw there seems to be 1 16 wound Nagash vs 16 1 wound goblins wouldn't be fair.

Assuming the more powerful something is the more wounds it has what do you think about agreeing a maximum number of wounds and a minimum number of warscrolls?

So if you agreed max 60 wounds across min 8 warscrolls you'd be fairly sure your opponent was bringing some "grunt" level soldiers. Whereas if you agreed max 60 wounds, min 3 warscrolls you'd know your opponent could field a load of troops but would be likely to be fielding some big guns.

Other ideas?

***positive suggestions only please. There's plenty of other places to go and rant about how rubbish you think AoS is if that's your inclination.***

 

[Kallypso]

i was thinking about this myself because a game without any sort of balance isn't the kind of game i like and i think a max in Lords/heroes + a max in the number of wounds would be a good idea

exemple: 2000 wounds game with a max of 1 Lord character and 3 heroes character

 

[N_Man79]

I don't think "Lord" is a keyword though. So how would you differentiate lords and heroes?

 

[benaiah]

To me, it seems like someone will end up home-brewing a point system and putting it up online. I just can't see this being fun.

I have 20,000 (8th edition) points of warriors of chaos. I could put it ALL on the table and win. Even with the instant win rules, it would not be hard for me to just win outright with that kind of army.

We'll probably see play groups making point values for units and some type of composition chart to balance the game. I'm not gonna lie, I somewhat like AoS but have a hard time with an unbalanced game. This being said, I wish they'd release an Advanced Rule Set or FAQ to fix some issues. I think the fact that bases are meaningless takes away from the game because you get huge jumbled messes!

 

[Demian]

I've proposed that, besides agreeing upon a number of wounds, you cap the HERO tags with a % of said wounds, usually like before, like:

up to 25% of Wounds on HEROES
Everything else, seems more balanced-ish, since hordes of former Core units get a bonus to their combat prowess, while former Special and Rare have a low model count, and have no bonuses to fielding hordes of them.

Need to playtest this last part though

 

[Kallypso]

my bad i was thinking with 8th edition lord/heroes difference

in AoS we could use instead of lord maybe Heroes with name? ex: Nagash, Vlad, Konrad, etc are 0-1 choice for a 2000 wound game and other Hero choice with no name (Vampire lord, necro, etc) are 0-3 choice. Because habitually named character are way stronger than other Heroes.

We could also use the duplicate restriction form 8th. ex: you can only take only 2 mortis engine in game under 3000 wounds

 

[Cela Shyish]

Well AoS is more of a fluff type game. The way I've best seen it balanced is to decide on a fluffy scenario with fluffy objectives between both players so they build their lists around that. Some players like myself also enjoy being at a disadvantage which can make the game a lot more intense. Remember balance doesn't equal fun and the objective of AoS is to equal fun. So while it doesn't work for competitive win at all cost players, this method does work in my local GW where we have an eldar player who declares his general "Grenade Bob" a lone guardian holding a grenade that seems to randomly outperform exarchs. Or our store manager who has a Space Marine Captain Brother Brofistius who is a dual powerfist guy, Brother Brofistius Victorialis who is rock saluting with the power fists (swaps model when he wins a challenge) and Brother Brofistius Mortalis who is a corpse and becomes an objective marker when slain. THIS is my gaming enviornment and this is where fluffy games work so easily and are tremendous fun. So while its not for everyone I recommend trying it

 

[Dragonet]

That's so cool, Crystal! I love alternate pose models, and what better way to enjoy a favourite character than to model variants of him, and then to play him in narrative campaigns, fluff scenarios, XP led leagues and map campaigns... If I could play more regularly and at one game with an interested group, that'd make my year.

 

[LordTobiothan]

I hate when people use the term win at all cost to describe competitive people, it makes it sound like were performing animal cruelty.

I just feel like its a hollow victory if my opponent could have won but didnt, id rather lose a far fight then not have to try to win a lopsided one.

Basically letting people win is for my girlfriend and small children, who wouldn't understand that I threw the game and the victory would feel real to them.

 

[benaiah]

So apparently this came from GW as an idea to balance.

Example restrictions:
1-12 Warscrolls
1-2 Hero Warscrolls
0-2 Monster Warscrolls
No single character warscroll may contain more than X wounds
Heroes may not be duplicated
All other warscrolls may only be duplicated once.

This needs some work because Goblins <> Knights but the idea is sound. It's a good start to a issue that I personally am having a hard time with. I really want to like AoS but I'm having a hard time with it because of balance. I don't mind most of the rules but I like to beat someone in a fair game (or lose to someone).

 

[benaiah]

So I played a game the other day:


Friend:
Throgg, The Troll King
x3 Chaos Trolls
x4 Chaos Trolls
x4 Chaos Trolls
x4 Dragon Ogres
x4 Dragon Ogres
Chaos Lord Chaos
Chariot
Dragon Ogre Shaggoth

Me:
Vampire Lord
Necromancer
Wight King
Ghouls x20
Ghouls x20
Terrorgheist
Coven Throne
Vargheists x3 /w Champion

We measured from base to base instead of model to model. We ignored the sudden death rule. Wanna take a guess at who won this? I thought I had a pretty big advantage, especially with magic superiority but I got dumped on. ESPECIALLY relevant since HE would have had the instant death rules if we used them.

 

[Cela Shyish]

I think the best way to balance the game is playing with equal warscrolls with each base size unit count as 1 war scroll, by that I mean zombies are 10 models base so a unit of 50 zombies would be 5 warscrolls, as 25 grave guard would be. Now as different units have different uses we can't really pit them against eachother in a vacuum to asses their worth but I think this is about equal as a general thing, the exception being named characters (not normal characters) so only use named ones in games above xx warscrolls per side maybe?

 

[Draykorinee]

We tried the wounds, but as we know each other we did a proper team and not abused the system. Still a total whitewash for me on him.

 

[Banat]

To me, it seems like someone will end up home-brewing a point system and putting it up online. I just can't see this being fun.

I have 20,000 (8th edition) points of warriors of chaos. I could put it ALL on the table and win. Even with the instant win rules, it would not be hard for me to just win outright with that kind of army.

We'll probably see play groups making point values for units and some type of composition chart to balance the game. I'm not gonna lie, I somewhat like AoS but have a hard time with an unbalanced game. This being said, I wish they'd release an Advanced Rule Set or FAQ to fix some issues. I think the fact that bases are meaningless takes away from the game because you get huge jumbled messes!

You could field all 20,000 pts of your WoC, and I could field ONE MODEL, and guarantee a draw. Tomb Kings Carrion, check them out.

Anyway, my approach is one of roughly common sense. Balance them out with what you think looks/feels fair (this requires your army "lists", that is, what you intend to take, being up front, rather than trying to be sneaky and devious). If it turns out that actually, what looked like a small Empire patrol was a lot harder than it seemed, you've learned from that for your next game, swap those Black Knights out for Blood Knights etc.

All about organic learning processes.

 

[Aranei]

There is a thread on the Warseer about point cost system.

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showt...ying-Point-Cost-to-Age-of-Sigmar-Models/page6

The author (someone called "Last Edition") also tried to balnce the summoning.

To save you your time reading the 6 pages (the final rules are on page 6 of the thread), I'll give you a link to the final file along with the system used to calculate the point costs.

http://www.docdroid.net/20f5WZr/aos-players-handbook.pdf.html

http://www.docdroid.net/15o39/point-system-aos.pdf.html

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Our group took a very simple path towards balancing Age of Sigmar. It's called "just play Kings of War." Regimental fantasy mass-battle game, with tightly-written rules that were extensively beta tested by the community. Existing WHFB armies are basically plug-and-play in the system.

 

[Draykorinee]

Your group sounds like a sensible group pirate.

 

[najo]

Our group took a very simple path towards balancing Age of Sigmar. It's called "just play Kings of War." Regimental fantasy mass-battle game, with tightly-written rules that were extensively beta tested by the community. Existing WHFB armies are basically plug-and-play in the system.

Pirate, stop going into Age of Sigmar threads and derailing them by promoting Kings of War. Please respect that people like Age of Signar and are getting things out of it you might not be. You've been warned.

 

[Quinten]

Our group took a very simple path towards balancing Age of Sigmar. It's called "just play Kings of War." Regimental fantasy mass-battle game, with tightly-written rules that were extensively beta tested by the community. Existing WHFB armies are basically plug-and-play in the system.

This balancing system actually works pretty well. My gaming group is trying it out with great results.

 

[Pirate Robot Ninja of Death]

Pirate, stop going into Age of Sigmar threads and derailing them by promoting Kings of War. Please respect that people like Age of Signar and are getting things out of it you might not be. You've been warned.

You're right...I was being a complete ass. Point taken.

However, since others have chimed in in this thread, and we have several threads going on the same topic, please indulge me here in making my case for why this is relevant to this topic:

As for Kings of War, my experiences with it is it is a shadow of what Warhammer is and is boring. If I want to play regimental game, I will keep playing 8th edition which is a better game than KoW and has the armies and characters I love.

Your post from the other thread.

I don't deny that KoW is a very stripped-down version of WHFB 8th. However...so is Age of Sigmar. Both games strip out the bulk of the complexity in order to focus the game down to only the most basic components. The Kings of War rules are short, concise, and easy to learn...much like AoS as well.

The big difference, though, is in design philosophy. Games Workshop has thrown caution to the wind and decided to push out a rules-light game without even the semblance of a balance framework, focusing all of their energy on flavour and narrative. Myriad special rules are part and parcel to this, and even similar or identical rules have different names. All very flavorful...but also makes the game quite convoluted.

Kings of War is meant as a tournament game. They've built upon a base of tight, balanced rules...stripped down to basics which could be balanced and play tested properly. Special rules are limited to a small list in the main rulebook. Same with magic items. Same with spells. (Note that these aren't in the free online rules, but exist in the beta rules and the full text PDF that they sent out to kick starter backers, and which will soon be available for sale).

Nobody can deny that KoW is a bit lacking in the flavour department (even with pictures and flavour text, as these appear in the full rules). Neither can anyone deny that AoS is a hot, convoluted mess right now, which needs significant erratas or house rules before it will be playable on more than a strictly casual basis.

So why out all this effort into fixing GWs game that they've refused to fix themselves, when that effort could go to injecting more life into Kings of War to make it the awesome 8th replacement it could be...and produced by a company who actually listens and engages with their audience. Not to mention that their base rules actually *work* out of the box!


I mean really...would we be going through all this effort to fix AoS if it wasn't a GW game we'd all invested thousands of dollars in? Would it even be on our radars?

 

[Draykorinee]

Well, supposedly people who hate AoS are tactically deficient players who have never played AoS and who just want to charge everything. Najo couldn't be any more condescending of those who are opposed to where AoS is going as a game.
No one would go to this length to defend a game if they didn't have such a vested interest in the company who makes it. I don't like the term fanboy but it's bordering on that.
I'll have to give AoS another go because my friend is persisting with it, maybe I'll take nagash and see if I can convince him otherwise.

 

[Cela Shyish]

Well, supposedly people who hate AoS are tactically deficient players who have never played AoS and who just want to charge everything. Najo couldn't be any more condescending of those who are opposed to where AoS is going as a game.
No one would go to this length to defend a game if they didn't have such a vested interest in the company who makes it. I don't like the term fanboy but it's bordering on that.

That's not at all what he's saying. I've agreed with Najo on more or less every point he's made and I admit before trying the game and exploring the rules a bit less rigidly I was ready to disregard age of sigmar entirely and stick to 8th. But as he has pointed out on many occasions there are lots of tactics and there are many ways to balance the game as well as or even better than points ever did. I can't count the number of times I've heard "Its just not worth its points" or "For its points its amazing" This already implies the lack of balance with points values. He's merely telling people to keep an open mind rather than simply dismissing the game at first glance or try. He isn't being condescending or anything remotely resembling it. I recall seeing one of his posts where he openly stated that because it angered him he didn't respond until he had calmed down. This itself shows that he is trying to be as respectful as he can, but I understand his frustration. When he is hearing the same arguments over and over and regardless of how frequently or in how many ways he can counter the argument his opinion is still being ignored by some who are insistent on disliking age of sigmar or people claiming that he is seeing something that is not there because he is being blinded by "Fanboyism" It can be very frustrating. Please understand he is trying to be respectful and placing logical points forward. If you disagree so strongly then start a thread explaining your point in calm rational statements and listen to other's points, or simply ignore it and play the game of your choosing. Please don't invade topics of people attempting to discuss a game they are enjoying and placing hate speech or derailing the topic. It isn't productive and it is very rude. We set things into threads so that we can always know the topic of conversation and like minded people can discuss things fairly.

Thank you for reading this and I beg you, please take in this message and be respectful.

 

[najo]

Crystal said it perfectly. You might say "Crystal" clear even

But I do not have an ounce of condescension toward any of you. I said this in my video, I've been playing for 25 years and I love Warhammer fantasy. I get why you guys feel heartbroken or betrayed by GW. I understand the passion fueling you. We are all fans of the original game and I see you all as my Warhammer family. I just want to see us thrive and help each other as a community.

Likewise, I am purposely staying out of and respecting KoW threads because its not my game of choice and I don't see it appropriate for me as a moderator nor as a gamer to come in there and push non-KoW agendas. You guys are entitled to enjoy the games you enjoy, as is everyone here. If that means we support all three games, so be it. There will be plenty of crossover for some players. The thread where I finally stated my opinion of KoW was prudent though, and related to the posts that I was involved with. I wasn't popping into the middle of a KoW thread and telling people to keep playing 8th or go play AoS. I was stating why I personally am not a fan of KoW in a thread where everyone was discussing the games together and I was using myself as an example. That is the difference.

One thing I will state though, just as food for thought. You are seeing veteran players and Warhammer enthusiasts who are giving AoS a run through its paces coming back saying there is something deeper here. It also doesn't need most of the house rules people are suggesting either, I think its way to early to judge that. We need to figure out the power scale and relationship of all the units first. Likewise, this whole no points thing freaked me out at first, and now I am thinking it was a brilliant move. Crystal lays it out pretty good. I actually already had a blog post and video planned about that specifically. No points opens up an interesting way to play that I plan to share, that if they hadn't done we wouldn't even be considering.

Why Age of Sigmar has my attention right now comes down to one thing. Every time I play a game or discuss it with another veteran player, we discover very complex tactics and its challenging us as wargamers in ways no other game has before. This has been happening daily. And its not system mastery, as the rules are so lightweight. Its been more figuring out how to use real tactics in its system or looking at the possibilities of the system and then discovering what it can really do. There is stuff we can pull off in AoS I always wanted to do in Warhammer and couldn't. Absolutely for real, no joke.

 

[Draykorinee]

Thank you for reading this and I beg you, please take in this message and be respectful.

I will respect Najo for his guides and knowledge which have always been a massive help for me. There is a weird undertone on these forums at the moment and I don't want to start quoting posts that I think defend my PoV because it doesn't help that, I came here as my happy place but the last 2 weeks have seen a drastic change, moderation is all over the shop. Think I'll just take some time away and let the dust settle. Maybe we'll get a KoW or WHFB 8th ed section :tongue: Have fun.

 

[najo]

I will respect Najo for his guides and knowledge which have always been a massive help for me. There is a weird undertone on these forums at the moment and I don't want to start quoting posts that I think defend my PoV because it doesn't help that, I came here as my happy place but the last 2 weeks have seen a drastic change, moderation is all over the shop. Think I'll just take some time away and let the dust settle. Maybe we'll get a KoW or WHFB 8th ed section :tongue: Have fun.

Thank you Draykorinee. Both myself and the other mods want to keep things positive here. The changes with Warhammer are extreme and that brings extreme feelings, so I get that. We want to be and stay the best vampire wargames forum there is though and keep our brothers in blood united. Let me know if there is anything I can do for you.