Welcome back to Hobby in the warp! It's been a while since my last post so I'm looking forward to writing out my brains thoughts once again! Today I'm going to talk about my thoughts on the word "balance" and the discussion it brings about amongst the community.
I'm going to be focussing on balance, specifically in regards to AoS. I don't think any wargame I've ever played has been able to escape the discussion but as each wargame has it's own levels to create "balance" it's hard to speak universally. With that in mind, let's jump right in.
What does "balance" actually mean?
The word balance I think means different things to different people. Let's take a look at the hard definition - "situation in which different elements are equal or in the correct proportions"
There are a few definitions to choose from but I think the above is most apt. Strictly speaking I think balance would mean that every army would be on a equal playing field, meaning you could simply turn up with any battletome and have a equal chance of winning an event as each other battletome. You could argue that further and to some people it may mean that you could simple use anything from any battletome, and you would stand as good chance as any other.
Another route the term could take when referring to Age of Sigmar would be that every army has the same options as every other army. You would have a template for a melee, ranged, hero and add a dabble of flavour to each battletome while retaining very similiar stats.
As the word balance is one that is truly hard to define and it's true meaning really being co-dependent on the context you're trying to explain, as well as it having it's own deterministic value of success that varies between most people I think it's truly a hard term to define in regards to table top gaming.
I think that's part of what makes the discussion difficult, as the goal posts are different for people that engage in the discussion. My own view on the term is that in a ideal world we would be in a situation where every battletome has multiple viable builds that can compete for a 5-0 at a major. To give that phrase a mathematical value, I'd say that each army is within 5% of each other in regards to a win loss ratio, ranging from 47.5% to 52.5%. Do I think that idealistic view is a practical one?
Is balance possible within Age of Sigmar?
Out of my own interest I did a quick google at how many battletomes we currently have in AoS. Right now we have 24 and we have a confirmed 2 more coming. If we consider modestly that each battletome has 4 subfactions and each battletome has 20 options that quickly lands us at 2080 different combinations of rules. That's a modest idea of the number of combinations, disregarding any allies. That's just the battletomes rules, warscroll rules and subfaction rules on top of that. You have of course spells, warscroll abilites, command abilities, endless spells, realms etc.
Simply put whenever Games Workshop write a new battletome it's just very hard to have an idea how it's going interact with everything else out there in the game. Of course if you make a 100 wound unit for 10 points it's probably going to be very good but when you're making units that are "intended" to not be better then what exists thare is no way of measuring that.
Keeping that in mind do I think that having my ideal of armies being within 5% of each other going above and below 50% possible? No I don't. I don't think GW have the playtesting power or have the tuning set up to be able to keep the numbers that close to each other. I think it would require a much more reactive approach, going to a digital rule set that enables very quick tuning of points. It would require intensive playtesting, with massive amounts of games being played each day to draw data from all the possible combinations that are there.
A secondary route GW could go is simply reduce the amount of rules currently on warscrolls, army abilites and subfaction abilities and bring warscrolls a lot closer to each in terms of stats and rules. This would allow the balancing of points to a finer degree and reduce the amount of variables to test. The question is, do I really want the game to be balanced?
Is balance what I want?
The answer ultimately is - yes? I do want a game where you can bring any battletome and compete. The further question is what cost and is that cost worth it?
Kings of War is a game that I enjoyed for a while, it has a very elegant game flow and the game is fun. I think the game does a excellent job of balancing its armies but I think it comes at a cost. The units in Kings of War tend to be very similiar to each other, if you're a melee fighter you tend to have a very similiar statline to those roles in other armies. If you're a ranged unit you tend to have a similiar statline to those ranged units from other armies. There is flavour in terms of a special rule or too as well as a over arching army wide rule. This is where I think the game has lost a lot flavour at the cost of balance and where I would rather not have the loss of flavour at the cost of balance.
I think one of the strongest things AoS has going for it's self is the amount of flavour, character and diversity the game has throughout the armies in it. The team have done a excellent job of each armies unique and different rules that allow the army to express it's self on the table. Whether it be the way it fights, the way it manuevers or the way it shoots etc. Those rules are what lure people into certain armies "Awhh man I'd love a whole army of goblins on spiders that do mortal wounds on 6s!". Those elements of flavour that really do distinguish each force from one another on the table.
I think flavour and difference between armies has a inverse relationship with how balanced a game can truly be. If we go to the core roots of tabletop gaming and look at chess, probably considered the most balanced tabletop game. You have two sets of pieces that do the exact same thing, move the exact same way and every "scenario" is the same. Everything is equal on either side.
If we look back to Age of Sigmar it's the exact opposite, bar a mirror match with the exact same models under the exact same subfaction with the exact same battletome. Every match is played with two different set of pieces, which every one does a different thing, on a new scenario every game. I would not want to pay the cost of losing the flavour, diversity and character we have in AoS in the name of true balance. Do I think that is a bad thing?
Is not being a balanced game a bad thing?
My honest answer, no. Now you might be thinking "Are you mad why wouldn't you want each army to be equal in power level" and my answer would be I'd love it to be. Do I think we could achieve that without severy losing what I think is one of the strongest parts of the game? No. I don't think we could truly bring each army in line without cutting out huge chunks of flavour, diversity and character from each of the battletomes.
Now you could argue that points should be able to keep armies within a certain percentile of each other. In a ideal world I'd say they should but I'd also say that it must be incredibly hard to point every new ability correctly. Then further to point that ability to internally synergise with the point correctly, then further point it that it doesn't synergise better for it's points in your battletome when compard to the other 25 tomes in the game. That's for one model, you need to that for every model in the whole army. All I'm saying is - if i wrote a tome tomorrow I'm not going to pretend I'd write a perfectly balanced tome either.
Does that mean I think GW shouldn't persue balance and try make it as even playing field as possible? Not at all, I think GW do everything they can to obtain a balanced as game as possible while giving is that fantastic flavour and character they do well for their armies.
With all that said, I ultimately accept I don't think AoS will ever truly be balanced. I don't think every battletome will ever be equal to one another and... I don't think it's a bad thing. There's something to be said about picking one of those weaker battletomes and pushing it to it's max. It's creates stories within events "Hey man, Joe just 5-0 with X battletome" is always something that is great to hear.
It allows the game to keep each army distinct, with it's own quirky unique rules that are individual to it. On top of this with the nature of FAQs and erratas the battletomes that are at the top are a cyclic thing, new battletomes entering the meta shift the tiers of armies. The boogeyman of the current meta is a great thing to chase and tech against. The inbalance between armies creates stories, boogeymen and underdogs which I think the scene uses to tell stories. It allows us to create silly tier lists and argue why X is better then Y, it creates the friendly banter between tomes.
The TL;DR
Do I think it's possible for AoS to keep it's character, flavour and diveristy and be truly balanced? No
Do I think GW should try there best to balance it why retaining the above? Yes
Do I think the inbalance is something we can use in the community to tell stories, create banter between tomes and create interesting dicussion? Absolutely yes.
Thank you so much for reading, it was a carthatic experience to explain how I feel on the ever debated topic and I hope you enjoyed the read.
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