Age of Sigmar: Faction Pack First Impressions – Mixed Bag of ‘Balance’
Now that all the faction packs are out for Warhammer: Age of Sigmar the reactions are mixed. This new baseline seems imbalanced.
If you’ve been following any of the discourse online about the new faction packs for Order, Chaos, Death, and Destruction then you might have noticed things are a little off. While Spearhead seems mostly fine in terms of balance some of the Battle Formations found in the factions packs are just not well balanced. Even internally, there’s some very clear “take this” picks and some “no-so great” choices.
Battle Formation Internal Balance
Does one of these really stand out to you? Because if you were looking at the Mortek Ballistari and thinking “Gee, I don’t really remember seeing a whole lot of Ossiarch Bonereaper armies in the previous meta with three Mortek Crawlers in them…” you’d be on to something here. And this is just one example. Heck, I even was thinking “well maybe you could build into a list with at least three Mortek Crawlers in it.” But that’s a lot of points for a gimmick, right?
Sure, if you rolled all 6s all the time that’s topping out at 40 damage per Crawler. And if all those are targeting an infantry unit that’s a rather dangerous Rend 2. But…I don’t really think you can count on that much damage. Besides if you were rolling all 6’s you wouldn’t need the +1 to hit, would you? I know that Battle Formations are there to push you into specific builds or playstyles. I get that. But, again, some of these options just don’t seem very balanced.
Battle Formation Balance Externally
“Well maybe that’s just an internal balance thing. It’s not like there’s instances of two Battle Formations from different armies doing something similar but one just happens to be better!?” Yeah…you’d like think that.
Take a look at the Grundcorps Wing. It’s a once per battle ability during the shooting phase. All of your Grundstok Thunderers and Gunhaulers get an extra 3″ of range. That could make for some serious firepower for a turn, right? Not bad…
Check out the Ironweld Guild Army — they have a similar ability to have an extra 3″ to all their ranged shots. For all ranged weapons used by friendly Cities of Sigmar units. For the entire game. And if you think that’s odd just look at the thunderers vs the fusiliers as a comparison:
The Fusiliers would have to stay still but even if they moved they’d only be shy of the Aethershot rifle’s range by 3″ — for the entire game. And sure they might lose an attack on the move, too. I’m not saying the Thunderers aren’t better, especially when you bring a skyvessel into the mix, but the Fusiliers are also 120 points for 10 while the thunders are 140 points for 5…
Maybe It’s Just Adjusting To The New Edition
I definitely think this is part of the issue. Just about every army in the game got internally rebalanced. If you were trying to rebuild your old list from the previous edition with the new edition’s faction pack you noticed a lot of changes. Even if you could rebuild the same list, at the very least, your warscrolls are different. Across the board I’m noticing less Damage and less Rend. I’m noticing abilities that have changed or been toned down. And I’m even noticing the simplified/fewer options for army building for the same units.
Varanguard, as an example, just have Daemonforged Blades now. No Ensorcelled Weapons, no Fellspears — just one weapon profile for all now. And I know this isn’t the only unit in the game like this.
I really don’t mind the simplification. But I do think when everything is distilled down — like the weapon options here — you lose some of that thing that made units special. It’s a trade off. I think games will absolutely play faster now. I think AoS 4.0 is going to be easy to jump into and learn. Those are good things! But I’m hoping as we see this edition mature and grow we get some of the nuance and complexity back into the game’s units.
I also think this will apply to the Battle Formations as well. Right now, many of them are just not good. And yes, the previous edition had a similar problem in terms of specific army sub-factions that players just flat out ignored for the better options. These Battle Formations feel like those got distilled down even further. And a lot of the really popular options are just gone.
Where’s my Knights of the Empty Throne at?!
Not All Hope Is Lost…
On Monday GW is going to release the Regiments of Renown. I’m going to be curious to see how those pan out. Maybe we’ll see some of that “flavor” back in those specific army builds but I’m not going to get my hopes up.
I know this is going to come across as a bit of a downer for the new edition. But I’m actually hopeful about it. I think that these Faction Packs are the new “baseline” for the game. And while that might feel off right now that’s because we’re coming down from the end of an edition where the power creep was real.
Imagine you climbed a mountain. You made it to the top of the power curve, congrats! Then you fell asleep in an elevator and woke up the next day on at bottom of the mountain again. You still have all your gear but you’re going to be really confused. Oh and the elevator back up is gone. “Hey, I was at the top. Now we’re back at bottom again?” That’s kind what I’m feeling right now. It’s not quite whiplash. But this is an edition reset. It’s only going to get bigger and better from here.
Get out there and play some games. Everyone is adjusting and this is a really fun time to learn again!
