Two local shops haven't had a single game in more than a month. They say people occasionally come in to buy, but they play at home amongst themselves. And without play in the stores visible, interest it can generate for more purchases and players diminishes.
I've seen fewer and fewer AoS games but people seem to be buying the sigmarines. That said the rest of fantasy seems dead currently. Dunno why they would do that. It's like they made AoS to make the game less popular than it already was. Wouldn't be surprised if it got canned honestly.
I saw a single 4 way battle at my local GW shortly after release and speaking to guys there at least 2 of them like it, but interest there certainly dropped off since release.
Outside of the GW most people laugh at it then get a bit sad when they remember fantasy is gone.
Not unexpected that it's doing poorly when they have only released Stormcast and Khorne. I expect it to slowly pick up steam as more factions are released. My group is still playing though.
I recruited potentially our 5th fantasy player a couple days ago. Now that I finally got some of the 40k players to actually try it, they have been enjoying it. A few house rules, but it's mostly open to what you can do.
I think the biggest seller is it's different. Are 40k league has gotten kinda stale over the last few months. The competitive players get bored because they don't want to change up their army comp. The casuals are tired of losing every game as well. I think AoS is providing a good medium as it's so new it kinda gives everybody a fresh start on the meta.
Actually the proper word should be stillborn, because other than selling a few intro boxes no actual games were played. Everyone just kept playing 8th edition or jumped to other systems.
The biggest influx of AoS players by me are people who played 40k and were interested in a fantasy setting, but did not want to deal with the hassle of WHFB (e.g., starting an army that required such a huge time and monetary investment, trouble finding games because the community was so much smaller).
Our growth cycle started pretty consistently: someone would be interested, others would make fun of AoS, I would talk to the interested party and we'd play a game, they would realize it is actually pretty fun and a solid ruleset, they would want to play more, someone else would be interested, and so on.
Our pool of people who play AoS is actually larger now than the pool of people who played WHFB, so I am definitely not complaining, especially when some folks just switched their 40kGT registration to the AoS event at Da Boyz GT.
auticus wrote: It seems to require proper events. In areas where no one wants to do events with it, it has died.
At this point I can only justify turning out for AOS events, as it pulls people together and means I can get a handful of dice-filled games in one day. Otherwise the time spent arranging, setting up and taking down a single AOS meet and play seems to overshadow the time actually spent pushing stuff around
More and more of my Fantasy club has bought into Malifaux, which we've adopted for regular gaming. Maybe two of the more competitive players in the club are focusing on KOW for tournament purposes, although the NE USA Fantasy scene is investing pretty heavily in Malifaux in general.
The game is growing slow were im at and its actually bringing back some players that have long ago given up on whfb or other miniature games.
We plan to run weekly sessions in the area at various games stores.I think in time it will continue to gather up more players getting frustrated with the 40k competitive scene along with prior fantasy players wanting to throw down their models that are collecting dust.
The biggest issue is that in the miniature gaming hobby,its "cool" to hate on GW especially since they made such a huge change in their game system with AoS.Its going to take a while for players to get past this big change and move on to what it has become.
Mr Morden wrote: Yes Malifaux is a skirmish game with "gangs" of about 6-10 individual figures each. Its very good and lots to think about during the game.
Lots to think about is an understatement! I've played just three games of MF so far, and have never been so exhausted after a mini game then after each of those matches.
The weird upside? MF is so complicated that I find myself craving the simplicity of AOS afterwards, where I just have to know what my stuff does and roll dice for about an hour. Kind of a strange selling point for AOS, but sometimes ultra complex skirmish isn't what I want all the time!
Perhaps the only real similarity is the importance of synchronisation between units in AOS and figures in Malifaux.
I find force selection is also quite similar between AOS and Malifaux, as - going by generic Four Page Age of Sigmar - both favor having depth in your faction's model pool in order to tailor for the game at hand. Of course, without scenarios, this just means providing counters in AOS, while MF is utterly geared towards strats & schemes at all times.
Not unexpected that it's doing poorly when they have only released Stormcast and Khorne.
This is my fear and I have enjoyed the games I've played but the releases have been a bit meh for me so far.
The summer was obviously dedicated to AoS, however 40k is now starting to ramp up again, if rumours hold it will be:
Tau this month
Chaos at xmas
Nids/IG new year
So where are the other AoS factions fitting in? Leaving aside release schedules GW only has a limited production capacity with moulds etc so if 40k is taking us up to xmas will there only be very small AoS releases for other factions, none at all, 2016 midyear?
What can Lizardmen expect, High Elves, Dwarves? Im quite confused and a bit worried on where GW plan on taking AoS overall.
Our club, the 'hardcore' of WFB players are sticking with WFB for now, and still trying to figure out where to go from there.
AoS is pulling interest from WFB, 40k, WMH and other systems; it's 2nd to 40k and averages same number of games as WFB over the weeks.
How much of this is going to be long-term and how much is just initial excitement I don't know, but I've seen intro games being played 3 weeks in a row and the 'new' folks are playing again next week.
What can Lizardmen expect, High Elves, Dwarves? Im quite confused and a bit worried on where GW plan on taking AoS overall.
Literal answer, nothing. There won't be new releases for these races, as they're world-that-was.
On the other hand, Seraphon, Aelf and Duardin will have new releases. Just don't know what or when.
Although I think the fyreslayers will appear first just because they're the only faction we've seen any artwork from and their background mentions have been a little more frequent.
MWHistorian wrote: There's a lot of "I don't know" going on about the fluff and future releases of AOS. That's not a good business plan.
Yeah, I think the fact that people simply have no idea what's going to happen to the older armies, and if it's worthwhile to invest in them... I think that's not helping.
Do we have ANY idea if Empire armies will be useful at all or with the lack of an actual 'empire' are all humans now chaos worshipers or refugees in Sigmaheim?
jonolikespie wrote: Do we have ANY idea if Empire armies will be useful at all or with the lack of an actual 'empire' are all humans now chaos worshipers or refugees in Sigmaheim?
They are all tooled up in Azyrheim and there is no Empire, sadly. The only Empire models that have been pictured are those in the cult of sigmar (warrior priests etc), so we can guess that humans will have a future army of their own but it will likely be very focused on religion.
I'm still going to be adding to my Empire army in the meantime though. I play mine as swashbuckling mercenaries and smugglers. The thing is with AoS, because there are no rules on army composition other than "you need the warscrolls", there will hopefully never be a point where my army is no longer playable because those compendium warscrolls will always be there. (Well, until AoS dramatically changes the rules and renders all warscrolls incompatible. But that shouldn't be for a good while).
Because of this freedom, I have actually found myself collecting 4 armies since AoS began. Free Peoples, Duardin, Death and Moonclan Grots :-)
It started off strong at my local store, already being about 50/50 between WHFB and 40K. That only lasted about a month, and the usual Thursday night games are 100% 40K now. It's a shame.
I really want for it to succeed, but after the hype of gaming cenvention with focus on WFB 8th and 40K there has been very little talk about AoS. I backed The Others: 7 Sins tho
As funny and snarky as that is it, it also shows a very local pattern on where interest and money and flows.
So I got curious and jumped on Facebook. I wanted to see if there was a local group for AoS discussions and how active it was.
I tried 'Age of Sigmar <city>'
And found nothing.
I tried 'Age of Sigmar <state>'
And found nothing.
I tried 'Age of Sigmar <Austraila>'
And found nothing.
Searching the last term I got no groups or clubs but I did get a couple of posts from mid September from the Buy Swap Trade Australia group. That was about it.
We still have an AOS league in San Diego at AT Ease Games that meets on Sundays at 11am. I think what is making it hard to get into AOS is that GW does not know how to make a release schedule. Why go months with no Fantasy releases (as in what was happening with the End Times where 2-3 months passed before another book was released), then go for 3 months straight with nothing but AOS, and in particular mostly two factions (with a nod to Clan Pestilence and Sylvaneth factions), and then totally drop the baby they just birthed to go for 3 months straight (or more) with nothing but 40K? What happened to alternating release months? More people would be interested in AOS if it had something for their army. There are something like 14 armies for WFB. Why should any except Stormcast and Bloodbound want to play AOS? There is a flaw in the AOS get-you-by warscrolls for the other armies. Before the release of AOS there was a lot of talk about the new armies being better than the old ones. This is true because of the mini-bosses that they have. If you look at the warscrolls for the old factions, many suffer from a problem of not having mini-bosses. A mini -boss is a hero that is not a commander. You can only use one commander's ability in the hero phase. So if you buy multiple commander's, the excess abilities can't be used. But with Bloodbound and Stormcast there are a bunch of heroes that are not commanders. They can use all of their abilities in the hero phase to achieve a level of synergy that is not found in the get-you-by warscrolls. I played against my friend's Skaven. I kept beating him and he was getting frustrated. Then he pointed out that the vast majority of his heroes were commanders. He couldn't stack abilities. I showed him the Clan Pestilence list, he played me with that force and wrecked me. The difference, Plague Priest mini-bosses!
Any idea when gw's new financials are due? I want to see the results of this grand experiment. I bet they spin off losses as start up expenses for THE new, hot game right noe.
Orock wrote: Any idea when gw's new financials are due? I want to see the results of this grand experiment. I bet they spin off losses as start up expenses for THE new, hot game right noe.
You won't see the results until 2-3 years from now when the dust has settled. That's when we'll see if this game is sustainable in the long run. The sales figures are probably pretty low atm because of a few factors
- Free rules, so no need to buy anything, which is unprecedented and thus the effect on initial sales is also likely to be unprecedented
- At this early stage, the people who know about the game are most likely to be old Fantasy players, aka people who are pissed off as feth and are leaving in droves. When that mass exodus and drama is over and those people have stepped out of the conversation is right about when new people will start to notice the game, or not. And that's when it's future will be decided.
- Only two factions released so far
I think the release shedule theory is dead on. The other factions are supposed to be getting repackaged, but right now we have 2 full factions and 2 partially released factions.
I want to see the repackaged Lizards, I want ot see the repackaged Elves.
Chromedog, what historical rules are your WHFB players migrating to? I am a former WAB competition player and see many similarities between those rules and the demise of WHFB 8th. But I must say I am thoroughly enjoying painting up Bloodreavers for a big AoS Khorne force.
- At this early stage, the people who know about the game are most likely to be old Fantasy players, aka people who are pissed off as feth and are leaving in droves. When that mass exodus and drama is over and those people have stepped out of the conversation is right about when new people will start to notice the game, or not. And that's when it's future will be decided.
I get what you're saying here but it just struck me as odd. Despite everything GW are still the biggest name in the hobby right now, and it looks like they put a lot of effort into AoS. Surely if any other company were handling it and had GWs resources there would not be a miniature Wargamer on the planet who hadn't seen AoS. You need a lot of exposure for a release like this, otherwise no communities form initially and later when people look at it they wont be able to join if they want to as it'll not be played in their area.
Bottle wrote: Maybe you should go start the AoS group in your local area then, Jonolikespie!
Once you've got a group together you could buy all the models going cheap on Buy Swap Trade together so you all have armies to play with.
Win win for you in my books!
Assuming for a moment I was interested in playing, I am genuinely unsure how I could build a group. Locally Infinity has a few excited players and we have a facebook group to coordinate but it's hard roping new people away from X wing and Warmahordes. It gets even harder when half the local communities are very tourney driven.
At the two local game stores AoS is laughed at for being tactically shallow and, well, immature I guess. No one really has any respect for GW anymore, even the people that are still die hard 40k fans (what few of those there).
I know one of the store owners would be happy to move some stock and supports anything people are interested in but his regulars are typically much older than the GW target audience, being the kind of shop that forgoes Magic in favour of historical model kits and hobby supplies. He actually has a shelf of the GW airbrush paints that you can not find on the shelf in a GW store because he sells airbrushes, he can move that stock while they can't. So while he'd like to support AoS if people showed an interest, the old timer fantasy fans moved to KoW and he is supporting that instead (though only minimally, most people are playing something Star Wars, Warmahordes or historicals like Bolt Action and Flames of War).
The other local store is a chain shop that is all about the Magic, but when they do branch into miniature games it is always competitive. Mostly Warmahordes played as ranked leagues and tourneys, not the kind of people you could pull into AoS no matter how hard you try. They did recently get in a GW shelf for their store and AoS stock when some 40k refugees arrived at the store after the local club went bust, but I know one of the most fanboyish ones now is shouting praises to Warmahordes from the rooftops so I don't actually know how well 40k is going there. What I do know is no one is buying AoS from them when they don't offer a discount. Seriously, I've come to expect at least a 10% discount just because Australian RRP is absurd.
That only leaves the local GW store itself. Not the worst of places, when it opened it had a terrible manager and while the current guy is not as good as the last he is far from the worst. He is however an avid 40k tourney player and most of the community already established there are 40kers who field fully grey armies and talk tourney lists. I know of 1 guy there who was huge into 8th ed warhammer who I could probably track down, he was excited for AoS when it came out and may very well still be interested. Given the amount of table space in a one man GW store though it would be an uphill battle just to get AoS on the one table just by virtue of us being outnumbered by regular 40kers.
Sadly that is how badly AoS is doing around here, the older gamers clearly prefer tighter, more balanced rulesets and the younger crowd (those in their late teens and early twenties) seem to be big into the 40k tourney circuit. AoS really has nothing to offer either group unless there were already enough demand for AoS that people could set up comped tourneys.
Was a little interest for AoS, but no one plays it as I can see. Saw some boys playing their first 8th edition match ever, on sunday. Has to be sort of symptomathic.
GWs unreliability counts towards them I think. They are the kind of dirtbag that introduces an open-ended game, and then doesnt care to support it, and even closes down factions and units. The whole dogs of war debacle hurt a lot of players in my area, where they spent lots of money trying to build big mercenary companies, just to have their rules removed from the game later. Just one example.
If GW released one of their great stand-alone-games like gorka morka, mordheim, necromunda etc, I think this would see much more play. Space Hulk seems wildly popular among those who have it, but that came out in a limited edition, so no one I know has it. Sigh.
- At this early stage, the people who know about the game are most likely to be old Fantasy players, aka people who are pissed off as feth and are leaving in droves. When that mass exodus and drama is over and those people have stepped out of the conversation is right about when new people will start to notice the game, or not. And that's when it's future will be decided.
I get what you're saying here but it just struck me as odd. Despite everything GW are still the biggest name in the hobby right now, and it looks like they put a lot of effort into AoS. Surely if any other company were handling it and had GWs resources there would not be a miniature Wargamer on the planet who hadn't seen AoS. You need a lot of exposure for a release like this, otherwise no communities form initially and later when people look at it they wont be able to join if they want to as it'll not be played in their area.
Aside from the fact that GW barely do any marketing outside of their own magazine and website, my theory is this: There are several categories of players who could be interested in something like AoS. In order of likelihood to look further into the game, they are
- Existing WHFB players. The most likely to look into AoS. These people found a game that is nothing like the game they played and loved. It's a skirmish game and has very simple rules. Nothing to do with WHFB aside from the miniatures. Understandably, many are pissed off and bitter. They leave the game but are often very vocal about it and thus also deter others from trying the game in the short run, until they eventually move on. - Existing 40K players. These guys could be interested in another GW game, but the barrier of entry is much higher because they may not own any Fantasy models or may not be interested in the fantasy genre. They may also be deterred by the aforementioned vocal WHFB players or by the simplicity of AoS compared to 40K. Still, a viable audience in the long run. - Existing players of other miniature games. These guys may have little to no interest in current GW, but have probably heard of AoS. They may be attracted to the simplicity of AoS compared to other GW games, maybe they are former GW customers who would like an excuse to come back to a game that needs less commitment (I have seen this quite a few times on this very forum). They may also be deterred by the simplicity. They may dislike GW miniatures or aesthetics. This could be a viable category of customers in the longer run, but probably a smaller one. - People who don't play miniature games (yet). People who would probably be interested in miniature games, but have not played them for one reason or another. They probably don't know about AoS right now. These customers will most likely take the longest to rope in, but would also be the most valuable customers in the long run since they bring new blood into the hobby and could become "GW gamers" so to speak. This is the jackpot, but one that takes lots of time and effort to get.
Mymearan wrote: - People who don't play miniature games (yet). People who would probably be interested in miniature games, but have not played them for one reason or another. They probably don't know about AoS right now. These customers will most likely take the longest to rope in, but would also be the most valuable customers in the long run since they bring new blood into the hobby and could become "GW gamers" so to speak. This is the jackpot, but one that takes lots of time and effort to get.
I agree with what you said and I'd like to focus on this particular group.
It just seems very counter productive of GW to not even bother to boost up their marketing of AoS to this particular group, as it is clearly they way they need to go if they really intend to revitalize a possible fantasy setting/game for the brand. Of course the fact that they mostly run single man shops nowadays and generally have expressed disdain for FLGS doesn't help, and I am not one to avoid chalking this specific lack of marketing foresight as typical GW arrogance, or just outright ignorance. They will take twice as long to get to the desired target groups with this void-marketing strategy.
Speaking purely from a sales point of view, AoS could've made so much more money already if it only had a different marketing machine behind it. Actually, any GW game could.
Your analysis of potential market segmentation is IMO correct.
The challenge for GW is that the hardest people to interest are complete newcomers, and they are most likely to be roped in by existing customers. Complete newbies need all sorts of enthusiastic help with how to play, how to choose armies, how to model them up and so on.
Thus the pissing off of large swathes of current customers together with the widespread adoption of one-man shops may not have been the cleverest marketing strategy.
As for how the game is going locally, I regularly visit a number of GW shops around the south of England (London, Reading, Oxford, Windsor, etc.)
All the shops have got it in stock, and if they have space they are playing it alongside 40K and LoTR. Before the schools went back I saw some youngsters in the shops -- 10 to 12 year olds with their mothers, a key target market. Now the schools are back, it is mostly student and 30 year old types. No doubt things will pick up at half term.
However the GW shop experience is currently a horrible mess with inconsistent presentation of everything.
Even the name and colours of the shops are different.
The games within them are not clearly differentiated: Warhammer is present as Warhammer 40K and Warhammer Age of Sigmar. The similarity of core units (Sigmarines and Chaos compared with Space Marines and Chaos) is confusing. I know to the initiated the difference between a Sigmarine and a Space Marine is very clear, but to the newcomer, they are all small bits of grey plastic with axes and swords, cloaks, banners and spikes and skulls.
There are still heaps of Warhammer Fantasy branded kits on the shelves. There's nothing to show you these are playable in AoS, and they are easy to confuse with Lord of the Rings Fantasy. Warhammer Age of Sigmar Fantasy is also rather similar to LoTR. There is very little to inform you that these are three separate games with different models and rules.
This is I believe another failure of marketing by GW. Perhaps inevitable since their game universes are superficially rather similar to each other. An SF Fantasy game called Warhammer and a Fantasy game called Warhammer Fantasy, and a Fantasy game called Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
These are my impressions from GW's own shops. I haven't visited any FLGS or clubs to see what is going on there. So really I am talking about the principle marketing presentation of the game, not its actual take-up rate by players.
Another thing worth mentioning is that I also regularly visit model shops including the Model Zone areas in WH Smiths, and large bookshops like Waterstones. There is zero GW presence in any of these except the occasional wodge of Warhammer Visions on the newsstand where it competes with a number of other wargaming magazines.
Got a local bunch, a few of which were very excited to start playing. One even enlarged his Bretonnian army in preparation. After release, they've pretty much dropped it. The bretonnian player, who really enjoys 40k and previous versions of Fantasy, was more than a little upset at the game. He, a dedicated mantic hater, was genuinely considering trying Kings of War!
Kilkrazy wrote: Thus the pissing off of large swathes of current customers together with the widespread adoption of one-man shops may not have been the cleverest marketing strategy.
Being one of the pissed off players, I can pretty much tell you that if my neophyte of a nephew was more into Fantasy than 40k, I'd calmly have directed his attentions to Mordheim or Malifaux and find other miniatures for him. Then I'd eventually slap him with the KoW rulebook in the face for xmas or something. But since he likes 40k Tau... *Loads Heavy Bolter*
Kilkrazy wrote: Another thing worth mentioning is that I also regularly visit model shops including the Model Zone areas in WH Smiths, and large bookshops like Waterstones. There is zero GW presence in any of these except the occasional wodge of Warhammer Visions on the newsstand where it competes with a number of other wargaming magazines.
I still can't wrap my head my head around how much GW is losing by pretty much alienating the FLGS. It's such a mind bogglingly bad move from them.Do they really think Visions is enough?
Im not really sure how stores are doing around here, but as far as me and my friends we have gone from 4 people playing nothing to 4 people playing AoS.
Slowly picking up speed here. We have loads of disgruntled fantasy players and some of them are willing to try out Azyr Comp if it makes AoS remotely playable. We also noted a small influx of new people starting armies just for AoS. Seems to be on a steady course towards a stable gaming group.
There are still people playing AoS, but it seems that KoW is picking up more steam than is AoS. The FLGS has an active FB group with lots of little sub-groups for people who play different game systems trying to set up a match. The KoW group has been hitting my newsfeed all the time, while not so much with the AoS group. (I don't play either, though.)
Regarding MaCA's post: I would encourage you to look at the Project Point Cost rules in the AOS Proposed Rules section of this forum. There is no way to balance AOS using just warscrolls and wounds. A Forge World Chaos Mammoth (Monster Warscroll) has no equal within the monster catagory, and that is just one example. There are many. I run the league in my store and I couldn't find a balancing rules set that worked using warscrolls. Each warscroll needs to be point costed.
Smellingsalts wrote: Regarding MaCA's post: I would encourage you to look at the Project Point Cost rules in the AOS Proposed Rules section of this forum. There is no way to balance AOS using just warscrolls and wounds. A Forge World Chaos Mammoth (Monster Warscroll) has no equal within the monster catagory, and that is just one example. There are many. I run the league in my store and I couldn't find a balancing rules set that worked using warscrolls. Each warscroll needs to be point costed.
Azyr comp does not use wounds or warscrolls. It uses points.
I go to a GW shop and 3 FLGS. I've yet to see a single AoS game played at any of the FLGS and they say they're selling slowly. The GW shop says Sigmar is selling great but I doubt it. I do occasionally see AoS played at GW but at about a 3:1 ratio to 40K and I never see AoS played at any FLGS.
Picking up steam and at a fair pace here. Whfb was dead on the shelf for two years. Sales of AoS are continuing steadily but the players are coming back. A regular night is now in place for pick up games. I'm only back in these forums because of it. I like the game in a fashion. Hoping 40k gets the same treatment though my wallet might hate me LOL.
Our group just picked a new player today, which is neat! Someone who had quit Fantasy Battle a decade ago, and coming back with their Chaos army. They are planning to build a new Vampire Counts force.
Smellingsalts wrote: Regarding MaCA's post: I would encourage you to look at the Project Point Cost rules in the AOS Proposed Rules section of this forum. There is no way to balance AOS using just warscrolls and wounds. A Forge World Chaos Mammoth (Monster Warscroll) has no equal within the monster catagory, and that is just one example. There are many. I run the league in my store and I couldn't find a balancing rules set that worked using warscrolls. Each warscroll needs to be point costed.
As I mentioned before, we're using Azyr Comp for our tourneys and, for the most part, it seems to work. There are more players that quit WHFB than there are playing AoS right now though, and the quitters aren't willing to try out AoS, even with a community points system. Dunno why, really, as it basically accomplishes what was needed throughout WHFB existence: 1. up-to-date armies 2. up-to-date point values and 3. continued rule support in form of FAQs (or just corrections to the main comp document).
I think the problem is that people wanted those things in a unit based mass battle game, not a skirmish game that can be scales/bloated up to mass battle.
Smellingsalts wrote: Regarding MaCA's post: I would encourage you to look at the Project Point Cost rules in the AOS Proposed Rules section of this forum. There is no way to balance AOS using just warscrolls and wounds. A Forge World Chaos Mammoth (Monster Warscroll) has no equal within the monster catagory, and that is just one example. There are many. I run the league in my store and I couldn't find a balancing rules set that worked using warscrolls. Each warscroll needs to be point costed.
As I mentioned before, we're using Azyr Comp for our tourneys and, for the most part, it seems to work. There are more players that quit WHFB than there are playing AoS right now though, and the quitters aren't willing to try out AoS, even with a community points system. Dunno why, really, as it basically accomplishes what was needed throughout WHFB existence: 1. up-to-date armies 2. up-to-date point values and 3. continued rule support in form of FAQs (or just corrections to the main comp document).
But you're missing 4. A large scale fantasy battle with blocks of units and heavy emphasis on movement and strategy. (at least until 8th) 5. Well established grim dark fluff with known and beloved characters from over 20 years.
slowly dying in my local store, because of the way the game has been designed only the bandwagon jumping waactfg's are left (they don't like it if you talk smack about AoS because a rules set that supports their toxic attitude is the best thing that ever happened to them). not supprised really as that seems like the group the rules would attract. hardly see any stuff getting sold as all the people who play just don't buy anything. most of the people who used to play WHFB came in on the day of release, hated it and were never seen again, sad really as there were some great folks. interestingly the end times generated the most interest in my local store and we saw a huge increase in new players, no doubt the release of AoS p*ss*d most of them off as they'd only just started collecting and had already spent money on books etc.
You are right, Azyr Comp uses points, but the system is super basic. Models aren't point costed individually. Typically you are assigned points by the scenario and 5 of trooper "X" costs 1 point. I found that this is not specific enough and breaks down in particular with Ogor armies. Play a few games with Azyr Comp Ogors vs anything and check their win/loss record after. Azyr Comp was the first system I tried and then I moved to Project Point Cost. The PPC isn't perfect, but it gets regular updates, most armies are on version 6!
It was designed to be basic and not a precision system, which are the types of systems that we are used to.
Understandably, a non-precision system is not going to be to everyone's tastes, but the system is tested regularly and receives regular updates and has a very tight win/loss percentage overall from what has been reported.
Glasdir wrote: slowly dying in my local store, because of the way the game has been designed only the bandwagon jumping waactfg's are left (they don't like it if you talk smack about AoS because a rules set that supports their toxic attitude is the best thing that ever happened to them). not supprised really as that seems like the group the rules would attract. hardly see any stuff getting sold as all the people who play just don't buy anything. most of the people who used to play WHFB came in on the day of release, hated it and were never seen again, sad really as there were some great folks. interestingly the end times generated the most interest in my local store and we saw a huge increase in new players, no doubt the release of AoS p*ss*d most of them off as they'd only just started collecting and had already spent money on books etc.
AoS is basically the opposite of a WAAC game. Very hard to play unless you and your opponent are both willing to compromise on things like army composition and rules interpretations. I can't imagine a WAAC player enjoying it unless they're playing with another WAACer. I have been having a lot of fun with non-WAACers though.
MWHistorian wrote: ... 5. Well established grim dark fluff with known and beloved characters from over 20 years.
Not to knock mantic fluff, but I basically took the 8th edition Tomb Kings book and taped the appropriate 'dust' unit entries and rules over the existing ones. Viola, beloved fluff with KOW rules!
Glasdir wrote: slowly dying in my local store, because of the way the game has been designed only the bandwagon jumping waactfg's are left (they don't like it if you talk smack about AoS because a rules set that supports their toxic attitude is the best thing that ever happened to them). not supprised really as that seems like the group the rules would attract. hardly see any stuff getting sold as all the people who play just don't buy anything. most of the people who used to play WHFB came in on the day of release, hated it and were never seen again, sad really as there were some great folks. interestingly the end times generated the most interest in my local store and we saw a huge increase in new players, no doubt the release of AoS p*ss*d most of them off as they'd only just started collecting and had already spent money on books etc.
AoS is basically the opposite of a WAAC game. Very hard to play unless you and your opponent are both willing to compromise on things like army composition and rules interpretations. I can't imagine a WAAC player enjoying it unless they're playing with another WAACer. I have been having a lot of fun with non-WAACers though.
I'd say it is the perfect WAAC game. There is literally nothing within the rules themselves to stop someone being a . I've seen something similar locally where the only guy who has been keen for it is someone who I knew from the local Fantasy tourneys who would try to bring the cheesiest thing possible. Also, I think you are confusing WAAC with Competitive players there. Two competitive players would need to play each other to have fun, the point of a WAAC player is that they are happy to steamroll a kid having his second game. That's why they are WAAC and not just competitive.
Went to a local gaming store today. They had 9 starter sets in the clearance bin at $40 each. Not doing well at that store. I hope to demo it to get more interest.
AoS is DoA here. There's a group starting up locally to try and breathe some life into it, and it's being run by a GW manager on his off days. I think there's 5 people doing it.
I just asked my FLGS last night. Since the first week, they haven't sold a single box. Another FLGS nearby doesn't carry it.
Haven't checked out two other stores south of me. They're bigger into 40k, so maybe.
Hargus56 wrote: Went to a local gaming store today. They had 9 starter sets in the clearance bin at $40 each. Not doing well at that store. I hope to demo it to get more interest.
I would have bought all 9 without a second thought.
Here its mostly dead. The only people playing it either have a 50% discount or suck up to the guys with 50% discounts and cant admit to themselves the corpse they are carrying around of the game they loved is dead. All the fantasy players pretty much "Aw hell no" 'd out.
So far every game Ive seen goes like this:
"Okay so how do I know how many models to use"
"You don't we add up wounds, or you keep putting models down until the other guy says stop"
"... Okay. How do we balance it?"
"Social contract and pre discussion"
".... Okay. How about playing competitively?"
"Lots of houserules"
"Nah, I'm good"
The game has no structure. Its core mechanic is the also the best description of it, it's pointless.
You know, it's been a very clear trend in GW games to do less restrictions and more sandboxy games since at least 6th edition 40k hit (I know RT and 2nd and all those older games were like this too, but they had moved away from that).
AoS is very clearly the culmination of that as they remove every restriction.
However, I can't help but wonder why or how GW came to the idea that this was a good thing.
The only two theories I have are that Jervis Johnson likes playing this way (and has trumpeted that along with a lot of other ideas I think are total BS in his WD column) so he, and possibly others within the design studio who agree with him, have led the studio into creating a game the way they want rather than looking at what fans want. Or, the accountants are the ones calling the shots and look at it thinking that the game is meaningless and they are theoretically going to make more money by allowing more options because if Timmy wants to field a bloodthirster alongside his sigmarines he can now go buy that bloodthirster (but then doesn't that contradict the point about the game not mattering?)
jonolikespie wrote: You know, it's been a very clear trend in GW games to do less restrictions and more sandboxy games since at least 6th edition 40k hit (I know RT and 2nd and all those older games were like this too, but they had moved away from that).
AoS is very clearly the culmination of that as they remove every restriction.
However, I can't help but wonder why or how GW came to the idea that this was a good thing.
The only two theories I have are that Jervis Johnson likes playing this way (and has trumpeted that along with a lot of other ideas I think are total BS in his WD column) so he, and possibly others within the design studio who agree with him, have led the studio into creating a game the way they want rather than looking at what fans want. Or, the accountants are the ones calling the shots and look at it thinking that the game is meaningless and they are theoretically going to make more money by allowing more options because if Timmy wants to field a bloodthirster alongside his sigmarines he can now go buy that bloodthirster (but then doesn't that contradict the point about the game not mattering?)
Its not just Jervis, several of the old hands (the guys who make warlord's games for example) prefer to play "narratively" now. I think its because they play with friends and they all have massive collections. For them it really is just a drink beer and have fun with the guys game. I don't really think they were ever into the competitive aspect as much.
Of course, its also a lot easier to produce a non-competitive game, its just harder to sell it.
Term time - two nights dedicated to it. Not as popular as 40k nights but still going quite strong.
Home time - hardly any interest now despite initial surge. The GW manager keeps painting models and promoting it on the FB page but there is little to no interest. Demo in store hasn't been touched with in all the times I've gone home for a weekend.
I'll have to go into the new location of the local gaming store to see how popular it is but I haven't heard good things from my home time friends.
Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote: There seemed to have been a huge interest in Lisbon but the only official AoS event (I know of) so far had one attendant.
There will be a big "traditional/national" event in the 17-18th weekend which will provide additional insight to this.
An interesting update:
So far the number of players for the AoS event numbers the exact number of players of the FBtournament on these later years while running WHFB rules (18, but I think the highest had been 32 or something mid last decade), and I believe it's exactly the same group of players.
It should be noted that no one seems to be playing Stormcasts.
It boggles the mind what GW where thinking.
Release a game that will be decisive amongst your player base without doing anything to recruit new players to replace the ones lost, and heaven forbid, acutally grow the player base.
One man shops in back streets don't really do anything to grow the player base, and it's something GW really needs to look at in the long term. Not just for AoS, but for 40K too. Maybe they're hoping one of their videogame licenses will bring people into their shops.
In contrast independent shops are starting to thrive again in the UK. Magic organised play is pulling people into shops, and other systems are starting to benefit. X-Wing in particular seems to be doing quite well off the back of passing Magic traffic through indies.
Kilkrazy wrote: X-Wing is a very pick up and play kind of game, plus every boy born in the western world from about 1960 onwards knows about Star Wars.
Bartali wrote: It boggles the mind what GW where thinking.
Release a game that will be decisive amongst your player base without doing anything to recruit new players to replace the ones lost, and heaven forbid, acutally grow the player base.
One man shops in back streets don't really do anything to grow the player base, and it's something GW really needs to look at in the long term. Not just for AoS, but for 40K too. Maybe they're hoping one of their videogame licenses will bring people into their shops.
In contrast independent shops are starting to thrive again in the UK. Magic organised play is pulling people into shops, and other systems are starting to benefit. X-Wing in particular seems to be doing quite well off the back of passing Magic traffic through indies.
The biggest GW related video game coming out in the near future is set in the old WHFB world.
Kilkrazy wrote: Yeah but it's just a piece of fun, pull out and play game. At least, that'show I see it.
I don't think it was ever designed as a tournament ruleset. Though if you are sufficiently competitive you can start a tournament in nearly anything.
I think with people that aren't playing it as a tournament game it can definitely be a lot of fun, but FFG really pushes their systems with tournament play so it attracts a lot of competitive tournament players to your local metas which influences what type of lists people show up with.
The biggest GW related video game coming out in the near future is set in the old WHFB world.
Two of them are. Total War: Warhammer will probably bring in a lot of people based on the popularity of the Total War series. And Vermintide, another game set in the Old World, is a Left 4 Dead style game that actually looks pretty good.
Kilkrazy wrote: Yeah but it's just a piece of fun, pull out and play game. At least, that'show I see it.
I don't think it was ever designed as a tournament ruleset. Though if you are sufficiently competitive you can start a tournament in nearly anything.
IIRC, there was a whole section in the starter set booklet which explained that the game was built up with competitive, tournament play in mind. It sure has its problems (atleast from what I've heard and my very limited experience with it), but I think they would vary from person to person unlike AoS where almost all of the players are complaining about the same things. X-Wing on the other side has things like unusable (at a given time) upgrades which wait for a certain model or a model which waits for a certain upgrade (which forces you to buy the new stuff). The level of gak X-wing gets about these is nowhere near that which GW attracts which may me a little unfair. Even with these, though, X-wing seems to be working well enough.
The biggest GW related video game coming out in the near future is set in the old WHFB world.
Two of them are. Total War: Warhammer will probably bring in a lot of people based on the popularity of the Total War series. And Vermintide, another game set in the Old World, is a Left 4 Dead style game that actually looks pretty good.
The game developers should put a bit spoiler at the end of the story/campaign mode saying:
"Congratulations, all that you've done is moot, as Chaos will win anyway in a couple of years."
Definitely less interest as time goes by.
Players in our group play their 40k games as normal and few like me started 30k. No sign of AoS at gaming hours.
The biggest GW related video game coming out in the near future is set in the old WHFB world.
Two of them are. Total War: Warhammer will probably bring in a lot of people based on the popularity of the Total War series. And Vermintide, another game set in the Old World, is a Left 4 Dead style game that actually looks pretty good.
The game developers should put a bit spoiler at the end of the story/campaign mode saying:
"Congratulations, all that you've done is moot, as Chaos will win anyway in a couple of years."
Isnt that the same thing as playing historicals or lord of the rings
I think part of the fun in playing games based in history is changing the result, though, even if it's just in your own personal game. Like rebuilding the Roman Empire in Crusader Kings 2.
I wonder if they would do something like that in the Total War game. An extremely difficult and secret campaign result where you can change the fate of the old world...
I really think GW dropped the ball on this by making it a totally new game (NOT Warhammer 9th, as they told us repeatedly) but had NO support for this new game and expected the remains of WHFB to carry it.
Think about it for a minute, remove all the WHFB stuff and look at AoS as its own game, it only has 2 real factions in the khornites and the sigmarines. It doesn't list the fluff for the other races in the core book beyond mentioning their names in 4 small paragraphs describing the wider factions.
Most new games you see seem to aim for 4 factions on release (with the exception of Star Wars I suppose). On release. AoS took close to 3 months to even get those 2 factions established. Others also give good, often very well detailed, overviews of each faction in the core book because it is the core book, it is supposed to be your first introduction to these races and factions, you should be able to read all about them, what they are like and how they fight.
Stripping out the WHFB remnants it is really a terribly under supported game.
imoGW should have released a fluff bible like book with it, especially since they are trying to establish an entirely new setting, or at least included similar faction sections like the old 8th ed book had. They should have at least released dwarves and orcs alongside the sigmarines and khornites (I'd also argue High Elves and Dark Elves or throw some undead in there somewhere but that's just me). 4 races to have on release, giving each a starter box with some core troops, a hero or two, and a smaller group of elite troops is a solid start to a game. From there they can do what they seem to be wanting to do with creating an advancing storyline and introducing more material as needed, but they would be starting the game off with two feet on solid ground.
^ There's more like 4 factions: Stormcast Eternals, Bloodtide, Rot Bringers & Clan Pestilens and Sylvaneth.
Sure the later are rebranded WHFB models, but otherwise they tick all the boxes with fluff dedicated to them and a good range of models from heroes to troops to big monsters and machines.
Stormcast Eternals, Bloodtide and to a lesser extent Sylvaneth maybe the only ones for now but there is nothing stopping you from downloading the world that was war scrolls and playing your old armies or starting new ready for when the ongoing story of the game releases that army.
BlackLobster wrote: Stormcast Eternals, Bloodtide and to a lesser extent Sylvaneth maybe the only ones for now but there is nothing stopping you from downloading the world that was war scrolls and playing your old armies or starting new ready for when the ongoing story of the game releases that army.
Most people are probably a bit scared to do that because they don't know if they will be replaced... that's probably GWs biggest mistake IMO.
It was gaming night in our local GW last night. I had a game booked in with a regular opponent (all around great guy), but there were two new players at the store too so we ended up having a 4 player free-for-all.
One player was a returned regular who had almost given up on 8th Edition Fantasy after having his Lizardmen wrecked by 'Pit of Shades' game after game. He was back with a Minotaur heavy Beastmen army, the other new guy had Ogors, I played Vampire Counts and my friend played Dark Elves.
It was an amazingly fun game with lots of twists and lots of great moments. The Ogor Stonehorn and the Dark Elf Hydra facing off was a great fight (with the Stonehorn winning). The Stonehorn then rampaged through a forest, squashing my poor Necromancer to a pulp while he was busy summoning Spirit Hosts. Said Spirit Hosts, finally killed the Stonehorn, went on to slaughter a unit of Minotaurs (scoring 8 Mortal wounds in one round of combat).
Victory looked like it could be mine, except the last remaining Beastman, a Bray Shaman, started Arcane Bolting my Spirits into oblivion.
The final fight came down to the Ogor Tyrant and the Shaman. When the dust settled only the Ogor was left standing on the board.
Super close fight, super fun game with lots of laughs through-out. And no doubt two more regulars to our AoS pool :-)
The biggest GW related video game coming out in the near future is set in the old WHFB world.
Two of them are. Total War: Warhammer will probably bring in a lot of people based on the popularity of the Total War series. And Vermintide, another game set in the Old World, is a Left 4 Dead style game that actually looks pretty good.
Eh, I just went for the biggest one. But yeah Vermintide looks really good, the fact that they're discounting its pre-order to less than $30 CDN (I imagine that makes it somewhere between $20 and $25 USD?) also helps.
Oh and to be on topic, I'll check to see if AoS has moved here. Nope still a corpse.
BlackLobster wrote: Stormcast Eternals, Bloodtide and to a lesser extent Sylvaneth maybe the only ones for now but there is nothing stopping you from downloading the world that was war scrolls and playing your old armies or starting new ready for when the ongoing story of the game releases that army.
Most people are probably a bit scared to do that because they don't know if they will be replaced... that's probably GWs biggest mistake IMO.
There is that but then you could still play them alongside the new models using the world that was codex. Nothing to stop you combining the two.
BlackLobster wrote: Stormcast Eternals, Bloodtide and to a lesser extent Sylvaneth maybe the only ones for now but there is nothing stopping you from downloading the world that was war scrolls and playing your old armies or starting new ready for when the ongoing story of the game releases that army.
Most people are probably a bit scared to do that because they don't know if they will be replaced... that's probably GWs biggest mistake IMO.
There is that but then you could still play them alongside the new models using the world that was codex. Nothing to stop you combining the two.
Depends. If the new "humans or whatever" faction has a totally different aesthetic or scale, then the old Empire (or whatever) models might look out of place next to them.
Dead on arrival. My FLGS did get some stock (starting box set plus some sigmarines) but it's been sitting on the shelf for quite some time.
Some of the 40k players showed some interest on the models themselves, but the interest died quickly after asking about prices.
In the end, the local gaming scene has been so far unaffected by Fantasy's demise and the arrival of AoS. The 40k group keeps playing 40k, the Fantasy group keeps playing Fantasy (mostly 8th ed. although there seems to be a growing interest in trying older editions, specially 6th), and the small Infinity group keeps playing Infinity too. Nobody plays AoS. So far I've watched a single game around here, dark elves against skaven I think, the guys played it, had some laughs about how bad it was and then got back to their usual business.
At last nights game session,our group had a new member join,another player that had long givin up on whfb and was very happy to have found a group to play with as hes loved the game since it came out.
This brings our weekly group numbers to around 12 or so players.I should note that this game shop had little to no WHFB group prior to AoS and its a store that is very large and packs in north of one hundred people on weekends playing any games you can imagine(yes MTG is about half that number).
Anyhow,I was pleased to find out from a visiting club member that lives on the other side of town that his group at the local shop there is drawing 6 or so players every week at their session.Yet another shop that had zero prior WHFB action.
It seems to me that this whole topic is people just posting how much merchandise stores have and haven't sold of AoS.That really isn't a good indicator of the popularity..keep in mind that unless you want to play the new factions,theres no reason at all to buy the starter set or any models from them.Many of the past players have the armies they like and are waiting for new stuff to be released for them.
Perhaps a better poll to take is if AoS has revived the dead WHFB scene in your area...
Oh and rem,what you see on posting boards is a VERY small percentage of gamers and their opinions.
There are plenty of indicators that the game is in the toilet. Besides wide spread internet hate, plenty of areas report the opposite of your situation.
None of the big tournies have pick it up as a primary. Fantasy models are selling for some times 20% of their value on ebay. None of the LE stuff has sold out. And there is a huge division as to what method of play is the standard among players.
I would imagine the difference is largely due to the Total War game, and the big spike probably when the game was first announced/ first trailer came out.
The LE's not selling is an indicator however. Personally I think GW did lots of things right with AoS, but the Stormcast miss the mark for me.
Haters are louder than lovers.
And they'd like so much AoS to fail, maybe because they think GW would continue on WHFB (which was almost dead), they spend their time on forums to claim AoS sucks and is not selling.
Will the Aos players... play Probably not in shops. I wouldn't like having haters all around me while I'm playing, telling the game I play sucks, and always comparing it to WHFB. Not quite a good ambiance to enjoy my new game.
Let's wait a bit for them to accept the end of WHFB and let AoS live.
In the meantime, GW will have released a few armies which will give us a better indication of the game direction and taste.
Only then, we'll be able to know if the game has a futur.
Btw, it would be stupid to believe a new game, even based on WHFB would have immediately made a success his predecessor built over 20 years.
And that just might say something about the quality of the game
Doesn't matter, we're just "haterz" and couldn't possibly have any legitamite criticisms of the game and the associated dumbfethery that GW have done in destroying one of their most beloved universes with three decades of background. Nope. Nosireebob. It's just mindless hate.
Wulfenson wrote: Haters are louder than lovers.
And they'd like so much AoS to fail, maybe because they think GW would continue on WHFB (which was almost dead), they spend their time on forums to claim AoS sucks and is not selling.
Will the Aos players... play Probably not in shops. I wouldn't like having haters all around me while I'm playing, telling the game I play sucks, and always comparing it to WHFB. Not quite a good ambiance to enjoy my new game.
Let's wait a bit for them to accept the end of WHFB and let AoS live.
In the meantime, GW will have released a few armies which will give us a better indication of the game direction and taste.
Only then, we'll be able to know if the game has a futur.
Btw, it would be stupid to believe a new game, even based on WHFB would have immediately made a success his predecessor built over 20 years.
You know you could at least contribute to the thread.
Sure I myself went off topic for a bit, but I did respond to the topic.
jonolikespie wrote: And that just might say something about the quality of the game
That just might also say you try to convice yourself. Shouting something doesn't make it true
The fact is WHFB was dying, AoS didn't kill it.
Look at the sales you are now trying to use to argue against AoS.
The game was the less newcomers friendly in the business. Too big armies and too complexes rules for beginners.
So, only old gamer were still buying new models. This is why sales were going down. Old gamers can only stop playing, and they are not replaced by newbies.
What I don't understand, is why don't you keep playing WHFB with your friend ?
GW did stop new releases for the rules you (WHFB players) already were saying they were bad.
Yes.
But that's all.
You can still play with.
And I am sure the community will provide profiles for the new models.
So what's wrong ?
Why do you waste your time on the forum of a game you don't like instead of playing your beloved WHFB 8th ?
To answer the topic, AoS is doing great in my area (east of France), and many players are waiting for new releases to jump in or not.
Bottle wrote: I would imagine the difference is largely due to the Total War game, and the big spike probably when the game was first announced/ first trailer came out.
The LE's not selling is an indicator however. Personally I think GW did lots of things right with AoS, but the Stormcast miss the mark for me.
Yea that is why I said we have to wait. There are just a lot of signs pointing to a bad reception. Nothing is concrete, but the arguement people have that well my store is selling well so your wrong or the converse my store has no boxes moving doesn't really mean anything. I think some things GW did better with AoS, but far more did worse.
Wulfenson wrote: Haters are louder than lovers.
And they'd like so much AoS to fail, maybe because they think GW would continue on WHFB (which was almost dead), they spend their time on forums to claim AoS sucks and is not selling.
Will the Aos players... play Probably not in shops. I wouldn't like having haters all around me while I'm playing, telling the game I play sucks, and always comparing it to WHFB. Not quite a good ambiance to enjoy my new game.
Look if you come into my LGS and play AoS none of the players are going to say get out. You will get to play free of charge and abuse just like every other game. If people are being mean to you based on your game, that isn't hating that is just a bunch of bad peple showing up to your store.
AoS is just an average run of the mill game in a sea of already established skirmish games. I am not hating it because of WFB, I dislike it because it doesn't do anything special. I actually want AoS to fail because the game is bad for the hobby. It is basically the culmination of all of GWs bad decisions.
GW still doesn't talk to their customers. AoS reinforces the GW idea of we know what is best for you. They took a huge portion of their customer base and say F-U play this game or nothing at all. They continue to punish LGS and Veteran players.
It continues to drive the idea of a GW brand by making models overly expensive. They are nice models, but there is really nothing so amazing about them that they required such a huge pice increase. All the old stuff has gone direct order. They changed to round bases for basically no reason other than to save money by not producing square bases. (i am not really opposed to this one) What I don't like is the stupid stack your models on top of each other rule.
The free rules are a marketing trick, you aren't really supposed to use them long term. You are supposed to buy the campaign books that are also expensive to play theme games with all their different new model types. That is why the rules are bare boned with only a basic victory condition. They don't really want an out of the box pick up game. They want it to basically be drop X money a month on this week's campaign book and then buy one of every new model we come out with.
The rules are a mess. There is some good ideas inside, but the game plays like there is no difference between a goblin and a super warrior Stormcast. There are zero attempts at balance, it is just what looks cool and oh if you buy lots of models you get a bunch of bonuses. The worst part is they stuck with the you go I go system and actively made it worse. Now you can possibly not really get to play for 2 turns in a row.
All this happened because they don't care about gamers. The time and effort I put into hobbying, converting, painting is irrelevant because I game and don't make up their core demographic or so they believe. If AoS is a success this policy will continue and the games I play will disappear.
jonolikespie wrote: And that just might say something about the quality of the game
Why do you waste your time on the forum of a game you don't like instead of playing your beloved WHFB 8th ?
The question applies to you as well. Why are you wasting time on a forum when you could be enjoying another topic discussing the game or making your own?
For me it is AoS completely killed WFB in northern new jersey. No one plays it any more because they were tired of GW's crap. (opinion) They are not playing AoS either.
The guys I know that used to moved on to Kings of War. I don't really like KOW because it is missing "heart" so to speak. It is a decent game, just not exactly what I am looking for.
Moreover I don't really want to play dead zone 8th anymore. I want to play a game that had support and was striving to fix the problems within its rules. So now I have to wait for some players in Europe to releases 9th Age and hope it is still WFB and solves the problems that existed in 8th. Then sell it to those KOW guys.
Anytime someone takes to social media or just has a discussion about what they don't like about a show, inevitably the haterade crew will pop up with their insightful remarks. "You're just a hater. If you don't like it, don't watch it." This misses the point entirely. A more dramatic reading of this is like saying if your kid does something foolish and pisses you off, you should kick them out since you don't like them.
That's not what's happening at all. It's precisely because you do like a show or a movie that you get frustrated when dumb-fethery is afoot. You're emotionally invested in the characters and storyline and it upsets you, even if it's a little silly to say so, when the characters are subjected to something idiotic.
@NerdTCM (Dakka won't let me quote your post for some reason)
AoS not being picked up by tournaments is probably the one thing GWknew would happen with AoS release for certain.
The game has had any kind of balance or competitive play wiring pulled out. I'd be massively surprised if an established tournament picked it up, so the fact this hasn't happened isn't a measure of success or failure on the scales GW are interested in.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of AoS events begin to appear over the next year though, similar to the campaign weekends at GWHQ.
I have yet to play a single game of AoS using any kind of comp system.
From my perspective, it will take time for people to get used to playing the game as intended and that comp isn't necessary - but in my group all the WAAC/TFG/Numpties/whatever got weeded out quite some time ago, leaving just guys who want to have a fun game and share roughly the same views on how to achieve that.
So I'm not familiar with the experience of forced pick-ups/local club rules etc. that people are having difficulty with and need some kind of comp to insure against problems.
RoperPG wrote: @NerdTCM (Dakka won't let me quote your post for some reason)
AoS not being picked up by tournaments is probably the one thing GWknew would happen with AoS release for certain.
The game has had any kind of balance or competitive play wiring pulled out. I'd be massively surprised if an established tournament picked it up, so the fact this hasn't happened isn't a measure of success or failure on the scales GW are interested in.
I wouldn't be surprised to see some kind of AoS events begin to appear over the next year though, similar to the campaign weekends at GWHQ.
I have yet to play a single game of AoS using any kind of comp system.
From my perspective, it will take time for people to get used to playing the game as intended and that comp isn't necessary - but in my group all the WAAC/TFG/Numpties/whatever got weeded out quite some time ago, leaving just guys who want to have a fun game and share roughly the same views on how to achieve that.
So I'm not familiar with the experience of forced pick-ups/local club rules etc. that people are having difficulty with and need some kind of comp to insure against problems.
And one of the GW stores tried to make a competitive system and posted it up, the manager nearly got gak canned and was reamed out hardcore for it.
@nedTCM
I agree models are very expensives.
But other games models are generally very far below GW's recent releases.
When deciding the base for a new game, round bases seems to be logical. since they use it with 40K too.
They didn't change the bases of WHFM. They decided the bases of their new game would be round. Nothing to be upset at.
For former WHFB player, they don't even have to change their bases.
The rules are simple en clear for me, I don't ask for more. I understand you don't like it. Hopefully, there are a lot of games to play, you may find the one who fits your requirements.
Objectives and missions is accessory, I can make it myself.
What I ask to a toy soldier game is good models and clear rules.
That's what AoS provides, and it's enough for me. I don't expect and game compagny to tell me what scenario / army race / army size etc.... to use.
GW cares about gamers,since they buy the stuff the sell.
They care about how to make them keep buying.
WHFB was selling less and less, they had to fix it.
They made a big bet with AoS, let's see how it will do.
I believe that once the anger will be cooled down, and after a few releases, we'll see where it goes.
Today, I assume that with the models quality and its experience, GW will do something fine with AoS.
And for me it is a good news since I wanted to play WHFB since a long time, but the requirements (number of models / fat rules) were too high to begin.
Yea I am not saying that the end of the game is clear. It is just not a far jump to that conclusion.
I have a theory that AoS is designed as a huge cost saving measure. I remember reading somewhere the WFB wasn't actually selling poorly. It was making money just not as much by comparison of 40k. The idea being WFB is cumbersome to produce with so many units for so many factions. (many of which sell poorly for one reason or another). AoS basically put all those factions to webstore only. Now if you need to buy something you have to go through GW not a reseller who has a discount. In addition, you can cut production for those units that don't sell well and essentially make them made to order. If you are Veterans that is still buying stuff you technically still have an army. If you weren't buying they don't care. As a GW customer, they want you to buy at least one of every model. Otherwise you aren't really a customer to them and not part of their target audience.
Now there is no more unsold product cluttering shelves. All that is there is the cheap AoS box and 40k stuff. All the AoS stuff is premium price high quality stuff to reinforce the GW brand. They don't really think gamers matter as much either so they rules team for AoS is bare bones, just focus on stuff that sounds cool and call it a day. As a result, even lower sales could be a success.
As for the rules, the thing is AoS actually encourages WAAC play. There was never anything stopping you before from taking a completely themed army. All that existed was a hero and core troop requirement. It forced you to keep from buying all Demigryphs and going nuts. In AOS, there is no such restriction and you can take from any faction. There are a lot of combos that seem way way over that top. You get bonuses for bring more units. It is really easy for a WAAC play to construct a power list that falls into the rules and sudden death isn't a solution. (in some cases it is actually worse) Between your friends it is fine. Right now you are just on of the lucky ones who has a nice core set of opponents that strives to play fair. It is also worth pointing out how it different from unbound 40k, in that there is still a goal army appearance. You know what a "fair army" should look like 1 HQ and 2 Troops is the goal even if you go unbound. You could of course competely ignore it for fun. In AOS, there is no core army appearance in the rules or in the fluff.
There are some benefits to do thing this. There is some more freedom in choice. However, you kind of could always do that with WFB. You could take what you want within your army and your friends could alter their list or the game as they see fit. The points system didn't stop that. All that removing it did was make it so pick up games are not really possible. They could have met people half way, but I think they thought that would affect sales so just decided the best way to play is to buy more. At least that is what it seems to me.
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Wulfenson wrote: @nedTCM
I agree models are very expensives.
But other games models are generally very far below GW's recent releases.
When deciding the base for a new game, round bases seems to be logical. since they use it with 40K too.
They didn't change the bases of WHFM. They decided the bases of their new game would be round. Nothing to be upset at.
For former WHFB player, they don't even have to change their bases.
The rules are simple en clear for me, I don't ask for more. I understand you don't like it. Hopefully, there are a lot of games to play, you may find the one who fits your requirements.
Objectives and missions is accessory, I can make it myself.
What I ask to a toy soldier game is good models and clear rules.
That's what AoS provides, and it's enough for me. I don't expect and game compagny to tell me what scenario / army race / army size etc.... to use.
GW cares about gamers,since they buy the stuff the sell.
They care about how to make them keep buying.
WHFB was selling less and less, they had to fix it.
They made a big bet with AoS, let's see how it will do.
I believe that once the anger will be cooled down, and after a few releases, we'll see where it goes.
Today, I assume that with the models quality and its experience, GW will do something fine with AoS.
And for me it is a good news since I wanted to play WHFB since a long time, but the requirements (number of models / fat rules) were too high to begin.
I didn't say you shouldn't like the game. I am just givng you reasons why I don't and why I am posting in the topic. It is fine to have you opinion, I just disagree.
As for the GW caring about gamers thing. Take a peak at this:
"I’ve got bad news for disenchanted gamers complaining on the Internet. The company’s attitude towards customers is as clinical as its attitude towards staff. If you don’t like what it’s selling. You’re not a customer. The company believes only a fraction of the population are potential hobbyists, and it’s not interested in the others. The move to one-man stores has reduced the number of customers, sometimes by 30%, but the stores are profitable now.
Maybe you think you’re a customer, or a potential customer, because you like playing games. But this is the important bit. This is the bit written in every Games Workshop annual report. The company’s mission statement is “we make the best fantasy miniatures in the world and sell them globally at a profit and we intend to do this forever.”
It does not mention games. In conversation, I’m told that the word “Game” in Games Workshop encourages the misconception that games are its business, but that only about 20% of Games Workshop’s customers are gamers. The rest are modellers and collectors. Maybe half of them think about playing now and then. The other half have no intention. People actually walk into the stores because they’re curious about modelling fantastic armies.
When another shareholder asks if the company would sell games with pre-painted easy to assemble miniatures like the popular Star Wars themed X-Wing game, there’s a collective growl from the Games Workshop people. It wouldn’t be a hobby business then, it would be a toy company."
This goes along with everything GW has said in their releases for years. It makes sense that they would cut down the rules development. The game aspect is not important. If they make sales from you so be it.
It is funny I have a different read of what the AoS army composition (no)rules brings.
By example, in 40k (which I played for years), you have army schemas, and points.
So, your opponent could bring a broken army (we all know death stars), and still look "fair" since it follows the rules.
In AoS, there is no "rules excuse" to look fair.
The judge is your opponent (who is supposed to be a friendly guy willing to have fun playing with toy soldiers).
So you can't head to a local shop hoping for a random game with a broken army like you could with a death star army in 40K.
In AoS, no one would want to play with you, and you'll have to tune down your army to be accepted. No rule excuse to justify your hyper optimized army.
Natural regulation.
It requires a bit of intelligence... this is the bigger risk GW could take
This new way of setting an army makes most of the old players loose their marks, and they have to re-think they way they balance a game. No call to a rule book, you must deal with your opponent fairness. Quite new
To continue on this topic, and to stick to the subject, GW released new rules for small tournament (school league, Bottle posted yesterday). This is another original way to balance a game, let's see how the community reacts. But it is definetly something to try
And one of the GW stores tried to make a competitive system and posted it up, the manager nearly got gak canned and was reamed out hardcore for it.
Which if true is simply proof that GW definitely want to discourage the notion of comp with AoS in the wider world.
I don't think any GW staff member would expect otherwise, by the way. They are employed to promote GW products in a GW environment in the way that GW want it done.
Anything they produce and distribute publically will be seen to be sanctioned.
And one of the GW stores tried to make a competitive system and posted it up, the manager nearly got gak canned and was reamed out hardcore for it.
Which if true is simply proof that GW definitely want to discourage the notion of comp with AoS in the wider world.
I don't think any GW staff member would expect otherwise, by the way. They are employed to promote GW products in a GW environment in the way that GW want it done.
Anything they produce and distribute publically will be seen to be sanctioned.
I think it's more that GW doesn't want to make an "official GW" comp, but encourages people to find out their own systems. They know that if they do it, that's how the game will de facto be played, and then they're back to square one with the problem of points, balance, etc.
I think it's more that GW don't want to put the effort in to do a Comp right, and they are fed up with the complaints from players when they get it wrong. So they just can't be fethed any more.
I think it's more that GW doesn't want to make an "official GW" comp, but encourages people to find out their own systems. They know that if they do it, that's how the game will de facto be played, and then they're back to square one with the problem of points, balance, etc.
Everyone has their own little theory about the lack of comp. Mine is as goes:
Since GW states it manufactures the best miniatures they won't settle not to be the best in the gaming area aswell. Since they're either not sure if they can be, or are not willing to try, they simply wave a flag that they are mostly indifferent to rules. In other words: "We're not the best at making good rules because we don't want to".
I don't even think their intent is to encourage people to find new ways to play - they'd like to sell their books where you'll find all the new scenarios. For me there's no evidence for such encouraging otherwise instead of 8 scenarios and two triumph tables per book they'd give you much more random tables to roll on, ways to build artifacts, ideas for encounters etc ( like in a rpg book for example which depends on the user to do most of the work himself). Look at the custom scenario (Slaves to darkness) that MongooseMatt has created. He's working for Mongoose publishing and obviously knows what type of stuff to give a player in order to stimulate him to be more creative. His custom stuff is much better than all a new player could find in the books and even keeps the same spirit.
I think it's more that GW doesn't want to make an "official GW" comp, but encourages people to find out their own systems. They know that if they do it, that's how the game will de facto be played, and then they're back to square one with the problem of points, balance, etc.
Everyone has their own little theory about the lack of comp. Mine is as goes:
Since GW states it manufactures the best miniatures they won't settle not to be the best in the gaming area aswell. Since they're either not sure if they can be, or are not willing to try, they simply wave a flag that they are mostly indifferent to rules. In other words: "We're not the best at making good rules because we don't want to".
I don't even think their intent is to encourage people to find new ways to play - they'd like to sell their books where you'll find all the new scenarios. For me there's no evidence for such encouraging otherwise instead of 8 scenarios and two triumph tables per book they'd give you much more random tables to roll on, ways to build artifacts, ideas for encounters etc ( like in a rpg book for example which depends on the user to do most of the work himself). Look at the custom scenario (Slaves to darkness) that MongooseMatt has created. He's working for Mongoose publishing and obviously knows what type of stuff to give a player in order to stimulate him to be more creative. His custom stuff is much better than all a new player could find in the books and even keeps the same spirit.
Not a guess so much as going off all the news/podcasts where people have talked to GW about the rules. Might be wrong but think Garage Hammer in a previous episode, might have been Heelen now that I think about it, talked to a GW guy who basically said that.
Swastakowey wrote: If you have to guess what GW is trying to encourage... then they are not encouraging it.
Oh but they are, if that thing they are encouraging is balkanizing the WHFB community, not just with the WHFB/AoS split; but with splits within each of those groups. WHFB has at least 3 splits right now (4 if you count those that have ported their armies to KoW), those that continue to play 8th, 8.5 fan rules and 9th age fan rules. For AoS we have the numerous different comp systems that no two groups will use the same.
I would love to know why a company would do that when it is trying to grow this new game. Did they honestly think everyone would be accepting of this system as-is?
Grimtuff wrote: I would love to know why a company would do that when it is trying to grow this new game. Did they honestly think everyone would be accepting of this system as-is?
Nope - because if they did then GW would be dumber than even the most cynical assessment of their business plans.
While we wait for Schrodinger's financial reports (as according to a number of people who claim to be in "in the know" they are somehow simultaneously terrible and amazing), I think the effect is exactly as GW intended, as evidenced from this very forum.
1) People who had never played WFB are playing AoS.
2) People who had given up on WFB came back to AoS.
3) People who played WFB are shifting to AoS.
4) People who played no games but just bought minis.
5) People who played WFB are quitting/shifting to other games.
Groups 1 & 2 never spent money on WFB. Groups 3 - 5 weren't spending enough.
So the AoS gamble is that the increase in 1-4 is more than the decrease is 5.
Grimtuff wrote: I would love to know why a company would do that when it is trying to grow this new game. Did they honestly think everyone would be accepting of this system as-is?
Nope - because if they did then GW would be dumber than even the most cynical assessment of their business plans.
While we wait for Schrodinger's financial reports (as according to a number of people who claim to be in "in the know" they are somehow simultaneously terrible and amazing), I think the effect is exactly as GW intended, as evidenced from this very forum.
1) People who had never played WFB are playing AoS.
2) People who had given up on WFB came back to AoS.
3) People who played WFB are shifting to AoS.
4) People who played no games but just bought minis.
5) People who played WFB are quitting/shifting to other games.
Groups 1 & 2 never spent money on WFB. Groups 3 - 5 weren't spending enough.
So the AoS gamble is that the increase in 1-4 is more than the decrease is 5.
I haven't seen anyone except GW say their financials are amazing. Quite the opposite in most cases. "Meh," in some.
1,2,3 matter if the numbers are significant enough. That's yet to be seen.
I haven't seen anyone except GW say their financials are amazing. Quite the opposite in most cases. "Meh," in some.
1,2,3 matter if the numbers are significant enough. That's yet to be seen.
That was kinda my point. GW haven't said anything on their financials because there are laws about that kind of thing.
So anyone claiming they have insider info or whatever is to be taken with salt at this stage.
GW's last three annual reports have been amazing because they are nice and profitable, throw off lots of cash, and pay good dividends while keeping money in the bank for investment.
They are simultaneously bad because there was a year on year decline in baseline sales revenue each time, amounting to something like 25% compared to four years ago.
Ignoring any arguments about why that has happened, it clearly will become a bad situation for the company if it continues.
If AoS can stabilise the company at the level it is now, they will be doing well. The half-year report expected in late January will be the first indicator of this.
As for GW's comments on their financial results, they are of course required to present them according to UK accounting law which has a respected level of quality internationally. However this does allow for changes to the way the figures are presented, for example the change from geographical reporting to vertical reporting (web, direct retail, indie retail) makes it possible not to be precise about sales in each country and the details of exchange rate changes.
Obviously the company must internally have the knowledge about whether they are doing worse or better in say Germany, Japan and Canada, but it is no longer possible for the observer to know.
One thing I've noticed just from general discussions and posts on boards like this, is that there seems to be a geographical trend involved in that those saying that AoS is having some sort of impact appear to generally be more likely to be UK players, while there seems to be proportionally far less in other areas indicating such.
I don't have much in the way of hard data on that, it's just an observation I've noted from things like forum tags and the like, it seems that the UK is much warmer to AoS than other places like the US or continental Europe. Not sure why (though if I had to guess it'd probably be that there's fewer independent stores that stock lots of non-GW product), but that's just something that struck me today.
Vaktathi wrote: One thing I've noticed just from general discussions and posts on boards like this, is that there seems to be a geographical trend involved in that those saying that AoS is having some sort of impact appear to generally be more likely to be UK players, while there seems to be proportionally far less in other areas indicating such.
I don't have much in the way of hard data on that, it's just an observation I've noted from things like forum tags and the like, it seems that the UK is much warmer to AoS than other places like the US or continental Europe. Not sure why (though if I had to guess it'd probably be that there's fewer independent stores that stock lots of non-GW product), but that's just something that struck me today.
Vaktathi wrote: One thing I've noticed just from general discussions and posts on boards like this, is that there seems to be a geographical trend involved in that those saying that AoS is having some sort of impact appear to generally be more likely to be UK players, while there seems to be proportionally far less in other areas indicating such.
I don't have much in the way of hard data on that, it's just an observation I've noted from things like forum tags and the like, it seems that the UK is much warmer to AoS than other places like the US or continental Europe. Not sure why (though if I had to guess it'd probably be that there's fewer independent stores that stock lots of non-GW product), but that's just something that struck me today.
Uk is quite simply more GW centric.
I'd go along with that.
Store penetration/Density is far higher in UK and Western Europe, and many local scenes are based around GW as a jumping-off point.
Antipodeans are already arguably getting dry-humped on pricing, so understandable that GW's apparent shift to higher cost per unit is amplified for them.
The US scene does appear to be far more focussed on competitive play, so again can understand the greater inclination to dumping AoS, especially as the States are 'home turf' for PP and FFG.
They stopped reporting by region a few years ago but I was under the impression the US was as big a market or even bigger as the UK just because of the higher population even though it has significantly less market penetration.
I haven't seen anyone except GW say their financials are amazing. Quite the opposite in most cases. "Meh," in some.
1,2,3 matter if the numbers are significant enough. That's yet to be seen.
That was kinda my point. GW haven't said anything on their financials because there are laws about that kind of thing.
So anyone claiming they have insider info or whatever is to be taken with salt at this stage.
They've made a few points in their AGM that are telling if you read behind the lines. Update of secondary AoS material has been high (i.e. the downloads and the WD with the free Sigmarine), and that AoS is a long term investment.
What that reads is that update of primary AoS material (starter set, books) hasn't been high, or they'd mention it. Long term investment also sets expectations towards poor performance in the short term. Had AoS been doing well they'd have been able to say something more directly about it, so the inference is that even GW don't think it's doing well enough to shout about.
It's close to dying out. While it initially caught interest, we soon realized that it would take so much work to...make it work that it's not worth our time. Gamestores around our area report similar developments - AoS caught interest at first, but after the weeks / months, people grew tired of it and its shallowness. GW has so far failed to follow-up on the initial release and the loss of interest was to be expected. Sales at FLGS in the area are extremely low and some have stopped selling it.
I haven't seen anyone except GW say their financials are amazing. Quite the opposite in most cases. "Meh," in some.
1,2,3 matter if the numbers are significant enough. That's yet to be seen.
That was kinda my point. GW haven't said anything on their financials because there are laws about that kind of thing.
So anyone claiming they have insider info or whatever is to be taken with salt at this stage.
They've made a few points in their AGM that are telling if you read behind the lines. Update of secondary AoS material has been high (i.e. the downloads and the WD with the free Sigmarine), and that AoS is a long term investment.
What that reads is that update of primary AoS material (starter set, books) hasn't been high, or they'd mention it. Long term investment also sets expectations towards poor performance in the short term. Had AoS been doing well they'd have been able to say something more directly about it, so the inference is that even GW don't think it's doing well enough to shout about.
There was a link somewhere - maybe BoLS? - to a blog by a private investor in GW after the AGM. He said that the secondary AoS products were mentioned because they can't discuss the primaries due to being in a "closed period" (presume something to do with public company legalities), but they can mention the secondaries.
So two options there really - bigging up the trading they are able to talk about in order to either make things look better than they are, or reporting it because things are actually going well.
So still no clearer until the January report...
I'm not aware of any accounting regulations that say a company can't talk about the success of its products. Just that the figures presented in the annual report have to conform to specific standards (balance sheet, profit and loss account, and so on.)
I know AOS seems dead but in my area I actually see people buying it!And these people are 10-14 people who I never saw playing the game at my local store .Every time I come in there's kids now which might show that GW's tactic might work in the end.There's especially this one kid you comes in with his mom and spends all day painting his minis ,some of us have gone so far as to give him good painting advice like THIN YOUR PAINTS!
It's doing ok here at the GW store, you can usually get a game on the weekends. with the focus going back to 40K there's more interest in that, but our redshirt is still supporting a league and people really like to discuss the rules and find solutions to issues as they crop up.
There are two other games stores in town, one has reduced its GW stock to just two shelves and dropped fantasy tourneys, the other still has models but all discussion of AoS has been banned due to too much negativity and arguments. people still play AoS there, just no one is allowed to comment on it.
Locally, AoS ended up being a momentary palette cleanser... a sorbet course if you will.
WHFB players tried it using the free warscrolls as they released, found it light, and kind of novel after crunchy-ass WHFB 8th, and quickly realized we weren't satisfied with our time with the game.
But feeling weirdly reinvigorated to mass-battles it made a pleasant move over to Kings of War where we got the "mass battles" part, but also the ultra-lean rules of AoS, just with a proper balancing in place.
Anyone who did like AoS introduction to a more skirmishy style of game drifted over to Frostgrave, which again was lean on rules, but much more satisfying and complete-feeling.
"Let's play Age of Sigmar" was a running joke at start, now noone even mentions it.
It's funny, I even tried to play a test game with local casual skirmish guys and after hearing the rules, they all refused, despite me trying hard to stay neutral and hide how much I loathe it. It was either at imaginary horse rules or army composition (heh) rules where I heard a convinced 'nope'. None of them is a waac or has negative feeling towards GW, I know from old conversations they were put off of whfb largely by the amount of work required to start but it was always respect for GW and old world. Lots of people liked warhammer around here btw, random girls I met in the pub knew it and asked me for a game when I mentioned it, pc game devs I know looked up to it, even console bro guys who remember Shadow of the Horned Rat. Some brand to kill heh.
Mymearan wrote: Not unexpected that it's doing poorly when they have only released Stormcast and Khorne. I expect it to slowly pick up steam as more factions are released. My group is still playing though.
Disagree. It's already a failure in how GW expected sigmarines to be a smashing succes, to a point that they didn't bother with preparing more updated factions. Space marines in fantasy, what could go wrong? They must still be in shock looking at sales.
I think people don't buy sigmarines because they are too weird (in a bad way) for fantasy and obviously shoehorned there. "Chambers" lol subtle, some wink they got there, you can see the studio's creative spark with your soul's eyes immediately. I checked all the books mainly to see the art and while I don't really like the style, there are some cool bits, or rather would be if weren't spoiled by a fat gold golem something every 2 pages.
From what I've heard anecdotally, they are - just not in the direction you think.
But we won't know anything for certain until the January report.
However...
The poll in this thread indicates that roughly for every one reporting AoS is done, there's two saying it is.
Given the general internet phenomenon of negativity being far more prevalent than positivity, I take that as a rough indication of an even keel.
The thread on spending - again, internet poll so... - a third of respondents have spent over $250, and although half say they've spent nothing, from the comments this includes a large proportion of people who are in the 'AoS is dead' camp.
I've certainly found that in the UK on a few occasions when ordering stuff for my Stormcast I've had to backorder because stock has sold out on the sites II normally buy from.
So if I had to bet, I'd put money on the January report indicating that AoS hasn't sold like One Direction tickets, but it will have sold well, and that even the non-AoS specific products from the WFB line have picked up as well - but there will have been regional variations in this.
But like I said - we can't assume anything until January.
RoperPG wrote: But like I said - we can't assume anything until January.
Actually I would go farther than that, really. I'd point to the next yearly report, as even January will be too early to actually notice anything on the numbers.
The most we can get out of the January report will be a faint whiff of where the wind's blowing from the language they use. But even that will be mostly inconclusive.
It flat lined about a month ago at my primary play location, and now at the other place it is dying out as well. They had about 15 guys now its down to about 5 or 6 diehards.
RoperPG wrote: But like I said - we can't assume anything until January.
Actually I would go farther than that, really. I'd point to the next yearly report, as even January will be too early to actually notice anything on the numbers.
The most we can get out of the January report will be a faint whiff of where the wind's blowing from the language they use. But even that will be mostly inconclusive.
I agree with you two.
I believe the starter set will have sold quite well, and the first round of terrain and Sigmarine kits, due to excitement for their newness and perceived value for money of the starter box. However the real test of the system is how well it will sustain and grow over the next few years.
GW need AoS to replace WHFB, surpass its sales in revenue terms, and get big enough to compensate for the fall in 40K revenue. That's a lot to ask of the game and it cannot happen overnight. Things like the Schools' League are part of the plan, but obviously will take at least a year to show any results.
Apart from anything, GW's reports are good at concealing what is going on in detail, so we will only know if sales are up, down or level, not what is selling or where, or to whom.
If AoS sales are poor, they'll certainly be well masked in the January report by people buying up WHFB to complete their armies (it'll still be counted as AoS at this point). Since spending seemed to stop completely in the 6 month run up the figures might actually look pretty good.
RoperPG wrote: The poll in this thread indicates that roughly for every one reporting AoS is done, there's two saying it is.
I think you meant to say 1 to 3... the poll has been about 75% "dying out" to 25% "going strong" for some time (today it's showing as 74% to 26%).
Honestly, to look at that poll and say "even keel"... the numbers are going to speak for themselves in the end. No one is playing this game locally, and GW haven't done much to help with adoption. They may have had a misconception about why things like The Hobbit flopped... they mentioned a number of times focusing on their own IP instead. But this IP is extremely weak and tenuous compared to the Old World, and they're in real danger of not getting enough critical mass for the game to sustain itself.
I'm sure they'll keep on selling it - it's costing them little to do so at the moment. But in the end they'll have lost a bunch of market share, even though their costs and number of boxes will be much lower. It fits with their strategies, but the idea that they were going to see long-term sales volume / revenue growth out of this was madness, imo...
Kilkrazy wrote: I think 40K started to tank several years ago.
Indeed. The big question/scrutiny driver these past couple of years has always been "how bad is it?"
Don't think it's too off topic to say this again:
I for one look forward to "Age of Horus"
Despite the emorkticon, I'm being totally serious. AoH (or whatever it ends up being called) would legit get me back to playing 40k, a game I used to love and - ironically! - got into with 3E because it was so much simpler than Fantasy I just miss me some dice-fueled GrimDark SciFantasy carnage, that didn't involve a ton of thinking
My stores currently running a 10 player AoS campaign using the Azyr Comp rules. It's going strong around here. That said, if we played the game rules as written I don't think it could be playable. Since day one we've been trying to balance the game until finally arriving as Azyr Comp.
My question is this, I hear alot of hobby stores stopping their sales of GW/AoS supplies and moving to other hobbies.
Is this permanent or would a renewed AoS popularity(due to more races, rule add-ons, etc.) cause them to put it back on their shelves?
I don't know how things like that work so I'm wondering if AoS gains more steam from lots of new releases will the stores that quit it be allowed to sale it again?
Kilkrazy wrote: I think 40K started to tank several years ago.
This. 40k is way too bulky and complicated. It's overloaded with special rules for everything and everyone and it's just a hassle to deal with. Glad we're back to 4th / 5th.
Baron Klatz wrote: My question is this, I hear alot of hobby stores stopping their sales of GW/AoS supplies and moving to other hobbies.
Is this permanent or would a renewed AoS popularity(due to more races, rule add-ons, etc.) cause them to put it back on their shelves?
I don't know how things like that work so I'm wondering if AoS gains more steam from lots of new releases will the stores that quit it be allowed to sale it again?
The Australian perspective on this (or at least mine) is that no, they would not unless AoS became the most popular game on the market.
Stores here are cutting ties with GW because they have always been outright y trade partners who treat FLGSs like dirt (worse actually, they seem to think of them as the enemy who are devaluing their product by not providing the same excellent 'GW experience' that 1 man stores supposedly do).
We are now at a point where stores are surviving on non-GW games and are happy about that. Our largest FLGS in the southern hemisphere, as I probably mentioned earlier in this thread, posts pics of literal pallets of stock arriving from PP, CB, FFG and the likes, but hasn't mentioned GW in over a year (even though they still sell it).
A few places, like my preferred FLGS, are still technically GW trade partners and revive the 2 mandatory boxes of the latest release every week, which then get stuffed in a corner somewhere. Those stores would easily order in AoS stuff if people asked for it, but it would have to become significantly more popular than Warmahordes and X wing for the stores that closed their trade accounts to risk reopening them.
It also doesn't help that GW recently got a set of new trade terms past our government oversight board allowing them to discriminate against stores they don't like and simply set the trade price you can buy stock for. One of our most popular garage discounters who's entire business is selling GW products had to drop from a flat 25% off to a 21.5% discount when those terms went into effect. The other day he announced he is now stocking X wing.
Is this permanent or would a renewed AoS popularity(due to more races, rule add-ons, etc.) cause them to put it back on their shelves?
I think some of them will continue to order it in on request, but many will have been too badly burnt by the whole thing to want to return to a standard model. GW are generally regarded as an awful company to work with, and with the boom of other games the main reason for stocking GW (that it was the biggest seller and therefore essentially mandatory if you want to stay open) is going away.
Wow well I used to post regularly both here and over at warseer solely offering list feedback and encouraging new players to take up WHFB. Basically doing the job of GW's marketing department. Didn't really enjoy 40k as I didn't see it as balanced as 8th. Feel pretty stupid now for not only wasting my time doing this but for also sinking in so much money into a game system that has lost it's true identity. So imagine the anger I felt when this sh!tbomb of a game they call age of sigmar dropped. After giving it an honest chance, I don't care what you say free rules or not the game sucks.
I understand maybe better than most that 8th was in trouble because while it offered a dynamic and robust ruleset, the cost of entry was way too high. I'll never understand why they didn't follow their own business model with 40k and pull old rules back into the game from earlier editions like 7th, 6th, etc. and simultaneously release a ruleset that allowed for smaller skirmish sized games to be played. That way they could have brought in new blood (as vets wouldn't have been caught taking a giant dump all over the game everytime the name was even mentioned) and it wouldn't have been as intimidating for a newcomer to see a 3000 pt game if they could buy a box, and build up slowly to that level. No one will ever be able to convince me that had GW done this, they would have sold the gak out of it and could have called it whatever they wanted to for copyright purposes.
Tomorrow I'll play in my last 8th edition tournament with my beloved dark Aelfs (really?). Bittersweet but I guess it's on to KoW like everyone else is doing.
Its alright Nathan. I've found the KoW community super inviting and welcoming, as it has a bit of the abused-wives-club, kind of vibe. A LOT of the local KoW players religiously play with 100% GW models (usually lovingly painted)... Its no secret where they came from.
I am indifferent to Age of Sigmar, and see no merit in poo-pooing something someone else might enjoy, but it is no secret that a lot of long-time fans felt personally wounded seeing their game and armies essentially abandoned.
January report wont show a thing. Horus heresy set will save their Jan report and beyond probably.
Still same in my area, hugely popular and you can get in a game or three each day. I've not played much recently as I got back into infinity but its still there
Motograter wrote: January report wont show a thing. Horus heresy set will save their Jan report and beyond probably.
Still same in my area, hugely popular and you can get in a game or three each day. I've not played much recently as I got back into infinity but its still there
Motograter wrote: January report wont show a thing. Horus heresy set will save their Jan report and beyond probably.
Still same in my area, hugely popular and you can get in a game or three each day. I've not played much recently as I got back into infinity but its still there
Sure. Now, where's my plastic Lord of Change.
Considering he's from the UK, I can actually believe him. Most UK players seem happy to eat up whatever GW throws at them.
I went down to a game store further south than I usually go and asked the guy at the counter. He said no one plays it there. That's three FLGS's in my area where it's non-existant.
Well I feel bad for the people who invested so much into fantasy to see it die like this. I don't think much more needs to be said and judging by how long this thread has stayed at the top with no self bumpa confirms what I thought.
Ded game. Hopefully the shareholders revolt and force a sale because my faith in GW is officially spent.
If people want cooperative narrative gaming with better miniatures, play Kingdom of Death. That game is mind blowing. (A bit pricey though....just a bit) But in terms of narrative story telling, yeah, that game is so far above anything AOS can ever hope to do. And the minis.....wow.
MWHistorian wrote: If people want cooperative narrative gaming with better miniatures, play Kingdom of Death. That game is mind blowing. (A bit pricey though....just a bit) But in terms of narrative story telling, yeah, that game is so far above anything AOS can ever hope to do. And the minis.....wow.
it is not as simple as that, though...
a lot of the attraction to a particular game and line of miniatures is the aesthetic and setting...
if a person is put off by the look, and KD's look is quite shocking to a lot of people, then the gameplay will probably not be enough to overlook the designs of the miniatures...
the $400 retail price tag of the basic game may put a few people of, as well...
saying "better miniatures" is a very subjective thing...
sculpting styles and aesthetic vary between each company, but for HIPS sprue casting quality, there is no variation between the top contenders, i.e. GW, KD, Wyrd, and Dreamforge...
they are all beautifully cast sprues...
the only real difference is true scale sculpting vs. heroic scale sculpting, aesthetic, and price...
MWHistorian wrote: If people want cooperative narrative gaming with better miniatures, play Kingdom of Death. That game is mind blowing. (A bit pricey though....just a bit) But in terms of narrative story telling, yeah, that game is so far above anything AOS can ever hope to do. And the minis.....wow.
it is not as simple as that, though...
a lot of the attraction to a particular game and line of miniatures is the aesthetic and setting...
if a person is put off by the look, and KD's look is quite shocking to a lot of people, then the gameplay will probably not be enough to overlook the designs of the miniatures...
the $400 retail price tag of the basic game may put a few people of, as well...
saying "better miniatures" is a very subjective thing...
sculpting styles and aesthetic vary between each company, but for HIPS sprue casting quality, there is no variation between the top contenders, i.e. GW, KD, Wyrd, and Dreamforge...
they are all beautifully cast sprues...
the only real difference is true scale sculpting vs. heroic scale sculpting, aesthetic, and price...
cheers
jah
No, I'll stand behind what I said. KOD's minis are higher quality. (which is what I meant by "better," sorry.)
Now that might mean nothing if the aesthetics aren't to your liking, but in terms of detail, originality and craftsmanship, yeah, they're much better than what GW can do.
And the "narrative" and cooperative aspects are much much stronger in that game.
But also, my post wasn't meant to be taken too seriously.
not taking you too seriously, but looking at the sprues in hand, all i'm saying is that the casting quality is no better than another across the 4 companies...
design is a whole other matter, and isn't the same as casting quality...
the point being, there are no objective casting flaws that exist on the latest plastic sprues to put one of the top contenders above another...
it is just a purely subjective matter of opinion...
if you don't like the current GW plastics, that is completely understandable, but the casting quality is still just as good as any KD sprue out there...
the difference is design philosophy, which is where KD wins every single time...
There is no national championship for 8th or 9th age but there is for AoS so it is alive nationally, though locally representing 10% of the population there is only two active players hosting monthly games with randomers. Problem with randomers is that they don't buy models and prefer card games and normal board games instead of tabletop.
So I think it's on lifesupport locally but nationally it's doing okay.
KoW got really popular though with the AoS release as it took over the entire WHFB scene, even surpassing the established Warmachine/Hordes community.
still one of the extremely few still playing it here. stopped bothering with the GW store though, we just gather in the basement like a bunch of hooligans, so I would say AoS is virtually extinct or an underground speakeasy type game.
Fantasy in general has evaporated. The people playing are not doing so in public, but in their houses and garages.
The new big thing is Infinity and X Wing.
A lot of people are waiting to see what emerges - playing what people consider to be the #1 game seems to be a very important factor to a lot of people.
I haven't been to my local store in over a month, but as far as I could see, everyone was excited to start up AOS and get a league going, but then it slowed down and everyone went back to 40k and Malifaux. I was going to finish painting Nagash and the rest of my Tomb Kings, but I'm probably going to be selling them in all honesty.
Definitely from a pure gamist standpoint - the gamer-gamers I know base their primary #1 reason for playing a game not on how it looks, its background, etc, but how it plays.
One of the thing AOS is not good at is being a game in its own right, it leans on RPG aspects and its visuals and its new background to pull people in, but that will never really appeal to gamer-gamers.
krodarklorr wrote:Because Fantasy Flight is an amazing company that makes games to be games.
I think you mean, because Fantasy Flight Games has the Star Wars license. Wings of War was popular, but not THAT popular. And FFG failed to get Dust Tactics/Warfare, Mutant Chronicles, Tannhauser, Anima Tactics, or Disk Wars to even remotely the same popularity.
auticus wrote:Definitely from a pure gamist standpoint - the gamer-gamers I know base their primary #1 reason for playing a game not on how it looks, its background, etc, but how it plays.
I think that's incorrect. I've been curious about why games catch on the way that they do, and I've noticed that it is very inconsistent. There are great games that everybody seems to like, but nobody plays, and apparently terrible games that everybody complains about that everybody plays. For instance, Kings of War had some popularity before AoS, but it gained the majority of its current players from people abandoning WHFB. So can you say that people are playing KoW because of how it plays? Or are they playing it for completely different reasons altogether?
Near as I can tell, most of the Warmachine players I play with like the look of the models. Some of them are big into the steampunk aesthetic. They'll tell you that they like the gameplay the most, but I'd say most of them came from a 40k background before getting pissed at GW and leaving (like KoW). If WMH changed its entire ruleset into something that was more complicated or less complicated, they'd still play it, so long as Privateer Press didn't piss them off over long periods of time like GW did. And if PP ever did that, they'd find another miniatures game to play rather than abandoning the hobby. So there's nothing unique about Warmachine. It was just in the right place at the right time, was high quality, and looked pretty cool.
So, I'd say the most important elements for a game being adopted by players are, in order:
1) The quality and aesthetic of the models.
2) Games Workshop just pissed you off.
3) Having a group of available players.
4) How often the game is updated with new rules and models.
5) The continued cost of investment (see also #3)
6) The quality of the gameplay itself.
It seems to me that the best way to gain critical mass in game adoption is to A) create amazing looking miniatures and B) hope Games Workshop does something really stupid.
One of the thing AOS is not good at is being a game in its own right, it leans on RPG aspects and its visuals and its new background to pull people in, but that will never really appeal to gamer-gamers.
Unfortunately, AoS falls under the "Games Workshop just pissed you off" category, so it doesn't matter how good the game is for gamer-gamers. Most of them hate AoS and haven't played even a single game of it.
Unfortunately, AoS falls under the "Games Workshop just pissed you off" category, so it doesn't matter how good the game is for gamer-gamers. Most of them hate AoS and haven't played even a single game of it.
And which are those parts that are good for gamer-gamers? The need to faq without any FAQ, the imbalance between armies or the imbalanc linked to a non existing points system?
Because for all games the most important things are clear rules and balanced rules.
Some valid points, but a lot of the gamers i know would gladly play any game wtih wooden pogs or bottlecaps. They don't care about the models or what they look like, their main concern is the gameplay and how cheaply they can get a force together.
If the models were puddles of glop with googly eyes inserted onto them, they'd be fine with that.
Unfortunately, AoS falls under the "Games Workshop just pissed you off" category, so it doesn't matter how good the game is for gamer-gamers. Most of them hate AoS and haven't played even a single game of it.
And which are those parts that are good for gamer-gamers? The need to faq without any FAQ, the imbalance between armies or the imbalanc linked to a non existing points system?
Because for all games the most important things are clear rules and balanced rules.
Certainly not, or no one would play 40k. I'd wager most gamers value setting and aesthetics higher.
Aye, I'd class anyone who is mainly interested in models as not being a 'gamer-gamer'. A vague term to be honest, but I take that to mean someone who is interested in games first and foremost, not models. I'm close to that. I play many many games, and see models generally as a downside to any game. I want to play and not spend valuable 'gaming' time buying, making, painting etc.
The number of games using models is vastly outnumbered by the ones that don't. Even for wargames there are far more games without models than games with them. Among games using models there are more games that have just rules and no specific model range. Most games have no cost at all after the initial purchase.
One the best game written for minis I've played has never been played with minis by us. I bought the game, a load of MDF bases and glued print outs of the birds eye view of troops on them. Up and playing in a fraction of the time with minimal input in money or time from anyone else; who didn't have to worry about 'getting an army'. Any 'block' style mini game can be played like that, and if the game is good will stand on its own without models.
I've actually given serious thought to doing that with Warhammer as well. Large MDF bases, printout the unit overheads and play. Its easy to print pictures out, and without the need to have minis far easier to do whatever units or size of game you want.
Not to say I don't like models. Seeing fully painted models with nice terrain is really nice and cool. The few models I do get I will put some effort into, but I always go for small model count so I don't get bogged down in the side of a 'hobby'; that doesn't interest me. Plus I certainly don't mind playing with someone else's figures.
The bit about franchise I agree with. There are some games that are always going to be more popular simply due to subject, like Star wars. The same with one of the Grand Daddy of war games, star fleet battles. I doubt that would even be known about nowadays if it had been its own generic universe instead of Star Trek.
auticus wrote: Some valid points, but a lot of the gamers i know would gladly play any game wtih wooden pogs or bottlecaps. They don't care about the models or what they look like, their main concern is the gameplay and how cheaply they can get a force together.
If the models were puddles of glop with googly eyes inserted onto them, they'd be fine with that.
I know some people like that, and honestly, they don't play miniature games because of the expense and effort required. I mean, let's face it. People play miniature games for the miniatures. If they didnt' care about the miniatures, they'd play one of the millions of cheaper, easier board games available.
Because for all games the most important things are clear rules and balanced rules.
There is no real thing as balanced rules. Balanced games maybe, but rules? Rules like how you move, combat, morale etc are not really a reflection of balance. For a DIY battle game like Warhammer balance is decided by the scenario you play, not the rules. It is for the players to come up with a balanced game session. A points based session is still a scenario, one where you use points to decide what to bring, then work out what the terrain is and then how you will win. Some games will give you a default scenario with default terrain placement and default victory conditions. You don't have to use those, they are not 'rules' they are merely one possible scenario.
Scenarios in warhammer are no more part of the rules than in any other such DIY battle game.
You choose a scenario, from any source e.g. main book, supplement, favorite fiction, your own imagination, and then play a game according to the rules of the game itself, plus any scenario rules that help reflect the peculiarities of that scenario.
Are you saying that you believe that you are not allowed to play warhammer in any other way other than whatever generic scenarios the main book has in it. That you are not allowed to deviate from point based lists or default victory conditions, that those are somehow part of the warhammer rules themselves and not merely one 'suggested' way to set up a game?
Maybe some people do think that way, personally I find that odd. I can't think of any other DIY battle wargame where that would be considered normal.
... for everyone ain't comfort with dakka, you should try Age of Sigmar thread on /tg/ 4chan, resourceful and helpful. There are sxxxposter lurking around, but we can deal with them, really nice place to talk about AoS.
I'm going to take the controversial stance that people play games for different reasons, thus allowing a variety of products to flourish. Some of us even play for multiple reasons!
Personally, I'd rank setting as the strongest draw for myself, followed by rules and ending with miniatures. I like 'em all, but even the pretty AoS models (I'm willing to admit there's some neat stuff, and even a Sigmarine might look nice if it was used as a standout model instead of the basis of an entire clone army) aren't enough for me to get around their excuse for a rule system and the buzzword-heavy fluff edited by the Committee for Hammer Porn.
puree wrote: Scenarios in warhammer are no more part of the rules than in any other such DIY battle game.
You choose a scenario, from any source e.g. main book, supplement, favorite fiction, your own imagination, and then play a game according to the rules of the game itself, plus any scenario rules that help reflect the peculiarities of that scenario.
Are you saying that you believe that you are not allowed to play warhammer in any other way other than whatever generic scenarios the main book has in it. That you are not allowed to deviate from point based lists or default victory conditions, that those are somehow part of the warhammer rules themselves and not merely one 'suggested' way to set up a game?
Maybe some people do think that way, personally I find that odd. I can't think of any other DIY battle wargame where that would be considered normal.
I open a rulebook, I see rules. Some of them are scenarios and instructions for setting up battles. Obviously these are part of the rules.
Plus, to echo jonolikespie, I never heard the term DIY battle wargame until you posted it just now. I have been playing tabletope wargames since the early 1970s, and I've been a member of DakkaDakka and TMP for over 10 years.
Went back to Bremerton WA for a visit and the one game store clerk I talked to told me warhammer. He said that GW had terminated the line. Although he did mention AOS, but he said that nobody played it in the store. I only asked him because he was using a GW bag for the board game my wife was buying. The store had six or so boxes of AoS crammed up on top of the shelving unit that holds all their 40k stuff.
They'd actually switched the space for warmachine and warhammer while I've been in japan as well. GW went from about 40 feet of shelving to 10. There was maybe three feet of horizontal space for left over WFB and AoS boxes.
Which is really too bad as I used to get games in pretty easily at this store when I had the time to drive up there.
You have a wargame that is not representing a fixed battle like the battle of the bulge or waterloo etc. It simply provides rules for unknown opposing forces to meet over an unknown battleground fighting for unknown reasons. The battle you fight is for you to make up (DIY).
The scenarios in such a game are not the rules of the game, being in the same book as the rules does not make them the rules. How you set up a game is part of any given scenario rules not the rules of the game.
This concept isn't something that should be unfamiliar to anyone (the term I used of course might not have been). Warhammer always made this this clear, and if you have been wargaming since the 1970s like I have then you would have read such things many times by now. I can only lay my hands on the 6th ed rules right now, and some older 40k rules. But my 6th ed warhammer rule book has a whole section on scenarios, explaining that the game isn't about one setup etc, that you are invited, even expected, to come up with your own scenario. That such scenarios need not involved equal forces or kill the other guy objectives, you can have your own setups and forces that do not meet army list formats etc. 40k books convey the same thing.
The 2000pt battle based on army lists and victory points for banners (or whatever the latest take on that was) was simply one possible generic scenario, but no more than that, a scenario that the rules did not say you had to play. The points, the army lists etc were simply part of the that scenario setup rules.
Such a scenario has it good and bad points. A well published and known generic scenario that appears balanced (albeit continuously moaned at for not being) is good for taking a case of minis and quickly starting a game with some random guy. It allows GW to make money by doing Army List books. On the other hand it risks starting to slip into the only way you are expected to play with talk all focused on the points and army lists. It gets in the way of understanding that any system like this can offer a lot more if you can break out of the mind set of equal points and army lists, but those such games tend to work best amongst a group of friends who play regularly and can readily discuss what they want to play next.
Putting aside whether you like mechanics of either game, both warhammer and AOS can be played in both ways. Indeed many Warhammer players have argued that 'narrative' players didn't need a new system as they could play like that in warhammer. Equally of course point based comp players don't need warhammer, AOS can be played like that just as well. Both games can be played in both ways, it is just that the set of players that need to do the groundwork in scenario design has flipped around. In instead of focusing on selling army list books GW get to sell scenario and background focused books. I have no idea whether it was part of any decision they made, but on the face of it they get to break a product cycle that has a tendency to send you down regular new versions and new army lists and more towards version independent fictional type stuff.
For me it depends. When the rules cover set up and there is standard scenario table to roll on to decide which scenario is played, then they are very much part of rules. There can be other scenarios that exist outside of the core rules for special games too.
Take for example WHFB 8th. There was a scenario table and some core scenarios very much part of the rules.
There was also a range of extra scenarios not within the core rules covered in the BRB. (Such as the Bugman's delivery battle).
puree wrote:DIY battle, meaning 'do it yourself' battle.
You have a wargame that is not representing a fixed battle like the battle of the bulge or waterloo etc. It simply provides rules for unknown opposing forces to meet over an unknown battleground fighting for unknown reasons. The battle you fight is for you to make up (DIY).
It sounds like you are describing any game with a points system instead of scenarios, I've just never heard the term before.
Bottle wrote: For me it depends. When the rules cover set up and there is standard scenario table to roll on to decide which scenario is played, then they are very much part of rules. There can be other scenarios that exist outside of the core rules for special games too.
Take for example WHFB 8th. There was a scenario table and some core scenarios very much part of the rules.
There was also a range of extra scenarios not within the core rules covered in the BRB. (Such as the Bugman's delivery battle).
Exactly, the table was core rules because even the most generic games played (battle line) were played from that table.
The scenarios in the back were never intended to be any kind of standard, they were just a fun addition.
AoS never presents the game as one that HAS to be played according to one of the battle... I want to say plans but these days everything is a battle-something so I might have the term wrong.
I think this is where AoS when wrong actually. Consider for a moment, before this you had 2 types of games, points based and historicals that used scenarios. In the historicals you know that historically at the battle of X Y troops fought Z troops. You know A army is supposed to win B battle against C army because of reason D, but can see how things go differently with you in command.
Points based games don't have this, you instead invent your own stories and use said points to create your armies. Now here you have the option to allow people to bring more points than you to create a last stand scenario or alter deployments from those set out in the rulebook, but the rulebook does have to have scenarios for people who don't want to do that or who are new and don't know how.
I think AoS is failing because it tried to do something new and land somewhere in between. It doesn't want to be a point system game, but it still wants you to create things yourself without any history behind it. We can't look at a battle and say that we know exactly who fought there with how many troops on what terrain outside of the battleplans, but neither can we not use points to build our own BALANCED scenarios like we are used to.
It feels like it either tried to jump from one to the other and fell short, or deliberately aimed for some place in between in the hopes of hitting some untapped market that just doesn't seem to exist right now (given the results of this poll).
It sounds like you are describing any game with a points system instead of scenarios,
More specifically describing any game where the players are expected to make some decisions on how and what they play (armies, limits, victory conditions). The points system is nothing more than a scenario with formal setup rules, a way of describing what forces face each other etc.You can equally choose to (and warhammer encouraged you to) play different scenarios and therefore not bother with points and army lists which were features of that generic scenario..
I think this is where AoS when wrong actually. Consider for a moment, before this you had 2 types of games, points based and historicals that used scenarios. In the historicals you know that historically at the battle of X Y troops fought Z troops. You know A army is supposed to win B battle against C army because of reason D, but can see how things go differently with you in command.
No.
With respect jonolikespie, you have a very poor understanding of historical games if all you can do is define them simply as fighting at battle xyz where a fought c and won because of reason d. Or if you try and define all of war gaming as '2 types of games'. What you describe here specifically is reenactments. And yes. They are a thing. Historicals can be that. Even if it's quite often we don't know exactly what got fielded against what in whatever battle - the historical record is remarkably patchy, misleading or flat out wrong a lot of the time... And let's be honest here - 40k can be as much of a reenactment based game, where people replay, or reinvent many of the iconic battles of the lore - whether it's of the battle of orks drift or any other named battle in the narrative, just as warmachine can be about khador storming point Bourne against cygnar, cryx raiding port vladovar, the battle over the temple garrodh, the battle between cygnar and the protectorate over caspia/sul, any of the named and profiled battles in the lore/expansion books (which literally read like a battle report, so you know precisely what got fielded too) or combined army versus pan-o during the paradiso campaign etc where some of the various order of battle are described either through the lore, or through various official rosters and lists.
But historicals can be so much more than just reenactments as well. And frequently are played as such. They don't have to be a particular battle x. Or y. Take my Normans versus your Vikings or Anglo-Saxons. Imagine a raiding party scenario or any particular story that you find evocative. Over a river ford, town, beach, doomed last stand, defending the breach, or anything else that picks your fancy. Why can't they be striking to rescue a spy or kidnap a particular royal, or other important person of some nameless enemy tribe or enemy force? History is big. There is a huge amount of room there to imagine a premise for a Wargame scenario.
The simple truth is that historicals drawn an as much of the 'but, what if', 'yes, this could have happened' and 'wouldn't it be fun if this went up against that' as anything from 40k or any other Wargame. In other words, Normans versus Anglo Saxons and Carthaginians versus Romans is just as open to interpretation as tau versus imperial guard, khador versus cygnar, pan-o versus yu-jing and so on. And frankly. 'What if' scenarios between celts and Mughals which would never have happened historically can be fun. And just as unlikely to be honest as tau versus space wolves (different sides of the 40k galaxy at the end of the day...) or thagrosh1 versus kromac2- champion of the wurm, considering they would never have come across each other in the fluff. Dont be so narrow minded in your definitions of historical gaming. So much of the tapestry that historicals draw on is grey and unknown - we don't know about all the battles thst happened Or even might Have happened in the historical context of the Romans versus the Carthaginians, or the celtiberians, or the Macedonians or Caesar versus the gauls or even a fraction of the battles between the diadachoi thst split Alexander's empire after his death. Heck, or even the Wehrmacht versus the red army. And at the end of the day, what's stopping me doing a Bernard Cornwell or Simon scarrow, and having my own general deadnighticus leading a fictional Roman legion during their conquest of Britain, or having a Norman mercenary and his band of merry men as they fought across Europe during the dark ages? Simply put, there is so much potential there for interesting wargames scenarios thst could have been throughout history that to simply reduce it all to the level of reenactments is being dishonest and just doing yourself a disservice. And frankly, you are making yourself look bad. It really bothers me that people are so small minded in terms of how they view what historicals can be about. Please, don't be like this Jono. you are better and smarter than this...
The only difference between tau and khador and the Romans at the end of the day is that the Romans are based in a historical narrative, rather than a fictional narrative. From that point, frankly, you can go whatever direction you want. Just as historical fiction/fantasy writers happily go off in their own direction with and against the backdrop of what we know, or think we know, and do a bloody good job of bringing those lost worlds and times to life, we, as wargames players can do exactly the same thing within the context of the narratives and settings we play our games in. They are all woven from the same cloth.
Points based games don't have this, you instead invent your own stories and use said points to create your armies. Now here you have the option to allow people to bring more points than you to create a last stand scenario or alter deployments from those set out in the rulebook, but the rulebook does have to have scenarios for people who don't want to do that or who are new and don't know how.
No.
This is not a thing about 'points based games' Jono. We often play flames of war, historicals games like dux bellorum and infinity without points[u] and 'invent out own stories'. Adding more points to side x is kind of irrelevant structurally when the narrative itself suggests side x gets more anyway. You don't need points to tell you this. They're a useful structural tool, not a bible or a way to play.
I think AoS is failing because it tried to do something new and land somewhere in between. It doesn't want to be a point system game, but it still wants you to create things yourself without any history behind it. We can't look at a battle and say that we know exactly who fought there with how many troops on what terrain outside of the battleplans, but neither can we not use points to build our own BALANCED scenarios like we are used to.
Again, no. You are being dishonest again (I'm assuming not intentionally by the way) with this characterisation of what historical or what 'players-in-the-driving-seat'-type games are about.
Aos might arguably be failing (it may be, and while I think it's doing ok, it's not doing as well as it could..) but it's for a variety of different reasons. And we won't know for sure until the annual year reports come in. I suspect gw will cover the cracks up again...
Aos isn't doing anything new. Players have been playing and creating these types of games since the 70s. Just because it's something you are not familiar with doesn't mean it's not a thing. You don't need 'history' to make it work or tell you exactly how to create stuff and play it- at its core, and frankly, like any Wargame, all you just need interesting ideas and clever scenarios with some imagination behind them. Battleplans and lore-based 'events' are certainly a great source of inspiration to draw from. But being honest - You don't necessarily need a defined order of battle or a pre written story to tell you how to do these things or how to make them work. Just some imagination. As I said before. 'Hmm, wouldn't it be interesting if x fought y over z while abc is happening during the events of w'. There is your hook. Now take it and run with it. That's literally all you need to start with.
And while balanced scenarios where both players can win should be a thing, they don't need to be the 'only' thing. Sometimes. Boiling things down to 'win' or 'lose' misses the point entirely. Sometimes, scenarios with a pre-determined or 'obvious' conclusion can be just as fun and just as engaging too. Spartans lost at thermopalae. Any Wargame trying to represent this needs to have the Spartans losing. But kudos if they kill far more than they should. Or make the Famed immortals retreat. They'll still lose. And by definition,That's not winning, in anything more than a purely academic sense even if they did cool stuff. But more importantly, it's still cool, it's still bragging rights, and it's still evocative and engaging. And damn it, but it's still a bloody good evening with my mates, which at the end of the day, is what counts the most.
It feels like it either tried to jump from one to the other and fell short, or deliberately aimed for some place in between in the hopes of hitting some untapped market that just doesn't seem to exist right now (given the results of this poll).
No, I just think it's a mechanically uninteresting game with no structural tools or guidance. It tries to suggest a different way of playing, and by different, I mean that diy approach thst so many people are unfamiliar with. And it does not give any guidance as to how to approach this. That and gw's baggage along with pissing off their consumer base in a focus on potential casuals is why it's not succeeding as it could.
I had a rather sad realisation yesterday. I attended the first day of an AoS campaign organised by my local GW. The planning started months ago, and the store manager really put a lot of effort into writing a back story, rules, and a method of escalation. It taught beginners and encouraged everyone else who already played to get involved with something that really held some kind of balance between factions.
Although I really should have been working, I stayed up late and painted my entry character from scratch and went in the next morning to play. There were three of us, and four playing if you include the manager. It just seemed like all of this effort and careful planning towards a really fun campaign was wasted and you could see that the manager - who is wonderful - was pretty defeated by it.
Obviously, the HH release shadows any new AoS releases, and there's more coming out for 40K per week than I ever imagined, but this was really disappointing on a community level. It suggests that all interest in AoS in my local area is gone.
I'm kinda interested in AoS, and even considering rebasing my old armies at some point since I do prefer round bases, despite my enormous collection of square based models (though of course that's easier said than done)
But I've never seen anyone playing this game, or met anyone who collects it in person
slowclinic wrote: I had a rather sad realisation yesterday. I attended the first day of an AoS campaign organised by my local GW. The planning started months ago, and the store manager really put a lot of effort into writing a back story, rules, and a method of escalation. It taught beginners and encouraged everyone else who already played to get involved with something that really held some kind of balance between factions.
Although I really should have been working, I stayed up late and painted my entry character from scratch and went in the next morning to play. There were three of us, and four playing if you include the manager. It just seemed like all of this effort and careful planning towards a really fun campaign was wasted and you could see that the manager - who is wonderful - was pretty defeated by it.
Obviously, the HH release shadows any new AoS releases, and there's more coming out for 40K per week than I ever imagined, but this was really disappointing on a community level. It suggests that all interest in AoS in my local area is gone.
That's quite sad to hear. Our store's AoS community isn't as big as the old 8th community as not everyone made the transition. If the 4 of you are able to get some regular games in though you should be able to slowly bring in more interest though. Especially if you're having fun and playing with a low model count.
That's how we built 40k, wwx, and aos around here. Not many played 40k, so our group of four started playing at our flgs every other weekend. Folks would stop and watch us play, ask us questions about the game, etc. This grew to 20+ folks (which has declined to about 2 with 7th edition).
We tried playing wwx and grew that community. Most players are getting older (30's) and having kids, and have moved on to the shorter and faster paced aos. This started with a few and has been growing slowly but steady.
I've seen a game played, but never with AoS models. I know some of the DZC guys I play with have given it a go with their WFB armies, but nobody was making new purchases, and all were skeptical. I don't know if they kept it up, but never heard more about it.
I went to Crisis 2015 in Antwerpen/Anvers (Belgium) this Saturday. It's a small convention for all kinds of miniature wargames. And there was a stand for GW, next to Forgeworld.
Strangely enough, the GW stand only showed Age of Sigmar. There was absolutely NO 40k to buy, only AoS (well, to be fair, there was Forgeworld for that next to them). In the showcases, we could only see the Stormcast Eternals miniatures. There was a video and all, so they really did their job for a nice stand.
It feels like GW still needs to "spread the word" about their new game.
What was quite funny is that just close to the GW stand, there was a really great table of...Kings of War, with some GW's old miniatures in regiments. It was quite a big battle, with lots of units on a roughly 8' / 4'.
There were some tables for 40k to play (by players who have nothing to do with GW employees), but absolutely no AoS. Only the GW stand has a demo table for that. Of course, many other games were on show as well.
Display and demo games at shows need to have visual impact to attract the attention of visitors.
I know this is to some extent a subjective opinion, but in my view, a couple of dozen Sigmarines in blobs of six, all nearly identical in armour, don't challenge the display of a large historical battle game involving several hundred troops in colourful uniforms, with banners and so on, drawn up in ranks.
If you are going to do a skirmish game, it helps to have superb terrain and a recogniseable setting, like 7TV's James Bond-alike SpyFi styling, or Doctor Who, or a Samurai hack-em-up.
The Sigmarines don't even look human in their armour, and a casual onlooker won't be able to discern anything about the back story or setting.
Kilkrazy wrote: Display and demo games at shows need to have visual impact to attract the attention of visitors.
.
To be honest, there was visual impact at their stand. They had a table to play at AoS, with the content of the starter box of course. And they had a video and a showcase with painted miniatures you could easily see (they weren't many, that's true). It was well prepared.
But yeah, there was no big table with hundred of painted miniatures for AoS. Kings of War, on the other hand, has that. That's why it was funny to see them that close to each other.
For the background, the employees were also there for that. It's easier to tell the people rather than showing such a thing. After all, what catches the eye first in a miniature game you never saw are the miniatures - artworks and nice "cosplay" costumes also help for that.
Warlord Games were also there to present their new Beyond the Gates of Antares starter box. By the way, we had a free miniature at the entry - and it was an Antares one on its plastic prue.
We could also see a cosplay of Space Marine (quite impressive because in scale!) and Imperial Guardswoman. That's why it was strange to see the GW stand without any 40k product on show. Next to them, Forgeworld was more a shop than a stand...everything was in boxes and we couldn't really see some miniatures in showcases. Granted, it would have taken too much place...
GW should have got a person in Sigmarine uniform. It would look quite spectacular done well in shiny gold and lapiz lazuli blue, with a big magic spear that lights up. Easy and cheap for a big company like GW to do, and cna be used at many events around the world.
Of course, it's only in the past year that GW have started to go to non-GW events at all, but they have such a long history of running their own events, from the early 1980s onwards, that it's difficult to understand why their marketing presentation should be so amateurish these days.
Forge World always is a shop at shows, in my experience. They are quite a specialist company that sells to high end involved players rather than ordinary people walking by. They have always attended non-GW shows too.
It appears that AoS is pretty much a non-entity here at the biggest FLGS in the city as of now, and I haven't seen it played at either of the other two smaller stores near me any time recently.
Conversely, that larger store had its first KoW tournament yesterday, and had 16 players show up. There is already another one planned for right after the Christmas holidays (they didn't want to schedule one between Thanksgiving and Christmas to avoid competing with holiday spending and holiday travel).
For my area there is only 3 people that play the game, including public groups and college clubs. They have recently banded together to play Thursdays at my FLGS, and when asked if I want to play I give it a try. It's a fairly awful game, but the people are kind and try comps to make it easier to play. Heck our blood bowl league is 20 people strong, so that kinda shows the size gap.
I was in GW Oxford today and no-one was playing it. Mind you, no-one was playing anything and there were only three customers in the shop, all post-grad student looking types. But Tuesday afternoon, what can you expect?
The big front of shop display was 30K Revenge of Caith.
I don't often visit the flgs ( I mostly buy over the internet and play with friends at home), but not long ago I bought some Fantasy miniatures at the flgs to get rid of some cash, and the store manager told me that everyone there tought AoS was a lot of fun and it was gaining popularity. So yeah, it seems to be going strong there. I also play it with my friends. It is a lot of fun, altough I wish GW would have kept supporting WHFB besides it. But we can always continue to play 8th.
auticus wrote: The big trend I see is that in any FLGS that is tournament-oriented, you're not going to see Age of Sigmar being played.
Age of Sigmar seems to be big with casual for fun narrative RPG types as opposed to competitive gamers that like tournament and league play.
Those type of players I find also rarely play their games at FLGS, and are more in their garages and game rooms at home.
The downside of that of course is no visibility.
Their game not being shown in Tournament-oriented FLGS's doesn't really matter for GW because they don't want their game to be played anyway, right?
I am pretty sure GW hates tournament-oriented players. They don't forge the narrative hard enough That said, the narrative is exactly what makes games like AoS and 40k so much fun, so I don't get why tournament-oriented players don't play games that were made to be played competitively. Having given competitive Warmachine a try, it is so much more fun than a 40k tournament, let alone trying to play AoS competitively. IMO, you should go with the ruleset that best fits with the way you want to play, rather than trying to "fix" and force a ruleset into something it is not.
That is something I never understood. A tournament player had to buy 2250pts to even start playing, because most tournaments were played at 2250pts or more. A narrative player would buy some models here and there and maybe get 1500pts and then move to something else. He would not update his army, he would not buy a new army, if what he bought suddenly went bad. Better yet, the tournament player would buy the over priced models many times over to have a good army, while the bad player would settle with buying a box of something, and paint them or something like that. It is as if GW didn't want money from people.
Iron_Captain wrote: I don't often visit the flgs ( I mostly buy over the internet and play with friends at home), but not long ago I bought some Fantasy miniatures at the flgs to get rid of some cash, and the store manager told me that everyone there tought AoS was a lot of fun and it was gaining popularity.
So yeah, it seems to be going strong there. I also play it with my friends. It is a lot of fun, altough I wish GW would have kept supporting WHFB besides it. But we can always continue to play 8th.
auticus wrote: The big trend I see is that in any FLGS that is tournament-oriented, you're not going to see Age of Sigmar being played.
Age of Sigmar seems to be big with casual for fun narrative RPG types as opposed to competitive gamers that like tournament and league play.
Those type of players I find also rarely play their games at FLGS, and are more in their garages and game rooms at home.
The downside of that of course is no visibility.
Their game not being shown in Tournament-oriented FLGS's doesn't really matter for GW because they don't want their game to be played anyway, right?
I am pretty sure GW hates tournament-oriented players. They don't forge the narrative hard enough That said, the narrative is exactly what makes games like AoS and 40k so much fun, so I don't get why tournament-oriented players don't play games that were made to be played competitively. Having given competitive Warmachine a try, it is so much more fun than a 40k tournament, let alone trying to play AoS competitively. IMO, you should go with the ruleset that best fits with the way you want to play, rather than trying to "fix" and force a ruleset into something it is not.
The thing is, with "some" tweaks 40k/FB are bearable for tournament settings, but AoS is not so without a major rehaul.
In the end the only side losing with AoS being clearly made to alienate competitive players is GW - they're losing a lot of money.
Iron_Captain wrote: I don't often visit the flgs ( I mostly buy over the internet and play with friends at home), but not long ago I bought some Fantasy miniatures at the flgs to get rid of some cash, and the store manager told me that everyone there tought AoS was a lot of fun and it was gaining popularity.
So yeah, it seems to be going strong there. I also play it with my friends. It is a lot of fun, altough I wish GW would have kept supporting WHFB besides it. But we can always continue to play 8th.
auticus wrote: The big trend I see is that in any FLGS that is tournament-oriented, you're not going to see Age of Sigmar being played.
Age of Sigmar seems to be big with casual for fun narrative RPG types as opposed to competitive gamers that like tournament and league play.
Those type of players I find also rarely play their games at FLGS, and are more in their garages and game rooms at home.
The downside of that of course is no visibility.
Their game not being shown in Tournament-oriented FLGS's doesn't really matter for GW because they don't want their game to be played anyway, right?
I am pretty sure GW hates tournament-oriented players. They don't forge the narrative hard enough That said, the narrative is exactly what makes games like AoS and 40k so much fun, so I don't get why tournament-oriented players don't play games that were made to be played competitively. Having given competitive Warmachine a try, it is so much more fun than a 40k tournament, let alone trying to play AoS competitively. IMO, you should go with the ruleset that best fits with the way you want to play, rather than trying to "fix" and force a ruleset into something it is not.
The thing is, with "some" tweaks 40k/FB are bearable for tournament settings, but AoS is not so without a major rehaul.
In the end the only side losing with AoS being clearly made to alienate competitive players is GW - they're losing a lot of money.
It doesn't really need a major overhaul. You basically need
1) a points system
2) base-to-base measuring
3) Summoning nerf
That's it really. Both 40K and WHFB have extensive comp systems and FAQs (just look at Swedish comp for WHFB!) that are easily on par with those for AoS.
Iron_Captain wrote: I don't often visit the flgs ( I mostly buy over the internet and play with friends at home), but not long ago I bought some Fantasy miniatures at the flgs to get rid of some cash, and the store manager told me that everyone there tought AoS was a lot of fun and it was gaining popularity.
So yeah, it seems to be going strong there. I also play it with my friends. It is a lot of fun, altough I wish GW would have kept supporting WHFB besides it. But we can always continue to play 8th.
auticus wrote: The big trend I see is that in any FLGS that is tournament-oriented, you're not going to see Age of Sigmar being played.
Age of Sigmar seems to be big with casual for fun narrative RPG types as opposed to competitive gamers that like tournament and league play.
Those type of players I find also rarely play their games at FLGS, and are more in their garages and game rooms at home.
The downside of that of course is no visibility.
Their game not being shown in Tournament-oriented FLGS's doesn't really matter for GW because they don't want their game to be played anyway, right?
I am pretty sure GW hates tournament-oriented players. They don't forge the narrative hard enough That said, the narrative is exactly what makes games like AoS and 40k so much fun, so I don't get why tournament-oriented players don't play games that were made to be played competitively. Having given competitive Warmachine a try, it is so much more fun than a 40k tournament, let alone trying to play AoS competitively. IMO, you should go with the ruleset that best fits with the way you want to play, rather than trying to "fix" and force a ruleset into something it is not.
The thing is, with "some" tweaks 40k/FB are bearable for tournament settings, but AoS is not so without a major rehaul.
In the end the only side losing with AoS being clearly made to alienate competitive players is GW - they're losing a lot of money.
It doesn't really need a major overhaul. You basically need
1) a points system
2) base-to-base measuring
3) Summoning nerf
That's it really. Both 40K and WHFB have extensive comp systems and FAQs (just look at Swedish comp for WHFB!) that are easily on par with those for AoS.
You do understand that creating a points system alone will take more work than the entirety of the work that GW's AoS design team has dedicated to the game so far, right? That alone qualifies as a major overhaul.
You don't need a point system for tourney play. That may be the most understood way, especially amongst those with limited wargaming experience and it offers many advantages, but all tourneys require are 'balanced' games (that's not actually true either to be honest).
There are wargames out there that have tourneys with no points, and others that have points where serious tourney players have talked of ditching the points (due to lack of balance in points).
The problem with points is that whilst they are easy to use for players, they are a huge investment for the game maker (if they are expected to provide points rather than tourney organisers). Something like AOS has mind boggling combinations of units with many synergies or unit size differences etc. That makes pointing non trivial. KOW is tourney friendly, it is also very simple with almost no interaction between units and limited choices in terms of unit size etc.
I am not saying people haven't tried their hands on it, with varying degrees of success. I am saying it alone qualifies as a major overhaul.
In that case, I agree. But imo, other GW games have gone through major overhauls to be tournament-friendly as well. They just aren't very good at writing clear, concise and balanced rules.
I am not saying people haven't tried their hands on it, with varying degrees of success. I am saying it alone qualifies as a major overhaul.
In that case, I agree. But imo, other GW games have gone through major overhauls to be tournament-friendly as well. They just aren't very good at writing clear, concise and balanced rules.
Yes, GW designers excel in the ancient art of loose rules writing with enough gray area to compare to Beijing's worst smog mornings.
It's just that AoS is the loosest so far and will require the most work in order to create a competitive, balancing system. Games like Mordheim, Necromunda, BFG and especially 40k and FB need quite the bit of work to bring balance about (the Swedish comps and Coreheim come to mind). It's just easier to tweak a system that at least already has a points system - balanced or not. IMO, ofc.
GW ran annual tournaments of WHFB and 40K for decades. They stopped about four years ago. If GW hate tournament players, it is a fairly recent thing, and it makes me wonder why GW decided to bring the hate.
I think it's more likely that GW got the idea that tournament players were a relatively small section of customers and could essentially be ignored, allowing GW to less effort into selling to the much more compliant casual player.
GW's ideal customer in my view is not a keen wargamer, as such. It's someone who is happy to spend maybe £200 a year on some books and figures that give him a fun read and the experience of pushing some models around and throwing a bunch of dice. If they also manage to find GW fanatics, who spend lots more on buying even more GW books and kits, that's a bonus.
If you are a keen wargamer, you're going to spend more than £200 a year and you want a range of genres, like Ancients, Napoleonic, Naval, and WW2. GW are not interested in supplying that market.
I would love for GW to embrace the tournament scene again. It seems it would be easy in the modern age to strive for balance. Point lists outside of the warscrolls that can be tweaked on a monthly basis, FAQs available inside the app too.
Every AoS scenario could have a recommended point spilt (70-30 for example) so that these fun narrative scenarios are played and it's not all pitched battles.
I really like AoS and have fun with it. I do not like GWs recent philosophy towards many things. Reading the designer notes yesterday in the 2nd Edition 40k book and them singing the praises of the new rules allowing you to play anyone in the world under a unified structure was a stark contrast to what I see now.
A hobby that is aimed at collectors simply requires great models. A hobby aimed at gamers simply requires a balanced rule set. These things are not mutually exclusive and so I don't understand why GW think they are.
Tbh, I am a little peeved hearing that if "AoS fails, GW are dropping fantasy". In the era of Game of Thrones and Skyrim there is no way fantasy does not capture the imagination anymore. It's the exact opposite. And it just seems so easy to fix GWs errors the whole thing can be very frustrating.
There are wargames out there that have tourneys with no points, and others that have points where serious tourney players have talked of ditching the points (due to lack of balance in points).
The only game system I can think of that has tourneys but no points is DBA/DBX, but that uses a strict element count (12?) for what are largely similar units, being pre-gunpowder humans. It's balancing mechanic is essentially everything boils down to infantry/skirmishers/cavalry and is pretty much balanced.
I've never heard of people dropping points due to balance - adjusting points or introducing limits sure.
But AoS has no system for balance anyway, beyond gentlemans agreement. Which is pretty much impossible in any tournament of significant size (i.e. 30+ attendees)
Bottle wrote: I would love for GW to embrace the tournament scene again. It seems it would be easy in the modern age to strive for balance. Point lists outside of the warscrolls that can be tweaked on a monthly basis, FAQs available inside the app too.
Every AoS scenario could have a recommended point spilt (70-30 for example) so that these fun narrative scenarios are played and it's not all pitched battles.
I really like AoS and have fun with it. I do not like GWs recent philosophy towards many things. Reading the designer notes yesterday in the 2nd Edition 40k book and them singing the praises of the new rules allowing you to play anyone in the world under a unified structure was a stark contrast to what I see now.
A hobby that is aimed at collectors simply requires great models. A hobby aimed at gamers simply requires a balanced rule set. These things are not mutually exclusive and so I don't understand why GW think they are.
Tbh, I am a little peeved hearing that if "AoS fails, GW are dropping fantasy". In the era of Game of Thrones and Skyrim there is no way fantasy does not capture the imagination anymore. It's the exact opposite. And it just seems so easy to fix GWs errors the whole thing can be very frustrating.
It's not just that, really.
GW used to encourage a much more DIY approach to the hobby parts of Warhammer - how to built X or Y terrain on your own, and without resorting to citadel-only items. Those were (for me, ofc) the glory days of White Dwarf. There were hobby and painting guides, awesome alternative, "fluffy" army lists (I especially liked the addition of additional goblinoid races and the Kroot-only army list for 40k) and even a few campaigns. They encouraged and supported the Specialist Games. Back then GW literally said "Go forth and enjoy it in your own terms, you have this here to do it in Y manner or this there to do it in X manner."
Not anymore. Now it's literally "our way or the highway - we don't want you anymore if you're not a GW supporter down to your DNA."
It makes no sense for GW to get back to the tournament scene. The competitive scene is compromised of well-educated players who think before buying and are resistant to "wooo flashy!" stuff. They play the game for the game, not primarily the models, and that's the part where GW keeps failing hard for quite a few years now. It's like asking Facebook to embrace privacy again.
Sigvatr wrote: It makes no sense for GW to get back to the tournament scene. The competitive scene is compromised of well-educated players who think before buying and are resistant to "wooo flashy!" stuff. They play the game for the game, not primarily the models, and that's the part where GW keeps failing hard for quite a few years now. It's like asking Facebook to embrace privacy again.
Yeah, why would GW want to get back a significant portion of customers? I mean, even if you're willing to buy into the 20% number, that number alone should be worth consideration. Especially when you can easily force competitive players to buy multiple big kits with each new release (E.g the new Tau squadron rules that grant +1BS, etc...) GW could maintain a moderately balanced version of FB or AoS or 40k for tournament players and at the same time launch incentives for players who don't really have much to look for in tournaments. If they cared enough to try.
As Bottle said, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Automatically Appended Next Post: What makes no sense to me is how GW is willing to lose at least a fifth of their customer base in an action that is the opposite of good management. (I am saying this because I believe that full 40k AoSification is really just a matter of months.)
GW should move to include both sides of the hobby and help them grow together, not ostracize and ultimately sacrifice the one they perceive as the smaller of the two.
I would imagine because in any regular understanding of the term 'tournament', there is by definition a winner.
Which means that the aim is winning.
This is not a bad thing in and of itself. I certainly don't subscribe to the view that people should get medals just for turning up.
However, GW haven't abandoned the organised play scene. They simply changed the intent.
They no longer do tournaments, but what they do instead is events where the intent is to have fun, enjoy some games, and -most importantly for their view, I would imagine - play the games for the sake of playing the games.
Sportsmanship and modelling skills are what's rewarded.
I know plenty will disagree and that's fine.
But I remember a teenage me who was acknowledged as being the first person to break an army list, the one who spotted the horrific combinations first, and to whom winning was the whole point. And looking back, I never really enjoyed it.
AoS brought back my interest in gaming because it doesn't appeal to that kid any more - it appeals to the guy who just want to make the most of his leisure time by having fun without worrying about composition or points efficiency or stuff like that. I know that AoS isn't the first game to do that approach, but it was the first one that did that I knew other people would play in my neck of the woods.
But I remember a teenage me who was acknowledged as being the first person to break an army list, the one who spotted the horrific combinations first, and to whom winning was the whole point. And looking back, I never really enjoyed it.
I dedicated nearly a decade to this (all of my 20s) and I have to say what you wrote strikes a chord with me because I feel the same way as well.
For all of the 90s and most of the 2000s I played strictly to win, as long as it was legal, I would do it.
It was fun for the first few years, but I ended up leaving the game for a while because after a while it lost its fun I guess, facing the same lists, using the same lists... i drifted more toward the social and hobby aspect and thats also what I enjoy more, which is why AoS does not bother me as much (the lack of balance mechanism does still because I like games that are not one sided)
Sigvatr wrote: It makes no sense for GW to get back to the tournament scene. The competitive scene is compromised of well-educated players who think before buying and are resistant to "wooo flashy!" stuff. They play the game for the game, not primarily the models, and that's the part where GW keeps failing hard for quite a few years now. It's like asking Facebook to embrace privacy again.
Are you suggesting that non-competitive players are uninformed and easily distracted by shiny things? Because that feels a bit dismissive and completely ignorant.
Maybe it's time to call a truce between competitive players and non-competitive players.
Sigvatr wrote: The competitive scene is compromised of well-educated players who think before buying and are resistant to "wooo flashy!" stuff.
Oh, yes! These well-educated players also happen to make well educated purchases of about 500 rhinos, 10 planes because while they recognize the superior rules they are also very much into that particular rhino model
They play the game for the game, not primarily the models,
Definitely valid, and thats also the source of most issues people have with each other (the other side that play for the fluff and models facing off against someone that plays for the game for the sake of being a game and happy to use wooden pogs)
Two different approaches that seem very much at odds with each other unfortunately.
They play the game for the game, not primarily the models,
Definitely valid, and thats also the source of most issues people have with each other (the other side that play for the fluff and models facing off against someone that plays for the game for the sake of being a game and happy to use wooden pogs)
Two different approaches that seem very much at odds with each other unfortunately.
I think you're forgetting an important group - the people who want to play the game for the sake of being a game with the models. It's the loss of this group that will be hurting GW financials the most as, like you said, some players that play the game for its sake will use wooden pogs. It's this forgotten group that has stopped purchasing models, not the ones who didn't purchase them to begin with. I am in that group and I would be happy to buy the models if the game (fluff and crunch) was good.
They play the game for the game, not primarily the models,
Definitely valid, and thats also the source of most issues people have with each other (the other side that play for the fluff and models facing off against someone that plays for the game for the sake of being a game and happy to use wooden pogs)
Two different approaches that seem very much at odds with each other unfortunately.
I think you're forgetting an important group - the people who want to play the game for the sake of being a game with the models. It's the loss of this group that will be hurting GW financials the most as, like you said, some players that play the game for its sake will use wooden pogs. It's this forgotten group that has stopped purchasing models, not the ones who didn't purchase them to begin with. I am in that group and I would be happy to buy the models if the game (fluff and crunch) was good.
I'm not sure this will be as big a loss as it could be - most of folks that I know who jumped ship to KoW still purchase (and plan to continue doing so) their models from GW because Mantic's models are sub-par. So while they prefer a different game system, they still would rather play that new game system with GW miniatures.
Yeah the jury is out on that. If you read warseer, all of the anti-GW folks there are daily posting about how they do nothing buy buy KOW models to support Mantic and won't touch GW models again.
I know locally the tournament scene appears to be moving towards KOW but the guys playing it haven't bought any new models, they are just using the mantic rulebook.
They play the game for the game, not primarily the models,
Definitely valid, and thats also the source of most issues people have with each other (the other side that play for the fluff and models facing off against someone that plays for the game for the sake of being a game and happy to use wooden pogs)
Two different approaches that seem very much at odds with each other unfortunately.
I think you're forgetting an important group - the people who want to play the game for the sake of being a game with the models. It's the loss of this group that will be hurting GW financials the most as, like you said, some players that play the game for its sake will use wooden pogs. It's this forgotten group that has stopped purchasing models, not the ones who didn't purchase them to begin with. I am in that group and I would be happy to buy the models if the game (fluff and crunch) was good.
I'm not sure this will be as big a loss as it could be - most of folks that I know who jumped ship to KoW still purchase (and plan to continue doing so) their models from GW because Mantic's models are sub-par. So while they prefer a different game system, they still would rather play that new game system with GW miniatures.
Not that I was talking specifically about KoW's impact as this is related to the FB-AoS transition... The current situation you describe is a curious side effect of Mantic feeding off of GW's models... as now it'll be GW feeding off of Mantic's rule system... for as long as Mantic allows it. An interesting reversal.
Yes no doubt players who play KoW will buy from GW until their KoW armies are finished. But then what? And what will happen once the ongoing GW product rescaling ends? What if Mantis decides it's time to start pumping out better models, at a cheaper price?
In the end, the loss of a whole fifth of a playerbase cannot be simply written off like that. It's the beginning of a market share shift - a considerable one, at that - which was stupidly initiated by GW.
auticus wrote: Yeah the jury is out on that. If you read warseer, all of the anti-GW folks there are daily posting about how they do nothing buy buy KOW models to support Mantic and won't touch GW models again.
I know locally the tournament scene appears to be moving towards KOW but the guys playing it haven't bought any new models, they are just using the mantic rulebook.
Yeah, I totally hear you auticus. I tend to believe what I actually see happening rather than internet rumblings. So minus that one gentleman who set fire to his dark elves, I have seen the latter (grab the Mantic rules to continue to play with GW models) much more than the former.
However, GW haven't abandoned the organised play scene. They simply changed the intent.
They no longer do tournaments, but what they do instead is events where the intent is to have fun, enjoy some games, and -most importantly for their view, I would imagine - play the games for the sake of playing the games.
Sportsmanship and modelling skills are what's rewarded.
Playing in tournaments and having fun are not mutually exclusive.
However, GW haven't abandoned the organised play scene. They simply changed the intent.
They no longer do tournaments, but what they do instead is events where the intent is to have fun, enjoy some games, and -most importantly for their view, I would imagine - play the games for the sake of playing the games.
Sportsmanship and modelling skills are what's rewarded.
Playing in tournaments and having fun are not mutually exclusive.
Apparently, you can't do the following at tournaments:
Have fun
Enjoy some games
Play the games for the sake of playing games
Be rewarded for good sportsmanship/modelling/painting
Roper, have you actually ever been to a tournament?
However, GW haven't abandoned the organised play scene. They simply changed the intent. They no longer do tournaments, but what they do instead is events where the intent is to have fun, enjoy some games, and -most importantly for their view, I would imagine - play the games for the sake of playing the games. Sportsmanship and modelling skills are what's rewarded.
Playing in tournaments and having fun are not mutually exclusive.
Apparently, you can't do the following at tournaments: Have fun Enjoy some games Play the games for the sake of playing games Be rewarded for good sportsmanship/modelling/painting
Roper, have you actually ever been to a tournament?
Yup, I can count on one hand the amount of tournaments I've attended, and I've enjoyed all but 1 of them. Every single one I went in trying to win it but that wasn't the only goal. I came out with the best army award at two of them and both of those were better than winning the whole thing for me.
Our competitive scene here in the NW is moving over to KoW,myself included.
However we also have a slow but steady interest in regular AoS games as well.Mostly players are looking for a light and fun fluff oriented gaming session,a break from the hyper focused competitive sessions so to speak
And yes,I really don't want to have to turn to mantic for their models.Not sure what the deal is with the KoW line but from what I can see with my Basilean Mega Army KS lot I have,the models are rather disappointing.
However with the Deadzone starter,the models are actually pretty good.
Either way Mantic still doesn't come close to GW especially when compared to the AoS models..Im not ruling out mantic for any model purchases but I will mainly be sticking with GW.
However, GW haven't abandoned the organised play scene. They simply changed the intent.
They no longer do tournaments, but what they do instead is events where the intent is to have fun, enjoy some games, and -most importantly for their view, I would imagine - play the games for the sake of playing the games.
Sportsmanship and modelling skills are what's rewarded.
Playing in tournaments and having fun are not mutually exclusive.
Apparently, you can't do the following at tournaments:
Have fun
Enjoy some games
Play the games for the sake of playing games
Be rewarded for good sportsmanship/modelling/painting
Roper, have you actually ever been to a tournament?
Yup, I can count on one hand the amount of tournaments I've attended, and I've enjoyed all but 1 of them. Every single one I went in trying to win it but that wasn't the only goal. I came out with the best army award at two of them and both of those were better than winning the whole thing for me.
Way to snip away context, cheers both.
My point was that in a traditional tournament format, there is a winner, which is determined by competitive success.
When GW stopped having competitive tournaments' and winners, and moved to 'events', they effectively stated their intent that their games were not to be played to be won or lost, but 'enjoyed'.
At no point did I state that it wasn't possible to have fun at a tournament - just that GW think that competitive play is not for them, for some reason.
Grimtuff wrote: And you've just said again. Apparently winning and losing the game is mutually exclusive to having enjoyment in the game.
No context clipping. Nothing. Right there.
Wow, seriously?
I'm presuming you mean this?
"When GW stopped having competitive tournaments' and winners, and moved to 'events', they effectively stated their intent that their games were not to be played to be won or lost, but 'enjoyed'. "
I really don't know how to make it any clearer. GW appear to have problem with the concept of winners and losers, as they stopped doing in-house competitive play. I presume that is because they, not me, have decided that people playing to win damages the game, or some similar notion. Either way, take away winning/losing, you're left with just enjoying the game, and it's this that GW appear to want to focus on.
In absolutely no part of any of my posts have I stated my belief to be the same, or that the concepts are mutually exclusive.
Its hard to draw conclusions from the data we have... I mean for all we know the overall drop in sales has nothing to do with the systems themselves but the fact that today everyone is doing plastics and there are LOADS of Kickstarters doing millions...
AOS is only a few months of life so it will take time, but even then there are no way for us to know if for each hardcore player that left who buys 100 minis there are 10 casual gamers that buy 10 minis.
I believe GW is declining for many different reasons and yeah I would like that game rules would cover a larger audience, a tournament pack would go a long way to include more people in but that would mean a serious investment in playtesting and balancing etc, I think they are more inclined to just invest in more miniatures.
Why does any one need GW to provide a tourney pack? These supposed well educated players who make up the tourney scene are incapable are they?
What have TOs done in the past - provided a parameter for 'size' of game, via points and parameters around comp if they think something gets in the way of 'good tourney games' ,e.g. no named heroes etc.
What is so different about AOS? A TO provides parameter for size of game, wounds/models/scrolls or whatever, and some comp like no names heroes or monster limits or whatever. At that point you have the most perfectly balanced setup possible. Everyone has access to the same model range and warscrolls, everyone can mix and match stuff as they want everyone works with the same TO set parameters. Just like before. It is then just down to the player to design his tourney winning list.
What points provide is a way to say X number of gobbos are equalish to Y Elves etc. That, however, is a solution to a different problem and isn't needed to run a tournament where everyone enters with the same chance of winning as anyone else (skill allowing)
That points system is best provided by the same educated players who want that sort of system. They know what they want in terms of tourney style which will possible affect points of some stuff, they will be the ones complaining about X,Y or Z being over or under powered and they are the ones best placed to correct such beliefs in their own system that they designed with their ideal of a tourney in mind.
For some, GW providing a tournament pack makes them supporting tournaments "official", which is something that a lot of people require. The stamp of officialdom.
Same reason why perfectly good games die when they are no longer "official".
puree wrote: Why does any one need GW to provide a tourney pack? These supposed well educated players who make up the tourney scene are incapable are they?
What have TOs done in the past - provided a parameter for 'size' of game, via points and parameters around comp if they think something gets in the way of 'good tourney games' ,e.g. no named heroes etc.
What is so different about AOS? A TO provides parameter for size of game, wounds/models/scrolls or whatever, and some comp like no names heroes or monster limits or whatever. At that point you have the most perfectly balanced setup possible. Everyone has access to the same model range and warscrolls, everyone can mix and match stuff as they want everyone works with the same TO set parameters. Just like before. It is then just down to the player to design his tourney winning list.
What points provide is a way to say X number of gobbos are equalish to Y Elves etc. That, however, is a solution to a different problem and isn't needed to run a tournament where everyone enters with the same chance of winning as anyone else (skill allowing)
That points system is best provided by the same educated players who want that sort of system. They know what they want in terms of tourney style which will possible affect points of some stuff, they will be the ones complaining about X,Y or Z being over or under powered and they are the ones best placed to correct such beliefs in their own system that they designed with their ideal of a tourney in mind.
The argument is that GW as publisher are best placed to ensure the rules are clear, the units are properly balanced and tournaments have a sound basis for organisation.
The counter-argument is that GW has determined that tournament style play is the work of Satan and must be expunged from the pure narrative game experience of AoS.
I think the really competitive players will just move over to Kings of War.
puree wrote: Why does any one need GW to provide a tourney pack? These supposed well educated players who make up the tourney scene are incapable are they?
What have TOs done in the past - provided a parameter for 'size' of game, via points and parameters around comp if they think something gets in the way of 'good tourney games' ,e.g. no named heroes etc.
What is so different about AOS? A TO provides parameter for size of game, wounds/models/scrolls or whatever, and some comp like no names heroes or monster limits or whatever. At that point you have the most perfectly balanced setup possible. Everyone has access to the same model range and warscrolls, everyone can mix and match stuff as they want everyone works with the same TO set parameters. Just like before. It is then just down to the player to design his tourney winning list.
What points provide is a way to say X number of gobbos are equalish to Y Elves etc. That, however, is a solution to a different problem and isn't needed to run a tournament where everyone enters with the same chance of winning as anyone else (skill allowing)
That points system is best provided by the same educated players who want that sort of system. They know what they want in terms of tourney style which will possible affect points of some stuff, they will be the ones complaining about X,Y or Z being over or under powered and they are the ones best placed to correct such beliefs in their own system that they designed with their ideal of a tourney in mind.
The argument is that GW as publisher are best placed to ensure the rules are clear, the units are properly balanced and tournaments have a sound basis for organisation.
The counter-argument is that GW has determined that tournament style play is the work of Satan and must be expunged from the pure narrative game experience of AoS.
I think the really competitive players will just move over to Kings of War.
I think you could probably remove 'really' from that last sentence.
The counter-argument is that GW has determined that tournament style play is the work of Satan and must be expunged from the pure narrative game experience of AoS.
It might be others, but it isn't mine. Tournaments do not need points, it is not necessary that units are balanced with each other. For years players have been playing with a system they regularly say is broken in that regard. That didn't make the tournies imbalanced as everyone works from the same set of parameters, each person decides whether he can make use of whatever unit. At the point you enter a tourney you are all in the same position.
If I said I was running a tourney of AOS and you could use a max of 100 models/wounds/scrolls and no special characters then you'd be in the same boat as I saying I was running a 2000pt no special character WFB tourney. Points have determined the size of the games not whether you will get a balanced game. You can probably assume that anyone else entering with any serious intent to do well in the tourney will look for the OP units and combos that we all know GW will not worry about, yet has some how not stopped tourneys in the past. You will get reasonably balanced games if you are expecting to play against competitive players.
Equally what unit is balanced against others can depend heavily on what comp rules and game size you have. Only the TOs can decide those things, there's a staggering difference between 50 clanrats backed by the hero and 1 unit of 15 clan rats, but points for clan rats combined with game size may make one very hard to field in one tourney whilst being OP at another game size. Points are useful for some styles of play, but they have little to do with tournament. Those wanting points for tournaments are not really after points for tourneys, they are after a specific style of game, that they then want to play in a tourney as well. There is nothing wrong with that desire, but it is somewhat disingenuous to say it is needed for tournaments as a generalization.
You know what I don't see in that argument, a way to host an AoS tourney that is fair and doesn't require someone 'fix' the product GW has released.
Saying everyone has access to the same things 1) is a terrible meta as it'll just mean you bring the most OP things and everyone will do exactly that, and 2) about as pay to win as you can get short of literally handing the TO money until he declarers you the winner.
Technically even saying 100 wounds/models/etc is still trying to 'fix' the rules, as they are not in the core rules, and clearly not how GW indented the game to be played.
Do you understand that when people complained about balance in WHFB it wasn't some kind of admittance that the game is imbalanced and so we should move on?
It was a criticism, it was people saying they dislike that and want it fixed. Balance is also not a yes/no proposition, it is possible for WHFB to be unbalanced, and for AoS to be even more unbalanced.
Technically even saying 100 wounds/models/etc is still trying to 'fix' the rules, as they are not in the core rules, and clearly not how GW indented the game to be played.
Since GW has, in fact, used such a standard in their own rules, I'd say it probably is pretty close to how they intended for the game to be played.
This of it like bottom up game design. The core four pages + warscrolls represent the core gameplay of AoS. The next layer up is stuff like Battalions and Time of War rules. Then Scenarios and Scenery rules. Then the School League rules or other comp systems. You can continue building on top of the layer cake with new layers that add or ever overrule things from the lower layers, but it shouldn't be seen as an attempt to "fix" anything - more like customize it. The AoS rules are purposely slim and modular to facilitate this customization and give players more power in how they can enjoy the game.
You know what I don't see in that argument, a way to host an AoS tourney that is fair and doesn't require someone 'fix' the product GW has released.
It is perfectly fair. You are exactly the same position as everyone else. Nothing needs fixing. What is your definition of fair if it is not having the same ability to field an army as good as someone else. I don't think you are grasping that fair does not require a very specific army building system.
Saying everyone has access to the same things 1) is a terrible meta as it'll just mean you bring the most OP things and everyone will do exactly that, and 2) about as pay to win as you can get short of literally handing the TO money until he declarers you the winner.
This is the exact same condition WFB tourneys were held under. You all had access to the same units and choose what you wanted. No matter what you choose you had to be able pay to win because if you didn't own it you couldn't field it, whether you are paying for an uber model or 100 gobbos you are paying to have a chance at winning. Points in no way alter either of the those things.
Technically even saying 100 wounds/models/etc is still trying to 'fix' the rules, as they are not in the core rules, and clearly not how GW indented the game to be played.
That is nothing to do with fixing any issue. It is a basic aspect of all tourneys I've ever seen that they set some parameters on how big the games are. The core WFB didn't say you must use XXX points. That was a decision by the TOs as to how big they wanted games to be. Using wounds/models/scrolls is no different. Clearly GW didn't intend a points system, so what is the issue.
Do you understand that when people complained about balance in WHFB it wasn't some kind of admittance that the game is imbalanced and so we should move on?
It was a criticism, it was people saying they dislike that and want it fixed. Balance is also not a yes/no proposition, it is possible for WHFB to be unbalanced, and for AoS to be even more unbalanced.
Game systems like this are not balanced or unbalanced. They are merely a set of rules, it is how you choose to play it that makes balanced games or not. The discussion I have been talking about is about balanced tournaments. There is no balance issue to fix. It is in fact easy to run a balanced tourney with what is there. It merely requires an understanding that points and balanced tourneys are not synonymous.
I understand that some people want points, primarily for a specific style of game play independent of tourneys. That is people wanting something that the game didn't set out to do, hence nothing to fix. If players want that style of game then they are best placed to make those points systems themselves as they are the ones wanting something that is not the intent of the game. No points system will be balanced for all groups of people who play even with different size of games never mind comp rules etc. No single points system will be balanced for a system with varied objective based scenarios as the main thrust of play style, where what is good or bad will depend on scenario objectives. The fast weak unit will be useless in some scenarios no matter how cheap, and the must take unit in other scenarios no matter how expensive.
Technically even saying 100 wounds/models/etc is still trying to 'fix' the rules, as they are not in the core rules, and clearly not how GW indented the game to be played.
Since GW has, in fact, used such a standard in their own rules, I'd say it probably is pretty close to how they intended for the game to be played.
Unless I have missed something you are talking about the school league rules, which to my knowledge were created by Warhammer World or the like, but even if they are by the design studio they are not core rules. If you use them you are changing the core rules of the game, ie, not using the game 'out of the box'. There is of course nothing wrong with that, changing rules should be encouraged when among friends for added enjoyment, but you can't argue that it is the way the game was meant to be played or that the game works fine out of the box.
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puree wrote: I understand that some people want points, primarily for a specific style of game play independent of tourneys. That is people wanting something that the game didn't set out to do, hence nothing to fix. If players want that style of game then they are best placed to make those points systems themselves as they are the ones wanting something that is not the intent of the game.
We are way off topic here and I am tired so to that I will simply say this;
This thread is meant to be about how AoS is doing in your area, there is a better thread to talk about balance and tourney's, but given the results of this poll I'd suggest that players looking for a points based system do not feel that they are best severed by building one, they are simply leaving the game, and that those players who do want a points based game seem to be the majority.
Technically even saying 100 wounds/models/etc is still trying to 'fix' the rules, as they are not in the core rules, and clearly not how GW indented the game to be played.
Since GW has, in fact, used such a standard in their own rules, I'd say it probably is pretty close to how they intended for the game to be played.
...
So is model count, and key word count, but none of these are necessarily going to produce balanced forces.
So is model count, and key word count, but none of these are necessarily going to produce balanced forces.
It depends on what you are balancing for. If you are balancing for a quick game, a fun game, or a friendly game, I'm sure it suffices. If you are balancing towards a game in which each side has roughly an equal chance of achieving victory with player skill being the only thing which tips the balance, then you might need something else on top of that.
While this is still just an assumption, Age of Sigmar does not seem to be designed evenly slightly towards the latter. You can paint a pumpkin green, but it still won't taste like watermelon. And that's okay, because some people like pumpkin better.
*Loads Heavy Bolter*
. I've seen something similar locally where the only guy who has been keen for it is someone who I knew from the local Fantasy tourneys who would try to bring the cheesiest thing possible. Also, I think you are confusing 
