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Thread locked to merge into main thread here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/655877.page

Thanks!

Just wondering...

It's kind of how you comp the game, instead of players forcing some 100% balanced comp rules.

The game allows for you to play how you want w/o feeling restricted or limited by some comp limit of points. I dont get why so many people are forcing a Wounds comp to balance it out when Sudden Death is right there in front of us.

Come to a reasonable, balanced army agreement w/ a friend, play Sudden Death if necessary. Boom, list-building isn't a chore, game is comp'd, etc.

Obviously if your friend wants to play w/ 200 models while you have 50 models, you have the right to give him the ..l.., but I doubt anyone would do that anyway.

This isn't a competitive game built for tourneys. It's a game built for a fun, friendly battle.

It is based off wounds tho,and wounds are not equal. 8 skaven vs a dragon or something.. balanced...

It also is the same if you are outnumbered10 to 1 as 3 to 1.

It kinda works , as long as you are in the same ballpark on number of scrolls.

Captyn_Bob wrote:
It is based off wounds tho,and wounds are not equal. 8 skaven vs a dragon or something.. balanced...

It also is the same if you are outnumbered10 to 1 as 3 to 1.

It kinda works , as long as you are in the same ballpark on number of scrolls.

Sudden Death? It's based on model count, not Wounds. Unless I'm reading something completely different?

Which would possibly make an issue w/ the 8W, 13W models. But again, that leaves it up to the players to actually come to a friendly agreement on what is fair and balanced. Can we not appreciate GW giving us that freedom?

Freedom? Heck next edition will just be a box of minis and a piece of paper that says "good luck"!

Because Sudden Death is an appalling mechanic. As others have said, it makes no distinction between being outnumbered by 3 to 1 or being outnumbered by 50 to 1, and it forces the player vying for a sudden death victory condition into a very unenjoyable game - say your best chance of victory is having a surviving model, who wants to play a wargame where you spend the entire battle running away?

Sure, Sudden Death is better than nothing and, in some cases, it will work, but it's a very poor substitute for a points mechanic, war scroll limitations or some sort of FOC.

It also fails to take into account the strength of those models.

Instead, a standard goblin army will outnumber ogres, so the ogre-player will get a huge bonus for... playing ogres.

And that's probably the *most* reasonable matchup - considering you could just as easily be fighting an army of miscellaneous monsters.

The Sudden Death mechanic worked well for us. The first game my player outnumbered me by enough to give Sudden Death. In the second he decided to only out number me by enough to not give the Sudden Death. It was a really close game with only his wounded Shaman and Doom Diver remaining.

I've been watching games on YouTube and ogres seem broken, so much rend just slaughters chaos warriors.

And if you can mince chaos you can mince anything.

Sudden death is not enough to compensate for being heavily outnumbered.

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

Come to a reasonable, balanced army agreement w/ a friend, play Sudden Death if necessary. Boom, list-building isn't a chore, game is comp'd, etc.

No offense, but you don't see to have any experience in competitive WHFB / wargaming if you consider that "solution" being "comp'd".

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

Come to a reasonable, balanced army agreement w/ a friend, play Sudden Death if necessary. Boom, list-building isn't a chore, game is comp'd, etc.

No offense, but you don't see to have any experience in competitive WHFB / wargaming if you consider that "solution" being "comp'd".

It's not even competitive. Players aren't worried that AoS is going to work badly in tournaments (which, for the moment, it is), players are annoyed that, due to the lack of any balancing system (and no, Sudden Death doesn't qualify), they can't have fun, balanced games with their friends or any other person they'll have a pick-up game with in store. Wargames, for many people, become at lot less fun when it isn't on a level playing field and there is absolutely nothing in this ruleset that allows players to have a game on a level playing field - the players instead have to do lots of work in working out (or simply guessing) what they think to be even, and then just hope for the best.

hobojebus wrote:
I've been watching games on YouTube and ogres seem broken, so much rend just slaughters chaos warriors.

And if you can mince chaos you can mince anything.

Sudden death is not enough to compensate for being heavily outnumbered.

Stop thinking the old rules/power levels are the same as AoS, ALL UNITS are different power levels now and has some different rules.

 The Shadow wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

Come to a reasonable, balanced army agreement w/ a friend, play Sudden Death if necessary. Boom, list-building isn't a chore, game is comp'd, etc.

No offense, but you don't see to have any experience in competitive WHFB / wargaming if you consider that "solution" being "comp'd".

It's not even competitive. Players aren't worried that AoS is going to work badly in tournaments (which, for the moment, it is), players are annoyed that, due to the lack of any balancing system (and no, Sudden Death doesn't qualify), they can't have fun, balanced games with their friends or any other person they'll have a pick-up game with in store. Wargames, for many people, become at lot less fun when it isn't on a level playing field and there is absolutely nothing in this ruleset that allows players to have a game on a level playing field - the players instead have to do lots of work in working out (or simply guessing) what they think to be even, and then just hope for the best.

This mirrors my thought on it. GW started a new franchise and it might even be a good one for quick games. An entry level tabletop. Without an inherent balance mechanism, however, it's useless. If GW somehow decides to add points cost or another method to it, it might work. Right now, it's utter trash.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I've been watching games on YouTube and ogres seem broken, so much rend just slaughters chaos warriors.

And if you can mince chaos you can mince anything.

Sudden death is not enough to compensate for being heavily outnumbered.

Stop thinking the old rules/power levels are the same as AoS, ALL UNITS are different power levels now and has some different rules.

I haven't played fantasy for ten years I don't know what was strong in 8th or what the rules were, I watched the video and drew conclusions from that and the conclusion is ogres are stupidly strong in AoS and that sudden death won't fix the complete imbalance in this mockery of a game.

Even the people playing weren't having fun.

hobojebus wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
I've been watching games on YouTube and ogres seem broken, so much rend just slaughters chaos warriors.

And if you can mince chaos you can mince anything.

Sudden death is not enough to compensate for being heavily outnumbered.

Stop thinking the old rules/power levels are the same as AoS, ALL UNITS are different power levels now and has some different rules.

I haven't played fantasy for ten years I don't know what was strong in 8th or what the rules were, I watched the video and drew conclusions from that and the conclusion is ogres are stupidly strong in AoS and that sudden death won't fix the complete imbalance in this mockery of a game.

Even the people playing weren't having fun.

How many fights did you watch? Did you watch Ogres vs all other armies? We cant say they are strong yet, not even play testing.

How exactly do you even go about playtesting though?

There's literally no frame of reference to base anything on.

I mean, in 8th, you could say something was "strong for its cost". Now, something is strong... for what exactly?

 vipoid wrote:
How exactly do you even go about playtesting though?

There's literally no frame of reference to base anything on.

I mean, in 8th, you could say something was "strong for its cost". Now, something is strong... for what exactly?

Play lots nad lots of games... how else?

Play games with all Characters, play games with 0, play games 3 to 1 ratio play games of all hordes... etc....

But how does that help?

There's still no balancing factor to change.

Nor, for that matter, anything to indicate that both sides were even or to compare any two units or any combination of units.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

Come to a reasonable, balanced army agreement w/ a friend, play Sudden Death if necessary. Boom, list-building isn't a chore, game is comp'd, etc.

No offense, but you don't see to have any experience in competitive WHFB / wargaming if you consider that "solution" being "comp'd".

It's not even competitive. Players aren't worried that AoS is going to work badly in tournaments (which, for the moment, it is), players are annoyed that, due to the lack of any balancing system (and no, Sudden Death doesn't qualify), they can't have fun, balanced games with their friends or any other person they'll have a pick-up game with in store. Wargames, for many people, become at lot less fun when it isn't on a level playing field and there is absolutely nothing in this ruleset that allows players to have a game on a level playing field - the players instead have to do lots of work in working out (or simply guessing) what they think to be even, and then just hope for the best.

This mirrors my thought on it. GW started a new franchise and it might even be a good one for quick games. An entry level tabletop. Without an inherent balance mechanism, however, it's useless. If GW somehow decides to add points cost or another method to it, it might work. Right now, it's utter trash.

Again, I'm in agreement. Regardless of its simplicity or silly rules, AoS may make a good game, but, without a way to fairly balance the game, it's good for very little as most people want at the very least a level playing field. I can see why, from a business perspective, GW have done this but, from a gaming perspective it's just utterly stupid. I mean, I'm fine with the whole "use your whole collection thing" but if there were a system that allowed you to see how much your collection was under/over your opponent's in terms of "warscroll points" or something, then GW could have added in some extra rules to compensate (i.e. extra warlord traits - in the same way that Escalation gave you better warlord traits if you didn't take a LoW and your opponent did).

It's not ogres, it's ogers.

Back on topic, Sudden Death is what a cynic might call a typical modern GW rule, quickly inserted with the intention of correcting the consequences of some other piece of bad rules, but bringing new problems of its own when looked at in detail.

However I think players will come to sensible arrangements for balancing their games with or without Sudden Death, etc.

My mantra when looking at AOS is that it is free so I can't expect a lot of sophistication.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
It's not ogres, it's ogers.

Reality disagrees with you.

It's "Ogor" now.

It's like they spent five minutes re-naming all of the factions. Ugh...

But... it still says "Ogre Kingdoms" on the first page of the Warscroll pdf.

You're right though - the subsequent pages all have "Ogor".

Could it be a misprint, do you think?

I mean, Ogres are still called, well, 'ogres'. And, they also have 'ogre' at the bottom of their warscrolls. They also have 'ogor'.

I just... I mean... what... ?

 vipoid wrote:
But... it still says "Ogre Kingdoms" on the first page of the Warscroll pdf.

You're right though - the subsequent pages all have "Ogor".

Could it be a misprint, do you think?

I mean, Ogres are still called, well, 'ogres'. And, they also have 'ogre' at the bottom of their warscrolls. They also have 'ogor'.

I just... I mean... what... ?

Eh... I think the race are called Ogors (because Chapterhouse scared GW into being super-protective about their IP, from what I understand - which I little, I grant you), but all the individual units are called like "Ogre Bulls", because, well, that's what they've always been like.

It's easiest to look at it with the elven armies. The new, combined race of High, Dark and Wood Elves in the Age of Sigmar universe is called the Aelfs which is obviously different, but the Aelfs are made up of Dark Elves, High Elves and Wood Elves (as they've always been)

Yeah, it's stupid.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 The Shadow wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

Come to a reasonable, balanced army agreement w/ a friend, play Sudden Death if necessary. Boom, list-building isn't a chore, game is comp'd, etc.

No offense, but you don't see to have any experience in competitive WHFB / wargaming if you consider that "solution" being "comp'd".

It's not even competitive. Players aren't worried that AoS is going to work badly in tournaments (which, for the moment, it is), players are annoyed that, due to the lack of any balancing system (and no, Sudden Death doesn't qualify), they can't have fun, balanced games with their friends or any other person they'll have a pick-up game with in store. Wargames, for many people, become at lot less fun when it isn't on a level playing field and there is absolutely nothing in this ruleset that allows players to have a game on a level playing field - the players instead have to do lots of work in working out (or simply guessing) what they think to be even, and then just hope for the best.

This mirrors my thought on it. GW started a new franchise and it might even be a good one for quick games. An entry level tabletop. Without an inherent balance mechanism, however, it's useless. If GW somehow decides to add points cost or another method to it, it might work. Right now, it's utter trash.

No offense, but you don't seem to have any experience playing for fun (and no, fun and competitive aren't mutually exclusive). I actually do have experience w/ WHFB in tournaments, I just understand how to self-regulate games and have fun. Believe me, I get there are powergamers who cant comprehend something like AoS. Also, have you even played it, yet?

I'm not saying it's an objective, legitimate way to balance the game, but it's GW's way of balancing things, take it as you will. But hey, I'm sorry if you feel the need to quit playing.

 Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:


I'm not saying it's an objective, legitimate way to balance the game, but it's GW's way of balancing things, take it as you will. But hey, I'm sorry if you feel the need to quit playing.

You're saying that it's comped and that is an objectively false statement. Hands down. I don't care whether it's enjoyable for some or not, that's not in question. You spread misinformation. You lie. So either stick to using terms you understand or deal with people berating you on it.

Your choice.

I think Age of Sigmar is fantastic. I love narrative battles, I love being able to take whatever models in whatever army (Finally, the Empire troops organize their tanks into platoons rather than just derping about).

If myself or my opponent isn't having any fun, that's our fault for not communicating our intentions accurately.

Sudden Death is an objective failure of a rule. It assumes that the power level of an army is determined by the number of models it contain, an assumption that is utterly and completely wrong. Nagash and a Skaven slave both count as a single model, but Nagash has a combat ability at least 100x higher than the Skaven slave. That is the most extreme example, but every army has models with vastly different power levels.

An army of goblins that has twice of many of models as an army of ogres is completely outmatched, yet the ogre's get the sudden death rule despite being the vastly superior force. You can't call that power gaming WAAC behavior either, that is just comparing the basic models from each army used by non-competitive players in a casual game.

Some models have better that stats than other models, that is the way miniature wargames work. The fluff would be idiotic if an ogre couldn't crush a goblin one on one. However, in an actual wargame like 8th edition, the goblins had a lower point cost ensuring they can always gang up against the ogres, which is both good gameplay and how goblins fight in the stories.

Sudden death is simply a terrible rule, from the most casual group to a competitive tournament.

scimitar wrote:
Sudden Death is an objective failure of a rule. It assumes that the power level of an army is determined by the number of models it contain, an assumption that is utterly and completely wrong. Nagash and a Skaven slave both count as a single model, but Nagash has a combat ability at least 100x higher than the Skaven slave. That is the most extreme example, but every army has models with vastly different power levels.

An army of goblins that has twice of many of models as an army of ogres is completely outmatched, yet the ogre's get the sudden death rule despite being the vastly superior force. You can't call that power gaming WAAC behavior either, that is just comparing the basic models from each army used by non-competitive players in a casual game.

Some models have better that stats than other models, that is the way miniature wargames work. The fluff would be idiotic if an ogre couldn't crush a goblin one on one. However, in an actual wargame like 8th edition, the goblins had a lower point cost ensuring they can always gang up against the ogres, which is both good gameplay and how goblins fight in the stories.

Sudden death is simply a terrible rule, from the most casual group to a competitive tournament.

Don't use it then. It's not like you paid any money for it.

I'm thinking that making a small, elite army that tries to guarantee sudden death for itself, will be the dominant strategy. You get to choose your sudden death condition, right? It's not a 'roll for it' thing?

What do you guys think?

You get to choose 1 of 4 conditions, and 2 of the conditions involve your opponent choosing a Unit or Hero (or Monster) for you to kill.