As the subject states... when "official points" comes out, would you ever play without points from that point?

I don't care the degree to which you will or will not play. If you will play without points sometimes thats the same thing as saying yes you would play without points.

No, I will always play with points. Even when doing narrative scenarios I will still calculate with points (if it says "player with a third more models must be x" - then I would like to give that player a 1/3 more points).

I will be open to using community points/comp still if the GW one isn't adequately balanced.

Hmm, well I'll still enjoy open play and narrative scenarios that are dependent on the scenario more than points.Official points are great as well, though.

So I'm not sure which I should really pick...

I refuse to use points, and will refuse games where people want points.

Points were a mistake to bring back, especially this early on.

I voted for the second one, though really I won't be using GW's points. I already use points in my comp of choice and I don't anticipate changing.

 Kanluwen wrote:

Points were a mistake to bring back, especially this early on.

I agree points are a big mistake to bring back right now, just because we are going to go back to where a lot of minis sitting on the shelf, because something is "more cost effective" and we will be back to being nerds and geeks math hammering everything out instead of being nerd and geeks playing what is cool. I just don't want to see AoS forum here becoming toxic again. I believe the toxicity if finally leaving the threads here, and I would really hate for it to come back because of points, or I should say if GW can't balance the game properly.

But time will tell. It all depends on how broken GW is going to make AoS with points. Sad I don't have confidence in GW making a balanced game with points. I hope I am wrong.

As for refusing a game with points? I can't. Nobody that I know of plays AoS. The few people who play 40K have no desire to play AoS. I am hoping GW does an awesome job with the General's Handbook so people might be interested in AoS and I can finally get some games in.

for me, this game is not nearly popular enough to "pick and choose" on how I will or wont play it, I will take what I can get.

For me, it depends. As it stands, I feel like SCGT Comp gets 90% of the system PERFECTLY, and then PPC gets 90% right, but its a different 90%... So even amongst those beautifully made systems, I like certain aspects of both.

We already know General's Handbook seems very... simple? I mean, the one leaked page we saw had points listed for a unit, but no points for options, like say PPC does. As such, there isn't a granularity so to speak.

I guess it will remain to be seen, and I suspect a slightly modified General's Handbook rule-set will emerge which ends up adopted by tournaments. I'll probably end up using that, and maybe adding a few bits from the other systems I like? (Measuring from bases, volumetric LOS, etc...)

It'll probably be points only, not by my choice. But since it'll be that or nothing, I'll take the points game.

Sure, I'll definitely still toss down a no-points game, now and then, but I'd be kidding myself if I didn't say that my AoS gaming is now probably going to skew heavily towards using points.

I'll be happy to go no-points with people, but have have the points of my list set up so that I can have a rough idea of balance either way. The game seems like it should be fine with a level of difference between players (1600 VS 1750) because sudden death exists, so it'll be good to make sure we know that there isn't a massive difference.

I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I think points will be a seperate mode but I think that mode will be by and large the default.

We know from history that people are quite fine to play the same scenario for years as well, having had to endure almost two decades of pretty much nothing else but battleline.

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.

We know that it's a separate 'mode'. That's the whole point of the announcement they made; it was emphasized that the points setup is its own thing.

I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

Yeah, because narrative elements totally will shut up the people who thought the game so desperately needed points.

I loathe those people.

Ive done to many to count games with no points, and to many to count games with using 3-4 point systems that people/communities came up with to balance AOS.

Bought all the mission/fluff books to recreate the missions/battles they had in them.

Needless to say the game does need points. Not for balance in general games (if I want to roll a bucket of dice I have 50 million other games to do that) but for the narrative story driven battles which I really enjoy.

Right now, its a "use your best judgment" which us being human fail pretty hard at, especially in games like this.

For me, this handbook release will make or break fantasy. I have Silver tower and will dump boatloads into it, but to buy general stuff for AOS play should this fail will stop.

I can go either way honestly.

I like points because it provide structure, that means it is easier to list build and easier to plan an army I want. I mean List building is a thing that quite a few people do just for fun. Removing some kind of structure to the game was a mistake to begin with but I don't necessarily think pints are needed. The same could be achieved with Wounds and Warscroll keywords.

I will actually play a game of AoS maybe I got alot of ooorrruuukkkssess or what ever the hell they are called and would love to use them. Points are needed for a reason, whfb could be played without points, but people used points because self balance sucks and is only good for those who like to abuse.

GW points seem to be designed specifically for people that like to abuse though.

GW point systems have always been awful.

And lets be fair... really any point system is used to abuse.

Even the vaunted xwing is primarily the same builds over and over again.

My biggest fear is AOS turning into what whfb and 40k have always been - using the same 5% of the game over and over and the other 95% of the game sits on a shelf collecting dust.

I got super burned out on 8th edition being nothign but level 4 wizards running around six dicing their killer spell and this being seen as "tactical".

 auticus wrote:
My biggest fear is AOS turning into what whfb and 40k have always been - using the same 5% of the game over and over and the other 95% of the game sits on a shelf collecting dust.

I got super burned out on 8th edition being nothign but level 4 wizards running around six dicing their killer spell and this being seen as "tactical".

And there were some of us Warhamsters pushing very hard to always take weird things, because we too understood the meta, but worked to subvert it. However we were certainly in the minority, and I'd be lying if I said I also wasn't fairly sick of the 8E meta towards the end. Players taking only Obviously Good Things is probably the reason I left 40k, even before the great unbalancing of the last few years, but I never felt that WHFB had attained that level of kneejerk, even in my bitterest moments. So ... I guess point taken on GW sucking at points, but reservations at lumping WHFB in with the 40k clusterfakk.

As for the vote, I will never not play with points of some kind, be they GeeDub's or community grown. But then I've also never not played AOS with points of some kind (even just counting wounds) already, with the exception of my first game, which was easily the least satisfying for both parties. I was fairly stunned recently when the local AOSers were setting up a game of 'bring all the models you have' - I mean, that's how I played 4E/5E way back when I started Warhams, and it was a brutally unfulfilling exercise then as well

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 auticus wrote:
My biggest fear is AOS turning into what whfb and 40k have always been - using the same 5% of the game over and over and the other 95% of the game sits on a shelf collecting dust.

I got super burned out on 8th edition being nothign but level 4 wizards running around six dicing their killer spell and this being seen as "tactical".

And there were some of us Warhamsters pushing very hard to always take weird things, because we too understood the meta, but worked to subvert it. However we were certainly in the minority, and I'd be lying if I said I also wasn't fairly sick of the 8E meta towards the end. Players taking only Obviously Good Things is probably the reason I left 40k, even before the great unbalancing of the last few years, but I never felt that WHFB had attained that level of kneejerk, even in my bitterest moments. So ... I guess point taken on GW sucking at points, but reservations at lumping WHFB in with the 40k clusterfakk.

As for the vote, I will never not play with points of some kind, be they GeeDub's or community grown. But then I've also never not played AOS with points of some kind (even just counting wounds) already, with the exception of my first game, which was easily the least satisfying for both parties. I was fairly stunned recently when the local AOSers were setting up a game of 'bring all the models you have' - I mean, that's how I played 4E/5E way back when I started Warhams, and it was a brutally unfulfilling exercise then as well

- Salvage

Yup, "bring whatever you have and/or want with no checks or balances" is not a good game mechanic. I remember when me and my brothers were just getting started in Warhammer. Three way battles between Dwarfs with Empire allies, Chaos with Beastmen and then Skaven. We didn't know how to build or balance the armies at that point so we just used what we had. Cue Ikit Claw decimating armies on his own thanks to Plague Magic (or whatever lore he felt like using as Ikit had a rule whereby he could basically use all the lores except the chaos ones, I think). The games were much more rewarding and fun when we learned to play properly and were able to build armies somewhat balanced against each other thanks to the points system.

 auticus wrote:
GW points seem to be designed specifically for people that like to abuse though.

My biggest fear is AOS turning into what whfb and 40k have always been - using the same 5% of the game over and over and the other 95% of the game sits on a shelf collecting dust.

I got super burned out on 8th edition being nothign but level 4 wizards running around six dicing their killer spell and this being seen as "tactical".

To be fair to GW, in AOS pretty much almost every unit is really good. Sure points can curve that a lot to where units will look better then others but everyone's pretty good

I'm sure at some point we'll try it, and maybe an event, so have to go with will try it at some time.

My friend and I only play games with points, mainly because we just text each other something along these lines:

"Gaming today?"
"Sure."
"Which one?"
"Game X"
"How many points?"
"Is Y points okay?"
"Sounds good. How's 6:00 tonight at my place sound?"
"Great. See you then."

That way one of us just shows up at the other's house, which has the gaming area set up and ready to go. Since I get up at 4:30 in the morning, time is a thing for me and streamlining is the order of every game. Plus, a uniform point balancing system is great for pickup games on the rare days I have the chance to go to an LGS.

str00dles1 wrote:
To be fair to GW, in AOS pretty much almost every unit is really good. Sure points can curve that a lot to where units will look better then others but everyone's pretty good

This argument has gone on many times, but it's worth noting that going purely by model count, which AOS RAW arguably does to set up a game (right? Sudden Death being the only 'balancing' mechanism provided, and one based around number of models deployed), is a points system of its own, except a truly horrific one where all models are valued at 1 point. I think a great thing about AOS is that every unit is pretty decent ... however when every model costs the same (1 pt), it was obvious from the start that from a purely competitive standpoint, there was even less reason in AOS (as compared to WHFB or 40k) to take anything but the best models. And it's a rare Games Workshop player that doesn't think of these games as competitive events with a winner and loser, even in the slightest, even in the language we use ('opponent', and so on).

Which is to say, any points system is better than the one AOS shipped with. That or a balancing system that uses no points at all - i.e. narrative play. To me there's no middle ground that makes sense (and as I'm not attracted to narrative play in the least, I can only support matched play).

- Salvage

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

To be fair to GW, in AOS pretty much almost every unit is really good. Sure points can curve that a lot to where units will look better then others but everyone's pretty good

If you stripped out points in WHFB and the rule was just take what you want, then I could get pretty much anything to work.

Things become "bad" when their points cost do not reflect their ability. Either they cost too many points for what they can do, in which case they will never be taken because they are "bad", their points cost are accurate to their abilities, in which case they could be taken but are weaker than the under pointed units thus hardly ever taken, or they are underpointed for what they can do, in which case you always take those.

Listbuilding is often just an exercise in identifying the underpointed units and then maxing out how many of those you will take.

Once "official points" are in, there will be units that follow this same model, and slowly the internet meta-filter will trim down the 5% or so undercosted units to be what you primarily see in a solid chunk of your games (the more competitive your environment the greater size that chunk will be)

This wouldn't be as big a deal if "official points" were adjusted regularly with the goal of making sure nothing was under or overcosted. GW has never done that though. Typically once points are assigned, they are there until the next revision years later.

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

At the weekend in GW I was listening to a couple of guys talking about how some unit was good in AoS (which wasn't previously). I couldn't hope but think that was because you are no longer trying to compare some opportunity cost in points, that with points you will be looking at whether it is worth it.

I would much prefer the sort of scenarios GW have been running at their events (in concept), where you can have so many models, but wounds (or some other mechanism) is used to provide an underdog with extra ways of gaining VP.

Whilst not saying that those scenarios are awesome balanced yet, they are IMO the best way forward as a basic premise. There is no need to discuss the pick up game anymore than with points - lets meet and play that scenario. No need to worry about points being crap, or whether a scenario benefits certain units due to Victory Conditions when points assumed a battleline (or one specific style of game). Plenty of scope for actual skill/experience to show for the competitive types, as you try to deploy the best force whilst keeping the martial strength down but have to do it on the fly as you see what the other guy deploys etc (makes it harder for someone else to design a list for you). The scenarios are in theory self balancing, just requires a bit of playing around to get the mechanisms/VP in place.

Points = bad IMO. Can't say I wouldn't use them, but very much against them.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

No offence, but that games sounds terribly un fun. Like...40K levels of unfun. Deleting units off the board with shooting. This is my biggest issue with no points limits, people just tend to take too many heroes that it doesn't feel like a large scale skirmish game but rather herohammer. I've had people who have only brought Mortach Manfredd, Vlad and Isebella, took sudden death then summoned up an army. I told him i wanted a 'propper' game but he kept on raving on about ''forging a narative'' or some such. Without points there is simply no incentive to take chumps over champs. ''Oh, all my Warriors of Chaos are Chosen this game'' ''Oh, these slayers are Grimwrath Beserkers this game''. Sure, certain rules encourage larger units but then sudden death totally brushes aside large scale games. I've found it's impossible to have a satisfying pick up game in AoS without points or a comp of some sort, because all anyone does is bring monsters and heroes and elites. If I wanted to see heroes sweep through hordes of lesser enemies I'd play Diablo, I want a table top war game not a dungeon crawler.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Points are garbage. They really are.

You are saying that you don't like points, phrasing it as the whole idea of them being garbage to add hyperbole. It doesn't help your argument.

What's more likely, that points aren't for everyone or that points are terrible and the vast majority of wargamers who use points in their system of choice are deluding themselves?

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

It kinda sound like your just abusing the no point system if at the end of turn 1 he has only 1 model left.

Now here is a serious question for all you point haters.

Q: how do points kill a game.
Haters A: Because they make you bring the best models for the points.

1Q: So if unit A kills most things it fights but unit B always ends up lossing you buy more of B right? Since it is a nice looking unit and model.
A:


2Q: If unit of 5 A always end up killing super heavies like greater daemon, you should take less then 5 maybe 4 for balance right? So it is a 50/50 chance of that unit winning the fight.
A:


3Q: If the person you are playing with says he will bring 2 greater daemons and a unit of flamers. You know 5 models of A beat a greater daemon so you would never bring 5 right so two units of 4 since your unit will lose 45% of the time? Or better yet bring more units of B right?
A:



4 Last question: if your unit is good at killing something and you know your local meta has alot of it. You would not buy alot of that model right since it is a self balancing system. Your goal is to never win more then 50% of the games you play since 50% is perfect balance.

So all units should have a 50% win rate vs all others and you should remove all models from that unit until it wins 50% of the time right?

A:


Ok one more question 5: If someone is new and they bring some models and place them down or you know what they have. Mostly horde army say each unit has 20 models in it. Now you know unit A will do nothing all game, unit B never does anything but die. But unit C has a splash AoE attack that is very good at killing hordes. You would try to avoid using alot of model C correct? He is bringing what he likes and you want a fun balanced game. So you place down 1 Unit of C enough to kill 1 unit of his horde but then would die and a few unies of A and B correct? So your chances of being able to win are less then if you used alot of unit C.

A:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

The Trap = Give the invader double points
The Ritual = Give the disrupter 1/3 more points

Simple.

As Boss Salvage already pointed out using models as a counter is already a points system, and the most horrific one you could imagine. Eyeballing it for balance instead, why not go a step further and give players an exact advantage in points for them to build around.

You can still play A-symmetric battles with points.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

For points-haters, there is no law that says you have to use them. If you don't want them, leave them out. Those on the inside have already said they're an option. Me? if someone wants to play without them, I'll politely decline and look for someone who wants to use them.

As far as the points values being 100% dead on, there are simply too many variables in tabletop gaming to get things perfect. the amount of terrain, the dimensions thereof, the placement, your opponent's army, the local meta, etc. Yes, some minis are absurdly over or under costed for their effect. Some can be game breaking. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is perfect.

All that said, I trust the individuals involved in the project. They have a lot of gaming experience, and from what I've heard the studio was willing to outright trash parts of the book that weren't up to snuff.

Only time, playing, and exposure to the minds of gamers looking to break the system will tell. I, however, have hope.

I'll probably not use them cause that's what the playerbase of it seems to be with around here, but for tournaments and such I kind of expect it to be used.

I don't think the issue is so much points suck....it's more that GW has a proven track record of being really bad at determining the value of X vs Y.

 Etna's Vassal wrote:
For points-haters, there is no law that says you have to use them. If you don't want them, leave them out.

Like I said before 40K Unbound. Yeah good luck trying to get a game with Unbound. Just because there is no law that says you have to use them try getting a game without them.

Points or some kind of limitation is necessary otherwise certain models will never get used. Why would you ever use any cavalry besides Varanguard if there is no limit on varanguard? You can say points bring out number crunching and other nonsense but no points means I can bring an army of dragons against whatever you bring and just say 'too bad'.

I know there are sudden death rules and such for Age of sigmar, but say we have 5 units each so that doesn't matter. You take a chaos lord, 2 squads of warriors, 3 chariots, and a giant. I take 5 maw-crusha riding orks. I win 100% of the time. Why wouldn't you want to restrict that in some form?

edit: I know you can say "well just don't play against that" and I agree, but we're discussing rules. Not playing a game doesn't help or fix rules.

Really though, the idea behind no points is discussing with your opponent to get a balanced game. Even with points players can still do this, hell I did that in WHFB.

Yes. And I like points for that. However a lot of people that I know use underpointed OP units regularly and the excuse is "GW point cost them this way so I will gladly take advantage of it, and them's the rules sorry"

I know I'm beating a dead horse it is what it is.

If we've got a "fixed" points cost again it's going to be interesting if the tourney scene all jumps on board or continues to comp the points as they have been. Having fluid points is one of the best things about the scene currently as it is very easy to cost things wrongly (for example SCGT got the Fyreslayer points off, which they have now just amended with the 2.2 update).

Yes that was one of my points above and in previous threads. I didn't want an official GW points because I have a feeling that everyone will flock to them as they are "official" and the fan comps made it a point to adjust point costs as we found things were busted.

GW won't do that. At least - they have never done that so I don't see them starting now.

 Don Savik wrote:
Points or some kind of limitation is necessary otherwise certain models will never get used.

Did you just say that seriously? BECAUSE of points a lot of units don't get used. I guess you are right. It goes both ways. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In the end it comes down to the person who abuses any system in place. If you are going to abuse varanguard, without points I guess you will abuse what ever else with points.

So it speaks volumes of the character of the person who does abuse the game, with or without points.

A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

 Bottle wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

RoperPG wrote:
I'm still hoping that points is a separate 'mode'. We know there are pitched-battle scenarios in the book, so I'm hoping that points are intended to be used solely for those; like a GW steamroller mod.
There are already a number of scenarios I enjoy that will be ruined if people use points with them.
I'm also hoping the narrative elements of the book knock it out the park so that people genuinely have pause for thought.

I'm curious which scenarios would be ruined by points. I am imagining playing certain scenarios with unbalanced points (a third more to the disrupter in the Ritual for example). I can't see how points would negatively affect a scenario but I am interested to hear your thoughts.

The Trap, the Ritual, and several others where a specific party is meant to have a third more or less than the opposite party or where you have to put a percentage of your army in reserve or whatever.

The Trap = Give the invader double points
The Ritual = Give the disrupter 1/3 more points

Simple.

As Boss Salvage already pointed out using models as a counter is already a points system, and the most horrific one you could imagine. Eyeballing it for balance instead, why not go a step further and give players an exact advantage in points for them to build around.

You can still play A-symmetric battles with points.

No, you really can't. As bad as you seem to think the "no points" is, points is going to make it even worse.

Additionally, several of the asymmetric battleplans actually have built in limitations like you needing to take multiple Heroes and only a certain number of units/heroes start on the board at a time.

Points are garbage. They really are. I have yet to have any of the horror story games where someone throws down multiple Nagashes or other such garbage. The closest I had was someone trying to cheese the system during a game of "The Trap" where they put down six minimum sized units of Darkshards and attempted to use their Assassin as the Assassinate target for Sudden Death conditions, rather than the Sorceress he had on the board.

Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

I took an army that in 8th edition was fantastically bad. Waywatchers were one of two or three Rare options that Wood Elves had, and the only one which could be fit into some pointed games because the other options were Treemen or Eagles.

I took an army that, per the rules of the Escalation league we were running at the time, satisfied the following criteria for week one(when The Trap scenario was being used) and actually was understrength for what could have been done:
You could have up to two Heroes selected for week one and up to three units selected for week one. If you chose to have multiples of a unit, it still counted as one since it went off Keywords(i.e. you could have multiple units of Darkshards since you took one entry of them). You could not take multiples of named characters. You could only take units from a single faction--this was before the Grand Alliance books came out introducing the subfactions.
In week two, you would get to add another Hero and up to one unit with the "Monster" or "Warmachine" keywords.
In week three, you would get to add a unit with the "Priest" or "Wizard" keyword, another unit with "Monster" or "Warmachine".
For every week past three, you could get to add a single unit with no keyword restrictions if you so chose.
My list by the end of the Escalation League?
Orion
Waystalker
Waywatchers
Wild Riders
Hounds of Orion
Eternal Guard
Great Eagles



Also, I love how you focused upon "you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move" while ignoring the fact that the guy chose his Sudden Death Assassinate target to be a model that could be in literally any unit and does not even start on the board.
I knew the guy was playing like a tool as I had watched him the game before run his Darkshards as one huge block and do exactly what I did to him to a fresh AoS player, someone who the week before had picked up the starter set and was running Bloodbound. I don't feel bad at all about tabling him, especially since now he doesn't try to pull that crap on newbies anymore. One good tabling will bring people like that down and either force them out or force them to realize it ain't cool to play like that.

PS:
You know that Waywatchers got seriously altered with the Grand Alliance: Order book, yeah?
I can no longer run them as units if I'm running the GA: O version of Wanderers. They're now Heroes. At most these days I run one or two as part of the Wanderer formation from GA: O. So my 2 units of 7 Waywatchers is no longer a thing, unless I run the app list.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

OgreChubbs wrote:
It kinda sound like your just abusing the no point system if at the end of turn 1 he has only 1 model left.

Actually, it was abusing the shooting rules(you can allocate shots from models in a unit to multiple targets as long as you have range; same as melee), abusing the Fast Shots rule(on every To Hit roll of a 6, you get an additional attack with your bow) and the fact that he was asinine enough to declare his hidden deployed Assassin as the Sudden Death target.

However if he hadn't done the declaring Assassin as the Sudden Death target? I wouldn't have done either of those.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

You do know that many battleplans actually say to ignore Sudden Death, right?

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Bottle wrote:


The Trap = Give the invader double points
The Ritual = Give the disrupter 1/3 more points

Simple.

As Boss Salvage already pointed out using models as a counter is already a points system, and the most horrific one you could imagine. Eyeballing it for balance instead, why not go a step further and give players an exact advantage in points for them to build around.

You can still play A-symmetric battles with points.

No, you really can't. As bad as you seem to think the "no points" is, points is going to make it even worse.

You're making statements and then not giving any reasons lol. Why will it make it worse?

Additionally, several of the asymmetric battleplans actually have built in limitations like you needing to take multiple Heroes and only a certain number of units/heroes start on the board at a time.

So?

Factor it in.

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

I took an army that in 8th edition was fantastically bad. Waywatchers were one of two or three Rare options that Wood Elves had, and the only one which could be fit into some pointed games because the other options were Treemen or Eagles.

So?

I took an army that, per the rules of the Escalation league we were running at the time, satisfied the following criteria for week one(when The Trap scenario was being used) and actually was understrength for what could have been done:
You could have up to two Heroes selected for week one and up to three units selected for week one. If you chose to have multiples of a unit, it still counted as one since it went off Keywords(i.e. you could have multiple units of Darkshards since you took one entry of them). You could not take multiples of named characters. You could only take units from a single faction--this was before the Grand Alliance books came out introducing the subfactions.
In week two, you would get to add another Hero and up to one unit with the "Monster" or "Warmachine" keywords.
In week three, you would get to add a unit with the "Priest" or "Wizard" keyword, another unit with "Monster" or "Warmachine".
For every week past three, you could get to add a single unit with no keyword restrictions if you so chose.
My list by the end of the Escalation League?
Orion
Waystalker
Waywatchers
Wild Riders
Hounds of Orion
Eternal Guard
Great Eagles

Again, so?

Also, I love how you focused upon "you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move" while ignoring the fact that the guy chose his Sudden Death Assassinate target to be a model that could be in literally any unit and does not even start on the board.

It seemed like a cool premise for a narrative until you smashed him off the board with an unfair set up. "Assassinate the assassin! But where is he hiding? It's a game of cat-and-mouse- oh no wait. Game over before I played."

I knew the guy was playing like a tool as I had watched him the game before run his Darkshards as one huge block and do exactly what I did to him to a fresh AoS player, someone who the week before had picked up the starter set and was running Bloodbound. I don't feel bad at all about tabling him, especially since now he doesn't try to pull that crap on newbies anymore. One good tabling will bring people like that down and either force them out or force them to realize it ain't cool to play like that.

Ah, so you're a self appointed AoS moral compass in your store? There was certainly a "that guy" playing the game by the sounds of it but it wasn't your opponent.

PS:
You know that Waywatchers got seriously altered with the Grand Alliance: Order book, yeah?
I can no longer run them as units if I'm running the GA: O version of Wanderers. They're now Heroes. At most these days I run one or two as part of the Wanderer formation from GA: O. So my 2 units of 7 Waywatchers is no longer a thing, unless I run the app list.

So?

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

You do know that many battleplans actually say to ignore Sudden Death, right?

You do realise I was just framing Don's comments in reply to Davor, right?

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

Cool. Says more about you than me.

"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

So what's the best army in AoS. Write me a tournament winning list for each GA from SCGT?

The thriving tourney scene in the UK for AoS shows it has lots of strategy.

Don't really see the hate on points. I will only have a problem with it if it harms the community and friendlyness in my store. I will notify the manager if such a thing happens.

Still where I am yeah some people are quite interested in points but people are also interested the narrative aspect of the general handbook that's coming out. Why can't we have both? Why must it be one or the other?

I feel if you game with people who want to have fun I feel they should be open to other aspects of how to play.

considering how hard it is to get anyone around here to actually play AoS or even bother with it, if points gets people in, then great, I am all for it. If after that they want to try without, good on that too. This is a game that managed to fragment an already dying game and make the community worse for it. Anything at all that helps bring more people either back into the fold or into it at all is going to be good for it. I would wait to honestly make any kind of call until the book is out, it could be the best thing to happen to AoS or the worst, but we wont know until we see it in hand.

 Bottle wrote:

Lol, so you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move? Sounds like the worst game ever. You're not selling me on the wonders of no points here tbh.

I took an army that in 8th edition was fantastically bad. Waywatchers were one of two or three Rare options that Wood Elves had, and the only one which could be fit into some pointed games because the other options were Treemen or Eagles.

So?

Yeah...so, I took an army that was entirely awful in 8th, played them with very little complaint in 8th(to the point where because I ran Eternal Guard as my Core rather than Glade Guard/Glade Riders, opponents would be willing to grant me extra points to use when we did repeat games), and then when they came out stronger than ever before in AoS during the first few months of AoS' lifespan I used them as a way to cull out the powergamers from an Escalation League I helped organize for new players and veteran players alike.

Silly me! I should have just started a new army.

I took an army that, per the rules of the Escalation league we were running at the time, satisfied the following criteria for week one(when The Trap scenario was being used) and actually was understrength for what could have been done:
You could have up to two Heroes selected for week one and up to three units selected for week one. If you chose to have multiples of a unit, it still counted as one since it went off Keywords(i.e. you could have multiple units of Darkshards since you took one entry of them). You could not take multiples of named characters. You could only take units from a single faction--this was before the Grand Alliance books came out introducing the subfactions.
In week two, you would get to add another Hero and up to one unit with the "Monster" or "Warmachine" keywords.
In week three, you would get to add a unit with the "Priest" or "Wizard" keyword, another unit with "Monster" or "Warmachine".
For every week past three, you could get to add a single unit with no keyword restrictions if you so chose.
My list by the end of the Escalation League?
Orion
Waystalker
Waywatchers
Wild Riders
Hounds of Orion
Eternal Guard
Great Eagles

Again, so?

If you can't figure out what makes that a fairly underpowered list of things to use, I can't help you.

Also, I love how you focused upon "you took an army that could destroy your opponent in one turn before he even got to move" while ignoring the fact that the guy chose his Sudden Death Assassinate target to be a model that could be in literally any unit and does not even start on the board.

It seemed like a cool premise for a narrative until you smashed him off the board with an unfair set up. "Assassinate the assassin! But where is he hiding? It's a game of cat-and-mouse- oh no wait. Game over before I played."

Oh right, it's such a cool premise for a narrative.

That's why 5x Darkshard units with the bare minimum of models, an Assassin, and a Sorceress is such a thematic army!
And why whenever he fought an army that was CC oriented, he used the Sorceress as his Sudden Death Assassinate target for The Trap while if the opposition had even a single ranged unit, he picked the Assassin which doesn't actually start on the board to begin with and can only be killed when it is either revealed or the unit concealing it has been destroyed.

And to put things into perspective a bit more? It was known well in advance to everyone that list was going to be my first week list. The only people who were extremely concerned about it were this clown and his little buddy, to the point where they kept asking the manager what was going to be done to "curb the Waywatchers' alpha strike" which they had seen me demonstrate to the manager a few weeks before the league started so that he was aware of what could potentially be done.

I knew the guy was playing like a tool as I had watched him the game before run his Darkshards as one huge block and do exactly what I did to him to a fresh AoS player, someone who the week before had picked up the starter set and was running Bloodbound. I don't feel bad at all about tabling him, especially since now he doesn't try to pull that crap on newbies anymore. One good tabling will bring people like that down and either force them out or force them to realize it ain't cool to play like that.

Ah, so you're a self appointed AoS moral compass in your store? There was certainly a "that guy" playing the game by the sounds of it but it wasn't your opponent.

Yeah, that's why I have no issues getting AoS games and he has to go to a different store or play with a guy who runs an all Tzeentch summoning spam list.

I'm totally TFG.

That list I ran, the 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers? When it was going up against new players in week one, it was 6 models. A minimum sized unit of Waywatchers and a single Waystalker. Usually with a Sudden Death objective of capturing and holding a piece of terrain.

That particular player needed to be brought down several pegs. He played the list he did to try and prove a point about how "broken" Sudden Death was, in that he could abuse it with the Assassin.
Instead, he quit playing in the league after week two and we had an influx of new players after him and the other powergamers quit the league, claiming that it was "rigged" because I was able to do that in week one and mess up their standings.

PS:
You know that Waywatchers got seriously altered with the Grand Alliance: Order book, yeah?
I can no longer run them as units if I'm running the GA: O version of Wanderers. They're now Heroes. At most these days I run one or two as part of the Wanderer formation from GA: O. So my 2 units of 7 Waywatchers is no longer a thing, unless I run the app list.

So?

"So?" is not an answer or a comment. At this point in time, you're really just spamming.

You want points. Great. I think points are awful and I wish whoever convinced them to bring points back this soon would get a stern talking to from management.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Bottle wrote:
A lot of what Don Savik is referring to is Vanilla RAW 4-page AoS, which as Boss points out does have a points system (model count), and of course, such a terrible point system is prone to the most abuse.

Playing truly without points (ignoring Sudden Death) of course makes everything viable because players try to come to agreement about what is a fun or balanced battle.

You do know that many battleplans actually say to ignore Sudden Death, right?

You do realise I was just framing Don's comments in reply to Davor, right?

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

Cool. Says more about you than me.

Yeah, it does.

It says that I can spot a nonsense statement. Earlier in this very post you maligned me for running an army of 15 models against an army of 52 models and winning via Sudden Death conditions after the other player basically pulled the biggest dick move you could make during the first few weeks of an Escalation League and got wrecked for doing so.

"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

So what's the best army in AoS. Write me a tournament winning list for each GA from SCGT?

The thriving tourney scene in the UK for AoS shows it has lots of strategy.

So you're having to set specifics for "Grand Alliances" and use tourneys that put in their own rulesets to prove your point about points being a necessity for list building?

Davor wrote:

 Don Savik wrote:
Points or some kind of limitation is necessary otherwise certain models will never get used.

Did you just say that seriously? BECAUSE of points a lot of units don't get used. I guess you are right. It goes both ways. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. In the end it comes down to the person who abuses any system in place. If you are going to abuse varanguard, without points I guess you will abuse what ever else with points.

So it speaks volumes of the character of the person who does abuse the game, with or without points.

Well true, it comes down to the abuser. But then you get into the discussion of is power gaming wrong? A large chunk of this forum seems to think being competitive and bringing the strongest lists isn't wrong, and I'm just wondering if that would happen in Age of Sigmar. I don't see why it wouldn't.

edit: im for the idea of point costs or keyword (monster/war machine/hero) limitations but im not for the idea of current GW balancing. Unless they can pull a 180 for AoS than yea I'm not looking forward to point costs.

Kanluwen why do you hate points so much?

Your escalation list is in no way under powered, it's what you'd expect in a good AoS list, some fast units, some ranged units and eternal guard make an amazing front line if they can hunker down in a forest. I'm also a wanderer player so you don't get to play that off.

Wouldo you mind addressing my point on the large amount of heroes that make their way into AoS lists? An example is your unit of 3 waystalkers with a unit of 12 waywatchers. In 8th you'd never see that many heroes in the early stages of an escalation match, indeed Its a problem I've run into at all levels. I face far more heroes in AoS then I do chumps, but it's the chumps that make it feel like a war game and not dnd. 3 waystalkers can put out 9(?) Shots that hit on 3 wound on 3 2 dmg each, statistically that's 8 wounds at max range for only 15 wounds, heroes are more effective than chumps, and without points there is no inclination to take chumps over heroes and monsters. How would you address that?


Also would elves where fantastic in 8th, regularly placing at tournaments. Waywatchers where solid and regularly taken and eternal guard worked if you built them correctly with support characters, considering WE where top tier in 8th you don't get to say your army was fantastically bad unless you purposely bumped yourself.

 shinros wrote:
Don't really see the hate on points.

For me it's having no faith in GW when it comes to making a good point system game. Yes I keep championing that GW did an awesome job with LotR, but since GW did a great job in making me quit The Hobbit, I don't have much experience with them anymore with that point system and seeing how they are still making 40K horribly unbalanced, and from a rumour which I forget on how the point system was suppose to work for AoS (take this group for so many points but add more minis without adding extra points) I am scared that AoS will become like 40K or Fantasy again, a very imbalanced point system game.

It's points I am not hating on, I just don't think AoS will have a very balanced point system.

Guys are we really trying to debate the guy who says he wasn't being a bad sportsman when he destroyed his opponent before the latter even got a turn? Obviously logic has been left behind anyway, so we might was well say "well your wrong because chickens exist".

Davor wrote:

 shinros wrote:
Don't really see the hate on points.

For me it's having no faith in GW when it comes to making a good point system game. Yes I keep championing that GW did an awesome job with LotR, but since GW did a great job in making me quit The Hobbit, I don't have much experience with them anymore with that point system and seeing how they are still making 40K horribly unbalanced, and from a rumour which I forget on how the point system was suppose to work for AoS (take this group for so many points but add more minis without adding extra points) I am scared that AoS will become like 40K or Fantasy again, a very imbalanced point system game.

It's points I am not hating on, I just don't think AoS will have a very balanced point system.

I can see your point but since the guys at helenhammer and SCGT had a look at it, tested it and gave their feedback it might be better, so I am hopeful plus heard nothing but good things about their comp system. Still our GW store is not really "into" points per say honestly everyone here is more excited for the narrative section of the book he told me it's like path to glory . If the points are bad? We will just stick to what we are doing now. Maybe I just got lucky with the community we have in our store.:X

Since our manager main concern is to make sure the hobby is fun than what "works" he said he would support those who want to play points but he feels you don't really "need" it.

Points all the way even bad balance is better than no balance.

hobojebus wrote:
Points all the way even bad balance is better than no balance.

Bad balance can be used as a starting reference to make good balance.

 thekingofkings wrote:

hobojebus wrote:
Points all the way even bad balance is better than no balance.

Bad balance can be used as a starting reference to make good balance.

Pretty much and they involved the community if they keep doing that I think it will turn out better than most rule editions we have now.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
Your escalation list is in no way under powered, it's what you'd expect in a good AoS list, some fast units, some ranged units and eternal guard make an amazing front line if they can hunker down in a forest. I'm also a wanderer player so you don't get to play that off.

That's also the entirety of an 8 week Escalation League list.

Notice the number of units. I did not add more units past a certain point, mostly because I did not feel they were necessary.

Wouldo you mind addressing my point on the large amount of heroes that make their way into AoS lists? An example is your unit of 3 waystalkers with a unit of 12 waywatchers. In 8th you'd never see that many heroes in the early stages of an escalation match, indeed Its a problem I've run into at all levels.

In 8th, you'd never see that many heroes in the early stages of an Escalation match because 8th was basically building on what came before.
This was literally the first Escalation League we ever ran under AoS. Since then, we've ran two more with what we saw did or didn't work in the first one. For example, now?
Models with "Hero" or "Monster" do not get to count for the "Multiples of this can be taken" setup we had. Each one you want to take takes up a different week's allotment.

I face far more heroes in AoS then I do chumps, but it's the chumps that make it feel like a war game and not dnd. 3 waystalkers can put out 9(?) Shots that hit on 3 wound on 3 2 dmg each, statistically that's 8 wounds at max range for only 15 wounds, heroes are more effective than chumps, and without points there is no inclination to take chumps over heroes and monsters. How would you address that?

3 Waystalkers can put out 9 Aimed Shots that hit on 3s(2s if they do not move that turn and are targeting a Monster or Hero) and Wound on 3s with a -1 Rend normally; -2 if they roll a 6 to Wound.

Waywatchers, the new GA: O version of the Waystalker and the demise of the actual Waywatcher unit, does the same but with +1 to hit if it did not move.

As to why you see more Heroes than chumps?
Hero models tend to be cheaper and easier to justify for people than masses of chumps.

Also would elves where fantastic in 8th, regularly placing at tournaments. Waywatchers where solid and regularly taken and eternal guard worked if you built them correctly with support characters, considering WE where top tier in 8th you don't get to say your army was fantastically bad unless you purposely bumped yourself.

I'm calling garbage on that. You and I had this discussion before, and your responses were basically "Arcane Bodkins on mass of Glade Guard/Riders" in 8th. That's your perogative of course to run a list like that, but it was powergaming pure and simple.

And nowhere did I say "Waywatchers were never taken". I said they were the easiest option to fit in.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

Wow, that sounds like such a fun game...

Taking an army that shoots your entire opponents army bar 1 model off the board turn one is a That Guy move, no matter what you say. No game should allow that to happen and it goes totally against the 'spirit' of the game that AoS fanboys always go on about.

 Kanluwen wrote:
"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

I'm always happy to gak on 40k and it's lack of strategy, but I found a reasonable amount of it playing 8th ed, and it certainly was not just about finding the most undercosted options. Lets assume WHFB was terribad for a moment though, these are both terrible examples of point systems. A well balanced system, by definition, would not have under costed units to spam, and if people found something under costed it would only be by a little bit so why bother filling half your army with it when it is only a minor advantage at the cost of not being able to take models that are better at different roles, synergize with other units in your list, suit your playstyle better, or just have nicer models you want to paint?

 Kanluwen wrote:
And to put things into perspective a bit more? It was known well in advance to everyone that list was going to be my first week list. The only people who were extremely concerned about it were this clown and his little buddy, to the point where they kept asking the manager what was going to be done to "curb the Waywatchers' alpha strike" which they had seen me demonstrate to the manager a few weeks before the league started so that he was aware of what could potentially be done.

I think the picture is becoming a little clearer here....


I remember saying waaaaay back when AoS first landed and this 'points are bad' argument started that an unbalanced game attracts WAAC players, just look at 40k.

I would use both.

 jonolikespie wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Didn't feel like arguing so I just let him do so; then opened up with 12 Waywatchers and 3 Waystalkers on turn one, splitting Fast Shots to hit each Darkshard unit.
Killed off enough from each unit to force him to take Battleshock tests or in a few cases, outright killed the unit to start with. He had just the Sorceress left at the end of my first round of shooting. Won it via Sudden Death; Assassins are counted as slain if the unit they were in is destroyed. Since he had just the Sorceress left, he couldn't argue with a leg to stand on that he hadn't lost his Assassin.

Wow, that sounds like such a fun game...

Taking an army that shoots your entire opponents army bar 1 model off the board turn one is a That Guy move, no matter what you say. No game should allow that to happen and it goes totally against the 'spirit' of the game that AoS fanboys always go on about.

Of course it's a That Guy move, but so is running 5x MSUs of 10 models each and picking a hidden deployment Hero for an Assassinate target when fighting against an army with a shooting unit and a Sorceress that summons up a Vortex to get out of reach against a fighty army.

If he had run the 50 models as two units of 25 or 3 units of 15 or 2 units of 20 and 1 of 10?
He wouldn't have been shot off the board that easily. He would have suffered wounds and possibly lost a few from battleshock but he wouldn't have had the army basically wiped out.

 Kanluwen wrote:
"Not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building" is a ridiculous statement. There's no real strategy to list building in 40k or previous iterations of WHFB; it was always just find the cheapest thing that was effective and go with multiples of it.

I'm always happy to gak on 40k and it's lack of strategy, but I found a reasonable amount of it playing 8th ed, and it certainly was not just about finding the most undercosted options. Lets assume WHFB was terribad for a moment though, these are both terrible examples of point systems. A well balanced system, by definition, would not have under costed units to spam, and if people found something under costed it would only be by a little bit so why bother filling half your army with it when it is only a minor advantage at the cost of not being able to take models that are better at different roles, synergize with other units in your list, suit your playstyle better, or just have nicer models you want to paint?

"There's no real strategy to list building" != "There is no real strategy in the game".

List building with points? I refuse to accept the idea that there is somehow a strategy involved, because inevitably it comes down to "This unit is slightly more effective than this other unit at a cheaper points cost".

 Kanluwen wrote:
And to put things into perspective a bit more? It was known well in advance to everyone that list was going to be my first week list. The only people who were extremely concerned about it were this clown and his little buddy, to the point where they kept asking the manager what was going to be done to "curb the Waywatchers' alpha strike" which they had seen me demonstrate to the manager a few weeks before the league started so that he was aware of what could potentially be done.

I think the picture is becoming a little clearer here....
I remember saying waaaaay back when AoS first landed and this 'points are bad' argument started that an unbalanced game attracts WAAC players, just look at 40k.

Of course it attracts WAAC players, but it doesn't necessarily retain them.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Of course it's a That Guy move, but so is running 5x MSUs of 10 models each and picking a hidden deployment Hero for an Assassinate target when fighting against an army with a shooting unit and a Sorceress that summons up a Vortex to get out of reach against a fighty army.

If he had run the 50 models as two units of 25 or 3 units of 15 or 2 units of 20 and 1 of 10?
He wouldn't have been shot off the board that easily. He would have suffered wounds and possibly lost a few from battleshock but he wouldn't have had the army basically wiped out

So you countered a 'that guy' by becoming a 'that guy'? I thought AoS was a solidly built game that didn't have a problem with 'those guys' because if you met one you simply don't play them and shun them from the community?

 Kanluwen wrote:
"There's no real strategy to list building" != "There is no real strategy in the game".

List building with points? I refuse to accept the idea that there is somehow a strategy involved, because inevitably it comes down to "This unit is slightly more effective than this other unit at a cheaper points cost".

What about taking a unit that has smoke grenades and a unit that can see though smoke armed with a heavy machine gun so you can lay down smoke that doesn't obscure your own heavy hitter model so you can bow people down without retaliation?
What about taking a warcaster who has defensive buffs on a unit with stealth and an already high defense so those buffed models can get in deep among the enemy lines and jam them because the enemy didn't bring template weapons and can't roll high enough to hit them with direct attacks?
What about taking 4 units of 5 wolves and a couple of spirit hosts because while they can't kill anything, but they are extra deployments on the table which will draw out your opponent's deathstar before you are forced to deploy yours?


Again, you are looking at GW's gakky balance and saying that it comes down to "This unit is slightly more effective than this other unit at a cheaper points cost", but that has nothing to do with point systems, that is all about GW being bad at making point systems.

There should not be a 'more effective for cheaper points' option to spam in a well made game!

 Kanluwen wrote:

And to put things into perspective a bit more? It was known well in advance to everyone that list was going to be my first week list. The only people who were extremely concerned about it were this clown and his little buddy, to the point where they kept asking the manager what was going to be done to "curb the Waywatchers' alpha strike" which they had seen me demonstrate to the manager a few weeks before the league started so that he was aware of what could potentially be done.

I know you're trying to desperately back peddle here, but you're actually making yourself come across more as TFG in these posts.

So you knew how powerful the waywatchers were, but chose to play them anyway because no one said I can't!

You knew how worried your opponent was by them, but still used them anyway and played the biggest none game possible (literally it was over before his turn 1).

In this topic Kan, you've not given a single reason as to why points are bad. And further more you've shown how a lesser balancing system like 'models' (which you were using in this game), or the comp of the escalation league, ended up with a bent line-up.

Also, lol at you calling this guy a "clown". The fact that you feel it necessary to teach players a lesson paints a clear picture to me of your attitude towards gaming and it is certainly not one I consider fun.

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

Cool. Says more about you than me.

Yeah, it does.

It says that I can spot a nonsense statement. Earlier in this very post you maligned me for running an army of 15 models against an army of 52 models and winning via Sudden Death conditions after the other player basically pulled the biggest dick move you could make during the first few weeks of an Escalation League and got wrecked for doing so.

If that was the "biggest dick move" all it shows is how terrible an escalation league with no real points system can be. Personally I think what you did to him was the bigger D move.

and, a "nonsense" statement, let's clarify here Kan, either you're calling me a liar or you can't understand the difference between getting smoked on the first turn by a completely whack match up (your game) or getting beaten because the opponent played better.

If it's the first, look me up on Twitter (@_devianttactics) and see me have great chats with my opponents from that event. (My first opponent was one of the Facehammer guys). I had a great time and was genuinely happy to get my face smashed because it showed me how strategic and tactical AoS can be (and gave me something to aspire to).

After my first game, I could see all the mistakes I had made both in my list strategy, deployment strategy and in-game tactics:
- I should have taken Handgunners over Thunderers as they would have synergised with my Freeguikd General
- I should have deployed closer to my board line to stop the charges from reaching me
- I should have targeted Arkhan over Nagash as that spell which ignores rend really hurt my cannon fire

I learnt from my mistakes, and got better and better through each game. I am still not a good player at tournament level, but it was very fun and rewarding to at least make some progress and play better than I was at the start.

Could your opponent take away the same lessons? Probably not. He knew how bent your list would be against himself (he even told the manager of his concerns). He tried to be tactical about his assassinate choice (with him deploying in a 24" square and you deploying on 3 flanks with 20" ranged weapons there won't have been many places to put his sorceress out of range - maybe he already made the mistake and placed her in range of a unit?) - but still you smoked him before he even got to move. The only lesson was probably to not play you again, and considering you are saying he quit the club not long after it looks like he took that decision.

Any game that ends on turn 1 is either because someone is a WAAC donkey cave or the game itself is a broken mess of a system.

It simply shouldn't be possible.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Any game that ends on turn 1 is either because someone is a WAAC donkey cave or the game itself is a broken mess of a system.

It simply shouldn't be possible.

Agreed!

@Kan, I can't believe you don't see any strategy in list building in Age of Sigmar. AoS is the most strategic game by GW in that regard (IMO) because it's built upon keyword synergies and the way different units react and affect each other on the table top. A unit's effectiveness in AoS is defined by the other units taken in connection with it. You don't make the best list by just taking the best units in isolation, and thinking then about how units relate to others and which become better as a result is 'strategy'.

 Bottle wrote:
@Kan, I can't believe you don't see any strategy in list building in Age of Sigmar. AoS is the most strategic game by GW in that regard (IMO) because it's built upon keyword synergies and the way different units react and affect each other on the table top. A unit's effectiveness in AoS is defined by the other units taken in connection with it. You don't make the best list by just taking the best units in isolation, and thinking then about how units relate to others and which become better as a result is 'strategy'.

I don't even like AoS and I'd agree with that, it seems fairly similar to Warmachine in that regard. There are some great mercenary units my army can take, but most buffs are for 'friendly faction' units so comparing them in isolation is pointless, because the in faction units that aren't as good on their own will range from still not as good, to on par, to so much better depending on what spells your caster has.

@Kunluwen

I for one see the over abundance of hero models as a problem, do you? People just never seem to be taking chumps, glade guard and clan rats and Knights of the realm unless they have some kind of synergy that pushes them to ridiculous levels. Because as you said, Heroes are simply more effective wounds wise then chumps, they do more damage and survive better and usually have cool special rules. There is no incentive in the current rule set to run large units or to not take the best unitbywound (for example Chaos Warriors/Chosen) ratio. A points system would remedy that undeniably, because the Chosen would be more expensive then the Warriors of Chaos.

I understand some people want to go back to the days of hero hammer, or that using your biggest models and coolest heroes makes it cinematic for people, but to me at least it doesn't feel like a wargame, it doesn't feel like warhammer. Maybe I'm still trapped in an 8th ideology but to me heroes and monsters should be specialist troops in support of the chumps, not replace them all together.

Would you not agree that a points system would help incentivise running chaff units that can be buffed up by heroes rather then just the most elite models and units you own? This is in the context of pick up games, because with friends you can just ask them to tone it down, but who am I to set a wound limit then complain about how the stranger fills it?

What's really funny in the debate on that topic is that it's exactly the inverse of the one we had at the beginning of AoS, when people in favor of points systems couldn't think of a game asking to play without them.

Honestly, I can understand people getting upset at points coming back, while GW did all that communication about points system being the "evil" that needed to be removed (you don't remember their blogs and articles in White Dwarfs?). It's natural some AoS fans followed them on that vision.

IMHO, I think points are a useful tool for pick-up games. Playing without points is also fine, but I would rather do it with my friends or experienced AoS players.

So I will probably play with both. Even though I admit I would certainly enjoy list-building with points more than without.

 Bottle wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

And to put things into perspective a bit more? It was known well in advance to everyone that list was going to be my first week list. The only people who were extremely concerned about it were this clown and his little buddy, to the point where they kept asking the manager what was going to be done to "curb the Waywatchers' alpha strike" which they had seen me demonstrate to the manager a few weeks before the league started so that he was aware of what could potentially be done.

I know you're trying to desperately back peddle here, but you're actually making yourself come across more as TFG in these posts.

So you knew how powerful the waywatchers were, but chose to play them anyway because no one said I can't!

Why the hell shouldn't I play with my Waywatchers? I had a good sized unit of them from the previous Wood Elf books, what was I going to do just not play with them because they got amazing?

That particular guy got every Waywatcher I owned on the table because I had seen him running lists designed to stomp all over the new players. The max any other player saw was 5 Waywatchers(minimum sized unit) and a single Waystalker. They also did not ever get Assassinate chosen against them for The Trap.

You knew how worried your opponent was by them, but still used them anyway and played the biggest none game possible (literally it was over before his turn 1).

I knew how worried this particular opponent was by them, yes.

I also knew that he tailored his list to be a Dark Elf equivalent of mine.

In this topic Kan, you've not given a single reason as to why points are bad. And further more you've shown how a lesser balancing system like 'models' (which you were using in this game), or the comp of the escalation league, ended up with a bent line-up.

Also, lol at you calling this guy a "clown". The fact that you feel it necessary to teach players a lesson paints a clear picture to me of your attitude towards gaming and it is certainly not one I consider fun.

Yes, because it's great fun for new players to learn AoS against a guy running MSUs, Sorceresses on Arcane Vortices, and Assassins as Sudden Death targets.

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle - and so makes the game largely unenjoyable for me. I like to play to win - even though I am not actually very good at playing at a tournament level. In fact I like getting my face smashed by players who bring better better constructed lists and play better tactically.

For some reason, I really don't believe you.

Cool. Says more about you than me.

Yeah, it does.

It says that I can spot a nonsense statement. Earlier in this very post you maligned me for running an army of 15 models against an army of 52 models and winning via Sudden Death conditions after the other player basically pulled the biggest dick move you could make during the first few weeks of an Escalation League and got wrecked for doing so.

If that was the "biggest dick move" all it shows is how terrible an escalation league with no real points system can be. Personally I think what you did to him was the bigger D move.

Never said it wasn't. I've said that he entirely deserved it.

and, a "nonsense" statement, let's clarify here Kan, either you're calling me a liar or you can't understand the difference between getting smoked on the first turn by a completely whack match up (your game) or getting beaten because the opponent played better.

I'm calling you a hypocrite actually. You're so obsessed with this bit of a guy "getting smoked on the first turn by a completely whack match up" that you're ignoring the fact that I've been making clear that he had been doing this to the new players on the first friggin' day of the league. His list was entirely designed to do what I did to him, just with a Sorceress added in to go onto an Arcane Vortex.

Could your opponent take away the same lessons? Probably not. He knew how bent your list would be against himself (he even told the manager of his concerns).

He knew how bent the list would be because he saw the potential after some of the test games I played with the manager and then he tried to emulate it.
He had been there when I showed the manager what someone could do using a fairly powerful ranged unit. We tested it using Judicators, Glade Guard, Glade Riders, Darkshards, Dwarf shooters, High Elf Archers, Prosecutors, and Shadow Warriors with Alith Anar along with the Waywatchers and Waystalkers.

If my goal was to make the most bent list possible? I would have been running Judicators with Gryph Hounds and a Lord Castellant since we found that was the worst setup for The Trap to be on the other side of.

He tried to be tactical about his assassinate choice (with him deploying in a 24" square and you deploying on 3 flanks with 20" ranged weapons there won't have been many places to put his sorceress out of range - maybe he already made the mistake and placed her in range of a unit?) - but still you smoked him before he even got to move.

He thought he could weather the first storm of shots and did not deploy his models properly into cover, ignoring the fact that we tried to make it clear that units can split their fire up as they choose.

The only lesson was probably to not play you again, and considering you are saying he quit the club not long after it looks like he took that decision.

Should clarify this a bit more.

He doesn't come around for AoS anymore. He tried his nonsense at some tournament locally and got stomped there too by some of the hardercore players. He still comes around for 40k with his jetbike spam Eldar list.

 Kanluwen wrote:
You're so obsessed with this bit of a guy "getting smoked on the first turn by a completely whack match up" that you're ignoring the fact that I've been making clear that he had been doing this to the new players on the first friggin' day of the league.

So what I am hearing is that this is a massive design flaw in AoS that makes it possible for people to exploit the rules and win games before their opponent can act, turning the game into a worse case of 'unpack your models, set them up, and put them away again without doing anything' than 8th ed or even, god forbid, 40k ever was.

You're not at fault, it's just a poorly designed mess of a ruleset. Right?

As always Kan, at this point in our discussion, I don't really care if you were being TFG or not and there's no more point going back and forth. Seems to me like you were being just as bad as him. And seems like you're not the sort of person I would enjoy playing against.

But, you've still not given a single reason as to why points are bad.

jonolikespie wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
You're so obsessed with this bit of a guy "getting smoked on the first turn by a completely whack match up" that you're ignoring the fact that I've been making clear that he had been doing this to the new players on the first friggin' day of the league.

So what I am hearing is that this is a massive design flaw in AoS that makes it possible for people to exploit the rules and win games before their opponent can act, turning the game into a worse case of 'unpack your models, set them up, and put them away again without doing anything' than 8th ed or even, god forbid, 40k ever was.

You're not at fault, it's just a poorly designed mess of a ruleset. Right?

In specific, Sudden Death is a piece of gak rule that shouldn't be used, ever. And it's so obviously a piece of gak rule that I have never had an opponent opt to use it, nor have I when given the opportunity. Sometimes Obviously Horrible Rules are obvious, also horrible ... and also in our control. I mean for real, SD says right in there that you don't have to do it. A player doesn't even need to 'stoop' to house ruling SD away, they just need to have some self-control!

ALEXisAWESOME wrote:I for one see the over abundance of hero models as a problem, do you? People just never seem to be taking chumps, glade guard and clan rats and Knights of the realm unless they have some kind of synergy that pushes them to ridiculous levels. Because as you said, Heroes are simply more effective wounds wise then chumps, they do more damage and survive better and usually have cool special rules.

In many cases I agree ALEX, and this is certainly part of why I roll my eyes almost every time I come across a Stormcast report (roughly 75% of all battle reports for AOS). One, because it's the same army all the time; and two, an army I'm not very fond of (stylistically but also fairly uninteresting on the table); but three, because they're often packed with all these samey characters, or spamming the couple ranged nuke heroes (horn dude, arrow dude). Bloodbound often look the same, with numerous heroes and 1-3 token units of infantry doomed to evaporate. Though frankly with Khorne it doesn't feel as ridiculous as Stormcast, as Bloodbound live and die on their buffs plus reflect a warrior god's pack of fallen heroes hurtling themselves to their death ... Although any hero-heavy game, as you say ALEX, severely lacks the massed army feel that many of us got into Warhams for.

There is no incentive in the current rule set to run large units

There's a little - junky units get sizable buffs when taken in big and bigger mobs, buffs that affect single units are more potent on larger units, etc. - but if you're capping by models or wounds, certainly much less. I've been tempted to see what my old Skaven army does in AOS ... but I don't think the game can handle 200 models in any sensible way

I understand some people want to go back to the days of hero hammer, or that using your biggest models and coolest heroes makes it cinematic for people, but to me at least it doesn't feel like a wargame, it doesn't feel like warhammer. Maybe I'm still trapped in an 8th ideology but to me heroes and monsters should be specialist troops in support of the chumps, not replace them all together.

Can I recommend Kings of War here? Another simplification of WHFB, but that keeps all that troop-based loving you remember. Though fair warning, heroes there are so striped down that you may miss some of that Herohammer flair

Would you not agree that a points system would help incentivise running chaff units that can be buffed up by heroes rather then just the most elite models and units you own?

What also incentivizes running fewer heroes is to give a reason for taking units, beyond just points. Like all games include objectives to claim, and heroes can't claim, only contest. Stuff like that can help too.

As for forcing people to take chaff vs elite infantry, I'd be against it, but that's what a points system does, help emphasize the value difference between units. People can totally take an elite army led by a powerful hero ... but it should certainly be tiny (i.e. ELITE) compared to a horde of chumps led by a scrub general. Both the horde and the elite archetype regain their value from this new relationship.

- Salvage

Sudden Death rules don't apply to the vast majority of scenarios that GW has published.

Its a shame that a lot of people don't seem to use those scenarios.

Have they made a book yet that collects the various scenarios? Isn't part of the rumors for the General's Compendium that it will have a healthy bunch of scenarios in it as well?

A big disincentive for me and AOS scenarios is that I have yet to want to buy any of the many sub-faction or narrative books, which seems to be where the scenarios all live. Also I don't particularly like narrative-dictated scenarios

- Salvage

Nah, I'll play without points as-is. Inevitably points will just lead to the same min-maxing that goes on with 40k, making certain units and upgrades way too good while others will never see use because they aren't worth it for the points.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Nah, I'll play without points as-is. Inevitably points will just lead to the same min-maxing that goes on with 40k, making certain units and upgrades way too good while others will never see use because they aren't worth it for the points.

My experience has been that that isn't different to now. I think whether points are used is going to depend a lot on how the people you play the game with think about it.

pm713 wrote:

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Nah, I'll play without points as-is. Inevitably points will just lead to the same min-maxing that goes on with 40k, making certain units and upgrades way too good while others will never see use because they aren't worth it for the points.

My experience has been that that isn't different to now. I think whether points are used is going to depend a lot on how the people you play the game with think about it.

I guess that's fair, though I guess I don't have a lot of faith in the community at large.

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 Wolf_in_Human_Shape wrote:
Nah, I'll play without points as-is. Inevitably points will just lead to the same min-maxing that goes on with 40k, making certain units and upgrades way too good while others will never see use because they aren't worth it for the points.

My experience has been that that isn't different to now. I think whether points are used is going to depend a lot on how the people you play the game with think about it.

I guess that's fair, though I guess I don't have a lot of faith in the community at large.

I didn't at first but I was lucky enough to have all the TFG's in AoS leave.

 Boss Salvage wrote:
Have they made a book yet that collects the various scenarios? Isn't part of the rumors for the General's Compendium that it will have a healthy bunch of scenarios in it as well?

A big disincentive for me and AOS scenarios is that I have yet to want to buy any of the many sub-faction or narrative books, which seems to be where the scenarios all live. Also I don't particularly like narrative-dictated scenarios

- Salvage

You can buy them individually off of the app. But yes the key part you said "Also I don't particularly like narrative-dictated scenarios" seems to apply to a lot of people I know as well. They are just looking for essentially a football field to square off against another team, and they feel telling stories and narrative is for RPGs not wargames, so they also won't touch the scenarios for those reasons (I'm not saying that you apply to that, I'm just saying what I've been told many times in the past few months when I try and get scenarios going)

 auticus wrote:
They are just looking for essentially a football field to square off against another team, and they feel telling stories and narrative is for RPGs not wargames, so they also won't touch the scenarios for those reasons

Naw, that's pretty much true for me. I just want simple scenarios to run my cool painted models against another player's cool painted models across cool terrain, that involve me making enough decisions to feel engaged, roll enough dice that I can feel the ebb and flow of Lady Luck, and pack up feeling like I did something worth doing. Standard AOS doesn't do that, but gently tweaked AOS can.

I'm not opposed to narrative play involving wargames ... but AOS isn't the avenue for me. Inquisitor or Kill Team has probably done that the best for me, though I suppose I'm showing my hand again (spoiler: I'm a sci-fi fan at heart, not really fantasy ), and neither of those games feel as restricting as narrative scenarios from GW do to me - almost entirely because I want to choose my own forces, dammit.

- Salvage

 Boss Salvage wrote:

jonolikespie wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
You're so obsessed with this bit of a guy "getting smoked on the first turn by a completely whack match up" that you're ignoring the fact that I've been making clear that he had been doing this to the new players on the first friggin' day of the league.

So what I am hearing is that this is a massive design flaw in AoS that makes it possible for people to exploit the rules and win games before their opponent can act, turning the game into a worse case of 'unpack your models, set them up, and put them away again without doing anything' than 8th ed or even, god forbid, 40k ever was.

You're not at fault, it's just a poorly designed mess of a ruleset. Right?

In specific, Sudden Death is a piece of gak rule that shouldn't be used, ever. And it's so obviously a piece of gak rule that I have never had an opponent opt to use it, nor have I when given the opportunity. Sometimes Obviously Horrible Rules are obvious, also horrible ... and also in our control. I mean for real, SD says right in there that you don't have to do it. A player doesn't even need to 'stoop' to house ruling SD away, they just need to have some self-control!

I wasn't saying Sudden Death was a bad rule, I was saying a game that allows for one player to shoot the other's entire army (bar one model) off the board turn 1 is a terrible game mechanically (since apparently the player wasn't the problem).

All this back and forth over Kan and that other dude demonstrates a few things.

1. In a game with a bad balancing system, min-maxing becomes a thing and players might have to come up with agreements for this or that, or just put up with some games just being zero fun,

2. In a game with a good balancing system, presumably we want SOME level of competence to come through in the list-building phase. I agree with Kan here, in that I've got no interest in a game where lists determine the outcome of games dramatically, but at the same time it makes little sense for that to have NO effect - if that's the case then you might as well play only scenarios with pre-built forces, or abstract games, or just roll a die to see who wins.

3. In a game without a balancing system, the min-maxing element basically comes down to social skills. This whole escapade with Kan and that other dude demonstrates that - if the game is reliant entirely on player agreement, then players who disagree either put up with crappy games and we wind functioning under scenario one above, or disagreeing players are drummed out of their group. A group of competitive types could drum out someone who wants to play fun casual scenarios or a group of the latter could drum out the competitive types. In the long run this might be fine if everyone gets what they want, but let's not pretend that the procedure is painless.

All of that said, as much as the 'player agreement' folks are mistaken if they think there's no unhappiness that can arise, the 'points are good because you can ignore them' folks are also mistaken insofar as lots of casual play groups are still conditioned by common standards from the community or the company. I gave up on Warmahordes Mk II because even though I have zero interest in Steamroller, it was just the case that most people at my store wanted to play practice games at SR, and weren't willing to spend time on casual play, or less min-maxed lists. It's not anyone's fault, mind, but it's how pickup gaming often works.

Until I see them can't tell you............

No system is going to be perfect but I hope its better than 40k - otherwise some of the fan made internet versions seem to work fine.

Yeah. The problem is "official" carries a lot of weight and fan comp becomes less desirable in the face of "official" points.

If official points is awfully balanced per their norm, its still going to take an awful lot of energy to get most folks to use something else, barring the SCGT still using SCGT comp for GTs.

When official points drops i plan on doing a comparison with Azyr comp to see just how different the two are.

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 auticus wrote:
They are just looking for essentially a football field to square off against another team, and they feel telling stories and narrative is for RPGs not wargames, so they also won't touch the scenarios for those reasons

Naw, that's pretty much true for me. I just want simple scenarios to run my cool painted models against another player's cool painted models across cool terrain, that involve me making enough decisions to feel engaged, roll enough dice that I can feel the ebb and flow of Lady Luck, and pack up feeling like I did something worth doing. Standard AOS doesn't do that, but gently tweaked AOS can.

I'm not opposed to narrative play involving wargames ... but AOS isn't the avenue for me. Inquisitor or Kill Team has probably done that the best for me, though I suppose I'm showing my hand again (spoiler: I'm a sci-fi fan at heart, not really fantasy ), and neither of those games feel as restricting as narrative scenarios from GW do to me - almost entirely because I want to choose my own forces, dammit.

- Salvage

While the faction battletomes are rather specific, I'd say about half of the scenarios in the realmgate wars books are pretty generic. That is to say while they are based on the narrative they work perfectly well as a stand-alone scenario. I'd recommend borrowing a book to take a look at them if you could, or snagging a battle pack from the app.

*edit*

Feth, I haven't been following this :/

I might play without points for the "narrative" games, cos you don't really need points as long as it is an epic showdown right?

Also, by this point (most) AOS players have got used to eyeballing armies to have a fair fight. So points aren't completely necessary, but I will use them 9/10.

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle

The 2nd part is rubbish, points have nothing to do with tactics of battle, no matter what mechanism you had for choosing what to play with you have to work out your tactics. Points have no impact on that - you could deploy exactly the same stuff without a point system and play exactly the same game.

The first part I also consider questionable, points suck the fun out of list building IMO. Points make lists become a simple min-max system, rather than come up with an actual interesting list. The system they tried to do with choosing which models to deploy at the point of playing, where you react to what you also seeing the other guy deploying whilst trying to work within a system that makes it a disadvantage to put down lots of stuff or mega stuff feels a lot better. Much more strategy and flexibility and thinking about what might make your core force and what extra models to take to cover various things the other guy might deploy.

That said they could still do a martial strength thing based on points. So deploy up to 30 models and use points rather than wounds for martial strength. The more points deployed the more you give up victory point opportunities to the other guy. However, it moves away from you and the other guy making their own decision on what units are worth based on their own view of the current setup and experience and scenario victory conditions, and back to some arbitrary valuation which is forever argued about.

puree wrote:

Personally, not having any points sucks out the strategy of list building and the tactics of battle

The 2nd part is rubbish, points have nothing to do with tactics of battle, no matter what mechanism you had for choosing what to play with you have to work out your tactics. Points have no impact on that - you could deploy exactly the same stuff without a point system and play exactly the same game.

Whilst the last sentence you say is true, that's not what I was getting it. Nice for you to call my opinion "rubbish" without bothering to ask what I meant, but whatever.

Playing AoS without points can suck out the tactics for me due to the unabridged summoning. Any flank move or gap in the opponent's army could be plugged with a summoned up nastie to prevent it being exploited and there is no risk-reward in that. They didn't have to make any sacrifice to keep that Zombie Dragon in reserve like they would in a pointed system. Instead they got whatever they deployed with and, hey, a free zombie dragon to fill the gap in the line.

Goes the other way too. I have a Zombie Dragon in my bag and I want to summon it up as I see a good opportunity. Is that a good move on my part or am I just tipping the balance way too far in my favour? I'll never know because there is no structure that we were working under.

You can call it "rubbish" but I have played game after game of unpointed AoS and it feels soooooo tactically unsatisfying, whilst my games under points systems have been amazing.

Even today I played an unpointed game, and I could see from the get go I was outmatched. I don't really mind. The opponent was a great guy who just wanted to get all his nasties onto the table, so cool, let's roll some dice. I think I played well too because although being 95 vs 130 SCGT (roughly) I still took out Manfred, 2x Vampire Lords on Zombie Dragons and 1 Terrorgiest (another remained). But yeah, on turn 5 I was eventually tabled. Cool moments in the game, great guy, but yeaaaaah not what I would call tactically fun at all because there wasn't an even chance of winning and ore importantly we had no even framework to work with.

The first part I also consider questionable, points suck the fun out of list building IMO. Points make lists become a simple min-max system, rather than come up with an actual interesting list.

Disagree with Age of Sigmar. What's the best choice for General in an Order army? There's no one answer because with AoS everything you take has its effectiveness on what you take alongside it.

The system they tried to do with choosing which models to deploy at the point of playing, where you react to what you also seeing the other guy deploying whilst trying to work within a system that makes it a disadvantage to put down lots of stuff or mega stuff feels a lot better. Much more strategy and flexibility and thinking about what might make your core force and what extra models to take to cover various things the other guy might deploy.

This is what SCGT and Clash do but better. You take 150 pools (or 30 pools in Clash) and deploy up to 100 (or 20 in clash) live in your game. It helps you react to the deployment just as you suggest, but with something that scales ability much better than the 'point systems' of 'models' or 'wounds'.

That said they could still do a martial strength thing based on points. So deploy up to 30 models and use points rather than wounds for martial strength. The more points deployed the more you give up victory point opportunities to the other guy. However, it moves away from you and the other guy making their own decision on what units are worth based on their own view of the current setup and experience and scenario victory conditions, and back to some arbitrary valuation which is forever argued about.

Yep, sounds fun.

All this makes me think they should talk to the LOTR/Hobbit folks for rules design, there are some OP pieces, but on the whole its the best balanced ruleset GW has produced. Its also IMO the best ruleset they have come up with. the models synergies are (again IMO) better than anything I have seen in 8th or AoS because they occur naturally and not because "special snowflake* .. A battle line forms because its a good idea, volleys happen when needed. etc...

 Kanluwen wrote:
No, you really can't. As bad as you seem to think the "no points" is, points is going to make it even worse.

I hope you realize lying is never good way to make anybody take your point seriously?

Points does not mean you can't play asymmetrical. That's a fact. 2000 pts vs 1000 pts is asymmetrical. I play asymmetrical games regularly in every system. Funny that all the systems have point systems...

If I can do it so can you. So can anybody. I don't have any special powers that make asymmetrical games possible within point system. I simply...Well you know? Play as usual.

Additionally, several of the asymmetric battleplans actually have built in limitations like you needing to take multiple Heroes and only a certain number of units/heroes start on the board at a time.

That has also nothing whatsoever to do with points or no points. Limitations are standard forte in scenarios whether you have points or not. No points doesn't suddenly make limitations possible while points remove those.

Yes, I will play exclusively with points. In some cases we might go for asymmetrical matches if the scenario demands it, but there is no drawback to having a reference for unit strength that is also officially supported.

So close to 2/3 will only play with points.

Thats about what I expected. The past year was an interesting experiment at least.

 thekingofkings wrote:
All this makes me think they should talk to the LOTR/Hobbit folks for rules design, there are some OP pieces, but on the whole its the best balanced ruleset GW has produced..

Well for that to happen, they would need to talk to Matt Ward. It was his baby. Well maybe I shouldn't say his baby, all I know is he wrote the One Rule Book, so not sure if he did the other 3 before this one or not.

Whilst the last sentence you say is true, that's not what I was getting it. Nice for you to call my opinion "rubbish" without bothering to ask what I meant, but whatever.

people can only go by what you actually said, which was clearly that tactics in battle are somehow worse without points. That is patently wrong. If you didn't mean what you said then fair enough, but one only asks what someone meant when what was said was unclear to the reader - which it wasn't from this end, what you said seemed pretty clear.

Playing AoS without points can suck out the tactics for me due to the unabridged summoning. Any flank move or gap in the opponent's army could be plugged with a summoned up nastie to prevent it being exploited and there is no risk-reward in that. They didn't have to make any sacrifice to keep that Zombie Dragon in reserve like they would in a pointed system. Instead they got whatever they deployed with and, hey, a free zombie dragon to fill the gap in the line.

Goes the other way too. I have a Zombie Dragon in my bag and I want to summon it up as I see a good opportunity. Is that a good move on my part or am I just tipping the balance way too far in my favour? I'll never know because there is no structure that we were working under.

You can call it "rubbish" but I have played game after game of unpointed AoS and it feels soooooo tactically unsatisfying, whilst my games under points systems have been amazing.

What has summoning got to do with points. If you turn up with a summoner you turn up with a summoner points or not. The tactics are still the same, he summons and you base tactics around that. Points might make summoners more expensive than other units, but equally you don't need points to limit summoners. And it certainly has no impact on the tactics of the game.

The lack of points or not has nothing to do with keeping a dragon back, unless I'm misunderstanding you again. Risk-reward in the context here is a scenario thing, not a point thing. There is a risk-reward in the existing scenarios involving martial strength and underdogs. You deploy your dragon and it is definitely around to do stuff, but you risk giving an underdog bonus to the other guy due to the extra wounds you deployed. Or you don't deploy it, so reducing your martial strength but now you can't be sure that it will turn up when you want it, or where you want, or at all. Your summoner might die, he might not have the range, he might fail the spell roll (often high for a big nasty) or it gets dispelled etc. In a 4 turn game that GW seem to be running with in those scenarios (and therefore limited VP to gain in many games) it is pretty big risk to assume that he will turn up when/where you want him in time to do something critical.

So I still dispute your argument that points affects battle tactics, it doesn't. You can deploy/summon the same armies either way. As you yourself point out it is 'lack of structure', but points are not structure that solves this issue - you bought the summoner and now you can summon the dragon. I assume that again there is something else you are not explaining here if you think points help?


Your argument seems to be entirely about List Building, and the opportunity cost of buying a summoner, assuming they are expensive compared to non-summoners as far as I can make out, but I may be misunderstanding you again.

Davor wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
All this makes me think they should talk to the LOTR/Hobbit folks for rules design, there are some OP pieces, but on the whole its the best balanced ruleset GW has produced..

Well for that to happen, they would need to talk to Matt Ward. It was his baby. Well maybe I shouldn't say his baby, all I know is he wrote the One Rule Book, so not sure if he did the other 3 before this one or not.

He did not. Alessio Cavatore along with some others such as the Perrys were the main designers of the original strategy battle game.

Tellingly, none of them are still with GW

Davor wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
All this makes me think they should talk to the LOTR/Hobbit folks for rules design, there are some OP pieces, but on the whole its the best balanced ruleset GW has produced..

Well for that to happen, they would need to talk to Matt Ward. It was his baby. Well maybe I shouldn't say his baby, all I know is he wrote the One Rule Book, so not sure if he did the other 3 before this one or not.

This is just my own opinion, but its my belief that the Lord of the Rings license may prevent GW from using its rules for any other games while the license is in effect.

It depends on the local scene, but the biggest effect for most will be that 'competitive mode' will become the default.
It won't matter. It's a wargame, so it must have points.
Points mean balance.
The official points.
And pitched battle variant C.
With open killing field in middle of table.
Because that's how you get a proper fair game.

For anything else to be the case will take a tremendous amount of effort in your local scene. I'm already seeing this just with the SCGT points. Once the handbook drops, it'll be identikit games for all. Yay...
Just to be clear, this isn't a TFG/WAAC/Neck beard thing.
It's that to get a fun game of AoS right now requires player communication and interaction. Competitive mode will take us back to the point where you could realistically play a whole game without talking to your opponent if you wanted to. Because it does all that hard thinking/discussing stuff for you.

I think in a lot of cases that is exactly the goal though. A lot of people *want* everyone to play the same way using the same scenario.

From various talks over the years this is because:

* when I buy my army i am buying it to be good at the default scenario

* I don't want to play scenarios that my army is not good at. This will require me to buy and paint more models to be good at those scenarios and I do not want to do this.

* I want to know that the army I bought that is good at the default scenario can get a game in at theoretically any city and any game store using the default scenario.

* I want to discuss tactics and list building strategies as it pertains to the default scenario.

These are common themes that come up in talks / posts.

We did a Lustria campaign in 2012 and most people were fine with it but some people seriously lost their **** because their armies were not good at jungle fighting, and they wanted to use their artillery gunlines or their all-knight armies which were great in pitch battle with clearing in the center of the table, but were disadvantaged in a jungle scenario where the table was covered in jungles.

And GW models are expensive so buying models just for the campaign wasn't going to happen. There was a lot of bad feelings during that campaign because there was no pitched battle.

I think overall people prefer not so much a single scenario as a limited list of common scenarios. I remember the d3 scenario chart from 5th 40k getting used almost all the time at my local scene, and my AoS games these days most commonly roll on a d6 chart from the comp we use.

puree wrote:

Whilst the last sentence you say is true, that's not what I was getting it. Nice for you to call my opinion "rubbish" without bothering to ask what I meant, but whatever.

people can only go by what you actually said, which was clearly that tactics in battle are somehow worse without points. That is patently wrong. If you didn't mean what you said then fair enough, but one only asks what someone meant when what was said was unclear to the reader - which it wasn't from this end, what you said seemed pretty clear.

Cool, well I thought it was clear I was talking about my personal experiences with the game, no harm done, sorry for not being clear.

I've played loads and loads of unpointed games and *to me* they feel tactically unrewarding. It's not just about summoning, it's about having an equal or fair chance at victory. In unpointed games I have often felt either me or my opponent have had no chance at winning, and when that's the case, it sucks out the tactics (or makes the game tactically unsatisfying for me).

An extreme example would be having 10 Archers vs 5 Terrorgiests. Sure there are "tactics", I could move my archers one way or another, one way might be a better option, but at the end of the day victory is hopeless and so it feels tactically unrewarding to me.

That is an extreme (and abstract) example, only to demonstrate that if there is a vast difference in the chances of winning - I don't feel tactically engaged.

(Disclaimer - I do not mean asymmetric Scenarios - asymmetric scenarios are fine as long as there are different victory conditions for each side and they both have a fair chance of winning them.)

What I am talking about is any scenario or game where I feel that one side has no chance at victory. From my experience with AoS, unpointed games of AoS almost always leads to this feeling whereas pointed games do not. And in vanilla AoS, summoning can be a facet of this.

What has summoning got to do with points. If you turn up with a summoner you turn up with a summoner points or not. The tactics are still the same, he summons and you base tactics around that. Points might make summoners more expensive than other units, but equally you don't need points to limit summoners. And it certainly has no impact on the tactics of the game.

Respectfully disagree. Summoning in Vanilla AoS is a way of getting free models, those free models can tip the balance so that one side has no way of achieving victory, and as I said above when one side has no chance of victory I feel tactically unengaged.

It's like playing Poker against a player with 4 aces in his pocket at all times. Sure I can bluff and raise all I want, but at the end of the day the player could just stick the aces in his hand if things aren't going well, so what was the point in me trying to play smart?

Might be you enjoy it still, but to clarify again, this is my personal experience and that style of play has no *rewarding* tactical decisions for me.

The lack of points or not has nothing to do with keeping a dragon back, unless I'm misunderstanding you again. Risk-reward in the context here is a scenario thing, not a point thing. There is a risk-reward in the existing scenarios involving martial strength and underdogs.

The martial strength scenarios has a points system under another name. I am talking about vanilla AoS. I enjoy those scenarios (indeed, I was the first person to leak them) because I like the structure they give. I prefer the stricter structure of SCGT or Clash however.

So I still dispute your argument that points affects battle tactics, it doesn't. You can deploy/summon the same armies either way.

I disagree. One player could bring the same army with or without points, but two players might not be able to play same armies against each other in a game under a points system (because the two armies might be of vastly different values). Does that make sense?

I gave some thought on whether or not to join the points vs no points discussion and it seems like a better idea to pass on it. As for the poll question:
I currently have only 2 guys to play with that I have introduced to AoS and miniature gaming. The moment one of them pays attention to the "official" points and makes up his mind that it is a more fair and balanced mode of play I'll sadly let go of AoS (which means they'll have to let go aswell unless they buy some minies as we've been playing with my collection only). I've been trying to cultivate a more free, cinematic and light- hearted type of gaming and when August comes and I see that they exhibit interest in points and matched-play I'll be introducing them to my Warmachine models and continue to where we left with AoS. I'm not going to touch on the whole side story about the upcoming competition between community system and the official one that auticus is being weary of. Suffice to say, I share his worries that people, belonging to a game club, that like playing with points and their own mods on the game will be faced with difficulties on continuing to play in the same manner with the majority of their peers.

I might play with points... but not because I want to. I'm a fan of people getting along and being like minded enough to play and enjoy a game they've somewhat balanced by themselves by not being a dick in the force choosing stage. However my group hates it, which I don't understand. But I'm always the guy proposing that rules should be x instead of y, points for said unit should be x instead of y, etc. Homebrew and houserule is awesome, in my opinion. Most fun I've ever had in the hobby was writing and playing a space wolf vs daemons campaign with my closest gaming buddy. It was cool because it was all ours. No one told us what we had to do, or how something had to be. Sadly I have only played 2 games of AOS without points, and that's likely all I'll get.

I like that if a player takes a list that decimate another opponent, it's "their fault" or at least it's on their conscience that they may have cheesed and destroyed the fun of the game. This is justified by blaming gw for imbalances with the existence points system. It takes away "how the player feels" about how the game went. It doesn't matter anymore because they were within the agreed points limit. It's not their problem. Buy a new army if your codex sucks, right?

Anyone who thinks gw will do a good job with this points system should compare the csm codex to the eldar codex. It is absolutely laughable that they would allow imbalance like that to exist in a system they apparently designed to balance the game.

I've played loads and loads of unpointed games and *to me* they feel tactically unrewarding. It's not just about summoning, it's about having an equal or fair chance at victory. In unpointed games I have often felt either me or my opponent have had no chance at winning, and when that's the case, it sucks out the tactics (or makes the game tactically unsatisfying for me).

An extreme example would be having 10 Archers vs 5 Terrorgiests. Sure there are "tactics", I could move my archers one way or another, one way might be a better option, but at the end of the day victory is hopeless and so it feels tactically unrewarding to me.

That is an extreme (and abstract) example, only to demonstrate that if there is a vast difference in the chances of winning - I don't feel tactically engaged.

(Disclaimer - I do not mean asymmetric Scenarios - asymmetric scenarios are fine as long as there are different victory conditions for each side and they both have a fair chance of winning them.)

What I am talking about is any scenario or game where I feel that one side has no chance at victory. From my experience with AoS, unpointed games of AoS almost always leads to this feeling whereas pointed games do not. And in vanilla AoS, summoning can be a facet of this.

That sounds like it has nothing to do with Tactics and Points. What you are talking about there is an inability of 2 people to agree to play a game that is balanced 'good enough' to enjoy, or even fix the issue mid game if it was obvious at some point that you'd goofed dramatically on balance. I find it hard to believe that having played so much you can't eyeball a 'good enough' game, so I assume it is more down to getting agreement between 2 people?

Either way it seems irrelevant to the point originally made. Given any setup, points or other wise, the tactics do not alter because points were used vs non points. Of course points do not solve your main problem per se either, they only work if they are 'good enough' for the specific game you are playing. With the GW history that feels a dubious assumption, and presumably will largely force you to play battleline or similar as that is probably what they will be based around if you want the supposed balance.

Respectfully disagree. Summoning in Vanilla AoS is a way of getting free models, those free models can tip the balance so that one side has no way of achieving victory, and as I said above when one side has no chance of victory I feel tactically unengaged.

What is to say that they will still not be free units? Points alone do not fix that as such (indeed if martial strength scenarios is just points under another name, and that doesn't fix the issue for you then clearly points in them self do not fix the issue). You pay for your summoner and he starts summoning. However, why does lack of points make them free units? On the one hand it sounds you are thinking you will have to pay for your models summoned (which I wouldn't assume is a given) and on the other are you not capable of discussing up front about what can be summoned, or balancing around the summoner?

The martial strength scenarios has a points system under another name. I am talking about vanilla AoS.

So am I. AoS is the rules of playing, the scenarios are the scenarios you play. The Martial strength thing is part of Vanilla AoS - you agree to play that scenario just as you agree to use points in a battleline scenario, just as you agree to simply line up and pig pile into the middle. The point I'm making is that points are not providing something that isn't already there if you want some form risk-reward type structure, you (or a tourney organizer etc) just sets the scenario to provide it.

I disagree. One player could bring the same army with or without points, but two players might not be able to play same armies against each other in a game under a points system (because the two armies might be of vastly different values). Does that make sense?

In context not really. The point was about the tactics in the battle, not what you could or could not deploy due to balancing. Points do not alter the tactics, in either system the tactics are the same for any setup, whether that setup came from points or some other setup (be it scenario or 2 people talking). What you are talking about is purely list building and balancing. I get that part, I'm not a fan of points but I grasp that if you like making points based lists then you need the points in the first place. I can also get that your own experience is that without points you have struggled to have balanced games. But that is not the same as saying points alters battle tactics, it just alters the mechanism on how you agree what models to deploy. There is still a mechanism you have to agree to (points or otherwise) and there is still the tactics etc of the game which follows.

Was one player beaten because his opponent's force was unbalanced or because the opponent played better?

@puree I don't care. What discussion are we even having? I don't know to be honest.

I find unpointed games to be tactically unrewarding because more often than not they are all but a forgone conclusion, and at other times they seem fair and then one player summons too much and makes it impossible for the other to win.

Yes, you could have two games side by side with the exact same forces in each, one chosen by points and one not, and the games would be just as tactically rewarding (why wouldn't they? They are the same).

In reality though (or in my experience) the games you have with points and the ones without points aren't the same.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Was one player beaten because his opponent's force was unbalanced or because the opponent played better?

Bingo! Or the worst feeling for me is; "did I win because I played well or because I used too many models?"

I think the thing is we all know GW points are usually always horrible.

And when people exploit underpointed nasty units in 40k or whfb, they don't feel bad about it because "those are the rules".

But if they take that exact identical force without points, for whatever reason... which is highly illogical but thats because it involves feelings instead of rationality.... it feels wrong because there was no structure to exploit.

Or in summation: its ok to exploit shoddy points because those are rules and gamers exist to find rules loopholes (they are still "legal"), but if the same force can be composed without structure, it emotionally feels "wrong".

I voted I'll still play without points. I like the freedom it brings, they didn't close any doors. With 3 ways to play, along with scenarios, you shouldn't play the same game very often. When I go to my local GW I'll have a list with points and a list for our wounds comp. I've been having fun with the game, including list building, (I never played WHFB) and this will not affect that.

I wont be able to play my Chaos Dwarfs with points though, unless anyone has heard rumors of them adding the two FW armies and monsters in with the rest?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
So close to 2/3 will only play with points.

Thats about what I expected. The past year was an interesting experiment at least.

It's closer to 50/50 than 33/66

Bottle wrote:
I've played loads and loads of unpointed games and *to me* they feel tactically unrewarding. It's not just about summoning, it's about having an equal or fair chance at victory. In unpointed games I have often felt either me or my opponent have had no chance at winning, and when that's the case, it sucks out the tactics (or makes the game tactically unsatisfying for me).

thats less to do with 'pointless' games and a lot more to do with organising 'pointless' games poorly. there is no reason that neither of you should have no chance at winning. And i can attest to that personally. we play 'pointless' flames of war. i've been doing this for 3 years now, and couldnt tell you the points costs of a single thing in the game. and yet, in the games we run, we always 'eyeball' balance and our games have pretty much always come down to the wire with some epic battles and tense engagements along the way. right now we are playing a pointless game based off of the normandy landings. and its going pretty well.

Bottle wrote:

An extreme example would be having 10 Archers vs 5 Terrorgiests. Sure there are "tactics", I could move my archers one way or another, one way might be a better option, but at the end of the day victory is hopeless and so it feels tactically unrewarding to me.
That is an extreme (and abstract) example, only to demonstrate that if there is a vast difference in the chances of winning - I don't feel tactically engaged.

then change the rosters if its looking like one outmatches the other. eyeballing things is a learned skill.

Bottle wrote:
What I am talking about is any scenario or game where I feel that one side has no chance at victory. From my experience with AoS, unpointed games of AoS almost always leads to this feeling whereas pointed games do not. And in vanilla AoS, summoning can be a facet of this.
[

Again, see above. this is less to do with 'pointless' games as 'pointless games' constructed poorly. And lets be clear, even in well balanced points based games you can end up in situations were one side has no chance of victory. warmachine, one of the very best balanced games out there has plenty hard-counters for example. it used to be back in early mk2 going against denny 2 in certain scenarios was auto-lose if she went first. one of the last WMH games i played i utterly annihalated my mates armies with a combination of greylord outriders (murder ponies) and winter guard infantry. all his infantry evaporated in a single turn against all those sprays and i won on scenario. points based game. supposedly 'equal'. truth be told he didnt have a chance.

Bottle wrote:
Respectfully disagree. Summoning in Vanilla AoS is a way of getting free models, those free models can tip the balance so that one side has no way of achieving victory, and as I said above when one side has no chance of victory I feel tactically unengaged.
It's like playing Poker against a player with 4 aces in his pocket at all times. Sure I can bluff and raise all I want, but at the end of the day the player could just stick the aces in his hand if things aren't going well, so what was the point in me trying to play smart?
Might be you enjoy it still, but to clarify again, this is my personal experience and that style of play has no *rewarding* tactical decisions for me.

then dont use it? Or place limits on it. One of the guiding principles of pointless games is the 'negotiation phase' where you co-operate with your opponent in building the game, setting the scenario and deciding on fair rosters. One of the biggest mistakes players make is assuming everything is fair game,all the time and under all circumstances. summoning is fine, when it fits the theme of the scenario being played.but it should be treated as an option, or as a 'plot hook' rather than as a always-in use 'go-to mechanic'.

Bottle wrote:
I disagree. One player could bring the same army with or without points, but two players might not be able to play same armies against each other in a game under a points system (because the two armies might be of vastly different values). Does that make sense?

unless its decided that one players gets to take more points than the other. this makes sense in assymetric attacker/defender scenarios or last stand scenarios. its how we typically run our 'pointless' flames of war games- the attacker typically needs a larger army than the defender. in real life it can often be 3:1 numerically. we represent this in our pointless games by the attacker taking more troops. if youd point up the costs,im sure youd see the attacker has a lot more points than the defender. and yet, it still boils down to very interesting games for us.

AncientSkarbrand wrote:
I like that if a player takes a list that decimate another opponent, it's "their fault" or at least it's on their conscience that they may have cheesed and destroyed the fun of the game. This is justified by blaming gw for imbalances with the existence points system. It takes away "how the player feels" about how the game went. It doesn't matter anymore because they were within the agreed points limit. It's not their problem. Buy a new army if your codex sucks, right?
.

this is partially conceited. its not necessarily that players 'fault' that he took a gun to a fight and the other guy brought a knife. i often make the analogy in AOS where one player takes 60 peasants and the other takes 60 knights. the knight player is not necessarily the villain in the story either for wanting to take, or taking an army he has bought and painted.

GW are responsible for the balance issues in their game. they write it. its on them. that said, the player base is often equally at fault in embracing it.

Bottle wrote:@puree I don't care. What discussion are we even having? I don't know to be honest.

you started it by saying pointless games dont have tactics compared to points based games based on your experience of poorly organised pointless games. thats just not true.

Bottle wrote:
I find unpointed games to be tactically unrewarding because more often than not they are all but a forgone conclusion, and at other times they seem fair and then one player summons too much and makes it impossible for the other to win.

theyre a foregone conclusion when they're built terribly, but as can be easily demonstrated, this is far from an unusual occurence even in 'balanced' points based games. pointless games require good judgement, a bit of emotional maturity and co-operation. they're learned skills. it takes a while to get it and youll always be refining it.this is not a bad thing, nor is it utterly alien from points based games where you end up going against 'unknown' forces (for example, playing, or playing into a new warcaster, or using a new build. itll take you a while to get it down to the point where you can run it optimally, right? pointless games are no different).

Bottle wrote:
Yes, you could have two games side by side with the exact same forces in each, one chosen by points and one not, and the games would be just as tactically rewarding (why wouldn't they? They are the same).
In reality though (or in my experience) the games you have with points and the ones without points aren't the same.
"

they're different approaches but they are not mutually exclusive, nor are they zero/sum and both can acheive the same aim, and the same results.personally, i play both styles.

Bottle wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Was one player beaten because his opponent's force was unbalanced or because the opponent played better?

Bingo! Or the worst feeling for me is; "did I win because I played well or because I used too many models?"

my question is 'did we have a good game' followed by 'want to run it again, maybe make some changes and shake it up a bit'?

Mj445 wrote:I voted I'll still play without points. I like the freedom it brings, they didn't close any doors. With 3 ways to play, along with scenarios, you shouldn't play the same game very often. When I go to my local GW I'll have a list with points and a list for our wounds comp. I've been having fun with the game, including list building, (I never played WHFB) and this will not affect that.

this is a bit of a myth if you ask me. 'pointless games' dont necessarily confer absolute freedom, and there are doors present. they are entirely dependent on social accord and agreement, and rely almost entirely on the enablement of you by your opponent. in other words, all it takes in these games to fall down is your opponent saying 'no'. it might not be 'illegal' as per the rules, but there is every chance it might be seen as 'immoral'.

@deadnight I should have been a bit more clear. The way I said it made it seem like it was always the player's fault if he decimated his opponent and I didn't mean that.

Usually it's fairly easy to tell when somebody either rolled really well or pulled off a few brilliant moves that resulted in their opponent losing the game quickly and early, or when someone simply destroys their opponent because they purposefully hard counter their opponents force choices or just make an obscenely stupid cheese list.

What I was saying is that when points go out the window, you making cheese lists is all on your character. Unless your opponent is also down for a cheesefest. There is nothing you can point to that says, "I know that game wasn't fun and you had literally no chance of beating me, but look at the points costs of my models. I just learned to write better lists than you. Git gud nub."

Instead, without points, if you put a cheese list down against a noob list, it's going to be painfully obvious and you're going to know what you're doing the entire time, and the only justification for your behaviour is "my character allows me to not feel bad about being a TFG right now."

I'm not talking about the guy who thought 60 peasants was cool and the guy that thought 60 knights was cool having a game that isn't fun. That is a real problem with a points less system, and really could only be fixed through personal growth in the hobby and experience, and goodwill towards other hobbyists. Maybe a helping hand from a more experienced gamer.

The concept I was referring to, was about the guy who places down a perfectly normal list while the other guy slaps down the most br00tal cheese he can muster. There is no one at fault for doing so other than the person who knowingly created a vast imbalance in the game that was pointed in his favour. That guy is a dick, if the scenario didn't call for cheesefests, and it will be painfully obvious to everyone around. More importantly, it will be obvious to him that he did so and he did it entirely of his own volition and because of his character, not because the gw points book told him he could put those models on the table regardless of his opponents list.

I didn't mean to sound conceited. Clearly even a balanced game can be a complete crushing victory for one side because tactics or luck or both.

@Deadknight you are trying have the same conversation with me as Puree about if no points intrinsically means balance is impossible to achieve.

It's not a debate I want to have. Indeed, I even agree with you both that you can have a balanced game with no points. But it is so much hard work in my experience it never happens.

The two of you can pedantically rip apart my opening comment that stirred this if you want. I thought the "personally" caveat at the start made it obvious that I was talking about real and personal experiences only, and have gone out my way to reinforce that afterwards, even if you two want to continue to berate me. I am talking about my experience with unpointed games, and in those experiences the lack of points has in one way or another managed to suck out the tactics in the game for me because they have felt like forgone conclusions where my tactical decisions have no impact on who wins.

Yeah, my experiences of unpointed games were badly set up in terms of balance, which has shaped my view that they are tactically unrewarding. I could sit down with my opponent and do a lengthy negotiation to ensure better balance, but you know what? I'd rather just use points.

Furthermore, while I want to play a balanced tactical game, that might not be what my opponent wants. A lot of the time they just want to throw down models and roll some dice. I'm usually easy going and will comply. I can even have fun in the game at the "cool moments". I am not going to lie about the game not feeling tactically rewarding though.

And so on the flip side I really enjoyed going to my first AoS tournament recently because I got to play with likeminded opponents under the structure of a points system that gave us a fair chance of winning. I found the games tactically rich and really enjoyed them as a result.

Bottle wrote:@Deadknight you are trying have the same conversation with me as Puree about if no points intrinsically means balance is impossible to achieve.
It's not a debate I want to have. Indeed, I even agree with you both that you can have a balanced game with no points. But it is so much hard work in my experience it never happens.

Which is false.

We do it literally every weekend. [u]

And it's not 'hard work'. Well, it's no harder than painting or converting your models. Which is not really hard at all. It's a learned skill. It gets easier over time the more you do it. Being creative is its own reward.

Bottle wrote:@
The two of you can pedantically rip apart my opening comment that stirred this if you want. I thought the "personally" caveat at the start made it obvious that I was talking about real and personal experiences only, and have gone out my way to reinforce that afterwards, even if you two want to continue to berate me. I am talking about my experience with unpointed games, and in those experiences the lack of points has in one way or another managed to suck out the tactics in the game for me because they have felt like forgone conclusions where my tactical decisions have no impact on who wins.
Yeah, my experiences of unpointed games were badly set up in terms of balance, which has shaped my view that they are tactically unrewarding. I could sit down with my opponent and do a lengthy negotiation to ensure better balance, but you know what? I'd rather just use points.

You know, it's leaning towards (unintentional) intellectual dishonestly to state how pointless games are tactically unrewarding when you yourself say 'our games were badly set up in terms of balance and we didn't have fun'. Maybe it's a lot less to do with pointless games and a lot more to do with doing it wrong? When you do things wrong, and things don't work as a result, you can't really blame the thing, can you? This is precisely what you are doing.

It completely reshapes the conversation and invalidates the original assertion. In other words, your 'personal experience' of how pointless games don't work isn't true, as it's entirely down to how you did them.

Here's the thing. 'Just use points'. Well, fine. Assuming the points work. And when they don't (which does happen), you're in exactly the same position as where you complain about in the pointless approach. Points are not a magic bullet. points are fine, but it's not a zero/sum. The pointless approach can be very rewarding creatively if you ask me, and more than anything, it fosters a kind of 'pioneering' and intrepid attitude that is often absent in 'play by points' type gaming. Often, playing by points leads to a pick up gaming culture, and a culture that frowns on anything other than 'standard' missions and pick up play, and that is very unhealthy for the long term health of games, gamers and communities. In other words, it's fine for what it is, but variety is the spice of life, and you are doing yourself a lot of favours by also embracing the pointless approach

Bottle wrote:
Furthermore, while I want to play a balanced tactical game, that might not be what my opponent wants. A lot of the time they just want to throw down models and roll some dice. I'm usually easy going and will comply. I can even have fun in the game at the "cool moments".

Play with like minded opponents. Gaming 101 . If they want to roll dice and you don't, find someone else.

Bottle wrote:
I am not going to lie about the game not feeling tactically rewarding though.

you might not be 'lying' but you are speaking a mistruth(and not deliberately, I might add in case you think I'm trying to have a go at you). You are simply drawing the wrong conclusions from your experience, since the game not being tactically rewarding came about from how you built it rather than the 'pointless' nature of the game. There is no reason for the game to not be tactically rewarding. Again, we do this every weekend.

Bottle wrote:@
And so on the flip side I really enjoyed going to my first AoS tournament recently because I got to play with likeminded opponents under the structure of a points system that gave us a fair chance of winning. I found the games tactically rich and really enjoyed them as a result.

Which rules set were they using and how many people went to it? Genuinely curious here bottle.

 auticus wrote:
I think the thing is we all know GW points are usually always horrible.

And when people exploit underpointed nasty units in 40k or whfb, they don't feel bad about it because "those are the rules".

But if they take that exact identical force without points, for whatever reason... which is highly illogical but thats because it involves feelings instead of rationality.... it feels wrong because there was no structure to exploit.

Or in summation: its ok to exploit shoddy points because those are rules and gamers exist to find rules loopholes (they are still "legal"), but if the same force can be composed without structure, it emotionally feels "wrong".

Hm, I can totally see where you're coming from but my personal experience is different; I've had little problem getting people with overpowered lists to tone it down.

Actually I think that kind of illustrates the ultimate truth here; the success or failure of points depends on who one plays with and their willingness to make it work.

 auticus wrote:
I think the thing is we all know GW points are usually always horrible.

And when people exploit underpointed nasty units in 40k or whfb, they don't feel bad about it because "those are the rules".

But if they take that exact identical force without points, for whatever reason... which is highly illogical but thats because it involves feelings instead of rationality.... it feels wrong because there was no structure to exploit.

Or in summation: its ok to exploit shoddy points because those are rules and gamers exist to find rules loopholes (they are still "legal"), but if the same force can be composed without structure, it emotionally feels "wrong".

Well said. I will see if I can sig this.

If GW suck at making point systems the answer is not to remove points, it is for GW to hire competent game desingers.


Plain and simple, if they are putting out an inferior product is is on them, the manufacturer.
It's unreasonable for someone to buy a car and tuen be told they need to know how to rebuild the engine because as it comes off the factory line it has a problem with overheating if you drive it over 50 km/h.

this is a bit of a myth if you ask me. 'pointless games' dont necessarily confer absolute freedom, and there are doors present. they are entirely dependent on social accord and agreement, and rely almost entirely on the enablement of you by your opponent. in other words, all it takes in these games to fall down is your opponent saying 'no'. it might not be 'illegal' as per the rules, but there is every chance it might be seen as 'immoral'.

Sorry...I meant that them adding the points system while keeping the old way to play adds freedom. 3 ways to play and you can choose which.

@Deadknight do you play unpointed games of Age of Sigmar? (Do you play Age of Sigmar?). Yeah I am sure eyeballing FoW is easy enough, just count the tanks and the dudes with guns.

If AoS was just different flavours of Freeguild it would be easy enough. But this is a game where every unit has multiple special rules. A shield, sword, musician, banner and champion all do something different across units too.

Most of the time I am not sure what my opponent's stuff all does, and the same for them. In pointed games it doesn't matter as the comp has already done it for you. In unpointed games of AoS it 9/10 times leads to imbalance from my experience.

If you do play unpointed games of AoS, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you don't play with what I would consider good balance. I could be wrong, but I've never seen it done by anyone (even if hypothetically possible). Even as much as I love Matt's battle reports (and everything he does for the hobby) they are most often very one sided affairs due to imbalance.

The tournament I went to used the Clash comp and there were 32 players.

For me there is a difference between a fun game and a fair game. They're relative terms that are only linked by the attitude of the players.
Yes, if you're playing a competitive format, you need a structured system.
Eyeballing isn't easy, but it's not impossible.
Our local club is pretty much TFG free, but even then I see enough eye rolling at 'fair' games.
Without points, player communication is critical. With points, my experience is that it's optional.

RoperPG wrote:

Without points, player communication is critical. With points, my experience is that it's optional.

Indeed. The trick here is asking why it is so.

Without points, meaning without having a common base to work on balance, you indeed have no choice other than talk with your opponent to agree on making that "common base" and then balance both of the armies from it. It can take time (if you know your opponent or not, and so on) and work the best when everything is clear to both parties.

With points, there is a common base - the points themselves. They may not be perfect, true, but there is something already official and ready to use. You don't have to argue with your opponent about what to use as a common base. Thus the talking needed is reduced and you can agree on something else - the scenario, talking about others topics, and so on.

Talking is optional IF you focus only on game matter. Of course, both systems will never prevent you from chatting with your opponent, tell jokes and so on.

It's human nature. With 'official' points/comp, you'll slide toward the homogenous all comers tournament style lists, or the one-trick pony lists.
That's not to say that people like Bottle won't take more eclectic mixes, but that's what the majority of games will become.
Whether you think it's a good thing or a bad thing will be down to personal taste, but I share Auticus' concern that if you remove the necessity of players taking responsibility for a fun matchup, then most people will take the path of least effort.

jonolikespie wrote:

If GW suck at making point systems the answer is not to remove points, it is for GW to hire competent game designers.

Plain and simple, if they are putting out an inferior product is is on them, the manufacturer.
It's unreasonable for someone to buy a car and then be told they need to know how to rebuild the engine because as it comes off the factory line it has a problem with overheating if you drive it over 50 km/h.

And heres the thing with analogies – you can use anything as an analogy Jono. It dosnt necessarily make your point right. You use a car and describe how GW is bad because you have to tune it yourself. How about an analogy of a sandwich, legos, or even a kit car or other modular products? You know, DIY stuff where the onus is on you to put it together? I mean, sure I can buy a pre-made sandwich, or I can buy the ingredients and make it myself. Neither is wrong. Especially with a product where there is no one ‘proper and true way’ of how to use it. Sometimes it makes sense to let people figure it out or mould it so suit their own needs. This is not a bad thing.

Bottle wrote:
@Deadknight do you play unpointed games of Age of Sigmar? (Do you play Age of Sigmar?). Yeah I am sure eyeballing FoW is easy enough, just count the tanks and the dudes with guns

Can I be pedantic Bottle? There’s no K in Deadnight.

And no, I don’t play Age of Sigmar. As a game, I find it uninteresting for a variety of reasons (dislike the models, dislike the core mechanics etc. Now, had the game been truescale and based on the LOTR ‘engine’ instead of 30 year old mutated 40k/WFB, it may very well have been a different story!) but I really enjoy the themed/narrative style of play that AOS tries to cater to.

And I had to chuckle when you claim FoW is ‘easy enough’ to eyeball, by ‘just counting the tanks and dudes with guns’. You’ve no idea, do you? Its as true as saying AOS is just a bunch of 3+s and 4+s. There is a lot of variety in that game. tanks aren’t just ‘tanks’. There are huge differences between your tigers and king tigers, and your shermans and matildas in terms of output and in terms of resilience, numbers, organisation etc. Same with infantry – its not just ‘dudes with guns’. Mortar platoon, heavy machine gun platoons, rifle platoons, mechanised platoons, paratroopers, engineers, artillery companies, anti tank guns etc. This gets further compounded by whether things are conscripted, trained or veteran and there are further considerations when you decide if its early, mid or late war and how the various tanks and infantry platoons are organised across different countries. Then you’ve got aircraft on top of it all. And really, I’m just scratching the surface here. Heck, we’re doing naval landings right now! There is a lot going on, there is a lot happening and there are a lot of directions you can take a game. its nowhere near as easy as ‘count the tanks and dudes with guns’. And yet, we do it. And we have bloody good games (double meaning is deliberate!)

And furthermore, FoW isn’t the only game we’ve played this way. We’ve done themed/narrative games of X-wing, Firestorm Armada, dropzone commander and the king of them all – Infinity. All by ‘eyeballing’. And you know what? We’ve had a hell of a lot of fun with all of those. Furthermore, I see no reason why we couldn’t brew up, and ‘eyeball’ an interesting and balanced game of 40k or warmachine if we really wanted to.

Bottle wrote:
If AoS was just different flavours of Freeguild it would be easy enough. But this is a game where every unit has multiple special rules. A shield, sword, musician, banner and champion all do something different across units too.

Freeguild? Hmm, *checks GW website* greatswords, pistoliers, outriders, crossbowmen, handgunners, archers and spearmen. Yeah, flames of War is far, far bigger than this mate! You are doing it a disservice.

And so what if shields, swords and all those little things do different things? No different to Flames of War either. Germans and Brits and Russians and Americans all get different rules and can do different things. Like I said earlier, Its far more than just ‘dudes with guns’ .

In any case, if all the special rules and minutae are getting you down, then don’t use them? Do you need to use everything in every game, and all the time? You don’t need every ‘hook’ all the time to make a good story. Sometimes less is more, after all. Sometimes all that stuff does is just gets in the way.

Bottle wrote:
Most of the time I am not sure what my opponent's stuff all does, and the same for them.

Then find out! The more information you have, the better able you will be to make a judgement call. No different to points-based games where you don’t know what their stuff does.

If you are going into a game with none of the knowledge required, don’t be surprised when blowback occurs. This is entirely on you, and not on the ‘pointless’ nature of these games. This is no different in ‘balanced’ point based games. One of my last games-Vlad3 v Madrak1 I ended up being turn-1 assassinated by the trolls and their norther fire breathers. Never played them before, never saw or knew about the potential combo, and I trucked my caster right out in front inviting it. And I’ll know for next time – put wind wall up, or don’t go so far forward!

Bottle wrote:
In pointed games it doesn't matter as the comp has already done it for you. In unpointed games of AoS it 9/10 times leads to imbalance from my experience.

Not true. As has been pointed out, there are plenty examples of pointed games where precisely this happens-you just gloss over it. If 9/10 games of AOS in your experience leads to imbalance, you are not learning from your experiences/mistakes and building upon them and are instead doubling down the road towards the confirmation bias and preconceived conclusions that you wanted to make in the first place-it’s that simple.

Bottle wrote:
If you do play unpointed games of AoS, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you don't play with what I would consider good balance. I could be wrong, but I've never seen it done by anyone (even if hypothetically possible). Even as much as I love Matt's battle reports (and everything he does for the hobby) they are most often very one sided affairs due to imbalance.

Or does it show one player outplaying another with superior skillz? Because that’s what would likely be claimed in a points based game. Precisely this has happened to me on numerous occasions in point based games, balanced ones and not so balanced ones.

And furthermore, does it really matter, assuming both players had an enjoyable game? Some of the very best games I’ve played have been unbalanced, whether they were ‘last stand’ scenarios or whatever. I find that having an interesting ‘hook’, or an interesting theme/narrative goes a long way towards mitigating any lack of balance in the first place, and being honest, taking a slightly different perspective towards this style of wargame helps enormously. Think less ‘duel of one-upsmanship’ and more ‘play out this particular story for its own merits, rather than using it as a competitive vehicle to massage your ego and prove you somehow ‘better’ than your opponent’. Put one foot forward as a spectator instead of as a participant. Even if things do end up skewed, you know for the next time and you’ve got an idea of changes to make. I really don’t see the issue. Again, its no different to points based games where you take/face a new caster, use/face a new combo or whatever. You’re not going to know how it works, (table-time is often a completely different beast to theorycrafting), and it will probably give you a good thumping, and you’ll know for the next time to do x instead of y, or use your second list, or whatever.

Like the example I gave earlier, this scenario happens and is just as likely to happen in points-based games as well, even in balanced ones. My mate’s army evaporated against my murder ponies and winter guard. Balanced game. But because it’s a points based game, I guess it came down to him ‘playing poorly’, and me ‘outplaying’ him, eh? Wonderful get out of jail free card, eh?!

Bottle wrote:
The tournament I went to used the Clash comp and there were 32 players.

Interesting. Warmachine sized (at least around here,) Thanks!

Deadnight wrote:
And heres the thing with analogies – you can use anything as an analogy Jono. It dosnt necessarily make your point right. You use a car and describe how GW is bad because you have to tune it yourself. How about an analogy of a sandwich, legos, or even a kit car or other modular products? You know, DIY stuff where the onus is on you to put it together? I mean, sure I can buy a pre-made sandwich, or I can buy the ingredients and make it myself. Neither is wrong. Especially with a product where there is no one ‘proper and true way’ of how to use it. Sometimes it makes sense to let people figure it out or mould it so suit their own needs. This is not a bad thing.

Right, ok. Um.. random question but where is AoS ever actually advertised as a DIY product?

Obviously I am not talking about the modeling part but the rules. I don't recall ever seeing it being described as any such thing, and the rules for building armies in the PDF just says more is better and to continue deploying until you are either out of space in your deployment zone or out of models.

I don't see anywhere were AoS is sold as a DIY RPG-light experience, as far as I know that is purely how the community has taken it and how the GW redshirts have explained it. That is not the same as it being sold as a DIY ruleset, that is the community having to fix a broken product.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Right, ok. Um.. random question but where is AoS ever actually advertised as a DIY product?

It's not. The players are the ones who forge their own narrative.

Actually, AoS is quite straightforward. Most of the profiles are strictly defined by a very specific way to equip your model(s). For example, Liberators can have a hammer and a shield, a sword and a shield, two hammers or two swords. But you can't play them with one hammer and one sword or a spear with a shield, unless making a "house-ruled" profile (that isn't difficult to do, granted).

Davor wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
All this makes me think they should talk to the LOTR/Hobbit folks for rules design, there are some OP pieces, but on the whole its the best balanced ruleset GW has produced..

Well for that to happen, they would need to talk to Matt Ward. It was his baby. Well maybe I shouldn't say his baby, all I know is he wrote the One Rule Book, so not sure if he did the other 3 before this one or not.

The Talented Mr. Ward continued the work of Alessio Cavatore and Rick Priestly. Those two people created the game in its elegant form. A form that who wrote the weapon rules for the Hobbit, BTW, was just not able to appreciate.
The Talented Mr. Ward did reasonably well, actually, with just some fluff murder like the Orc Shamans (which I re-fluffed as the orcs with the black medicine and the alcool, hence Fury) and power creep (new units with mandatory new rules, corsair reavers that out-elf the elves in some regard, and so on. But nothing terrible).
Actually, I do prefer the GW version of, say, Radagast or the Gundabad Orcs (meaner moria/misty mountain orcs, covered with metal) than the Peter Hackson ones.

The Perry are great (those metal orcs!) but do not forget Brian Nelson.

On topic, one comment about the "with no-points you have to talk about the kind of game with the opponent". Is all fine and dandy, but we people in Dakka overlook a specific thing, too big to be noticed: we are generally gaming veterans.
I could balance AoS now with time and will to bother (and pick up GW crap, so ultimately not) but i can do this because I grew up with games with point systems and I have sort of an ingrained sense of balance. A contact with AoS when I was a neewb would have ended in a disaster I fear. This, disregarding lots of friends that were problematic somehow back then and are not the mature gamers I know now.

 Bottle wrote:

Even as much as I love Matt's battle reports (and everything he does for the hobby) they are most often very one sided affairs due to imbalance.

I am going to argue against that

I don't think we have had one battle where an imbalance was clear from the outset and where a lop-sided victory did not stem from poor choices/luck of the dice. Most of our battles seem to be characterised by the fight swinging one way, then the other and perhaps back again.

Swing by my place, Bottle - we'll have a day of point-less narrative battles, and I promise you won't feel you are ever needlessly heading uphill in a fight

One observation I will make on this though: If there are points involved (like most of our games of 40k), I very much care about winning. If there are no points (AoS), I really could not care less...

@Deadnignt (sorry for spelling your name wrong )

I'm not really interested in talking with someone who doesn't play AoS on how easy it is eyeball balance the game to be honest.

Also, I don't want to memorise exactly what every Warscroll can do. There must be between around 500 Warscrolls in AoS. It would be a mammoth task. Alternatively a good points system does the work for you.

When playing under Clash, I would play games where I didn't know exactly what the enemy could do, but once I found out I had enough troops at my disposal to deal with them.

I think we're about done with this chat, what do you think?

Onto people playing default games. I rate how good/robust a points system is on the amount and variety of competitive builds available - but as well as the points framework the scenarios are also super important with me. When playing pick-up games I now always say "I want to play a game where I can't gunline", because that's what my army defaults too, and it's too easy to fall back on that if you're just playing pitched battles. In the same way, if you are playing a choppy army you need motivation to not just be charging forward every single battle.


This is where Clash Comp in particular is really good because you have 6 different objectives to complete each game. Your primary (which is usually a variation on capturing positions) and then 5 secondary objectives. 3 are the Sudden Death Assassinate, Blunt and Seize Ground, plus you need to get a unit in the enemy deployment and try to kill half the deployed army. These all come together and force armies to play in a dynamic way. I am really hopeful for the 6 scenarios in Matched Play and hope none of them can be considered a "default". No pitched battle, kill points scenario please! I think the input from the SCGT guys will hopefully mean this is not the case.

This whole topic is a fascinating case study.

It is my hope that there aren't just six scenarios people will play either. A thing I have fought pretty much the last 20 years is getting people to play narrative scenarios, and to get away from all battleline all the time (or a derivative of that).

MongooseMatt wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

Even as much as I love Matt's battle reports (and everything he does for the hobby) they are most often very one sided affairs due to imbalance.

I am going to argue against that

I don't think we have had one battle where an imbalance was clear from the outset and where a lop-sided victory did not stem from poor choices/luck of the dice. Most of our battles seem to be characterised by the fight swinging one way, then the other and perhaps back again.

Swing by my place, Bottle - we'll have a day of point-less narrative battles, and I promise you won't feel you are ever needlessly heading uphill in a fight

One observation I will make on this though: If there are points involved (like most of our games of 40k), I very much care about winning. If there are no points (AoS), I really could not care less...

I would love that, mate. Let me send you a PM and get this booked in over the summer. I finally have a fully painted army so I won't feel shown up by you :-)

 auticus wrote:
This whole topic is a fascinating case study.

One could say the whole Dakka but.. what do you mean in specific? Care to elaborate?

 auticus wrote:
This whole topic is a fascinating case study.

It is my hope that there aren't just six scenarios people will play either. A thing I have fought pretty much the last 20 years is getting people to play narrative scenarios, and to get away from all battleline all the time (or a derivative of that).

I still find it hard in AoS. Most people in my GW just want to play a kill battle and look at me like I've pulled out the Karma Sutra on a first date when I start suggesting scenarios from the app lol.

Imagine the following situaton:

You play a match of AoS against an opponent you like playing with (that's your premise).

You both field forces that you agree look more or less balanced in a scenario that does not favor any of the two.

One of you loses badly.

Which conclusion should you draw from this loss? Is the loser the inferior player? Were the armies not balanced after all? Was it due to bad luck?

At this point you have not a single reference as to why the game was lost so badly. Without reference, how can you make sure the next match will go better? The loser might argue that a particular unit from the winner's force is too strong. They might argue that certain unit synergies are too strong and tipped the game in the winner's favour. They can argue a lot of things, but in the end you can't really check if any of this is actually the case, so you play a couple more games to see if you can spot any trends.

Doing so, you both realize that unit X performed very well in most of your matches, while unit Y tended to be less effective overall. You make a mental note that for every unit X you field, your opponent should probably field 2 x unit Y in order to make things more balanced. So what happens here is that you've alredy assigned a value to these two units.

Adding points is the same basic principle, with the unit value represented in a numerical fashion.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 auticus wrote:
This whole topic is a fascinating case study.

One could say the whole Dakka but.. what do you mean in specific? Care to elaborate?

The case study on the emotional need for points, how one can be ok with abusing bad points but how one feels bad if they field the same force but without points. Things like that.

I still find it hard in AoS. Most people in my GW just want to play a kill battle and look at me like I've pulled out the Karma Sutra on a first date when I start suggesting scenarios from the app lol.

The pickup games here are 100% like that. If you suggest a scenario they just look at you funny. It seems to be totally ingrained in our culture to just play kill points.

Our campaign requires the use of scenarios and so for that event we have people using them pretty much with no issue though but that rule is laid out in the campaign packet that scenarios should be used.

 auticus wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:

 auticus wrote:
This whole topic is a fascinating case study.

One could say the whole Dakka but.. what do you mean in specific? Care to elaborate?

The case study on the emotional need for points, how one can be ok with abusing bad points but how one feels bad if they field the same force but without points. Things like that.

I find it quite dismissing, if not dishonest, sorry. People elaborated rationally why points are needed, you cannot downgrade their opinion and arguments as "emotional".

In this regard, I stated in a similar thread why for us is intuitive how to balance games, why is not for newbies and how is this viable without points, and I have still to receive a decent answer about that.

I'm not downgrading anything. It is an emotional need.

Its an emotional need because if I take an army X:

where X is derived from points but min/maxes underpointed units and is thus considered "OP" - it will be seen as ok because it follows the rules and points.

where X is the same X as above but is not derived from points, it is seen as dirty and makes the player feel bad for using it because they know its "OP".

In one instance with points they will field it with impunity. In the latter case they will feel dirty for using it.

There is nothing really logical about this, it is based on emotion.

 auticus wrote:
I'm not downgrading anything. It is an emotional need.

Its an emotional need because if I take an army X:

where X is derived from points but min/maxes underpointed units and is thus considered "OP" - it will be seen as ok because it follows the rules and points.

where X is the same X as above but is not derived from points, it is seen as dirty and makes the player feel bad for using it because they know its "OP".

In one instance with points they will field it with impunity. In the latter case they will feel dirty for using it.

There is nothing really logical about this, it is based on emotion.

You have yet to provide any evidence that people who will not spam very effective units without points will suddenly start to spam them when points are introduced and indeed your whole premise is based on the assumptions that there will be units which are undercosted enough to make that a possibility.

Your premise is fundamentally flawed.

I still feel that's its good to have some form of balance mechanism in place. In my GW we used age of balance yeah it's not a point system but it's a form of balance we still talk about it a bit if things don't seem right.

It's easier to do pick up games with such systems. Now as I said most people in my store are more interested in the narrative part of the general handbook.

 auticus wrote:
I'm not downgrading anything. It is an emotional need.

Its an emotional need because if I take an army X:

where X is derived from points but min/maxes underpointed units and is thus considered "OP" - it will be seen as ok because it follows the rules and points.

where X is the same X as above but is not derived from points, it is seen as dirty and makes the player feel bad for using it because they know its "OP".

In one instance with points they will field it with impunity. In the latter case they will feel dirty for using it.

There is nothing really logical about this, it is based on emotion.

I think you could be right in case of GW. But points are not necessarily assigned in an imbalanced way - just in case of bad game design.
If your point is "I do not trust GW points allocation methods" well my 400 pt Balrog completely agrees with you.
But is not the demand from the players per se being wrong - just GW designers don't giving a Snotling.

You have yet to provide any evidence that people who will not spam very effective units without points will suddenly start to spam them when points are introduced and indeed your whole premise is based on the assumptions that there will be units which are undercosted enough to make that a possibility.

Your premise is fundamentally flawed.

Couple things:

1) it is impossible to prove it other than via anecdote, in which case my case study is about 20 players at my store who fall into this category. That is not acceptable proof though.

2) I'm not saying that they will do so in one case and then not in the other case.

I'm saying that they will do so regardless, but with points will not feel bad about doing it (its the rules so I'm fine), and without points they will feel its bad (its OP and there were no rules stopping me from doing it so its bad).

There are also several forum posters on various forums that fall into that... in tactics forums they will list out broken combos and be ok with that, but then will slam AOS for not having balance via rules structure even though they don't feel bad about running one of the big broken combos in 40k, for example.

But is not the demand from the players per se being wrong - just GW designers don't giving a Snotling.

I wrote Azyr Comp because no one would touch AOS without points, so I totally understand. The demand from players is not wrong (or right), nor am I saying its wrong. I'm saying that what I find interesting are people in general who state that balance is super important to them, won't play a game without points because eyeballing balance is not trustworthy (i get it, and I agree its very hard to do) but have no problem breaking games like 40k.

 auticus wrote:


I wrote Azyr Comp because no one would touch AOS without points, so I totally understand. The demand from players is not wrong (or right), nor am I saying its wrong. I'm saying that what I find interesting are people in general who state that balance is super important to them, won't play a game without points because eyeballing balance is not trustworthy (i get it, and I agree its very hard to do) but have no problem breaking games like 40k.

Oh, those are people I do not like to play with either. Consider that in the times of WHFB (6th to 8th, begain in 5th), with my buddies we used to play 1000-2000k and to apply local (or global? not sure) tournament rules with 0-1 each rare, 0-2 each special and 0-3 each core, dice powers limited to 10. We limited ourselves and this stimulated plans and tactics. We knew (until an horrible codex written by Thorton came out) that the others would play with a similar framework. Furthermore, knowing that the choices were limited actually stimulated collecting because once I had, say, 2 spawns (2 was 1 rare choice IIRC) I knew I needed no more. This could be counter-intuitive but made things look levelled and thus affordable.

WAAC are horrible but with a good ruleset are kept in check. They have to cheat to always win and then you have a good evidence to get rid of them (I mean do not play with them anymore! ).

Finally, I always think about the future. Kids need a framework more than us (and, albeit I do not play with AoS, thanks for the effort put in the comp - an effort from the community is always great even when does not benefit you directly, because it keeps the hobby alive).

 auticus wrote:
I'm saying that they will do so regardless, but with points will not feel bad about doing it (its the rules so I'm fine), and without points they will feel its bad (its OP and there were no rules stopping me from doing it so its bad).

Well... yeah.. if the rules of football clearly stated punching your opponent in the face was allowed there would be a lot more punches thrown.

Poorly balanced rules are still official rules, and therefore you're entirely within your right to take them. The rules are literally telling you that.

Now people abusing this to beat up noobs or people wanting a casual game are donkey caves, but not technically in the wrong as far as the rules are concerned.


Hence why the solution is and always has been to have GW hire competent rules writers again and balance their point systems. All this talk of OP units and spamming undercosted things and creating an 'illusion of balance' aee just symptoms of poorly balanced games.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
I'm saying that what I find interesting are people in general who state that balance is super important to them, won't play a game without points because eyeballing balance is not trustworthy (i get it, and I agree its very hard to do) but have no problem breaking games like 40k.

Have you actually asked those people who say balance is important to them if they still play 40k? I can only speak for myself but I'm one of those people saying I won't touch AoS without points but I keep away from 40k like it's the plague too.

I can only go by the fact that they talk about listbuilding in 40k and discuss it heavily that they are still involved in 40k on some level.

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Finally, I always think about the future. Kids need a framework more than us (and, albeit I do not play with AoS, thanks for the effort put in the comp - an effort from the community is always great even when does not benefit you directly, because it keeps the hobby alive).

There is a fear of the WAAC player and the possibility of him exploiting the rules so he wins "unfairly" while at the same time there may be NO such player at all in the group. People must learn to trust each other - from letting roll dice without looking at the results, trusting with measurements to rules interpretations and last - army composition and mission set up. It is a simpler and purer form of gaming that, should the young gamers (young either in years or in experience) become acquaint with at early on, they will have no problem branching off to points, FOCs or whatever form of army/mission composition they want to. The reverse IMO is more prone to selfishness as points/structure may lead to ideas of strength equality, ultra competition, skill superiority complex (strive for totally balanced game so you can prove/feel good that you bested the other through superior intellect and judgement, and other less desirable qualities in the "true" gamer.

 CoreCommander wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Finally, I always think about the future. Kids need a framework more than us (and, albeit I do not play with AoS, thanks for the effort put in the comp - an effort from the community is always great even when does not benefit you directly, because it keeps the hobby alive).

There is a fear of the WAAC player and the possibility of him exploiting the rules so he wins "unfairly" while at the same time there may be NO such player at all in the group. People must learn to trust each other - from letting roll dice without looking at the results, trusting with measurements to rules interpretations and last - army composition and mission set up. It is a simpler and purer form of gaming that, should the young gamers (young either in years or in experience) become acquaint with at early on, they will have no problem branching off to points, FOCs or whatever form of army/mission composition they want to. The reverse IMO is more prone to selfishness as points/structure may lead to ideas of strength equality, ultra competition, skill superiority complex (strive for totally balanced game so you can prove/feel good that you bested the other through superior intellect and judgement, and other less desirable qualities in the "true" gamer.

That's a good point that the ideal solution would be to fix the behavior problems; once that's out of the way it doesn't matter what points/comp/system is. That said, players shouldn't have to be responsible for fixing their community to consistently find good games - that's a bit much to ask for, so people's concerns about WAAC (and the like) are valid as well. Yet that still takes it beyond the system; both of these things are not so much about whether or not points are in place but rather about how best to manage less-than-ideal opponents.

Points

 CoreCommander wrote:

 Kaiyanwang wrote:
Finally, I always think about the future. Kids need a framework more than us (and, albeit I do not play with AoS, thanks for the effort put in the comp - an effort from the community is always great even when does not benefit you directly, because it keeps the hobby alive).

There is a fear of the WAAC player and the possibility of him exploiting the rules so he wins "unfairly" while at the same time there may be NO such player at all in the group. People must learn to trust each other - from letting roll dice without looking at the results, trusting with measurements to rules interpretations and last - army composition and mission set up. It is a simpler and purer form of gaming that, should the young gamers (young either in years or in experience) become acquaint with at early on, they will have no problem branching off to points, FOCs or whatever form of army/mission composition they want to. The reverse IMO is more prone to selfishness as points/structure may lead to ideas of strength equality, ultra competition, skill superiority complex (strive for totally balanced game so you can prove/feel good that you bested the other through superior intellect and judgement, and other less desirable qualities in the "true" gamer.

I do not speak out of fear of the waac, just of fear of "newbiesness". I am way better now into balancing stuff than I was back then.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Hence why the solution is and always has been to have GW hire competent rules writers again and balance their point systems.
All this talk of OP units and spamming undercosted things and creating an 'illusion of balance' aee just symptoms of poorly balanced games.
.

Partly True. But the embracing of, and the proliferation of those spammed op units and whatnot isn't just a symptom of poorly balanced gsmes. It is also a symptom of the community itself, and of lazy, selfish and entitled gamers, stewing in their own intertia and self defeating toxicity, and playing poor games with even worse attitudes with no sense of community or empathy and no desire to be proactive and do something about it. Gw writing better rules might solve the game, but it won't solve the community.

But you go right ahead there and hand wave any sense of the personal responsibility that gamers oweto themselves and should be bringing to the table. Because personal responsibility is hard, far better to simply not do anything at all and just blame someone else for all your problems, especially when there are things you could do to solve, or at the very least mitigate those issues people complain about.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Well... yeah.. if the rules of football clearly stated punching your opponent in the face was allowed there would be a lot more punches thrown.
Poorly balanced rules are still official rules, and therefore you're entirely within your right to take them. The rules are literally telling you that.
Now people abusing this to beat up noobs or people wanting a casual game are donkey caves, but not technically in the wrong as far as the rules are concerned.
.

No. Whether they are ‘technically’ not wrong is irrelevant. You can’t ‘just’ look at ‘the rules’ and end the debate there. The 'rules' don't define everything that is involved with playing games or dealing with people. This is a hobby based upon community and social contract, and those things matter just as much as the words in the book. How you act matters. And how you act carries a huge amount of weight in any debate in terms of the consequences of actions, and people are all to willing to ignore this. Following broken rules ‘because its in the book, hur hur and therefore OK’ regardless of consequences carries as much ‘silent’ weight, has as many negative consequences and is just as destructive, if not moreso as anything ‘official’, but hypocritically, this is glossed over like its invisible.
This attitude is no different to blindingly adhering to scripture to justify one’s reprehensible actions, and declaring since it’s in the book, it’s OK to hate and do horrible things. (Regardless, its wrong, and you simply shouldn’t do it) Then there is the ‘we were just following orders’ excuse which is hokum.
In a game built upon community and social contract, the negative effects of ‘blindingly following the rules’, washing your hands of all personal responsibility regardless of consequences (and blaming it all on someone else when you were perfectly capable of doing things yourself to stop it, but chose not to) is deluded and counter productive; it is a terrible approach to take, and people who embrace this, condone this, or just shrug their shoulders and let these things happen this are just as much in the wrong as you claim GW are. This is an entitled, selfish and lazy-gamer attitude, and it stinks. It is not part of the solution; its part of the problem.

 jonolikespie wrote:

Hence why the solution is and always has been to have GW hire competent rules writers again and balance their point systems. All this talk of OP units and spamming undercosted things and creating an 'illusion of balance' are just symptoms of poorly balanced games.
.

You’re partially right, but you are also wrong and misguided in a lot of ways, as it seeks to handwave away and deny any and all personal responsibility when decency and personal responsibility is such a key part of any hobby based on social interaction and can go a long way towards acting as a ‘shock absorber’ for any issues. It’s not just GWs fault. We, as players are equally to blame. Gamers are a terrible community that often stinks of inertia, entitlement, selfishness and a lack of empathy and proactive and positive attitudes. This may surprise you, but you can still have a lot of fun even with poorly balanced games. It takes time and effort, and a degree of good judgement, emotional maturity and cooperation. None of these is a bad thing to bring to the table in the first place so I don’t see anything wrong with bringing these attitudes here.
I see nothing here about the community’s responsibilities towards itself. Again, this is a social hobby where social interaction and community are two of the key cornerstones of a functional group and long term health and stability. Whilst those OP units are a problem, peoples obsession and embracing of said OP units, and reprehensible, toxic and self-defeating gaming cultures is just as much of a problem. GW didn’t tell you how to play. People did that themselves. And when they play in self-destructive and self-defeating ways, well, its on them.You hold up GW’s poor writing as the single source. You are only wrong in stating it as the ‘single’ source. The players themselves and their toxic attitudes are the other side of that very same coin. One cannot be held up and blamed without acknowledging the other because one doesn’t exist without the other.

If little Timmy and little Jimmy pick up an AoS starter and the big Bloodbound and Sigmarine expansion boxes to play together but one keeps kicking the others teeth in because they are unbalanced. Is Timmy a WAAC toxic community member 'That Guy' because of that? How is he even supposed to know the reason he keeps winning is because his army is too powerful, maybe he just thinks he is better than Jimmy at the game? Maybe he's just had good dice rolls the first 2 or 3 games? How is he supposed to know he is doing something wrong just because he wins more often than not?

 jonolikespie wrote:
If little Timmy and little Jimmy pick up an AoS starter and the big Bloodbound and Sigmarine expansion boxes to play together but one keeps kicking the others teeth in because they are unbalanced. Is Timmy a WAAC toxic community member 'That Guy' because of that? How is he even supposed to know the reason he keeps winning is because his army is too powerful, maybe he just thinks he is better than Jimmy at the game? Maybe he's just had good dice rolls the first 2 or 3 games? How is he supposed to know he is doing something wrong just because he wins more often than not?

He might be. Waac is an attitude, not a list. How he plays determines if he is Waac or not. He is not wrong for winning. But he would be wrong for insisting in a broken game mode or playing things as they stand without some kind of evidence that the game is fine. Or changing things up a bit. Quick google or a chat with peers goes a long way at this point. A bit of cop on and emotional maturity, or heck, even showing some consideration to your mate goes a long way.

but if he insists on playing the same lists against the other, repeatedly, with the same outcome, when it's obvious one is capable of doing more, then what exactly is he proving? At a certain point he is just out for scalps, not to play a game with a mate. That's the point where you change things up, swap sides or do something different. Or find a different opponent.

And they're incapable of a bit of research? Quick Google 'losing with aos starter. What do I do?' Or something along those lines. Take further steps from there. Dice rolls are a possibility. But you'll remember that string of 6s or 1s that one time. That's fine. It won't always be a thing. It will generally be obvious if one list hard counters the other with very little to be done about it.

again, figuring these things out is not a hard thing to do. Your hobby enjoy,ent is entirely in your hands. It makes sense to work with your community rather than actively campaign against it.

From my personal hobby experience, I haven't really had many games with an opponent whose attitude I would even remotely call toxic. Maybe I am lucky? But the talk of "TFG" seems to be more of an Internet occurrence.

Still, in a casual setting I would always be willing to add a handicap on my army if I felt the points system didn't adequately balance them. A points system can be a great framework for adding a handicap as you can give x number of additional points and tweak it from there.

What I think is better though is choosing a scenario that puts the player out of their comfort zone. Force the gun line into the middle of the board with objectives that need capturing - force the charging-choppy army to leave models back in reserve to defend from a "break the line" style objective.

A nice one is to make the gun-line the attacker in The Ritual or Breakthrough and the choppy army the defender. Not only does it keep the gaming and tactical challenges fresh, it also means the player can't always fall back onto one strategy in their list building like a kill-point battleline allows.

 Bottle wrote:
From my personal hobby experience, I haven't really had many games with an opponent whose attitude I would even remotely call toxic. Maybe I am lucky? But the talk of "TFG" seems to be more of an Internet occurrence.

Me too. After few games we figured out with our buddies that the codex were crappliy written and we were just a bit sad that we could not challenge each other in a proper way.

Even in tournament I'd say a 10% of players in my area brought cheese. The others with "pumped" lists were the ones with a crappy army book so people did not scorned them for trying to make it even.

Looking back, I almost hope GW fails. They just treated with contempt people money and time for too long.

I don't agree completely. When it's a tournament people are trying to win, why wouldn't they take the best list? I had lots of fun at a recent tournament going up against the toughest lists out there, and it has given me something to aspire to (to improve my list and try and place better in my next tournament). I don't think there is anything wrong with that at all.

Even in a casual setting - if it had a good robust points system players shouldn't have to adjust as players of whatever faction should have ample options available to them. Still they might want to handicap themselves because there might be a big gap in player skill or they might want the chance to use army options that aren't fully optimised but have fun models/rules, or lastly they might know their opponent has a weaker army and hasn't had a chance to improve it yet (or that might be something the opponent isn't looking to do).

I have found the community systems for AoS to have been really good, but maybe the best thing about them was the ability to change when they got it wrong. (For example SCGT got the Fyreslayers largely wrong but this has recently been addressed, something that would have taken 5 years in the old Army Book system).

 Bottle wrote:
From my personal hobby experience, I haven't really had many games with an opponent whose attitude I would even remotely call toxic. Maybe I am lucky? But the talk of "TFG" seems to be more of an Internet occurrence.

Still, in a casual setting I would always be willing to add a handicap on my army if I felt the points system didn't adequately balance them. A points system can be a great framework for adding a handicap as you can give x number of additional points and tweak it from there.

What I think is better though is choosing a scenario that puts the player out of their comfort zone. Force the gun line into the middle of the board with objectives that need capturing - force the charging-choppy army to leave models back in reserve to defend from a "break the line" style objective.

A nice one is to make the gun-line the attacker in The Ritual or Breakthrough and the choppy army the defender. Not only does it keep the gaming and tactical challenges fresh, it also means the player can't always fall back onto one strategy in their list building like a kill-point battleline allows.

Thats because TFG is not real in a game where you pick who you play. People make him up to prove a point and try and make their point of view more relevant.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
From my personal hobby experience, I haven't really had many games with an opponent whose attitude I would even remotely call toxic. Maybe I am lucky? But the talk of "TFG" seems to be more of an Internet occurrence.

Still, in a casual setting I would always be willing to add a handicap on my army if I felt the points system didn't adequately balance them. A points system can be a great framework for adding a handicap as you can give x number of additional points and tweak it from there.

What I think is better though is choosing a scenario that puts the player out of their comfort zone. Force the gun line into the middle of the board with objectives that need capturing - force the charging-choppy army to leave models back in reserve to defend from a "break the line" style objective.

A nice one is to make the gun-line the attacker in The Ritual or Breakthrough and the choppy army the defender. Not only does it keep the gaming and tactical challenges fresh, it also means the player can't always fall back onto one strategy in their list building like a kill-point battleline allows.

Thats because TFG is not real in a game where you pick who you play. People make him up to prove a point and try and make their point of view more relevant.

Its ignorant to suggest that everyone mentioning TFG is doing so to support a view. I could go to any FLGS within literally almost two hours from my home, and if I mention "Old Man Ed" someone in the room will cringe. There are absolutely awful gamers, viles sportsmen, etc... who ruin the hobby as much as possible, and persist and follow the game regardless of just trying to not play against them. Some folks are just wired wrong, and if you ignore said TFG in my example, he'll just hover over, and ruin other games. Oh, and stores often won't ban or throw out TFG for ruining the fun of others if he's also a Codex-hopper who throws a $1000 at the store every couple of months.

OgreChubbs wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
From my personal hobby experience, I haven't really had many games with an opponent whose attitude I would even remotely call toxic. Maybe I am lucky? But the talk of "TFG" seems to be more of an Internet occurrence.

Still, in a casual setting I would always be willing to add a handicap on my army if I felt the points system didn't adequately balance them. A points system can be a great framework for adding a handicap as you can give x number of additional points and tweak it from there.

What I think is better though is choosing a scenario that puts the player out of their comfort zone. Force the gun line into the middle of the board with objectives that need capturing - force the charging-choppy army to leave models back in reserve to defend from a "break the line" style objective.

A nice one is to make the gun-line the attacker in The Ritual or Breakthrough and the choppy army the defender. Not only does it keep the gaming and tactical challenges fresh, it also means the player can't always fall back onto one strategy in their list building like a kill-point battleline allows.

Thats because TFG is not real in a game where you pick who you play. People make him up to prove a point and try and make their point of view more relevant.

I know two guys who were very definitely TFG.
One collected FoW, 40k and WFB plus most smaller systems.
Retired military with a second gov't service civilian job.
He largely supported one game store that would have otherwise closed.
He would watch what others brought into the LGS and then go build a list to counter it.
Not an exaggeration. He did that with me and others multiple times.
And if his tailored list failed to perform (bad rolls on his part, good rolls on your part, something not going to plan) he would growl, slam dice, etc.

The other also collected for those games but was much more frugal.
Still spent a lot but used his armies for double duty (e.g., playing chaos demons in 40k and WFB).
His schtick was rules-lawyering to the Supreme Court level.
He became an opponent of last resort or someone to decline even if there was no other option if you didn't want to deal with it.
I saw multiple folks turn him down for a game when I know they played and had their stuff with 'em and obviously had the time.

Both TFGs were very real human beings.
Completely fine to have a beer with, talk baseball or whatever.
Get them behind a gaming table and the jack-hole emerged.
TFG is not an internet creation unless you count math-hammer/netlisting options they would have had to previously figure out completely on their own.

As an event organizer I've met a good dozen "TFG" in the past twenty years. They are not super common but neither are they myths made up to prove a point.

When it's a tournament people are trying to win, why wouldn't they take the best list?

This is true and I agree. The problem becomes that tournament mentality moves outside of the tournament hall and into the store's general purpose games as well.

 Ghaz wrote:

This is just my own opinion, but its my belief that the Lord of the Rings license may prevent GW from using its rules for any other games while the license is in effect.

It did not. Legends of the Old West and Legends of the High Seas used the same rules as Lord of the Rings in Wild West and Pirates settings (and one supplement for LotOW had a section with suggestions on how to use them for anything from the Napoleonic Wars to Prohibition-era Chicago.

I am sorry people have had lots of real experiences with TFG. As said before, I am probably just lucky.

 auticus wrote:

When it's a tournament people are trying to win, why wouldn't they take the best list?

This is true and I agree. The problem becomes that tournament mentality moves outside of the tournament hall and into the store's general purpose games as well.

Which can be fine too if everyone wants to play games like that. But yes, in a hobby of expensive miniatures where players may not want to change their list, or even if they do, is something that takes a far bit of time to get built and painted - players should be willing to make concessions in friendly games.

I also can attest TFG is real I've met him, we called him ratboy because he played skaven but he didn't play them right he had zero theme he just took three dozen jezails and some warp lightning cannons and sat on a hill.

No one really liked playing him.

Interestingly enough on facebook this same poll's results are completely different.

59 say they will play with no points, and 11 say only with points.

 auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough on facebook this same poll's results are completely different.

59 say they will play with no points, and 11 say only with points.

Thst makes sense. Most of the pro-aos'ers seemingly migrated over to aos specific groups on Facebook rather than stay on forums which predominately had an extremely hostile and negative reaction towards aos.

Deadnight wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough on facebook this same poll's results are completely different.

59 say they will play with no points, and 11 say only with points.

Thst makes sense. Most of the pro-aos'ers seemingly migrated over to aos specific groups on Facebook rather than stay on forums which predominately had an extremely hostile and negative reaction towards aos.

Meaning, across the hobby, we can functionally guess it's something like 50/50.

 auticus wrote:
Interestingly enough on facebook this same poll's results are completely different.

59 say they will play with no points, and 11 say only with points.

I think that has alot to do with younger people seem to like more freedom and alot less planning which is what I see alot of facebook being. Facebook has become alot of young adults keeping with highschool trends of groups and gossip. So in my opnion facebook would also be alot more freedom to do anything stop putting restrictions on me rebel on.

If you own a FB business page you can also block people and remove their posts super easy. Sure you can do that on other forums but it's a touted feature of FB.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:


Meaning, across the hobby, we can functionally guess it's something like 50/50.

I don't think that's a safe assumption, two random polls on the internet with less than a hundred people total is probably not a good indicator for anything, certainly not general opinion among players and potential players. A better indicator what people think about points is the failure of AoS as a brand. It's to the point where GW has had to publicly eat crow and patch in a points system after frequently saying they would never do that. There is also Kirby falling (or being pushed) on his sword in 2015, and/or betrayal at Calth outselling the entire Sigmar line are also pretty good indications of the hobbies thoughts on the matter.

On the bright side, now that points are coming, my friends and I have started collecting and painting, because the new sculpts are amazing, the rules are fun and fast, and we are kind of sick of 40k's gak. It helps that we can get things like the main AoS box for 40 dollars off of MSRP, because retailers are using ebay to liquidate stock eve if it means taking a loss to recoup some of their investment. We aren't WaaC or TFG players, we just wanted fair battles, without having to handicap, eyeball, or debate what is a fair match. This is also why we are looking at systems outside of 40k, because the current 40k meta isn't one of friendly competition, more like a prison shower scene. In fact most of the 40k players in my area are now getting curious about AoS so maybe points will be a sea change for AoS.

 Grimgold wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:


Meaning, across the hobby, we can functionally guess it's something like 50/50.

I don't think that's a safe assumption, two random polls on the internet with less than a hundred people total is probably not a good indicator for anything, certainly not general opinion among players and potential players. A better indicator what people think about points is the failure of AoS as a brand. It's to the point where GW has had to publicly eat crow and patch in a points system after frequently saying they would never do that. There is also Kirby falling (or being pushed) on his sword in 2015, and/or betrayal at Calth outselling the entire Sigmar line are also pretty good indications of the hobbies thoughts on the matter.

On the bright side, now that points are coming, my friends and I have started collecting and painting, because the new sculpts are amazing, the rules are fun and fast, and we are kind of sick of 40k's gak. It helps that we can get things like the main AoS box for 40 dollars off of MSRP, because retailers are using ebay to liquidate stock eve if it means taking a loss to recoup some of their investment. We aren't WaaC or TFG players, we just wanted fair battles, without having to handicap, eyeball, or debate what is a fair match. This is also why we are looking at systems outside of 40k, because the current 40k meta isn't one of friendly competition, more like a prison shower scene. In fact most of the 40k players in my area are now getting curious about AoS so maybe points will be a sea change for AoS.

AoS failing it's initial year was the best thing that could have happened to GW; it FINALLY got the point through their heads that yes, customers do matter beyond their wallets.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Grimgold wrote:

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:


Meaning, across the hobby, we can functionally guess it's something like 50/50.

I don't think that's a safe assumption, two random polls on the internet with less than a hundred people total is probably not a good indicator for anything, certainly not general opinion among players and potential players. A better indicator what people think about points is the failure of AoS as a brand. It's to the point where GW has had to publicly eat crow and patch in a points system after frequently saying they would never do that. There is also Kirby falling (or being pushed) on his sword in 2015, and/or betrayal at Calth outselling the entire Sigmar line are also pretty good indications of the hobbies thoughts on the matter.

On the bright side, now that points are coming, my friends and I have started collecting and painting, because the new sculpts are amazing, the rules are fun and fast, and we are kind of sick of 40k's gak. It helps that we can get things like the main AoS box for 40 dollars off of MSRP, because retailers are using ebay to liquidate stock eve if it means taking a loss to recoup some of their investment. We aren't WaaC or TFG players, we just wanted fair battles, without having to handicap, eyeball, or debate what is a fair match. This is also why we are looking at systems outside of 40k, because the current 40k meta isn't one of friendly competition, more like a prison shower scene. In fact most of the 40k players in my area are now getting curious about AoS so maybe points will be a sea change for AoS.

AoS failing it's initial year was the best thing that could have happened to GW; it FINALLY got the point through their heads that yes, customers do matter beyond their wallets.

Yup GW admitted in public at warhammer fest that AOS did not launch well, so they are making more gains to support the hobby/community. Developing games to be played and good miniatures. Best way to get a company to change is their bank account.

It's true that you often learn more from failure than success, that's what my friends and I are betting on. They also have some things going for them such as having a blank slate when it comes to points, an advantage 40k never had, and a jilted but interested fan base. They have also solicited outside feedback for the first time ever, so it seems they are trying to get the points right, rather than just pushing something out of the door (*cough* *cough* Eldar).

That is an important factor that often gets overlooked in the AoS-points-will-take-over discussion, the situation is different. The comparison is often drawn to 40k and the unpopularity of Unbound, but that was adding no-points to a pointed situation. Here, points are being added to a no-pointed situation. How different that will be... we'll have to wait and find out.

Just to nitpick but unbound 40k is a lack of army structure rather than a lack of points isn't it? You still have to point your army but are allowed to forgo detachment and faction restrictions.

I think it's unpopularity is due to the ability to take very unfluffy combos in a competitive environment - and I think if 40k also introduces a Matched/Narrative/Open approach that unbound could sit in Narrative and Open play without complaint.

Moving round to Matched Play. I am really curious as to what restrictions the Warhammer World event has (or the General's handbook itself). I would be in favour of Matched Play being limited to a single Grand Alliance. Do we really want to play armies led by Archaon with Coven Throne's, Celestant Primes and backed up by Thundertusks? I also wonder how they are going to do the measuring - RAW the Ripperdactyl on the tall flying base isn't in range to hit anything or be hit? How will they do piling on top of bases too? Hopefully GW will see things like this need to be addressed to run a competitive tournament because two players do not want to have a disagreement over any of them.

 Bottle wrote:
Just to nitpick but unbound 40k is a lack of army structure rather than a lack of points isn't it? You still have to point your army but are allowed to forgo detachment and faction restrictions.

I think it's unpopularity is due to the ability to take very unfluffy combos in a competitive environment

Yes and yes.

Points still exist in every form of 40k's rules and people hated in upon it's introduction because no one wanted to play it because the army structure was the only thing keeping the absurdly bad balance even a little in check.

I'll continue to use points as a guide, regardless of how narrative the game is. Even if it's just "I'm outnumbered about 5:1"

Yeah the community rejected Unbound lists because the perception was only WaaC players would use/abuse them, and more narrative focused players would skip them and stick to a single faction or allied factions for fluff reasons. Amusingly it's kind of turned out to be the opposite in my area, the very competitive players want lists that they could use in a tourney, and the more narrative focused players have used unbound lists to create neat idea armies (like human irregulars in the Tau army, or a demon summoning loyalist chapter).

As for my concerns over the AoS points system, I think the points should be balanced around units and not models, and I hope they adopt some semblance of imperfect balance to allow for synergy, rather than some hard X ability adds Y points to the model.

I'm excited for everything except the battle line units. I run an An all soulblight army after all and I want to stick with that theme of Vamps and nothing but vamps! I would be kinda happy if the bats are like the troops for the Soulblight, but other than that I just want vampire knights and lords on zombie dragons.

 Bottle wrote:
Just to nitpick but unbound 40k is a lack of army structure rather than a lack of points isn't it? You still have to point your army but are allowed to forgo detachment and faction restrictions.

Specifically, it is just detachment restrictions.

Faction does not play into Unbound or Bound.

I think its unpopularity is due to the ability to take very unfluffy combos in a competitive environment - and I think if 40k also introduces a Matched/Narrative/Open approach that unbound could sit in Narrative and Open play without complaint.

Its unpopularity has nothing to do with "the ability to take very unfluffy combos in a competitive environment". I can take far unfluffier combos and remain Battle-Forged, thanks to the Allies rules.

Moving round to Matched Play. I am really curious as to what restrictions the Warhammer World event has (or the General's handbook itself). I would be in favour of Matched Play being limited to a single Grand Alliance. Do we really want to play armies led by Archaon with Coven Throne's, Celestant Primes and backed up by Thundertusks? I also wonder how they are going to do the measuring - RAW the Ripperdactyl on the tall flying base isn't in range to hit anything or be hit? How will they do piling on top of bases too? Hopefully GW will see things like this need to be addressed to run a competitive tournament because two players do not want to have a disagreement over any of them.

Just so we're clear, Celestant Primes cannot be taken more than once. They have a specific rule stating that you can only ever include one in your army.

Archaon, Nagash, etc do not have that rule.

 Tiger9gamer wrote:
I'm excited for everything except the battle line units. I run an An all soulblight army after all and I want to stick with that theme of Vamps and nothing but vamps! I would be kinda happy if the bats are like the troops for the Soulblight, but other than that I just want vampire knights and lords on zombie dragons.

Maybe you'll get blood knights as your battleline unit if you only use Soul Blight. Varghiests are probably more likely the "unlockable" one though with bats being the default.

Yeah to be honest I am somewhat surprised how restrictive Matched Play seems to be from the snippet of information we have so far. SCGT did very little to actually "comp" army structure really.

Well, you reap what you sow.

The complaints about AoS were that it was TOO free and TOO loose, that there was no structure.

Congrats. You got structure and points. Enjoy it.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Well, you reap what you sow.

The complaints about AoS were that it was TOO free and TOO loose, that there was no structure.

Congrats. You got structure and points. Enjoy it.

Er, thanks. Will do. I wasn't complaining. Rather, intrigued.

 Bottle wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Well, you reap what you sow.

The complaints about AoS were that it was TOO free and TOO loose, that there was no structure.

Congrats. You got structure and points. Enjoy it.

Er, thanks. Will do. I wasn't complaining. Rather, intrigued.

And I'm ready to love the feth out of it

Bring on the structure already! I've got Ogres to paint, need to know how many I should dust off and queue up

- Salvage

Aw yeah, can't wait to start fine-tuning my list and making tactical maps again like I used to in 8th. Matched Play is gonna be awesome

 Boss Salvage wrote:

 Bottle wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
Well, you reap what you sow.

The complaints about AoS were that it was TOO free and TOO loose, that there was no structure.

Congrats. You got structure and points. Enjoy it.

Er, thanks. Will do. I wasn't complaining. Rather, intrigued.

And I'm ready to love the feth out of it

Bring on the structure already! I've got Ogres to paint, need to know how many I should dust off and queue up

- Salvage

You could have figured that out by looking at any of the Ogre warscroll battalions.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Well, you reap what you sow.

The complaints about AoS were that it was TOO free and TOO loose, that there was no structure.

Congrats. You got structure and points. Enjoy it.

You're right, people who like the new structure WILL enjoy it. People who don't will probably use one of the two other ways to play that's covered in the book. Seriously dude your posts on this topic are getting almost comical!

Fortunately, we all have the freedom to try different play styles and do what we want. Lucky us

Out of interest is anyone actually looking forward to "open" play? I guess if there are Triumph and Treachery style game modes it could be fun, but it seems everyone is looking forward to Narrative and Matched play the most.

 Bottle wrote:
Out of interest is anyone actually looking forward to "open" play? I guess if there are Triumph and Treachery style game modes it could be fun, but it seems everyone is looking forward to Narrative and Matched play the most.

Well I'm looking forward to finding out what it is!

 Bottle wrote:
Out of interest is anyone actually looking forward to "open" play? I guess if there are Triumph and Treachery style game modes it could be fun, but it seems everyone is looking forward to Narrative and Matched play the most.

The open play to my understanding was what we already have. I'm looking forward to the campaign stuff.

I've played the four player scenario that came with Web Store orders and it was really fun. It also worked well without points (as long as someone doesn't have enough to take on all 3 opponents at once) as the strongest guy gets ganged up on.

I used to play Triumph and Treachery in 8th edition a lot too which was fun.

I am hoping for some fun scenarios like a "Royal Rumble" winner stays on, or pit-fighting for heroes and monsters.

We use T&T in our campaign now. The cards were adapted over to AOS rules.

I'm only interested in campaigns, so open play will likely never be something that I use.

My community is largely competitive so points are all that will happen, and those are integrated into the campaign.

Depending on what "narrative format" is... it will likely be integrated with points.

 Kanluwen wrote:
You could have figured that out by looking at any of the Ogre warscroll battalions.

My Ogre collection, like me, are very special snowflakes who do not conform to any formation. I require warscroll points to know where my army currently stands in regards to the widely accepted points value for pickup games. Which doesn't exist yet.



- Salvage

I LOVE Triumph and Treachery, and would love to see how you've adapted the rules for AoS. :-)

Meanwhile, the totally undiscussed third style of play, supposedly an expanded Paths of Glory has me excited too. I'd love a fun, light campaign system with a lot of silliness and randomness. For me that'll be the counter-part I enjoy between sessions of point-matches.

NewTruthNeomaxim wrote:
I LOVE Triumph and Treachery, and would love to see how you've adapted the rules for AoS. :-)

Meanwhile, the totally undiscussed third style of play, supposedly an expanded Paths of Glory has me excited too. I'd love a fun, light campaign system with a lot of silliness and randomness. For me that'll be the counter-part I enjoy between sessions of point-matches.

www.louisvillewargaming.com

Go to the Resources tab and download Azyr Empires (there are appendixes also available to enhance the ruleset)

Triumph and Treachery is located within Appendix F of the main ruleset.