Age of Sigmar: The ‘Battle Regiment’ Problem
Age of Sigmar has a problem with Battle Regiments being too dominate vs the other battalion options. Games Workshop needs to shake things up.
The Dawnbringer books have brought out a TON of new Regiments of Renown. Some of them are strong by themselves while other are considered rather weak and skippable. For me, I would always have to look at the benefits of including them vs one Core Battalion in particular: The Battle Regiment.
I was chatting with a friend of mine about this issue and he pointed out that, yes, this is actually a fairly huge problem in the AoS competitive scene as a whole. Today, we’re going to explore what makes the Battle Regiment so good and such a dominate option for most armies.
The Battle Regiment Problem
Let’s start with what makes the Battle Regiment so good. It really only has two things going for it: the number of options that you can include and the Battalion Ability Unified. For most armies, they can fit everything they need in the Battle Regiment. You’ve got space for a Commander, two Sub-Commanders, up to five Troops and either a Monster or Artillery option. That’s a LOT of good stuff you can pack in there.
But really, it’s that Unified ability that pushes this in to the “problem” area in my opinion. One-Drop Deployment is really, really powerful.
Basically, you get to setup your entire Core Battalion at once. Why does that matter? Because in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar, who ever finishes deployment first typically gets to choose which player gets the first turn. Just knowing that ahead of time has a huge impact on deployment and more importantly the tempo of the game itself.
At the end of the day, you have to compare ALL the other bonuses to the hard-to-quantify power of knowing who’s going first. And even if it is hard to gauge how powerful “knowing” is, the fact remains it is a powerful tool to have in your arsenal.
Do the other abilities in the Core Battalions come close? Eh, there’s some contenders but, for a lot of armies, they just aren’t worth it. If your army really NEEDS to determine who goes first then Battle Regiment is the option true choice. A bonus command point here or a free command there just don’t add-up to the power of choosing which player goes first. Especially if that can determine who’s going to get the charge on turn one.
And it’s not just going first that causes armies to win — it’s also forcing your opponent to go first. I’ve won games because I made my opponent take the initiative when they thought I was just going to attempt a bunch of long-bomb charges at the top of turn one. They had to move out of their defensive wall and take objectives or I would and then they’d be down all game. It played right into my army’s strengths. The mind game is real and it’s hard to measure — but it’s power is undeniable.
Even the newer Battalions in the Dawnbringers or the older ones in the the Battletomes have to compete against this basic, Core Battalion and it’s honestly kind of rare to see those chosen. It’s not that they are bad either. The problem is that Battle Regiment is just that good.
Now, if you’re playing an army that can’t fit into a Battle Regiment, you can still compete vs Battle Regiment armies. You just have to plan better. You’re probably not going to get to choose to go first or second so you better have a plan going into deployment.
I don’t know if there’s an easy fix out there for the Battle Regiment problem. And I know a lot of folks aren’t going to see this as an issue. It is part of the Core Rules afterall, all armies have access to it, and thus it’s actually pretty fair. But that’s not the problem I have with it. Battle Regiment is just too good as the obvious choice and I hope GW does something to make it less “guaranteed” moving forward.
What do you think? Is Battle Regiment too good or is it fine where it is?
