Greetings! Today I wanted to briefly talk about the warbands - and especially about the older ones. We’re currently wrapping up season 4, and the game stands at 35 (soon 36) teams we can choose from when deciding what to play. So how good is this for the game? And how do older warbands stand up to current ones?
Having soon a whooping 36 options mean that there’s a lot of variety for the players. And there are many options to choose from. From a player perspective, this is great - we do like having options. And there are always some new warbands to try out and have a unique, fresh experience. This is unquestionably a strength of the game.
But at the same time, this growing number is starting to pose a problem. With season 5, we will land at the 44 warbands. Or more, if the trend from Beastgrave and Direchasm will continue and we will get 2 more extra from outside of the season. This number is, in my opinion, getting to the point where balancing is becoming very difficult - if attainable at all. The more warbands there are, the harder it is to control all the combos that may emerge. It’s also challenging to cater to the weaker warbands’ needs without powering up others too much. It’s a classic issue we’re experiencing, for example, in MOBA games, where the champion pool is vast. Tweaks in itemization can cause a sudden surge in power… or cause the champion to take a dramatic plunge into the irrelevance. Those games, however, have the edge over WHU - they can address each champion individually and adjust the power level as developers see fit. In our game, we haven’t seen so far any tool to improve an individual warband. We’ve only seen an option to nerf them via faction cards being restricted or abilities addressed in an errata to make them weaker.
The end result is that we’re seeing most of the “classic” warbands from S1 being comfortable at the bottom of most of the power rankings, with the representation bordering on zero percent for most of the members of that group. And when there’s an idea of a team tournament that should incorporate at least 2 of the warbands from season one, there’s a running competition who will get to pilot Spiteclaw Swarm while the other guy is being hard-pressed to figure out what else to play.
The situation looks better with season two - those warbands are designed well enough so that many of them are at least average in power level and can be played without too much hassle. But here, we’re experiencing another issue—an unexpected spike in power. You can’t spell OP without saying “Mollog”. The troll has been causing problems in the meta before, and he’s happy to continue to do so. With recent additions to the card pool, Gitz are also looking very tempting. “Isn’t that good?” you may ask? Well… the answer is “yes and no”.
Yes, it is good that older warbands get to shine again like good ol’ Mollog, Gitz, Spiteclaws’ etc. In fact, it is great to see, and I would love it if the same has happened to my Farstriders.
But this is great only for veteran players, like me. I’ve been playing since Shadespire debuted. I’ve got all the cards and all the warbands. So I’m being happy to dust off my Mollog and dominate all those stinky ghouls, slaaneshi, and vampires. But people who have joined the game later are in trouble. If they would like to tap into the trollish glory, they have to be either lucky or have extra cash in their wallet to pay eBay prices. Or both. The reason is straightforward - those warbands are out of print and have been for a while now. So if tomorrow Farstriders will become a thing again, many people will not have the option to play them.
Right now, it is possible to buy miniatures from older warbands as a part of Age of Sigmar, but those don’t come with the cards. So if you’re a newer player, your only options are to look for some leftover copies at smaller FLGS or try to buy them second-hand. That is far from being acceptable in a tournament environment. Players shouldn’t be limited because they’ve started with the game later and have no option to simply order the warband.
Right now, the solution taken by the Games Workshop seems to be an abandonment of the older warbands. They are often desperate for help but are receiving none or an insufficient amount of it. That way, the availability problem is being solved without an actual effort - simply, those warbands are not viable enough to be played, and people are not bothering with them. Of course, this plan backfires every now and then. Skritch and his swarm tend to be good again (which is pretty much close towards the end of every season). Mollog, Gitz, and Thorns are good candidates to be standouts too.
How to fix this? There are three options.
Option 1: add fighter and faction cards to AoS packages allowing players to pick up older warbands at a decent cost. This is not an easy task from a logistics perspective and will induce a cost to the company. Those cards need to be printed and packaged after all. And this is a solid reason for this option not to happen.
Option 2: rotate warbands out. I’m not going to lie - this would be a very unpopular move, especially among Skritch players. But also, among season 2 fans - those warbands have a strong following. At the same time, it wouldn’t be unprecedented. We’ve already witnessed the retirement of the boards from Shattered City expansion before. And the general consensus was that this has happened due to the pack being out-of-print and hard to get. So to even out the chances, those boards were removed from the championship format pool.
We’re now facing a similar situation with warbands. Will GW pull the trigger on them too?
Personally, I feel this would be painful for me. Losing access to OOP stuff would remove a large part of my favorites from the game. But at the same time, I think it would even out the playing field to everyone. It would also make it easier to practice for the tournament at the cost of limiting the potential to create off-meta builds. I like off-meta builds. One of them got me to Top 4 during a Grand Clash, after all.
Option 3: Probably a fan favorite - reprint of older warbands, possibly with a refreshed abilities and mechanics. While this would be the most welcomed option, it is also the least likely to happen. The amount of effort needed to re-visit the older warbands and tune them up to modern standards is very high. And this could also be seen as a game consuming its own tail.
What is going to happen then? It’s hard to say. My bet goes on GW continuing down the current path of releasing new warbands and mechanics that are strong enough to further invalidate older stuff. That way, those warbands are being virtually rotated out without making the actual call that would upset many players. Instead, those people will keep trying to get their favorites to work while also trying out newer stuff. And most likely selecting it for competitive tournaments over older options. There might be an attempt to bring in cards supporting older warbands, but newer players will be left without help to obtain those warbands if those cards are actually successful.
While this may sound cynical, it is actually the lowest effort, cheapest, and probably least disruptive way of handling the current situation. Admittedly, potentially very unfair to players, but still - the odds of old warbands getting strong again aren’t very high, especially in terms of season one teams.
The more structured and probably cleaner way would be to draw the line and move on with the warbands. It is, however, a high-risk move that could cause a wave of people quitting the game as their favorites are no longer available for the championship format. So instead of denying them the ability to play their fav warband, it is “better” to simply make them choose not to play those anymore.
What are your thoughts on this subject? Are you happy with the current state of affairs with the warbands? How would you like to see the situation being addressed?
Really nice article! But I will not lie. I think the current approach of GW is the best :)
ReplyDeleteAs you said it this approach actually has quite a few advantages.
And those old outdated warbands can at times still pack a punch! Even if they are weak and not seen ranking high in tournaments, many continue to play them and have fun doing so. The feeling of playing an underpowered warband and managing to score just a few wins with them should not be underestimated. I personally like doing this. :P
I agree that older overpowered warbands (like Molog) need to be nerfed and there many ways of doing that. I want to believe that whevenver a new errata, forsaken list, etc comes out this will be addressed. Older warbands should imo be the underdogs for this game model to be healthy.
You option 2 would so unfair for collectors of this game. And both options 1 & 3 would make this game very expensive for many reasons.