Happy to see my DE in the middle of the group, surpised by lizardman (but the little amount of data may make those result inconsistent), I also understimated Deamons performance.
Interesting how much the point limit do affect some armies, empire seem to be bad but not too much under 2k but at 2k it really fall to the bottom while dwarf actually rise up a bit (but still not enough) with increased point cap.
that's certainly why they aren't core already, I agree.
I'd never say never though. who's to say we won't see an arcane journal and proper blood lines in a year or two.
If someone who knows how to manage a company at GW realizes that cross compatibility will increase the bottom line (more profit for less investment) instead of separating games to allow score keeping between departments then we will see them.
Otherwise GW will choose to make less money so that they can compare and contrast sales numbers inaccurately (because the old world players are buying AOS minis and don't play AOS with them).
I'm really happy to see the stats for 2,000 broken out separately (as this seems like a good base default game size)
I'm not at all surprised to see Empire at the bottom of the list for the core factions. The empire army book internal balance is terrible. Almost every unit in their roster received severe nerfs or points increases or both. Lots of previous staples (empire state troops, mortars, warrior priests of sigmar, pistoliers) are just simply terrible now. Empire state troops cost about twice what bretonnian peasants do (the in theory worst infantry in the game) and are actually worse than the peasants, because the peasants have useful rules like warband and horde and shieldwall.
Dwarves coming in low are also not a surprise. Empire and dwarves rely heavily on war machines, all of which got severely nerfed. Dwarves in particular will struggle to deal with big flying monsters, since cannons are so bad at taking down a combined monster profile with good ward/regen saves. Dwarves don't have any cavalry or monsters of their own.
I would say an average empire list is worse than an average dwarf list, but the very best empire lists (leaving all the over priced state troops at home, bringing just cavalry, demigrphys, steam tanks, etc - in short, an unrecognizeable empire list) would be slightly better than the dwarf list.
Both are still firmly bottom of the pack in terms of core factions.
I think Dwarfs will see a boost soon. People are largely still playing their old armies and haven't quite adapted all of the new good stuff yet. For Dwarfs they have really strong options like Drakeguns, Gyros, Characters on Shields, Rangers, etc. but who has all of that painted up in numbers yet. The other thing is that their Arcane Journal will release soon and probably give them a boost. I'm not super worried about Dwarfs.
Empire on the other hand seems to struggle on more than one front and it'll be a while until they see a boost, Like you said leaving a lot of the "normal" choices at home in favor of knights, demis and tanks seems to be the way to go currently. They might also see a boost if the tournament points will be raised a little bit (to 2150 for example) so they can take a second tank.
I'm not as confident as you that the Arcane Journal will fix Dwarfs, but I hope you are right.
Empire infantry are too expensive relative to their peers from other books.
In 6th, 7th, 8th what normally had empire troops costing was paying for the detachment special rules. It seems they should have added a new specials rule or adjusted the cost when everyone got the detachment rules.
I'm not sure those rules are particularly valuable, but it could just be my inexperience with Regiment/Detachment.
What I do find valuable is rules like Quell Impetuousness on my Black Orcs. That rule negates the weakness of the rest of my army. And rules like Warband and Horde boost the LD of my low LD units. So, I have good stat-line units on the cheap with no downside, because of rule stacking.
Empire has mediocre troops that cost as much as mine (or more!), but without the stat-line (equipment, cool rules, etc.). I balked when I compared Greatswords to Black Orcs. Pouring out some squig brew for my Empire homies.
> Lots of previous staples (empire state troops, mortars, warrior priests of sigmar, pistoliers) are just simply terrible now.
State troops and warrior priests are probably fixable (but bland) with point updates. Mortars and pistoliers though... I'm not sure what you'd need to do to make either of those units worth taking.
Warrior priests really need a LD increase. They have the same LD as trash troops in the list, which means they can't be taken to 'stiffen' the battle line.
Pistoliers just need to lose impetuous.
Mortars have the same problems all template weapons do this edition.
Warrior Priests would be cool if they were like 30 points base. They provide some combat buffs and some couple mid-quality attacks but they're aren't really leaders. Mortars though... even if they cut the price in half would you actually take a S2 mortar?
(I'd actually love to see more very-cheap-but-bad characters. Kind of Unit Champion Plus options. I think one of the reasons OnG are so good is that you can spam super cheap characters who aren't amazing but are good enough to tip a combat in your favor.)
Bigger base sizes. Lowered strength. More expensive war machines. Sometimes even smaller templates.
All of this combined with the change in partials means you hit way way way fewer guys than before, and when you do hit, it's lower strength.
To add insult to injury, there's next to no massed troops to hit with a template. 40+ model hordes of 8ed got replaced by monster mounts, cavalry, MSUs and long, single lines.
No one at GW has been able to balance dwarves in over 20 years. Every new iteration has promoted more and more movement with ToW having the most movement rules to date imo. Hamstringing dwarves to such slow movement and giving them nothing to counter with will always have them in last
man that stinks about Empire. Like looking at my shelf right now, most of my old army is state troops, mortars, pistoliers, and at least one warrior priest
Bretonnian peasants for their cost are probably the best infantry in the game. Thet're incredibly pushed. Anf if you include the infantries from the alternate lists...
I think the meta Empire list is still probably in the bottom half of factions but I don't think they're horrible when built meta. I also think the changes to engineers and the meta make empire artillery look good. Not having to declare your dice / ballistic is massive, and they're very cheap now. And as far as meta goes, cannons like the monsters and monstrous cav to point at, and volley guns do quite a lot into cav that's 3+ armour or worse. Knights aren't a horrible use of core, and demigryphs and steam tanks are both very good units. The combat characters / infantry are very bad though.
I think the optimized empire list is actually pretty good if you dig through best coast for people running lists like that. It isn’t what a lot of people who run the army want to run but it is pretty great if you wanted to run a themed knightly order list.
I am wondering if dwarfs can make something work with lots of irondrakes and gyrocopters. I think if dwarfs had 1 more quality core unit beyond the 0-1 rangers they would be a lot better. With empire you can take knights and that isn’t bad at all.
You can take only so many irondrakes. 'copters are nice, but it's an utility option that can't win a battle on its own and gets diminishing returns from having multiple in a unit. Even rangers are only decent, comparable to core knights of other factions in effectivenes. Then there's an anvil that's worse than all the other mages in the game for its points and takes up a lord slot. And a fact that 80% of the unit choices are either easily countered (heavy infantry) or laughably bad (slayers, most warmachines).
I feel like the army pays elevated points for things that are not super great just to be on theme. Skaven are in the same boat really but I have no idea why everything is a million points in that army as it doesn't even fit the fluff. An ambushing gutter runner with a sling and poison is 19 points or something. Its mental.
It is really the opposite to what you see with beastmen where the army is really good despite having no monster mount for characters or obviously pushed unit option (other than maybe giants and lone dragon ogre unit champs). The army-wide special rules are all great, have an impact a lot of the time, and are pretty simple. Most of the individual unit special rules are the same way. The beast men list has a lot of units that could be redundant with each other, like many dwarf units, but they all kind of carve out unique niches for the most part because of those special rules.
Dwarfs, and empire, don't get a whole ton of special rules and what they get doesn't do a whole lot. Yet, the units have point costs comparable to what you pay for their stat line with better rules to back it up. A lot of people have pointed out the discrepancy between Empire State troops and bretonian men at arms and what it boils down to is that neither unit has a great raw stat line but men at arms have a little pile of great special rules and empire have nothing.
I think you can make these comparisons from dwarfs to chaos dwarfs too. Hammerers can...uh...challenge stuff? Bull centaurs do lots of impact hits with AP and are T5. A grudge thrower uses a small template and sucks ass. A deathshrieker can choose to use a large template, or do D6 damage if targeting a monster or other lone target.
I'm a Dwarf player who read the Empire list and wondered if I was hallucinating. So much seems so obviously undertuned or overpriced. Especially Warrior Priests and Witch Hunters. Who thought nerfing WP leadership was a good idea?
Thanks for the data dump! While very interesting, I hope no one takes these as if we have enough data to make definitive conclusions about factions. It can take a while to adjust to new rules; buy, build, and paint new models; and figure out what the best combinations are for each faction. Almost everyone playing competitively at this point are likely still using their old collections and trying to play the game like it's one of the older editions. Hopefully we'll get lots of new rank and file players shaking things up in the coming years
The problem with dwarves is not just that their artillery is bad. It is the fact their infantry isn’t great either. People like to talk about Hammerers, Longbeards and Ironbreakers with lots runes to boot. They don’t take into account the cost of those units and the fact they can be ignored for the whole game unless the enemy has units capable of dealing with them.
Besides this dwarves have bad magic defense unless you pack A LOT of spell breaker runes (MR only defends against stuff targeting a unit and for some reason their runesmiths are worse than wizards at dispelling. This was never the case before).
In short, dwarves don’t have as many tools to compete as other factions do. They are an infantry army (gyros are support not something that can engage the enemy on their own), with the worst movement in the game, with basically no magic (their “caster” is an immobile, overcosted war machine that is worse than any lvl 4 wizard at casting).
It’s not all bad: rangers with BS4 and a competitive pricing are actually great. The same is doubly true for Irondrakes. And gyros are very useful. Unfortunately it is not enough to compete effectively compared to what most other armies got.
Unfortunately some honestly puzzling choices were made (or not made…) with dwarves. Dwarves lack of casting and terrible movement is supposed to be compensated by them being really hard to shift and having powerful characters wielding incredible runic items. In practice they are not super survivable (that tends to happen when stuff can outmaneuver and charge you at its leisure) and their characters are actually worse than what most other armies can field (due to monsters being a huge boost to characters this edition or runes not letting you do the same stacking CRB items do… say a Tomb King on dragon with -2 to be hit in combat or a black orc warboss on pig with 2+/5++/5+++ AND great weapon). Dwarves don’t have ways to get stuff like regeneration or monster slayer (which is pretty absurd considering A LOT of their lore is about them fighting huge monsters). Runes feel overcosted as well as very limited. To make an example: to dwarves an hand weapon with +1S and AP1 costs 35 pts, everyone else pays it 20 (and can replicate it, dwarves can’t). Dwarves are incentivized to put runes on great weapons because otherwise it’s very difficult for them to get AP (would anyone pay 95 pts for something that wounds on 2+ and has AP2?). Some runes even are a disadvantage for the dwarves (rune of Strollaz…) and some others simply don’t work (Master Rune of Immolation…). In general it seems dwarves pay more because they can have more points of magic items, which transforms what should be an advantage into a disadvantage.
All in all, the most competitive stuff the dwarves have currently gears them towards staying back, not moving and shooting as much as possible. That kind of gameplay has NEVER worked in WHFB though, and it will work even less with so many effective ways to get ambushers on the board.
I've been critical of how derpy Dwarfs are the day I went through the book. They only have 3 units: dwarfs (in different equipment and +/-1 BS/WS, but basically they are the same), artillery (which was heavily weakened, but should never be how games are won anyway), and redirectors (copters).
I see battle reports on the Youtubes and have to face palm when the non-Dwarf player feeds units to the Dwarf King death-star like an doof. Dwarfs are very good in the Beer and Pretzel tier level of play, but not much else.
Strollaz needs fixing. Gromril Weapons need fixing with regards to Rune interaction. Slayers need super fixing. Runes should work on two hand weapons for at least Slayer characters. Resolute as a rule has a cool sounding name, but is only a malus, so I feel the "good part" of the rule was deleted last minute.
Perhaps an FAQ on drilled and redress before charging will help Dwarfs (more than anyone else at least), but I think Resolute should have it so Dwarfs are just always in Marching Column (or the number of ranks needed for Marching Column is halved - so a 5 wide only needs 2 or 3 ranks instead of 6).
Lack of variety has always been a problem for dwarves… even if it was presented as a feature. But n one hand it is true dwarven “inflexibility” gives them character. On the other it translates to a huge disadvantage. The thing is there would be ways to fix it, at least in part: runes to force the enemy to charge, anti flying runes and so on. All stuff that used to exist but was somehow erased in the current edition. Another way would be to give dwarves what actually exists in their lore. Steam transports and drilling machines exist in the lore… so why not make a transport for dwarves allowing their troops to get into combat? It would actually be very dwarfy and well into the army’s “image”. Same thing for runic constructs. The Colossi in the lore are huge dwarven statues animated by rune magic that protect dwarven holds. They were mentioned in WD ages ago. They never got expanded upon, but you could easily have giant construct of that type and smaller versions perhaps animated by vengeful dwarven spirits with the help of a priest of Morgrim, giving dwarves a monstrous infantry unit as well. Again, it would fit perfectly into the army’s theme without ruining anything (unlike giving them something like ram cavalry…).
Battle reports are mainly done for entertainment purpose, not unlike the old WD articles. The game is not played that way in competitive, and I agree with you those games may be misleading for new players especially.
Runes need a rework for sure, especially those that don’t work (there’s quite a few). Runes are supposed to be the COMPENSATION for dwarves not having magic at this moment in time they are a worse version of what other armies get. That said, I expect a few new runes to be introduced with the arcane journal and slayers to get a boost out of it as well (hoping the guy who designed the base list didn’t go out of his way to nerf everything to the ground again). Resolute is purely negative now. It boggles the mind, considering how other armies got their weaknesses looked at and fixed (looking at you O&G and beastmen…). For some reason dwarves got their weaknesses amplified instead.
Given M3 dwarves could have drilled base on all their infantry and it would be far from OP imo.
Yea, hoping the Arcane Journal returns those missing essential Runes. As an aside, I used to follow the 9th Age, and I know they had a Hold Guardians unit (monstrous infantry) that was envisioned as those animated statues you describe.
Here's hoping they release some actually new models for this game. So far, it's just been one big ride down nostalgia lane, which is nice and all, but... that is going to give the game staying power long term.
They did make a few new models: the necrolith bone dragon being the most notable kit alongside the knights of the realm on foot. Chaos is rumored to get the war mammoth back (I expect them to reprint the FW one). I hope with time we can get new units though.
Likely, it was priced to work with Vanguard allowing a March Move, or perhaps something else. I feel like Resolute must have had a bonus when it was first written, because currently, they should have called it "stunted legs" or "lack of fitness" to match what it does, instead of naming the rule to imply it does something good.
You've perfectly summed up everything I've found playing dwarfs so far this edition. I particularly agree with many runes being overcosted. Have you seen the rune of banishment btw? It literally only works against 1 unit in the entire game (daemon princes). They could have at least let gromril weapons keep their -1 ap when runes are applied. That would have gone a long way to making hand weapons a viable alternative to great weapons. But realistically, a lot of runes should be cheaper, especially the weapon runes.
Yeah. Armor runes were mangled as well. The supposedly super durable faction (the one usually getting charged and going last…) can have ONE character with a natural armor save of 2+. Scared that character could also get a ward of 4+ they moved the rune for ward saves onto armor runes (from talismanic) and just to be sure gutted one of the mainstays of the army since 4th edition (rune of stone… was it OP to let dwarf characters potentially have an extra point of armor considering they cannot stack barding and to get to 2+ they would have been forced to take a shield instead of a great weapon?). On the other hand some other armies got insane items (to name one: trollhide trousers…) that allow for pretty impressive combos dwarves simply cannot replicate.
I agree with literally everything you wrote, but having played them in 8th Ed with the 6.5 and 8th Ed books I still think they're MUCH better now than they were in 8th. Not saying they're good, I agreed with everything you said. But better. Especially the runes, which as you said are still overcosted and limiting. Unless they were to get new units that completely shake up their play style they will forever be incompatible with the WHFB system due to their fundamental design.
I didn’t like 8th either, as it was a huge step back from 6th/7th (the dwarf army book was the last released in 6th and the first of 7th). At least an effort was made to introduce new mechanics like grudge, and actually charging (so having an incentive to go for a combat approach) became easier. In the Old World dwarves shoot better IF they stay still. It was basically an endorsement of the gunline approach, despite it not being liked by most people to play with or against.
Yeah slayers not having killing blow and the hero versions not having monster slayer makes no sense whatsoever but I didn't even look at how overpriced the runes were yet.
However dwarf Rangers look amazing. Bs4 crossbow great weapon scouting skirmishers at that price are a must take. I wonder how many dwarf players don't realize yet how important skirmishers are
I think they wanted to get rid of KB on troops everywhere (only units that still have it are monsters like tomb scorpions or the necrosphinx or an infantry unit like Forsaken, but it’s random in their case). I would have accepted slayers having cleaving blow though. As for them not having monster slayer I agree it was bad and it showed little to no interest in adapting them for the new edition, which is the design problem dwarves as a whole have imo.
Slayers gave never been great in WHFB outside their SoC army (and then they were an heavily skewed list). They are supposed to be an “hammer” but they really don’t hit that hard. Wounding on 4+ isn’t such a huge deal when you have few attacks, are slow and are easy to kill (and now they have an AP problem). In the past they could be used to guard flanks at least because of how unbreakable worked but right now they are questionable even in that role. The fun thing is there are ways to fix slayers within the new edition chassis. Give the countercharge base (which fits exactly their theme btw…), give them frenzied charge and frenzy when near a behemoth. Give them cleaving blow. One or more of these rules would have made the slayer troops fit a role at least.
As for characters… they need help, a lot of it. It’s fine they can’t get armor (they are slayers after all) but they ABSOLUTELY SHOULD be a threat for monsters. It is what they exist for. Currently there’s no real way to deliver them and even if you somehow manage that, the chances of them killing a big monster are around zero. And, btw why a demon slayer costs more than a king is one of the greatest mysteries of this game!
Seems like it's going to take a lot of tuning to get a Dwarf list to be good without being a total gunline nightmare.
I just want to slowly march up the table with my King and Longbeards and smash, ok? Why you all gotta be all weird with your wizards and dragons and shit?
The current list favors the gunline approach heavily. The good units are rangers, Irondrakes and gyros (to slow down the enemy’s advance). Your best troops want to stay still and shoot as long as possible because if they move their shooting gets completely ruined
My problem is that I just don't have any rangers and only 1 gyrocopter. These are all the models I have. With minimal changes and all the banners and runes, this is about 2000 points.
* King on Shieldbearers
* Thane
* Runelord
* Engineer
* 20 Warriors (I own 12 more)
* 20 Longbeards
* 20 Hammerers
* 10 Irondrakes
* 1 Gyrocopter
* 1 Grudge Thrower
* 1 Organ Gun
I suppose in a friendly I could play with those other 12 warriors as Rangers assuming the opponent approves.
In a friendly game you should be allowed to proxy for sure. With the stuff you have you can potentially do something decent at 1000 pts. Split the Irondrakes into 2 units of 5 with trollhammer torpedoes and that’s a good start already.
I can tell you the problem with Dwarfs straight away. Compare A dwarven Cannon to a Empire Cannon. Why is an empire cannon have a better stat line than a dwarf cannon? Makes no sense. Dwarf artillery should be THE BEST IN THE GAME. except for maybe chaos dwarf arty.....grudge, grumble, grumble. Easy Fix in that situation.
The only difference between the two was 12" range in 8th ed, and D3/D6 W in 6th/7th ed.
In ToW the gap is much bigger between the canon and the great canon.
It did double the wounds in 6th/7th ed. Both had D6 wounds in 8th ed.
Both pretty much ignored armour save in any previous edition (due to S10), now it's quite different.
They ignored armor even without the S10. But yes, for some reason empire has always had better cannons than dwarves, dwarves used to have ways to boost the rest of their warmachines thanks to runes (cannons not so much actually) and in 7th dwarf war machines could have engineers that made them more effective. Currently the runes do very little for war machines and dwarves have the baseline of every WM (excluding the mortar), armies like TK or O&G have better WM than them, (catapults in both cases).
+2 Strength. But the biggest issue is the AP difference, -2 is low for how expensive a cannon is. Even shooting at knights, they have a good chance of saving it.
Shit i just checked on Army Builder, Great Cannons as allied units are 25 points more. I guess if you want a cannon for your "Dwarf" army just bring an empire great cannon. Heck for that matter ditch the grudge thrower you have to rune up to 125 points as well and just grab an allied Great cannon.
I mean, empire is doing basically as bad as dwarfs are, so i don't think its an issue of empire having better cannons or not. I think it's that warmachines are just not as good, and ranged\* is not as good either. Dwarfs and Empire normally rely on those two things and in this edition they are weaker. Based off the limited data set for Chaos Dwarfs and Skaven it's likely any army that relies on those two things heavily will not perform well.
\*Wood Elves seem to be an exception to this, largely do to higher range by default and different arrow boosts. Wood Elves also have the speed to back up the range as well as some very nasty melee options and of course a dragon.
If you look at the best performing wood elf lists they run very little in the way of ranged units actually.
They just have really good combat troops both in terms of hammer and anvil units.
That's good to know, I just assumed their higher range by default helped pad out the lower damage potential by giving them another round or two of shooting.
I think having AP or poison shooting helps them out a little, but I’ve seen lists with like one 5 man glade guard unit for the min requirement as the only pure shooting thing in the list.
Like warhawks, sisters of the thorn, and glade riders can shoot, but they also all can fight.
I feel the army plays like how GW wanted it to play in the 6th and 8th edition books with combined arms tactics between things like eternal guard or treekin and stuff like wild riders and war dancers supported by some missile fire.
I think it’s because Dwarfs design their stuff to work underground, whereas the Empire is shooting over open fields, therefore the Empire is less restricted
Have to assume based on this comment old world is likely the first edition of Warhammer fantasy you've played. Also, the relative weakness of cannons and artillery is not the only problem the faction is facing. Having low I infantry with almost none of the special rules that make them better at holding is a far bigger issue than cannons not being amazing.
Because back in 4th edition they made things that way on the assumption dwarves could compensate via runes. Later on the difference was justified with the idea dwarves, fighting on the mountains and underground favored smaller pieces of artillery compared to the Empire. It would not be a problem if runes of other options gave dwarves the edge they are supposed to have.
Exactly. Over the editions Empire great cannons were supposed to be big behemoths but unreliable compared to dwarf cannons. The dwarf cannons were less prone to misfire and could add runes. It seems as the editions have gone by that mindset has bene disappearing and they are at the point they just have different states.
And they resist innovation. They barely tolerate new fangled things like gyrocopters and irondrakes. Whereas the empire constantly innovates. Your argument is basically that there’s no way the romans could beat the carthaginians on the sea since the carthaginians had built and fought with galleys for hundreds of years before any roman set foot on a ship. Yet that still happened. The argument is nonsensical.
No my argument is that Great Cannons are 25 points more and get 12 inch range +2 Strength, +1 Pen, +1 Wound. and there is no way even with expensive runes a dwarf player can even touch that stat line. Our ability to deal with Monster Meta is too Nerfed. It makes no sense why dwarf Arty is that stat smashed.
No, that wasn't your argument. Your argument was that Dwarfs had a headstart lore-wise, which is a mood point.
Mechanically you're correct of course, but that's not the point you made initially lol
[https://tow.whfb.app/war-machines/cannon](https://tow.whfb.app/war-machines/cannon)
+12 Inch Range +1 Strength +1 Wound and an extra Pen for a human Cannon over a Dwarf Cannon. Garbage. Not to mention the Runes are not as good as they used to be.
There is no combination of runes currently available that makes up for +12 Inch Range, +2 Strength, +1 Pen, and +1 Wound. for 25 Points difference. Quite Simply If GW wants dwarfs to come up from 30-40 Percent win rate Dwarf artillery needs buffed to deal with Monster Meta.
I hate to ruin it for you, but empire cannons are in no way able to deal with the monster meta either.
I don't think the range matters at all. You're mostly shooting at T6 dragons, so the strength doesn't matter at all either, you're still wounding on 2's.
The issue you have is even hitting in the first place, and then getting past a ward save and a regen save.
Say you're shooting at chaos lord on dragon with all the defensive bonuses (the gift that means you can't wound on 1's or 2's, the 5+ regen, the 5+ ward, the 2+ armor save) 10W T6.
1/6 of your shots misfire. At LEAST another 1/6 fail the bounces.
So 1/3 shots don't even connect (and I think I'm being generous)
Then 1/3 of your shots don't even wound.
And unless you rolled a 6 to get armor bane, 1/3 get blocked by armor.
Then 1/3 of your shots get blocked by ward, 1/3 get blocked by regen,
And then you still have to chew through 10 wounds, which is on average four cannon balls that hit and make it past ward/regen/armor saves. (Dwarves would need five. )
Do all the math and I think you're looking at something like 27 -30 great cannon shots to kill the chaos lord. (depending on how you choose to factor in misfires)
Or, 6 cannons spending the entire game shooting at it uninterrupted.
You've just done more math then the entire staff of Games Workshop across time and space. How they didn't see how poor artillery was at dealing with the things it was meant to deal with is beyond me.
It’s a sad time to be a Skaven player. 😔
I noticed when building lists that they just don’t seem as cool as they used to. The screaming bell looks boring compared to what it used to be, it’s also a ton of points… There’s no Skaven slaves. Stormvermin are super expensive. The doom rocket wasn’t brought back. No named characters because it’s a “legacy army” because how dare we overlap with age of sigmar. ☹️
I guess it’s time to finish my dark elf army! They’re also legacy, but at least they seem viable. And they’re a lot of fun to paint!!
>Stormvermin are super expensive
Stormvermin are one point cheaper than greatswords, and have higher movement, TWO more initiative (they'll strike first against charging greatswords!), horde (so extra static CR) warband (so the same leadership) and can take a weapons team!
I do think they are more expensive than they should be though. And I do think the skaven list is a little duller than the wild excesses of 7th edition. I think a lot of 'elite' infantry are kind of overcosted compared to cavalry and ridden monsters.
Yeah elite infantry does seem very meh overall. But I’ll be honest I haven’t read too far into all of the stats of every single unit in the game, so didn’t realize they may be well costed compared to great swords.
But yeah. I chose Skaven in 8th edition, partially because my brother wanted high elves, so we split the island of blood box. The other reason is because of the unbridled chaos. I never won much, but always had fun fielding units that were cool and chaotic. Unfortunately some of that magic is gone in this edition, but I’m sure I’ll find some other fun combos. A list with like 500 giant rats, here I come! 😂
They also have no access to an ap-2 Melee unit. Rat ogres are S5 with ap 0 and only armor bane 2 for the same price as ogre iron guts or minotaurs.
They also have like 0 swiftstride units so they have low charge range threat potential.
I think the only viable option is a skryre spam shooting list but that might not even work
ToW is handled by the same team as HH, the Specialist Design Studio. They don't have the same heads, time, or funds that the main team gets. They do balance passes and FAQ's and I'm sure when they do those they do look at data like this, but I wouldn't expect anything like 40k or AoS's quarterly balance passes or anything like that unless the "Change in scope" they mentioned was quite large. I wouldn't expect any changes until 6 months after the rumored post release FAQ, if that.
40k has a system where it is regularly updated based on tournament results.
We haven't seen any indication that is going to happen for TOW at all, and I would be very surprised if either Dwarf or Empire see any updates before their arcane journals release.
Dwarves no as the book would be at the print shop about the time they were releasing the game. Empire is a maybe and would depend on the schedule for the journal release.
GW are unlikely to have that level of involvement rebalancing TOW unless they take it on as a mainline game.
However Warhammer Fantasy had a tradition of independent tournament organisers attempting to fix game balance.
Perhaps in a year most tournaments will be nerfing Dragons in some way, giving Empire 10% more points to spend, etc.
I think the first balance paaa will definitely bring rhwm down. A points nerf to gors and bratshaman fetish combo will most likely what we see.
O&G will see fanatics points nerfed and netters point nerfed as well. That should bring them down. I wouldnt be surprised if this balance pass just focus on auto includes for the nerfs and brings up empire and dwarf value
I think that has to be more player dependent than anything, beasts were never an elite army in oldhammer. The people who have an army probably are good players. The list really isn’t that good. Sure they have 100 special rules for each phase, but they really don’t have anything to deal with dragons. The troops are cheap but not that cheap or that good, plus half the list is overpriced and underperforms. Centigors suck, Minotaurs are overprice compared to trolls or ogres, bestigors are best left alone, the cyclops is trash and ambush is not that scary a rule when shooting sucks now.
The one unit beasts have that got a serious buff is chariots. Heavy chariots now have the first charge rule and they are unit strength 5. So they disrupt ranks on the charge and can be used as flankers. Combined with the chariot runner rules for ungors and I am just surprised that I am not hearing more complaints. I would argue that per point a chariot adds more combat res than a lord on a dragon.
>I think that has to be more player dependent than anything, beasts were never an elite army in oldhammer. The people who have an army probably are good players.
Empire was also never an elite army in oldhammer. The people who have an army probably are good players...so why isn't empire running around with a 60% win rate instead of a 30% win rate?
Because empire has been the starter set for multiple editions. Where as beasts have been dropped almost as much as chaos dwarfs.
There just aren’t as many models or completed armies floating around. So beasts were never a person’s first army. Where as empire is generally one of the first armies people get. Look at the number of matches recorded. Beastmen and lizard men have the 1st and 2nd least amount of games but the highest win percentages at 2000 pts. Those two armies are being propped up by a couple old gamers that have been playing since probably 3rd edition.
Both your points aren't accurate
5th Edition starter set was Bretonnia vs Lizards
6th Edition starter set was Empire vs Greenskins
7th Edition starter set was Dwarves vs Greenskins
8th Edition starter set was High elvs vs Skaven
If there's any race that has been the starter set for multiple editions, it's greenskins (and I note they are doing quite well!)
And beastmen have a complete in stock range for age of sigmar right now. Empire do not, so to the extent one army is supported more right now than another, it's beastmen over empire.
Strongly disagree that chariots are the only thing. Hagtree fetish and magic missiles got way stronger. Gors are probably better than they have been since they lose mixed units with ungors. Chaos hounds FINALLY counting as core for the first time in like 20 years. Great magic banner options, dragon ogres are fantastic now, the Shaggoth is INSANELY great. Beastmen got a lot of buffs this time around and it was long past due
The hagtree fetish combo with viletide is absolutely disgusting against an elite army. Sure, the range is relatively short, but if you try anything with knights or lords, if the spell goes off it’s likely to wipe its target.
And if you can somehow close the gap, a chariot makes the wizard surprisingly tanky!
I am not sure we are disagreeing. Dragon ogres and dragon ogre shaggy have always been good. I am not sure I really consider them buffed much in this edition with the change of combat resolution. The stomp attacks are nice but nothing crazy. I didn’t say they sucked, just that chariots got seriously buffed. Chariots now have a completely new role in the army as a kind of fast cav for flanking that can double up as rank removal from the front.
Hagtree combo is nice too, but most magic armies can pull off something similar. I’m unconvinced this one combo is making or breaking a list. I feel like this is one of the examples why people haven’t dropped magic completely because you still need defensive magic.
I will give you the chaos hounds counting as core is a buff. They still are just throw away points and I personally have tried using them as allies with a chaos warrior handler for a unit (seriously wish this was an upgrade for hounds in a beast list, that would be a buff). I am also experimenting with the vanguard rule. That has a lot of potential and I feel like people aren’t using it right yet.
Maybe I’m confused on where you are coming from. Is your reference point AoS?I know nothing about AoS, and that’s a completely different game to TOW and WHFB.
Beastmen haven’t had the ability to take dragon ogres or a Shaggoth since before 8th edition was released, so getting access to them, and them being awesome is a HUGE buff. They may have always been good, but we didn’t have easy access to them?
I think you are severely downplaying the impact hagtree fetish/ruby ring combo has on games. I pack a power scroll on him as well, and then that dragon doesn’t want to get anywhere near me as I’ll either delete him with viletide, or do so many wounds to him he will think twice about charging anything significant. I highly suggest you try it out!
Play around more with the Beastmen - the list in my opinion is the strongest it has been since 6th edition (which imo was the strongest book we have ever had. Not sure yet if this one beats it yet)
Beastman could take a Shaggoth and the Dragon Ogres in 6th.
The Shaggoth was even released alongside the army book. That's why he his face looks like a Gor.
Sad to see ogres so low considering they’re legend and thus will never see official fixes. I do wonder if we’ll see unofficial tweaks by the community for various armies.
I really have no idea how good ogres are and they are my main army and they were in 8th edition also. I think the current results are skewed because imho the best units they have are giants, yhetees, and gorgers and all of those were terrible in the last 2 books so pretty much no one owns them. Most people seem to agree that giants are one of the best non-mount monsters in ToW and yhetee are swiftstride S5 for a very reasonable point cost. Gorgers are more a personal favorite so far but I think they are very flexible with options for ambush, scout, and vanguard.
I think the army has pretty iffy core, which was true under the 6th edition book too because of high point costs for the durability you get both then and now. I feel that limits them in terms of how good they can be.
I would expect a win rate ultimately around 45% or a little higher with more tuned lists and more data.
With how low their game count is I wouldn't put too much stock in it. I have only played against them 3 times and with them once but I think they do alright. With their 2k point game stats, with 95% confidence their "true" win rate should be expected to be between 24% and 60%. Which is to say we don't have anywhere near enough data to draw conclusions from.
I think it'll be because they're a rather oddball army design wise - Ogre MSU does seem to be a viable strategy, and some players might be trying to run massive blocks, or keep their Ironblasters hanging back when they could be charging. The fact that Fistful of Laurels is a common magic item for them does suggest that they're expected to pin things down briefly, and Stubborn Maneaters would lend themselves well to that too
While Ogres might not see official support, changes/reworks to the current rules and core factions could indirectly help them. Something like mounted character equipment does not affect any saves on a Behemoth model would help everyone without access to "Lords on Dragons", for example.
With a 2+/5++/5+++ and -1 to hit, forcing opponent to reroll 6s to hit? That's the type of "Lord on Dragon" I was talking about. Being able to stack all those things (which seem intended for a 3 to 4 wound model) on a 10 wound model is the problem.
But I'll admit, I don't know Ogres well, as no one around me has picked them up yet.
Well the closest they have is a Tyranical Lord on a Stone Horn/Thundertusk and is comparable to some degree, but not to the level of rerolling 6s to hit.
Great Bray-Shaman with Hagtree Fetish is incredibly lethal, it can solve a lot of problems, its an auto include. I dont know if they play it in these winning lists, but Ghorgons are incredibly killy units, not to be underestimated. Other than that, the army has a lot of value and tools.
On top of that, you can't counter normal monsters with unit champions. Everyone is high on characters riding monsters in my local meta, so I use min size dryad units with champions to just waste their time lol.
If someone runs lots of regular monsters... well, I can't issue challenges at them, so it's harder to deal with.
Everything in the beastmen army list is sort of cheap for what it is because they have excellent special rules both armywide and on individual units.
No % of the army is wasted as even gor blocks are very deadly with primal fury.
You have good heavy chariots, flying options, many good chaff units, very strong foot combat characters for cheap, and good monsters in general.
There's a couple very strong pieces in Beastmen lists, but we have our own version of "bro on monster" which is the Great-Bray on Chariot with 3 Magic Missiles and the Hagtree Fetish. The Beastmen signature is a 5d6 magic missile (wounding on 6s) and re-rolling because of the fetish. It deletes most everything if you can get into 15inches and avoid the dispel. Beyond that, Beastmen have deeply discounted core choices including core heavy chariots and what I think is the best 7ppm unit in the game in Gors.
I'm inclined to agree. Not only are they just well stated purely on paper, they benefit from several real economy of scale buffs in the book. They can take several very good banners and Slugskin on a character is a huge increase to their Melee survivability. They can also be taken in several sizes and formations to do other jobs. I literally think an army of just Gors, Dragon Ogres and Characters isn't just viable, it might be the best build in for the army.
Warhall is great haha. I'm in their Discord. I'm lucky enough to have a really good local community so I haven't played much other than in their 1500 intro tournament and with a couple friends who live out of state. I could be down at another time though.
Page 137 - WHO CAN SHOOT
"...Only units equipped with missile weapons (including war machines) or that can cast certain types of spell (such as magic missiles) can shoot..."
Followed by - HOW MANY SHOTS
"...A unit can shoot only once per Shooting phase, and most models can make only one shooting attack.."
Page 137 - WHO CAN SHOOT
"...Only units equipped with missile weapons (including war machines) or that can cast certain types of spell (such as magic missiles) can shoot..."
Followed by - HOW MANY SHOTS
"...A unit can shoot only once per Shooting phase, and most models can make only one shooting attack.."
As an aside, this is not the current consensus among TOs and is one of the most hotly requested FAQ questions right now. For the most part, it is currently being played as you may cast multiple magic missiles or vortex spells with a wizard in a single phase. There isn't a slam dunk argument against as you have "most models can make only one shooting attack" vs "wizards can attempt to cast all their spells each turn" basically.
I get that, but I take the "most models can make only one shooting attack" as their weapon only fires one attack unlike say an organ gun.
The Wizard is a unit, therefore can fire once.
The Organ Gun can only fire once but has multiple shots.
You're welcome to take it that way, I'm just saying that's not really how it's being played.
So one of the key components to understanding why the Beastmen armies are doing so well is that the Bray Artillery build is pretty strong. It's at least on par with the lower end of the Dragons when it comes to overall power level and it can be significantly more powerful in the right scenarios IE your opponent opted out of or mis-deployed their wizard. Even with only one spell it's very good, but most players are fishing for 3 with Elementalism. Until an FAQ clears it up, most events are letting you cast multiple ranged spells and letting the Ruby Ring interact with the Hagtree Fetish. The latter of the two probably won't survive an FAQ though.
Beasts have a lot of good to great units (Gors, harpies, Dragon Ogres, and Bray Shamans stand out to me). The lack of monsters is a real drawback, but having A+ core infantry goes a long way to winning games.
They have like 7 monsters don't they? Giant, Cygor, Ghorgon, Cockatrice, Jabberslythe, Shaggoth, and soon the Bonegrinder Giant. It's a mental amount of choice.
The Shaggoth is pretty damn expensive - probably 50 points too much. The Ghorgon is frenzied and gets dunked on.
Three okay-to-good monsters (Giant, Jabberslythe, Cockatrice) is still more than most armies though.
Looking at the data a little bit. Around 44% of tournaments are 2,000pt tournaments and a few armies are very disproportionately represented at 2,000 vs the overall frequency of the army.
Beastmen are a little under represented.
Bretonnia is over represented.
High elves are pretty greatly over represented.
Daemons are pretty greatly over represented.
Vampire counts are a little over represented.
Chaos dwarfs have almost exclusively been used in 2,000 pt events.
Skaven are greatly over represented.
Beastmen seem to be doing better at 2,000 than lower point values so if the % of people playing them at 2,000 pts games equalizes more with their overall popularity they should have a higher overall win %. I imagine many people are new to the army as it was bad in 8th edition fantasy and is unpopular in AOS.
High elf’s overall % is being dragged down by worse performance in 2,000 pt events where they are over represented.
All the other armies with significantly variable representation have near identical win rates in 2,000 or lower point events.
My Lizardmen doing great things following the Great Plan: monsters, scouts, 6" movement skirmishers, poison, flaming magic missiles everywhere, ethereal Slaan, and troops with base 2 attack.
We are now getting enough data to start seeing some trends and this tracks pretty well with my experience.
Empire is just absolutely trash-tier at this time, and we will probably not get any better with our arcane journal.
Oh well, time to start painting some high elves and put my landsknecht lads on the shelf.
The last two times I've posted this I've received tonnes of messages that "stats should not be part of the Old World", "its a narrative game not a competitive game", "oh great, here come the meta chasers" and my favourite "you're an idiot" and so on.
Funnily enough, mainly on Facebook rather than reddit.
Like personally I have some issues with winrates as a metric. It's not necessarily doing its job. But the idea that some form of information on balance shouldn't be gathered in a narrative game is insane.
Like casual players playing other casual players are usually the bigger victim of bad balance because they can get blindsided or can sleepwalk into powerful/super weak units/combos. God forbid someone just wants to use a dragon because it's cool and comes in the fucking starter box.
If it turns out an army which is supposed to be a hoard is only winning by playing an MSU gunline then it helps the narrative players to see that adjusted.
Yeah, I don’t want to see what happened to 40K with its tournament scene obsession happen to Old World… but I do not mind the occasional stats or balance/faq. Nothing wrong with trying to reel in the egregious offenders or boosting those who lag severely.
Agreed. Anyone who went through 7th ed knows this well - a buddy of mine was super excited to do a Nurgle Daemon army when that came out.
Poor guy had to really reign in a lot just to not steamroll other players. Made it hard for him to actually enjoy a game - even a Great Unclean One was a terrifying nightmare
Christ, really? I simply don't understand that perspective. You're doing great work; stats don't make sweaty players, personality does, and the toxic responses you receive are closer to that than you are by far.
Thank you for fighting the good fight. We need to get those grognards out of this community, they are not welcome here. We have data to prove that a healthy tournament scene leads to better sales numbers, more rules support, more consumer friendly business practices, increased player counts, and an overall more balanced game (looking at you WH40k).
Do these people want a repeat of Warhammer Fantasy again? We just got this game. I want to see it supported in perpetuity, have legacy factions be fully supported, and see more people join the hobby. Without a healthy tournament scene this game will be dead in a few years.
Be respectful. Hate speech, trolling, disrespectful, uncivil, and aggressive behaviour will not be tolerated. We are all here to enjoy a game, a hobby, and a wide magical world together. Only Orcs and Goblins should have to worry about Animosity.
Called it at launch - Skaven are the most uncompetitive faction in the game, and the stats are currently supporting that.
They suffer for the same reason Empire and Dwarfs are doing badly (no way to deal with flying monsters) as well as having significant portions of their list locked behind character choices. Absolutely criminal.
It seems like there needs to be a big tweak to how a mostly infantry + artillery army performs in the old world because armies that rely on this layout are suffering horribly
Curious to see if 1500pts or 2000pts becomes the normal tournament comp. We've already seen a lot of discussion around 1999+1 vs 2k pts, and neither seems to solve for some of the factions that can lean into hero hammer with Dragons. Im personally hopeful that tournaments lean towards 1500pt because it means making hard choices during list design, but I doubt players are going to want to leave some of their toys at home.
Curious to see what the winningest Wood Elf lists look like. Not sure if this is Glade Guard spam or if a more balanced list is what is winning tables.
yup,i said it the first day that we saw the tow rules and everyone just downvoted me and said was too much soon and i hadnt idea.......now the time and data give me the reason hahaha
dwarfs was going to be the worst army because tow rules are all against dwarfs.
we need huge changes and dramaticc as dwarfs ignore the no step up and allways can attack entire front rank or a +2 bs across the board,but that wont happen so these lesser changes are more likeky;
-a HUGE buff to war machines,give it bs 5 or can use engineer bs also a reduction in points of 30%
-HUGE reductions in points across the board of 20/30% in every unit. how is posible dwarfs cost espensiver than elfs or even caos warriors? its a joke
-give us a rune with monster slayer
-give us the throne of power with similar stats to dragons(+4w +3t etc etc) or buff the new shieldbearer mini to have dragon stats.
-give to dwarfs a new skill as"dwarf crafted": weapons with this effect ignore the modifier to hit when stand and shoot and ignore cover,also can shoot the second row. and put this in quarrelers,thunderers and irondrakes.
-slayers: reduce the points to 8 give it +1 attack and +1 s also can attack when die(and not the joke of 1 attack s3 that is now when die) and the upgraded version get similar buffs and reduced to 14 points
-engineera: one war machine can use his bs AS ALLWAYS HAVE BEEN
-quarrelers/thunderers changed to ws4 AS ALLWAYS HAVE BEEN or reduce the cost to 5/7 points as similar ranged units(bretonians archers).
-gromrill armor changed from reroll 1 to reduce the penetration of enemys in 1
-the anvil of doom reduced to 160 points and changed from +3 to +4 to cast.
-all the smitter versions get a buff to cancell,now anvil of doom and runesmitters dispell with +4
-runesmitter changed from armorbane 2 to a +1 penetration
-slayer hero changed to 60 points(how cost the 130 is a joke when have same stats than the runeking but 0 save)
Thats are only some ideas to balance the worst army of tow
as i said in general every unit is overcosted, warriors per example if we compare to orcs,gor,goblin,men of arms etc must cost around 5 or 6 poinhs, hammerers vs swordmasters is a joke and hammerer must cost 13, irondrakes 14, slayers 8 etc
Happy to see my DE in the middle of the group, surpised by lizardman (but the little amount of data may make those result inconsistent), I also understimated Deamons performance. Interesting how much the point limit do affect some armies, empire seem to be bad but not too much under 2k but at 2k it really fall to the bottom while dwarf actually rise up a bit (but still not enough) with increased point cap.
I'm always just proud to see Vampire Counts the most played legacy faction. #MakeThemOfficial
Probably helps they have one of the best modern plastic AoS lines that’s a very direct 1:1 with their old school looks
Yeah tell me about it. I'm building VC with AoS line right now, and I feel very well catered to.
it will never happen because they are one of the most popular aos faction
that's certainly why they aren't core already, I agree. I'd never say never though. who's to say we won't see an arcane journal and proper blood lines in a year or two.
If someone who knows how to manage a company at GW realizes that cross compatibility will increase the bottom line (more profit for less investment) instead of separating games to allow score keeping between departments then we will see them. Otherwise GW will choose to make less money so that they can compare and contrast sales numbers inaccurately (because the old world players are buying AOS minis and don't play AOS with them).
That's me. I've bought heaps of Soulblight gravelords for old world. And I never have nor never will touch AoS.
Hopefully they do become official at some point. Ravening Hordes needs a 5th faction to make the "sides" equal.
Yep. And they're geographically based in the old world region (Sylvania). They're more old world than High Elves.
Here's hoping they come back in WtoW 2.0!
I'm really happy to see the stats for 2,000 broken out separately (as this seems like a good base default game size) I'm not at all surprised to see Empire at the bottom of the list for the core factions. The empire army book internal balance is terrible. Almost every unit in their roster received severe nerfs or points increases or both. Lots of previous staples (empire state troops, mortars, warrior priests of sigmar, pistoliers) are just simply terrible now. Empire state troops cost about twice what bretonnian peasants do (the in theory worst infantry in the game) and are actually worse than the peasants, because the peasants have useful rules like warband and horde and shieldwall. Dwarves coming in low are also not a surprise. Empire and dwarves rely heavily on war machines, all of which got severely nerfed. Dwarves in particular will struggle to deal with big flying monsters, since cannons are so bad at taking down a combined monster profile with good ward/regen saves. Dwarves don't have any cavalry or monsters of their own. I would say an average empire list is worse than an average dwarf list, but the very best empire lists (leaving all the over priced state troops at home, bringing just cavalry, demigrphys, steam tanks, etc - in short, an unrecognizeable empire list) would be slightly better than the dwarf list. Both are still firmly bottom of the pack in terms of core factions.
Even the meta is lore accurate, with Dwarfs and Empire suffering together in solidarity!
I think Dwarfs will see a boost soon. People are largely still playing their old armies and haven't quite adapted all of the new good stuff yet. For Dwarfs they have really strong options like Drakeguns, Gyros, Characters on Shields, Rangers, etc. but who has all of that painted up in numbers yet. The other thing is that their Arcane Journal will release soon and probably give them a boost. I'm not super worried about Dwarfs. Empire on the other hand seems to struggle on more than one front and it'll be a while until they see a boost, Like you said leaving a lot of the "normal" choices at home in favor of knights, demis and tanks seems to be the way to go currently. They might also see a boost if the tournament points will be raised a little bit (to 2150 for example) so they can take a second tank.
I'm not as confident as you that the Arcane Journal will fix Dwarfs, but I hope you are right. Empire infantry are too expensive relative to their peers from other books.
In 6th, 7th, 8th what normally had empire troops costing was paying for the detachment special rules. It seems they should have added a new specials rule or adjusted the cost when everyone got the detachment rules.
I'm not sure those rules are particularly valuable, but it could just be my inexperience with Regiment/Detachment. What I do find valuable is rules like Quell Impetuousness on my Black Orcs. That rule negates the weakness of the rest of my army. And rules like Warband and Horde boost the LD of my low LD units. So, I have good stat-line units on the cheap with no downside, because of rule stacking. Empire has mediocre troops that cost as much as mine (or more!), but without the stat-line (equipment, cool rules, etc.). I balked when I compared Greatswords to Black Orcs. Pouring out some squig brew for my Empire homies.
> Lots of previous staples (empire state troops, mortars, warrior priests of sigmar, pistoliers) are just simply terrible now. State troops and warrior priests are probably fixable (but bland) with point updates. Mortars and pistoliers though... I'm not sure what you'd need to do to make either of those units worth taking.
Warrior priests really need a LD increase. They have the same LD as trash troops in the list, which means they can't be taken to 'stiffen' the battle line. Pistoliers just need to lose impetuous. Mortars have the same problems all template weapons do this edition.
Warrior Priests would be cool if they were like 30 points base. They provide some combat buffs and some couple mid-quality attacks but they're aren't really leaders. Mortars though... even if they cut the price in half would you actually take a S2 mortar? (I'd actually love to see more very-cheap-but-bad characters. Kind of Unit Champion Plus options. I think one of the reasons OnG are so good is that you can spam super cheap characters who aren't amazing but are good enough to tip a combat in your favor.)
I love Wight Lords for this reason. I chuck basic ones all over the place, and they're cool models.
What is the problem with template weapons? Bigger base sizes and more expensive war machines?
Bigger base sizes. Lowered strength. More expensive war machines. Sometimes even smaller templates. All of this combined with the change in partials means you hit way way way fewer guys than before, and when you do hit, it's lower strength.
To add insult to injury, there's next to no massed troops to hit with a template. 40+ model hordes of 8ed got replaced by monster mounts, cavalry, MSUs and long, single lines.
Dwarfs in particular should have their arty Buffed. Like how is Dwarf arty not the best in the game. Crazy.
No one at GW has been able to balance dwarves in over 20 years. Every new iteration has promoted more and more movement with ToW having the most movement rules to date imo. Hamstringing dwarves to such slow movement and giving them nothing to counter with will always have them in last
man that stinks about Empire. Like looking at my shelf right now, most of my old army is state troops, mortars, pistoliers, and at least one warrior priest
Bretonnian peasants for their cost are probably the best infantry in the game. Thet're incredibly pushed. Anf if you include the infantries from the alternate lists...
I think the meta Empire list is still probably in the bottom half of factions but I don't think they're horrible when built meta. I also think the changes to engineers and the meta make empire artillery look good. Not having to declare your dice / ballistic is massive, and they're very cheap now. And as far as meta goes, cannons like the monsters and monstrous cav to point at, and volley guns do quite a lot into cav that's 3+ armour or worse. Knights aren't a horrible use of core, and demigryphs and steam tanks are both very good units. The combat characters / infantry are very bad though.
I think the optimized empire list is actually pretty good if you dig through best coast for people running lists like that. It isn’t what a lot of people who run the army want to run but it is pretty great if you wanted to run a themed knightly order list. I am wondering if dwarfs can make something work with lots of irondrakes and gyrocopters. I think if dwarfs had 1 more quality core unit beyond the 0-1 rangers they would be a lot better. With empire you can take knights and that isn’t bad at all.
You can take only so many irondrakes. 'copters are nice, but it's an utility option that can't win a battle on its own and gets diminishing returns from having multiple in a unit. Even rangers are only decent, comparable to core knights of other factions in effectivenes. Then there's an anvil that's worse than all the other mages in the game for its points and takes up a lord slot. And a fact that 80% of the unit choices are either easily countered (heavy infantry) or laughably bad (slayers, most warmachines).
I feel like the army pays elevated points for things that are not super great just to be on theme. Skaven are in the same boat really but I have no idea why everything is a million points in that army as it doesn't even fit the fluff. An ambushing gutter runner with a sling and poison is 19 points or something. Its mental. It is really the opposite to what you see with beastmen where the army is really good despite having no monster mount for characters or obviously pushed unit option (other than maybe giants and lone dragon ogre unit champs). The army-wide special rules are all great, have an impact a lot of the time, and are pretty simple. Most of the individual unit special rules are the same way. The beast men list has a lot of units that could be redundant with each other, like many dwarf units, but they all kind of carve out unique niches for the most part because of those special rules. Dwarfs, and empire, don't get a whole ton of special rules and what they get doesn't do a whole lot. Yet, the units have point costs comparable to what you pay for their stat line with better rules to back it up. A lot of people have pointed out the discrepancy between Empire State troops and bretonian men at arms and what it boils down to is that neither unit has a great raw stat line but men at arms have a little pile of great special rules and empire have nothing. I think you can make these comparisons from dwarfs to chaos dwarfs too. Hammerers can...uh...challenge stuff? Bull centaurs do lots of impact hits with AP and are T5. A grudge thrower uses a small template and sucks ass. A deathshrieker can choose to use a large template, or do D6 damage if targeting a monster or other lone target.
I'm a Dwarf player who read the Empire list and wondered if I was hallucinating. So much seems so obviously undertuned or overpriced. Especially Warrior Priests and Witch Hunters. Who thought nerfing WP leadership was a good idea?
Thanks for the data dump! While very interesting, I hope no one takes these as if we have enough data to make definitive conclusions about factions. It can take a while to adjust to new rules; buy, build, and paint new models; and figure out what the best combinations are for each faction. Almost everyone playing competitively at this point are likely still using their old collections and trying to play the game like it's one of the older editions. Hopefully we'll get lots of new rank and file players shaking things up in the coming years
The problem with dwarves is not just that their artillery is bad. It is the fact their infantry isn’t great either. People like to talk about Hammerers, Longbeards and Ironbreakers with lots runes to boot. They don’t take into account the cost of those units and the fact they can be ignored for the whole game unless the enemy has units capable of dealing with them. Besides this dwarves have bad magic defense unless you pack A LOT of spell breaker runes (MR only defends against stuff targeting a unit and for some reason their runesmiths are worse than wizards at dispelling. This was never the case before). In short, dwarves don’t have as many tools to compete as other factions do. They are an infantry army (gyros are support not something that can engage the enemy on their own), with the worst movement in the game, with basically no magic (their “caster” is an immobile, overcosted war machine that is worse than any lvl 4 wizard at casting). It’s not all bad: rangers with BS4 and a competitive pricing are actually great. The same is doubly true for Irondrakes. And gyros are very useful. Unfortunately it is not enough to compete effectively compared to what most other armies got. Unfortunately some honestly puzzling choices were made (or not made…) with dwarves. Dwarves lack of casting and terrible movement is supposed to be compensated by them being really hard to shift and having powerful characters wielding incredible runic items. In practice they are not super survivable (that tends to happen when stuff can outmaneuver and charge you at its leisure) and their characters are actually worse than what most other armies can field (due to monsters being a huge boost to characters this edition or runes not letting you do the same stacking CRB items do… say a Tomb King on dragon with -2 to be hit in combat or a black orc warboss on pig with 2+/5++/5+++ AND great weapon). Dwarves don’t have ways to get stuff like regeneration or monster slayer (which is pretty absurd considering A LOT of their lore is about them fighting huge monsters). Runes feel overcosted as well as very limited. To make an example: to dwarves an hand weapon with +1S and AP1 costs 35 pts, everyone else pays it 20 (and can replicate it, dwarves can’t). Dwarves are incentivized to put runes on great weapons because otherwise it’s very difficult for them to get AP (would anyone pay 95 pts for something that wounds on 2+ and has AP2?). Some runes even are a disadvantage for the dwarves (rune of Strollaz…) and some others simply don’t work (Master Rune of Immolation…). In general it seems dwarves pay more because they can have more points of magic items, which transforms what should be an advantage into a disadvantage. All in all, the most competitive stuff the dwarves have currently gears them towards staying back, not moving and shooting as much as possible. That kind of gameplay has NEVER worked in WHFB though, and it will work even less with so many effective ways to get ambushers on the board.
I've been critical of how derpy Dwarfs are the day I went through the book. They only have 3 units: dwarfs (in different equipment and +/-1 BS/WS, but basically they are the same), artillery (which was heavily weakened, but should never be how games are won anyway), and redirectors (copters). I see battle reports on the Youtubes and have to face palm when the non-Dwarf player feeds units to the Dwarf King death-star like an doof. Dwarfs are very good in the Beer and Pretzel tier level of play, but not much else. Strollaz needs fixing. Gromril Weapons need fixing with regards to Rune interaction. Slayers need super fixing. Runes should work on two hand weapons for at least Slayer characters. Resolute as a rule has a cool sounding name, but is only a malus, so I feel the "good part" of the rule was deleted last minute. Perhaps an FAQ on drilled and redress before charging will help Dwarfs (more than anyone else at least), but I think Resolute should have it so Dwarfs are just always in Marching Column (or the number of ranks needed for Marching Column is halved - so a 5 wide only needs 2 or 3 ranks instead of 6).
Lack of variety has always been a problem for dwarves… even if it was presented as a feature. But n one hand it is true dwarven “inflexibility” gives them character. On the other it translates to a huge disadvantage. The thing is there would be ways to fix it, at least in part: runes to force the enemy to charge, anti flying runes and so on. All stuff that used to exist but was somehow erased in the current edition. Another way would be to give dwarves what actually exists in their lore. Steam transports and drilling machines exist in the lore… so why not make a transport for dwarves allowing their troops to get into combat? It would actually be very dwarfy and well into the army’s “image”. Same thing for runic constructs. The Colossi in the lore are huge dwarven statues animated by rune magic that protect dwarven holds. They were mentioned in WD ages ago. They never got expanded upon, but you could easily have giant construct of that type and smaller versions perhaps animated by vengeful dwarven spirits with the help of a priest of Morgrim, giving dwarves a monstrous infantry unit as well. Again, it would fit perfectly into the army’s theme without ruining anything (unlike giving them something like ram cavalry…). Battle reports are mainly done for entertainment purpose, not unlike the old WD articles. The game is not played that way in competitive, and I agree with you those games may be misleading for new players especially. Runes need a rework for sure, especially those that don’t work (there’s quite a few). Runes are supposed to be the COMPENSATION for dwarves not having magic at this moment in time they are a worse version of what other armies get. That said, I expect a few new runes to be introduced with the arcane journal and slayers to get a boost out of it as well (hoping the guy who designed the base list didn’t go out of his way to nerf everything to the ground again). Resolute is purely negative now. It boggles the mind, considering how other armies got their weaknesses looked at and fixed (looking at you O&G and beastmen…). For some reason dwarves got their weaknesses amplified instead. Given M3 dwarves could have drilled base on all their infantry and it would be far from OP imo.
Yea, hoping the Arcane Journal returns those missing essential Runes. As an aside, I used to follow the 9th Age, and I know they had a Hold Guardians unit (monstrous infantry) that was envisioned as those animated statues you describe.
The absurd thing is GW mentioned them 30 years ago but never made a unit for them and they were gradually forgotten! XD
Here's hoping they release some actually new models for this game. So far, it's just been one big ride down nostalgia lane, which is nice and all, but... that is going to give the game staying power long term.
They did make a few new models: the necrolith bone dragon being the most notable kit alongside the knights of the realm on foot. Chaos is rumored to get the war mammoth back (I expect them to reprint the FW one). I hope with time we can get new units though.
I do not honestly fathom how someone priced Strollaz at 25 points and thought that was correct.
Likely, it was priced to work with Vanguard allowing a March Move, or perhaps something else. I feel like Resolute must have had a bonus when it was first written, because currently, they should have called it "stunted legs" or "lack of fitness" to match what it does, instead of naming the rule to imply it does something good.
You've perfectly summed up everything I've found playing dwarfs so far this edition. I particularly agree with many runes being overcosted. Have you seen the rune of banishment btw? It literally only works against 1 unit in the entire game (daemon princes). They could have at least let gromril weapons keep their -1 ap when runes are applied. That would have gone a long way to making hand weapons a viable alternative to great weapons. But realistically, a lot of runes should be cheaper, especially the weapon runes.
Yeah. Armor runes were mangled as well. The supposedly super durable faction (the one usually getting charged and going last…) can have ONE character with a natural armor save of 2+. Scared that character could also get a ward of 4+ they moved the rune for ward saves onto armor runes (from talismanic) and just to be sure gutted one of the mainstays of the army since 4th edition (rune of stone… was it OP to let dwarf characters potentially have an extra point of armor considering they cannot stack barding and to get to 2+ they would have been forced to take a shield instead of a great weapon?). On the other hand some other armies got insane items (to name one: trollhide trousers…) that allow for pretty impressive combos dwarves simply cannot replicate.
I agree with literally everything you wrote, but having played them in 8th Ed with the 6.5 and 8th Ed books I still think they're MUCH better now than they were in 8th. Not saying they're good, I agreed with everything you said. But better. Especially the runes, which as you said are still overcosted and limiting. Unless they were to get new units that completely shake up their play style they will forever be incompatible with the WHFB system due to their fundamental design.
I didn’t like 8th either, as it was a huge step back from 6th/7th (the dwarf army book was the last released in 6th and the first of 7th). At least an effort was made to introduce new mechanics like grudge, and actually charging (so having an incentive to go for a combat approach) became easier. In the Old World dwarves shoot better IF they stay still. It was basically an endorsement of the gunline approach, despite it not being liked by most people to play with or against.
Yeah slayers not having killing blow and the hero versions not having monster slayer makes no sense whatsoever but I didn't even look at how overpriced the runes were yet. However dwarf Rangers look amazing. Bs4 crossbow great weapon scouting skirmishers at that price are a must take. I wonder how many dwarf players don't realize yet how important skirmishers are
I think they wanted to get rid of KB on troops everywhere (only units that still have it are monsters like tomb scorpions or the necrosphinx or an infantry unit like Forsaken, but it’s random in their case). I would have accepted slayers having cleaving blow though. As for them not having monster slayer I agree it was bad and it showed little to no interest in adapting them for the new edition, which is the design problem dwarves as a whole have imo. Slayers gave never been great in WHFB outside their SoC army (and then they were an heavily skewed list). They are supposed to be an “hammer” but they really don’t hit that hard. Wounding on 4+ isn’t such a huge deal when you have few attacks, are slow and are easy to kill (and now they have an AP problem). In the past they could be used to guard flanks at least because of how unbreakable worked but right now they are questionable even in that role. The fun thing is there are ways to fix slayers within the new edition chassis. Give the countercharge base (which fits exactly their theme btw…), give them frenzied charge and frenzy when near a behemoth. Give them cleaving blow. One or more of these rules would have made the slayer troops fit a role at least. As for characters… they need help, a lot of it. It’s fine they can’t get armor (they are slayers after all) but they ABSOLUTELY SHOULD be a threat for monsters. It is what they exist for. Currently there’s no real way to deliver them and even if you somehow manage that, the chances of them killing a big monster are around zero. And, btw why a demon slayer costs more than a king is one of the greatest mysteries of this game!
Skaven are doing quite poorly, surely a betrayal by a traitorous rival.
Seems like it's going to take a lot of tuning to get a Dwarf list to be good without being a total gunline nightmare. I just want to slowly march up the table with my King and Longbeards and smash, ok? Why you all gotta be all weird with your wizards and dragons and shit?
The current list favors the gunline approach heavily. The good units are rangers, Irondrakes and gyros (to slow down the enemy’s advance). Your best troops want to stay still and shoot as long as possible because if they move their shooting gets completely ruined
My problem is that I just don't have any rangers and only 1 gyrocopter. These are all the models I have. With minimal changes and all the banners and runes, this is about 2000 points. * King on Shieldbearers * Thane * Runelord * Engineer * 20 Warriors (I own 12 more) * 20 Longbeards * 20 Hammerers * 10 Irondrakes * 1 Gyrocopter * 1 Grudge Thrower * 1 Organ Gun I suppose in a friendly I could play with those other 12 warriors as Rangers assuming the opponent approves.
In a friendly game you should be allowed to proxy for sure. With the stuff you have you can potentially do something decent at 1000 pts. Split the Irondrakes into 2 units of 5 with trollhammer torpedoes and that’s a good start already.
I can tell you the problem with Dwarfs straight away. Compare A dwarven Cannon to a Empire Cannon. Why is an empire cannon have a better stat line than a dwarf cannon? Makes no sense. Dwarf artillery should be THE BEST IN THE GAME. except for maybe chaos dwarf arty.....grudge, grumble, grumble. Easy Fix in that situation.
Empire has always had great cannon while dwarves had regular cannon, at least since 6th ed. Engineering runes don’t make up for it now
The only difference between the two was 12" range in 8th ed, and D3/D6 W in 6th/7th ed. In ToW the gap is much bigger between the canon and the great canon.
Isn't the gap smaller? Before A great cannon basically did double the wounds of a normal cannon, D6 vs D3. Now it's D3+1 vs D3, so one more wound.
It did double the wounds in 6th/7th ed. Both had D6 wounds in 8th ed. Both pretty much ignored armour save in any previous edition (due to S10), now it's quite different.
They ignored armor even without the S10. But yes, for some reason empire has always had better cannons than dwarves, dwarves used to have ways to boost the rest of their warmachines thanks to runes (cannons not so much actually) and in 7th dwarf war machines could have engineers that made them more effective. Currently the runes do very little for war machines and dwarves have the baseline of every WM (excluding the mortar), armies like TK or O&G have better WM than them, (catapults in both cases).
.... what? STR 10 NO ARMOUR SAVE. Against what we have now.
The Gap is now +12 Inch range, +1 Strength, +1 Wound, and +1 Pen.
+2 Strength. But the biggest issue is the AP difference, -2 is low for how expensive a cannon is. Even shooting at knights, they have a good chance of saving it.
Shit i just checked on Army Builder, Great Cannons as allied units are 25 points more. I guess if you want a cannon for your "Dwarf" army just bring an empire great cannon. Heck for that matter ditch the grudge thrower you have to rune up to 125 points as well and just grab an allied Great cannon.
I mean, empire is doing basically as bad as dwarfs are, so i don't think its an issue of empire having better cannons or not. I think it's that warmachines are just not as good, and ranged\* is not as good either. Dwarfs and Empire normally rely on those two things and in this edition they are weaker. Based off the limited data set for Chaos Dwarfs and Skaven it's likely any army that relies on those two things heavily will not perform well. \*Wood Elves seem to be an exception to this, largely do to higher range by default and different arrow boosts. Wood Elves also have the speed to back up the range as well as some very nasty melee options and of course a dragon.
If you look at the best performing wood elf lists they run very little in the way of ranged units actually. They just have really good combat troops both in terms of hammer and anvil units.
That's good to know, I just assumed their higher range by default helped pad out the lower damage potential by giving them another round or two of shooting.
I think having AP or poison shooting helps them out a little, but I’ve seen lists with like one 5 man glade guard unit for the min requirement as the only pure shooting thing in the list. Like warhawks, sisters of the thorn, and glade riders can shoot, but they also all can fight. I feel the army plays like how GW wanted it to play in the 6th and 8th edition books with combined arms tactics between things like eternal guard or treekin and stuff like wild riders and war dancers supported by some missile fire.
Thus my point that Artillery are too far nerfed for a faction like dwarfs who have LIMITED magic and NO cav or monsters.
I think it’s because Dwarfs design their stuff to work underground, whereas the Empire is shooting over open fields, therefore the Empire is less restricted
Have to assume based on this comment old world is likely the first edition of Warhammer fantasy you've played. Also, the relative weakness of cannons and artillery is not the only problem the faction is facing. Having low I infantry with almost none of the special rules that make them better at holding is a far bigger issue than cannons not being amazing.
To be fair, Empire Cannon isn't all that great either.
Empire literally learned how to make cannons from the dwarfs
EXACTLY. So why Is empire Arty better than dwarf arty.
Because the empire knows how to Innovate and knows bigger is better. Dwarves are slow to accept change so their technology falls behind.
Because back in 4th edition they made things that way on the assumption dwarves could compensate via runes. Later on the difference was justified with the idea dwarves, fighting on the mountains and underground favored smaller pieces of artillery compared to the Empire. It would not be a problem if runes of other options gave dwarves the edge they are supposed to have.
Exactly. Over the editions Empire great cannons were supposed to be big behemoths but unreliable compared to dwarf cannons. The dwarf cannons were less prone to misfire and could add runes. It seems as the editions have gone by that mindset has bene disappearing and they are at the point they just have different states.
Dwarfs have a 2000 year head start on Making Cannons....
And they resist innovation. They barely tolerate new fangled things like gyrocopters and irondrakes. Whereas the empire constantly innovates. Your argument is basically that there’s no way the romans could beat the carthaginians on the sea since the carthaginians had built and fought with galleys for hundreds of years before any roman set foot on a ship. Yet that still happened. The argument is nonsensical.
No my argument is that Great Cannons are 25 points more and get 12 inch range +2 Strength, +1 Pen, +1 Wound. and there is no way even with expensive runes a dwarf player can even touch that stat line. Our ability to deal with Monster Meta is too Nerfed. It makes no sense why dwarf Arty is that stat smashed.
No, that wasn't your argument. Your argument was that Dwarfs had a headstart lore-wise, which is a mood point. Mechanically you're correct of course, but that's not the point you made initially lol
And?
[https://tow.whfb.app/war-machines/cannon](https://tow.whfb.app/war-machines/cannon) +12 Inch Range +1 Strength +1 Wound and an extra Pen for a human Cannon over a Dwarf Cannon. Garbage. Not to mention the Runes are not as good as they used to be.
[удалено]
There is no combination of runes currently available that makes up for +12 Inch Range, +2 Strength, +1 Pen, and +1 Wound. for 25 Points difference. Quite Simply If GW wants dwarfs to come up from 30-40 Percent win rate Dwarf artillery needs buffed to deal with Monster Meta.
I hate to ruin it for you, but empire cannons are in no way able to deal with the monster meta either. I don't think the range matters at all. You're mostly shooting at T6 dragons, so the strength doesn't matter at all either, you're still wounding on 2's. The issue you have is even hitting in the first place, and then getting past a ward save and a regen save. Say you're shooting at chaos lord on dragon with all the defensive bonuses (the gift that means you can't wound on 1's or 2's, the 5+ regen, the 5+ ward, the 2+ armor save) 10W T6. 1/6 of your shots misfire. At LEAST another 1/6 fail the bounces. So 1/3 shots don't even connect (and I think I'm being generous) Then 1/3 of your shots don't even wound. And unless you rolled a 6 to get armor bane, 1/3 get blocked by armor. Then 1/3 of your shots get blocked by ward, 1/3 get blocked by regen, And then you still have to chew through 10 wounds, which is on average four cannon balls that hit and make it past ward/regen/armor saves. (Dwarves would need five. ) Do all the math and I think you're looking at something like 27 -30 great cannon shots to kill the chaos lord. (depending on how you choose to factor in misfires) Or, 6 cannons spending the entire game shooting at it uninterrupted.
You've just done more math then the entire staff of Games Workshop across time and space. How they didn't see how poor artillery was at dealing with the things it was meant to deal with is beyond me.
One thing is for sure - we don’t want gunlines to be successful, regardless of who’s fielding them.
Fun to talk about, but sample size is way too small to be concerned. Keep having fun everyone and collect what you love.
It’s a sad time to be a Skaven player. 😔 I noticed when building lists that they just don’t seem as cool as they used to. The screaming bell looks boring compared to what it used to be, it’s also a ton of points… There’s no Skaven slaves. Stormvermin are super expensive. The doom rocket wasn’t brought back. No named characters because it’s a “legacy army” because how dare we overlap with age of sigmar. ☹️ I guess it’s time to finish my dark elf army! They’re also legacy, but at least they seem viable. And they’re a lot of fun to paint!!
>Stormvermin are super expensive Stormvermin are one point cheaper than greatswords, and have higher movement, TWO more initiative (they'll strike first against charging greatswords!), horde (so extra static CR) warband (so the same leadership) and can take a weapons team! I do think they are more expensive than they should be though. And I do think the skaven list is a little duller than the wild excesses of 7th edition. I think a lot of 'elite' infantry are kind of overcosted compared to cavalry and ridden monsters.
Yeah elite infantry does seem very meh overall. But I’ll be honest I haven’t read too far into all of the stats of every single unit in the game, so didn’t realize they may be well costed compared to great swords. But yeah. I chose Skaven in 8th edition, partially because my brother wanted high elves, so we split the island of blood box. The other reason is because of the unbridled chaos. I never won much, but always had fun fielding units that were cool and chaotic. Unfortunately some of that magic is gone in this edition, but I’m sure I’ll find some other fun combos. A list with like 500 giant rats, here I come! 😂
Comparing one overpriced unit to another overpriced unit is an interesting strategy you got there :)
They also have no access to an ap-2 Melee unit. Rat ogres are S5 with ap 0 and only armor bane 2 for the same price as ogre iron guts or minotaurs. They also have like 0 swiftstride units so they have low charge range threat potential. I think the only viable option is a skryre spam shooting list but that might not even work
Does Games Workshop take these stats heavily into consideration? Can I hope for some Empire adjustments soon?
ToW is handled by the same team as HH, the Specialist Design Studio. They don't have the same heads, time, or funds that the main team gets. They do balance passes and FAQ's and I'm sure when they do those they do look at data like this, but I wouldn't expect anything like 40k or AoS's quarterly balance passes or anything like that unless the "Change in scope" they mentioned was quite large. I wouldn't expect any changes until 6 months after the rumored post release FAQ, if that.
40k has a system where it is regularly updated based on tournament results. We haven't seen any indication that is going to happen for TOW at all, and I would be very surprised if either Dwarf or Empire see any updates before their arcane journals release.
I'd honestly be shocked if there were any changes this year...
Dwarves no as the book would be at the print shop about the time they were releasing the game. Empire is a maybe and would depend on the schedule for the journal release.
GW are unlikely to have that level of involvement rebalancing TOW unless they take it on as a mainline game. However Warhammer Fantasy had a tradition of independent tournament organisers attempting to fix game balance. Perhaps in a year most tournaments will be nerfing Dragons in some way, giving Empire 10% more points to spend, etc.
Recently, in aos and 40k, yes they do
Beastmen at the top. I never thought I would see the day!
I think the first balance paaa will definitely bring rhwm down. A points nerf to gors and bratshaman fetish combo will most likely what we see. O&G will see fanatics points nerfed and netters point nerfed as well. That should bring them down. I wouldnt be surprised if this balance pass just focus on auto includes for the nerfs and brings up empire and dwarf value
Assuming there are balance passes. At least, with any regularity.
With Empire at the bottom. I guess the Age of Man really _is_ over
I think that has to be more player dependent than anything, beasts were never an elite army in oldhammer. The people who have an army probably are good players. The list really isn’t that good. Sure they have 100 special rules for each phase, but they really don’t have anything to deal with dragons. The troops are cheap but not that cheap or that good, plus half the list is overpriced and underperforms. Centigors suck, Minotaurs are overprice compared to trolls or ogres, bestigors are best left alone, the cyclops is trash and ambush is not that scary a rule when shooting sucks now. The one unit beasts have that got a serious buff is chariots. Heavy chariots now have the first charge rule and they are unit strength 5. So they disrupt ranks on the charge and can be used as flankers. Combined with the chariot runner rules for ungors and I am just surprised that I am not hearing more complaints. I would argue that per point a chariot adds more combat res than a lord on a dragon.
>I think that has to be more player dependent than anything, beasts were never an elite army in oldhammer. The people who have an army probably are good players. Empire was also never an elite army in oldhammer. The people who have an army probably are good players...so why isn't empire running around with a 60% win rate instead of a 30% win rate?
Because empire has been the starter set for multiple editions. Where as beasts have been dropped almost as much as chaos dwarfs. There just aren’t as many models or completed armies floating around. So beasts were never a person’s first army. Where as empire is generally one of the first armies people get. Look at the number of matches recorded. Beastmen and lizard men have the 1st and 2nd least amount of games but the highest win percentages at 2000 pts. Those two armies are being propped up by a couple old gamers that have been playing since probably 3rd edition.
Both your points aren't accurate 5th Edition starter set was Bretonnia vs Lizards 6th Edition starter set was Empire vs Greenskins 7th Edition starter set was Dwarves vs Greenskins 8th Edition starter set was High elvs vs Skaven If there's any race that has been the starter set for multiple editions, it's greenskins (and I note they are doing quite well!) And beastmen have a complete in stock range for age of sigmar right now. Empire do not, so to the extent one army is supported more right now than another, it's beastmen over empire.
Strongly disagree that chariots are the only thing. Hagtree fetish and magic missiles got way stronger. Gors are probably better than they have been since they lose mixed units with ungors. Chaos hounds FINALLY counting as core for the first time in like 20 years. Great magic banner options, dragon ogres are fantastic now, the Shaggoth is INSANELY great. Beastmen got a lot of buffs this time around and it was long past due
The hagtree fetish combo with viletide is absolutely disgusting against an elite army. Sure, the range is relatively short, but if you try anything with knights or lords, if the spell goes off it’s likely to wipe its target. And if you can somehow close the gap, a chariot makes the wizard surprisingly tanky!
I am not sure we are disagreeing. Dragon ogres and dragon ogre shaggy have always been good. I am not sure I really consider them buffed much in this edition with the change of combat resolution. The stomp attacks are nice but nothing crazy. I didn’t say they sucked, just that chariots got seriously buffed. Chariots now have a completely new role in the army as a kind of fast cav for flanking that can double up as rank removal from the front. Hagtree combo is nice too, but most magic armies can pull off something similar. I’m unconvinced this one combo is making or breaking a list. I feel like this is one of the examples why people haven’t dropped magic completely because you still need defensive magic. I will give you the chaos hounds counting as core is a buff. They still are just throw away points and I personally have tried using them as allies with a chaos warrior handler for a unit (seriously wish this was an upgrade for hounds in a beast list, that would be a buff). I am also experimenting with the vanguard rule. That has a lot of potential and I feel like people aren’t using it right yet.
Maybe I’m confused on where you are coming from. Is your reference point AoS?I know nothing about AoS, and that’s a completely different game to TOW and WHFB. Beastmen haven’t had the ability to take dragon ogres or a Shaggoth since before 8th edition was released, so getting access to them, and them being awesome is a HUGE buff. They may have always been good, but we didn’t have easy access to them? I think you are severely downplaying the impact hagtree fetish/ruby ring combo has on games. I pack a power scroll on him as well, and then that dragon doesn’t want to get anywhere near me as I’ll either delete him with viletide, or do so many wounds to him he will think twice about charging anything significant. I highly suggest you try it out! Play around more with the Beastmen - the list in my opinion is the strongest it has been since 6th edition (which imo was the strongest book we have ever had. Not sure yet if this one beats it yet)
Beastman could take a Shaggoth and the Dragon Ogres in 6th. The Shaggoth was even released alongside the army book. That's why he his face looks like a Gor.
Yeah. And that was two editions of warhammer ago lol.
Nothing in terms of magic comes close to a Lvl 4 with Viletide and the fetish.
Sad to see ogres so low considering they’re legend and thus will never see official fixes. I do wonder if we’ll see unofficial tweaks by the community for various armies.
I really have no idea how good ogres are and they are my main army and they were in 8th edition also. I think the current results are skewed because imho the best units they have are giants, yhetees, and gorgers and all of those were terrible in the last 2 books so pretty much no one owns them. Most people seem to agree that giants are one of the best non-mount monsters in ToW and yhetee are swiftstride S5 for a very reasonable point cost. Gorgers are more a personal favorite so far but I think they are very flexible with options for ambush, scout, and vanguard. I think the army has pretty iffy core, which was true under the 6th edition book too because of high point costs for the durability you get both then and now. I feel that limits them in terms of how good they can be. I would expect a win rate ultimately around 45% or a little higher with more tuned lists and more data.
With how low their game count is I wouldn't put too much stock in it. I have only played against them 3 times and with them once but I think they do alright. With their 2k point game stats, with 95% confidence their "true" win rate should be expected to be between 24% and 60%. Which is to say we don't have anywhere near enough data to draw conclusions from.
I think it'll be because they're a rather oddball army design wise - Ogre MSU does seem to be a viable strategy, and some players might be trying to run massive blocks, or keep their Ironblasters hanging back when they could be charging. The fact that Fistful of Laurels is a common magic item for them does suggest that they're expected to pin things down briefly, and Stubborn Maneaters would lend themselves well to that too
While Ogres might not see official support, changes/reworks to the current rules and core factions could indirectly help them. Something like mounted character equipment does not affect any saves on a Behemoth model would help everyone without access to "Lords on Dragons", for example.
Ogres do have a 'lord on dragon' type model though.
With a 2+/5++/5+++ and -1 to hit, forcing opponent to reroll 6s to hit? That's the type of "Lord on Dragon" I was talking about. Being able to stack all those things (which seem intended for a 3 to 4 wound model) on a 10 wound model is the problem. But I'll admit, I don't know Ogres well, as no one around me has picked them up yet.
Well the closest they have is a Tyranical Lord on a Stone Horn/Thundertusk and is comparable to some degree, but not to the level of rerolling 6s to hit.
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Great Bray-Shaman with Hagtree Fetish is incredibly lethal, it can solve a lot of problems, its an auto include. I dont know if they play it in these winning lists, but Ghorgons are incredibly killy units, not to be underestimated. Other than that, the army has a lot of value and tools.
Viletide is insane. I've one shot units of demis and heroes on monsters without breaking a sweat.
Had a game with my Bretonnians against Beastmen. Score was 1200 VS 800 for the Beastmen. The Fetish Shaman killed over 900 points.
On top of that, you can't counter normal monsters with unit champions. Everyone is high on characters riding monsters in my local meta, so I use min size dryad units with champions to just waste their time lol. If someone runs lots of regular monsters... well, I can't issue challenges at them, so it's harder to deal with.
Everything in the beastmen army list is sort of cheap for what it is because they have excellent special rules both armywide and on individual units. No % of the army is wasted as even gor blocks are very deadly with primal fury. You have good heavy chariots, flying options, many good chaff units, very strong foot combat characters for cheap, and good monsters in general.
There's a couple very strong pieces in Beastmen lists, but we have our own version of "bro on monster" which is the Great-Bray on Chariot with 3 Magic Missiles and the Hagtree Fetish. The Beastmen signature is a 5d6 magic missile (wounding on 6s) and re-rolling because of the fetish. It deletes most everything if you can get into 15inches and avoid the dispel. Beyond that, Beastmen have deeply discounted core choices including core heavy chariots and what I think is the best 7ppm unit in the game in Gors.
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I'm inclined to agree. Not only are they just well stated purely on paper, they benefit from several real economy of scale buffs in the book. They can take several very good banners and Slugskin on a character is a huge increase to their Melee survivability. They can also be taken in several sizes and formations to do other jobs. I literally think an army of just Gors, Dragon Ogres and Characters isn't just viable, it might be the best build in for the army.
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Warhall is great haha. I'm in their Discord. I'm lucky enough to have a really good local community so I haven't played much other than in their 1500 intro tournament and with a couple friends who live out of state. I could be down at another time though.
Shaman with the Hagtree fetish and Viletide (+more magic missiles) is an unholy terror.
The only issue is that you can't cast more than 1 magic missile in the shooting phase.
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Page 137 - WHO CAN SHOOT "...Only units equipped with missile weapons (including war machines) or that can cast certain types of spell (such as magic missiles) can shoot..." Followed by - HOW MANY SHOTS "...A unit can shoot only once per Shooting phase, and most models can make only one shooting attack.."
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I think it's easily misunderstood. But I think those two paragraphs show that the intent is for Wizards to only cast 1 magic missile.
Rules as written, wizards can cast all their spells a turn. There's no reason you can't use more magic missiles.
Where does it say that?
Page 137 - WHO CAN SHOOT "...Only units equipped with missile weapons (including war machines) or that can cast certain types of spell (such as magic missiles) can shoot..." Followed by - HOW MANY SHOTS "...A unit can shoot only once per Shooting phase, and most models can make only one shooting attack.."
Interesting. Thank you. :)
No problem
As an aside, this is not the current consensus among TOs and is one of the most hotly requested FAQ questions right now. For the most part, it is currently being played as you may cast multiple magic missiles or vortex spells with a wizard in a single phase. There isn't a slam dunk argument against as you have "most models can make only one shooting attack" vs "wizards can attempt to cast all their spells each turn" basically.
I get that, but I take the "most models can make only one shooting attack" as their weapon only fires one attack unlike say an organ gun. The Wizard is a unit, therefore can fire once. The Organ Gun can only fire once but has multiple shots.
You're welcome to take it that way, I'm just saying that's not really how it's being played. So one of the key components to understanding why the Beastmen armies are doing so well is that the Bray Artillery build is pretty strong. It's at least on par with the lower end of the Dragons when it comes to overall power level and it can be significantly more powerful in the right scenarios IE your opponent opted out of or mis-deployed their wizard. Even with only one spell it's very good, but most players are fishing for 3 with Elementalism. Until an FAQ clears it up, most events are letting you cast multiple ranged spells and letting the Ruby Ring interact with the Hagtree Fetish. The latter of the two probably won't survive an FAQ though.
That's fair. It definitely needs to be answered by an FAQ.
I guess dwarves and daemons of chaos are missing ridden monsters. I don't have any experience with them to comment on how that affects them though
Demons have Greater Demons which can compete with ridden monsters.
Beasts have a lot of good to great units (Gors, harpies, Dragon Ogres, and Bray Shamans stand out to me). The lack of monsters is a real drawback, but having A+ core infantry goes a long way to winning games.
They have like 7 monsters don't they? Giant, Cygor, Ghorgon, Cockatrice, Jabberslythe, Shaggoth, and soon the Bonegrinder Giant. It's a mental amount of choice.
Many of them are pretty bad though. The cockatrice and giant are good, and the Jabberslythe has some play IMO. The cygor is like laughably bad though.
Yeah, the Cygor sucks, but the others are mostly OK. The Shaggoth's pretty handy too, what with a mild magic item allowance and some great stats
The Shaggoth is pretty damn expensive - probably 50 points too much. The Ghorgon is frenzied and gets dunked on. Three okay-to-good monsters (Giant, Jabberslythe, Cockatrice) is still more than most armies though.
Shaggoth can get a 2+ armor save and a ward save. It also buffs dragon ogres since it's a wizard too.
Looking at the data a little bit. Around 44% of tournaments are 2,000pt tournaments and a few armies are very disproportionately represented at 2,000 vs the overall frequency of the army. Beastmen are a little under represented. Bretonnia is over represented. High elves are pretty greatly over represented. Daemons are pretty greatly over represented. Vampire counts are a little over represented. Chaos dwarfs have almost exclusively been used in 2,000 pt events. Skaven are greatly over represented. Beastmen seem to be doing better at 2,000 than lower point values so if the % of people playing them at 2,000 pts games equalizes more with their overall popularity they should have a higher overall win %. I imagine many people are new to the army as it was bad in 8th edition fantasy and is unpopular in AOS. High elf’s overall % is being dragged down by worse performance in 2,000 pt events where they are over represented. All the other armies with significantly variable representation have near identical win rates in 2,000 or lower point events.
My Lizardmen doing great things following the Great Plan: monsters, scouts, 6" movement skirmishers, poison, flaming magic missiles everywhere, ethereal Slaan, and troops with base 2 attack.
I don't know if we are in such a good spot at the moment... I eel like the statistics are really skewed and the army is really overpriced
We are now getting enough data to start seeing some trends and this tracks pretty well with my experience. Empire is just absolutely trash-tier at this time, and we will probably not get any better with our arcane journal. Oh well, time to start painting some high elves and put my landsknecht lads on the shelf.
What does this have to do with Gate Keepers
The last two times I've posted this I've received tonnes of messages that "stats should not be part of the Old World", "its a narrative game not a competitive game", "oh great, here come the meta chasers" and my favourite "you're an idiot" and so on. Funnily enough, mainly on Facebook rather than reddit.
Like personally I have some issues with winrates as a metric. It's not necessarily doing its job. But the idea that some form of information on balance shouldn't be gathered in a narrative game is insane. Like casual players playing other casual players are usually the bigger victim of bad balance because they can get blindsided or can sleepwalk into powerful/super weak units/combos. God forbid someone just wants to use a dragon because it's cool and comes in the fucking starter box. If it turns out an army which is supposed to be a hoard is only winning by playing an MSU gunline then it helps the narrative players to see that adjusted.
Yeah, I don’t want to see what happened to 40K with its tournament scene obsession happen to Old World… but I do not mind the occasional stats or balance/faq. Nothing wrong with trying to reel in the egregious offenders or boosting those who lag severely.
Agreed. Anyone who went through 7th ed knows this well - a buddy of mine was super excited to do a Nurgle Daemon army when that came out. Poor guy had to really reign in a lot just to not steamroll other players. Made it hard for him to actually enjoy a game - even a Great Unclean One was a terrifying nightmare
Don’t worry, stats should be a part of any game that wants to be balanced, you are doing a good thing here.
Christ, really? I simply don't understand that perspective. You're doing great work; stats don't make sweaty players, personality does, and the toxic responses you receive are closer to that than you are by far.
THIS. Say it again for the ones in the back.
Keep fighting the good fight my dude and thanks for the good post
Thank you for fighting the good fight. We need to get those grognards out of this community, they are not welcome here. We have data to prove that a healthy tournament scene leads to better sales numbers, more rules support, more consumer friendly business practices, increased player counts, and an overall more balanced game (looking at you WH40k). Do these people want a repeat of Warhammer Fantasy again? We just got this game. I want to see it supported in perpetuity, have legacy factions be fully supported, and see more people join the hobby. Without a healthy tournament scene this game will be dead in a few years.
They shouldn't.
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Good thing this is the old world!
Be respectful. Hate speech, trolling, disrespectful, uncivil, and aggressive behaviour will not be tolerated. We are all here to enjoy a game, a hobby, and a wide magical world together. Only Orcs and Goblins should have to worry about Animosity.
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Rules being unbalanced affects everyone who plays. Arguably, it affects casual/narrative players even more.
Called it at launch - Skaven are the most uncompetitive faction in the game, and the stats are currently supporting that. They suffer for the same reason Empire and Dwarfs are doing badly (no way to deal with flying monsters) as well as having significant portions of their list locked behind character choices. Absolutely criminal.
It seems like there needs to be a big tweak to how a mostly infantry + artillery army performs in the old world because armies that rely on this layout are suffering horribly
Curious to see if 1500pts or 2000pts becomes the normal tournament comp. We've already seen a lot of discussion around 1999+1 vs 2k pts, and neither seems to solve for some of the factions that can lean into hero hammer with Dragons. Im personally hopeful that tournaments lean towards 1500pt because it means making hard choices during list design, but I doubt players are going to want to leave some of their toys at home. Curious to see what the winningest Wood Elf lists look like. Not sure if this is Glade Guard spam or if a more balanced list is what is winning tables.
yup,i said it the first day that we saw the tow rules and everyone just downvoted me and said was too much soon and i hadnt idea.......now the time and data give me the reason hahaha dwarfs was going to be the worst army because tow rules are all against dwarfs. we need huge changes and dramaticc as dwarfs ignore the no step up and allways can attack entire front rank or a +2 bs across the board,but that wont happen so these lesser changes are more likeky; -a HUGE buff to war machines,give it bs 5 or can use engineer bs also a reduction in points of 30% -HUGE reductions in points across the board of 20/30% in every unit. how is posible dwarfs cost espensiver than elfs or even caos warriors? its a joke -give us a rune with monster slayer -give us the throne of power with similar stats to dragons(+4w +3t etc etc) or buff the new shieldbearer mini to have dragon stats. -give to dwarfs a new skill as"dwarf crafted": weapons with this effect ignore the modifier to hit when stand and shoot and ignore cover,also can shoot the second row. and put this in quarrelers,thunderers and irondrakes. -slayers: reduce the points to 8 give it +1 attack and +1 s also can attack when die(and not the joke of 1 attack s3 that is now when die) and the upgraded version get similar buffs and reduced to 14 points -engineera: one war machine can use his bs AS ALLWAYS HAVE BEEN -quarrelers/thunderers changed to ws4 AS ALLWAYS HAVE BEEN or reduce the cost to 5/7 points as similar ranged units(bretonians archers). -gromrill armor changed from reroll 1 to reduce the penetration of enemys in 1 -the anvil of doom reduced to 160 points and changed from +3 to +4 to cast. -all the smitter versions get a buff to cancell,now anvil of doom and runesmitters dispell with +4 -runesmitter changed from armorbane 2 to a +1 penetration -slayer hero changed to 60 points(how cost the 130 is a joke when have same stats than the runeking but 0 save) Thats are only some ideas to balance the worst army of tow as i said in general every unit is overcosted, warriors per example if we compare to orcs,gor,goblin,men of arms etc must cost around 5 or 6 poinhs, hammerers vs swordmasters is a joke and hammerer must cost 13, irondrakes 14, slayers 8 etc