People keep saying that AoS has bad rules. Assertion is not an argument or and explanation, so I don't understand why they are so bad. I've seen a fair amount of game mechanics and I have a bit of statistical background, it looks fine to me.

I want to know about the rules, from a game design and/or statistical point of view.
Especially considering that AoS is meant (i.e. designed) to be a casual, for fun and not for competition ruleset.

I realise that there is no army balancing system, not the question, leave it alone.

Before we start with shooting into combat; no, "I don't think it's right" is not a games design argument.

I don't think they are terrible... they just need to be a bit refined. Such as a point system.

Other then that I love how its a very easy game to learn and play.


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 DarkBlack wrote:


I realise that there is no army balancing system, not the question, leave it alone.

.

These are part of the rules so yes it is the question.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:

These are part of the rules so yes it is the question.

They aren't, which is kinda the point...

My gripes with the AoS rules; I understand the possible 'cinematic ideal' behind model to model measuring(as well as throwing a bone to people who just happen to have large amounts of miniatures on square bases..), but bases are far easier to utilise.
Similarly, line of sight. Don't need to go the whole 'bell jar' hog like Warmachine (although I think it's good), just a clarification that complete limb, torso or head must be visible.
Sudden death; they need a basic rule for the free rules, but going by wounds would have been far better.

Putting crew on the warmachine scroll. A 'separate' crew unit warscroll would have cleared up the 'one unit or two' issue, and been more entertaining, especially as it would then allow crew units to wander between warmachines.

 DarkBlack wrote:
People keep saying that AoS has bad rules. Assertion is not an argument or and explanation, so I don't understand why they are so bad. I've seen a fair amount of game mechanics and I have a bit of statistical background, it looks fine to me.

I want to know about the rules, from a game design and/or statistical point of view.
Especially considering that AoS is meant (i.e. designed) to be a casual, for fun and not for competition ruleset.

I realise that there is no army balancing system, not the question, leave it alone.

Before we start with shooting into combat; no, "I don't think it's right" is not a games design argument.

The only real problem I have with the game is the almost total lack of an army building mechanism. Assuming two players have balanced armies, the game is pretty straightforward, if a little simple. Most games generally devolve into 'run at each other while shooting and then fight while shooting". This isn't inherently bad, but makes the game a little boring after you've played for a bit. You really need to play with the optional battle plans to give the game variety. The rules themselves, as evidenced by the relative emptiness of the AoS rule forum, are pretty tight... once the game gets started.

I don't think it's fair to gloss over the army building mechanism as that's a huge, game breaking flaw for many people. It's such a fundamental design flaw that many people can't get past it and even consider the rest of the rules... which are generally decent.

There are a few issues. Summoning is, I think, one of the biggest. It's not clear whether a unit that has been destroyed and removed from play can be re-summoned. My reading is that you can only summon units from reserves (i.e. the units you brought but chose not to deploy) and when they're dead they're removed from play and can't be re-summoned. Allowing re-summoning vastly changes the power level of summoning and even further unbalances the game.

 Kriswall wrote:
The only real problem I have with the game is the almost total lack of an army building mechanism. Assuming two players have balanced armies, the game is pretty straightforward, if a little simple. Most games generally devolve into 'run at each other while shooting and then fight while shooting". This isn't inherently bad, but makes the game a little boring after you've played for a bit. You really need to play with the optional battle plans to give the game variety. The rules themselves, as evidenced by the relative emptiness of the AoS rule forum, are pretty tight... once the game gets started.

I don't think it's fair to gloss over the army building mechanism as that's a huge, game breaking flaw for many people. It's such a fundamental design flaw that many people can't get past it and even consider the rest of the rules... which are generally decent.

I understand the issue, a system to facilitate pick up games would be nice. The point is that this is obvious and I don't want this thread to be only about it.

That said, I think the design idea was that 2 people rock up with a bunch of models and go "here's what I brought" (leaving the player with a smaller collection to ask that this or that be left out if need be). The models brought are "the army" (paragraph one) you use to deploy, summon and reinforce from. This is actually in line with what the designers were supposedly aiming for, so a sound decision from that point of view.

I think a lot of people glaze over the first paragraph as a little introduction, but it's actually important.

@Kriswall I'm familiar with your view on summoning, I've quoted you several times.

I like them. They leave a lot open for strategy and thinking, especially when it comes to battle lines and formations.

-

Damn it seems I'm the only one who like the joke rules. Seriously I find them great haha.

Moving thread to Games Design forum.

The AoS ruleset is not bad it (mostly) it feels like a huge wasted potential, but overall it is not bad.

The game is not balanced and this is the biggest wasted potential they did, balance each purchasable box as "a warscrol" and market it as such, they instead went with unlimited numbers, the special rules are attached"thematically" on units without thinking long term consequences like for example the digging scarabs and the unit surviving sudden death victory.

The measurement should have been from the base.

but beyond these the game system is not bad and that makes it a wasted potential.


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 Haechi wrote:
Damn it seems I'm the only one who like the joke rules. Seriously I find them great haha.

The point is for the game to make you want to do such things without forcing you to do it, if it forces you to "act silly" and not inspiring you to do so yourself, then the game is far from entertaining.

 DarkBlack wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:
The only real problem I have with the game is the almost total lack of an army building mechanism. Assuming two players have balanced armies, the game is pretty straightforward, if a little simple. Most games generally devolve into 'run at each other while shooting and then fight while shooting". This isn't inherently bad, but makes the game a little boring after you've played for a bit. You really need to play with the optional battle plans to give the game variety. The rules themselves, as evidenced by the relative emptiness of the AoS rule forum, are pretty tight... once the game gets started.

I don't think it's fair to gloss over the army building mechanism as that's a huge, game breaking flaw for many people. It's such a fundamental design flaw that many people can't get past it and even consider the rest of the rules... which are generally decent.

I understand the issue, a system to facilitate pick up games would be nice. The point is that this is obvious and I don't want this thread to be only about it.

That said, I think the design idea was that 2 people rock up with a bunch of models and go "here's what I brought" (leaving the player with a smaller collection to ask that this or that be left out if need be). The models brought are "the army" (paragraph one) you use to deploy, summon and reinforce from. This is actually in line with what the designers were supposedly aiming for, so a sound decision from that point of view.

I think a lot of people glaze over the first paragraph as a little introduction, but it's actually important.

@Kriswall I'm familiar with your view on summoning, I've quoted you several times.

Haha. In a good way, I hope?

@Kriswall: In agreement.

 DarkBlack wrote:

Especially considering that AoS is meant (i.e. designed) to be a casual, for fun and not for competition ruleset.

I realise that there is no army balancing system, not the question, leave it alone.

Before we start with shooting into combat; no, "I don't think it's right" is not a games design argument.

Sorry but I am not sure that this is a good way to start the discussion. If a rule is bad (or perceived as bad), is bad. If my son plays hide and seek with his friends, and changes the rules in the way he punches in the face the kids he discovers, I have to question him on that and he cannot answer "but dad, this is intended by design. Is my casual way to play hide and seek".

The thing you listed could not be a big deal for you, but for me they are. I find the system absolutely terrible. Amateurish. And those elements contribute significantly to its horribleness.

1) Lack of force organisation. No structure for the army. Not necessarily troops/elite/whatever, but at least a warbands/battlegroup system. Note that this is not only detrimental for hardcore players, but even for some kind of collector (like me) that can play rarely but wants a structure in the army he is building and "whatever" is not an answer.

2) Lack of balance mechanism like points. Wounds do not work. And "40/WFB with points were unbalanced too" is not an argument. Unless the topic is "how bad is GW in balancing games?". If one posts here, there is a good chance is an old gamer. I would probably easily balance a game of AoS but (1) I was not an expert when I started, and we have to think to younger people (2) why should I do GW's job?

3) Shoot in melee. It kills both strategy and realism/immersion. This is particularly remarkable because rules that are just mediocre sacrifice one for another. Here we are a rule that has the worst of both worlds. This is catastrophically bad. And hilarious.

4) Incoherence among the items. What a shield does in AoS again? Uh.. it.. depends? Weren't the rules supposed to be simple and intuitive?

5) Fixed rolls. A goblin has the same chance to hit a zombie or a swordmaster. This is another terrible blow to immersion. The AC and tables could have been improved but were good and had a simple formula easy to remember after 1 match. To that you can the add all the special rules for weapons and whatnot. But if you kill the immersion you kill the fun. other system have simpler (lotr) of more complicated rules (warmahordes) but the interaction between models is "saved". This is enough for me to not use the system, actually.

6) Sudden death makes no sense. Is a poorly, poorly thought rule. Power for model ratio a bit skewed? Disaster. Is the one that affects the enjoyment (or lack of thereof) the less, but is probably the most naively conceived.

7) The weird terrain table in 4 pages of rules is.. weird? What about rivers, rocks, lava, floating stuff.. An move through terrain?

8) All these years, and we still roll a D6 for running We remove the AC/Wound table, but introduce 40k horrible d6 run. OH MY GODS

9) Cover. See 8 in a way. All these years, and we add cover to the defence. WAKE ME UP

10) No initiative. This kills any nuance I could look for in different troops and creatures in such diverse multiverse. To add a different feel to them. And kills immersion again. See 5, in a way. CANNOT WAKE UP

I could go on but you see the point. Is a mess. No reward for tactics, no immersion, no coherence, no appropriate priorities for a 4 pages ruleset. Is a mess. I have not even the strength to go on about Summoning.

But the message to bring home is not "muh tournament rules". The system looks like a parody of a wargame, but the its most heinous crime is the killing of immersion, which is the nr 1 reason to play a fantasy game.

-

I agree with my esteemed colleague that it belongs here.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Moving thread to Games Design forum.

Please note - this thread should stick as close as possible to discussion of mechanics. For example, complaining about the setting changes would be off-topic.

Thanks!

Actually it does belong here, dissecting a game and evaluating its components and how the whole works together is something we do here.

My problem with AoS is there’s little value in movement. You can get a kind of flanking bonus where you can overlap but it’s very minor. And with the activation rules it’s very hard to pull off local force superiority unless you’re opponent almost helps you make that happen.

There’s a lot of game mechanics in terms of buffs and combos, but that stuff should be an extra consideration layered on top of movement warfare, instead in AoS it’s the whole game. That’s not the kind of game I like, and I don’t think it really works or makes the most out of the strengths of miniature gaming.

There’s actually a lot of stuff I do like. The new stat line is really good, keeps everything that mattered from WHFB, but is much simpler and more direct. Replacing rigid formations with looser warbands works well for what should be smaller scale games. But without rules to encourage positioning and the like all the games I played ended up with these big messy brawls.

Kaiyanwang wrote:
10) No initiative. This kills any nuance I could look for in different troops and creatures in such diverse multiverse.

Except initiative ever meant anything. Consider a High Elf, initiative 6, even though he’s just a rank and file grunt he's so speedy that he can attack before an Orc hero. But then that Orc hero attacks, he’s so cumbersome he has to attack last… but suddenly he’s not cumbersome, he’s actually got more weapon skill than the High Elf, and is so fast he attacks three times in the same time the High Elf attacked once. So exactly what did initiative mean?

It was just a weird, junky stat first put in the game when Cool was differentiated from Leadership, that continued as a weird legacy bit.

I've got quite a lot of thoughts concerning AoS. My first one is about the combat mechanism of To Hit, To Wound, To Save.

There are two main advantages of this:

1. It's already familiar to GW players from previous games.
2. It causes the rolling of lots of dice, which many people enjoy.

Downsides:
There are a lot of DRMs and exceptions that argue against simplicity and ease of play.
It creates negligible differences between units. Consider a unit with To Hit 4+, To Wound 4+ (-1 Rend) To Save 5+, fighting a unit with To Hit 3+, To Wound 5+, To Save 4+. They look very different but actually they are identical in their ability to damage each other. What is the point?
It is time consuming and unsuitable for high model count games, though, if AoS is intended to be a large skirmish game with about 30 models per side, this isn't a major issue.

Suggested Change
I would have reduced the sequence to To Hit, To Save, with fewer exceptions, and the effect of Rending added into the To Hit factor.


Weapon Ranges
Melee weapons with range 1, 2, 3 are a way of introducing the effect of ranks into the game to accomodate spears and pikes. Just have ranks, and save on all the fiddly measuring from model to model's closest point.

The question is, from the perspective of a product, does it need to be familiar with the core GW crowd? it seems it was created to bring new blood in and it fails, in my eyes, in doing that.

 sebster wrote:


Except initiative ever meant anything. Consider a High Elf, initiative 6, even though he’s just a rank and file grunt he's so speedy that he can attack before an Orc hero. But then that Orc hero attacks, he’s so cumbersome he has to attack last… but suddenly he’s not cumbersome, he’s actually got more weapon skill than the High Elf, and is so fast he attacks three times in the same time the High Elf attacked once. So exactly what did initiative mean?

It was just a weird, junky stat first put in the game when Cool was differentiated from Leadership, that continued as a weird legacy bit.

Look, maybe I am attached to legacy as much as the designers I criticise, but the initiative in my eyes is a combination of coordination of the troops, ability to react, and.. initiative. This is why Elves have it high, while orcs and dwarves have it low. Number of attacks is more related to aggression. I do not see it related to how quickly are delivered. Not only ferociousness, but recklessness too (you keep going even if exposed, as a good hero/villain does). Moreover, in this fantasy game an hero/officer is often well trained and finds more chances in the melee for an opening (this is combined with his/her AC score).

One of the reasons the elf feels different from the temple guard is not only how often, and how hard strikes but when, too.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:


Weapon Ranges
Melee weapons with range 1, 2, 3 are a way of introducing the effect of ranks into the game to accomodate spears and pikes. Just have ranks, and save on all the fiddly measuring from model to model's closest point.

Measure could be clumsy (I am not a big fan of Reach in warmachine, albeit I appreciate the tactical implications) but one could use a mechanic similar to the support in lotr.
If you have range 1, you melee. With range 2, you can melee OR support a model in melee (like spears in lotr). Range 3 you can support a supporter, like pikes in lotr. In that way there is no measurement.

Initiative was reaction time (not speed), WS was overall skill in close combat, and attacks was ferocity / aggression / killing intent / number of arms / whatever. They are not the same.

The High Elf had incredible reactions, but compared to the orc wasn't as vicious and not that experienced in combat.

The Orc is a bit sluggish, due to his size and relatively slow reaction speed, but he's more experienced at fighting and attacks with the viciousness and bloodlust of a wild animal.

Its why Saurus had 2 attacks; because they were pretty much wild animals, and the extra attack on their basic soldiers was supposed to represent how ferocious they are compared to other races.
Since they were reptiles though they were a bit sluggish, so they had the lowest ini value in the game.

 PsychoticStorm wrote:
The question is, from the perspective of a product, does it need to be familiar with the core GW crowd? it seems it was created to bring new blood in and it fails, in my eyes, in doing that.

I considered that point, and I feel that GW reckon that most of the new players for AoS will be brought in by existing players of GW's other games. Having the same basic mechanisms in all the games is an advantage to the explainer, if it's actually more difficult for the new guy.

And this is where GW disappoint with AoS. When Wargames Research Group stopped development of Ancients 7th edition, and brought out De Bellis Antiquitatis, they junked nearly every aspect of the rules and built up everything from the beginning. Almost the only thing they kept was the unit base sizes, so people could easily use their old armies.

GW have done the opposite. In junking an old game, they've replaced it with something that in many ways is very similar to WHFB and 40K, and the only thing you have to change is your armies.

Kaiyanwang wrote:

3) Shoot in melee. It kills both strategy and realism/immersion. This is particularly remarkable because rules that are just mediocre sacrifice one for another. Here we are a rule that has the worst of both worlds. This is catastrophically bad. And hilarious.
9) Cover. See 8 in a way. All these years, and we add cover to the defence. WAKE ME UP
10) No initiative. This kills any nuance I could look for in different troops and creatures in such diverse multiverse. To add a different feel to them. And kills immersion again. See 5, in a way. CANNOT WAKE UP

I see a lot of people having a problem with AoS because of preconceived "sacred cows", that translates to "this is wrong because it's not like it was explained (and I envisioned it) when I started wargaming".

Initiative is just a way of making high damage low defense troops to be viable and to add flavour to how troops work, it does not add realism. Separate to hit, to wound and save rolls give plenty of flavour. The combination of these variables affect how effective troops are against other combinations of stats and how well buffs work on said unit.

At a scale where the exact weapons, position and line of sight matter, I don't see why shooting into combat is such a big deal, hitting a group of people, esp. when SOME of them are fighting another group of people is not that hard for a competent soldier, more so if they are fighting a monster. Yes you might hit your own troops, but I don't see it as enough of a risk to warrant the complication of simulating it. Friendly troops in another unit should block line of sight though. The field of soldiers fighting one on one all over a field that Hollywood loves is not a thing, men stayed in their unit (and out of the enemy unit) unless they were being run down.
From a game design point of view, shooting into combat usually allows too many attacks on a unit that cannot do anything about shooting (because of the combat) and allows free extra attacks to a shooting unit in combat. In a high damage low defense game like AoS the former does not matter and the latter is balanced by only shhooting once per game turn without I-go-u-go.

What is great about cover in AoS is that it is so simple, it is cumbersome to have extra rules for different types and then modify this or that opponent. Admittedly it is clearly a mechanic more than a simulation. I makes you harder to kill if you are in a defensive position though, which what it needs to do. Noting that AoS is a low defense system, it was probably done this was so that it has less of an impact (so camping units are easier to kill), negative modifiers to the opponent's to hit would have been a bigger deal and and only made sense for shooting (see point about how great simplicity is).

What seems to be lost on people is that is a free formation system (i.e. you choose where individual models are in relation to others in the unit) like AoS makes many rules to simulate the formation of units unnecessary. Geometry, not rules does that.
For example: AoS does not need a modifier for being flanked because the flanking unit can get so many more models in to attack a unit that can't respond very well.
Why does no one seem to optimize their formations? If you just shove your guys to the fight (probably in the middle) and hop it goes well then YOU, not the game, has no tactics.

For me, mechanically the only real issues are the model-to-model measurement, which simply doesn't work when a model's base can protrude further than the required measurement distance, and the Sudden Death implementation - in a game where a snotling is 'worth' as much as a greater daemon, granting bonuses solely for being outnumbered is just insane.



That and the fact that it's just another fantasy skirmish game in what has in recent years become a very crowded pool of similar style games. The shift from mass-battle WHFB to skirmish-scale AoS removed the one thing that actually made WHFB stand out from the crowd.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Suggested Change
I would have reduced the sequence to To Hit, To Save, with fewer exceptions, and the effect of Rending added into the To Hit factor.

Units that were very skilful should apply a modifier against to hit rolls against them, and tough units should apply a mod against to wound rolls. Not just rending, which is just continuing GW’s fixation with making sure armour is generally pretty useless.

It would have produced an interesting set of match up strategies where you’d want units with more accurate attacks to take on units with a modifier to the to hit roll, and troops with high strength attacks to target enemy units with a modifier to the toughness roll.

Melee weapons with range 1, 2, 3 are a way of introducing the effect of ranks into the game to accomodate spears and pikes. Just have ranks, and save on all the fiddly measuring from model to model's closest point.

Yeah, something along those lines would have given a clear mechanical difference to weapon types, and remove some of the messiness.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Initiative was reaction time (not speed), WS was overall skill in close combat, and attacks was ferocity / aggression / killing intent / number of arms / whatever. They are not the same.

But what is that actually representing? The High Elf strikes first because he’s ‘reacting’ first… and then just stands there while the Orc hero attacks three times. Once that’s done then the High Elf ‘reacts’ first again, before then going back to a passive state. It’s bizarre.

High elf throws the first punch, and if he doesn't kill the orc the orc attacks while the elf is preparing for the next strike.
Keep in mind that initiative can also refer to the capacity to quickly capitalise on a weak point.
It really isn't that hard to visualise.

Where it does get a bit weird when its simultaneous initiative. I guess the implication is they cross counter or something.

Kilkrazy +1

The basic combat mechanics need work to eliminate unnecessary time sinks in dice rolling. Rolling to hit, wound, armor is 3 random resolutions for 1 task. Rolling melee and casualty would streamline it while preserving each player's interaction. Things like better skill, speed, aggressiveness, etc. would factor into the melee role while strength, effectiveness of weaponry, armor would factor into the casualty roll. Breaking up combat into individual "swings" reeks of D&D holdover.

Likewise, shooting could be simplified to roll to hit and save. Ineffective fire (fail to wound) is covered by a miss.

Initiative should play a factor in when units activate. This would also require getting away from a straight IGOUGO structure.

 DarkBlack wrote:
People keep saying that AoS has bad rules.

Especially considering that AoS is meant (i.e. designed) to be a casual, for fun and not for competition ruleset.

I realise that there is no army balancing system, not the question, leave it alone.

The AoS core rules are a fine model of economy, and I have not much problem there.

The AoS unit rules and stats are a fething disaster. There are too many special rules that aren't well balanced, and too many variations for the sake of variation. For example, Monsters should all have 12 Wounds to start, no more, no less, with the same step increments as the monster degrades to its death, but that simply isn't the case. So it's massive, unnecessary complexity that is neither casual nor fun.

There are many people who like points. I am OK with them in or out.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
High elf throws the first punch, and if he doesn't kill the orc the orc attacks while the elf is preparing for the next strike.
Keep in mind that initiative can also refer to the capacity to quickly capitalise on a weak point.
It really isn't that hard to visualise.

It's easy to visualise, as long as we are willing to make whatever leaps necessary to justify it. But as a means of representing actual combat its total gibberish.

Just ask yourself if you've ever heard of a combat, either in the real world or in any fantasy series, that described one side having the advantage of attacking first, not because of weapons like spears, but because they had better 'reactions'. Then it described the other side making more attacks per model, because they were 'faster' despite their slower reactions. And after that happened, then the first side suddenly got their 'reaction' advantage back again.

Did I say the other side was faster? Number of attacks isn't speed.

You seem to conflating initiative with speed again. Initiative just means being able to throw the first blow and exploit gaps in defenses. That's why its called "initiative." Its about reaction time, not raw speed.

Have you really not seen any bit of fiction, where spear wielding or even ranged weapon wielding soldiers were cut down by a swordsman, because they didn't react fast enough?
Having a good weapon with reach helps, but it isn't an instant win.

I'm fine with Monsters having different numbers of wounds. It seems to me that this allows the designer to make different size monsters with different abilities.

The lack of balancing is my biggest gripe with the system itself, and the unbalancing that comes from there on.

Model to Model measurement should never even have been considered, they should have kept it base to base.

However, I do like the way they tackle monsters, with strength deteriorating as the wounds are chipped away.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:
People keep saying that AoS has bad rules.

Especially considering that AoS is meant (i.e. designed) to be a casual, for fun and not for competition ruleset.

I realise that there is no army balancing system, not the question, leave it alone.

The AoS core rules are a fine model of economy, and I have not much problem there.

The AoS unit rules and stats are a fething disaster. There are too many special rules that aren't well balanced, and too many variations for the sake of variation. For example, Monsters should all have 12 Wounds to start, no more, no less, with the same step increments as the monster degrades to its death, but that simply isn't the case. So it's massive, unnecessary complexity that is neither casual nor fun.

There are many people who like points. I am OK with them in or out.

Unit complexity like this is a pain when there are several different places to find rules, but with warscrolls it is fine.

I disagree. For example, having shields as a special rule is one thing. Having it as several different special rules depending on the war scroll for no real good reason (IE pavises v. bucklers) is poor design.

It is the inconsistency (IE variety for its own sake) that is a major issue.

Indeed, internal consistency is quite important aspect of game design.

Internal consistency of systems and mechanics, yes. Internal consistency of data is a different matter.

Shields ought to work as shields. If there are different special rules associated with different units' shields, that isn't a problem in itself. I reckon the shield special rules ought to be combative and ideally defensive in nature. A shield that grants the ability to fly or breathe underwater is not an intuitive thing. A shield that protects better against thunderbolts or poison would be.

All true; however, AoS notionally being a simple wargame, shields should be nothing more than a +1 to Defense in all uses. If tower / gromril, +2. Simple and consistent.

 jmurph wrote:
I disagree. For example, having shields as a special rule is one thing. Having it as several different special rules depending on the war scroll for no real good reason (IE pavises v. bucklers) is poor design.

It is the inconsistency (IE variety for its own sake) that is a major issue.

No. Not all shields are the same, even more so if magic is thrown in.

What makes warscrolls great is that you can make each unit as unique as you like, because it is easy to keep track if all the rules are in one place and you don't need to add special rules and exceptions to the core rules.

Unit rules don't have to be several lists of special rules that get cobbled together to make the unit envisioned.

 DarkBlack wrote:

No. Not all shields are the same, even more so if magic is thrown in.

What makes warscrolls great is that you can make each unit as unique as you like, because it is easy to keep track if all the rules are in one place and you don't need to add special rules and exceptions to the core rules.

Unit rules don't have to be several lists of special rules that get cobbled together to make the unit envisioned.

But that is not what I said. Shields should not have a dozen or so different rules for what are functionally identical items. Sure, a magic shield might be radically different, but do you honestly believe that different rules for a human shield, an orc shield, a lizardman shield, etc. is good design? Even if they don't want to start with a universal rule, at least having a template (basic infantry shields do X) would keep consistency and simplicity. It would also emphasize the uniqueness of magic or special shields.

AoS is simple, simplistic even, in its core rules, but the special rules are not simple because there are so many of them.

However, players only need concern themselves with the special rules actually in play, and these are all printed on the war scrools in play.

In other words the design is simply: Follow rules on war scrolls.

If you want to simplify the war scrools, that's another thing. The same argument can be extended to magic, movement rates, other types of special rules.

It is a change of market philosophy.

Gw have screwed the pooch on games design and have belatedly recognised they aren't much good at it. Their solution was to rebrand themselves purely as toy company selling the 'finest wargaming models in the world' as their core competency. To be fair there is some merit to this approach and it ids defendable, though subjective.

As a result they completely abdicated responsibility for game balance by making it not relevant to the current ruleset. If you can choose whatever you like in your warscrolls there is no balance and you either play along with that or self police according to ones own opinion of value.
It is a cleverer system than it first appears and is not the reason for AoS failure.

AoS and the marketing strategy sucks for the following rules.

- The rules mechanics are very simplistic for a game requiring very expensive and high quality components.
Its the sort of game you would expect to fit a cheap bag of soft plastic Airfix soldiers, not high priced high detail miniatures that people take time to paint.

- GW relies on its IP, their main advantage was that they were the first on the scene after TSR to make it big in the fantasy milieu and have a lot of incumbency. They recognise the value of the 40K franchise, but have largely despised their fantasy birthright. People gave a feth about Karaz a Karak or Altdorf or Ulthuan. Nobody really cares if the Fyredwarves defeat the Urroks or not.
Total War Warhammer might open their eyes to the continued appeal of GW's fantasy IP, and their policy could be reversed.

- Games Worskshop pride themselves on their model quality, however esculpting has opened the door far and wide, high quality miniatures are not the province or a handful of gaming companies, just about anyone can set up a Kickstarter scheme, buy an esculpt program, and find a graphics artist to operate it as they are two a penny in the games industry. Then start importing in bulk from a factory that casts from an uploaded specification in China.


Age of Sigmars failure has little to do with the rules themselves and I need not address them. The level of complexity is fine for a miniatures game, just not the miniatures the company market beyond the starter set Sigmarines.
Sigmarines will help, they arent a bad idea in terms of marketing strategy but GW are largely relying on incumbency of the existing player base to carry over between games.

Age of Sigmar doesn't need to be purged with fire, it can continue and even be a main part of GW line. But they need to make cheap simple sculpts for at least three or four models lines for little Timmies to buy and paint with pocket money that fit the simplistic and accessible AoS gameplay.

Second they need to stop pissing on the customers who have invested in Warhammer and continue to support WHFB with an official 9th edition, they can do that though mail order only if needs be. So long its done. Seperating AoS as a divergemnt timeline could achieve this, GW have already changed the 26th century timeline to change Storm of Chaos into End Times, they can allow the timelines to formally diverge rather than be retconned. It could work something like this: Holy Sigmar, possibly even aided by Slaanesh as a matter of mutual convenience, the Dark Prince did not want the world to end as It was having too much fun (this part was canon by the way). Sigmar asked Slaanesh to help Him quietly sever the strands of fate so that fate would divide into different ends, in one the world would continue to its end and Sigmar would quietly wait to save what little remained, in another the world perpetuate forever and Archaon would wonder what went wrong with his great destiny.
This just indicative, one example of how it could be done.

 DarkBlack wrote:

Kaiyanwang wrote:

3) Shoot in melee. It kills both strategy and realism/immersion. This is particularly remarkable because rules that are just mediocre sacrifice one for another. Here we are a rule that has the worst of both worlds. This is catastrophically bad. And hilarious.
9) Cover. See 8 in a way. All these years, and we add cover to the defence. WAKE ME UP
10) No initiative. This kills any nuance I could look for in different troops and creatures in such diverse multiverse. To add a different feel to them. And kills immersion again. See 5, in a way. CANNOT WAKE UP

I see a lot of people having a problem with AoS because of preconceived "sacred cows", that translates to "this is wrong because it's not like it was explained (and I envisioned it) when I started wargaming".

Initiative is just a way of making high damage low defense troops to be viable and to add flavour to how troops work, it does not add realism. Separate to hit, to wound and save rolls give plenty of flavour. The combination of these variables affect how effective troops are against other combinations of stats and how well buffs work on said unit.

At a scale where the exact weapons, position and line of sight matter, I don't see why shooting into combat is such a big deal, hitting a group of people, esp. when SOME of them are fighting another group of people is not that hard for a competent soldier, more so if they are fighting a monster. Yes you might hit your own troops, but I don't see it as enough of a risk to warrant the complication of simulating it. Friendly troops in another unit should block line of sight though. The field of soldiers fighting one on one all over a field that Hollywood loves is not a thing, men stayed in their unit (and out of the enemy unit) unless they were being run down.
From a game design point of view, shooting into combat usually allows too many attacks on a unit that cannot do anything about shooting (because of the combat) and allows free extra attacks to a shooting unit in combat. In a high damage low defense game like AoS the former does not matter and the latter is balanced by only shhooting once per game turn without I-go-u-go.

What is great about cover in AoS is that it is so simple, it is cumbersome to have extra rules for different types and then modify this or that opponent. Admittedly it is clearly a mechanic more than a simulation. I makes you harder to kill if you are in a defensive position though, which what it needs to do. Noting that AoS is a low defense system, it was probably done this was so that it has less of an impact (so camping units are easier to kill), negative modifiers to the opponent's to hit would have been a bigger deal and and only made sense for shooting (see point about how great simplicity is).

What seems to be lost on people is that is a free formation system (i.e. you choose where individual models are in relation to others in the unit) like AoS makes many rules to simulate the formation of units unnecessary. Geometry, not rules does that.
For example: AoS does not need a modifier for being flanked because the flanking unit can get so many more models in to attack a unit that can't respond very well.
Why does no one seem to optimize their formations? If you just shove your guys to the fight (probably in the middle) and hop it goes well then YOU, not the game, has no tactics.

I think CthulusSpy is answering excellently to the initiative thing - I just quote him. In case, think about the battle of the last alliance on the first Lotr movie. Look what happens when the orcs charge the elves.

Shooting in combat is a big deal, because deprives me of the option of charge where and when to suppress such fire. And the fact that you say that in the game does not matter is really a bad sign. Furthermore, you did not address the immersion part - how is even possible that I can pull the bow in that situation.

Cover: -1/-2 to shoot s cumberstone? I mean at least we can vary a bit the rolls. As stated by people above, the stats of the models in general are tragically flat.

You assume I was missing warhammer FB. I compare this to other skirmish. Skirmish like warmachine (orientation of the model matters) or lotr, in which the order of troops and who has shields, spears, bows, where the model is, where are the commanders, drums and banners, and the shape of the formation matter a lot. Yes, what you do say is valid. Is like the minimum thing in a skirmish game with melee and is not a surprise, nor original, and many systems just do it better.

 jmurph wrote:

 DarkBlack wrote:

No. Not all shields are the same, even more so if magic is thrown in.

What makes warscrolls great is that you can make each unit as unique as you like, because it is easy to keep track if all the rules are in one place and you don't need to add special rules and exceptions to the core rules.

Unit rules don't have to be several lists of special rules that get cobbled together to make the unit envisioned.

But that is not what I said. Shields should not have a dozen or so different rules for what are functionally identical items.

Exactly.


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 Kilkrazy wrote:
AoS is simple, simplistic even, in its core rules, but the special rules are not simple because there are so many of them.

However, players only need concern themselves with the special rules actually in play, and these are all printed on the war scrools in play.

The problem is that there are too many special rules in play for AoS to be a "simple" game.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
AoS is simple, simplistic even, in its core rules, but the special rules are not simple because there are so many of them.

However, players only need concern themselves with the special rules actually in play, and these are all printed on the war scrools in play.

The problem is that there are too many special rules in play for AoS to be a "simple" game.

That isnt a problem, and many successful games use the same methodology used by AoS, the best example is Magic the Gathering. You have a set odf core rules and abilities, then you also get the individually abilities on the individual card. warscrolls are like that and that isn't a problem, in fact it enriches the game if there are a lot of special rules on the warscroll to act as gameplay modifiers to the core set of simple rules. That system can work very well.

The rules could certainly be changed, and the change will be subjective so there is little point in saying what should go with what as other will have thier own opinion. As a core concept Age of Sigmar was reasonably well handled as a gaming system. Its rules do not let it down, the lack of points also do not let it down.

What lets it down is appending that system onto Warhammer. The sort of ruleset AoS offers would be best tied to a range of cheap PPP miniatures, a bit like Wizkids and Hasbros product lines on this genre.
GW miniatures are sold to back a different type of hobby. You dont spend what you need to spend to buy a Warhammer army to play the sort of game AoS offers, you need something with more breadth and depth to it.

I think the 4-page rules are great. A simple rules set is an excellent idea for a war game.

The rules could be improved. Measuring from base to base instead of model to model. There could also be a points system. More terrain war scrolls would be nice (river, swamp, hill, etc.). Unit special rules could be more standardized and less unique.

Strengths of AoS -- bring the models you want to bring. No requirements. You can get a bonus by bringing a formation, but you aren't forced into a formation.

Fast games, an hour or two instead of four to eight hours.

Weakness of AoS -- lots of special rules, units, terrain, time of war, battle plan, etc.

4 pages isn't enough for any decent set of rules for something more than a board game. Less universal rules means more army specific rules that you have to look up each army book for which is rather annoying. Not only that but the lack of certain specifics in the main rules means people find as many loopholes as they can. People mentioned since bases didn't matter you could technically position bases on top of each other and have a crap ton of dudes positioned all on each other. More rules means less ridiculous stunts like that. Sure loopholes could exist because GW sucks at making rules (see their FAQ's and now their decision to not make them) but I find there'd be fewer ridiculous stunts pulled.

That and no points values, army restrictions or nothing. At first even trying to put some form of balance to the game in a GW store (at least at the local one) was met with swift action to end it. Without points you don't even know what's equivalent to what or anything. I mean sure it wasn't absolutely balanced before but failing to add any sort of balancing mechanism doesn't make it more balanced it just makes it infinitely less balanced. I'm not even saying 4 monster vs 10 models but more like 10 grave guard vs 30 clanrats. How do we know how potent each unit is now and how to balance them? They truly just threw out cool stats and didn't give a crap about balance.

As has been said you don't set incredible prices for a drinking game. If you have 4 pages of rules and super simple play I expect super low prices and super low cost of entry. That is not what you get.

The ridiculous rules humor that seem like something a 5 year old would laugh at are also insulting. Like you seriously expect me to spend hundreds on this? I could much more easily just play games on the computer for cheap or get a better experience for cheaper elsewhere.

For me what miffed me about AoS is that they killed 'warhammer fantasy' to create it and then branded fantasy players as not being 'true' fans and created a sort of divide in the fan-base by pitting them against each other. At this point GW can just shove their game up their usual place.

IMO A.O.S highlights what is wrong with GW plc game development.It is non existent!

The core concepts of A.O.S from a game design point of view are good.
But the development of these core concepts into a fully functioning war game, just has not happened.

(Compared to other rule sets .)

Its like the devs agreed on the basic core concepts of the game, then the sales department printed it !

4 pages of rules are not that bad for making a wargame (or about 4) its the execution that matters more.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Lanrak wrote:
IMO A.O.S highlights what is wrong with GW plc game development.It is non existent!

Does GW even have game developers? it has always gave me the impression they have only designers, not developers, or designers that also act as developers.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:


The ridiculous rules humor that seem like something a 5 year old would laugh at are also insulting. Like you seriously expect me to spend hundreds on this? I could much more easily just play games on the computer for cheap or get a better experience for cheaper elsewhere.

That was an horrible PR move. What should one get from that?

- That the designers are juvenile hacks?
- That the authors feel contempt for the player base?
- That the intelligence of the designers is one that find such jokes funny, explaining why they considered AoS a finished product?
- That they are desperate and underpaid and they wrote such rules out of spite for the company?
- That they did actually wanted AoS look what it is - a rushed, shallow and unfinished product?

What should I bring home for that rules? That I cannot even make up my jokes at the gaming table? A bit like with conversions (no mail order of bits since years) I have to make the jokes GW invents? How does this does not feel disconnected with dumping the marine and raising the Stormcats staue?

I think the point is that people should lighten up - it's just a game.

That's the wrong way to inspire people to that feeling it if you are a game designer.

Doing silly things for the silliness of it, should never be in the rules.

Oh, no doubt it wasn't the best set of decisions. But it is clear that GW's designers were completely dismayed over what Fantasy had become.

That is their fault.

All the rules humor is pretty much removed from AoS at this point, its not in the Great Alliance books or any of the war scrolls in the Age of Sigmar books.

The "amusing" rules, though, were not an integral part of the game design, and could simply be ignored like any other special rule.

Whereas in Panzer Pranks (Chaosium, 1980) combat was resolved, if I recall it correctly, by playing the paper/scissors/stone game. If you thought this rule was silly and refused to use it, the game would become unplayable as there was no way to resolve an attack.

From that angle I do not think the "amusing" rules were a core design error of AoS, although they predictably turned out to be a marketing error.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I think the point is that people should lighten up - it's just a game.

So fans 'lightened up' after the prequels and revisions of 'Star Wars'.

Yeah it's just a game alright. It only cost people hundreds if not thousands to play but basically throwing the game out with not a lot of warning or none at all. Having your big announcement be that your game is dead and is being replaced by a childish version of itself where you bounce dice of your balls and growl like a monkey for re-rolls to hit. Not only that if you don't like it you can just leave the store as you're not wanted. Oh and the big things AoS has done is mostly just circle bases on all our fantasy models so that we can't play and given us 3 updated armies (chaos which is only there so sigmarines have an enemy, sigmarines and dwarfs which to my knowledge nobody I know has bought them). They basically killed our universe, scrawled something on toilet paper and handed it in for the rules and expected us to buy into this. Fantasy players were more angry how GW made us out to be the bad guys and set us against the AoS wargamers as that is the remains of our much enjoyed game.

Oh and how would you feel if one of your great games had it's world destroyed and you were all fighting in some weird warp bubble verse where your old game pretty much became unplayable as model lines were being killed off, bases were being replaced and the game you loved now has people leaving it as it's a dead game that will never be updated with new models, rules or attention so if you had an out-of-date army like beastmen, skaven or bretonnia. As a skaven player with our 8 page FAQ and in desperate need for a new army book I was hoping after 6 or so years I'd get my ****ing army update and just so you know End Times was no replacement for a good solid army book. End Times was a game of OP units anyway for the most part. Oh and that's another thing. End Times advertised fantasy in a big way and I invested probably 150 dollars at least on it as it was HUGE. Then when the world is destroyed there's nothing and I figure 9th might still happen only to find out the big announcement is it's dead. That's like somebody celebrating your grandma died. It wasn't a game for us but it was hyped up to be just that. GW f'ed up and they f'ed up bad but at this point knowing what the fans want or catering to those fans is beyond them. I'd imagine they think tau and eldar are popular because of pretty or big models rather than how OP they are. You know as if you couldn't give everybody big OP models. At that point though it's less a game of armies fighting and more a game of a few centerpiece models and that's not what I got into the game for since '07.

Also GW needs to use more creativity than just throwing in Space Marines. You can tell the effort was very half-***ed and lazy. Sad bit is I liked warriors of chaos and the lack of space marines in fantasy. It made warriors of chaos actually scary to face in combat. Sigmarines just takes that away and without normal humans as the main faction it's less relatable. I can't relate to some faceless sigmarine but I certainly know what the peasant picking up arms to defend his family thinks. I can't like most of whatever they do with AoS with that alone. The good guys under siege idea is a lot more fun because bad guys need to be a threat as others have stated. Otherwise you don't care and the baddies are just there to be stomped that day of the week. Even with 40k it wasn't totally like fantasy's level of desperation. 40k had space marines and a massive empire that was slowly crumbling. So what if they lose 10 worlds as they have like a million more to replace it with. If the empire loses a province due to an enemy they have about 11 left. That's right 12 provinces. Imagine the look of horror on an empire peasant's face if some great enemy just laid waste to 3 provinces without any sign of stopping. It was a huge deal in comparison (or would be if plot armor wasn't a thing). Guess we all found out that GW's profits matter the most though. That way you get a weird story of nagash defending the empire for some really odd reason (huh?). Well at least that's what I heard even if it was temporary.

 Manchu wrote:
I agree with my esteemed colleague that it belongs here.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Moving thread to Games Design forum.

Please note - this thread should stick as close as possible to discussion of mechanics. For example, complaining about the setting changes would be off-topic.

Thanks!

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I think the point is that people should lighten up - it's just a game.

Oh and how would you feel if one of your great games had it's world destroyed

Go re-read my sig.

I'm a Dogs of War player, so you can just shut the hell up until your precious Skaven get perma-Squatted.

Hey my Bretonnians are almost in the same boat. There are warscrolls, for now, but the product line has disappeared and the faction hasnt been transfered over.

But seeing as I refuse to move on from WHFB, it doesnt matter much.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I think the point is that people should lighten up - it's just a game.

Oh and how would you feel if one of your great games had it's world destroyed

Go re-read my sig.

I'm a Dogs of War player, so you can just shut the hell up until your precious Skaven get perma-Squatted.

How big was the game and is it still allowed in a GW? Currently in the usa you can't play warhammer fantasy at a GW. It took a lot of money to play warhammer fantasy but probably not as much for 'dogs of war'. Not only that but it's a specialist game whereas Fantasy was a primary one. It was the flagship game for GW at a point. I mean it's like Disney without mickey mouse or DC comics without superman. It's kind of a bigger and more in depth game.

-----

Oh sorry I'm getting back on topic then. The biggest issue with the rules was 'no points' amounts. Lots of different army books, the BRB was 4 pages which isn't a lot of army-wide rules (doesn't explain lots of odd situations so it's prone to people taking advantage of anything) and the childish rules humor. That's mostly it from a rules standpoint.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

 flamingkillamajig wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I think the point is that people should lighten up - it's just a game.

Oh and how would you feel if one of your great games had it's world destroyed

Go re-read my sig.

I'm a Dogs of War player, so you can just shut the hell up until your precious Skaven get perma-Squatted.

How big was the game and is it still allowed in a GW? Currently in the usa you can't play warhammer fantasy at a GW. It took a lot of money to play warhammer fantasy but probably not as much for 'dogs of war'. Not only that but it's a specialist game whereas Fantasy was a primary one. It was the flagship game for GW at a point. I mean it's like Disney without mickey mouse or DC comics without superman. It's kind of a bigger and more in depth game.

-----

Oh sorry I'm getting back on topic then. The biggest issue with the rules was 'no points' amounts. Lots of different army books, the BRB was 4 pages which isn't a lot of army-wide rules (doesn't explain lots of odd situations so it's prone to people taking advantage of anything) and the childish rules humor. That's mostly it from a rules standpoint.

Game?


That's an official Warhammer Armies book for WFB 5E.

Try (then) fully-supported Warhammer Fantasy Army dating back to the very early days of Warhammer Fantasy, with support withdrawn during WFB 7E. The point that the models no longer have official rules for WFB or AoS.

Your Skaven got officially translated to AoS, so you have no right to complain.

As fo Fantasy being the flagship, that hasn't been true since 40k2 came out - long before you started playing.

The fact of the matter is that AoS is the new edition of Fantasy. Period.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Did I say the other side was faster? Number of attacks isn't speed.

So attacks a humanoid can make 3 potentially lethal strikes in the time another humanoid makes one potentially lethal swing, but this isn’t because of speed. Or it might be some element of speed, separate from speed as it’s captured in WS and In. It might be aggression, and we’ll just choose to ignore that aggression is more likely to produce models who strike first, but doesn’t in WHFB, because reasons.

Have you really not seen any bit of fiction, where spear wielding or even ranged weapon wielding soldiers were cut down by a swordsman, because they didn't react fast enough?

My entire post was 105 words, less than The Hungry Caterpillar, and you couldn’t manage to read it all before you got distracted. I’ll repeat my question, because hope springs eternal.
“Just ask yourself if you've ever heard of a combat, either in the real world or in any fantasy series, that described one side having the advantage of attacking first, not because of weapons like spears, but because they had better 'reactions'. Then it described the other side making more attacks per model, because they were 'faster' despite their slower reactions. And after that happened, then the first side suddenly got their 'reaction' advantage back again.”

Having a good weapon with reach helps, but it isn't an instant win.

In the WHFB ruleset, a good weapon doesn’t even help. It isn’t a factor at all in determining who goes first.

The split between Initiative, Attacks and Weapons skill isn't a thing that can be defended in absolute terms, because it’s clearly a messy nonsense. Even the placement of them in the stat table was a nonsense harking back to a very different time in wargaming - Iniative is the first stat of the three used in a combat, it's second last in the table. Attacks are the second stat used, it's at the back too. WS is the last one used, it's the second stat listed.

Accept it as was it is – a legacy design that worked well enough, that didn’t interfere too badly with the design strengths elsewhere. Defending it in itself, either by pretending it simulates something or adds strategic depth, is an effort to justify bad design. Three stats, with poor to non-existent differentiation, just to determine who lands more hits, is bad design.

@JohnHwangDD: Oh cool dude they killed ONE faction in a game and you could just move on to a different faction and still play the game. Had skaven died I'd have been angry but they killed the whole game. If you liked the old game there was 15 factions that went down the crapper. Yeah you can play them in AoS but if you don't like AoS GW won't let you play Warhammer Fantasy (at least in my country) at their store.

Also yeah I do have a right to complain because I spent lots of money on an army instead of doing other things. That took years and probably over a thousand dollars to do and their big announcement is 'Fantasy is dead! Play our new game or get out!' That's going to miff fantasy players period.

Honestly wouldn't care if skaven were perma-squatted at this point. The game is now a massive joke of itself in AoS. AoS isn't a game I play. It's like replacing the original trilogy of Star Wars with the Prequel trilogy and forcing everybody to buy it.

I understand Warhammer Fantasy is just a game to some but I invested a lot of time, money and effort into it and it was my favorite fantasy universe by a lot. Everybody has one game, movie, comic, etc. universe that is super special to them and for me Warhammer Fantasy was that. Had skaven died I would've cared but not as much as I would've gotten into vampire counts with AoS they didn't even try. They didn't even make points values as a sense GW truly gave up trying to make a game and just said, 'Here you fans come up with something....or just play with some random forces as we don't care as long as you give us money.'

Do you even read what you post? You get to complain when you have a fully-supported army but I don't? Your investment matters, but mine doesn't? That's beyond hypocritical. I'm done with you.

 sebster wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Did I say the other side was faster? Number of attacks isn't speed.

So attacks a humanoid can make 3 potentially lethal strikes in the time another humanoid makes one potentially lethal swing, but this isn’t because of speed. Or it might be some element of speed, separate from speed as it’s captured in WS and In. It might be aggression, and we’ll just choose to ignore that aggression is more likely to produce models who strike first, but doesn’t in WHFB, because reasons.

You could just as easily interpret it as one large strike that can kill roughly kill three guys. It doesn't have to be quick consecutive blows.
The main problem with the combat system it that it was fairly abstract. It needs a bit of interpretation.

There was one thing I always thought was backwards though, and that was how wounds were resolved. Like, shouldn't it be roll for armor THEN roll for damage? Maybe they were trying to copy DnD's saving throws or something.

As for agression, yes, it does increase the likelihood of striking first. Orcs even had a rule where they got +1 initiative on the charge. Keep in mind that blindly charging forward may open up a weak spot though, which could be exploited by a more quick-witted opponent though. Much like a marshal arts master against a drunk.

 sebster wrote:

Have you really not seen any bit of fiction, where spear wielding or even ranged weapon wielding soldiers were cut down by a swordsman, because they didn't react fast enough?

My entire post was 105 words, less than The Hungry Caterpillar, and you couldn’t manage to read it all before you got distracted. I’ll repeat my question, because hope springs eternal.
“Just ask yourself if you've ever heard of a combat, either in the real world or in any fantasy series, that described one side having the advantage of attacking first, not because of weapons like spears, but because they had better 'reactions'. Then it described the other side making more attacks per model, because they were 'faster' despite their slower reactions. And after that happened, then the first side suddenly got their 'reaction' advantage back again.”

I did read your post, and I gave my answer. The answer was "most fights in fiction"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 sebster wrote:


In the WHFB ruleset, a good weapon doesn’t even help. It isn’t a factor at all in determining who goes first.

That's not entirely true. There are some weapons that modify when you get to attack.
Some weapons gave an ini bonus, some reduced initiative in exchange for more strength.

And weapons do help. Do mean to tell me that you never benefited from the strength bonus provided by halberds, or the extra Attacks given by spears?


The three stats are differentiated.
Initiative is when you get to attack, attacks was how much damage you could potentially deal and WS was your likelihood of hitting. Those seem pretty different to me.

I agree with CthuluIsSpy, but.. truth to be told, I wish any game system other than RPGs like DnD* and Pathfinder* took in account the advantage of a weapon with reach.

I mean about the "who strikes first". In the old WFB, I could have seen in the old WFB, say, cavalry take sort of "impact blows" (on the other way around) because they charcged a pikewall


* In those, at least in some version, if you charge an enemy with a "reach advantage" (is bigger, has a polearm) you generally get struck once (or more with specific character builds) unless you are very good in tumbling or dodging blows. Now, the scale level for a wargame is totally different, but you see the point I hope.

In a mass battle game, which theoretically models the behavour of hundreds or thousands of troops, close attention to initiative adn weapon length is far too detailed. It's worth doing in a skirmish game with only a few models interacting at any time.

AoS potentially has pretty large numbers of interactions, since most units are 6 to 12 figures but easily can number over 30 (Skinks, for example.) I think that's too many troops to count initiative, and I think the stat line in AoS is already too long even without adding another factor.

In the case of large, powerful models, it doesn't seem right that they would be able to deliver several attacks simultaneously.

All 3 stats could have been a single stat or at best two, but if we go minimalist WS, S, T, I, A, Save could be rolled into either one or two stats.

The main problem with all GW lines comes down to design indecision, what are these games? the have the numbers of mass battles and the rules (and stats) for skirmish heroic combat and set on a table suitable for large skirmish games, two elements that should be mutually exclusive set on a board that is either too small or kinda big for either design direction (and the 30mm minis are not really suitable for massed combat but hey).

The "squatting" discussion is a really important discussion we should do, but I am afraid most of us does not really have the experience for it.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
In a mass battle game, which theoretically models the behavour of hundreds or thousands of troops, close attention to initiative adn weapon length is far too detailed. It's worth doing in a skirmish game with only a few models interacting at any time.

AoS potentially has pretty large numbers of interactions, since most units are 6 to 12 figures but easily can number over 30 (Skinks, for example.) I think that's too many troops to count initiative, and I think the stat line in AoS is already too long even without adding another factor.

In the case of large, powerful models, it doesn't seem right that they would be able to deliver several attacks simultaneously.

Are you sure is that difficult? I mean think about WFB. Would have been so difficult to handle

"Units with spears and halberds add +1 to their initiative in the turn they receive a charge from cavalry".

I ask, mind it - maybe there is some clunkiness I ignored, I did not think this through.

Yes, it could work that way. That's not the way I would do it since my expectation is that when hundreds of men are fighting, all of the men on one side won't go before all of the men on the other side.

For example, in WRG Ancients, units with halberds and other such two handed cut and thrust pole arms (2HCT weapons) give a -1 DRM to the attack factor of anyone facing them. This is based on the idea that the extra reach of pole arms and their ability to chop the head off enemy weapons, give a slight advantage. Spears get a +1 factor against cavalry, and Pikes +2 (or something, I can't remember the details...) because cavalry don't like charging into a bristling wall of spikes.

However this system does not allow side 1 to kill hundreds of side 2 before side 2 gets a hack back, which is what happens in games like WHFB which have a definite strike rank based on initiative.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Yes, it could work that way. That's not the way I would do it since my expectation is that when hundreds of men are fighting, all of the men on one side won't go before all of the men on the other side.

For example, in WRG Ancients, units with halberds and other such two handed cut and thrust pole arms (2HCT weapons) give a -1 DRM to the attack factor of anyone facing them. This is based on the idea that the extra reach of pole arms and their ability to chop the head off enemy weapons, give a slight advantage. Spears get a +1 factor against cavalry, and Pikes +2 (or something, I can't remember the details...) because cavalry don't like charging into a bristling wall of spikes.

However this system does not allow side 1 to kill hundreds of side 2 before side 2 gets a hack back, which is what happens in games like WHFB which have a definite strike rank based on initiative.

I am curious now - if you do not consider this a derail, could you care to elaborate the DRM thing? And what is a "factor"?

I'll check the rules tonight before I answer, as it's years since I played.

Does discussion of discontinued factions really fit this thread? I thought this was to discuss mechanics issues in AoS?

Following the discussion on polearms, since AoS seems to be more skirmish focused, I would approach it from that angle. GW trying to do "mass battles" has always been a mess (Your horde unit has 50 members? WTF?). The question should probably be looked at from the perspective of giving them a niche without overpowering all other choices (even though, historically, that's pretty much what they did :-)). Maybe something like +1 Init and if they don't move other than to change facing and additional +1 S to charges to the front. Pikes would probably be +2 and +2.

"Units with spears and halberds add +1 to their initiative in the turn they receive a charged from cavalry".

I'm actually kind of surprised that the spear units don't get a bonus to receiving charges in AoS. The only bonus that most of these units gain is a bonus to the number of ranks that can fight. Maybe that's a legacy of WFB, or not wanting to have too many conditional bonuses.

In comparison, lance armed cavalry does get a bonus when it charges (although cav with swords doesn't get a charging bonus).

Of course it was either "receive a charge" or "are charged" Edited!

But as a general rule, one should decide what weapons and armours (the latter are more intuitive) are supposed to do.

There should be a difference if a weapon is one or two handed?
There should be a difference if the weapon is a polearm?
There should be a difference if the shield is greater or smaller?
There should be a difference if the same one-handed weapon is an axe or a sword (hopefully not implemented like in the often house-ruled awful hobbit SBG weapon rules).

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Do you even read what you post? You get to complain when you have a fully-supported army but I don't? Your investment matters, but mine doesn't? That's beyond hypocritical. I'm done with you.

No I said I don't desire to play the game anymore when AoS came to be. It's not a game for me. I said I was a fantasy player and I don't want to play AoS. It's a game made with me not in mind. Also they murdered a setting. I see myself as a Warhammer Fantasy player not as a Skaven player. You fail to realize that.

Also I never said you don't get to complain I just feel I have the right to complain as well. Sides if they killed off skaven as I said I would be pissed but I'd have moved on to vampire counts. AoS is a game I have zero interest in and far as I'm concerned fantasy is dead even with AoS around. I have zero interest to play it and I tried but I just don't want to play it. At this point I don't even care anymore. I may as well just sell my models.

I understand maybe you can just brush it off but it's just tougher to me. It was my favorite fantasy setting. Everybody has a favorite and for me that was it. It actually made me want to consider never buying from GW again. It's not like this is the first time they've burned the customers just never to that degree.

 jmurph wrote:
Does discussion of discontinued factions really fit this thread? I thought this was to discuss mechanics issues in AoS?

Yes and no.

it is not directly related to the rules (other than how poorly the discontinued factions were supported) but one cannot look at AoS in Isolation, some of its aspects are pure rules, bit others are how fluff is translated into rules.

For people wanting some more detail on combat in WRG Ancients, here is a very brief overview of 6th edition (1980.)

Troops are defined by their training and morale class, armour class, type (cavalry, infantry, etc.) and weapons carried.

Each weapon type has a basic combat factor against each armour class and troop type and formation. For instance, Pike or Long Thrusting Spear is 3 against Super Heavy Knights, 4 against Extra Heavy Knights, 5 against Heavy Cavalry, 2 against Heavy Infantry, 3 against Medium Infantry.

If charging, Pikes count the first two ranks, and half the third and fourth ranks as fighting. Spears count the first rank and half the second rank.

You then add Tactical Factors, for example (not complete list):

Steady Pikes or Long Spears receiving Impetuous Cavalry +1
Advancing downhill +1

Facing Pikes and not equipped with Pikes or LTS -1
Facing Two Handed Cut and Thrust pole arms, -1

You then add a random factor. For Regulars this is +1DA (Average Die 2,3,3,4,4,5) -1DA. For Irregulars it is +1D6 -1DA.
A and B class troops count a roll under -1 as -1.
C class count the roll as taken.
D class count a roll abover +1 as +1.

This gives you a total combat factor of the weapon factor +/- tactical and random factors.

You cross-reference this on a chart against the number of figures fighting, and read off the number of casualties. 20 casualties = 1 figure removed.

As you can see, this system works completely differently to AoS. Its disadvantage is that there is more work involved in learning it, but once learnt it is quicker to use, which is a boon for games with large numbers of figures involved. AoS when played at 30 to 50 figures a side is a much smaller game than a typical mass battle game.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
For people wanting some more detail on combat in WRG Ancients, here is a very brief overview of 6th edition (1980.)

Troops are defined by their training and morale class, armour class, type (cavalry, infantry, etc.) and weapons carried.

Each weapon type has a basic combat factor against each armour class and troop type and formation. For instance, Pike or Long Thrusting Spear is 3 against Super Heavy Knights, 4 against Extra Heavy Knights, 5 against Heavy Cavalry, 2 against Heavy Infantry, 3 against Medium Infantry.

If charging, Pikes count the first two ranks, and half the third and fourth ranks as fighting. Spears count the first rank and half the second rank.

You then add Tactical Factors, for example (not complete list):

Steady Pikes or Long Spears receiving Impetuous Cavalry +1
Advancing downhill +1

Facing Pikes and not equipped with Pikes or LTS -1
Facing Two Handed Cut and Thrust pole arms, -1

You then add a random factor. For Regulars this is +1DA (Average Die 2,3,3,4,4,5) -1DA. For Irregulars it is +1D6 -1DA.
A and B class troops count a roll under -1 as -1.
C class count the roll as taken.
D class count a roll abover +1 as +1.

This gives you a total combat factor of the weapon factor +/- tactical and random factors.

You cross-reference this on a chart against the number of figures fighting, and read off the number of casualties. 20 casualties = 1 figure removed.

As you can see, this system works completely differently to AoS. Its disadvantage is that there is more work involved in learning it, but once learnt it is quicker to use, which is a boon for games with large numbers of figures involved. AoS when played at 30 to 50 figures a side is a much smaller game than a typical mass battle game.

Thanks! It takes in account and compares a lot of factors, more than I am accustomed to

 jmurph wrote:
Does discussion of discontinued factions really fit this thread? I thought this was to discuss mechanics issues in AoS?

No it does not.

Super Heavy Knights v. Extra Heavy Knights v. Heavy Cavalry? Yikes! Heavy/Medium/Light infantry also seems a bit too granular.

What time period does this ruleset cover? I am curious why it needs to make such divisions. I would think that most ancient infantry would be skirmishers, infantry (usually little to no armor, but fight in formation), or heavy infantry (anything with significant armor). In terms of battlefield role, ancient generals would probably have grouped them more by how they fought- light infantry being the skirmishers and open order fighters, heavy infantry being the battle line formations. Not sure how you would distinguish "medium"- perhaps they consider the skirmishers "light", unarmored infantry as "medium", and armored as "heavy"?.

From an ancient's player point of view, Warhammer always struck me as a skirmish game. By that I meant that it is/was small scale (the wider wargaming community has a slightly different definition). Resolving individual attacks, the exact equipment and number of "men" never seemed like a mass battle game.

Ancients did though, where similar weapons are lumped together into troop types, there are no characters (generals provide moral, organization and small combat benefits) each base (several figures on the same base represents the smallest body of men) was clearly represents many men (usually around 50 men per figure) and (importantly) combat is very abstract, which makes troops feel and act like a representation.


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 jmurph wrote:
Super Heavy Knights v. Extra Heavy Knights v. Heavy Cavalry? Yikes! Heavy/Medium/Light infantry also seems a bit too granular.

It's about standard for ancients, which usually covers from when armies became a thing to the advent of gunpowder.

WRG Ancients -- more properly War Game Rules, 3000 BC to 1485 AD, cover the period from the earliert documentary evidence of organised warfare to the end ot the Wars of the Roses, chosen because the author is ENglish and it roughly marks the end of the pre-gunpowder phase of warfare.

The armour classes are:

Super Heavy = clad more or less head to toe in rigid metal armour. Fight in close formation. Example: Late mediaeval knights in full plate, Parthian cataphracts.
Extra Heavy = clad more or less head to toe in chainmail, scale or equivalent, or partial plate plus thick non-metallic armour. Fight in close formation. Example: knights of about 1300 AD. Front rank billmen or pikemen of 15th century.
Heavy = half clad in metal armour, such as Early Imperial Roman Legionaries, Norman knights, mid-15th century longbowmen. Fight in close formation.
Light Heavy = Heavies who fight in an open formation, such as Early Imperial Roman auxiliaries.
Medium = Clad in partial non-metallic armour or none, perhaps with metal helmets and greaves. Examples: Late Greek hoplites who wore the linen cuirass. Mediaeval militia with a mixture of armour but not enought to count as heavy. Fight in close formation.
Light Medium. As Medium but fighting in open formation.
Light. Skrimished in little or no armour.

SHK = mounted SH knights. Dismounted knights become SHI (Infantry.)
HC = Heavy Cavalry.
and so on for the other armour classes. Artillery, elephants, and war wagons are different. Camelry and Chariotry count the same as their Cavalry equivalents.

This may seem too granular, but there are other rules for ancients that do it differently. For example, De Bellis Antiquitatis (WRG, 1990) classifies troops by formation and function, ignoring armour. in DBA, a dismounted SHI is a "Blade" unit, the same as a Roman Legionary or a New Kingdom Egyptian axe man.

in WRG Ancients's defence, there are some periods such as 15th century, when a battlefield might genuinely see knights in full plate, billmen in half plate, archers in chainmail hauberks. town militia in padded gambesons and helmets, and light troops with little or nothing to protect themselves. The designers thought these differences were worth expressing in the rules.

To relate this back to the topic, in AoS troops are not classified at all. They simply have stats of movement and To Save. There aren't any formations, so that bit is irrelevant.

I think that classification speaks to a rather technological understanding, which is appropriate to historical subjects - but not really necessary for the fantastical.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
You could just as easily interpret it as one large strike that can kill roughly kill three guys. It doesn't have to be quick consecutive blows.

In some cases it could be, such as ogres, and in other cases it could represent having multiple ways to attack, such as a hydra. But in many cases the model with multiple attacks was a humanoid, with slightly above average strength, and nothing to indicate

The main problem with the combat system it that it was fairly abstract. It needs a bit of interpretation.

Yeah, it was fairly abstract in a simulation sense, but quite detailed in a rules sense, with 4 stats involved in attack and 4 stats involved in defence, with special rules added on top of that. It was hardly a big problem, and WHFB had so many other strengths that it didn't matter much, but it was clearly a bit of nonsense design and it shouldn't have been a surprise when they finally moved to something simpler and cleaner.

There was one thing I always thought was backwards though, and that was how wounds were resolved. Like, shouldn't it be roll for armor THEN roll for damage? Maybe they were trying to copy DnD's saving throws or something.

Yeah, I understand why they wanted the other player to get to roll a 'saving throw', to have some feel over whether his soldier's lived or died. But why it had to be an 'armour save' and not a 'toughness save' is the weird one. Have the attacker roll to hit and to beat armour, then have the target roll to see if his toughness saves him.

I did read your post, and I gave my answer. The answer was "most fights in fiction"

Seriously, name a fight in any fiction in which they said 'this guy had better reactions and so he got the first attack in, but missed because he wasn't as skillful, then the other guy attacked with more skill, and also made more attacks in the same time, but then after those attacks the first guy's reactions helped him get a new attack in.'

That's obviously a very specific example, but I'm willing to work with you here. Just give me a combat in any fantasy fiction which differentiates reactions, weapon skill and frequency of attacks. In even the most general sense.

Afterall, if you think that describes most fights in fiction, then you'll have no problem describing one of them.

That's not entirely true. There are some weapons that modify when you get to attack.
Some weapons gave an ini bonus, some reduced initiative in exchange for more strength.

Okay yes, two handed weapons mean you go last, and some magic weapons give a bonus to initiative. But those are minor exceptions to a very strange part of the rules - the general principle for everything else, swords, hand weapons, spears, halberds, flails... is that they don't impact initiative at all, it is all down to the initiative of the creature.

And weapons do help. Do mean to tell me that you never benefited from the strength bonus provided by halberds, or the extra Attacks given by spears?

You've misread. We were talking about who goes first in combat, you said a good weapon helps but it isn't an auto-win. I said a good weapon doesn't even help - a spear doesn't help you go first in any way.

Initiative is when you get to attack, attacks was how much damage you could potentially deal and WS was your likelihood of hitting. Those seem pretty different to me.

Those are mechanical differences. Obviously the stats have mechanical differences. The point is that those mechanical differences represent nothing meaningful in how combat actually works.


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 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Are you sure is that difficult? I mean think about WFB. Would have been so difficult to handle

"Units with spears and halberds add +1 to their initiative in the turn they receive a charge from cavalry".

I ask, mind it - maybe there is some clunkiness I ignored, I did not think this through.

It's clunky because there's potentially 10 individual ranks of action for each combat. Actually there's 12 if you include ASF and ASL. In reasonably complex combat with multiple characters and a few unique types, there's a bit of time spent going 'anyone at In 7? No, okay anyone at In 6? Okay, you've got two guys and I've got 1. You roll first...'

Having a rule that modifies some of Initiative stats in some circumstances isn't too much more detail in itself, but it is adding more detail on to an already creaky system.

Consider instead that there's no initiative stat. Everyone strikes at once, except for some models and some weapons that get a Strikes First rule, and some models and some weapons get a Strikes Last rule. Then you could say that spears receive Strikes First against models that charged that turn.

 DarkBlack wrote:
From an ancient's player point of view, Warhammer always struck me as a skirmish game. By that I meant that it is/was small scale (the wider wargaming community has a slightly different definition). Resolving individual attacks, the exact equipment and number of "men" never seemed like a mass battle game.

If you wanted an issue with GW rules in general, this might be a good one too: the rules writers (or the ones cutting their paychecks, depending on your level of cynicism) seem to want big massive scrums with dragons and giant tanks and robots, but they also want you to keep track of which exact Guardsman is carrying the Codpiece of Ollanius Pius and where he's standing in relation to his squadmates.

And arguably, I'd say that lack of overall vision is what hurts AoS: you have rules that are meant to completely upend the teatable (going from mass-battle rank and flank to loose formation skirmish) but include weird concessions to legacy players that are detrimental to the experience (measuring from models instead of bases), a game that's meant to be casual/non-competitive but requires either a lot of playtesting and army tuning with your buddy or good system mastery to set up games that aren't one-sided stomps, and trying to do a Warmahordes/Malifaux-style game without really understanding the rules framework that makes those games work.

 Manchu wrote:
I think that classification speaks to a rather technological understanding, which is appropriate to historical subjects - but not really necessary for the fantastical.

I agree. If anything, the more fantastical the fantasy rules are, the better, otherwise all you have is a mediaeval wargame with whacky figures.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

 Manchu wrote:
I think that classification speaks to a rather technological understanding, which is appropriate to historical subjects - but not really necessary for the fantastical.

I agree. If anything, the more fantastical the fantasy rules are, the better, otherwise all you have is a mediaeval wargame with whacky figures.

IMO, there's a gamut of rules for fantasy. From flying elephants to fully-chromed chromey dragons. I would not be opposed to a medieval wargame with flying elephants.

The fantasy variant of WRG Ancients counted a Dragon as a flying elephant armed with a fire syphon.

Of course, there is a limit how far you can deviate away from the basic battle format before you don't have a war game any more.

My thoughts are coming out slowly this morning.

What I mean is, you can take WRG Ancients and just put Orcs and Elves and so on into it, and rate their armour and so on by the historical rules. Use say the Crusader army list for Elves, and the Aztec list for ORcs, or whatever. A giant dinosaur can be an elephant. And so on.

You can add specific fantastic rules, such as the ability to affect weather, perhaps, or the ability to raise dead units as zombies.

But once you get to the point of actual armies being useless, you don't have a battle game that recreates fights as seen in LotR and Narnia. Maybe you've got a kind of skirmish game like AoS or Of Gods And Mortals.

Too true. I just like the consistency of Monsters as elephants and flying elephants rules-wise, even if the Fluff description varies by army faction.

 sebster wrote:


Consider instead that there's no initiative stat. Everyone strikes at once, except for some models and some weapons that get a Strikes First rule, and some models and some weapons get a Strikes Last rule. Then you could say that spears receive Strikes First against models that charged that turn.

Well, in this way is like to have all Init 2, two-handers (say) Init 1, and Pikes and Cavalry-lances-not-vs-pikes (say) init 3.

Is enough to give immersion, but kills not complexity. Could be an elegant way if other paradigms are not preferred (like, say, each model acts full and then passes like in WMH, or there is a combat roll and only winners strike rolls to wound and wounding is not easy, like Lotr).

Not bad.

I think there's 4 majors flaws with the rules:

Some of them are counter-intuitive (shooting out of combat, gaining cover from being on a wall but not behind it)

Some of them result in overly fiddly player interaction (measuring from the models, combat ranges, having to move troops 3 times per turn)

Some of them are just badly written (is that how cover is meant to work? How does summoning work?)

Some of them are overly convoluted (how many shields are there?)

All of these serve to break immersion and turn what appears to be a simple game on the surface (4 pages of rules) into a complex slog, whilst at the same time having removed a lot of the tactical elements (shooting out of, no unit facings).

Some of that could have been fixed at a proofreading stage, but most of it is just poor design. Good design involves writing clear, intuitive rules that do their best to maintain immersion.

Some of it is good though - units getting weaker as they take damage is brilliant.

Thank you for the clarification, Kilkrazy. Didn't realize by Ancients they actually meant Ancients through early Renaissance! In that case, I can see why they might distinguish. Though kind of not, since hoplites aren't going to face gendarmes, so all that really matter is the relative strengths and weaknesses of what actually would be in the field (so Norman cav might not be heavy compared to later knights, but they filled the role and were the heaviest thing that was hitting the field at that time). But I digress...

Also a flying fire-spitting elephant sounds awesome.

The fact that GW can't (won't?) decide on a battle scale (individual? warbands? armies?) hugely impedes coherent rules. But, if we accept that GW defines themselves as a model company now and the rules are essentially just a gimmick to sell models, does it matter? That is, if GW isn't even bothering to call themselves a wargaming company, why should they be bothered with good rules design so long as their main product is selling? And if that is the case, I don't know that's it's worth the effort to try to invest time critiquing or improving the ruleset. It is what it is.

 jmurph wrote:
But, if we accept that GW defines themselves as a model company now and the rules are essentially just a gimmick to sell models, does it matter?

Indeed. Which is too bad. Because if it's just a question of making models, gimmick rules shouldn't be necessary.

For those looking for a more historical/technological approach to list writing in a "fantasy" game, I'd really recommend Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit Strategy Battle Game (soon to be rebranded as Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game). Every unit and every option is very rationally laid out. This of course is partly a result of the races all (or mostly) sharing a phenotype, as it were, as well as roughly the same kind of equipment. It's also a result of Tolkien's work being an explicitly Christian fantasy and therefore assuming an ordered, historical approach.

Contrast this to Warhammer Fantasy - either Old World or AoS - in which Chaos rather than Cosmos is the basis of the setting. In Warhammer Fantasy, the Psychic is preeminent over the Material. Technology is meaningless in the face of true magic, which ignores any and every natural law upon which science is even possible. In this kind of world, it matters less what something is than what it symbolizes - as in a dream. (The appearance of) heavy armor in AoS, for example, stands for toughness generally rather than being a literal constant X applied universally, as in SBG.

 jmurph wrote:
Thank you for the clarification, Kilkrazy. Didn't realize by Ancients they actually meant Ancients through early Renaissance! In that case, I can see why they might distinguish. Though kind of not, since hoplites aren't going to face gendarmes, so all that really matter is the relative strengths and weaknesses of what actually would be in the field ... ...

Ancients has always allowed "fantasy" match-ups between say Old Kingdom Egyptian and English 100 Years War because players like different armies from a huge swathe of history and at tournaments they need to be able to fight each other.

WRG's next set of rules, De Bellis Antiquitatis, classifies troops by battlefield function and behaviour rather than weapon/armour/morale type, and also has been very successful.

In looking at non-historical match-ups, the problems are usually worst at the extremes. Old Kingdom Egyptians, with no cavalry and almost no armour or heavy weapons, are going to have trouble against a heavily armoured force with good cavalry, such as a good Crusader army. This is inevitable. The historical example is conquistadors versus Incas or Aztecs. That said, some contemporary match-ups are difficult, Parthians versus Republican Romans, for instance, not because of the technology but due to the composition of the forces.

 Manchu wrote:
For those looking for a more historical/technological approach to list writing in a "fantasy" game, I'd really recommend Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit Strategy Battle Game (soon to be rebranded as Middle-earth Strategy Battle Game). Every unit and every option is very rationally laid out. This of course is partly a result of the races all (or mostly) sharing a phenotype, as it were, as well as roughly the same kind of equipment. It's also a result of Tolkien's work being an explicitly Christian fantasy and therefore assuming an ordered, historical approach.

Contrast this to Warhammer Fantasy - either Old World or AoS - in which Chaos rather than Cosmos is the basis of the setting. In Warhammer Fantasy, the Psychic is preeminent over the Material. Technology is meaningless in the face of true magic, which ignores any and every natural law upon which science is even possible. In this kind of world, it matters less what something is than what it symbolizes - as in a dream. (The appearance of) heavy armor in AoS, for example, stands for toughness generally rather than being a literal constant X applied universally, as in SBG.

That is an excellent summary of the theoretical frameworks of the settings. Indeed, AoS just seems to be a large amalgam of concepts pitted in conflict in an nebulous, semi-mythical setting completely divorced from any concept of absolute reality. It's why the very mundane concepts of Strength , Toughness, Armor, don't seem a very good fit as they are legacy ratings from a system rooted much more in history with fantasy add ons ala D&D. Heck, if AoS doubled down on the whole this is a game of warring ideas and concepts with the physical side as just a visible manifestation of a much more abstract and esoteric struggle, it might be a much more interesting game. But it would likely also be too "out there" for the target markets (What do you mean my dragon model is merely one manifestation of primal fury, destruction and mortal fear of being devoured?).

Herzlos wrote:

Some of them are just badly written (is that how cover is meant to work? How does summoning work?)

Just on these points, summoning works exactly as written. It's just the lingering notion of 'balance' that has people looking for get out clauses in the semantics.

As for cover, yes and no. The 'generic' terrain rule is +1sv if on a terrain piece - but like units, specific terrain has specific rules on their scroll.
Which is where the rules for being /next/ to a wall are.
Not necessarily great design doing it like that, but it's there.

WRG is a good solid rules set. We played fantasy and historical battles with the WRG rules set for years.

The advantage of WHFB, AoS, and pure fantasy rule sets is you get more fantasy flavor. WRG gives you solid battle rules, but less fantasy flavor.

If army sizes >1000 figures, a system like WRG will handle the dice rolling much better than AoS.

 jmurph wrote:
But it would likely also be too "out there" for the target markets

The game we got has proven too out there for many "legacy" customers (whether they are the target is highly debatable) - but I suspect the designers retained the basic mechanical concepts because they are "genetically" related to 40k, from which AoS came and which will I reckon eventually be fully AoSified.

When was the last time that the main online rulebook (a total of 4 pages) was updated?