A couple of people have posted some great battle reports on their experiences from ETC, so I figured I would also post mine. Instead of posting individual battle reports, I'll try to sum up my overall thoughts on the 'state of the book'.
The Journey:
I am a long-time VS player. I played VS at ETC 2018 and played VS almost exclusively until the LAB came out. Once the LAB came out I played VS for about 6 months and then switched to DL because I was frustrated with the state of VS. I played DL at ETC last year and did relatively well with them. I went 4-2 and finished with 74 points (62nd overall). After ETC I was determined to play VS at the next ETC, so almost all my practice games since last ETC have been with VS. - The constant rule changes have been frustrating. At first I was playing heavy shooting, then I had to pivot to CC-focused. After the nerfs in May (which I felt were unjustified and I think with the benefit of hindsight to have proven to be unjustified), I seriously considered switching back to DL as I did not think VS were in a good space. However, I decided to keep playing VS. In part, I did not think I had enough time to get into shape with DL prior to ETC and in part because I felt morally obligated to play them. As someone who has been one of the most vocal critiques of the VS LAB team, I felt it necessary to try the army at ETC to get some real feedback.
Negative feedback is coming - so turn away if you do not want negativity:
If anyone is wondering, after playing something like 100 games with VS over the last year, I am even :more convinced that the VS LAB team has no vision for the book and does not know what they are doing... When the last update came out, I called for the resignation of the LAB team, and I still firmly believe that is the best path forward for my beloved book.... However, that is not the point of this thread, so I will save that for another day.
My results at ETC 2023: 3-3 with 50 points. (by game: 13, 3, 11, 1, 4, 18). This was a pretty disappointing result for me as I was in pretty good shape going into ETC this year. I had played a lot of games and done fairly well in my practice games leading up to ETC. - Had the book not gone through so many changes in 2023 I probably would have been in even better shape, but I was unable to practice the same list for more than a few months at a time which is a bit frustrating. - However, at ETC, I did not play perfectly, and I also had some pretty terrible luck (especially in ESC), so the results are not super unexpected.
My list:
570 - Swarm Priest, Sacred Platform (Whispering Bell), Wizard Adept, Witchcraft, Rod of Battle, Obsidian Rock, Holy Triumvirate, Caelysian Pantheon
295 - Swarm Priest, Wizard Adept, Thaumaturgy, Book of Arcane Mastery, Lightning Vambraces, Holy Triumvirate, Caelysian Pantheon
250 - Vermin Senator, General, Senatorial Litter, Cowl of the Apostate, Crown of Autocracy
150 - House Prefect, Pistol, Orator's Toga, Skorchit Alchemist
130 - House Prefect, Praetorian Brute, Pistol, Fetthis Fleshmaster
539 - 43 Blackfur Veterans, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Stalker's Standard)
332 - 42 Vermin Legionaries, Spear, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Legion Standard)
235 - 25 Vermin Legionaries, Champion, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Banner of Discipline)
130 - 30 Vermin Slaves, Musician
572 - 44 Blackfur Veterans, Bloodfur Praetorians, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Sacred Aquila)
550 - 11 Fetthis Brutes, Champion
80 - 10 Giant Rats
190 - 5 Experimental Weapon Teams, Jezail and Shield
190 - 5 Experimental Weapon Teams, Jezail and Shield
285 - 3 Dreadmill Chariots
4498
Quick thoughts on the list: It is a relatively CC-oriented list with some decent ranged pressure to try to force the opponent to fight. - Jezzails do some light pressure while hand/wrath/lightning vambraces (and sometimes trial of faith), can force the opponent to come at you. - If I were to re-write the list, I would get a bit more ranged pressure. I would drop the chariots, add two more engineers and try to find the points to make the jezzail units 6-models each. (But overall, I think the list works fairly well when executed properly).
Pairings: For the most part, I avoided all really bad matchups in the pairings. Meaning, I did not have to deal with the extreme snipe lists or lists that were tailored to play against VS (such as double catapult). But I also ended up drawing mostly neutral matchups. - Having to dodge a bunch of very anti-VS lists meant that I had to be babysat in the pairings more so than I would have liked which also made it harder to get the good pairings. Certainly, it feels like it was a liability to have a VS player on the team and the team almost certainly would have been better off with anything other than VS.
Quick summary of my ETC losses: Two of my big losses were because I lost my general and my whole army proceeded to panic off the board. My other big loss was the result of me repositioning my bunker to create an escape path and then blundering by having my general on the wrong side of the unit after pivoting it to give leadership to a key unit. - In two of the losses, I was in a very good position. In one game in particular, I was clearly winning, my opponents general was dead, I had secondary at least drawn, but likely won, but then I got a tad unlucky and my opponent had a perfect overrun that allowed a reasonable charge on my general that was trying to escape. - With the general dead, my whole army fled off the board within a turn.
Feedback/Discussion/Analysis:
The Leadership Mechanics of this army are so tedious, unfun, and punishing: In my game against KOE, I made one mistake with the leadership bubble forgetting to move my generals position in the unit one time and immediately lost because that meant I essentially auto-failed my fear test and subsequent steadfast test. Had I passed those tests I was very likely to win, but instead I lost. Yes, this is absolutely my blunder and I deserve what I got... But, no other army has as many bubbles to worry about and has such brutal consequences for either making a mistake or simply going out of bubble. - The fact that you are constantly playing in the bubble makes it so hard to pursue/overrun/ or just play sufficiently wide. To make matters worse, you have this highly important senator character who needs to be close enough to the action to provide essential leadership, but in a safe and secure position. If one thing goes wrong, or you get unlucky and fail that 6/7-minimized reroll-able leadership check you often instanrtly lose the game.
The generals role is too important: No other army is punished nearly as much as VS is for having the general die. It is simply unfair and can lead to some swingy games. In my one my ESC games I was in a very good position. However, my slaves failed a re-rollable 8 minimized steadfast check which lead to my bunker being caught, my general eventually dying, and that dramatically swinging the game. Once that happened my entire army chain-panic bombed off the board. Sure, i probably could have done things slightly differently to keep my general alive. I guess I could have had a contingency plan for a 4% outcome? But should a game swing so hard after a very unlikely event happening. If this would happen to other armies, their leadership is better than base 5 and they likely still have a BSB. Vermin swarm is essentially unplayable after the general dies. - This really should be addressed in one way shape or form.
VS Magic is too expensive: I've shown the math elsewhere on these forums, but VS pays more per spell than any other army and our wizards are very weak and do not have +1 to cast. We possibly have the worst magic phase in the game (Dwarfs do not count), but we pay the most for it. ~ Outrageous... Additionally, our weak wizards only have 2 wounds when not on a platform. I was a little unlucky, but in two games my wizard died to the 5-5-5 misscast (most other armies do not have this problem!)
VS Blocks are slow immobile, prone to chaffing themselves, and severely constrained by the leadership mechanics. In addition to constantly worrying about the leadership mechanics, VS is forced to constantly look to see if they are accidently chaffing themselves because they cannot complete a wheel either due to some opponents unit or a building. ~ Its not fun, very difficult to play perfectly and see all the possible scenarios and iterations of reforms that might prevent your unit from charging. ~ Better players know how to exploit this and it is really not a pleasant experience when your unit cannot complete a charge simply because its bus is too long.
The solution to chaffing yourself is to allow for adequate spacing between your units to give them space to wheel. But alas, we are forced to play in a stupid 18" bubble. It is usually hard enough to fit the whole army in the bubble with a standard 12" deployment, so your units are often exactly 1" apart making the 'self-chaffing' something that is nearly inevitable.
Playing in person sucks: The VS army almost seems like it was meant to be played online. With the aide of bubbles that are exact and easy to measure, it is easier to play this army online. Worst of all, carrying 200+ models to a tournament and then ranking them up after every game is a huge test of patience. ~ I even invested in duplicate movement trays to attempt to rank up my dead models during the game so less time was spent doing so at the end of the game. Even still, it was not fun and wasted a lot of time that could have otherwise been spent having a beer after the game or hanging out with my friends.
In summary: The leadership mechanics are not fun and extremely punishing. Moving the models around the table is extremely tedious from both a bubble-management and anti-chaffing perspective. The magic phase is under-powered (actually make that the whole army is under powered) AND on top of that, cleaning up after a game also sucks.
BRING BACK THE SLIM! ~ If the LAB team will not resign and bring new blood and ideas onto the team to fix the book, than the least they could do is publish a roadmap. The book is nearly universally hated, why are we still banging our heads against the wall, tell us your plans. Most importantly FIX THE BOOK!
The Journey:
I am a long-time VS player. I played VS at ETC 2018 and played VS almost exclusively until the LAB came out. Once the LAB came out I played VS for about 6 months and then switched to DL because I was frustrated with the state of VS. I played DL at ETC last year and did relatively well with them. I went 4-2 and finished with 74 points (62nd overall). After ETC I was determined to play VS at the next ETC, so almost all my practice games since last ETC have been with VS. - The constant rule changes have been frustrating. At first I was playing heavy shooting, then I had to pivot to CC-focused. After the nerfs in May (which I felt were unjustified and I think with the benefit of hindsight to have proven to be unjustified), I seriously considered switching back to DL as I did not think VS were in a good space. However, I decided to keep playing VS. In part, I did not think I had enough time to get into shape with DL prior to ETC and in part because I felt morally obligated to play them. As someone who has been one of the most vocal critiques of the VS LAB team, I felt it necessary to try the army at ETC to get some real feedback.
Negative feedback is coming - so turn away if you do not want negativity:
If anyone is wondering, after playing something like 100 games with VS over the last year, I am even :more convinced that the VS LAB team has no vision for the book and does not know what they are doing... When the last update came out, I called for the resignation of the LAB team, and I still firmly believe that is the best path forward for my beloved book.... However, that is not the point of this thread, so I will save that for another day.
My results at ETC 2023: 3-3 with 50 points. (by game: 13, 3, 11, 1, 4, 18). This was a pretty disappointing result for me as I was in pretty good shape going into ETC this year. I had played a lot of games and done fairly well in my practice games leading up to ETC. - Had the book not gone through so many changes in 2023 I probably would have been in even better shape, but I was unable to practice the same list for more than a few months at a time which is a bit frustrating. - However, at ETC, I did not play perfectly, and I also had some pretty terrible luck (especially in ESC), so the results are not super unexpected.
My list:
570 - Swarm Priest, Sacred Platform (Whispering Bell), Wizard Adept, Witchcraft, Rod of Battle, Obsidian Rock, Holy Triumvirate, Caelysian Pantheon
295 - Swarm Priest, Wizard Adept, Thaumaturgy, Book of Arcane Mastery, Lightning Vambraces, Holy Triumvirate, Caelysian Pantheon
250 - Vermin Senator, General, Senatorial Litter, Cowl of the Apostate, Crown of Autocracy
150 - House Prefect, Pistol, Orator's Toga, Skorchit Alchemist
130 - House Prefect, Praetorian Brute, Pistol, Fetthis Fleshmaster
539 - 43 Blackfur Veterans, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Stalker's Standard)
332 - 42 Vermin Legionaries, Spear, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Legion Standard)
235 - 25 Vermin Legionaries, Champion, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Banner of Discipline)
130 - 30 Vermin Slaves, Musician
572 - 44 Blackfur Veterans, Bloodfur Praetorians, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer with Eagle Standard (Sacred Aquila)
550 - 11 Fetthis Brutes, Champion
80 - 10 Giant Rats
190 - 5 Experimental Weapon Teams, Jezail and Shield
190 - 5 Experimental Weapon Teams, Jezail and Shield
285 - 3 Dreadmill Chariots
4498
Quick thoughts on the list: It is a relatively CC-oriented list with some decent ranged pressure to try to force the opponent to fight. - Jezzails do some light pressure while hand/wrath/lightning vambraces (and sometimes trial of faith), can force the opponent to come at you. - If I were to re-write the list, I would get a bit more ranged pressure. I would drop the chariots, add two more engineers and try to find the points to make the jezzail units 6-models each. (But overall, I think the list works fairly well when executed properly).
Pairings: For the most part, I avoided all really bad matchups in the pairings. Meaning, I did not have to deal with the extreme snipe lists or lists that were tailored to play against VS (such as double catapult). But I also ended up drawing mostly neutral matchups. - Having to dodge a bunch of very anti-VS lists meant that I had to be babysat in the pairings more so than I would have liked which also made it harder to get the good pairings. Certainly, it feels like it was a liability to have a VS player on the team and the team almost certainly would have been better off with anything other than VS.
Quick summary of my ETC losses: Two of my big losses were because I lost my general and my whole army proceeded to panic off the board. My other big loss was the result of me repositioning my bunker to create an escape path and then blundering by having my general on the wrong side of the unit after pivoting it to give leadership to a key unit. - In two of the losses, I was in a very good position. In one game in particular, I was clearly winning, my opponents general was dead, I had secondary at least drawn, but likely won, but then I got a tad unlucky and my opponent had a perfect overrun that allowed a reasonable charge on my general that was trying to escape. - With the general dead, my whole army fled off the board within a turn.
Feedback/Discussion/Analysis:
The Leadership Mechanics of this army are so tedious, unfun, and punishing: In my game against KOE, I made one mistake with the leadership bubble forgetting to move my generals position in the unit one time and immediately lost because that meant I essentially auto-failed my fear test and subsequent steadfast test. Had I passed those tests I was very likely to win, but instead I lost. Yes, this is absolutely my blunder and I deserve what I got... But, no other army has as many bubbles to worry about and has such brutal consequences for either making a mistake or simply going out of bubble. - The fact that you are constantly playing in the bubble makes it so hard to pursue/overrun/ or just play sufficiently wide. To make matters worse, you have this highly important senator character who needs to be close enough to the action to provide essential leadership, but in a safe and secure position. If one thing goes wrong, or you get unlucky and fail that 6/7-minimized reroll-able leadership check you often instanrtly lose the game.
The generals role is too important: No other army is punished nearly as much as VS is for having the general die. It is simply unfair and can lead to some swingy games. In my one my ESC games I was in a very good position. However, my slaves failed a re-rollable 8 minimized steadfast check which lead to my bunker being caught, my general eventually dying, and that dramatically swinging the game. Once that happened my entire army chain-panic bombed off the board. Sure, i probably could have done things slightly differently to keep my general alive. I guess I could have had a contingency plan for a 4% outcome? But should a game swing so hard after a very unlikely event happening. If this would happen to other armies, their leadership is better than base 5 and they likely still have a BSB. Vermin swarm is essentially unplayable after the general dies. - This really should be addressed in one way shape or form.
VS Magic is too expensive: I've shown the math elsewhere on these forums, but VS pays more per spell than any other army and our wizards are very weak and do not have +1 to cast. We possibly have the worst magic phase in the game (Dwarfs do not count), but we pay the most for it. ~ Outrageous... Additionally, our weak wizards only have 2 wounds when not on a platform. I was a little unlucky, but in two games my wizard died to the 5-5-5 misscast (most other armies do not have this problem!)
VS Blocks are slow immobile, prone to chaffing themselves, and severely constrained by the leadership mechanics. In addition to constantly worrying about the leadership mechanics, VS is forced to constantly look to see if they are accidently chaffing themselves because they cannot complete a wheel either due to some opponents unit or a building. ~ Its not fun, very difficult to play perfectly and see all the possible scenarios and iterations of reforms that might prevent your unit from charging. ~ Better players know how to exploit this and it is really not a pleasant experience when your unit cannot complete a charge simply because its bus is too long.
The solution to chaffing yourself is to allow for adequate spacing between your units to give them space to wheel. But alas, we are forced to play in a stupid 18" bubble. It is usually hard enough to fit the whole army in the bubble with a standard 12" deployment, so your units are often exactly 1" apart making the 'self-chaffing' something that is nearly inevitable.
Playing in person sucks: The VS army almost seems like it was meant to be played online. With the aide of bubbles that are exact and easy to measure, it is easier to play this army online. Worst of all, carrying 200+ models to a tournament and then ranking them up after every game is a huge test of patience. ~ I even invested in duplicate movement trays to attempt to rank up my dead models during the game so less time was spent doing so at the end of the game. Even still, it was not fun and wasted a lot of time that could have otherwise been spent having a beer after the game or hanging out with my friends.
In summary: The leadership mechanics are not fun and extremely punishing. Moving the models around the table is extremely tedious from both a bubble-management and anti-chaffing perspective. The magic phase is under-powered (actually make that the whole army is under powered) AND on top of that, cleaning up after a game also sucks.
BRING BACK THE SLIM! ~ If the LAB team will not resign and bring new blood and ideas onto the team to fix the book, than the least they could do is publish a roadmap. The book is nearly universally hated, why are we still banging our heads against the wall, tell us your plans. Most importantly FIX THE BOOK!
