Hello AoS players, collectors and painters,

I am in general fed up with the competitiveness of 40K and the balls to the wall release schedule GW has set that game on. My town has a new game store, for the first time which means no more driving to the big city to play games once a wee! I was wondering what information is very important to know before jumping into AoS. I ask this because a lot of the people here are buying into AoS instead of 40K. In fact, the store owner even said to me that AoS outsold Magic in his store two months running now by a factor of three to one. With such a strong community building up, the game being much more focused on melee combat, I am thinking now is the time to jump in.

There are three armies that interest me currently:

The Deepkin, Khorne Mortals, and the brand new Skeletons.

What should I know about the game, the state it is in, how easy it is to learn to play, etc before I go diving in?

If you haven't already, download the Age of Sigmar Battle Primer to read the basic core rules.

 Ghaz wrote:
If you haven't already, download the Age of Sigmar Battle Primer to read the basic core rules.

So I did that, and I went ahead and bought the Basic Rule Book, Generals Handbook (2019). I have a small force of Stormcast and Khorne (Two of each of the SC boxes) that I'm hoping I can use to learn and then either trade up for other models later or sell when I'm ready to go all in.

One thing that has me really confused is the differences between "Grand Alliances" and "Battletomes" and I also am having trouble with the Realm rules and what they mean, how they are chosen and so on.

 Togusa wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
If you haven't already, download the Age of Sigmar Battle Primer to read the basic core rules.

So I did that, and I went ahead and bought the Basic Rule Book, Generals Handbook (2019). I have a small force of Stormcast and Khorne (Two of each of the SC boxes) that I'm hoping I can use to learn and then either trade up for other models later or sell when I'm ready to go all in.

One thing that has me really confused is the differences between "Grand Alliances" and "Battletomes" and I also am having trouble with the Realm rules and what they mean, how they are chosen and so on.

Grand Alliances are one of four alliances of armies that are united in the lore and on the tabletop. Within each Grand Alliance you've got a myriad of armies, each with their own Battletome*. These armies operate fully on their own with their respective battletome. The Battletome contains the armies rules, allegiance abilities, spells, equipment, battalions and all.
Armies can also take up to 1/4 in points value of allies. These allies must come from forces listed on the last page in the battletome which details the allies that the faction has. These allies are all from the same grand alliance, but might not include all forces. Eg Daughters of Khaine cannot ally with Seraphon. Meanwhile Stormcast can ally with basically any Order faction

Now its also possible to form a Grand Alliance Army, which can take models from the whole Grand Alliance and has its own book as well. However these books were some of the first made and are very out of date right now. Basically if you don't own them don't bother as the concept or even the books are likely to get remade and they are not generally as good as making specific armies with allies.



Realm Rules are basically an expansion set of rules which adds to the core rules. They have various forms too. These might be rules that apply to the terrain on the table; giving you new equipment lists and also new spells. There are some core realm rules in the main book and the Malign Sorcery boxed set expands greatly on them, as well as giving you access to all the generic endless spells; another expansion of the rules. Note that of all these the Endless Spells are most typically considered a default auto-include (ergo most games will allow them). Realm rules are more varied in pick-up status so chat with your opponent beforehand. For tornaments the realm rules, if being used, are normally told before the event so that you can plan and prepare for them in mind.


*At this point in time not all have a battletome, however by the start of next year (based on current release speed) all should have them. Note that Orruks are being combined into a single tome (Orks basically) and Gutbusters and Beastclaw raiders are also being put into a single tome.

 Overread wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Ghaz wrote:
If you haven't already, download the Age of Sigmar Battle Primer to read the basic core rules.

So I did that, and I went ahead and bought the Basic Rule Book, Generals Handbook (2019). I have a small force of Stormcast and Khorne (Two of each of the SC boxes) that I'm hoping I can use to learn and then either trade up for other models later or sell when I'm ready to go all in.

One thing that has me really confused is the differences between "Grand Alliances" and "Battletomes" and I also am having trouble with the Realm rules and what they mean, how they are chosen and so on.

Grand Alliances are one of four alliances of armies that are united in the lore and on the tabletop. Within each Grand Alliance you've got a myriad of armies, each with their own Battletome*. These armies operate fully on their own with their respective battletome. The Battletome contains the armies rules, allegiance abilities, spells, equipment, battalions and all.
Armies can also take up to 1/4 in points value of allies. These allies must come from forces listed on the last page in the battletome which details the allies that the faction has. These allies are all from the same grand alliance, but might not include all forces. Eg Daughters of Khaine cannot ally with Seraphon. Meanwhile Stormcast can ally with basically any Order faction

Now its also possible to form a Grand Alliance Army, which can take models from the whole Grand Alliance and has its own book as well. However these books were some of the first made and are very out of date right now. Basically if you don't own them don't bother as the concept or even the books are likely to get remade and they are not generally as good as making specific armies with allies.



Realm Rules are basically an expansion set of rules which adds to the core rules. They have various forms too. These might be rules that apply to the terrain on the table; giving you new equipment lists and also new spells. There are some core realm rules in the main book and the Malign Sorcery boxed set expands greatly on them, as well as giving you access to all the generic endless spells; another expansion of the rules. Note that of all these the Endless Spells are most typically considered a default auto-include (ergo most games will allow them). Realm rules are more varied in pick-up status so chat with your opponent beforehand. For tornaments the realm rules, if being used, are normally told before the event so that you can plan and prepare for them in mind.


*At this point in time not all have a battletome, however by the start of next year (based on current release speed) all should have them. Note that Orruks are being combined into a single tome (Orks basically) and Gutbusters and Beastclaw raiders are also being put into a single tome.

Thank you!

The new skeletons are really what interest me the most. I liked the idea of Nighthaunts, but they were too flimsy for me. I always feel like I will break them.

So far the local crew I will be playing with has the following:


9 Stormcast Eternals
4 Chaos (Khorne, Tzeench, Nurgle X2)
1 Orruks
1 Daughters of Khaine

I'll be the 16th player bringing in Death hopefully. It's a little sad that 9 of our group are playing SC, but, what can you do?

A big thing to never underestimate is that Stormcast are/were cheap from box splitting.

Are they running Liberators(shields+hammers/swords, no robes), Vanguard(crossbows+hand weapons/gryphons), or Sequitors(robes, shields+hammers/swords)? Cause all the various Stormcast stuff plays wildly different.

A lot of groups tend to have one major stand-out faction that is the majority, and it tends to be Stormcast Eternals. Just like Space Marines, they're the poster boys and one of the most expansive army rosters out there, eclipsed by only a few such as Skaven. One Stormcast list may look entirely different from another in some cases.

Have you had a look at Warcry as well - its a bit like Killteam for 40K; only with a slightly more chaos twist as it happens within the Eightpoints; a place that Chaos has held onto and retains control over and has warped into a nightmare realm of living plants and bloody rains.

There's the warbands out for it which are all chaos, but many of the other regular armies have stats to appear there as well - the idea being that they are questing to secure some valuable relic from the times before; or to cut down a promising warband before they can join the legions etc....

The game set gives you two warbands and some chaos beasts as well as terrain, boards and all you need. The neat thing is terrain setup with the official boards and terrain is done through cards; pick the card at random and setup the terrain. Makes for fast games and can be a nice way to infill between major games; or if there's 3 of you without a game you can play several rounds of warcry instead etc... And because warbands are small and cheap to build you might coax some of the stormcast to trying out other forces.

Of course there's also AoS Champions which is a card game which has just released another expansion - again antoher great infill game

 Kanluwen wrote:
A big thing to never underestimate is that Stormcast are/were cheap from box splitting.

Are they running Liberators(shields+hammers/swords, no robes), Vanguard(crossbows+hand weapons/gryphons), or Sequitors(robes, shields+hammers/swords)? Cause all the various Stormcast stuff plays wildly different.

From what I can tell everyone is running mish-mash. I doubt any of us will be into competitive play, so expect army composition and lists to be highly varied. Most of our group left Magic because of deck/list building and how absurd it was getting.

A few differences about AoS I'll highlight:

1.) Melee > Ranged, by a large margin. Few things shoot beyond 18" and the next turn you're probably charged. You won't see gunline armies much. Units with ranged weapons can still fight in melee, but you only get one go at shooting per turn, but usually 2 goes at melee per turn, so most armies are melee. I say this as a Tzeentch player with lots of shooting that generally doesn't do a whole lot - the magic and summoning carries my army.

2.) AoS is a game of playing the objectives. In the small league we've been running locally I don't think we've seen a single table wipe, just concessions based on an impossible victory point lead. Play the objectives!

3.) Bodies is king - as in, having lots of wounds. In AoS a 4+ save is a good save and there's no Str vs Toughness, wounding is flat rolls and Mortal Wounds are common. One wound models die fast! Big units = durability and the ability to completely crump smaller units on the charge.

4.) Command Points are precious and must be used wisely. In 40k you might have 15+ CP. In AoS you'll probably have 1-2 per turn to use.

5.) Lots of armies do crazy gak that can easily blind-side you. 40K is a lot easier to predict how a battle will flow, unless you really know what every army can do. Good news is that the Warscrolls are all on-line for free, though that doesn't cover every trick every army can do, it helps. Study your opponent's army if you can!

6.) Units are bought in blocks of models (3, 5,10 and 20 being the most common blocks), unlike 40K where a unit can be any number of models from 5-10+. This makes list building a bit more challenging as the units are bigger blocks of points in most cases. There's no shaving points off or adding wargear to make the math fit better.

 Togusa wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
A big thing to never underestimate is that Stormcast are/were cheap from box splitting.

Are they running Liberators(shields+hammers/swords, no robes), Vanguard(crossbows+hand weapons/gryphons), or Sequitors(robes, shields+hammers/swords)? Cause all the various Stormcast stuff plays wildly different.

From what I can tell everyone is running mish-mash. I doubt any of us will be into competitive play, so expect army composition and lists to be highly varied. Most of our group left Magic because of deck/list building and how absurd it was getting.

Be wary for AOS is a game all about absurd deck/list building lol.

Yeah, AoS is more or less built around synergies. I think there's enough dice rolling to keep it sufficiently random though, your ex-magic players should be able to see the patterns fine.

 John Prins wrote:
6.) Units are bought in blocks of models (3, 5,10 and 20 being the most common blocks), unlike 40K where a unit can be any number of models from 5-10+. This makes list building a bit more challenging as the units are bigger blocks of points in most cases. There's no shaving points off or adding wargear to make the math fit better.

This is a very important point. Units are bought in increments of the smallest unit size regardless of how many you field.

A unit of dryads is 10 models minimum and can be up to 30. A unit of 10 dryads costs 100 points, a unit of 20 costs 200, naturally. But a unit of 11 dryads also costs 200 points, ditto for 12, 15, 19 dryads.

You also see bulk discounts for many full sized units. A unit of 30 dryads, for example costs 270 points.

This can lead to situations where you can free up 20 or 30 points by combining two units into one big one.

 auticus wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
A big thing to never underestimate is that Stormcast are/were cheap from box splitting.

Are they running Liberators(shields+hammers/swords, no robes), Vanguard(crossbows+hand weapons/gryphons), or Sequitors(robes, shields+hammers/swords)? Cause all the various Stormcast stuff plays wildly different.

From what I can tell everyone is running mish-mash. I doubt any of us will be into competitive play, so expect army composition and lists to be highly varied. Most of our group left Magic because of deck/list building and how absurd it was getting.

Be wary for AOS is a game all about absurd deck/list building lol.

Can it be run in a more narrative style? A lot of the group wants to treat it almost like an RPG. Where we are encouraged to theme our armies, and each week we will play battles to determine outcomes on a map. Some are just looking for a good skirmish with friends too.

 Togusa wrote:

 auticus wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
A big thing to never underestimate is that Stormcast are/were cheap from box splitting.

Are they running Liberators(shields+hammers/swords, no robes), Vanguard(crossbows+hand weapons/gryphons), or Sequitors(robes, shields+hammers/swords)? Cause all the various Stormcast stuff plays wildly different.

From what I can tell everyone is running mish-mash. I doubt any of us will be into competitive play, so expect army composition and lists to be highly varied. Most of our group left Magic because of deck/list building and how absurd it was getting.

Be wary for AOS is a game all about absurd deck/list building lol.

Can it be run in a more narrative style? A lot of the group wants to treat it almost like an RPG. Where we are encouraged to theme our armies, and each week we will play battles to determine outcomes on a map. Some are just looking for a good skirmish with friends too.

Yes yes it can.

Though your group also sounds like it would like Warcry which has some narrative elements built into it; though of course its skirmish based nor army based.

It can run narratively but it will only take one guy bringing a powerlist to start the arms race and force the rest of the group to follow suit.

 Overread wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 auticus wrote:

 Togusa wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:
A big thing to never underestimate is that Stormcast are/were cheap from box splitting.

Are they running Liberators(shields+hammers/swords, no robes), Vanguard(crossbows+hand weapons/gryphons), or Sequitors(robes, shields+hammers/swords)? Cause all the various Stormcast stuff plays wildly different.

From what I can tell everyone is running mish-mash. I doubt any of us will be into competitive play, so expect army composition and lists to be highly varied. Most of our group left Magic because of deck/list building and how absurd it was getting.

Be wary for AOS is a game all about absurd deck/list building lol.

Can it be run in a more narrative style? A lot of the group wants to treat it almost like an RPG. Where we are encouraged to theme our armies, and each week we will play battles to determine outcomes on a map. Some are just looking for a good skirmish with friends too.

Yes yes it can.

Though your group also sounds like it would like Warcry which has some narrative elements built into it; though of course its skirmish based nor army based.

Warcry is cool, but we want big armies, I think there is a plan to try and do a huge mega battle in a couple of months. I'm guessing there is an Apoc equivalent for AoS?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 auticus wrote:
It can run narratively but it will only take one guy bringing a powerlist to start the arms race and force the rest of the group to follow suit.

We're all refugees from those kinds of hobbies. None of us want to power game the system, so hopefully that won't be an issue for us.

In general, AoS seems to be a little more laid back than 40k and the rules writers seem to be given more freedom. I would definitely play AoS rather than 40k.
I am more of a fantasy than SciFi fan though, so might be a little baised.

That said, I don't play any GW games anymore. I try not to be negative online, but I think this topic warrants a proper warning
AoS is still a GW game and subject to most of the things that made me sick of that company. Like: poorly written rules, even worse balance (games can be decided by which army you choose), constant release of new books the are technically optional but you need to stay up to date and realistically take part in an active community, power lists crushing everything, making money coming before having a good game, etc.

If you want to get away from the gakky things GW does then I would suggest looking at games from other companies.
Keep in mind that many of the people defending and enjoying GW don't play games form other companies, so don't realise how bad they actually are.

If you're enjoying it have fun though. GW games are certainly popular and easy to find opponent's for. I only dared sell off and get out of Warhammer (both) after I realised that Infinity is also popular enough to get games for in pretty much any major city.

 DarkBlack wrote:
In general, AoS seems to be a little more laid back than 40k and the rules writers seem to be given more freedom. I would definitely play AoS rather than 40k.
I am more of a fantasy than SciFi fan though, so might be a little baised.

That said, I don't play any GW games anymore. I try not to be negative online, but I think this topic warrants a proper warning
AoS is still a GW game and subject to most of the things that made me sick of that company. Like: poorly written rules, even worse balance (games can be decided by which army you choose), constant release of new books the are technically optional but you need to stay up to date and realistically take part in an active community, power lists crushing everything, making money coming before having a good game, etc.

If you want to get away from the gakky things GW does then I would suggest looking at games from other companies.
Keep in mind that many of the people defending and enjoying GW don't play games form other companies, so don't realise how bad they actually are.

If you're enjoying it have fun though. GW games are certainly popular and easy to find opponent's for. I only dared sell off and get out of Warhammer (both) after I realised that Infinity is also popular enough to get games for in pretty much any major city.

I would likely be one of those. I consider myself a GW fanboi.

Hated Warmahordes, Infinity and in my local area it's GW or nothing. No one else plays any other games.

Though I did come into the store the other day, and to my shock some people were playing a game of MageKnight...

That was a blast from the past.

in my local area it's GW or nothing. No one else plays any other games.

Thats pretty common everywhere in the States, which is also I think a big reason people looking for more out of their games can get salty. There often is no other choice.

 auticus wrote:
It can run narratively but it will only take one guy bringing a powerlist to start the arms race and force the rest of the group to follow suit.

Or spark the vital discussion about how you as a group want to be playing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Togusa wrote:
[
Hated Warmahordes, Infinity and in my local area it's GW or nothing. No one else plays any other games.

Though I did come into the store the other day, and to my shock some people were playing a game of MageKnight...

That was a blast from the past.

Ah, so someone's open to playing other games.
That's the chink in the GW armor right there. See, you're always spoon fed this myth that GW is everywhere (mostly true) & that it's all people play (BS). But you might be surprised at what's lurking in peoples closets/collections if you ask.
Don't force it, & definitely enjoy your foray into AoS (a better game than 40k atm imo), but over time just see what else people have/might consider playing now & then. Helps if you've got enough of a favorite game to supply all sides for a few demos.

The thing I've found about miniature gaming over the years? People are attracted to cool looking minis being played with by people who're having fun. After that it starts splitting out to preferences of genre/manufacturer/rules(or rules editions)/etc. But that's just a negotiation about what exactly to play.

ccs wrote:See, you're always spoon fed this myth that GW is everywhere (mostly true) & that it's all people play (BS). But you might be surprised at what's lurking in peoples closets/collections if you ask.

The thing I've found about miniature gaming over the years? People are attracted to cool looking minis being played with by people who're having fun. After that it starts splitting out to preferences of genre/manufacturer/rules(or rules editions)/etc. But that's just a negotiation about what exactly to play.

These are both true things.

In case anyone has missed saying it - consider collecting Daemons.

I say this only for the obvious statement - if you end up hating AOS later on, you can use them in 40k

yes you can use daemons in 40k, but they're not good enough to stand on there own

For AoS, Path to Glory campaign is a good way to start playing, especially if your group is more into narrative than competitive aspects.

Path to Glory is a good start as Cronch said. Not only do you get some nice narrative elements going on you can also form the start of your collection around your rolls. If you can find them, the 5? Remlgate Wars books are fantastic. You get fluff, story, and missions all in one book. One of my favorite missions is from these books and centers on the defending army trying to run away from pursuers across an ice bridge. The defending player can attack the table and destroy part of it (you are supposed to remove part of the table/board if you can).

The new Generals Handbook has some fun narrative stuff as well like the Army Generator (best with a large collection) and Regiments of Renown that can give fluffy upgrades to units if you are playing a long-term campaign. They also introduced rules for fighting in a city which I'm looking forward to trying soon.

Don't overlook the BRB as well. While you don't necessarily need the BRB as the core rules are free, it does have good stuff in there. Rules for larger games with 2+ player teams, sieges (super fun), free-for-alls, and even an AoS version of Maelstrom of War if you're so inclined.

I would say, overall, if you are looking for a more laidback narrative style of game AoS is better at it then 40k.

There are some issues currently in AoS. Not all armies currently have a Battletome (codex). Not all armies have a "2.0" Battletome and there is significant differences in the way the older style Battletomes are done vs current

terry wrote:
yes you can use daemons in 40k, but they're not good enough to stand on there own

True, but it still means you have a significant portion of an army already finished, rather than from ground zero.

Yeah, but you set yourself up for failure if the reason you end up not liking AoS rests entirely on the way daemon armies play.

You're better off taking the time to pick an army you like (in terms of overall look, what you like to paint, how they play, etc) and either store or sell it off if you end up not liking AoS. Minimal fuss so long as you start small.

I don’t agree with the Daemon criticism. Don’t get me wrong, you are right that a mono Daemon army is “lacking” in 40k, if everyone played competitive then only a handful of armies would ever be played - but Nurgle Daemons for example have some strong uses in 40k, and thematically pair with Death Guard or any Chaos army easily. They’re also easy to paint up and quite good in AOS.

 Togusa wrote:
Hello AoS players, collectors and painters,

I am in general fed up with the competitiveness of 40K and the balls to the wall release schedule GW has set that game on. My town has a new game store, for the first time which means no more driving to the big city to play games once a wee! I was wondering what information is very important to know before jumping into AoS. I ask this because a lot of the people here are buying into AoS instead of 40K. In fact, the store owner even said to me that AoS outsold Magic in his store two months running now by a factor of three to one. With such a strong community building up, the game being much more focused on melee combat, I am thinking now is the time to jump in.

There are three armies that interest me currently:

The Deepkin, Khorne Mortals, and the brand new Skeletons.

What should I know about the game, the state it is in, how easy it is to learn to play, etc before I go diving in?

Welcome fellow refugee!

I was in the same boat as you. I have three 40k Armies, but I got really put off by the soup and knight spam, so I started branching into AOS.


The brand new Bonereapers are going to be quite cool I think! One of the nice things about Death, is the Aesthetic really flows together across the various armies (-Flesh eaters to an extent) This means it can be real easy to flow into other armies in the grand alliance. Their tome and army is likely going to be a two week release at the end of October, so you have some time to plan and think about what you want in the mean time.

Khorne mortals are also very cool, and have a very recent battletome. I think their endless "spells" are probably the best looking in the game!

The game overall is a lot of fun. The biggest gripe I think most people have currently is the possibility that you can be double turned, which isn't that fun to be on the receiving end of. Other than that, the game is pretty well balanced among battletome armies. There are a few armies slogging behind without tomes, but any army with a new tome will usually have several different playstyles and a great selection of spells, artifacts and other choices.

Overread covered several of the other salient points as well.

I would also suggest just ignoring auticus. He tends to be overly negative, and your experience will be enhanced on this board if you just ignore him.

TGA is also another great AOS resource, it's actually quite a bit more active on the AOS side than here. https://www.tga.community/forums/ A fun bonus is that Auticus is banned from there, so you don't have to worry about his posts showing up!

I'm looking in to starting AoS as well. I have a question- I saw decks of cards (like the ones in Warcry) are they supplemental to the army books or can you use them in place of the books?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I'm looking in to starting AoS as well. I have a question- I saw decks of cards (like the ones in Warcry) are they supplemental to the army books or can you use them in place of the books?

They're simply Warscroll Cards...



... you will still need your battletome for points, relics, etc. They're basically the Age of Sigmar equivalent of the datacards that accompany every codex release (i.e., an unnecessary limited edition product that sells out almost immediately).

 Ghaz wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
I'm looking in to starting AoS as well. I have a question- I saw decks of cards (like the ones in Warcry) are they supplemental to the army books or can you use them in place of the books?

They're simply Warscroll Cards...

Spoiler:

... you will still need your battletome for points, relics, etc. They're basically the Age of Sigmar equivalent of the datacards that accompany every codex release (i.e., an unnecessary limited edition product that sells out almost immediately).

Another great resource here is the https://www.warhammer-community.com/warscroll-builder/

I find the cards can be pretty useful so you don't have to flip in the codex all the time. If you only have a few units, you can just have those available for quick reference.

I don't see a heap of sense in jumping from 40K to AoS. While there are some minor differences you're feeding the same beast, and paying the same costs.

There are so many decent-to-good wargame options out there - if you're sick of 40K I'd jump ship entirely.

 Elbows wrote:
I don't see a heap of sense in jumping from 40K to AoS. While there are some minor differences you're feeding the same beast, and paying the same costs.

There are so many decent-to-good wargame options out there - if you're sick of 40K I'd jump ship entirely.

I can't say I disagree, and that is coming from someone who enjoys 40k/AoS quite a bit for what they are. The best thing I ever did in this hobby was branch out. Finding even 1-2 fellow players willing to try any number of the much better games out there can be reinvigorating, and oddly, helps you better appreciate GW's offerings for what they really are. Playing a real tournament balanced, well written ruleset or two helped me to stop trying to force GW games to work in that way.

 Elbows wrote:
I don't see a heap of sense in jumping from 40K to AoS. While there are some minor differences you're feeding the same beast, and paying the same costs.

There are so many decent-to-good wargame options out there - if you're sick of 40K I'd jump ship entirely.

You have to consider the community and playgroups. GW is often the only game in town. It also already sounds like he has a group of friends that he is going to play AoS with, which is likely a factor in the decision.

GW is the only game in town for places because few people try to make that not so.

GW is not the only game in town, by a long shot. It's an easy one to find, and it makes gaming less time-consuming. You need precisely one other friend to play any wargame out there. It's just the "arms race, meet at the store" mentality which 40K brings with it that people seem unable to break out of.

If you like another game - collect two forces, and host it for people. Or, tackle a skirmish game where you can literally assemble all the minis you'll need for less than a box of Space Marines. This requires having a decent table and building some terrain - which unfortunately seems like an impossible challenge to so many people.

I've never been a GW-only gamer, but I have to agree with the above poster; playing other games will help you look at GW in an entirely new light (and not necessarily a good one). It definitely helps take the shine off that brand. If you want to play a quick and easy fantasy game, you can buy a copy of Osprey's "Dragon Rampant" for like $16 on Amazon, use whatever figures you want (including any Warhammer ones you have) and be playing an entirely different game with very little investment. Some people seem shocked when they encounter "normal" games....just how affordable and simple they can be to adopt and play. No need to buy a half dozen books, etc.

I cut my teeth in a hobby group of older gamers who instilled in me the idea that if I want to play something...collect and build it, and then host a game. If someone else likes it, they'll get into it too. It's the easiest way to wargame and you never have to convince a friend to buy or paint an army or even a warband. They literally just show up with dice and snacks and you get to game. Simple.

 Elbows wrote:
I've never been a GW-only gamer, but I have to agree with the above poster; playing other games will help you look at GW in an entirely new light (and not necessarily a good one). It definitely helps take the shine off that brand. If you want to play a quick and easy fantasy game, you can buy a copy of Osprey's "Dragon Rampant" for like $16 on Amazon, use whatever figures you want (including any Warhammer ones you have) and be playing an entirely different game with very little investment. Some people seem shocked when they encounter "normal" games....just how affordable and simple they can be to adopt and play. No need to buy a half dozen books, etc..

I support this message.

 DarkBlack wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
I've never been a GW-only gamer, but I have to agree with the above poster; playing other games will help you look at GW in an entirely new light (and not necessarily a good one). It definitely helps take the shine off that brand. If you want to play a quick and easy fantasy game, you can buy a copy of Osprey's "Dragon Rampant" for like $16 on Amazon, use whatever figures you want (including any Warhammer ones you have) and be playing an entirely different game with very little investment. Some people seem shocked when they encounter "normal" games....just how affordable and simple they can be to adopt and play. No need to buy a half dozen books, etc..

I support this message.

Indeed, even worse when you find an actually competently written wargame

All gw really got is the miniatures. And even there that is debatable.

Careful guys you are sounding negative and that might ruin someones experience.

 auticus wrote:
Careful guys you are sounding negative and that might ruin someones experience.

More than spending $500 on a new army and discovering he picked the wrong army book and is going to get tabled in two turns no matter what he does every game?

(Having a Stormcast player and a Bloodbound player in the same playgroup (Bloodbound get tabled in two turns no matter what they do) has done more to sour me on Sigmar than any amount of complaining anyone's done or any changes to models/rules.)

I was being sarcastic and passive aggressive. A poster on the previous page suggested putting me on ignore because i sometimes speak ill of aos and its gaktastic balance.

I fully agree that the amount of traps and negative play experiences can lead to a horrible time if players arent coached correctly and know how to minmax out the gate. Otherwise youre blowing a ton of money on a bad experience.

Further you may have to regularly change armies out as they cycle one army out for another in power.

A general rules question- If I have a character with the wizard keyword do I get to use the spells on his warscroll and the one(s) from his lore realm or does the lore realm only apply to those warscrolls that don't list specific spells?

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
A general rules question- If I have a character with the wizard keyword do I get to use the spells on his warscroll and the one(s) from his lore realm or does the lore realm only apply to those warscrolls that don't list specific spells?

A wizard will only know the spells on his Warscroll (which should include Mystic Shield and Arcane Bolt too).

He or she or it will also know the spells from the Realm only if the game takes place in that Realm...but if your army is from a Realm then at least one hero can take a weapon or artefact of that Realm (all listed in the Malign Sorcery book).

Also, if your wizard is in an army that uses a Battletome Allegiance, as opposed to a generic Grand Alliance Allegiance, the wizard can usually take another spell listed in the Battletome, but limited to casting however many times the warscroll says.

 Malathrim wrote:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
A general rules question- If I have a character with the wizard keyword do I get to use the spells on his warscroll and the one(s) from his lore realm or does the lore realm only apply to those warscrolls that don't list specific spells?

A wizard will only know the spells on his Warscroll (which should include Mystic Shield and Arcane Bolt too).

He or she or it will also know the spells from the Realm only if the game takes place in that Realm...but if your army is from a Realm then at least one hero can take a weapon or artefact of that Realm (all listed in the Malign Sorcery book).

Also, if your wizard is in an army that uses a Battletome Allegiance, as opposed to a generic Grand Alliance Allegiance, the wizard can usually take another spell listed in the Battletome, but limited to casting however many times the warscroll says.

Also note there's one realm spell in each realm from the main rulebook and 6 spells for each realm in Malign Sorcery.

A wizard generally has:
-Arcane bolt & mystic shield from the basic rules
-Any spell(s) from his warscroll
-Any spell(s) granted by his allegiance
-The basic spell from the realm you are playing in, found in the core rulebook
-The realm spells from malign sorcery, found in that supplement

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
A wizard generally has:
-Arcane bolt & mystic shield from the basic rules
-Any spell(s) from his warscroll
-Any spell(s) granted by his allegiance
-The basic spell from the realm you are playing in, found in the core rulebook
-The realm spells from malign sorcery, found in that supplement

Note that of these spells the last two - basically the realm stuff - is all with opponents permission; since as part of the game setup you'd agree if you're using home-realms for your armies and you'd also agree if you're using realm rules for the game itself. Note some clubs will have a default state for these which remain true in general pickup games and events.

 auticus wrote:

Be wary for AOS is a game all about absurd deck/list building lol.

If your assertion is that this situation is somehow worse or more prevalent in AoS than it is in 40k, then I very much disagree with you.

Please do not insert words into my posts. I have never once asserted 40k or aos were worse than the other.

They both equally ride the same boat down burn’n’churn river.

 Overread wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
A wizard generally has:
-Arcane bolt & mystic shield from the basic rules
-Any spell(s) from his warscroll
-Any spell(s) granted by his allegiance
-The basic spell from the realm you are playing in, found in the core rulebook
-The realm spells from malign sorcery, found in that supplement

Note that of these spells the last two - basically the realm stuff - is all with opponents permission; since as part of the game setup you'd agree if you're using home-realms for your armies and you'd also agree if you're using realm rules for the game itself. Note some clubs will have a default state for these which remain true in general pickup games and events.

Technically speaking use of realm rules is the default, and not using them is a house rule. However your point still stands.

 auticus wrote:
Please do not insert words into my posts. I have never once asserted 40k or aos were worse than the other.

They both equally ride the same boat down burn’n’churn river.

Fair enough.

However, if you believe both game systems are the same in that regard, then why bother issuing your "warning"? It gives a pretty strong indication that you think the opposite of what you just said.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Technically speaking use of realm rules is the default, and not using them is a house rule. However your point still stands.

Technically speaking you are not correct. Nothing in the Matched Play rules forces players to use Realm rules as some sort of default state

 mikethefish wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Please do not insert words into my posts. I have never once asserted 40k or aos were worse than the other.

They both equally ride the same boat down burn’n’churn river.

Fair enough.

However, if you believe both game systems are the same in that regard, then why bother issuing your "warning"? It gives a pretty strong indication that you think the opposite of what you just said.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Technically speaking use of realm rules is the default, and not using them is a house rule. However your point still stands.

Technically speaking you are not correct. Nothing in the Matched Play rules forces players to use Realm rules as some sort of default state

I should rephrase; it isn't a house rule to not use realm rules it is simply something either player can initiate so is in play unless both agree not to, technically speaking.

However, if you believe both game systems are the same in that regard, then why bother issuing your "warning"? It gives a pretty strong indication that you think the opposite of what you just said.

Because if they think AOS is better than 40k in that regard they are going to be in for a sad and expensive conclusion.

 auticus wrote:
I was being sarcastic and passive aggressive. A poster on the previous page suggested putting me on ignore because i sometimes speak ill of aos and its gaktastic balance.

I fully agree that the amount of traps and negative play experiences can lead to a horrible time if players arent coached correctly and know how to minmax out the gate. Otherwise youre blowing a ton of money on a bad experience.

Further you may have to regularly change armies out as they cycle one army out for another in power.

The problem is that you are overly negative to a huge degree, that not only multiple topics have been warped from your posts, I think the entire AoS section has.

Here are some examples:

#1 AoS Wary example. Here Nels breaks down several of Auticus posts on the matter

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/778224.page#10525019

#2 Auticus' threatening to quit multiple times over a great timeline. Another great break down by Nels

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/765565.page#10196127

#3 Just have a read down this page, again warped around auticus

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/810/772521.page

#4 You were literally banned from another forum because of your posting habits.



Your posts are literally a negative black hole that consistently sucks and warps topics around it. It's like you have a pathological need to constantly have attention and be negative about AoS and GW.

Criticism Of GW is fair, and so is criticism of AoS. The System is not perfect, and there are much better game systems out there no question. The problem is you take it to the extreme, where you are so negative most of any criticism is lost because all you do post negative crap day in and day out.

It gets tiring. I don't like that TGA is overly positive and pro gw, but it's a hell of a lot better than every topic being drowned in your negativity and influx of posts. There are actual fruitful discussions over there on Tactics, balance, lore and other topics. Look at how this section of the forum is almost dead. I truly believe that is in large part due to the fact that almost every topic has you chime in with your negative opinion in some form or fashion.

It really is too bad, because you are clearly a thoughtful person and I have seen many posts that I agree with.

 auticus wrote:

However, if you believe both game systems are the same in that regard, then why bother issuing your "warning"? It gives a pretty strong indication that you think the opposite of what you just said.

Because if they think AOS is better than 40k in that regard they are going to be in for a sad and expensive conclusion.

lol, ok while I agree with your intent, you really need to work on your communication skills, hoss.

Think we are getting a bit hyperbolic here.

Certainly agree with Sasori on that regard, it's quite detailed that certain posters tend to be quite hyperbolic and drag some of the posts in the AoS forum down in general. It's why I tend not to post here much at all just because it can be so toxic.

AoS is quite fine in general to keep this slightly more on topic, I play both competitive and narrative and both can work well. Though if you are in a meta that just completely goes min-max it might not be fun to get into at the start for certain.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
Certainly agree with Sasori on that regard, it's quite detailed that certain posters tend to be quite hyperbolic and drag some of the posts in the AoS forum down in general. It's why I tend not to post here much at all just because it can be so toxic.

Also agree.

We live in the new seal-clapping era of communication. Well I shouldn't say new. Its been that way for a few years now.

Debate and discussion are not desired. Reinforcement of what we like is what is desired. Those that do not reinforce what we like are toxic and cause us to not want to participate any longer. Politics, religion, gaming, sports teams, doesn't matter. A poster in the TGA actually laid it out quite well.

"I do not come to internet forums to debate or discuss the things that I like. I come here to read about news and forums and get excited about the things that I like. Criticism and negative posts about the things I like make me not want to read posts there any longer."

Which is a stark contrast to how forums were 10 or more years ago where the rule was openly debate and discuss (thats what discussion forums are for) but do not attack other posters. The times we live in and all.

The problem with that is that by not being allowed to voice criticism the company continues down its merry road surrounded by its echo chamber. If I did my games design and all of the projects that I have done in that environment, I would never have gotten to where I am professionally.

You were literally banned from another forum because of your posting habits.

I was most definitely not banned from that forum for my posting habits. At the time I was banned I was ranked #7 or so on their top posters in terms of the likes / exalts that they collect (they have a scoreboard, and I often "won the day" and had more likes than posts). I was banned explicitly because Ben Curry stated the TGA had a zero-tolerance on negative posts and that there would be NO criticism of AOS allowed on that forum. The funny thing is I have been posting on TGA for a few months now with nary a complaint, and some of YOU have even liked or agreed with things I have said over there.

I think the key isn't presenting a "Seal happy clapping fingers in ears" atmosphere, but that there is a time and place for complaining/moaning and not all threads are that place. Furthermore there are ways to present negative information in such a way that it is not overwhelmingly negative in tone nor attitude.

I guess what many are saying is that often times you shift beyond simple information exchange and into an attitude with typing that conveys a sense of discouraging people from the game. When regular posters see you also regularly saying that you're going to "abandon/leave" the game then they get the feeling that you've either moved on in the real world or you keep wanting to and that this is being projected through your choice of words into other threads. Ergo that you're more tryign to encourage others to give up or focus on the negative overly much.


A lot is in the choice of how you choose to phrase things and also in the element that you tend to drop negative posts with less/little/no positive reinforcement.




In the end its not about right nor wrong nor about hiding the problems the game system has (honestly show me ANY game system that has no complaints - even Chess has complaints if you go looking for them); its about not focusing only upon them and also choosing when and how to air them. Someone keen to get into the game and looking at a new army and such isn't quite the place to derail things with all the inherent problems of the system only -there ARE some good parts of the game worth talking about too

I haven't really posted in any great length/ depth in a public AOS discussion in some time. I have largely moved on to other games and have been focused on building that.

The AOS that we play in my group is a largely houseruled set of rules that isn't really AOS at that point.

Perhaps this topic has run its course if we’re berating some dude about his opinions. If you don’t like what someone says, you don’t have to reply to them, it’s easy to avoid warping a thread around them by just ignoring them.
So if Auticus has an opinion you aren’t super fond of, just don’t reply to him? No need to be rude to anyone.

 Sasori wrote:

 auticus wrote:
I was being sarcastic and passive aggressive. A poster on the previous page suggested putting me on ignore because i sometimes speak ill of aos and its gaktastic balance.

I fully agree that the amount of traps and negative play experiences can lead to a horrible time if players arent coached correctly and know how to minmax out the gate. Otherwise youre blowing a ton of money on a bad experience.

Further you may have to regularly change armies out as they cycle one army out for another in power.

The problem is that you are overly negative to a huge degree, that not only multiple topics have been warped from your posts, I think the entire AoS section has.

Here are some examples:

#1 AoS Wary example. Here Nels breaks down several of Auticus posts on the matter

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/778224.page#10525019

#2 Auticus' threatening to quit multiple times over a great timeline. Another great break down by Nels

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/765565.page#10196127

#3 Just have a read down this page, again warped around auticus

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/810/772521.page

#4 You were literally banned from another forum because of your posting habits.



Your posts are literally a negative black hole that consistently sucks and warps topics around it. It's like you have a pathological need to constantly have attention and be negative about AoS and GW.

Criticism Of GW is fair, and so is criticism of AoS. The System is not perfect, and there are much better game systems out there no question. The problem is you take it to the extreme, where you are so negative most of any criticism is lost because all you do post negative crap day in and day out.

It gets tiring. I don't like that TGA is overly positive and pro gw, but it's a hell of a lot better than every topic being drowned in your negativity and influx of posts. There are actual fruitful discussions over there on Tactics, balance, lore and other topics. Look at how this section of the forum is almost dead. I truly believe that is in large part due to the fact that almost every topic has you chime in with your negative opinion in some form or fashion.

It really is too bad, because you are clearly a thoughtful person and I have seen many posts that I agree with.

I am bummed that I can only exalt this a single time. Well stated, and backed up. Auticus, you flat out share your disgust with AoS, and remark how easy it is to play other games. If you really feel THIS bad about AoS, why are you still playing it? You’ve shared many times how people expect you to build missions and rules for them and fight you over them; how masochistic towards yourself are you going to get about the whole thing?

Well this topic has been derailed.

Has it though? The original poster is thinking about jumping ship, and one person is being excessively negative. Not only might it convince that one person not to switch to AoS, it could be toxic enough to prevent other people who have the same questions (but don't want to start a duplicate thread) from even bothering. So yes, it is relevant to the thread to ask him why he's even bothering if he is so hostile towards the game. I'd consider the posters who are commenting "GW isn't the only game in town, go try something else" to be MORE off topic; the OP stated he is a "GW fanboi" (his own words, not mine), and people are telling him to pick up something else. If he already stated he wanted to stick with GW because of personal preference and what his friends play, suggesting something outside of that (or home-made "fixes" to AoS) are the actual off topic posts.

Alright well everyone has said their peace about Auticus and his opinions, let’s move on rather than be excessively rude about him.

Imo, AoS has a few issues but is overall a ton of fun. If your group of friends are chill and not min-maxers, then you’ll have a great time with the game, especially if you prefer a system with less shooting. If, however, they are highly competitive, then you’re in for a messy and obnoxious time dealing with a hilarious amount of mortal wounds.
I play with a group who like to make competent armies but don’t min-max and we have heaps of fun and quite close games. We also house rule the random turn sequence away which has made things infinitely better.

Facts are being presented, It's not a measure of rudeness to point out all the issues being presented.

The original poster is thinking about jumping ship, and one person is being excessively negative.

If the following comments are considered excessive and toxic, I think you need to do something about your sensitivity issues:

Be wary for AOS is a game all about absurd deck/list building lol.

In response to wanting to get away from a deck building list building game.

It can run narratively but it will only take one guy bringing a powerlist to start the arms race and force the rest of the group to follow suit.

Excessively negative and toxic? Or common sense? In response to if you're playing narratively and not powergaming then its ok. (its right, if you and your group are actively NOT powergaming the game can be fun)

Thats pretty common everywhere in the States, which is also I think a big reason people looking for more out of their games can get salty. There often is no other choice

In response to "GW is the only game in my town" from another poster. Excessively negative and toxic?

GW is the only game in town for places because few people try to make that not so.

Again, excessively negative and toxic? Or for many people the reality of their gaming environment? In response to GW is the only game in town for the poster I was responding to.

Because if I am looking for a game to get into, I want to know all of the pros and cons. Not just the pros to seal clap towards.

Otherwise you get someone jumping into the game, to then find out the above things that the seal clapping people didn't want to talk about because its "toxic", and then they themselves become "toxic" and frustrated that they dumped $500+ into the game that had these issues, which you may find fine, but which they may or may not find fine, because they can't get a 360 degree all perspectives look at the game because all people want to do is cheerlead and avoid negative commentary.

And again if the above quotes were "too toxic" we have a serious sensitivity issue going on. Because where I'm at if I'm looking for pros and cons of a game, and I've SPECIFICALLY mentioned not wanting a game with excessive list building elements, it is highly disingenuous to gloss over AOS being ok so long as everyone plays nice. Because you and I and everyone all know that that requires a bit of social engineering. If you're ok with that, then awesome. But you need to know that going in.

Your entire post is disingenuous. You quoted half my sentence, and left part of it out, leading you to accuse me of being sensitive. I'm not. I am a bit confused though as to why you continue to torment yourself with a game you appear to hate so much. I didn't ever say that I found your posts toxic personally. I said that your negative attitude could easily be seen as toxic by new people coming in, and it has the potential to turn them away before they even try it for themselves. Can you see the difference?

I know you and I don't see eye to eye. We've already discussed that and had it out over the KoS rules. I play what I like, you play casual only or over-write the rules in your circle of people to be what you want. If that works for you, cool; that's you and your group. But it doesn't work that way for everyone else.

Why don't you go back and look through your posts in the AoS sub-forum as a whole. Based on memorable posts, most of yours are usually negative towards AoS. If people are looking to jump in, maybe try occasionally putting in positives; like "army synergy matters" or "big stompy stuff doesn't die as easily as it does in 40K". You know, give people a reason to actually pay attention to what you say, instead of trying to become the BCB of the AoS sub-forum.

Auticus is one of the most knowledgeable posters here who tells it like it is, without the cloud of "GW is the bestest ever" kind of horsegak you see peddled elsewhere. His negativity and criticism are often entirely warranted to present the other side of the spectrum as far too often you find people who will just blindly encourage "Yeah man go for it! AOS is a great game with awesome models!" and another such positive-only posting that hides or otherwise pretends that all the bad parts do not exist. Someone needs to know the good and bad, and there is quite a lot of bad, in order to make an informed decision. I do agree sometimes that auticus can come off as only focusing on the negative, but often focusing on the negative lays it out where otherwise it might be sugar-coated too much to not indicate how big of an issue it is.

He's also absolutely right that GW is often the only game in town because there's no desire to do anything else. Stores don't want to stock other games, people don't want to play games the store doesn't stock, people are just ignorant of games because they don't look for other games, a myriad of reasons where the end result is that people play Warhammer and only Warhammer because everyone else plays Warhammer and only Warhammer, in some sort of Orobourous type situation.

It's telling that the reason auticus was banned from TGA was due to the owner being buddy-buddy with GW's designers, at least one of whom posted regularly and was part of his gaming club, and wanted to stifle any negative criticism of GW, going so far as to say that the entire reason TGA existed was to positively endorse and talk about how great GW and AOS was. There's a reason TGA is derisively known as the unofficial GW forums; because it's essentially just GW propaganda (although in their defense the anti-negativity policy was relaxed a bit afterward)

Wayniac wrote:
Auticus is one of the most knowledgeable posters here

Well, I'd debate that. Complains about StD being weak(perfectly reasonable), but does it every thread when something new is released (very unreasonable), but then makes a thread like this:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/774585.page

that perfectly demonstrates that he doesn't understand how the army that he says he plays and constantly complains about works. Like I said in that thread, it raises alot of questions but I didn't press it. Main one being, "Do you even play?" That was when I solidified my belief that dude doesn't really even play AoS. His hobby is complaining about the game, usually chicken little stuff before a release (see the Forbidden Power thread), rather than playing the game.

Glad to see so many people taking a stand, tbh.

edit: With that said, he does get some stuff right and I agree with him from time to time, but its usually the super obvious stuff.

maybe try occasionally putting in positives

I have several times said that the background and models are usually pretty great. I also in the warcry thread said that the rules themselves were an improvement over AOS and that I gave the rules (not the campaign, the gameplay rules) a 6 out of 10 which is slightly above average (it is by itself the only reason I considered it) and that the models were awesome.

I don't roam in every thread posting negativity. But if there's a thread about the pros and cons of the game, I'll probably comment, because I've seen several people locally go jump into the game because the seal-clapping masses said it was the best EVAH and then get disillusioned fast after dumping $500 - $800 or more on a new army and seeing that what they thought they were getting didn't come close to what the actual experience was that they got into.

At the VERY least ask a potential new player "do you like playing games competitively? (because burn and churn is real and they better be prepared to buy and sell armies regularly) and "are you looking for a wargame where things operate as a battle would (like kings of war, 9th age, conquest, etc push) or are you looking for a pretty card game with models that stacks synergies and emphasizes list building over everything else?"

or even "do you care more about rules or more about having an abundance of people to play against despite a common perception of poor rules"?

Because those things are at the heart of nearly every rage post I've encountered when it comes to AOS or 40k. And asking those questions isn't negative.

I realize that if you are a self proclaimed "fan boy", "white knight" or "fan" that you don't want to see negativity or criticism because you're afraid others will be "driven off", but its equally not fair to sucker people in to a game and obfuscate what that game is. If they like the things that AOS is then fair enough.

Some of you who dogtail me everywhere on here to heap poop on me to discredit what I say have liked my posts over on TGA, and I post in the same manner (because you didn't realize that it was me). I have a pretty high accountability in every other medium I post in (and staunchly defended AOS in the beginning days) and the only difference between those places and here, which I post in the exact same tone, is that AOS is not something I write glowingly about and it seems to be current culture to leave subject matter alone unless you are a glowing fan. You cannot even criticize a sports team you like without getting unloaded on. That is what it is.

I'm not going to go through all the threads on here or TGA or twitter and criticize AOS, I haven't even posted much on AOS at all in the past while because AOS will not change. However if I see a post talking about its balance or someone asking if they should jump into it, I will give my two cents.

You can try to say I don't play AOS to try and further prove that I just don't know what I'm talking about, and thats all well and good if you feel you are clairvoyant, but I play the game regularly. I had to log about 40 games in over the summer for campaign playtesting, and now that our annual campaign is running I will get another 15 or so games in. I'm not playing in a powergaming fashion, but I follow the tournament player threads pretty much daily to see what is being generated and what type of game is being played in that regard. I don't really comment on how to play in tournaments, but I do comment on how casual players are impacted by tournament players dropping tournament lists in the middle of casual for-fun nights, because that is what I have to combat daily during our campaign seasons.

 auticus wrote:
We live in the new seal-clapping era of communication. Well I shouldn't say new. Its been that way for a few years now.

Debate and discussion are not desired. Reinforcement of what we like is what is desired. Those that do not reinforce what we like are toxic and cause us to not want to participate any longer. Politics, religion, gaming, sports teams, doesn't matter. A poster in the TGA actually laid it out quite well.

"I do not come to internet forums to debate or discuss the things that I like. I come here to read about news and forums and get excited about the things that I like. Criticism and negative posts about the things I like make me not want to read posts there any longer."

Which is a stark contrast to how forums were 10 or more years ago where the rule was openly debate and discuss (thats what discussion forums are for) but do not attack other posters. The times we live in and all.

The problem with that is that by not being allowed to voice criticism the company continues down its merry road surrounded by its echo chamber. If I did my games design and all of the projects that I have done in that environment, I would never have gotten to where I am professionally.

You were literally banned from another forum because of your posting habits.

I was most definitely not banned from that forum for my posting habits. At the time I was banned I was ranked #7 or so on their top posters in terms of the likes / exalts that they collect (they have a scoreboard, and I often "won the day" and had more likes than posts). I was banned explicitly because Ben Curry stated the TGA had a zero-tolerance on negative posts and that there would be NO criticism of AOS allowed on that forum. The funny thing is I have been posting on TGA for a few months now with nary a complaint, and some of YOU have even liked or agreed with things I have said over there.

Once again Auticus, you seem to miss the point entirely.

No one here wants a an echo chamber, and it's not about seal clapping. It's about the way you constantly present everything about AoS in the most negative way possible, to the point that there is no reasonable way to have a discussion with you because it's not worth it. Criticism is fine and to be encouraged, but you just take it to a completely different level. Overread covered this quite well in his post.

I even point out in my post that I don't like the way TGA is so pro GW and that AOS is by no means a perfect system. The difference is that you can actually have reasonable discussions over there, without multiple topics being warped around a single poster. These forums are pretty much dominated by your posts, which is why it is such a poor place for discussions. The fact that several other posters in this thread have cited the same thing for moving elsewhere is proof that this is indeed a problem.

Please link to some of your new posts on TGA. I'd love to read them. As I said in my post you can post some good well thought out posts on occasion. The problem is those are drowned out by the rest of them. I'd also imagine that your posts are more measured now on TGA than they are here.

Wayniac wrote:
Auticus is one of the most knowledgeable posters here who tells it like it is, without the cloud of "GW is the bestest ever" kind of horsegak you see peddled elsewhere. His negativity and criticism are often entirely warranted to present the other side of the spectrum as far too often you find people who will just blindly encourage "Yeah man go for it! AOS is a great game with awesome models!" and another such positive-only posting that hides or otherwise pretends that all the bad parts do not exist. Someone needs to know the good and bad, and there is quite a lot of bad, in order to make an informed decision. I do agree sometimes that auticus can come off as only focusing on the negative, but often focusing on the negative lays it out where otherwise it might be sugar-coated too much to not indicate how big of an issue it is.

He's also absolutely right that GW is often the only game in town because there's no desire to do anything else. Stores don't want to stock other games, people don't want to play games the store doesn't stock, people are just ignorant of games because they don't look for other games, a myriad of reasons where the end result is that people play Warhammer and only Warhammer because everyone else plays Warhammer and only Warhammer, in some sort of Orobourous type situation.

It's telling that the reason auticus was banned from TGA was due to the owner being buddy-buddy with GW's designers, at least one of whom posted regularly and was part of his gaming club, and wanted to stifle any negative criticism of GW, going so far as to say that the entire reason TGA existed was to positively endorse and talk about how great GW and AOS was. There's a reason TGA is derisively known as the unofficial GW forums; because it's essentially just GW propaganda (although in their defense the anti-negativity policy was relaxed a bit afterward)

I would disagree with this as well.

The first bit mentions that focusing on the negative lays it out.. Not if you are constantly being hyperbolic and blowing out the situation every time a situation is presented. He has turned threads into criticism and negativity focused on his own works when they weren't involved.

And the second.. Well yes, if something sells and people enjoy playing it, that tends to be what happens. The idea that Warhammer is only played because nobody apparently enjoys it is a farce. That one cannot conceive that people are playing Warhammer products just because they like it is the peak negativity that one has surrounded themselves in.

Hahaha, guys, you're aware that you're all suddenly making this a thread about Auticus? Lets move on shall we? Everyone has said what they want to say, we should really just talk about more things instead of beating a dead horse.

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:
And the second.. Well yes, if something sells and people enjoy playing it, that tends to be what happens. The idea that Warhammer is only played because nobody apparently enjoys it is a farce. That one cannot conceive that people are playing Warhammer products just because they like it is the peak negativity that one has surrounded themselves in.

That isn't what I said, I said people are generally unwilling to try things other than Warhammer because everyone else is playing Warhammer and is unwilling to try other games because everyone else is playing Warhammer because.... It's a sort of insular isolationism that gets propagated by the fact you can reasonably assume a game store will stock Warhammer and be reluctant to stock anything else, knowing full well that means the people who go there will be reluctant to even learn about other games because they can't buy it at their "pet" gaming store.

It's perfectly reasonable to assume people enjoy Warhammer (I don't hate it by any means, just feel it's a really lousy game and I've lately been dabbling in other things so haven't played in a couple of months). My point is more that I find Warhammer players, in particular, live in a bubble for whatever reason and aren't aware of any other games or are even willing to try other games, so all they see is Warhammer; it becomes the center of their universe. And, if they do know about other games it's usually in a disparaging light compared to Warhammer because of whatever reason, so again it keeps the idea going that Warhammer is the only game in town and nothing else even gets off the ground because everyone is unwilling to even try other things. It's like a town that has a local diner everyone goes to. The diner has good enough food but its nothing to write home about, but everyone enjoys it even if it's not really amazing. Other restaurants that pop up never get traction because nobody is willing to try them since the diner food is good enough for everyone and they don't want to try something new.

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Hahaha, guys, you're aware that you're all suddenly making this a thread about Auticus? Lets move on shall we? Everyone has said what they want to say, we should really just talk about more things instead of beating a dead horse.

This has been a long time coming.

 EnTyme wrote:

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Hahaha, guys, you're aware that you're all suddenly making this a thread about Auticus? Lets move on shall we? Everyone has said what they want to say, we should really just talk about more things instead of beating a dead horse.

This has been a long time coming.

Absolutely. Its not just this thread, but the body of work that people are fed up with.

This sort of situation then is exactly what the Ignore fucntion was added to Dakka for.

Nobody likes to be put on Ignore, and I think it would be better if we could learn to tolerate dissenting opinions even if we disagree with them or find them tedious, but if it is bothering you guys so much I don't understand why you do not just press the button.

For myself, I appreciate hearing the good and the bad about any game system. It helped me make decisions about what to play.

but if it is bothering you guys so much I don't understand why you do not just press the button.

A few of them have expressed that they are afraid someone wants to join AOS and if someone gives them a negative answer that that will be seen as toxic and they will give up on AOS because of that negative toxic answer (I have outlined all of my responses in this thread up to this point and none were extreme, hyperbolic, or "toxic", but the mere presence of my posting anything even so much as a "this may not be fun if you are looking for this" triggers several of these posters into pages long rants and links to threads up to months ago as a means of discrediting any input that does not glorify the game.

I don't mind being put on ignore. Please, by all means if your only point in being is to exalt and glorify and only want positive vibes for your hobby, put on ignore all posters that don't match your mindset.

If someone asks about input on the game, you may want to make sure I am on ignore if you don't want to read a dissenting opinion.

I have gotten into the habit now to question if they are competitive, if they are ok with burn and churn, and if balance is a big deal to them or if they are just looking for a social experience. IIf someone states they are getting out of 40k because they don't like listbuilding dominance, it is downright lying to them to pretend AOS is not, and I said that its the same experience.

Some people like that and don't care. Others are sensitive to that and I don't want to see them dump nearly a grand into a game that they will abhor later because they discover too late what list building dominant systems are when they weren't looking for that.

And some people get triggered by that response.

I am doing my best to not post over the top responses any longer, and I think I've done pretty good over the past few months at limiting my responses.

 Da Boss wrote:
This sort of situation then is exactly what the Ignore fucntion was added to Dakka for.

Nobody likes to be put on Ignore, and I think it would be better if we could learn to tolerate dissenting opinions even if we disagree with them or find them tedious, but if it is bothering you guys so much I don't understand why you do not just press the button.

For myself, I appreciate hearing the good and the bad about any game system. It helped me make decisions about what to play.

If only that was a good solution, but the truth is that auticus posts so much, that sometimes every other post is his post. Then other posters reply to his posts, then the whole discussion is coloured by auticus endless negativity, that it drowns out most other voices and debat or simply sharing of enthusiasm about the hobby we share.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that people should be using the ignore button on someone like auticus, but I am also painfully aware that it does not alleviate the problem. Which is the main reason why I mostly withdrew from the AoS section on Dakkadakka.
All in all it's a shame though, because Dakkadakka could be a good home for many more hobbyist that share their enjoyment with AoS, but as it stands now, it would need more actively moderation which is not really how Dakkadakka seems to operate. In my opinion of course.

Maybe the issue then is to accept that "the hobby we share" (which btw Warhammer is only a part of "the hobby") has serious design flaws that people need to be aware of instead of pretending they don't exist?

Is anyone pretending they don't exist, though? At, worst, most of us are downplaying the flaws because in our opinions, they aren't outweighed by the things we like about the game. Just about everyone in this thread has at least pointed out the shortcomings of AoS before moving on the the things that make us want to keep playing.

I wish someone like auticus was at my store and asked me questions, before I trusted the sellers and people from school and bought in to an army, I now can't sell and which is horrible unfun to play, and which updating costs so much, I may as well buy a new good army. I can tell you that.

it would need more actively moderation which is not really how Dakkadakka seems to operate

I would be highly curious as to how you would implement forum rules and what rules would be considered violations requiring moderation (and banning). Fun fact, I post more about AOS (in the same tone) on TGA and I assume one of the main facebook groups with not a complaint.

Sounds like what you guys are advocating for is a no-criticism rule. I mean all it took in this thread was a post by me saying that the game was just as bent around listbuilding as 40k in response to the poster asking specifically about that for you all to go ape-****. In the warcry thread it was me saying I didn't like the campaign rules and wished they were deeper to trigger you all into a pages-long dogpile and back and forth. Really the pattern seems if I post anything period that is not glowing, the dogpile is incoming. If I had posted the exact same posts under a different name, none of you would have said anything. (and on other forums we share, some of you have even "liked" my responses).

What do I like about AOS? Gw's models and imagery and a good deal of their narrative. I've said that in many places. Said that in the warcry thread, even said the gameplay was a solid 6 and fairly fun, which elicited no discussion. However some of you continued to say "but you never post anything positive" despite there being things I have said that were positive. My inclination is that you just jump to the parts you want to rip into me about and gloss over or ignore the rest.

Funny that.

You know what gets no change to happen? Everyone seal-clapping and not discussing the flaws either. Guess what this thread is about? Person considering dumping 40k for AOS, but being concerned that listbuilding is as gak as it is in 40k. The few sentences I posted prior to you all losing your GD minds was all addressing on-topic that person's question. No hyperbole. No strong language. Basic sentence that said listbuilding is as much a thing in aos as it is in 40k. False statement? I don't think so. I think its spot-on.

Know what I've noticed on TGA since being back there since the spring? There is an undercurrent of annoyed people that want GW to pick up the ball and do what they should be doing... making the best game in the industry.

Know what I'll always argue against? People and ideas that support that its ok to have to buy new armies every year to play a good game. Because it leaves a trail of angry and burnt people in its wake, despite the tournament faithful preaching the great balance. When you pick up a game at the store, you don't expect the Shoe to get to collect $540 on Go when the Car only gets $200. Its not common sense that a game is designed that way, and a lot of people don't know any better when they get suckered into dumping a grand on an army and then find out the hard way what the reality is.

For every person annoyed at what I post, there is another person that I go back and forth with that either shares my experience, or at least went into the game eyes open instead of their seal clapping community telling them that that starter box of khorne should just be fine... (lol)

Spiky Norman wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
This sort of situation then is exactly what the Ignore fucntion was added to Dakka for.

Nobody likes to be put on Ignore, and I think it would be better if we could learn to tolerate dissenting opinions even if we disagree with them or find them tedious, but if it is bothering you guys so much I don't understand why you do not just press the button.

For myself, I appreciate hearing the good and the bad about any game system. It helped me make decisions about what to play.

If only that was a good solution, but the truth is that auticus posts so much, that sometimes every other post is his post. Then other posters reply to his posts, then the whole discussion is coloured by auticus endless negativity, that it drowns out most other voices and debat or simply sharing of enthusiasm about the hobby we share.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that people should be using the ignore button on someone like auticus, but I am also painfully aware that it does not alleviate the problem. Which is the main reason why I mostly withdrew from the AoS section on Dakkadakka.
All in all it's a shame though, because Dakkadakka could be a good home for many more hobbyist that share their enjoyment with AoS, but as it stands now, it would need more actively moderation which is not really how Dakkadakka seems to operate. In my opinion of course.

Yes, this is exactly the problem.

Wayniac wrote:Maybe the issue then is to accept that "the hobby we share" (which btw Warhammer is only a part of "the hobby") has serious design flaws that people need to be aware of instead of pretending they don't exist?

This another great example of pure hyperbole. No one here is promoting the system as the perfect gaming system by all means. We have all acknowledged there are issues, there are just disagreements on the degree and severity of the issues. Which is the entire point of discussion. The problem becomes when one voice dominates nearly every single discussion with pure negativity that dissuades other people from posting. like Spiky Norman pointed out. The fact that you cannot acknolwedge this is a problem, despite the numerous people that have come into this thread to voice that speaks volumes.

Claiming we all think the system is perfect is nonsense and purely disingenuous.

EnTyme wrote:Is anyone pretending they don't exist, though? At, worst, most of us are downplaying the flaws because in our opinions, they aren't outweighed by the things we like about the game. Just about everyone in this thread has at least pointed out the shortcomings of AoS before moving on the the things that make us want to keep playing.

No, it's the usual hyperbole.

Karol wrote:I wish someone like auticus was at my store and asked me questions, before I trusted the sellers and people from school and bought in to an army, I now can't sell and which is horrible unfun to play, and which updating costs so much, I may as well buy a new good army. I can tell you that.

I am sorry that happened to you, but this is a false equivalency. If you were to ask here about any army we would tell you the pros and cons of them. For instance I would not recommend anyone start Nighthaunt in the current state, and Nighthaunt were my first army.

No, it's the usual hyperbole

There is zero hyperbole from anything I posted in this thread. There is an opinion that you don't like.

Issues presented when opinions are stated as facts, which is where one of the major issues come forth. It is indeed Hyperbole.

You've already tried to downplay other opinions yourself, given your light insults about "Seal clappers", so there's some irony here.

Color me skeptical about the “I post on TGA” claim.

It is an automatically assumed stance that every opinion stated... is in fact an opinion.

Anyone claiming someone is stating an opinion as a fact is simply reflecting. I know I have certainly never once ever in any venue stated anything I post is a fact, and is assumed to be an opinion just like everything out of everyone's mouth here is 100% opinion. I don't dogtail after posters ranting at them that they are posting opinion like fact, because thats an absurd statement that has neither any actual backing facts or basis in provability short of a person stating that they are speaking factual when they are actually only giving an opinion.

I don't have to state IMO after everything I type. That is both redundant and mindless.

Hyperbole is exaggerating a situation, not stating an opinion.

The exact english definition of hyperbole is:
"exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally"

Indeed everything I have posted in this thread in response to the poster was *literally* not hyperbole but an opinion that triggered some of you.

Seal Clapping is a phrase that is synonymous with echo chamber. It has nothing to do with an actual opinion or looking down on an opinion. Rather it has everything to do with there is an expected direction of opinions allowed (seal clapping) and anything outside of that is to be ostracized. For example, Ninth is a poster that posts mostly thoughtful posts, that sometimes are not aligned with mine, but he is also accepting of differing opinions and despite he and I not agreeing with everything, does not "seal clap" for the sake of providing a safe place for everyone.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 nels1031 wrote:
Color me skeptical about the “I post on TGA” claim.

Its ok I'll sleep fine at night knowing that you are skeptical. Its not very hard to create a new account. It appears we are escalating from "I hate your opinion and wish you'd not post it in a forum that I am free to ignore but am compelled to read and respond angrily towards" onto the attack the poster phase, call them a liar, etc. You know - everything opposite of what most forum rules say you should be doing.

 auticus wrote:

No, it's the usual hyperbole

There is zero hyperbole from anything I posted in this thread. There is an opinion that you don't like.

First, in this specific instance I was agreeing with Entyme about Waynaics post, and the general stance that several of us believe that AoS has no flaws, which is downright false and is in fact hyperbole. Secondly, it does not have to be specific to this thread, as you have a well documented pattern of behavior as I put in my first post on the matter.

If you want to dogpile me for using hyperbole, then do it after I have used hyperbole. Not in a thread where none has been used, and hasn't been used for some time.

Second, if you are going to respond specifically to hyperbole then you need to pay attention to the last part of the definition:

"exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally." THE ENTIRE POINT of using hyperbole is that it is obvious exaggeration. Its the SAME THING as people complaining that a POSTER IS POSTING OPINION AS IF ITS FACT. Its an opinion. Hyperbole is intentional exaggeration. None of those things should NEED TO BE EXPLAINED.

What I think you are raging about is not hyperbole, but rather exaggerated statements that you feel someone not knowing better looking in will see and presume to be a fact, which you would consider a loss and the source of your extraordinarily angry response. You did after all in a thread where no hyperbole was being used advise people to put me on ignore, but then defied your own advice by responding to me (indicating I am not really on ignore).

If you followed your own advice, you wouldn't be seeing any of my statements, past or otherwise, and you wouldn't be having these extreme negative emotions that you are feeling now at someone posting an opinion of a plain statement kind of way that had no hyperbole in it that you didn't agree with.

 auticus wrote:


Second, if you are going to respond specifically to hyperbole then you need to pay attention to the last part of the definition:

"exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally." THE ENTIRE POINT of using hyperbole is that it is obvious exaggeration. Its the SAME THING as people complaining that a POSTER IS POSTING OPINION AS IF ITS FACT. Its an opinion. Hyperbole is intentional exaggeration. None of those things should NEED TO BE EXPLAINED.


What I think you are raging about is not hyperbole, but rather exaggerated statements that you feel someone not knowing better looking in will see

Are you reading what the definition says? Because that's.. literally what it says, you are using exaggerated examples to add emphasis to your statements.. And even then, nitpicking words at this point by going straight to the dictionary is not exactly helping anything because it's a deflection and still doesn't exactly fix the underlaying issues going on here.

Also it's been explained why Ignore does not work when it drags others and new posters into it.

I know what hyperbole is. It is a form of communication using exaggeration. It is something employed by many people. I'm not apologizing for using hyperbole because there's nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, people on here use hyperbole many dozens to hundreds of times a day without a single comment.

What exactly is the underlying issue?

That you get cranky when someone uses exaggeration? That someone doesn't like the game that you do and is posting in a forum that you feel should be reinforcing the game and not criticizing it? That other new people might see the criticism and bail because the game isn't their cup of tea? That you prefer positive reinforcement for issues and then if they don't like the game after they have dumped a grand into the game, they can get out then? That you feel posters posting an opinion that you don't like come off to you as comic book guy and they think that its fact for whatever reason?

Really whats the underlying *issue*

At what point did I break some code of yours and others when poster asked if game was as list building dependent as 40k, and I answered its just as bad?

 auticus wrote:
If you want to dogpile me for using hyperbole, then do it after I have used hyperbole. Not in a thread where none has been used, and hasn't been used for some time.

Second, if you are going to respond specifically to hyperbole then you need to pay attention to the last part of the definition:

"exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally."

Auticus,

This "dogpile" is a culmination of several peoples feelings on the matter on this forum. While I will agree that you did not use in any hyperbole in this specific thread, your general behavior and posting habits have just reached a point that I had to make a stand on the matter. The fact that so many people have come out and agreed on the matter and citing that you are the reason they have either moved on to other forums or not posting lines up with exactly what I posted.

What I think you are raging about is not hyperbole, but rather exaggerated statements that you feel someone not knowing better looking in will see and presume to be a fact, which you would consider a loss and the source of your extraordinarily angry response. You did after all in a thread where no hyperbole was being used advise people to put me on ignore, but then defied your own advice by responding to me (indicating I am not really on ignore).

Calling me "raging" is just weak attempt to try paint me like I am some kind of angry keyboard warrior instead of addressing the issues at hand. The fact of the matter is that I posted several break downs of your behavior, and highlighted several issues in a calm and rational manner. I am also unsure of what you mean by "Loss' this is not a win or lose game. It's a forum designed for the fostering of discussion. The problem I have with your posts is that you stifle discussions with your overwhelming negativity. Again, multiple people have come in and voiced this.

If you followed your own advice, you wouldn't be seeing any of my statements, past or otherwise, and you wouldn't be having these extreme negative emotions that you are feeling now at someone posting an opinion of a plain statement kind of way that had no hyperbole in it that you didn't agree with.

Perhaps I should at some point, but the fact of the matter is your behavior is driving off people from this forum and someone needs to be a counterpoint at times.


The crux of the issue Auticus, no matter how you try to paint me, is that you are driving people away from the forums and stifling discussion. This is not healthy for the forum, and it needs to stop. The fact that we have had so many people come out in this thread in support of what I have said and you don't think there is a problem absolutely speaks volumes.

The problem as I see it right now is that the people that have complained all want a place where there is no criticism of a game that they like and no negative comments allowed. The whole "safe space" concept that has blown up this decade.

When I employ hyperbole and go off on a tangent next, which won't happen because I haven't done so in a while and have emotionally distanced myself a while back, you can dogpile me legit.

In the meantime, if a poster asks a specific open question about the game and I answer with a simple sentence, you can all kindly step off my nuts.

If there is a thread asking people to rate something about the game, or warcry, or whatever, I am going to respond with my opinion. And you can all kindly step off my nuts.

You won't have back and forth responses from me if you and your buddies would simply step off my nuts so that I didn't have to respond in a machine gun fashion.

Discussions aren't popping in and dropping a one liner and then disappearing. Literally no conversations work that way. Poster makes a comment. Another poster responds. It is generally known that there will be a response back. I literally am reading complaints by some of you saying "but the conversation is dominated by Auticus because he keeps responding to people responding to him!" - like... no **** dude. Thats what a conversation / discussion is. You talk then I respond, then you respond, etc.

The world can do with less tangents and I have already corrected myself on that a while back so that I don't go off on another one because its a waste of energy. But continuing to step on my nuts every time I make a response is also not going to be met by silence from me.

If you can't do that for whatver reason, stick me on ignore. If you see someone quote me and it raises negative emotions within you, meditate to some enya or something and don't respond.

I don't attack people. I don't go after people. I don't attack their integrity or their person. I discuss topics, and on this thread its about this particular game. I don't tangetize anymore because there is no point to that and no one cares. The GW fanverse is as massive as it is because it props itself up on massive the massive whales (that being the term that GW management calls the big spenders to clarify 100%) and gets by knowing that people will play specifically because people are playing. Arguing against it is like peeing into a hurricane. It does nothing. I know that. There is no point in going off on any more tangents. You all like what you like, GW isn't changing, people know that, they are happy with half balance because they know they can always get in a game. Thats for good or bad.

However ther eare people that do care about the balance aspect, and that is why I post. And will continue to do so in a less tangent rant way because the other side of the story needs told, not just the positive reinforcement of trying to make dude feel better after spending a ton of money on models that have garbage rules and gets pwned down at the store because no one wanted to tell him different because they didn't want to be "negative".

 auticus wrote:
The problem as I see it right now is that the people that have complained all want a place where there is no criticism of a game that they like and no negative comments allowed. The whole "safe space" concept that has blown up this decade

Multiple Times I have said it, and I am sure other people will say it, this is not what anyone wants. I even pointed out that I don't like that about TGA. It seems like you just can't understand that there is a difference between criticism and the constant negativity that you post, that goes far beyond critique.

When I employ hyperbole and go off on a tangent next, which won't happen because I haven't done so in a while and have emotionally distanced myself a while back, you can dogpile me legit.

Again, this is just a culimination of multiple people's feelings on the matter. The critisims against you are completely legitimate, and are held by many people here. Why don't you instead just work on your posting habits so it never has to come to this kind of a blow again?

In the meantime, if a poster asks a specific open question about the game and I answer with a simple sentence, you can all kindly step off my nuts.


If there is a thread asking people to rate something about the game, or warcry, or whatever, I am going to respond with my opinion. And you can all kindly step off my nuts.

Sure looks like you are advocating for your own echo chamber or "safe space" here.

You won't have back and forth responses from me if you and your buddies would simply step off my nuts so that I didn't have to respond in a machine gun fashion.

See, again trying to discredit the fact that other people have the same views on your posting as "my buddies" These are just other forum goers that have the same opinion. Again, if so many people have this opinion then maybe you need to evaluate your posting habits, because it's clear you are the one with the problem.

Discussions aren't popping in and dropping a one liner and then disappearing. Literally no conversations work that way. Poster makes a comment. Another poster responds. It is generally known that there will be a response back. I literally am reading complaints by some of you saying "but the conversation is dominated by Auticus because he keeps responding to people responding to him!" - like... no **** dude. Thats what a conversation / discussion is. You talk then I respond, then you respond, etc.

The problem is that people become less and less inclined to have a discussion when you are involved, because your posting habits. It's driving people away and shrinking the interaction on this forum. I've been here over 10 years and I don't want to see this happen. As I have said before, you can have a great opinion on some things, but it's drowned out by your other posts.

The world can do with less tangents and I have already corrected myself on that a while back so that I don't go off on another one because its a waste of energy. But continuing to step on my nuts every time I make a response is also not going to be met by silence from me.

We would just all prefer that you tone down the extreme negativity that you post. As I said, you are capable of posting great things, but, as Nels said, it seems like you have made your hobby to post nothing but negative things about AoS all the time.

If you can't do that for whatver reason, stick me on ignore. If you see someone quote me and it raises negative emotions within you, meditate to some enya or something and don't respond.

Again Auticus, I am not going to do that. If I need play counterpoint to your posts sometimes, then I will. Again, this is a problem that multiple people have. You are the one that needs to evaluate and clean up your posting habits. If you are getting to the point where you have to ask people to "step off my nuts" Maybe you are the one that needs to step away from the keyboard.

However ther eare people that do care about the balance aspect, and that is why I post. And will continue to do so in a less tangent rant way because the other side of the story needs told, not just the positive reinforcement of trying to make dude feel better after spending a ton of money on models that have garbage rules and gets pwned down at the store because no one wanted to tell him different because they didn't want to be "negative".

Everyone cares about the balance of the game, and I don't think there is a single person here would say that AoS is perfectly balanced. The discussion comes in to the degrees of the balance, the metrics for evaluation, anecdotal, etc. Once again No one here is asking for constant reinforcement or to be an echo chamber of validation for their purchases. Again, there is a difference between talking about the pros and cons of an army instead of just crapping on the system, and soapboxing about how terrible your local area is.

Why don't you instead just work on your posting habits so it never has to come to this kind of a blow again?

Again, if so many people have this opinion then maybe you need to evaluate your posting habits, because it's clear you are the one with the problem.

If I had gone on some rage filled tangent in this thread, you would have a point and have something to consider.

However, you have nothing to stand on right now because all I posted was a simple sentence answering a question, which was then responded to with this whole mess.

So there's really nothing to clean up. The actual actions in question here are: do not respond to any questions negatively, or we will dogpile the hell out of you.

That is not acceptable.

You cannot in any way shape or form change that reality.

Cause: question asked about list building.
Action: answered with what almost everyone would consider an accurate answer.
Result: dogpile because answer was negative.

Had ANYONE else answered with an identical post, nothing would have been said.

SO -> your version of cleaning up posts can therefore be distilled down to "don't post anything that is not positive about the game on this forum". Which I consider to be the same as "echo chamber" - where there is no negative posts allowed. You can deny that, and say that is not at all what you are after, but any of those above actions and logical conclusions lead nowhere else that I can see.

You will not get that desired result. I will not censor myself and not post an answer just because it is negative.

I have already "cleaned up" my posts by not going on tangents any longer for some time.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

and I don't think there is a single person here would say that AoS is perfectly balanced.

There are literally dozens of angry retorts to things I have stated in the past year claiming the game is "good enough" and "fine the way it is" and "tournament results prove that the balance is great", so I disagree with you here, fairly strongly.

Cause: question asked about list building.
Action: answered with what almost everyone would consider an accurate answer.
Result: dogpile because answer was negative.

Had ANYONE else answered with an identical post, nothing would have been said.

Because you don't answer with something that's just an accurate answer. You answer with something that has such a harsh, negative tone regardless if the situation requires or even wanted it to a point that even people who would agree with such disagree because of the way it's said. There can be a drastic way things happen because of how one posts..

Of course what you consider accurate and what others do may not align at all, an opinion is an opinion, but opinions can be wrong.

SO -> your version of cleaning up posts can therefore be distilled down to "don't post anything that is not positive about the game on this forum". Which I consider to be the same as "echo chamber" - where there is no negative posts allowed. You can deny that, and say that is not at all what you are after, but any of those above actions and logical conclusions lead nowhere else that I can see.

This doesn't really work because others with negative opinions post as well without any issues but calm discussions and rebuttles, which in general means that it's certainly not an echo chamber like you keep claiming.

 auticus wrote:

Why don't you instead just work on your posting habits so it never has to come to this kind of a blow again?

Again, if so many people have this opinion then maybe you need to evaluate your posting habits, because it's clear you are the one with the problem.

If I had gone on some rage filled tangent in this thread, you would have a point and have something to consider.

However, you have nothing to stand on right now because all I posted was a simple sentence answering a question, which was then responded to with this whole mess.

So there's really nothing to clean up. The actual actions in question here are: do not respond to any questions negatively, or we will dogpile the hell out of you.

That is not acceptable.

Once again Auticus, you are missing the entire point. I am fairly certain that you are just doing this on purpose though since you

Still, I'll go through this again for you though. The post I made was a culmination of the issues with your posting habits. It was not about a post in this thread, it was about the body of work that is your posting history. It was a response to your quip about why I suggested putting you ignore. So I laid out the exact reasons why someone should do that.

I have plenty to stand as my stance is based on the evidence of your posting history and I laid out the issues in a pretty concise manner. The fact that multiple people have come in and agreed with this shows that there is indeed some legitimacy to what I posted.


The actual actions in question here is that people have gotten fed up with your overly negative behavior in this section of the forum and it just reached a tipping point. One poster even mentioned that "it was a long time coming" So please don't pretend like you are some kind of martyr and that every single post you make is inundated with people dogpiling you because of some misguided illusion that we only want to hear positive things. No one here is attacking people for posting l criticisms about the game and GW. You just take things to the extreme and poison discussion.

I really wish you would take some time to reflect on this. There is a clear problem with your posting and manner of, otherwise we would not have had so many people chime in about it. We are not some hivemind but instead a wide variety of people from different countries and viewpoints. If you have so many people agreeing on this aspect, then you should take it seriously.

Well if this is going to carry on here's my take:

I agree with Auticus on many positions, but I do feel he can come across pretty negatively. It is something I have been (justifiably) criticized for as well. Having discussed many matters with him in threads and in PMs I think he seems more negative than he actually is. There is a natural human tendency to voice criticism over compliment which can lend to one misrepresenting their own opinion without realizing it. Auticus, I think the position you are trying to present does not get across very well to a lot of people. But to Auticus' critics I say his position is probably less extreme than it looks to you.

But that's just my take and it could be way off. What I can say for sure is this thread has gotten toxic the last few pages.

^ This.

This thread: Jump ship to AoS from 40k. We get way more personal and savage in our forum battles.

AoS is very much a GW game. If that's cool with you it does have some great minis and concepts not explored in 40k.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
But to Auticus' critics I say his position is probably less extreme than it looks to you.

Respectfully disagree.

I don’t think it would have come to this if it wasn’t as extreme as multiple people think it is. As someone said, this was a long time coming.

Unfortunately for some, people this isn't TGA where you can just vote to ban someone for views different than the officially outlined ones (or report him to a mod). You are all free to ignore him, as you are free to present your case to new people, as auticus is free to present his point of view, as per Dakka's rules. Which reminds me that I am also free to alert a mod because this thread has been derailed too far into personal attacks and the following defences.

What in the hell...

...I think several posters here could do with a breath of fresh air and some time to put things in perspective. It's a forum, it's a game, take a breather. Don't hammer negative points if everyone is asking you not to (if that's not the way the discussion is heading then just state it and chill), don't jump down someone's throat who does (rude as heck), just everyone chill.

Be excellent to each other or I'll have to help reeducate people

Thanks Motyak, and sorry OP for the direction this thread went. Sorry to Auticus too. Doesn’t matter how negative someone is, negativity isn’t as bad as being mosh pitted.

 Sasori wrote:


I am sorry that happened to you, but this is a false equivalency. If you were to ask here about any army we would tell you the pros and cons of them. For instance I would not recommend anyone start Nighthaunt in the current state, and Nighthaunt were my first army.

I don't think that many people start the game by checking forums though, specially not after getting the "play what you like" and "every army is kind of a valid" reutin at stores, specially from people that are trying to sell armies to noobs, which they can't normaly sell. But I did come to this forum after asking a few question on 4chan and on some local forums, and getting laughted at best for picking my army. So I would rather have someone tell new player, okey this 4 are good, rest is kind of a meh, and this army right now has double the points, because summoning is broken right now. In the end effect and for player retention it is, IMO, a better thing. you also don't get people unhappy about the stuff they spend money on hanging around forums or stores.

The players locally don't really check forums. They come in and look at the shelves and pick models based off of what looks awesome (and there are a lot of models that look awesome).

I'd say... 3 out of 5 of them will gravitate toward a starter box and the manager and community as a whole cheerlead that. Then they find out later that their initial investment is largely not worth it (a few exceptions ... the stormcast players have a solid starter that is out of the box not getting face rolled for example). From that point 2 of those 3 swallow the loss and exit. The remaining 1 out of 3 closets most of the models and begins doing research.

That leaves 2 out of 5 of our local pool will come in and specifically state that they heard that the balance is not very good, and ask what armies are currently not going to get them rolled.

At that point we have a couple new players. They last on average about 2.5 years before leaving altogether because of burn and churn. Whats good today is hard mode after the dec faq or GHB comes out, and I think that is actually the hardest sell.

Its also important to note where the players reside in player pool. We have two distinct groups in my city.

One group are very hard edge tournament players, playing top of the meta lists 24/7. They have shrunk considerably and are now almost entirely in warcry because competitive warcry is a lot more feasible simply because if you do have to churn and burn, its a warband which is not horrifically expensive and easy to paint up for another season.

I'd actually say warcry is a fairly solid choice for min/max powergaming because of that.

The other group is my group, and thats the narrative campaign group. We don't play AOS by the rules, we have modified AOS to make the game capable of being played and enjoyed for us. That means no double turn, an alternate activation system, terrain rules that matter, no true line of sight, and codified rules that give sudden death victory condition to achieve if one player powergames a casual off the table (largely doesn't help but it at least gives the player getting powergamed the feeling that there is some chance he has to make a good game).

The competitive powergamer group has a faster churn rate than our narrative group, because in the narrative group we can play with our models a lot longer whereas in the tournament group you have to be moving models quickly to get the new meta armies if you want to be competitive, and that kind of money and time expenditure lend itself to burning people out a lot faster.

By default I'd say most cities only have a competitive / pick up group. So go into that eyes open. If you want a wider bell curve of viable models, you may have to do the legwork to get a narrative group rolling.

The way I see it, the argument is that auticus posts mostly criticism, pointing out the game's flaws (with good reason). Sure, he will talk about some good parts, but it's generally criticism of listbuilding/churn-and-burn/wombo-combo/git gud/etc. and I think the complaint is this seems to come to the forefront. sort of like "The models are good but everything else is garbage, and here's why".

I understand the complaints, even if I find myself mostly agreeing with auticus. But I think that's the issue here if I'm not mistaken. It's not that the people want a safe space or propaganda mill where it's only painting GW in a good light, but I do get that seeing the same "It's MtG with models" and "listbuiliding is the only thing that matters" and "It's all about combo stacking and changing armies every year to the FOTM, git gud scrub",whether or not it's accurate, seems to drown out everything else.

I don't have a solution because, again, I mostly agree with auticus. All of those are damning things that people need to be aware of so they don't get suckered into dropping hundreds of dollars only to find they get their teeth kicked in for picking the wrong army, but I do see the point that whenever auticus posts it, it seems to consume the discussion. Maybe it's just a polarizing thing to talk about.

Maybe. I post in a bunch of forums on here.

I've tried to start threads on campaign play or narrative play or something to get a conversation going that isn't a derivation of "what armies are good" or "rate my army" or "is this new mini game any good", and its usually silence and crickets.

If the majority of topics that people are going to discuss hinge around balance and listbuilding then thats what is going to be discussed. Its not because I haven't tried to start other conversations on other topics related to the game in the past.

I have already made it a point to not go into a wardance tangent any longer regarding this game. I haven't in some time. If you want to see some other topics, then create some new topics that aren't rehashing the same bullet points. Bearing in mind that I have been a content creator for both WHFB and the first couple years of AOS and had a lot of discussion in those regards over the past 20 odd years.

I'd love for people to discuss how to play the game in a way that is not bog standard pickup gaming or tournament gaming or how to effectively min/max the game. I post in the hobby threads from time to time. Start an event organizer thread on how to generate a community. Start a campaign thread to discuss how to get a campaign to finish successfully. Start a narrative gaming thread to discuss how you can play the game in a different way than bog standard.

I'd participate in those, and it certainly wouldn't be negative, because those topics are interesting to me.

Post a thread asking if the game has balance issues, you bet I'll post a short post stating that indeed it does have serious balance issues and you need to know that going in so you can be ok with that, or find a different game that has a better track record for balance.

 auticus wrote:
The players locally don't really check forums. They come in and look at the shelves and pick models based off of what looks awesome (and there are a lot of models that look awesome).

I'd say... 3 out of 5 of them will gravitate toward a starter box and the manager and community as a whole cheerlead that. Then they find out later that their initial investment is largely not worth it (a few exceptions ... the stormcast players have a solid starter that is out of the box not getting face rolled for example). From that point 2 of those 3 swallow the loss and exit. The remaining 1 out of 3 closets most of the models and begins doing research.

That leaves 2 out of 5 of our local pool will come in and specifically state that they heard that the balance is not very good, and ask what armies are currently not going to get them rolled.

At that point we have a couple new players. They last on average about 2.5 years before leaving altogether because of burn and churn. Whats good today is hard mode after the dec faq or GHB comes out, and I think that is actually the hardest sell.

Its also important to note where the players reside in player pool. We have two distinct groups in my city.

One group are very hard edge tournament players, playing top of the meta lists 24/7. They have shrunk considerably and are now almost entirely in warcry because competitive warcry is a lot more feasible simply because if you do have to churn and burn, its a warband which is not horrifically expensive and easy to paint up for another season.

I'd actually say warcry is a fairly solid choice for min/max powergaming because of that.

The other group is my group, and thats the narrative campaign group. We don't play AOS by the rules, we have modified AOS to make the game capable of being played and enjoyed for us. That means no double turn, an alternate activation system, terrain rules that matter, no true line of sight, and codified rules that give sudden death victory condition to achieve if one player powergames a casual off the table (largely doesn't help but it at least gives the player getting powergamed the feeling that there is some chance he has to make a good game).

The competitive powergamer group has a faster churn rate than our narrative group, because in the narrative group we can play with our models a lot longer whereas in the tournament group you have to be moving models quickly to get the new meta armies if you want to be competitive, and that kind of money and time expenditure lend itself to burning people out a lot faster.

By default I'd say most cities only have a competitive / pick up group. So go into that eyes open. If you want a wider bell curve of viable models, you may have to do the legwork to get a narrative group rolling.

All of these games become infinitely more fun if you;

1. Stop tying to drag everything down to points. Every single time someone starts trying to tell me why my model is bad because it is 5 points over costed for what it does, I just want to punch them in the face.
2. Stop trying to make it about wiping your opponent off the map in the first turn. How exactly is this fun for anyone? A good game lasts many turns and swings back and forth between both players. A good game is not one statistics junkie figuring out how to crush my testicles in 20 minutes.

If GW would stop listening to the minority tournament crowed, this game would be a lot better.

Actually its my impression most of the tournament crowd just want tighter and better written rules coupled to improved balance within and between factions. So that armies have variation of choice within them and so that there are no clear "best combo ever I win" setups in the game; nor rotating power levels whereby one army rules for months then another etc...

It's only a subset of the competitive crowd who loudly argue for the "I want an I win button" type combos. There's also a group who are, in my view, missguided, into thinking that balanced battletomes would result in boring armies because there'd be nothing to theory into super-lists - mostly missguided because I think they have latched onto discussions of lists far too much whilst the internet and community in general doesn't educate nor chat as much about actual game mechanics and how to play in a meaningful tactical way beyond the core rules mechanics and "play for the objective" type comments.
Ergo they can only see the puzzle in the army building (which when the army has an overpowered option is often a pretty poor puzzle anyway); andnot the one on the tabletop when they play.

 Overread wrote:
Actually its my impression most of the tournament crowd just want tighter and better written rules coupled to improved balance within and between factions. So that armies have variation of choice within them and so that there are no clear "best combo ever I win" setups in the game; nor rotating power levels whereby one army rules for months then another etc...

It's only a subset of the competitive crowd who loudly argue for the "I want an I win button" type combos. There's also a group who are, in my view, missguided, into thinking that balanced battletomes would result in boring armies because there'd be nothing to theory into super-lists - mostly missguided because I think they have latched onto discussions of lists far too much whilst the internet and community in general doesn't educate nor chat as much about actual game mechanics and how to play in a meaningful tactical way beyond the core rules mechanics and "play for the objective" type comments.
Ergo they can only see the puzzle in the army building (which when the army has an overpowered option is often a pretty poor puzzle anyway); andnot the one on the tabletop when they play.

If that is the case, then I applaud that. I'm not quite familiar with the AoS group, and it looks like I'm going to go into Team Yankee instead due to the interest and game availability in my area.

 Togusa wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Actually its my impression most of the tournament crowd just want tighter and better written rules coupled to improved balance within and between factions. So that armies have variation of choice within them and so that there are no clear "best combo ever I win" setups in the game; nor rotating power levels whereby one army rules for months then another etc...

It's only a subset of the competitive crowd who loudly argue for the "I want an I win button" type combos. There's also a group who are, in my view, missguided, into thinking that balanced battletomes would result in boring armies because there'd be nothing to theory into super-lists - mostly missguided because I think they have latched onto discussions of lists far too much whilst the internet and community in general doesn't educate nor chat as much about actual game mechanics and how to play in a meaningful tactical way beyond the core rules mechanics and "play for the objective" type comments.
Ergo they can only see the puzzle in the army building (which when the army has an overpowered option is often a pretty poor puzzle anyway); andnot the one on the tabletop when they play.

If that is the case, then I applaud that. I'm not quite familiar with the AoS group, and it looks like I'm going to go into Team Yankee instead due to the interest and game availability in my area.

I want to say that the "powergame superbuild combo I want" group are potentially a generational and regional element too. I get the sort of impression its more of a thing in places like the USA, but that could just be because Dakka appears to have a higher percentage of active US members over other nations. There's some evidence Poland might be like it too, but we've only two active people that I'm aware of posting from there which is hardly much of a sample size.

 Togusa wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Actually its my impression most of the tournament crowd just want tighter and better written rules coupled to improved balance within and between factions. So that armies have variation of choice within them and so that there are no clear "best combo ever I win" setups in the game; nor rotating power levels whereby one army rules for months then another etc...

It's only a subset of the competitive crowd who loudly argue for the "I want an I win button" type combos. There's also a group who are, in my view, missguided, into thinking that balanced battletomes would result in boring armies because there'd be nothing to theory into super-lists - mostly missguided because I think they have latched onto discussions of lists far too much whilst the internet and community in general doesn't educate nor chat as much about actual game mechanics and how to play in a meaningful tactical way beyond the core rules mechanics and "play for the objective" type comments.
Ergo they can only see the puzzle in the army building (which when the army has an overpowered option is often a pretty poor puzzle anyway); andnot the one on the tabletop when they play.

If that is the case, then I applaud that. I'm not quite familiar with the AoS group, and it looks like I'm going to go into Team Yankee instead due to the interest and game availability in my area.

It's the same thing in my area as well. I don't think I know any tournament players (Including myself) that don't want tighter rules and balance between factions. This is something that can always be improved and seems to continually elude the GW rules writers. No one wants to play against the same meta army and list over and over. It's why I moved from 40k to AoS as I got tired of playing Imperial knights every other game.

 Overread wrote:
Actually its my impression most of the tournament crowd just want tighter and better written rules coupled to improved balance within and between factions. So that armies have variation of choice within them and so that there are no clear "best combo ever I win" setups in the game; nor rotating power levels whereby one army rules for months then another etc...

It's only a subset of the competitive crowd who loudly argue for the "I want an I win button" type combos. There's also a group who are, in my view, missguided, into thinking that balanced battletomes would result in boring armies because there'd be nothing to theory into super-lists - mostly missguided because I think they have latched onto discussions of lists far too much whilst the internet and community in general doesn't educate nor chat as much about actual game mechanics and how to play in a meaningful tactical way beyond the core rules mechanics and "play for the objective" type comments.
Ergo they can only see the puzzle in the army building (which when the army has an overpowered option is often a pretty poor puzzle anyway); andnot the one on the tabletop when they play.

I completely agree; describes the AoS tourney scene near me exactly.

I would agree that the tournament subset of our area is also more in favor of tighter rules and balance.

However since tighter rules and balance are not very likely (after how many years, the writing has been on the wall long ago) they are also fine with buying new armies and selling newly nerfed armies on ebay regularly until eventually the burnout hits them and they jump ship.

Thats the part that I combat. Trying to keep a wider array of models viable and useful to stem burnout (which is where guys will get annoyed when i push houserules or annoyance where I say that running three keeper of secrets in a casual game is something I'd try to avoid because it requires both players playing to that degree), which is where narrative gaming can be extraordinarily beneficial... though it needs a high degree of social engineering to be successful which is taxing, frustrating, and requires a lot of patience.

 auticus wrote:
I would agree that the tournament subset of our area is also more in favor of tighter rules and balance.

However since tighter rules and balance are not very likely (after how many years, the writing has been on the wall long ago) they are also fine with buying new armies and selling newly nerfed armies on ebay regularly until eventually the burnout hits them and they jump ship.

Thats the part that I combat. Trying to keep a wider array of models viable and useful to stem burnout (which is where guys will get annoyed when i push houserules or annoyance where I say that running three keeper of secrets in a casual game is something I'd try to avoid because it requires both players playing to that degree), which is where narrative gaming can be extraordinarily beneficial... though it needs a high degree of social engineering to be successful which is taxing, frustrating, and requires a lot of patience.

See, this is something I don't see. In our local area, which has a very large AoS following (I live in a big metroplex) People don't buy and sell their armies just because something comes into meta flavor. People did not start selling off their LoN and DoK when FeC and Skaven became more popular. Same thing with Slaanesh right now. The people that ended up playing these armies either got a really good deal and had been waiting for a while (FEC) or had just been waiting forever for the release in the case of Slaanesh.

A lot of people will also wait until a new tome if they know it's on the horizon before they start a new army. If that tome happens to become flavor of the month, it usually doesn't seem draw many more people than had already started. What I do see is that people will be more likely to buy into an army that has better written rules than one that does not. This doesn't necessarily mean overpowered, just better written.

The major exception to this that I have seen so far though was FeC. The ease of assembling an army with carrion empire and the start collecting, as well as the Dominance it held for a while probably contributed to more people buying in than normal.

Every area is different. Thats why I want to point out its only my area.

My area is the stereotypical burn and churn guys. Our AOS scene is tiny. The tournament guys that still do AOS mostly gave up AOS for warcry because its easier to move through. 40k is far and large king 100 miles in any direction here.

FEC were very abnormal in that you can buy the entire army barring 1 model from their getting started set. And that 1 model is not something you need to spam so that coupled with Carrion Empire made them out as a very cheap army for AoS which was also quite powerful.

Plus its a force that also plays well with things like dragons and the like (even if they are a bit rotten). You can take three or so zombie dragons and make a working army etc...


So yeah I can see an army like that becoming popular quite quickly compared to the polar opposite like Skaven where there's a lot not in the collection boxes; or armies like Daugthers of Khaine where the core infantry are very expensive in real money.

Fortunately for me, the AoS group where I'm at is super casual. That's part of the reason why I'm planning on getting into AoS, even if I have to sell stuff for other games.

I get the competitive/tourney thing. The 40k crowd I'm a part of has the ultra-beat down tournament prep bug come through in waves. I typically stay out when it hits, but come right back once it's passed.