“Good Night Johnboy.”

The Waltons

One Big Bad, one or two support heroes, 2x reinforced hammers, 2x throwaway units for Take the Flanks and whatever else you can fit into a 2-drop. That’s the recipe for an AOS4 army. Be’lakor and Chosen, Kroak and Kroxigor, Karazai and Longstrikes. Not everybody has the units to do the thing but every army seems to gravitate towards a two-drop reinforced hammer list.

The game is dominated by a list building archetype ahead of any particular faction. Lets call it a 222 List. 2 drops, 2 hammers and a game that ends in turn 2 if you get the double. Don’t believe me? Check out the drop count in the lists from Australia’s largest tournament, Cancon.

From the always-excellent AOS Coach

Ouch, there are more 2 drops than all the other armies combined. I don’t remember one drop armies being this prevalent back in the day when they absolutely dominated the game.¹ This 222 supremacy is reflected in the griping of AOS players in discord channels, events and Myspace hangouts the world over, as our game’s player base rapidly becomes bored with list building and the state of competitive play in general.

Granted there is nothing new under the sun. From the days of 90% DOK, to the Age of One Drops, to the especially-reviled Era of Shoot-Castling, the competitive meta has always been dominated by some factions or build styles, and complaining has always been a core part of the hobby:

• Build
• Paint
• Play
• Whinge

Still this time around it feels different. The game is as well balanced as it has ever been:

Woehammer stats, bless them

That’s a very solid percentage of armies in the green, particularly if you ignore the freakish, soon-to-be-squatted outliers. They do a very solid statistics roundup over at Woehammer although I’m not sure what the average player’s ELO means. Do they quiz people on the Electric Light Orchestra? Make them sing along to Mr Blue Sky? How would that even be relevant? Anyways, credit to GW for balancing the meta.

Better have a listen just to be on the safe side

Balanced or not, AOS4 has a real paucity of builds outside the 222 window. 9 months into the index era and most armies have figured out their best build, and with a well-balanced meta you will be actively punished at events for coloring outside the lines. List building discussions for most factions have devolved to saying, “Sure X is OK, but its not as good a reinforced unit of Y (Ratling Guns, Chosen, Skullreapers or whatever)”. Followed by a spirited discussion of which two throwaway units to use for the tactical brilliance of Take the Flanks. Prosecutors or Gryphounds? Chariots or Furies? Raptodons or Hunters? “Who gives a fuck” or “Put a Bullet in Me!”?

I could write a long list of everything that’s wrong with list building² but I need to save something to rant about to my fellow gamers the next time I get thrashed by a noob with a 222 list when I take an outside-the-box list to an event. Instead, I’m in a mood to wax pseudo-intellectual about the philosophy of game design.

Johnny, Timmy and Spike

These gamer archetypes should be familiar to most readers so I’ll give only the briefest refresher course today. Back in the early days of Magic the Gathering, the devs identified 3 general player archetypes to describe the way people approached and enjoyed the game. Johnny’s favoured creativity and expression in their deck building and gameplay. Timmy’s were drawn towards activating whatever big thing hit the hardest while Spikes enjoyed mastering whatever was strong enough to win.³

The concepts are easily transferrable to AOS:

• Johnny = Narrative/ Creative list
• Timmy = Monster Mash
• Spike = Net/ Power list.

The whole thing has been discussed at great length by Warhammer Weekly on more than one occasion, and it’s well worth a watch but I’m sticking with the basics today for ease of argument/laziness.

We’ve all got a bit of Timmy in us

It’s worth noting that a lot of people dislike the Johnny/Timmy/Spike thing and for good reason. It can be a bit simplistic so some people embraced the human tendency to overcomplicate and started classifying themselves as overlapping Timmy/Spikes, or just made up entirely new categories altogether. Add in a bunch of ‘Which player type are you’ type quizzes, and a good idea can get played out fairly quickly.

There is also a strong element of moral judgement in the whole gamer personality axis with people lauding the merits of their own player type while dismissing the others thusly:

Johhny’s view: Johnny’s are purists, Timmy’s are Morons, Spikes are WAAC assholes

Timmy’s view: Timmy’s are having fun, Johnny’s are wankers, Spikes are boring

Spike’s view: Spikes are the only serious players, Johnny’s are crybabies, Timmy’s are children

Because Johnny’s seem to be naturally inclined to spend more time complaining on the internet they have, over time, dominated the debate, and the prevailing view seems to be that Johnny’s are the good guys, Timmy’s are their simple-minded sidekicks and Spikes get rolled into anti-competitive community sentiment as villains.⁴

Like a lot of stereotypes there is an element of truth to these views but this reductive approach sells people short. Everyone has it in them to be a gaping asshole regardless of their player type. For instance there is a particular brand of Johnny player who runs execrable narrative lists, insists they should work and complains endlessly when their garbage lists perform terribly. A whole breed of simple-minded Timmy’s who just flat out refuse to learn the rules of the damn game and won’t move an inch outside their wheelhouse.

As for competitiveness I know the salty assholes when I see them and they come from across the player spectrum. I’m a straight up Johnny player and generally acknowledged as the sorest loser on this continent. There are plenty of Timmy’s who sulk like spoiled children when you take their toys off the table. I can think of a few who straight up quit the game when their preferred brand of “Push It Forward to Conquer” Monster Mash stopped producing easy wins. By virtue of their competitiveness, Spikes will always be over-represented in “Get the TO to Check the Measure” sweat-a-thons⁵ but everyone has it in them to be ‘that guy’. Give the Spikes a break.

We’ve all got that dog in us

Now the Magic devs that came up with this crap didn’t do it because they were bored. They figured out early on that their game needed to appeal to all of the archetypes in order to have broad-based appeal, so they duly made cards and combos aimed at each, and other game designers took the lesson: You maximize your market by appealing to as many different species of nerd as possible.

What does this mean for AOS4?

As all but the dumbest readers will have realized by now, the point of this article is that list building in AOS4 is widely skewed towards the Spike archetype. The dominant 222 build structure, alongside the lack of internal balance and build options in the indices, made the game an identikit Spike Powerlist-a-thon pretty early in 4th ed.⁶ From double-piling-in Varanguard to stupid Shoot Kangaroos, they were on top from the get go. This isn’t a huge problem as the competitive game is always dominated by Spikes. The players who put the most effort into winning will always end up winning more. The problem is the lack of options for other players.

AOS4 started out tough for the Timmy’s. They fell victim to one of the big errors of AOS 4: A drop in unit resilience was supposed to be accompanied by a reduction in damage. That reduced output only really happened for units that weren’t fit for the reinforced 222 meta. The main across-the-board reductions were in ranged and charge mortals. This, combined with a general nerfing of Monster speed, removal of universal Monstrous Rampages and a move to “One use per…” specialist army Rampages did the Monster spammers no favors. The classic Stonehorn was slower, less resilient, less damaging and less spammable, and a lot of other Monster went the same way. Timmy’s with an urge to compete were left with specific Karazai-type options in 222 lists.

As for Johnny’s? The initial splurge of new rules was a lot of fun for list building but it didn’t last. In a few months it was clear what worked in most factions. Worse than that, suboptimal or creative builds were a lot further off the pace than in previous editions. There is also less room for creativity than ever before. 4 subfactions, 3 artefacts, 3 heroic traits and every chance that 2/3s of the options are straight up bad. No ways to get extra anything and no reward for thinking outside the box. No one realistically expects to pull off regular 5-0s with a narrative list but being creative was more likely to get you a brutal ass-kicking than ever before. It’s just plain dispiriting to tinker with a faction and realize that anything you do outside the preferred 222 build is probably only going to make things worse.

It really is an anti-Johnny edition and that has been good for nobody. One of the most common complaints about 4th Ed is that list building is just plain boring. Even the most unrepentant Spike enjoys a few extra options in the lists they copy from more creative players. No one likes to see a Timmy have to try to write a proper list when he can’t just push his Mawkrushas and Pigs forward for a 3-2 tournament.

Probably how the Turtle/Eidolon IDK list was developed

No doubt some of my readers are thinking, “The Old Man is having a bit of a sook because he hasn’t been doing well with his normal schtick.” There’s some truth to that view; the longer you play the more time you spend reminiscing about the good old days and the harder it gets to adjust to an evolving meta. I’ve definitely noticed that the guys who came along in 3rd definitely have fewer issues than the 2nd Ed guys, and I doubt more than 10% of the field at Cancon this year were 1st Ed veterans. There are a lot of reasons for people dropping out of hobby but 4th Ed isn’t helping much.

This kind of sucks because like a lot of gamers I quite like the current rules. The most common review of 4th Ed is that people like the rules but the competitive meta sucks balls. I do actually feel for GW here. We view 1st Ed through the rosy glasses of nostalgia but back in the day the complaint was that the rules were incomprehensible and the meta was wildly unbalanced. The meta has never been more consistently even, the rules have never been clearer and still nobody’s happy.

Seriously

The disappointment only grew as the first wave of Battletomes were released. It was hoped that the new books would have a lot more options than the index meta and it hasn’t happened yet. Oddly enough the new books have probably produced the least amount of power creep I’ve seen in a new edition. Even STD and Stormcast aren’t significantly stronger than their index editions. If you listen to the whining Destro-Sexuals in the Craichouse discord⁷ Kruleboyz are worse than the index.

All in all the new stuff offers up a similar (lack of) creative depth to the index. People are blathering on about Gee Dubs printing schedules and holding out hope for Battletomes later in the year to have a bit more in them, and bless them for being optimists, but as of now the problem isn’t being fixed in with book drops.

So how do you fix a problem like Johhny?

Battlescroll updates and points adjustments are the only levers they have pulled so far. To their credit⁸ GW seem to be aware of the problem and have taken steps to adress it. The Field Seargeant/ Prized Beast patch and its associated points adjustments did bring in some changes.

Most of the benefits have flowed to the Timmy’s. Largely because they are simple people with simple problems that are easily fixed. Buff the charge mortals on the BCR. Improve Gargant output. Change the To Hit characteristic on Ironjawz Pigs. Drop some points and you are in business. Ultimately Timmy’s are people who are seeking an easy game and they can always be mollified by making their uncomplicated lives even easier. Make Monsters tougher and you generally make them happy.

Johnny’s are a much more complicated proposition. It’s hard to improve creativity in list building in a way that won’t automatically buff Spikes as well. The Field Sergeant rules seem designed to help foot slogging armies and reward people for taking small heroes. There is slightly less percentage in always playing for the double and the second Honour Guard rules are definitely designed to reward you for taking an army with more drops. It’s not nothing, but they have also been an added boon for 222 armies and we are regularly treated to the sight of reinforced Kroxigor and Rockgut hammer units moving across the table that little bit faster.

Encouraging support heroes and buffing Kroak back into the game in the same patch

The more I think about it, the more I believe that buffing Johnny without aiding Spike is a lost cause. If a Timmy or Johnny gets anything good enough to attract a Spike they will take it. Tilting the table back to Johnny would mean major changes in the next GHB and that is a risky proposition. AOS4 runs on pretty rigid lines and it isn’t easy to make the game more ‘creative’ without making its scaffolding collapse. Some of the worst moments of 3rd Ed (Bounty Hunters and Andtorian Locusts with Blizzards) were both attempts to give the game that creative flair.

It’s a tough problem but I figure I can close out the article with a few suggestions to GW for bringing my old friend Johnny back into AOS:

• Options for heroic traits and artefacts. They don’t have to be earth shattering but give people one or two more choices in the next GHB or update. A paid-for update like the GHB is the perfect forum for this, and these books are wafer-thin currently. If you have to keep it at three, then get rid of some of the shit ones. Or even the good ones, change things up a bit.
• Offer some means to get more artefacts in a list. List builders love taking 2 or 3 of them plus you have to run the heroes to carry them. So many 222 list have unique heroes and one throwaway goof to carry the stuff around, it’s lame.
• A reward for taking higher drops. The Honour Guard thing is good but you can do better. Maybe an extra artefact for having the most drops, and/ or an extra one for having 5+ drops?
• Better Regiments of Renown. Getting rid of Allies was a massive kick in the dick for people who love list building. Replacing them with Regiments of Renown that are 90% overpriced or useless is a poor substitute. If it’s hard to smash out this volume and make them all interesting, let’s go quality over quantity: more of the Nurglings, Big Pigs and Stumblefoot Gargants please.
• Better Armies of Renown. Like playable ones. They don’t have to be world beating but give us a chance to compete meaningfully in a given game when we run them. Think Thanquol’s Menagerie.
• Basically incentivize doing things differently. The tragedy of AOS4 is that without battleline requirements there has never been more opportunity for creativity in list building but the system has produced less variety than ever. Make list review shows worth doing again.

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1. And I’m way too lazy to check ↩︎
2. I’m leaving Manifestations out, or we will be here till Christmas ↩︎
3. In bullying terms: Johnny = Wannabe Goth, Timmy = Excitable Dork, Spike = Insufferable Nerd ↩︎
4. Personally I think Timmys deserve a lot more contempt, but whatever. ↩︎
5. The failed Spike is probably the funniest gamer ever. Moving from power faction to power faction and getting dismal results ↩︎
6. I would argue that it exacerbated an existing trend from 3rd Ed, myself ↩︎
7. Mind you the Craichouse Destro-Sexuals would complain about having to unzip their pants on Free Blowjob Day, so take their endless carping with a kilo or two of salt ↩︎
8. Twice in one article! ↩︎