Ode to Daremons and VC

I started playing way back before 1992
routing units and electing to pursue
If I won by 13 I actually had a shot at breaking through.

Oh-a oh
They went and gave them all immune to psychology
then made them combat monstrosities,
Went and gave them rengen and unbreakable for free.

Oh-a oh
I met the moron
Oh-a oh
who wrote these rules and

Demons killed war ham-mar
VC killed war ham-mar.
free wards came and broke our heart.

Oh-a-a-a oh

And now we play on the tables way down low.
Army balance seems so fictional and long ago.
those twin terror causers put on quite a show.

Oh-a oh

VC were the first one.

Oh-a oh

Daemons the last one.

Demons killed war ham-mar
VC killed war ham-mar.

I’ll take my dice and hit the bar, we can't FAQ we've gone to far
Oh-a-aho oh, Oh-a-aho oh

Demons killed war ham-mar
VC killed war ham-mar.

I’ll take my dice and hit the bar, we can't FAQ we've gone to far
free wards came and broke our heart, blame these design team “stars”.

You are a demonic star.
You are a VC star.

Demons killed war ham-mar
VC killed war ham-mar.

Demons killed war ham-mar
VC killed war ham-mar.

A year with the little ones

Well four tourneys into the season and I’ve gotten a feel for how my O&G list performs and the strategies to use and to avoid if you’re going to eek out a good result.

Leviathan:
This was the opening run for the little guys and because of this my results were fairly mixed as a results with 3 wins from 5 games and about 60% of the total possible battle score.

What this tourney taught me was that you just can’t play in the current environment with leadership 8 non-immune to psych troops. With the plethora of terror causers running around it is near impossible to keep your battle line in tact with a worse than ¾ chance of things sticking around.

It also taught me that the army had a truck load of potential but also a truck load of variability, from the hoppers movement, to stupidity, to animosity to the nets. There was a large amount of potential for a “can go wrong” turn and when these turns happened it was difficult to rebound.

Fortunes:
Another average tourney this time 3 wins, 2 draws and a loss (cumulative 6-2-3). Taking the lessons learnt regarding variability I got rid of the trolls and the hoppers and dropped one of my wizards for a unit of biguns with the spirit totem.

From game to game Is till struggled to get largish wins as the cavalry almost always dies and I had limited means to appropriately release my fanatics. Of course not packing my full army and playing a unit short all weekend probably didn’t help….

So I left another average performance with some new lesson, devise some method of controlling the fanatics release and remember to bring your entire army.

Pilgrimage:
Finally a quality result. This time I chose to go down the route of dropping all the cavalry and instead using two units of short bowmen to screen the army. Their purpose was two fold – one give me a few shots to force maybe a panic check or two on the fast moving fanatic bait and also give me a sturdy front line to launch fanatics through.

The tactic worked well and with animosity not being a massive hindrance in critical moments the boys performed well pulling in 5 wins and a narrow loss (11-2-4) and grabbing a podium slot.

The main thing this taught me was that if animosity didn’t kill you and you could control your fanatic release then you had a shot.

Moab
The anti-pilgrimage. Unfortunately the “if animosity didn’t kill you” problem raised it’s head leaving a fair few points on the table it was frustrating to say the least (I’d hazard a guess at around 20 “easily attainable” points with potential for more). But in the two losses animosity didn’t play a part just poor play from me against match ups I couldn’t afford to play poorly against.
Added to that I found the little fellas struggle from a slight match up problem against armies with cheap skirmishers. These guys get rid of the fanatics and then are in amongst the war machines very quickly.

Still the results sheet looking back was relatively good with 4 wins 2 draws and 2 losses the problem only being that in my wins many points were left waiting in front of units suffering animosity.

I was very disappointed with my comp score for this one. I had deliberately left many things in the box effectiveness wise and yet I got a below average mark from half the judges. My guess is that none of these guys have ever played with an O&G army at a tourney and probably felt my leadership 9 was unfair with goblins.


Overall

The results weren’t too bad, I still won more than my fair share of games with 60% and only lost 24%. If you play enough tourneys you’ll get the four quality results for your ranking as the good animosity tourneys will offset the bad ones.

Also it taught me a lot more patience and defensive style of play than I am accustomed to, plus how to guess ranges with the rock lobber (easily my biggest impact weapon).

Still as far as tourney armies go whilst potentially strong its game to game variability makes it a difficult prospect under it’s current guise.

Why I'm against objective comp systems

This issue comes up almost as often as the general attack on composition, a lot the subjective composition system (tiering, panels, peer marked) and their inevitable level of inaccuracy versus the known outcome of objective composition systems (rewards/penalties for certain elements or a yes/no exclusion style rule).

I’ve certainly made it known where my preferences lie and that is with the subjective system. This is not because I think this because the subjective system is always perfect it is because I know that the objective system is fundamentally flawed.

The reason that composition is there is because there is a view that the game lacks balance in a tournament setting. The objectives of the composition system are in my view; stop abusive armies attending, and add some measure of balance to the game. The idea of “balanced” or “hard but fair” composition is a concept that is dependent on combinations within the entire army and the gaming environment it is to use the cliché many shades of grey rather than black and white.

On the most part the people that play at tournaments have a level of competitiveness in their nature. Evidence of this is borne out in the fact that we actually care what we score and that we care wether or not we get the right composition. If people truly weren’t competitive then they wouldn’t even look twice at their score.

It is because of these two factors that I believe and objective composition system is not only flawed but counter productive.

An objective system that simply draws a line in the sand views everything in black and white it is utterly incapable of shades of grey, hence it can only ever accurately apply to something that fits into the black or the white category (which you’d want to think subjective composition systems would be able to also judge effectively).

Then layer on top of that the system is based either on the points costs or the classifications (core/special/rare etc) of the models. This in particular I find perplexing given that the system is there because we don’t think these classifications or points costs lead to balanced armies.

This black versus white when combined with competitiveness then inevitably leads to exploitation. Having played under these systems it quickly becomes evident that people begin to push towards the optimal build or the build which some how side steps the restrictions and allows them to field an army which is substantially more competitive than many of your opponents. This will inevitably lead to an arms race as people who showed restraint, and lost, will now emulate this behaviour (game theory anyone?).

What is more concerning is that those that are most likely to have been the culprits which the fielded abusive or unbalanced lists that lead to the creation of composition systems are those that are the and most likely to exploit the new objective system and are probably going to be the most adept at it.

So in introducing this system rather than taking away an advantage and creating a level playing field it actually adds a layer of constraint onto those who did not need a composition system to keep them in check whilst providing an advantage to the players most likely to abuse it.

I believe that the sustained use of an objective composition system in the Australian scene would be a sizable regression to the current soft score influences and drive us towards a more competitive UK model. I believe this because that is where we have come from and I certainly hope that none of these systems get enough traction to send us back there.

Why I don’t think sizable increases in effectiveness are good business?

Why I don’t think sizable increases in effectiveness are good business?

First let me say this is all my views from the sidelines. It has been a while since I read an equity analyst reports on GW as I completely lost faith in Kirby and didn’t trust the LoTR decision so stopped entertaining investing in the company. I have no access to customer demographic data or management accounts that actually give you an idea of what is happening (their full year accounts are Investor Relations spin 101).

From my perspective it seemed like the biggest problem with GW’s recent abysmal performance was the balance in their customer base got significantly distorted. Their growth from the late 80’s was based on the platform supplied by a group of customers who were:

- brand loyal and hence limited threat of substitution
- advocates of the product and hence a free sales force
- relatively price inelastic and hence able to rise prices out of line with inflation

Then as the company sought growth it started to add this core base (strangely enough when Kirby had venture capitalist partners come in) a level of “churn” customer’s who were:
- relatively new games so interested in generic start up sets
- not brand loyal and hence open to substitutes (wether that be other miniatures or other hobbies)
- not the key decision maker for spending and hence more elastic level of demand

As they started to penetrate this significantly larger, but substantially less brand loyal and more price sensitive, segment sales started to grow significantly.

Now this isn’t a bad model. Most businesses run on having a stable core customer base with limited capacity for growth and augment that with a less “sticky” customer base which offers them opportunities to grow revenue.

The challenge however is to find the right balance for your objectives, the more you focus on the churn business the more volatile your cash flows, the more you focus on the brand loyal the lower your growth opportunities.

Now in the Kirby LoTR blunder he significantly increased the number of churn customers and got a short term shot in the arm from growth however this churn increase was always going to be temporary so the strategy should have been focused on growing the core customer base in order to keep the balance between stability and growth. Unfortunately the agreement GW entered into actually did the opposite.

Now with the current power sprint you have a strategy being employed where by the idea is to get army upscalling and generate churn but this time they are trying to get it from their existing customers. Now this is fantastic if you can keep it going however miniatures aren’t exactly fast moving consumer goods like razors or batteries it is difficult to up sell you core customer base continually when you are talking a grand or so every time.

So they are assuming they can ramp up the level of spend from the core customer base, that is a relatively stable purchaser during what the UK chancellor describes as the worst economic conditions for 60 years. To me that seems like an exceptionally risky ploy that could potential damage and erode the one attribute that the past three of four years have shown that you need to foster, brand loyalty.

Of course it is always possible (perhaps probable) that in the same vein as the child like FAQs and rules sets that another strategy was intended but was simply executed poorly.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the coming years as much of this design strategy is likely to be from the Kirby School of Business (from the course of how to fail in a discretionary consumer spending sector during an unprecedented economic golden age). I look forward to seeing what Wells does in the CEO seat once he moves pas the restructuring focus.

Oh so effectiveness isn't factored into army book design Mr Thorpe?

Gav Thorpe’s recent Q&A suggested that the fluff guided them in determining the rules of a new army and that pricing the effectiveness was something done well after all of this and more just to keep the game friendly rather than balance it.

From what I could glean this is apparently done because that is what non-tourney gamers want an experience in command the army of that race and that the outcome of the game is really secondary to that.

To this I say bull@$%t. Utter implausible bull#$%t

To accept this reasoning is to accept that power creep is just an absolute freak occurrence that it is purely coincidence that with startling regularity more recently released books tend to be more effective point for point. How can rewrites of books consistently make armies more cost effective when they were both written to the same feel and fluff?

As the head of that area for considerable time he was a knowing and willing supporter of power creep in army design. The reasoning behind this can only be that GW feels that enough of their customers view competitiveness as a differentiating feature when choosing whether or not to start a new army that giving an efficiency boost is worth any potential ill will from customers who disapprove. Which means they specifically cater to competitive types when designing armies?

Though given Gav Thorpe’s credibility this kind of deliberate act of deceit isn’t exactly a shock.

Comparing Apples ($1.04/kg) and Oranges ($1.57/kg)

OK this is partially a vent and partially constructive.

I honestly don’t understand how a person can say you can’t compare two or more units. Unless you are constructing your list via a series of completely random events you are comparing units. By simply looking at something and saying it is too expensive or that looks good you are in some way comparing it to a benchmark you have ingrained wether you know it or not.

These same people are normally those who say you can’t compare apples and oranges, well I hate to tell you, you can. You can compare which ones are tastier by trying them and making a choice, you can compare their appearance by looking at them, you can compare which ones are more valuable by finding out how much they cost and you can compare popularity by looking at sales data. All you need is a common reference point.

Whether people want to admit it or not they make a judgement on comparative value when determining which units they are putting in their list they are making a choice of how to maximise the value they can get our of a finite resource (points). The trick comes in where it is what people “value”. Some value the appearance of units, some just want a dragon, some want flexibly, some want it to perform a specific function that improves the rest of the army.

So how do you make that comparison?

Mathhammer it?
It is one way, very clumsy but a good “reality check” to see if you are on the right track.
You can do it across a range of situations i.e. both on and receiving the charge (after being shot at for two or three turns for your crack elites) versus 20 swordsmen, 6 light cavalry, 4 minotaurs with great weapons and 6 heavy cav. Or you can do it against a “benchmark” unit of that type. For example I compared my dark elf RXBs to wood elf archers and my spearmen to swordsmen to get an idea of where they stood against basic benchmark troops for their roles.

Special rules?
A very imperfect way but you should be assigning value you believe each special rule contributes to that units role in your general strategy. How valuable is frenzy on your troops versus elite warrior status? How important is it for me that this unit is survivable? What does hatred get me on my RXB?

Cheapest troop for the role?
If you want diverters then your starting benchmark would be the lowest cost fast paced unit? You want a CR fillers to hold impact units at bay then your cheapest infantry. From there you look at what roles secondary roles other more expensive units can fill and assign value to them. Normally you’d only do this for “support units” as the “main” units in your army should define the rest of the armies role.

Anecdotal evidence?
Both the best and worst way. People have a tendency to only pay attention to the anecdotal evidence that supports their preconceived ideas.

However given that the game is played on the table top and not on a paper you need to get a feel for how your troops work in unison by playing them or using prior experiences against them, or prior experience with similar troops.

If you are using this in the early going I recommend actually thinking about the game afterwards and just look at what each unit do. Did it perform better or worse than expectations, did you get lucky/unlucky? Unfortunately this requires a level of honesty many aren’t capable of.
This is no way intended to be a good guide as to how to perform such

Follow up thoughts

Well after three games with or against the DE here are some updated thoughts:

Their shooting phase whilst quite nice was not where these guys got it done, that was in combat where they were pretty devastating, fair enough the games I’ve been involved in were against lower WS troops but the theme was pretty clear (and the odds relatively similar when the fight equal WS) they do a lot of damage first round.

Shooting was good though there is merit in perhaps dropping the reapers for more combat orientated troops as this seems to be “their phase”. I’m thinking that the shooting will be woodelfesque, enough to force you to come to me but not enough to wipe you off the table (that’s what the troops are for)

The witches were pretty effective with the rune of khaine on the champ their low cost and presence of other threats meant they weren’t targeted by shooting. I believe locky’s words were “what do you mean now for the normal guys – what were all those dice you just rolled?” after I got 7 attacks from the champ, so a lot of poisoned attacks with hatred looks quite scary.

The ring is fantastic but against the single d6 spell armies will limit what you can do. Though for some, such as undead, you will be throwing guys over your shoulders in the first turn of combat and should do a fair chunk of damage.

Locky’s assassin did well and converted a standard unit of spear elves into a very strong combat proposition with high static res and really high number of attacks. However it did ramp the points up to mid to high 300s so it would want to be good.

My initial thoughts on the assassin were – to vulnerable and where do I find the points? But after seeing one in action and how many other threats you have for shooting and magic an assassin might find it’s way into my list.

Black Guard, at least 15 of these should be a near mandatory choice- absolutely phenomenal. Obviously there will be troops they struggle against but the captain ASF plus hitting 8/9 times at S6 is pretty imposing.

Dark Elves - my thoughts

Well following on from my posts on WAU here is my break down (in full) of the De book with my own build in mind.

CHARACTERS

The Death master
For mine the best choice just because of the flexibility of items and ability to cause damage from the back of a big nasty. Both the manticore and the dragon are viable mounts, the loss of a hero slot isn’t too concerning, given how expensive everything is anyway filling all 4 slots would severely deplete your actual army. With the hatred rule this guy on the back of a monster is one of the more reliable strike weapons in the game and with the large target rule probably the least concerned about hatred pulling him out of position as you should be able to plan ahead pretty well.

Personally I would have him on the back of a flying terror causer kit him out with the hideously underpriced ward save, the moderately under priced regen armour and then you’ve got the option of life taker, killing blow lance, armour piercing great weapon or if you prefer magic protection a null stone plus the armour piercing GW…

Supreme sorceress
Whilst the range of arcane items allow you to put together a flexible magic phase, particularly the casting from a point 6” away and the sacrificial dagger one, for mine no access to an item which mitigates miscasts makes her too unreliable for the points you are shelling out. Putting her on a big nasty gives her dual roles but then you kind of have to throw her into the middle of things to get your points back.

Master
Standard hero but the variety of items allows you to use one or two of these to support the entire list. Whilst they can have a manticore mount (note please don’t take the manticore/dragon, two manticore list especially with hydra support) personally I’m thinking they are best served as a BSB with the 1+ armour save and then either the ring of hotek or the armour piercing GW. I am personally leaning now to the ring of hotek and the armour after initially thinking of the great weapon.

Sorceress
You could get two or three of these and have a very sharp magic phase, problem is you still need to do it from a position which is up close and personal. Sure you could protect them with an assassin but that’s a lot of points to keep you level 2 mage alive. I think the range of some of the spells hinders how reliable this set up can be. With the ring of hotek and null shards basically giving you very cheap ways to shut down the magic phase I think a caddy will be all you see from me.

Hag
I just don’t see it with this choice. The Cauldron looks at first glance great but then you add in the hags points and how static it is and you really rip the heart out of the manoeuvrable feel to the army. On their own I once again am a little apprehensive I think the strength of the master characters is in how they can help the entire army whilst the hag really can only effect what is right in front of her. Plus like her minions she suffers from meat puppetitis.

Assassins
These guys seem very cool but at the points and their limited influence on the battle field I think they are better left at home. At 121 points for 5 to 7 attacks they could be useful in an infantry based force but generally I think they are too expensive.

Two Mounts:
The dragon v manitcore debate will take some time to settle. I think the 120 point difference is about right. With the Manticore is giving up 1 point across the board on stats and being less resilient to shooting I’m favouring the dragon at this point but play testing will get a clearer picture.

Opinions of items these are based on my low magic build.

The Nice ones
- The ring of hotek: 25 all doubles are a miscast for spells cast from within 12” or targeted at a unit within 12”. This will shut down magic phases as 3d6 spells have a 44% chance of miscasting and 2d6 spells a 17%. Once you get in to close quarters it will also limit the amount of support magic your opponent can throw. Very effective item for 25 points.
- Regen armour: 35 points heavy armour and gives regeneration, moderately under priced but when you can combine it with the item below makes a character close to unkillable
- the hideously under costed ward save (the Huck Wuss): 35 points and a strength test against the attack to “ward save” so for a S3 attack a 3 or under (4+ equiv.). Easily the best ward save item in the game. Looks like a major stuff up in the costing of this, I’d pay north of 50 points and consider it a bargain.
- The S based ward save, ring of hotek and the regen armour I’ve already covered so here are some additional ones:
- 1+ Armour save: 25 points doesn’t include a shield. A great option for the BSB or as it leaves enough room for a magical great weapon like…
- Armour Piercing Great weapon: 15 points. For me a no brainer if they are in the ASF unit, you get the great weapon, combined with a biting blade giving a magical attack option at high strength
- S5 Scourge: 25 points. Fits well onto a black guard champ giving him 3s5 armour piercing attacks
- Rune of Khaine: 25 points +D3 attacks are mandatory for any one that can take it.
- Seal of ghrond: 30 points +1 dispel dice the 30 point cost though reduces my love for it
- Null stone: +1 MR. If you are going purely magic defence and are not taking the caddy a sprinkling of these through the army will make it tough.

Good but not great:
-Blood armour: 15 points must cause the casualties in combat to get additional armour save but still a decent option if you want a stronger weapon
-Life taker: 30 points more shots at S4 always hitting on a 2+
-Hydras teeth – seem great mage hunters but at 40 points they are a tough fit as you ideally want this on a guy who can fly and then you can’t protect him.
- Manbane: 25 points, the fact it gets rid of the normal poisoned attacks for me reduces it’s effectiveness, often the little assassin will be hitting out at low T troops for combat res and now loses the poison benefit
- 50 point no armour save sword. Meh standard kit these days and much better options that have been under costed.

Arcane (thrown in for completeness)
Good
- Sacrificial dagger, getting to roll after using your dice means you can go for the IF and avoid miscasts more easily
- Familiar – 25 points pick a point 6” and that is where the caster counts as casting from. Means you can hide them and still use magic missiles. Perhaps can even get them out of the range of the ring of hotek – but this is up for debate.

The verdict:

My build I’m tossing up between Dragon or manticore mounted death master with Huck Wuss, regen, armour piercing GW, null stone, with a caddie, BSB with 1+ armour and ring of hotek. I can’t see myself fielding the as

CORE
Most of the core choices are actually pretty good value so despite my strong leaning I think we will see some different builds.SpearmenWell really they are 7 points as you have to buy the shield. With the points falling off a cliff these guys become a viable bunker though at 155 for the 20+FC this isn’t cheap cheap. Throwing an assassin in makes them pretty solid though once again the cost of the assassin puts them into the sphere of expensive for what they do.RXBIn an army where everything else seems to fit a specific role at 11 points with WS4, and 4+ AS these bad boys can fill a variety of roles from infantry block, flanker, wizard bunker or just be one of the better archery units in the game. Should form the backbone of many lists.CorsairsThey are mismatch of special rules and stats for mine, their resilience against shooting is great but why would your opponent be targeting them over another unit when they offer no greater threat than a spearman? The 2 S3 attacks don’t get it done in combat and the hand bows mean walking into charge range to be effective.Dark RidersStill fill a valuable role as harasser/flanker. Not sold on the RBT at 5 points but can see the benefit. If you have the points may be worth fielding with standards to keep the comp Nazis at bay.HarpiesBeing able to use the general’s leadership is great, as is the ability to take multiple units. Will fill the role of furies from the demon list but be slightly less effective due to the propensity to panic at the first sign of danger. Still at 55 points for a single unit you can throw them forward to distract or divert with little consequence. Will be a regular fixture in most armies if for nothing else but how cheap they are.

SPECIAL

The bit that grabs the imagination in this book is the special section. This is based on no CoB as I think it is too expensive for what it does (after the hag is added in) and can be neutralised by engaging multiple elite units forcing you to pick which unit to support.

Shades:
I think these boys are the goods. BS5 WS5, 2 attacks (with add HW) sure they are fragile and expensive at 85 points for a 5 man unit but their multiple attacks and high weapon skill allows them to harass and suppress enemy war machines if your harpies are neutralised. I think the dual roles makes them a strong proposition if you have a flier in the army. Plus 10 BS 4 shots (after the -1) will support an already strong shooting phase.

Witch elves:
These guys conceptually make more sense as skirmishers where they could get a better shot at guaranteeing the charge. As a ranked unit I’m not sold, WS4 is really the new WS3 in today’s age of power sprint so whilst 3 re-rollable attacks are nice they aren’t high strength and basically require the armour piercing banner and then you factor in that you’re a T3 unarmoured meat puppet and things get very difficult. Only saving grace is the champion which can get the +d3 attacks, still not entirely helpful with a lance through the chest.

Executioners:
These poor little tackers also suffer from meat puppetitis, with ASF they’d be viable but as they are a single S6 attack marks these guys for the highly limited in their effective use pile. At 12 points a pop that’s a bad pile to be in. The special champion is a waste for a fellow meat puppet. Plus being khainite means you can’t throw a master with magic items into the unit to bolster them, only a hag (also a meat puppet)

Cold one knights:
The “cold blooded” banner at 15 points gives them some additional reliability but it is for only one turn and it takes away their access to a war banner or the +d3 CR on the charge making the unit over priced for what it will deliver.

Cold one Chariots:
Suffer form the same fate as the knights. At 100 points a little to expensive for what they are delivering. I’d only really use them, if at all, as a BSB mount. On the bright side they aren’t meat puppets?

Black Guard:
Start on a good note, finish on a good note. The 2 attacks, warrior elite, WS5, immune to pysch, S4 with halberd, access to the ASF banner and the ability to give the champion a 25 point item (I’m thinking the S5 armour piercing beast masters scourge). These guys are then a viable proposition as an anvil unit. Plus not being khainite means you can actually put a character in there (imagine that characters IN rather than watching your elite unit)

My verdict:
So in my current hypothesised army build I’ll have a unit of 15 Black guards with ASF banner and at least one unit of 5 shades maybe two.

Banners:I think the BSB is better taking other items so the only banners of real consequence are the 50 and below.Dread Banner: 40 points? Cause fear, not entirely sure this is that great given DE are unlikely to be on the right side of the numbers score line.ASF: 35 points. For elite infantry a great banner as it brings them in line with the HE elite whilst having the additional edge of hatred. Pity the Executioners can’t get this.+d3 CR on the charge: 35 points a good idea and ideally put on the Cold one knights, but then how do you keep them in line with stupidity. On infantry the ASF is probably going to come in handy more often Armour Piercing: 25 points Good for the WE as gives them some punch, doesn’t overcome their fragility though. A 5+ ward save style thing would have been betterFrenzy: 25 points Corsairs only, makes them into weaker (no poison) but more resilient with elves so this is the only way I see them being a viable choice over other options.Cold Blooded: 15 points. For one turn you take LD tests on 3D6 like lizard men. Really there for the cold ones to give them one turn of reliability, still you can fail that test.
RARE:

An easy section given only two rare c

Hydra: 175 pointsTerror causer, S5 breath weapon, regen, scaly skin, can’t attack handlers in combat if in contact with hydra. In what I think is an error (just like the ward save) the handlers have 2A base but also have a hand weapon plus a scourge (also a hand weapon) giving them 3 Attacks (2 armour piercing). So 13 attacks, with hatred, 7 at S5. this thing will monster no +5 static units in the first turn.

Reaper: 100 points
Given every man and his dog had one before and there is no change I expect many people and canines to be fielding them again.

Verdict:
Look for 2 reapers and 1 hydra to be the standard kit

Overall

The power sprint continues as these guys got increases in effectiveness for reduction of costs so clearly they are miles better than before and moved from Tier 3 to Tier 1 along side their HE brethren but still a notch below the two.

Their shooting phase can be better than a WE one at a cheaper cost, always a good sign for the darkies and with the items you can make a range of builds.

Still many of their “elite” troops have fatal flaws which limit their scope. Many suffer from meat puppetitis which reduces their ability to engage in protracted combat whilst their cavalry still suffers from stupidity.

Overall though a massive improvement in effectiveness.

Mathhammer - boo hiss

Ah the reviled mathhammer hated by some and misused by many. The main point which many of the critics of mathhammer raise again and again is “if mathhammer is so good why is it then used by so many bunnies and so few of the top generals?”

Well two reasons, for starters mathhammer is not a path to tactical genius, it is simply providing more information to make a more informed choice. It won’t stop you making bone head moves and it doesn’t construct a diagram of how the game is going to play out under 6 different scenarios. Some of the more experienced players that don’t use mathhammer have actually just seen the scenarios enough times to know the probable out come anyway through trial and error.

The other reason is people misinterpret the information which leads them to make worse decisions. My personal favourite is “I should on average win that combat”, this is then closely followed by recognition that you only on average are winning by 1 or 2, (meaning there is still very strong chance you lose or that your opponent holds), that you have a small number of dice (meaning the result is more variable) and that it is a general on dragon (worth many points) against non descript vanilla infantry (worth very few points). So essentially our mathhammer guru has pitting his 700 points against 100 with around an even money chance of breaking them?

There are four things I always consider when using mathhammer [please note the % chance of victory is HIGHLY variable depending on number of dice and kills required]

How much do I win by on “average?”
If it is a small amount (+1/2 CR) then really you aren’t “that” favoured to win the combat and even if you do whoopee they are testing at 1 or 2 down.

Will I break them / How many turns am I likely to be in combat
If I think I’m winning 70% of the time but I’m fighting a stubborn or unbreakable unit this means that 51% of the time I will lose one of the two turns and are therefore at greater risk of losing points than my opponent

How dice reliant is my CR?
Two things come out this one is that the only combat res you can guarantee is static combat res the rest is in the lap of dice gods. The second is that you are more likely to get an “average” roll with more dice. For example how often have you got less than 3 hits with your saurus old blood? Or rolled 2 or 3 ones on 3 hits? These outcomes are not bad luck they are reasonable probabilities that you should plan for.

How many points am I putting at risk and how many do I have to gain?
This is the big one. Add up how many points you’re putting at risk versus how many you stand to gain, yes this includes standards, then times that by your estimated probability of winning and if the amount doesn’t exceed the points you’re putting at risk then you’re in trouble.

If you have a 400 point unit attacking a 100 point unit you had better have either an 80%+ chance of coming up with the goods or the move better be setting up something else that will offset the difference. The other outcome of looking at this is knowing when to take a chance and throw that piddly little 75 point unit into 1/3 chance against the 300 point unit

Now due to the sheer amount of dice involved in a game the probability for victory for each situation is pretty variable meaning that the guestimates you make based on your CR differential is imperfect information [side note: I once built a chart using the “small roller” but alas that was on a work computer at a former employer and took me a while to put it together – much productivity lost]. Given this the information should still be used as a rough guide only which is the whole point anyway.

Why do I think magic has "increasing returns"

I often refer to the increasing rate of return for points spent on magic which seems to baffle some people. [RANT] As some people seem utterly incapable of using the search function on various forums and demand to be spoon fed information I thought I’d put it up here.[/RANT]

It is a bastardisation of a business/micro-economic term and technically isn’t 100% correct as at the 13+ mark you start to get less effective spells off (except tzeentch which can get access cheaper to PD).

Essentially the hypothesis is that up to a point, every dice you have in excess of your opponents dispel dice is more valuable than the last (i.e. 2 dice does more than double the damage of 1 dice).

Now when doing the analysis I varied the assumptions for the cost of each dice (points paid) and the return (expected average effect for each spell) just to test if it was the numbers I was using and obviously while increasing the cost of each dice and decreasing the spell effect I got a lower % return the basic principle that you get a higher expected return than your points spent when you escalate past the 10+ dice held firm. I used a dispel pool of 5 as the “standard” pool obviously as it is highly reliant on the gap between dispel and casting pools the variation of this varies the results.

But many would ask why does this happen? Well it is relatively simple. If you think of spells as being in tiers of 1 (minor effect, an attrition style spell), 2 (reasonable effect and on average will dent a elite unit) and 3 (major effect and capable of wiping out unit/s through either). How each spell achieves this is different, maybe by adding/restricting movement, or a lowering a stat line or by out and out damage etc.

Then think when your opponent only has say one or two more dice than you, more than likely you are going to be shutting down his tier 2 and (if he has them) tier 3 spells and allowing him to get off the tier 1 spell which ahs a reduced effect. But as the gap between your DD and his PD increases not only does his “free” dice increase but his options on what to use those free dice on increases as his selection of spells increases. Meaning that at say 3 dice he is getting off a tier 2 routinely and move further away to 4 dice two tier 2 spells every second turn. Get to five dice and you are probably seeing a game changing spell raining down on you every turn.

So in a nutshell as the disparity grows your opponents ability to get off spells off spells which change the game also grows which in turn increases the % return you get for your points invested.

Off course this doesn’t take into account game play (tactics, rational selection of targets, rational order of casting spells etc) but one thing to remember is that as the gap between points invested and expected return grow the more units (points) that player can sacrifice or hold in reserve to keep his mages alive and/or the spells at maximum effect.

Is this the WHFB apocolypse

Well I’d like to think I’m reasonably objective about GW and their decision making having been both a vocal critic and advocate of their past decisions.

As a commercially minded person I’ve supported the price rises and down sizing of the product range, hell I even supported the lack of support of sideline games that I thoroughly enjoyed knowing it makes zero sense to throw resources behind a game with very low revenue opportunities.

I’ve also panned their CEO for failing to have a clear cut strategy on how to turn 10% to 20% of their young burn and churn players into long term customers and the outright idiotic decision to purchase the LOTR rights because “we couldn’t afford someone else to”. [Tip for young players – never pay above the value you think you can derive for an asset this is called stupidity, clearly someone failed their LD check at the start of negotiations.]

So now I’m stuck here at a cross roads which GW has forced upon me. Warhammer Fantasy battles, the hobby I’ve enjoyed sine I was 12 years old and have toiled at through 4 editions is standing on the precipice of moving from a hobby to simply another board game.

GW’s costing of the past two army books have in my view dramatically unbalanced the game and as a result is forcing it away from being a viable system in which to have genuine competition.

In my 17 years of gaming the VC book is by far and away the most poorly constructed rule set I have seen produced, and there have been some humdingers in that time. Either the rule makers lack the basic understanding of how much regeneration, unbreakable, immune to pysch, fear causing, terror, efficient magic and weapon skill impact the game or they have applied, at best, arbitrary values to these.

Sure it is natural that just after a book is released to hear the tales of anguish about how much GW has gotten it wrong, but the more time goes on the more my, and others, opinions grow that they have flat out gotten this wrong.

I would like to think it was simple aberration the part shot of incompetence from the designer in question but alas GW followed it up with the Demon army which is once again substantially more efficient than the pre VC armies.

Incorporating the discussions with experienced players who have/do play VC/Demons have lead to me forming the conclusion that VC is probably costed at about a discount of 10% to 20%. A wide range to be sure, and prone to both exaggeration or conservatism depending on which side of the fence you lie, but either way a significant pick up in “true points”.

So where has this arisen from? I’d say the most obvious elements that have been under costed are the immune to pysch, unbreakable, cause fear and survivability of the units. The elements ensure that the units are exceptionally reliable and can overcome what was supposed to be the best offensive in warhammer, a well executed charge.

So why do I care and why don’t I just change armies? Well there are two reasons.

The first is the long term survivability of the game. GW is already a company which has been poorly performing during the strongest economic boom in living memory and now faces a more uncertain trading environment.

Now they’ve introduce an escalated army race of army books. Whilst this may increase the churn and burn revenue generation of casual gamers who have smaller armies or move to the next big thing, it only further alienates the loyal customer base that previous management ignored. If you have a product where loyal customers are relatively inelastic due to sunk costs and a “unique” system then wouldn’t a major strategic concern be maximising the amount of those customers?

There are better strategies for turning over books than ones which, almost deliberately, force existing customers to chose between buy this now or leave. [Second tip for young players: there are two choices in an ultimatum when issuing one you’d better be able to live with both]

The second being that I just I love the tournament scene. Whilst I have many hobbies it is the one I spend the most time and money on. The scene has gone form strength to strength over the past two decades and it has been a great hobby to be involved in. Sure the game has always been the victim of a moderate level of power creep but I think Australia’s composition systems have generally kept this in check and the imbalance was never this exaggerated.

I strongly fear that going forward the top half of tourney fields will be dominated by a select few armies. I’ve always believed that whilst this has always been the perception it has seldom been the reality (when you look at the results) but going forward I do believe that unless players simply stop playing them (I’m not suggesting that by the way) VC and demon armies will be dominant as they are simply too poorly costed to be adjusted by composition.

This in turn I believe will drive less variety on the tournament scene, and for this gamer at least, dramatically decrease the enjoyment of attending tourneys.

Is it the VC or demon players’ fault? No, they are simply playing the list they were given, rather I feel it is either a lack of diligence in the design process or disgraceful strategy intentionally implemented by GW that has driven this change.

Leviathan 2008

Well took along the goblins (formerly run by Sart) to Leviathan. With zero practice games under the belt and it being my first tourney for the year I spent the first two games finding my feet (which I ironically won) then watching the dice pendulum swing back.

The 2500 point army was 4 characters, 6 night goblin blocks with fanatics, 4 artillery pieces, trolls and fast cav.

I ended up on 59/100 battle points on 3 wins from 5 games, above average but not great. I’m going to focus on the two games lost and the lessons learnt about A) my tactics b) my army composition and c) vampire counts.

My first loss came against Andrew Galea who was playing mixed orcs and goblins. From a tactical stand point in this I took too many risks with what was designed to be a defensive risk adverse army. I sent the hoppers screaming down each flank which leads to them dying, I also intended to pit 80% of my army against 30% of his and hope to win the trade off but with the speed of his Wyvern (and my artillery being wildly ineffective) this was futile.

Dice did play some part with seemingly every critical animosity, panic and misfires failing and ensuring that any plan I had never got put into play but in hindsight I should have hung back and forced his elite units to fight their way through a checker board formation whilst I bombarded with the artillery. This would have mitigated the effect of the dice.

This game also taught me that I had too many fanatics to be effective. I couldn’t control their release or my charge angles after they were and it ended up really hurting me in this game and many others. I essentially had spent to hinder myself or wasted about 100 points

The second loss was to Matt Purling’s VC army the game reinforced all my conceptions about the new VC list. Now I’ll admit Matt’s is more towards the abusive end of the spectrum and may be a harsh example to use when forming an opinion.

He had 3 corpse carts, 2 terror causers (black coach and vargulf), book of arkan, +1 to cast and dispel, 2 grave guard units and 8 power dice (so ~13+ dice after bounds).

I gave Matt the lowest possible comp score for this army at 13 dice, +1 to cast, up to -3 to cast against, +1 to dispel, with magical movement everywhere and rock hard units I felt this was justified. Matt also felt my army justified the lowest comp score for whatever his own reasons were.

When deploying I thought about it and realised I simply could not, with out an extreme amount of luck, actually do anything more than 600 points or so of damage to him simply because of the ability to attempt to heal the units 7 times a phase would completely negate my shooting phase and fanatics (which it did) and if his fully ranked units started getting amongst it I’d be in trouble. Never mind the two terror causers against my ld8 army.

This prediction was spot on. I felt Matt made a couple of mistakes essentially throwing his black coach away and splitting his force allowing me a chance to capture a key unit. I made one mistake throwing my trolls into the grave guard. Still I never looked like actually doing any damage as he re-healed back to full strength every magic phase.

But having two terror causers eventually did the trick killing well over 1000 points in the fifth turn and then allowing a set up for another 500 odd in the 6th.

In terms of the army going forward I desperately need to increase the leadership and magic defence of the army so will be introducing orcs into the fold to bump to LD9 and get a little more control over the army as a whole.

I’m also cutting down the fanatics as I felt that during the games where things were going wrong these guys were the biggest culprits.

Then finally I’ll switch hoppers for herders and throw in a giant to give me something terrifying at last.

With the tweaking I should end up with something that deals out less potential damage but with greater reliability and staying power that, most importantly, can step up in the opponent’s magic phase.

First post - soft topic

Well everyone’s doing it aren’t they this little bogging thing. I’ve always wanted to give it a crack but thought it a little self indulgent and also thought I don’t just want to prattle on about geeky games.

So where did that get me? Right here hopefully in the geeky game only blog, where you get my unabashed opinions, because I’ve done such a great job of moderating them in the past. I also realise this is probably blog number 498 started this year by an Australian gamer, I was two off winning the 500th gamer steak knives!

The first topic was also a bit of struggle. Do I go into my unhealthy fear of the suddenly highly effective vampire magic phase? Nah how about something completely uncontentious: my view painting scores and where we appear to be headed.

It appears every year a new issue with soft scores comes up whether it be: “chipmunking”, what sportsmanship should cover, composition or now, the flavour of 2008, Painting scores.

Now having started out playing Warhammer tournaments back in 3rd edition as a thirteen year old and being about as useful on the table top as Ahkter Kahn, I think I’ve got a bit of perspective on the how and why soft scores came about.

Back then I can remember when tournaments went through the phase when soft scores were being introduced there was a lot of resistance there was the “we need to save the hobby camp” and the “what’s wrong with how we play it now camp”.

Despite this divided everyone seemed to agree that we needed to encourage painted armies to be fielded. [side note: This could have been because people like me used the “three colour camouflage” technique to get past the minimum three colours test, the reason I’m so against static rules for composition is because I’m one of the people who would immediately start trying to rort it]

Now various systems came out encouraging this and generally at the start most of those that I saw made it easily achievable for any player to get the maximum painting score provided some effort was undertaken. After all the intent behind these soft scores, at the start at least, was to ensure that the game was played in such a way that made it enjoyable.

And the warhammer world rejoiced as people became friendlier, armies more balanced and base level of painting quality was adhered to enriching the tourney experience.

Since then systems have morphed, some would say evolved, and I don’t know when it happened but I look at many of the systems now and they are predicated on the view that painting in itself is a fundamental part of competing in the “hobby” and as such should be a source of major competitive advantage.

As often as this is “explained” to me I still can’t grasp the concept. The hobby is called “gaming” which to me implies the playing of a game, to have painting as rewarded in games terms by anything other than personal satisfaction and the acknowledgement of other painters was introduced not by the games designers but by tournament organisers. To have the quality of the paint job judged is not a fundamental part of the game.

To me the intent by the soft scores remains to encourage the game itself to be played in a fashion which promotes enjoyment.

Now sports scores overshot the “accepted standard” style test for sportsmanship but have since largely been reigned back in and composition scores have likewise gone for more of a “lets not penalise tough balanced lists” rather than a lets try and accurately handicap each list like it’s the stall wall gift.

Then we have painting as the soft scores have drifted back in, the painting criteria has become more arduous and skewed toward golden demon level painters.

Some tournaments criteria actually technically provide for that if your army is not to a great, which would mean well above average, standard then it deserves less than average marks. This to me seems absurd.

I am all for soft scores being used as a tool to ensure that the gaming environment is an enjoyable one but I’m against the movement towards the hybrid gaming/painting tournaments which are becoming prevalent.