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Hey all, I'm wondering about the general feel of the game now that we've had a little while to get used to it. Are people finding ways to balance it? Is it fun? Is it tactical? I remember just being disgusted with it when the free rules were released and finding that there was no points balancing factor in the game. I still don't really like the new fluff and I'm not planning on re-basing everything on round bases but I do have a few piles of otherwise unusable models lying about that I'd love to see new life breathed into.

Giving it a play is my best advice. No cost or harm as all the rules are free and you've already got the models. I think it's fun and tactical, and I think the majority of people who have tried it agree it's not as shallow as it might have at first appeared. As everyone will say, scenarios or objectives are key, as the traditional battle line is pretty bland.

Balance can be the eyeball game or www.scrollbuilder.com and the various comp systems that have gained traction.

I recommend checking out the Heelanhammer podcast for some good shows about tournaments, how the game has progressed etc. They're running the SCGT for AoS, which has some 140 or so entrants. http://heelanhammer.com

Interesting. Do we have any idea how long the older free warscroll armies will be legal for? I have loads of Empire, Undead, Chaos and Orcs that I'd like to use but no desire to buy a single Fyreslayer or Stormcast anything.

 Lord Corellia wrote:
Interesting. Do we have any idea how long the older free warscroll armies will be legal for? I have loads of Empire, Undead, Chaos and Orcs that I'd like to use but no desire to buy a single Fyreslayer or Stormcast anything.

As long as the current rule set is out, they will be playable. An arms race might see them become less effective, but the rules will still be valid.

I started out giving it a chance, now i despise it after playing alot of it, not much tactics, its pretty simplistic game, the rules are an absolute mess, but hey if you have the models why not, WHFB is dead. the round bases actually made me happier with the models as ranking and such was a pain with alot of my preferred armies. I dont think the game is much fun, but alot do, so give it a whirl,. if you can get a decent sized group even with all its glaring deficiencies it can give a larger group entertainment that some other systems dont. stay with the scenarios at first, they ok, not great, not bad, just kind of "meh" in that GW way we all know and love. I have found personally that the best scenarios for it do not come from AoS at all, but from LOTR/hobbit. battleline will put you to sleep (center of board mosh pit) so your best bet is to find a scenario that looks interesting and give it a go. while there is no balancing mechanism at all in the game, i have found that playing "battallion" boxes and "starter set" armies against each other gave the best games. our most reasonably "competitive" fights were IoB starter armies hammering away at each other. the high elves won 6 out 10 times while the BfSP dwarves and night goblins were 5 for 5 each (the dwarves get the advantage of range which can really help with the number offset) which was far better than Stormcast "suckmarines" ( I personally cant stand the character of sigmar, even in fantasy thought he was lame) winning 8 of 10 against khorne-flakes (I have no idea in hades what a "khogorath" is supposed to actually be, but kill it! kill it quick for the love of gawd man kill that thing before it closes, my buddies vamps got mauled by that monster) I would also recommend whether you want them or not to download all the warscrolls available, as the tomb king scrolls are now under the "last chance" and you might want later models that will be deconned.

I find it a lot of fun and very tactical. I use the age of balance system at www.ageofbalance.com to balance out armies for simple matches. I also play a campaign from http://www.louisvillewargaming.com/Files/AzyrEmpires.pdf

The campaign is an absolute blast. Even without it every match requires so much strategy. Even if you don't play with a balancing system the built in rules of sudden death add a lot of strategy. Its based on scenario games. A very basic scenario example, there are three points to capture. The person with the most models within these points owns the point and the person with two points at the end achieves a major victory. If one army is smaller than the enemy there is sudden death. One of the sudden death is assassination. A unit is picked that has to be protected, if its destroyed they lose. Try conquering two points WHILE protecting a unit from assassination. That's an absolute basic scenario, there are far more creative and fun ones.

As for strategy there's strategy in everything. From army selection, monsters are very strong creatures but they get weaker as they take hits, small units are strong in numbers but their attacks are restricted based on pile in. Heroes are fragile but offer a lot of synergy. There are no useless units in age of balance ruleset and very few in basic age of sigmar. Then there is strategy in formations. Things like kings of war have block formations, very basic. This, as long as models are within 1 inch of another model in its unit its fine. Then with 1-3'' attack ranges you can build phalanxes, snake tails for buffs and objective capture, V formations. The possibilities are lmitless and there is no right answer for every situation. Then there is basic strategy. If the enemy has a monster do you engage it with your monster? No. You engage it with a disposable unit to either delay it so you can go for a bigger target, weaken it so your monster can slay it or swarm it. Just a lot of fun options.

There was a campaign from some dragons lair store in Texas and we will be using a slightly modified version of that rule set for a campaign here. I haven't tried it yet but I will be shortly since I got sucked into it. Just google dragons lair age of sigmar rules and you should be able to find it. It makes hordes count as half wounds and such and you need so many wounds for troops but it looks neat.

General feeling is RIP Warhammer. The focus is now just on 40K and other companies games.

We continue to have fun with it.

We continue to look back at moments in games where the decisons made or lost it.

The scenarios are enjoyable.

My friends have tried it (and Kings of War) and have now boxed or sold their armies. They have not bought into any of the new minis.

Myself, my Counts army has gone into storage, my High Elves sit unfinished and I am looking to possibly get rid of my unfinished/incomplete Skaven force. I have not played AoS myself.

I had only been (back) into the game for about a year; I had sold my previous army (High Elves) sometime back in the Herohammer days (I don't even know what edition that was).

 Stormonu wrote:
My friends have tried it (and Kings of War) and have now boxed or sold their armies. They have not bought into any of the new minis.

Myself, my Counts army has gone into storage, my High Elves sit unfinished and I am looking to possibly get rid of my unfinished/incomplete Skaven force. I have not played AoS myself.

I had only been (back) into the game for about a year; I had sold my previous army (High Elves) sometime back in the Herohammer days (I don't even know what edition that was).

and yet here you still are lurking on fantasy warhammer forums

Reluctant try July and August because that seemed the thing that do and if wanted to keep playing.. Was not a fan but we ran battle lines and we're trying out different armies and formations and tactics. Once we introduced scenarios in August it made the world of difference, since then I've never had a game I didn't flat out love. Not just cinematic or narrative feel,because you can get that to a degree with any War game, but the variety of models used and how awesome it was to see the non competitive lists on the table...Beastmen, brets, random O&G or ogres
The limited rules left the door wide open to be freebie I do as we pleased and almost zero issues. We decided ahead of time to any house rules and if just pick up game what models we would like to try out, after first few bleh test games we measured from base always, made terrain not moveable so troops must move around trees, etc. and round bases look way better.


Then, my first big event called for clash comp. huge fan, next event uses this to our and I Think it's more than fair and stays current to keep balance. I recommend trying it out, and for that matter other comp systems as well. The tools are out there. I'm loving it more and more and have zero desire to play 8th anymore.the tactical side is string because of scenarios mixing it up, hero abilities, movement, terrain usage, etc. it could be GW design was rolling the dice and it just happened to work out once the community polished it. Who knows. But I'm really enjoying it and there's about 30-40 peoples in this area playing.

Well after a few months of playing Age of Sigmar I have to say it is a fun quick paced game that has little rules-wise common ground with WFB. One should treat it as a whole different game that shares some lore with the warhammer fantasy of old. I very much enjoy the game and (as long as I find opponents) I'll keep playing it.

In my opinion though in order to get the most out of it especially if you want to have more balanced games were you won't need to hava a talk with your opponent beforehand, you need to use one of the comp systems out there and you'll be golden. If I had to recommend one of those, it would be the PPC as it has few restrictions and alterations to the rules, but great balance value...

More locals are also dipping their toe in and through the comp we've had zero problems or misunderstanding, no abuse, no exaggerations, just fun games we approach on the same page. If an organized play comes out and it's for more than just GW store events I'll of course give it a gander but Clash Comp is serving me just fine for now.

Simple rules are often though of as tactically shallow, this is not true. This becomes apparent if you have spent a good amount of time on old video game or just think of chess.
Chess, if though of as a wargame, is very simple. It has 6 unit types with a movement rule each and combat is just get charged and you are removed from play and always the same scenario (interesting that it is a scenario though). "Armies" are exactly the same (still not perfectly balanced, black is a a disadvantage). Is chess a shallow game with no tactics? No it it THE strategy game, most enduring and probably most "prestigious". So stop bashing AoS for having simple rules. simpler rules are a good thing. More complex rules just give some people the illusion of being good at tactics when what they are really good at is gaming a system.

That is the big difference, AoS denies people from gaming the system because "the system" doesn't try to stop that; you just ruin the game for yourself. Point values are just another such system, "competitive armies" had become armies that get the most effect at less points than it is worth. Some people like that kind of thing, many people hate cheese though.
Frankly, Warhammer has never been good for that sort of thing, the way it was made is supposed to be for putting cool things on the table and having a good time in a fantasy world (or Sci-Fi IMO), that is how the rules (even in 8th) read, that is how it has always appeared to me.

The "point" of AoS is exactly that. To do this it give the player A LOT of freedom. This freedom let's anyone with the mindset from games where gaming the system a big part of playing well just see bad rules (hence the initial reaction). The important thing with AoS is that it is designed for an entirely different mindset. If you approach it wanting to have fun with awesome (literally) heroes and monsters and have epic things happen in your 6x4 world then it will be great. If you want wring advantage out of everything down to the wording of the rules then no.

If you want a game where designing an army is about putting together a well oiled machine that works well and you need to be tactical to win; if you really want to take it seriously: Play historical, seriously hear me out; I played ancients (before 1500AD) for a decade before coming to Warhammer, the difference obvious. The lack of epic power difference (like hero/monster vs infantry) isn't there so balance is a lot easier to get, even the most powerful troops have weaknesses (medieval knight DIE if they charge spears and even crappy ranged troops give elephants a hard time).
Oh and the people who make the rules are independent of the MANY place that make mini's and the "fluff" is predetermined, so no power creep, no good rules to sell models; just the most balanced and realistic thing possible. Try Field of Glory, Hail Ceasar or Impetus. If you insist on getting this out of fantasy, Kings of War is better at it than WFB.